This Alien Universe

[Supplement Four]

Some preliminary thoughts on creating an Aliens based campaign

Character Generation: This can be used pretty-much as-written. The GM may want to check and edit the skills list, though. For example, the Alien universe looks to have an excellent grasp on artificial gravity on space vessels, but things like grav belts and air/rafts might be experimental tech (or, maybe it's too fragile for military use--which is why the marines don't use such tech). Plasma guns and battledress are used in the universe (according to the novel I'm reading), and the tech seems to be about the same as that in Traveller. So, some snipping of the skills list may be required for a game set in the Aliens universe.



World Generation: The standard CT world generation systems can be used, but there is a bias towards Earth-like worlds in the Aliens universe. Create a subsector (or even an entire sector) as you would normally, plotting all systems. But, the ones that interest you will be the Size 7-8-9 and atmosphere 6-7.

A stretch can be made to expand interest, occasionally (not for every world of this type) to world size 6-A and atmo to 4-9, but there needs to be a reason to do this: Some mining interest on the world is a good reason (and it may have atmosphere processing going on).

This will put a lot of hexes (parsecs) between worlds. Journeys will be long. Cold sleep will be used. Starships will be fully automated. Robot tech will be used as well.

Also, remember that Earth remains balkanized. The United States still exists.



Robots/vehicles: Speaking of robots, Book 8 should serve nicely to design what ever is needed. Also, Striker can be used to design vehicles and such. There should be more robotic use than is typical for a regular Traveller game.

Note that artificial people in the Aliens universe are more advanced than in Traveller. Book 8 covers this topic, but you'll want to drop the Tech Level requirement a bit.



Jump Drive: Either the standard Traveller J-Drive method can be used (Jump 1-6 = 1-6 parsecs), or a switch can be made to the Aliens universe method where J 1-5 represents 5-25 lightyears. Either method will work.

Jump fuel from Traveller has to be abandoned. The J-Drives in Aliens recharge themselves (though, I'm sure, some type of fuel is used...they just get more mileage :rofl.

Time spent in jump still takes a week, but, in the Aliens universe, it's one day in inter-dimensional space and another six days in normal space as the J-Drive recharges. This can be automated as the crew sleeps in cold berth. One of the big differences, though, is that, in the Aliens universe, several jumps are required for most journeys. Trips are usually measured in months, where as, in Traveller, a week is typical.



Technology: Traveller tech, for the most part, can be used unchanged in the Aliens universe. Sources like 2300 and 2320 and High Colonies may want to be mined for ideas (as well as the original Aliens rpg and any Aliens published supplemental material). It should be simple to eyeball items and assign CT stats to them.

Several movies can be mined for ideas, too. Besides the Aliens films, consider Blade Runner, Outland, Event Horizon, and films that have the same "atmosphere" as the Aliens films.

For adventures, if you don't want to make up your own, consider converting any of the Traveller scenarios for an Aliens adventure. Many of them will work. Look at other games, too. 2300 scenarios. Space Opera. Millennium's End. Phoenix Command. Twilight 2000.

Computer games, like Crysis, FEAR, Half-Life 2 also are full of ideas for nifty scenarios that can be adapted to this universe.

Plus, don't forget the novels and comic books set in the Aliens (or even Predator) universe. Those can easily be converted to a good Aliens game.

 

[Supplement Four]

"The J-Drive requires a minimum velocity of 1/5 the speed of light"

That's interesting, what book has that little snippet?

That's in the Aliens RPG. The book, like a usual core rule book, is light on details (leaving room for supplements that never came for that game).

We're left to fill in our own details (which my creative side doesn't mind at all).

The actual entry reads: "Coupled with the Displacement Drive, and drawing its power from it, is the Jump Drive. It can be activated once the craft is traveling faster than 1/5 the speed of light, and the energies it produces vastly enhances the effect produced by the Displacement Drive. Instead of simply distorting space, the Jump Drive actually breaks through it, and allows the craft to travel through a separate dimension and emerge into normal space several light years away."

