By Chief Antares Archivist David Horobin,
supported by Archivist-Aspirant Jon Harrington.
Special thanks to Rick Priestley, Tim Bancroft, Richard Carlisle and others that made this compilation of Antares history possible.
November 7 2025 marks the 10 year anniversary of the release of the “Beyond The Gates Of Antares: Strike Vector One – The Xilos Horizon” boxed set.
The Xilos-Aversary posts commemorate this momentous occasion.
We begin with a deeper dive into the history of Antares with Part 1 – DarkSpaceCorps to the Kickstarter cancallation.
Dark Space Corp and the Kickstarter (2012–2013)
In late 2012, a new science fiction table top wargame called “Beyond The Gates Of Antares” game was announced. To be written by Rick Priestley and developed under the banner of Dark Space Corp, the concept was envisioned as a dynamic, narrative-rich universe with advanced AI-driven societies, alien threats, and panhuman factions vying for control of interstellar gates around the great Antarean Nexus.
Dark Space Corp was set up by Rick Priestly, John Stallard and Rick Alexander.
What was the Kickstarter all about?
The actual details of the Kickstarter are still available on the internet:
Beyond the Gates of Antares (Canceled) by Dark Space Corp — Kickstarter
The Kickstarter campaign launched on 31 December 2012 aiming to raise £300,000.
The remnants of the Dark Space Corp are still available for fellow Antarean Archivists using the most technologically sophisticated of IMTel inventions – The Way Back machine:
https://web.archive.org/web/20121221031019/http://www.darkspacecorp.com/
There are also a selection of videos with Rick and Rik explaining many different aspects of the rules and how the overall plan on how Antares would develop during the Kickstarter:
https://vimeo.com/darkspacecorp
There were several parts of the Kickstarter all running concurrently:
Rules development, model creation, background to be fleshed out and the introduction of the Real Time Dynamic Gaming Universe.
As the entire Kickstarter is still available online in its original form (along with ALL updates), I’m not going to repeat it all here. Aspiring Archivists can visit the site to discover the details for themselves.
MODEL DEVELOPMENT
As part of the Kickstarter updates, we got to track the sculpting of the Special Character “Hansa Nairoba” by Kev White – starting from KS update #10. Hansa is regarded as being the first figure sculpted for the Antares game.
During the sculpting, among the updates, Kev asked the community what hair style to give Hansa; a resounding “leave him bald” was the result.
The figure was later released in released on 28 June 2013 (Update #57 on Kickstarter) in both traditional metal, a Warlord Resin and a very, very limited supply (I believe there are only 20 in existence, but not confirmed) made in clear resin.
Along with Kev White’s Hansa, there was also a series on Wojtek (Wojciech) Fils’ Boromite Overseer (ending at KS update #49):
Some placeholder art was shown during the Kickstarter, giving a vague idea of what may be used by the sculptors when creating models (the building is one of my favourite artworks during the KS campaign – even though it was just “concept” art):
GAME DEVELOPMENT
Rules
The actual rules on how to play the Antares game were delivered as snippets released throughout the earlier parts of the KS campaign, culminating with a PDF publication on 6 February 2013 (KS Update #48).
This is only available at the moment via the WayBack Machine – I will see if I am permitted to HOST this document somewhere accessible.
If your Archivist Computer Skill Test is successful, you’ll be able to view this document:
http://www.darkspacecorp.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Beyond-the-Gates-of-Antares-Outline-Rulebook.pdf
The rules started off very different to the familiar “Order Dice” and “Pin marker” concept we are familiar with today; rather they utilized a “Combat Status” (using a Traffic Light system of Red/Amber/Green – with the intent of making the Buddy Drones associated with table top units have little coloured LEDs to track the current Combat Status of the unit).
Units also had “Technology” and “Computer” skills, which never made it past this iteration. There’s also a small amount of the original Antares concept art included in these Pre-Alpha rules.
But I’ll leave it up to avid archivists to trawl though the attached and determine for themselves what other treasures lie within.
During development of the rules, weapons were crafted from a hyper-materials which could be adapted and changed to suit the rapidly changing battlefield situation. Need a long range rifle? Just push a button and change the gun to a rifle. Baddies getting too close? Push another button and the weapon morphs into a rapid firing carbine.
Within the Kickstarter there were opportunities to choose a reward that included play testing and even getting a game of Antares with Rick himself to try out the rules and have an input on rule design! There was very much the desire in the DarkSpaceCorp camp that player feedback was vital for how the game played.
What was the Real Time Dynamic Gaming Universe?
Twinned with the actual tabletop wargame rules, was the Real Time Dynamic Gaming Universe, with the aim of being the first tabletop wargame based upon a living, changing and constantly evolving universe.
From the Vimeo video link earlier, you can see some of these concepts being described by Rick and Rik. There are some further details about the vision of how the Real Time Dynamic Gaming Universe would look and how players would interact with it.
Original Screenshots can be found here:
Beyond the Gates of Antares (Canceled) by Dark Space Corp » Hansa Available — Kickstarter
The idea being that from this online control panel, players could see in real time the conflicts that were currently active and provide their battle results; which in turn would update the online control panel with the details – possibly swinging the tide of the campaign in favour of your faction.
And this is really why the Kickstarter was needed – a lot of investment would need to be put into the development of this side of the Antarean Universe.
