text: Despite our advances since the first successful interstellar flight, there are still many protocols designed to steer you clear of the many dangers in space. If not followed, you risk severe consequences for you and your crew. The rules are as follows: Rule 1: Do not attempt to cross voids more than 100000 light-years across unless your ship is specially designed for such voyages. Faster-Than-Light ships or light speed ships will run out of fuel and become stranded, sub-light ships would break down long before they reached their destinations. 800 ships have been lost to the great nothing this year alone. Rule 2: do not travel within 500,000 kilometres of a world with the potential to harbour life. If you crash on such a world, detonate the built-in thermonuclear warhead when you are rescued. This will ensure that any contamination from from you or your ship is destroyed. If you have no hope of rescue, connect the warhead to a dead man's switch, which will detonate the warhead in the event of your death. If the warhead was irreparably damaged in the crash, overload the ship's reactor, this will cause a similar explosion. If the reactor is not a nuclear one, mix the Uranium plating on your ship's hull with the liquid Plutonium in the warhead. This will cause a chemical reaction that will result in massive release of ionising radiation, causing the death of even the hardiest microbes and also you. Rule 3: Do not chart interstellar courses that pass within 5 Astronomical Units of a neutron star or a black hole. Their gravity may pull your ship off course or even into the stellar remnant itself. Rule 4: In the event that you encounter alien life, contact the Department of Extraterrestrial Life and the relevant authorities at your destination so that quarantine procedures may be undertaken on your arrival. If the life is intelligent, also contact the Extraterrestrial Diplomatic Corps. If the life is hostile, also contact the Department for Galactic Security and attempt to contain the threat. If all efforts fail, attempt to neutralize the threat. If this is also unsuccessful, enable the "do not board" beacon and set the ship to self destruct. Only attempt to use escape pods if you are confident that you and the escape pod are not contaminated by the organism(s). If you break any part of this rule, you, your ship, and any escape pods will be incinerated. Rule 5: Do not set courses that pass within 3000 light years of a star that is within 100 years of going supernova. If you do, you risk acute radiation poisoning. That is, you'd be cooked alive. Rule 6: black holes and neutron stars may only be approached within 0.25 Astronomical Units for purposes of research, performing gravitational slingshots, or neutronium mining. Please see rule 3 for the consequences of ignoring this rule. Rule 7: Do not attempt to pass through an uncharted natural wormhole unless in a relevant emergency situation. Not only do you risk reappearing in normal space on the other side of the universe, you also risk getting ripped apart if the wormhole is unstable. Do not attempt to pass through a wormhole that is not at least 100 kilometres wider than your ship, as you risk spaghettification otherwise. Rule 8: Do not attempt to pass through an artificially created wormhole that has been deprived of exotic matter for longer than 10 years. The wormhole risks collapsing into a black hole if deprived for any longer. Rule 9: do not attempt intergalactic voyages unless you are piloting a ship specially designed for such a journey. Due to the vast distances between galaxies, rescue cannot be attempted, and you would be facing certain death. Rule 10: Only approach within 100 light years of a strange star if your ship is fitted with special sensors designed to detect strange quarks, for research purposes, or for emergency gravitational slingshots. If you get too close, you risk making physical contact with a strangelet, which would convert your whole ship and you into strange matter. Rule 11: Do not, under any circumstances, approach abandoned Dyson Spheres or Penrose Spheres. If a sudden emergency discharge of the building energy being held inside the structure is performed by the deteriorating maintenance computer, your ship will very likely be caught in the blast. Rule 12: Do not dive any deeper than 2 kilometers into the atmosphere of a gas giant unless your ship's hull is capable of withstanding pressures above 10000 Kilo pascals and temperatures above 100 degrees Celsius and temperatures at absolute zero. You risk being crushed by the atmosphere, melting, or freezing to death if your ship cannot withstand these conditions. Rule 13: Do not dive deeper than 2 kilometers into the atmosphere of a brown dwarf star unless your ship's hull can withstand temperatures above 1000 degrees Celsius and pressures above 10000 Kilo pascals. If your ship cannot withstand these conditions, you will either be melted or crushed. Rule 14: Do not pass through nebulae unless for purposes of research, resource extraction, or if your destination is within the nebula. By entering a nebula, you have a much higher risk of hypersonic collisions with cosmic dust, which will penetrate all but the strongest of hulls, resulting in decompression and a very likely death. Rule 15: Do not use generation ships for voyages longer than 10000 years in length, as the gene pool of even the largest ships would deplete and the entire population would die out before it reached its destination. Do not use cryogenic pods continuously for voyages longer than 200000 years in length, as our current technology cannot revive someone who has been in cryogenic suspension for longer. By following these simple rules alongside other rules which may be introduced at the ship captain's discretion, you can ensure that traversing the dark void of space is as safe for everyone as can be.