So, the Jump Drive isn't a separate piece of equipment, as it is in Traveller. It's an add-on...a super-charger...like hitting the octane button..to the Displacement Drive.

It doesn't sound like you can have a J-Drive operate without a Displacement Drive (as you can a J-Drive without a M-Drive in Traveller).



EDIT: Interesting note--I'm looking at the non-rpg Aliens Technical Manual, which actually does a great job of explaining how the Jump Drive works (very interesting reading, this handwave). But, the stats do not agree with the rpg. The Technical Manual says the Sulaco uses a J-1 drive (5 ly max per jump), while the rpg says the Sulaco uses a J-4 drive (20 ly max per jump).

Also, the Technical Manual does not describe a Displacement Drive for normal space operations, rather, it describes a reaction drive (fusion rocket) that operates on dry fuel.

 

[Kaveman Koder]

Sorry, I thought you meant in Traveller

 

[robject]

Regarding S4's research. It's interesting that their M-drive is stutterwarpy. Even with that text, it would seem easier for me to posit a subspace drive since it's already been done for Traveller (by FFS1 and MGT).

So, I'd treat their jump drive as a "subspace" drive, and use the stats for a Jump-3 drive. Actual distance traveled depends on the M-drive's rating, in light years per day.

 

[PhillWebb]

Are you sure about Hicks and Newt? I mean, the characters are certainly supposed to be Hicks and Newt, but if you look at the omnibus reprint of the comics (use the "search inside this book function") http://www.amazon.com/Aliens-Omnibu...d_bbs_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1222449570&sr=8-5

It's definitely Billie and Wilks, just like the novel.

It was Hicks and Newt in the original comics and graphic novels.

Then Alien3 was released and Dark Horse changed it for all their future reprints and carried that change into their novelisations.

Phill

 

[Supplement Four]

It was Hicks and Newt in the original comics and graphic novels.

Then Alien3 was released and Dark Horse changed it for all their future reprints and carried that change into their novelisations.

Phill

Well, I'll be derned. I wikied it. You're right. Interesting.

As I read the trilogy, I picture Hicks and Newt in the role anyway, in my mind's eye. I try to forget Alien 3 and Resurrection ever happened.

 

[Supplement Four]

Regarding S4's research. It's interesting that their M-drive is stutterwarpy.

I played a damn good space flight sim a few years ago called Independence War 2. What was neat about it was that there was an option to take Newtonian physics seriously. The default, for most of the casual players, allowed the ship to slow, as if by friction, whenever thrust wasn't being applied. But, for those who wanted a more realistic experience, and a much more fun game, imo, there was a setting to allow space flight as it should be: Accelerate to a certain velocity? You'll keep traveling in that direction at that speed unless you do something to change it, and it doesn't matter which way your ship is facing if the drives are shut down.

I'd gather a lot of speed, shut of the drives, then use the maneuver thrusters to turn the nose of the ship 90 degrees and rake the big ships with my cannons as I zoomed by.

The drives operate just like Traveller M-Drives, and it was interesting to build up a butt-load of speed and zip through a congested portion of space. All you could do was watch, because you didn't have enough time to slow down. You'd be a long way off before you reached relative speed with the objects you're passing.

And, there's nothing to help you if something blocks your path. Most likely, you won't have enough time to react (enough time to apply thrust and change your vector). You'll just sit there and slam into whatever is in your way.

I bring this game up because the ships used four types of drives. First, there are the reaction jets that allow you to orient the ship. These aren't much good except for changing the direction in which your nose faces.

Second, is the main maneuver drive, which is what I described above. This can get you moving quite fast.

But, space is vast--bigger than most of us realize. A third type of drive was used to zip around from planet to planet, or even moon to moon (the maps in the game are realistic in length--and it's a damn long way even from a world to its moon). This drive could be used to travel from star to star, but it would take too long (and, I think the batteries would die out, so would life support, and you wouldn't make the trip alive). This drive used a type of stutterwarp technology, displacing the space in front of the ship. Gravity wells affected this drive, and you'd have to use your maneuver drive to get out away from massive bodies, then engage the stutter.

