Revision 1

Polymorphic Plasma is the rare resource found beneath the crust of Planet Tian, and it is the reason everything in Exterminauts happens. Store copy sums up the situation in a single line: crews chase corporate contracts amid a clash for energy supremacy while the aliens' appetite for the plasma derails every plan.

What It Is

The plasma is described as doing two things at once. It generates an enormous amount of energy, and it has special properties that let it be applied to a wide range of technologies, weapons among them. That combination is why humanity came to Tian at all, and why the corporations refused to leave once the planet turned hostile.

Developers have referred to it as a miracle energy source, which is the framing the corporate side of the fiction uses. Its discovery drove the construction of the mining facilities and the infrastructure that Exterminauts now spend their shifts repairing.

Why The Pests Want It

The alien creatures of Tian, called Pests in-fiction, are drawn to the plasma. Developer commentary has described it as being like honey to them. They will tear through infrastructure, machinery and entire facilities to reach it, and that behaviour is the direct cause of the damage every work order is dispatched to fix.

This closes the loop of the setting neatly. The corporations extract the plasma, the extraction concentrates it in facilities, the concentration draws the Pests, the Pests wreck the facilities, and crews are sent in to repair them so extraction can continue. See Contracts for the shape that repair work takes.

Plasma As Equipment

The resource is not only a plot device. It is the power source for the crew's signature piece of kit. Each Exterminaut carries a battery on their back holding Polymorphic Plasma energy, feeding the OVERDRIVE power clamp worn at the waist. Clamping OVERDRIVE onto a special weapon overcharges it far beyond its normal output, and the same clamp is used to shock enemies, hack terminals, open doors and start ziplines. Weapons and Gadgets covers the system in full.

The corporate structure on Tian is organised around the substance as well. One company extracts, refines and transports it, and another converts it into new technologies and weapons, which puts the plasma at the centre of the planet's industrial hierarchy rather than at the edge of it.

Not Yet Confirmed

• No physical description, colour, state or in-game visual identity has been confirmed beyond it being a plasma.

• No explanation of what polymorphic refers to in its properties.

• No detail on whether plasma functions as a collectable resource, a currency or a gameplay consumable, only that resources are gathered on site and spent on the Rig.

• No quantities, capacities or recharge rules for the backpack battery.

• No origin story for the substance, and no confirmation of whether it is naturally occurring or connected to the alien life.

• No lore documents, codex entries or in-game text about it have been published.