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Probably the most expected of the Order/Region, mainly because, unlike the previous Order/Region books, it doesn't detail an already existing psi order, it gives information about a completely new order, the Upeo wa Macho, alongside their psi aptitude, Teleportation. Alongside the order, the book also informs us about the known extrasolar colonies and presents some new ones.

The book has the format common to all Trinity products, which is smaller than your standard RPG book size. The binding seems sturdy enough to stand many years of gaming, and the softcover not begging to curl after three readings. The cover picture by John Zelenik is fantastic, and by far the best cover of among all Trinity products. As in all Trinity books, there's a color session in the beginning of the book with some in-character information for the players. Unlike previous Trinity products, most computer-generated pictures are good, mainly because they represent things that look good if done with a computer, like planets, badges and alien landscapes. Human-made structures such as the Esperanza space station on page 7, or the ships in page 45, don't look hi-tech or sci-fi, they look like made by a 14-year old kid that just bought the program. The black and white art is irregular, with some good pieces, like the character templates illustrations, and some really awful stuff, like the Qin city on page 89. The layout is good, and there's a decent number of illustrations, although no full-page ones.

As I mentioned before, the book is divided in two parts: color and black-and-white. The color stuff is for the players, and it contains in-character information about the Upeo and the colonies. From the Upeo you get a first a summary on Teleportation and resume file about the order just like other orders in the Trinity rulebook. Then we get some details about internal organization as well as descriptions of the many sub-groups inside the order. It then details the some events of the Upeo lost expedition (important in the Darkness Revealed and the first book of the Alien Encounter adventure series) and how proxy Atwan and her order deal with rogue teleporters. This part finishes with a resumed history of the Upeo wa Macho and its corresponding timeline. The color section continues then with details on various extrasolar colonies (the first Trinity Field Report, Extrasolar colonies, really helps to understand the previous situation on most know colonies). It starts with Khantze Lu Ge and its human and psion inhabitants agaist two warring factions of Aberrants, then gives us even more info on Karroo Station (already explored in Darkness Revealed: Ascent), explores the enigmatic Qin homeworld, Qinshui, details Far Nyumba and some secrets found there and ends with a report on Averiguas and its shaky political scene. After then we get the details of two worlds: Ruan's World, the homebase of the teleporters, and Eden, a garden-like world with a curious form of native life and inhabitants that may be Aberrants with no mental problems or physical deformities! It finishes with a blurb about the lost ships (colonizer ships sent to space prior to the discovery of psi powers and faster-than-light travel via teleportation) and a timeline detailing important events in the colonies' history.

The black-and-white section starts with your obligatory Small Piece of Fiction™ White Wolf puts in almost all its books. The story is so-so, with no real high or low points. At least it's not pretentious like most Vampire fiction White Wolf produces. This section is divided in four parts: more info about the Upeo, more details about the colonies, a miscellaneous section and a templates section. The Upeo part starts describing how the Upeo explore the stars (a clear to see then, a telepath to transmit the info and a porter to go there) and explaining why the Upeo abandoned Earth on the Esperanza crash, and how proxy Atwan managed to avoid any public contact between the order and the general public (she would strip any porter from his Teleportation powers if they contacted Earth. This is one of the great revelations in this book). We also get a description of the Sphere, the secret Upeo base, which no one except Atwan, not even the other teleporters, knows its location. Then the books gives more details on the various groups related to the Upeo (Long Riders, the Monitors, Kupita, Nguzo and Star-Crossed), the various Upeo cover activities in various planets, and the habitual "The [Insert psi order detailed on the book] and Society" section.

After that we get a chapter full of info about one of the lost Aptitudes, Teleportation (the other is Quantakinesis). There are three Modes: Translocation (moving your ass to different places), Transmassion (moving other people's asses and objects to different places) and Warp (altering spatial dimesions). The whole Teleportation mechanics are based in familiarity: since the distance doesn't matter (because, in the subquantum dimension, which is a transition place between the two ends of a teleportation process, there are NO distances), familiarity with a place is what counts. So you may have just moved to a new city and be incapable of teleporting to your new apartment, which is only a kilometer of where you stand, while you may be able to go to your childhood home in Luna, only because you're very familiar with the later and have little knowledge of the former. This chapter also gives some pretty nasty combat uses of Teleportation (imagine what could be the "Upeo Death Drop"). This ends the Upeo section of the black-and-white part.