Finally, the last drive used is hyperspace technology, and in this game, hyperdrives/Jump-Drives are used. But, they are very sensitive to gravity, so they can only be used at Lagrange points. L Points in various systems are covered up with traffic.

 

[Supplement Four]

Earth Hive

FYI about the book where I got the exerpt in the OP: It's a "Rated R" book. I like it that way. It's got some grit. And, I'm not just talking about colorful language or graphic descriptions of violence. There's an adult atmosphere to the book.

For example, one of the plot threads involves some religious kooks who've seen a vid of the alien in action and have begun to worship it as a "perfect being". The Messiah.

A later scene shows the head of this cult in a dingy apartment. Very noir. He's there with a whore, but not just any whore. This one is pregnant and quite far along. This thing does it for him. He's a fanatic, and the idea of another being growing inside of another really gets him excited (trying not to be too graphic).

Pretty sick, if you ask me. But, good reading.

Not for the feint of heart--which is why I'm posting this warning for any who read the first two posts of this thread and are looking to read the book.



On a slightly different tangent, Earth Hive makes it clear to me that Blade Runner could easily take place in the same universe as Aliens. I mean, we've already combined the Predator universe into Aliens. Blade Runner would be the next logical step (and, maybe Outland, too!).

Parts of the Earth Hive book feel a lot like the Aliens movie--same atmosphere. Then, other parts, take a different tack, reporting a more noir feel--the same I got when I read the Blade Runner novels. The scene above, with the cultist and the pregnant whore, could easily be a scene in a BR story.

 

[mike wightman]

Hmm, pleasure model replicants being used as artificial wombs.

Or a special run of replicants who can reproduce with humans the old fasioned way.

Nice scenario ideas there Supp 4 - I like this thread.

 

[Supplement Four]

Hmm, pleasure model replicants being used as artificial wombs.

Or a special run of replicants who can reproduce with humans the old fasioned way.

Straight out of Bladerunner, there's a section of Earth Hive that deals with a squad of illegal but special-designed synthetics that are used as expendable combat models.

One of them has to be called "Roy Batty", have white hair, and look like Rutger Hauer.:smirk:

 

[DaveChase]

DarkHorse Comics is a good source for the Alien universe

They dealt with Corps and government trying to devolop the Aliens as weapons.
In one they (Ripely and friends) were locating Hives and destroying them.

And a question
If you are dealing with Aliens, are you also considering Predators?
I ask because depending on which dogma you follow, Predators and Aliens exist in the same universe. The Aliens vs Predator books (and graphic novel) handled this very well. I like the movie but felt that it changed one major thing in the Alien universe that I did not like.

Dave Chase

 

[robject]

On a slightly different tangent, Earth Hive makes it clear to me that Blade Runner could easily take place in the same universe as Aliens. I mean, we've already combined the Predator universe into Aliens. Blade Runner would be the next logical step (and, maybe Outland, too!).

In other words, this is in danger (perhaps that's the wrong word) of this idea morphing into something less focused on Alien and more general gritty near-earth sci-fi.

For that matter, Starship Troopers could be pounded into this genre, if you knocked the pointy edges off of it a little.

That's the danger of opening up a setting -- make sure you don't lose important bits.

Having said that, Blade Runner, Outland, and Alien all have different focuses -- Earth, mining colony, and Outer Space -- and so appear to be complementary.

But, to take things to an extreme, imagine how schizophrenic a referee might get if he was faced with this setting:

* An alien hive menace of bug-and-reptiloid-like parasitic monsters.
* Colonial marines, later tasked with wiping out said parasitic monsters' hives.
* A predator species who hunts said "bugs" for fun and profit.
* A totalitarian corporate-city-state dystopian government divided into Civil Service [people or AI], Peons [most people], and Troubleshooters.
* Extraplanetary mining colonies, run by same soulless corporations of course.
* Based in a single mega-star system containing dozens of habitable worlds and satellites.

There. Alien, Starship Troopers, Predator, Paranoia, Blade Runner, Outland, and Firefly rolled into one.

