“Humanity is all about humans. People with lives and families. People who sometimes make mistakes but still have the potential to make the world a better place. People sometimes need second chances. Corporations say they’re advancing the cause of humanity, but they don’t know people.”
    –Valencia Estevez

Where is humanity headed? Are the world’s richest megacorps leading us to the stars or dragging us through the gutters?

Order and Chaos is the third deluxe expansion for Android: Netrunner , and its 165 new cards (three copies each of fifty-five different cards) pit three new subversive Anarchs against the bleeding-edge ice and operations with which the Weyland Consortium intends to safeguard its most far-sighted and futuristic ambitions.

Order

The universe is vast, its planets are countless, and so are its challenges. It is a testament to the human spirit that we have tamed the earth and the moon and that we have sent colonists to Mars. These achievements required the collective efforts of many different men and women, but foremost among them is Jack Weyland.

In Order and Chaos , the Weyland Consortium continues to move upward, building upon the foundations it lay in the game’s Core Set . Weyland continues to invest the credits it receives from the Beanstalk into new construction, the acquisition of new holdings, and the development of aerospace and orbital construction companies. You’ll find agendas and assets that offer immediate economic advantages, towering walls of advanceable ice, and three new specialized identities, including Gagarin Deep Space ( Order and Chaos , 2).

What Jack Weyland may seek to accomplish in space is anyone’s guess, but it’s no secret that space is on his mind. Even as it explores a number of more terrestrial concerns, Order and Chaos features a number of different cards that follow Weyland’s ambitions out of Earth’s atmosphere and into the cosmos.

Among these cards are the asset, Space Camp ( Order and Chaos , 10), an ambush that doesn’t harm the Runner at all. Instead, this card allows the Corp to place a single advancement token on any card that can be advanced, suggesting that Weyland is truly more focused on building toward something powerful than on simply shooting down any threat to his bottom-line profits.

Toward what is he building? That remains a mystery, and while the astronauts aboard Glenn Station ( Order and Chaos , 5) might have some clue, they’re not sharing any information. Just as the space station is outside of the earth’s atmosphere and removed from many of its influences, the agenda also provides an absolute sanctuary outside of nearly all the game’s influences. The Runner simply cannot run against, or access, any card hosted on Glenn Station. Because a card on Glenn Station is not installed, it can’t even be exposed. So if a Runner wants to get a look at Jack Weyland’s latest schemes, he’ll have to try some other route.

Chaos

Ever since the game’s introduction, its Anarchs have consistently exhibited a strong contempt for the corporate oligarchs, systemic corruption, and often for society in general. Whatever the exact target of their rage, their unifying characteristic is their anger. Some may sublimate this anger into a social consciousness. Others may harness it to fuel ongoing battles with the world’s corporations. Still others may simply lash out blindly, tearing down Corporate servers with runs that are more talented than targeted.

Order and Chaos acknowledges all of these Anarchs and embodies their different approaches in three new identity cards. Furthermore, when these Anarchs ask for a match to set the world on fire, Order and Chaos hands them a blowtorch.

Anarchs have historically been very good at breaking things, spreading viruses, and trashing Corp assets and programs, and these are all talents that they continue to refine, even as they gain more ways of exposing Corps to bad publicity and forcing their secrets out of HQ.

In Order and Chaos , you’ll find one of the game’s most efficient AI icebreakers and a suite of new run events that trash any ice you can break. You’ll find a host of new viruses and cards like Virus Breeding Ground ( Order and Chaos , 52) that accelerate their spread. You’ll find more cards, like Stim Dealer ( Order and Chaos , 51), that carry your Anarchs deeper and deeper into their risky, high-stakes gambles. But, in addition to these new variants on old themes, you’ll find powerful tools for those Anarchs with nobler intentions, whose focus remains squarely on exposing the human costs of Corporate dealings.

For starters, once the Corp has taken a point of bad publicity, you can rely upon some clever Investigative Journalism ( Order and Chaos , 49) to bring it more fully to light. Each point of bad publicity is worth a credit each time you run, so a little early Investigative Journalism is likely to pay off tremendous dividends in the long run.

Moreover, Order and Chaos introduces a new Anarch current , Itinerant Protesters ( Order and Chaos , 33), that places tremendous pressure upon any Corp that suffers in the public spotlight. When these disorderly youth camp outside a Corporation’s HQ, the resulting media scrutiny makes it harder to keep secrets in hand, and the consequences are simply disastrous for any Corp that suffers protests as the Anarchs feed their journalist associates more and more news to expose. It is well within the realm of possibility that an Anarch focused on exposing Corporate exploitation may be able to reduce the Corp’s hand size to zero.

Something for Everyone

In addition to its new Weyland Consortium and Anarch cards, Order and Chaos introduces eighteen neutral cards (three copies each of six different cards) that provide new boosts and deck-building options for all the game’s factions.

For example, Sub Boost ( Order and Chaos , 25) can transform pieces of ice with multiple subroutines into nearly impenetrable barriers. Accordingly, it works wonderfully with Haas-Bioroid’s bioroid ice such as Ichi 1.0 ( Core Set , 62). By adding a fourth subroutine, Sub Boost ensures that your Ichi 1.0 won’t be completely broken by clicks alone, and the fact that its added subroutine ends the run means that Ichi 1.0 doesn’t just become more powerful; it becomes more versatile.

Of course, fans of the game’s other factions can also benefit from many of the cards Order and Chaos offers to the Weyland Consortium and Anarchs. By using your influence on the expansion’s cards, you can borrow from these factions’ best ideas as you accelerate your economy, spread viruses through the net, depart for space, or eat through layer upon layer of ice.

After all, Order and Chaos is all about the future of humanity. Where is it headed? You’re human. You should come along for the ride!