The section detailing the extrasolar colonies expands on what we've been told in the color part, and also gives new secrets about then. We have consistent information on the know colonies, although, if there's a failure on this book, is the sparse and dull info given about then. Only Far Nyumba, with the unknown alien artifacts recently found, and Qinshui really grabbed my attention; I could have figured out what was happening on the rest of the colonies without the aid of this book. The two new planets are very good: Ruan's World has an ecology that has bred especially vicious and dangerous forms of predatory life, while Eden has, apart from a society completely dominated by apparently good Aberrants (or Novas, as they call themselves), an interesting ecosystem consistent of four or five mega-organisms called myriasoma. Although each myriasoma is an unique form of life, it's composed of molecules that take different forms that do not seen to be connected (so that bunny and that tree, alongside all the forest and all animals there, are part of the same organism). This section ends with more details on the lost ships.

The miscellaneous section is quite varied. It has a Storyteller chapter with new Space Combat rules, which, although completely unnecessary, makes space combat in Trinity more realistic, as far as space combats go. I would have substituted this for more material on the colonies or maybe alternate Teleportation powers and posted this rules on White Wolf's web site. Then there's some info on dangerous animal life in some colonies, and info about aberrant activity on space. This Storyteller chapter ends with more info on the lost ships, which is more wasted space, since those ships aren't that important to the Trinity plot or setting to be mentioned in so many places, and a small bibliography. The miscellaneous section ends with technology (Storytellers beware the High-Threat Combat Rifle), important people in the Upeo wa Macho and the colonies, and five character templates, which are quite interesting and playable except for the Karroo miner (who wants to play a miner?). The book finishes with a well-done Upeo wa Macho character sheet.

