AETHUS Walkthrough: Complete Story & Progression Route

The complete AETHUS walkthrough follows Maeve and Roland from their abandoned surface claim down through the corporate underground research network to Facility Omega, guiding base building, bypass modules, and key card collection step by step.

Prologue and Establishing the Surface Outpost

The prologue begins in Astral Resource Corporation mining claim 749 beneath the colony of Invermark. Working as lead geotechnical engineer Maeve alongside her AI drone companion Roland, you receive instructions from corporate supervisor Trudy to clear an access shaft. When the primary door mechanism fails, enter the old shaft passage, where Roland uses his mining laser to extract kaolinite ore and unlisted Sky Sapphires.

Trudy demands accelerated extraction for luxury adornments. Use the radar scan by pressing X to identify points of interest, then locate a small crate nearby. Input code 1992 to retrieve the arming key, insert it into the explosive rig at the dig site, and arm the charges. The explosives threaten to collapse the entire mine. Flee back up the access shaft before the detonation triggers.

Several months later, Maeve purchases abandoned mining claim AZ1 on the planet surface using her savings. After disembarking from the shuttle, harvest cactus fruit from the desert flora to restore nutrition and hydration. Clear scrap and sandstone shards using the mining laser, then press B to open build mode. Place a makeshift forge, refining scrap and biomass into building materials. Erect a makeshift habitat and place a bed inside to secure shelter before nightfall and dust storms arrive.

Use your compass to perform suit scans at four designated landmarks:

1. Surface Oasis: Scans reveal water contaminated with amino acids and RNA fragments, requiring purification.
2. Crater's Edge: A deep pit that provides no bounce-back signal without specialized charges.
3. Bloodfall: A high-temperature cascade containing high concentrations of aluminum oxide and silicates rather than actual blood.
4. Outer Caverns Entrance: Tracks from a previous corporate expedition lead into the underground, containing mineral deposits and toxic air.

Descend into the outer caverns to locate an abandoned crate containing an RTG (Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator). Carry the RTG back to your surface base. Build a basic habitat, install the RTG to add 15 continuous power, and construct a regolith printer to process regolith chunks into durable building supplies. Add a stone crusher and a basic smelter to refine kaolinite ore into bars, then assemble a crafting bench to craft mining explosives.

Descent to Facility Epsilon and the Undersea Dam

Return to the caverns with your mining explosives and blast through the hardened rockfall blocking the inner tunnels. Beyond the blockage sits an abandoned habitat module and a deep shaft. Construct the Crater Climber station using servo motors, frames, and metal bars to bridge the gap between the surface claim and the deeper biospheres. Ensure your outpost grid maintains positive power generation, adding solar panels or wind turbines if necessary.

Taking the climber down leads to Facility Epsilon, situated at the threshold of a subterranean jungle. Atmospheric generators in this sector require power cells to establish breathable oxygen zones. Search the facility offices and terminals to gather sector data and logistical codes:

• Epsilon Storage Room: Enter code 6980 on the keypad, a combination discovered in custodian Rupert Sanford's communications log.
• Crew Quarters A: Locate Lisa Chapman's locked quarters, which will later require security code 8852.
• Cargo Bay: Locate the key to the load master cage to retrieve a nuclear fuel rod and Roger Patton's personal key card.

Advancing past Epsilon brings you to the submerged ruins of Facility Kappa. The main complex lies beneath a flooded subterranean lake held by an intake and drainage dam. Accessing the dam control consoles reveals that drainage controls are locked down under the Tear Paper protocol. Roland identifies tracking strings pointing to paired key cards scattered across three independent facilities: Epsilon, Theta, and Mu.

Travel across the upper walkways to Facility Mu to locate the local power infrastructure. You will encounter the capacitor door, which unlocks once the dam override is registered in the control room. Inside Mu, retrieve blueprints for the Large Solar Panel, an essential structure for expanding high-draw surface facilities.

Overcoming Theta's Biohazards and Draining Kappa

Before tackling Facility Theta, prepare for dense biological contaminants. The fungal sprawl across Theta releases spores that rapidly deplete your suit filters. In your base, assemble a biology lab and gather hive mycelia from the cave floor. Plant cleansed mycelia in your grow plots to harvest inert mycelia, then combine them with empty injectors to craft anti-mycelial antigen. Injecting this compound provides fifteen minutes of respiratory protection against airborne spores.

