[◘][⚿] The world is trying to get you. At least you're not alone.

He lets out a series of soft, melodic clicks, gently placing one hand on his chest and the other on yours. Though his scaly face reveals little emotion, the rhythm of his clicks suggests contentment.

Prologue.

You settle into the chair they’ve provided, the cushions adjusting slightly to fit your body. You carefully place the headgear above on your head. As you do, the ICRAD interface flashes across your visor as it boots up. This technology has come a long way, or so they claim it to be. The chance of it degrading one’s ego has been reduced to a mere 2%. Though the risk is minimal, BEACON still insists on you signing a non-liability contract, just in case the worst were to happen.

How did you end up here? Right, Your father’s 'death'. Instead of inheriting his will, you’re burdened with his crippling debts, mostly from the unpaid loans he recklessly used on gambling. The banks won't just strip you of your assets, they’ll strip you bare, both figuratively and literally. With this mountain of debt, they'll start with your belongings, then your vital organs, and finally, your living loved ones when you, yourself, aren’t enough to cover the costs. Deep down, something tells you he faked his death to escape this mess. His body, after all, hasn’t been found. What an asshole.

The BEACON Outerworld branch is actively seeking volunteers, offering suspiciously high compensation. The mission is straightforward: your mind will be transferred into a replicant, a temporary, artificial biological host. You’ll be dispatched on a one-way journey into deep space, tasked with landing on a potentially habitable planet and conducting expeditions. The good news is, you don’t have to worry about dying, if the replicant perishes, your consciousness will revert to your body on Earth. How convenient.

You’ll be equipped with their state-of-the-art PDA, a device capable of transferring any information you input, whether text files, images, or videos, directly into your mind. This data will be retained as a vivid, 1:1 photographic memory that you’ll carry back with you. Essentially, you’ll serve as a living data repository until they extract it from you. Your compensation will be based on the volume and quality of the data you gather, including details about the biomes, the planet, and its flora and fauna, Any information that could prove useful for future terraforming projects.

With the briefing complete, you give the scientist a thumbs-up, signaling that you’re ready. The screen before you shifts into streams of letters and numbers as it sends your consciousness away. When you next become aware, you find yourself waking up inside your cryopod, miraculously intact among the wreckage. The pod opens, and as you step out, you see plumes of smoke rising in the distance, evidence that the ship must have ejected you before crashing somewhere far off. There are no signs of the other crew members either. Well shit. Anyhow, time to get to work.