In Nathan Woll’s Free Radicals, the free radicals are not the sexy cyberpunk characters frolicking on the cover. A free radical is apparently what we’ve decided to name the hovering alien spacecraft that have settled over the surface of our planet. These artifacts are fonts of limitless knowledge. But where Denis Villeneuve’s film Arrival, based on Ted Chiang’s short story “Story of Your Life,” posited that first contact was an exercise in linguistics, these free radicals are more interested in helping us do capitalism better.

In game terms, that translates to ten different factions each playing their own game. Keep those rules sheets handy. You’re going to need them.

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