Advance through Theta with a bypass module and herbicide charge items to burn away aggressive overgrowth blocking secondary lab doors. Access the central research lab to retrieve the Theta sector key card from the testing station.

While exploring deep caverns, you can gather ancient bones from sedimentary deposits and swamp geodes. Delivering three bone specimens through the outpost terminal fulfills a special contract for Trudy's Archaeology Research Center division, yielding market credits to purchase drone tether range increases and suit filter upgrades.

With key cards from Epsilon, Theta, and Mu in hand, return to the Undersea Dam control level:

1. Insert all three sector key cards into the primary terminal to bypass genetic two-factor locks.
2. Confirm the Tear Paper protocol handshake to initiate the drainage sequence.
3. Monitor the water pumps as thousands of gallons of acidic water drain from the flooded basin.
4. Take the newly powered lift directly down into the drained Kappa research floor.

Inside Kappa, locate the central AI interface housing. Inside rests the core of Stanley, an experimental project management artificial intelligence originally named the Self-taught Autonomous Network Linked Executive System. Eject Stanley's core and carry it back to your surface base. Construct a water-cooled containment facility inside your outpost to prevent core overheating, then slot Stanley into the cradle.

Resistance Connections and the Matter Transporter

Stanley's reactivation triggers a corporate carrier wave. Roland quickly instructs you to deconstruct and rebuild your base communications antenna, allowing him to erase connection logs and insert obfuscation code to prevent ARC detection. An encrypted sideband transmission comes through from an anti-ARC resistance group. The resistance operative offers advanced technological blueprints in exchange for encrypted research drives left behind by the Gaia expedition.

Access Lisa Chapman's lockbox in Epsilon using code 8852 to recover an airgapped hardened storage drive and the Matter Transporter blueprint. Build the Matter Transporter inside your base, setting its paired destination ID to TP-0M1. Stepping through the transporter provides instant travel to isolated research pockets across the planetary crust, avoiding transit time through the caverns.

To expand your base utilities for deep-underground excursions, establish a automated water pump near subterranean lakes to provide reliable liquid inputs for hydroponics and cooling loops without relying exclusively on surface dew catchers.

The Breach of Facility Omega and the Time Loop

The final leg of the campaign targets Facility Omega, the central research node positioned inside a magma lake. The facility remains sealed behind hardened electromagnetic shielding, impervious to standard EMP devices. Maeve coordinates a plan to bait corporate intervention: contact Trudy directly alongside Leonard Vertus, the president of competing corporation Vertus Limited. The corporate clash prompts Trudy to execute the Kyper protocol, deploying an orbital EMP strike aimed at neutralizing the entire claim.

Before the strike lands, complete these preparatory steps:

1. Craft a remote restart chip at the outpost crafting bench and insert it into the surface antenna so it can reboot after the blast.
2. Travel to manufacturing facility Tau and dope quirinium fuel rods with Ethereum to construct a strange fuel rod.
3. Deliver the fuel rod to Facility Sigma to activate the grounded cargo drone.
4. Input teleporter ID Rho to route around the standard network before Vertus locks the system down.
5. Teleport to Rho, cross the magma lake via gondola, and run to the Sigma cargo pad.

Board the cargo drone container just as the orbital EMP hits. The blast fries local facility locks while your drone crashes directly into Facility Omega's upper landing.

Inside Omega, descend past the atrium's central magma column into the AI core laboratory. Slot Stanley into the local terminal, where he reveals his nature as a quantum entity existing simultaneously across multiple versions of his storage chip. Stanley explains that the entire facility is locked in a 30-year time loop triggered by an unstable Ethereum extraction experiment conducted by Maeve's grandfather and Dr. Tanya Lee.

The ultimate revelation uncovers that Roland is not merely a synthetic helper; his core houses the mind of Caleb Vhan, Maeve's father, who was transformed into the only stable human-AI hybrid capable of handling raw Ethereum. Maeve's grandfather fled with Caleb's chassis thirty years earlier to save him from corporate exploitation.

To break the cycle and trigger the ending, enter Dr. Lee's executive office using her personal key card to revoke the Tear Paper protocol. Return to the primary test chamber where the unstable Ethereum crystal is housed. Align the test controls and channel the surge into the central mainframe. While the physical release of energy collapses the local chamber, the quantum chip completes full decryption of the Gaia expedition's archives, broadcasting ARC's human experimentation and corporate secrets across the entire galaxy.