Overall, Stellar Frontier is a very good book, except for the lack of any interesting info on some of the known colonies and those wasted pages in space combat and the lost ships. But the info given on the long-lost Upeo and the two new world makes this product a worthy member of any Trinity fan's library.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Stellar Frontier: Psi Order Upeo wa Macho & Extrasolar Space sourcebook
Author: John R. Snead (Extrasolar Space material) and Greg Stolze (Upeo wa Macho material) Category: game Company/Publisher: White Wolf Game Studio Line: Trinity Cost: $19.95 Page count: 140 ISBN: 1-56504-763-X SKU: WW9005 Capsule Review by Eduardo Penna on 08/16/99. Genre tags: Science_fiction Space Espionage Conspiracy	Probably the most expected of the Order/Region, mainly because, unlike the previous Order/Region books, it doesn't detail an already existing psi order, it gives information about a completely new order, the Upeo wa Macho, alongside their psi aptitude, Teleportation. Alongside the order, the book also informs us about the known extrasolar colonies and presents some new ones. The book has the format common to all Trinity products, which is smaller than your standard RPG book size. The binding seems sturdy enough to stand many years of gaming, and the softcover not begging to curl after three readings. The cover picture by John Zelenik is fantastic, and by far the best cover of among all Trinity products. As in all Trinity books, there's a color session in the beginning of the book with some in-character information for the players. Unlike previous Trinity products, most computer-generated pictures are good, mainly because they represent things that look good if done with a computer, like planets, badges and alien landscapes. Human-made structures such as the Esperanza space station on page 7, or the ships in page 45, don't look hi-tech or sci-fi, they look like made by a 14-year old kid that just bought the program. The black and white art is irregular, with some good pieces, like the character templates illustrations, and some really awful stuff, like the Qin city on page 89. The layout is good, and there's a decent number of illustrations, although no full-page ones. As I mentioned before, the book is divided in two parts: color and black-and-white. The color stuff is for the players, and it contains in-character information about the Upeo and the colonies. From the Upeo you get a first a summary on Teleportation and resume file about the order just like other orders in the Trinity rulebook. Then we get some details about internal organization as well as descriptions of the many sub-groups inside the order. It then details the some events of the Upeo lost expedition (important in the Darkness Revealed and the first book of the Alien Encounter adventure series) and how proxy Atwan and her order deal with rogue teleporters. This part finishes with a resumed history of the Upeo wa Macho and its corresponding timeline. The color section continues then with details on various extrasolar colonies (the first Trinity Field Report, Extrasolar colonies, really helps to understand the previous situation on most know colonies). It starts with Khantze Lu Ge and its human and psion inhabitants agaist two warring factions of Aberrants, then gives us even more info on Karroo Station (already explored in Darkness Revealed: Ascent), explores the enigmatic Qin homeworld, Qinshui, details Far Nyumba and some secrets found there and ends with a report on Averiguas and its shaky political scene. After then we get the details of two worlds: Ruan's World, the homebase of the teleporters, and Eden, a garden-like world with a curious form of native life and inhabitants that may be Aberrants with no mental problems or physical deformities! It finishes with a blurb about the lost ships (colonizer ships sent to space prior to the discovery of psi powers and faster-than-light travel via teleportation) and a timeline detailing important events in the colonies' history. The black-and-white section starts with your obligatory Small Piece of Fiction™ White Wolf puts in almost all its books. The story is so-so, with no real high or low points. At least it's not pretentious like most Vampire fiction White Wolf produces. This section is divided in four parts: more info about the Upeo, more details about the colonies, a miscellaneous section and a templates section. The Upeo part starts describing how the Upeo explore the stars (a clear to see then, a telepath to transmit the info and a porter to go there) and explaining why the Upeo abandoned Earth on the Esperanza crash, and how proxy Atwan managed to avoid any public contact between the order and the general public (she would strip any porter from his Teleportation powers if they contacted Earth. This is one of the great revelations in this book). We also get a description of the Sphere, the secret Upeo base, which no one except Atwan, not even the other teleporters, knows its location. Then the books gives more details on the various groups related to the Upeo (Long Riders, the Monitors, Kupita, Nguzo and Star-Crossed), the various Upeo cover activities in various planets, and the habitual "The [Insert psi order detailed on the book] and Society" section. After that we get a chapter full of info about one of the lost Aptitudes, Teleportation (the other is Quantakinesis). There are three Modes: Translocation (moving your ass to different places), Transmassion (moving other people's asses and objects to different places) and Warp (altering spatial dimesions). The whole Teleportation mechanics are based in familiarity: since the distance doesn't matter (because, in the subquantum dimension, which is a transition place between the two ends of a teleportation process, there are NO distances), familiarity with a place is what counts. So you may have just moved to a new city and be incapable of teleporting to your new apartment, which is only a kilometer of where you stand, while you may be able to go to your childhood home in Luna, only because you're very familiar with the later and have little knowledge of the former. This chapter also gives some pretty nasty combat uses of Teleportation (imagine what could be the "Upeo Death Drop"). This ends the Upeo section of the black-and-white part. The section detailing the extrasolar colonies expands on what we've been told in the color part, and also gives new secrets about then. We have consistent information on the know colonies, although, if there's a failure on this book, is the sparse and dull info given about then. Only Far Nyumba, with the unknown alien artifacts recently found, and Qinshui really grabbed my attention; I could have figured out what was happening on the rest of the colonies without the aid of this book. The two new planets are very good: Ruan's World has an ecology that has bred especially vicious and dangerous forms of predatory life, while Eden has, apart from a society completely dominated by apparently good Aberrants (or Novas, as they call themselves), an interesting ecosystem consistent of four or five mega-organisms called myriasoma. Although each myriasoma is an unique form of life, it's composed of molecules that take different forms that do not seen to be connected (so that bunny and that tree, alongside all the forest and all animals there, are part of the same organism). This section ends with more details on the lost ships. The miscellaneous section is quite varied. It has a Storyteller chapter with new Space Combat rules, which, although completely unnecessary, makes space combat in Trinity more realistic, as far as space combats go. I would have substituted this for more material on the colonies or maybe alternate Teleportation powers and posted this rules on White Wolf's web site. Then there's some info on dangerous animal life in some colonies, and info about aberrant activity on space. This Storyteller chapter ends with more info on the lost ships, which is more wasted space, since those ships aren't that important to the Trinity plot or setting to be mentioned in so many places, and a small bibliography. The miscellaneous section ends with technology (Storytellers beware the High-Threat Combat Rifle), important people in the Upeo wa Macho and the colonies, and five character templates, which are quite interesting and playable except for the Karroo miner (who wants to play a miner?). The book finishes with a well-done Upeo wa Macho character sheet. Overall, Stellar Frontier is a very good book, except for the lack of any interesting info on some of the known colonies and those wasted pages in space combat and the lost ships. But the info given on the long-lost Upeo and the two new world makes this product a worthy member of any Trinity fan's library. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Stellar Frontier: Psi Order Upeo wa Macho & Extrasolar Space sourcebook