From the original DSC webpage:
And the whole point of this is? Well, we want to make more models for all of the six factions. We also want to introduce new factions, and we want to introduce new technologies, weapons and defences into the game. Plainly we can’t do all that at once. So, the majority of our episodes will involve the discovery of new technologies, uncovering alien secrets, and acquiring specialist knowledge and powers of one kind or other. The results of each episode will steer our development of the model line – basically telling us what to make next.
BACKGROUND DEVELOPMENT
Factions
In the Antares universe, Rick had created the Universe to be centred around six main factions, with the prospect of adding more as the game developed.
Concord Combined Command
Free World Determinate (Algoryn and Gwah Isolates; constantly at war with each other)
Shard Freeborn (Freeborn that would hire themselves out to IMTel factions).
Rebel Freeborn (Similar to above Freeborn, but hate IMTel and Shard Freeborn).
Isorian Shard Command
Vorl Orde (Aliens which were considered to be better fighters than humans, but slightly less technologically advanced). There was never an official icon released for the Vorl during the Kickstarter.
Keen eyed archivists will note that Ghar (Originally spelt “Gwar” and part of the “Gwar Isolates” sub-faction) were not something intended to be developed into their own faction from the start; their menace revealed itself sometime later.
We’ll look more at how the look of the factions changed in Part 3, and compare/contrast the Kickstarter vision/concepts with what was finally released.
Species
Nuhu or NuHumans (Numies) were originally pacifist and extremely risk adverse, with only a small fraction of them ever joining the military forces of their IMTel faction.
The Panhumans were the remaining human species that were not Nuhuman, of which there were many thousand sub-types of Panhuman.
Note that these Panhumans are NOT the same Panhumans as featured as the Pan Human Alliance in the Citadel Star Cruisers Range from 1982:
This is included just to rule out anyone else in the future that sees the word “Pan Human” in another of Rick’s earlier work and connects the two, it has been confirmed this is a coincidence.
The still image is taken from (and much love to) Jordan Sorcery, from whom I’ve not asked permission to use from his video, so go drop a like on it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRyfWYhoI8g
The Panhumans covered the IMTel factions, Algoryn, Boromite, Freeborn and Gwar – essentially the varied morphs of humans, biologically engineered for adapting to their environments.
Vorl were the only non-human faction; although they are described as being the most powerful of the multiple aliens that inhabit Antares space.
Other alien species of note were the Tsan Kri which were located in the Isori sector. It transpired that the species and their homeworld had been eradicated during the war with the Isorian Shard.
Although later on we get to see the Tsan Ra with “The Battle For Xilos” expansion. These decendants of the Tsan Kri had been found and nurtured by the Isori and absorbed into their IMTel culture.
Note in the naming convention that the Tsan Kri were wiped out; and that the creatures that the Isorians brought into their faction were named the Tsan Ra.
But one of the initial species didn’t really make it out of the gate. The Pansimians.
Kickstarter Update 11 introduced the Pansimians to us, describing them as the bio-engineered results of domesticated species from Old Earth.
Indeed animals, plants and entire bio-systems has been harvested from Old Earth and replicated throughout the great expansion in the early ages of Antarean exploration and colonisation.
The Pansimians are described as the descendants of Old Earth apes and from the KS11 update we can even see some of the sub-species of the Pansimians being considered:
Today there are numerous Sim worlds throughout the Spill as well as Sim enclaves on human worlds. Sims make excellent fighting troops and can be found amongst even the Concord’s armed forces. As with the various kinds of humans, most Sims would think of themselves of belonging to a particular species or coming from a particular world. For example, K’b Ngo is one such world, whose inhabitant belong to two distinct Pansimian populations: the huge warrior K’bir and the smaller but more intelligent Ngora. Like most Sim worlds K’b Ngo is an independent world that has loose associations with the Free World Determinate. Unlike most Sim civilisations, K’b Ngo has settled other worlds and established its own colonies, The K’b Ngoran Utopica.
Although not really a species, Wardrones were intended to be a large part of the fighting force of each faction. It was noted that “Wardrones form the core of all Concord {sic-IMTel} fighting formations”. The concept art was a proxy bi-pedal robot type warrior.
In the DSC forums there was a vote being held on 26 (IIRC) variant designs of Wardrone; but I am unable to locate the image. If I find it, I’ll add it in future.
We never knew which design won, although the original intent was to make them available in plastic.
Cancellation of the Kickstarter
Despite enthusiastic support from over 1,000 backers and a vibrant online community, the campaign fell short, raising £100,533 before being cancelled on February 28, 2013.
I shall allow readers to speculate as to why the Kickstarter was unsuccessful, as this is outside the remit of Archiving.
Xilos-Aversary Part 2
In Part 2 we will look at the period of development between the cancellation of the Kickstarter to the time just before the release of “Strike Vector One – The Xilos Horizon” – an era where very little was published but a great deal of change and progress was made.
Don’t forget about this time-bending conundrum mentioned in the Prologue:
“The IMTel is never wrong” is a common theme throughout the Antares Universe – BUT it has been significantly wrong once.
What was the one time the IMTel was wrong?
(Hint – there is a picture clue in the 1st Edition rule book about Josen).
Post your answers in the comments section below. Correct answers will get a +5 Regurge upgrade to your own personal shard, to help you to really savour the last meal you had.
The answer will be revealed in the final Xilos-Aversary post.
Until next time!!
Antares Nexus 
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