Alien Sky
Alien Sky is a science fiction SD that is meant to be a coupling of the ecological science fiction epic Sid Meyer's Alpha Centauri with the refined aesthetic and anti-colonial themes of Konami's high-speed mecha action game franchise Zone of the Enders and Studio Bones' surfer culture tribute Eureka seveN.
It is set on the world of Chiron, settled by refugees fleeing a ruined Earth conquered by the mysterious Progenitor species. After the assassination of the captain, various officers and leading figures on the "Freedom" mission form ideological factions, leading to increasing tensions among the crew and the eventual breakdown of mission. This culminated in sabotage of the ship, that eventually led to scattering of the seven life pods, each containing a faction, and the many resource pods from the ship that would have fed a nascent colony, across the planet.
Chiron is a hostile world of ocre red plains and lonely bands of terraformed green, inhabited by hostile xenosophonts known as Enders, a basic archetype of lifeform that rises from the neural network locked inside of the planet's crust and take on a variety of shapes and sizes. They possess a unique capacity to alter the metric properties of space around them, referred to as the Manifold by the Progenitors, or Phantoma, as it is referred to by the survivalist Spartans who have repeatedly had to face the creatures.
The most common of these is the modest Linear, telepathic worms with minimal alteration abilities but the stunning ability to make crippling psychic assaults on the minds of the untrained. The more powerful Vector is an imitation of the human form, vaguely humanoid by lacking a head or digits to manipulate its environment, with an incredible potential for metric alteration and relatively weak psychic potential. Rumors persist of gargantuan Scalars, massive Ender constructs that act as control nodules for thousands of Vectors and unending swarms of Linears. As the factions of Chiron advance from petty colonial settlements into vast nations unto themselves, these may be the key to controlling the planet and defeating the Progenitors.
Not all life on the planet is native or human, however. A splinter of the Progenitors, who call themselves the Manifold Caretakers roam Chiron, destroying emerging Ender nodules on the surface and struggling in a constant bitter war with the first faction of Progenitors humanity encountered, that the Caretakers refer to as the Manifold Usurpers. While relations with the Usurpers are impossible, the Caretakers are cool at best and somewhat hostile at worst.
The surviving human factions are split along specific ideological lines, representing the preferences and interests of their founders.