Earth is gone.

From the ashes of the most devastating conflict in human history, a new breed of spacer has emerged: Space-A-Gades. These illegal astronauts, privateers, and thrill seekers carve their living out from the fractured frontier worlds and within the concrete jungle of the city-planet Uruk. The new heart of inhabited space.

Among them is Cobalt. A drifter aboard the Knorr. A ship whose captain takes whatever jobs keep it flying. On what was sold as a routine milk run, Cobalt unearths a new anomalous catalyst. A fragment of infinite stellar possibility tied to the very elements that put the science of plasmatic fusion and near-FTL travel into the hands of humankind. This new, unknown power thrusts the Knorr's crew into a dangerous game of espionage, betrayal, and survival.

As the covert forces of the Syndicated Corporations and the Outcast Clans begin to close in, the crew must decide who will rise and what freedom among the stars is truly worth.

Illegal Astronauts is a grounded, semi-hard science fiction adventure focused on the human experience. Its words inspired by the cyberpunk classics and the literary sci-fi they were published alongside. Here you will find deep lore, and an exploration of loyalty, power, and what it means to be free.

Because here are people being people as the gears of the heavens turn.

Book One of the Illegal Astronauts saga.

The book cover for Illegal Astronauts, Book 1 was produced through compositing several layers together following a design guidelines booklet for the Illegal Astronauts brand I had prepared previously. The primary elements are the pixel dot background, the figure in the space suit, and the red frame with the text.

Since these elements were already separated and layered in the static version of the cover, this allowed for the unique opportunity to animated the cover. I did this by taking the figure in the space suit and producing a video of the animation on a green screen colored background. Then, I took this new video and the other two layers into Adobe After Effects. Here, I chroma keyed out the green screen background and stacked the layers to produce the example you see here.

I published Illegal Astronauts, Book 1 on January 2nd, 2026. But getting there was a journey even after the book was written, edited, and matched to a fitting cover.

The difficulties at this stage came from two general directions. The first, that I wanted Illegal Astronauts, Book 1 to be an official book registered in the appropriate places. The second was that to actually produce the book in both ePUB (digital) and softcover formats, I'd need to comply with some very specific document requirements.

For the former, this began with registering and purchasing ISBN numbers for my own use. These are a set of 13-digit identifiers issued by brokers working on behalf of the International ISBN Agency and are the global standard for uniquely identifying a written work. And, at least in the USA, they are not cheap. This is because only a single broker is allowed to operate in any given country and the private holding company, Bowker, owns that right in the USA. As such, they can effectively, and do, set the price to whatever they want.

As for the latter, I planned from the beginning to have my final draft of Illegal Astronauts, Book 1 in the Markdown format. Those of you who are familiar with software engineering will recognize this format right away. At its core it is a simple, plain text layout system that allows for basic formatting notations. What's perfect for me is that it readily converts into HTML and CSS like you'd find on any website.

This conversion to HTML allowed me to programmatically assemble my raw manuscript into various output formats. This includes the fully featured ePUB format and the hyper-specific export requirements for a physical print PDF. Something that requires special formatting considerations like offset inner margins and a constrained set of colors for images among numerous other details.

With all this together, I was able to register and receive an official copyright for my novel which is now available as a Kindle eBook or softcover from Amazon, and as a PDF or ePUB from Itch.io.

I first devised Illegal Astronauts as a concept in 2016. At the time, the universe was still called "Space-A-Gades" and Illegal Astronauts has retained that moniker for one of the factions within.

The initial plan was to make a video game that spans multiple solar systems. The player working their way through them to eventually find the route to Earth. Something that would become key plot inspiration for Cobalt in Illegal Astronauts, Book 1.

After a few attempts, it was clear that neither a game nor a video series for Illegal Astronauts was going to feasible at the time. However, a book was well within grasp.

Writing on the first draft of what would become Illegal Astronauts, Book 1 as it exists today began in earnest in 2020 while the whole world shut down. After working through seven drafts and a number of challenges you can hear about at the other exhibits in this hall, Illegal Astronauts, Book 1 finally released.

But, of course, the dream of a video game and video series has not been thrown away. Stay tuned!

The Syndicated Corporations of the Milky Way, or simply "the Syndicate," is a galaxy-spanning corporate conglomerate that also serves as a government. Here, the old ideas of capitalism and communism have come so far around that they have become indistinguishable, leaving a true corporatocracy where citizens are employees and a governing body known as The Board sets the laws that every company beneath it must follow.

From its capital world of Uruk, the Syndicate projects its power through disciplined, Roman-inspired military legions that speak an evolved form of Latin as their battle language. They operate fortified embassies on nearly every colonized world while operating covert units that hunt down valuable targets across the stars. Its society is a study in contrasts, with grand Romanesque traditions at the top and a hyper-modern urban sprawl housing reportedly trillions of people at the bottom.

The Outcasts are the descendants of those who took to space after humanity's exodus from Earth, banding together into more than a hundred clans that each carry forward the traditions of the old-world cultures they came from. Every clan is led by its own Jarl, chosen by anything from a popular vote to a ritual duel. Most swear fealty to an elected Grand Jarl who commands the Outcast Regulars (their standing army) and speaks for the clans as a whole. Not every clan bends the knee, however, and the Rogue Clans that refuse continue to operate on their own terms.

Fiercely independent from the Syndicate, the Outcasts are raised on a philosophy of expanding as fast as possible and never retreating. A grit proven in open war against the Syndicate, now come to a dirty stalemate. Their culture is instantly recognizable by its geometric facial tattoos; a style that has spread far beyond their own ranks.

The Space-A-Gades are a loose collection of freelance mercenaries, bounty hunters, privateers, and pilots who answer to no one. They were founded during the 1st Syndicate-Outcast War, forged from career outlaws and deserters who walked away from the bloodshed rather than die for someone else's cause. Unlike the Syndicate or even the independent Outcast clans, the Space-A-Gades have no leader at all. Most work alone or in small crews, taking contracts from whoever is paying.

Both sides expected the Space-A-Gades to fade away once the war ended, but as the fighting ground into a stalemate the movement only grew. Today, being a Space-A-Gade is as much a lifestyle as a profession, built on personal freedom and the promise of exploring the frontier. The Syndicate officially calls them violent criminals, even as it quietly hires them time and again.