Station Cores Books in Order

Station Cores takes dungeon core concepts into science fiction. Instead of starting in a fantasy cave, it begins with Milton Frederick, a strategy gamer whose main claim to fame is coordinating high level raids in an MMO called Crowned Lieges of Destiny.

Milton is abducted at the height of his success by a coalition of alien races known as The Collective. Their plan is, in their minds, benevolent. They rip his consciousness from his human body, insert it into a massive metal construct called a Station Core, and intend to point him at their enemies, the Heliothropes. In exchange, he gets effective immortality and the chance to keep playing war, just on a much larger board.

Things go wrong immediately. The ship ferrying him to the front lines explodes, and Milton’s core plummets through space to crash on an unknown planet. He comes to inside what looks, from the outside, like a giant metal egg lodged in a wild landscape full of aggressive wildlife and curious, squirrel like creatures that terrify him.

Alone except for a sarcastic AI guide named ALANNA, Milton has to learn how to use the Station Core’s abilities to survive. He can deploy drones, build defenses, and reshape the environment, but every upgrade costs resources he has to scrape from the dangerous world around him. Over decades, locals evolve under the influence of his leaking energy, turning into Proctans with their own societies and magic like abilities.

As the series continues, the scope grows from one valley to a whole planet and then beyond. Milton negotiates with Proctan factions, defends against threats stirred up by his presence, and eventually manages to leave the world where he crashed. Later books take him back toward Collective space and into the larger war with the Heliothropes that he was originally conscripted for.

Station Cores mixes survival, base building, and tongue in cheek humor with the familiar rhythms of dungeon defense and progression. It also serves as a foundation for the Dimensional Dungeon Cores crossover, where Milton’s station becomes a hub for alliances between very different kinds of cores.