 

[Supplement Four]

And a question
If you are dealing with Aliens, are you also considering Predators?

I do buy into Aliens and Predators sharing the same universe, and at one time, I thought this was a damn cool idea.

But, I haven't been too impressed with the AvP movies. And, to be honest, the Predators really aren't making me interested in them.

I think I'll stick with just the Aliens for now (though, I am attracted to a game set in the universe but having nothing at all to do with the aliens).



One could borrow from Traveller to fill in the wholes. The aliens themsevles could be...left overs from the Ancient's Great War. Biological weapons that Grandfather used. Drop a couple 'o pods on a planet, then come back in a month. All resistance gone.

Maybe Grandfather had a way of dealing with the nasties.

Besides, the alien itself looks like something the Droyne would create.

 

[DaveChase]

I do buy into Aliens and Predators sharing the same universe, and at one time, I thought this was a damn cool idea.

But, I haven't been too impressed with the AvP movies. And, to be honest, the Predators really aren't making me interested in them.

I think I'll stick with just the Aliens for now (though, I am attracted to a game set in the universe but having nothing at all to do with the aliens).

Ahhh, Well the movie AvP was dispointment to those of us who followed the books. It did open up some more issues on the corprate battles. (3 movies are planned for AvP and with 2&3 being complete made up for the big screen).

Now the books on AvP graphic/comic books for both Alien and Predator series are in my opinion very true to the feel of the first movies of each.
And BTW at a convention one of the producers for Alien Resurction hinted that the DarkHorse comic that had Ripley still alive (along with Hicks and Newt) might still be a possiblity if (tongue and check) Ripley would only cooperate. (Refering the fact that Weaver was not very interested in doing more Alien movies.)

Dave Chase

 

[robject]

One could borrow from Traveller to fill in the wholes. The aliens themsevles could be...left overs from the Ancient's Great War. Biological weapons that Grandfather used. Drop a couple 'o pods on a planet, then come back in a month. All resistance gone.

We don't even need the ancients to justify this one.

Consider a xenophobic race which had a fast-but-STL drive. Every time they found a planet with sentient life, they'd send a ship over (with the pilot in hibernation) and drop off some pods. Whence cometh the Pilot. In fact, Pilot could be the foreshadowing of what happened to their world and their race -- killed off by their own weapon.

Or posit a delivery mechanism that's part of the aliens' caste system. That's scary. A Stage Tree Alien?

 

[aramis]

The Predators could be the weapon designed to take them out...

 

[DaveChase]

Or

The Predators could be the weapon designed to take them out...

They were one of the races that Grandfather picked up to use to aid him, hence the different tech and mind set of being around for 10,000 of years


OR
They and the Aliens come from another part of the galaxy and are (predators) great nomadic rovers. They just avoided the Human sectors for trading cause they have no honor in the hunt (or something like that.) But they did make good breeders for new Aliens


Dave Chase

 

[Jame]

I never really cared for the concept of Aliens and Predators inhabiting the same universe; while I like them both, I prefer them separate. (The coin-op video game was cool though.)

If you have a setting based solely on the first three Aliens movies, i'd be interested.

 

[DaveChase]

changed my mind again after thinking about it for several hours

Grandfather used/recreated the Alien and Predator races to help eliminate his children. After he felt that was accomplished he modified both races to act like cats to dogs and figured that they would probably eliminate each other.

There are not many of either race around but could change very fast if an Alien got loose into know space?

Dave Chase

 

[Supplement Four]

Tech Update:

If the novel I'm reading is to be believed (and, I like it, so I will), gravity vehicles do indeed exist.

Public transportation on Earth is via hovercraft. We've seen the ALIENS film, so we know what the military stuff looks like.

One of the companies in the book, though, is using grav platforms, not at all unlike those used by the Zhodani or Vargr (grav sleds). Basically, it's a disc, with a railing and control box that one stands in and uses for locomotion at height.

This is the first use of grav technology (besides the J-Drives and deck plating) that I've seen in the universe. As I speculated before, maybe it's expensive--too expensive for typical Marine grunt work (maybe the special forces use them).