Starfinder’s Drift Crisis will change the science-fantasy RPG setting forever

polygon.com:

Paizo’s newest role-playing franchise, the Starfinder science-fantasy setting that mixes high tech with swords and sorcery, is taking a big step into the future this summer. A new event called the Drift Crisis will drastically change the landscape of its entire universe. The product line includes a new sourcebook and a pair of elaborate Adventure Path campaigns, all supplemented with a parallel storyline advancing through the Starfinder Society organized-play program. Polygon has an exclusive preview of the yearlong event, straight from the designers that helped to bring it to life.

Science fiction is littered with many different interpretations of faster-than-light travel. In the Starfinder universe, true faster-than-light technology — Star Trek warp drives and Star Wars hyperdrives — exists, but is exceedingly rare and expensive to maintain. Instead, the universe relies on an inexpensive form of interdimensional travel.

Ships first slip into an alternate dimension known as the Drift before translating back out again into the material plane. The Drift allows them to cover enormous distances without having to achieve high speeds. It sounds a bit like how space travel works in Warhammer 40,000, but there’s a catch. The Drift was discovered by a powerful AI known as Triune. It was Triune who shared the secret of Drift-based travel with the other sentient races of the Starfinder universe, and it is Triune that polices the space and protects the Drift for travelers to make their way safely across the stars.

The Drift Crisis begins when, without warning, Triune goes silent. So, too, do the Drift-based communications systems used to send messages across galaxies. In that instant, every spacecraft traveling through the Drift