Commander Pam Sniktau, a pilot with a history as fragmented as the stars she navigates, is a relic of a forgotten past.
Born long before the emergence of the Dark Wheel, she now finds herself chasing its shadow across the galaxy. A remnant from a forgotten era, her past is a mystery even to herself. The timeline of her life is fractured, with gaps of centuries between memories, fragments of forgotten knowledge, and a deep-rooted connection to technologies and secrets long considered lost.
Her story took a strange and fateful turn when her defective cryo-locked pod was discovered drifting in an uncharted region of space, far from the familiar routes of humanity. The recovery was orchestrated by C.E.A. Psychiatric Institutions Ltd., a shadowy organization specializing in the treatment of pilots experiencing the psychological fallout from deep-space exploration and temporal anomalies. Sniktau’s cryo pod, believed to be faulty after centuries of use, had preserved her longer than intended, causing severe memory loss and temporal disorientation. The pod itself was a relic—predating modern cryogenics—and its malfunction only deepened the mystery of Sniktau’s origins.
C.E.A. Psychiatric Institutions Ltd. initially recovered Sniktau as part of their ongoing efforts to address the mental toll of long-term stasis and deep-space travel. The organization, known for operating on the fringes of human space, specializes in time-displacement syndromes, cryo-senescence, and other cognitive disorders that emerge from prolonged isolation or exposure to extreme FSD manipulations. Upon waking, Sniktau found herself subjected to extensive medical testing, her chart hand-delivered by specialists in hopes of unraveling the enigmatic circumstances surrounding her past.
As part of her rehabilitation, Sniktau began coordinating with other pilots under the CEA banner. These pilots were known for pushing the boundaries of known space, exploring regions far off the galactic plane where the laws of time and space seemed more fluid. Together, they embarked on expeditions to highly isolated systems, scouring the void in search of forgotten knowledge and hidden truths. For Sniktau, these expeditions were more than just explorations—they were quests to uncover her lost identity and her place in a galaxy that had changed beyond recognition.
Despite her cooperation with the CEA, Sniktau’s true allegiance lies in her pursuit of the Dark Wheel—an organization whose existence is shrouded in myth and legend. Though the Dark Wheel is known to be an ancient faction seeking the secrets of Raxxla, Sniktau’s involvement is more personal. She seeks them not just for the legends they chase, but because she feels a strange, inexplicable connection to their goals. It is as if the secrets they hunt were part of her past, a forgotten legacy that stretches back beyond the stars.
Though she is older than the Dark Wheel itself, Sniktau is driven by a sense that their secrets are intertwined with her own. As she ventures into the deepest, most uncharted regions of the galaxy, she balances on the edge of time and memory, pushing herself—and her ship—far beyond the limits of ordinary pilots. Each discovery brings her closer to understanding who she was and why she was left adrift, with only the whisper of a forgotten star as a clue to her origin.
In the dark silence of the galactic fringes, Sniktau continues her quest. She seeks not just the Dark Wheel, but herself—an ancient wanderer, lost to time, now fighting to reclaim the truth of her past from the cold, uncaring void.
Her expertise in Frame Shift Drive manipulation—particularly a controversial, scarcely understood maneuvers that may have led to her dereliction—has earned her a reputation as both a resourceful and reckless pilot. Sniktau's loyalties remain fluid, shaped by a need for survival and a hunger for knowledge. As she embarks on dangerous missions, from rescuing stranded souls from Thargoid incursions to exploring the farthest reaches of deep space, she grapples with the knowledge that the key to her past—and perhaps the future of humanity—may lie buried in the stars.
Driven by purpose, but haunted by what she's lost, Sniktau is more than a pilot—she's a mystery waiting to be unraveled.
