Traveller: Outbreak

[Supplement Four]

I'm re-reading an excellent graphic novel that was originally meant to be a sequel to the two films, Alien and Aliens. The story picks up 10 years later after the events shown in Aliens. Newt is now in her 20's, a patient at an asylum. Corporal Hicks is still in the Colonial Marines, but a burn-out, never earning promotion in the last decade.

Aliens Outbreak Wiki

Aliens Outbreak at Amazon

Aliens Outbreak at Amazon in Omnibus 1

When Alien 3 came out, Newt and Hicks are shown killed at the beginning of the film. To keep continuity with the film franchise, Dark Horse (the publishers of the comic) changed the two lead characters in Outbreak from Newt to Billie, and Hicks became Wilks. Other than that, the story is kept intact (which makes it kinda strange since the background for Wilks/Billie is the exact same as that for Hicks/Newt).

This story arc is an example of how well a sequel story can be told in graphic novel form. The book is truly excellent, and a truly excellent novelization of the story was done by Steve Perry.

Aliens Earth Hive at Amazon.

If you like the Alien universe, especially the first two movies, I highly recommend that you read either the graphic novel or Steve Perry's novel. You'll enjoy the read. At least I hope you will. I think it's one of the best Alien stories ever told, and I think it would have been a much better sequel to Aliens than what we got with Alien 3.

One of the things I like so much about this story is that it's not just about guns with high rates of fire and almost un-defeatable alien monsters. It's more than a horror story or action story set in the future. Like most great stories, Outbreak is about humanity. What does it mean to be human? What is life worth? Not overtly, the story makes you think about these questions.

If you haven't read Outbreak, and you plan to, stop reading this thread now. In the next post, I'm going to present an idea of taking the story of Outbreak, setting in in the Traveller universe, and converting it into a Traveller adventure.

 

[Supplement Four]

My idea for a Traveller adventure, based on Outbreak.



Have all the players roll up Marines. You can let the players know that they'll be playing an "Alien" type adventure. Or, don't tell them. Surprise them.

The story is set in the 1100's. The events in Alien and Aliens did happen--but they over a thousand years ago, back when the Solomani called themselves "earthmen". They Weyland-Yutani corporation was one of earth's first megacorps, but it has long since disappeared. And, although it was a megacorp, it was no where near the size, nor had the influence, of today's megacorps.

The story happened so long ago that the Jump Drive was not yet discovered, although Earth was well on its way to discovering it. The terrans were using a type of stutterwarp, where crews took the long trips in computer controlled spacecraft while riding out the journey in cold sleep. The Relativity Barrier had also not yet been broken, so the Travellers of that pre-Jump era would return home to find their children older than they were.

You'll convert the Outbreak story for Traveller, of course. Pick a Traveller megacorp of your choice to stand in for Wayland-Yutani. I expect that this adventure will run the best on some worlds in the Solomani Rim. But, if you want to transplant it to the Third Imperium, then maybe forget the megacorp and use the power of the feudal system (if your Traveller universe has a strong feudal system). "Your Duke needs you...".

This adventure is meant to be epic.

What I'm thinking is this...

The Alien, of course, has been rediscovered. In the opening briefing, there is an orbital vessel that is taken out by one of them, like the Coast Guard vessel in the beginning of Outbreak.

You don't need a Newt/Billie character. The adventure will play well with just all the players playing PCs. And, this might be a good time to use GDW's old Broadsword adventure. There, instead of mercs, you can call them all Imperial Marines. And, they are sent in the Broadsword for this mission.

Using the Broadsword adventure that way, players will have a ton of replacements if their main characters are killed in this very deadly scenario.

The players will be told of the old archived story--what every player will recognize as the Alien/Aliens story. It happened in ancient history--back before Vilani contact with Terra and way before the Second Imperium.

I think this adventure would work best if it were played with the members being Solomani Marines. Designate one player to secretly be a SolSec officer. That will add some real intrigue to the story.

The mission, of course, is to go to the homeworld of the Alien. You can use the Alien stats from JTAS article.

There's a big twist when the Marines are attacked as they make orbit of the Alien homeworld. Maybe this is the Third Imperium interfering with Solomani operations.

The alien that is shown in the story--the giant Pilot race from Alien and Prometheus--can be changed to something like the K'kree. Or, a psionic race would work well--like the Zhodani.

The other big twist in the story is, when the adventurers return home, they find that home is over-run with the aliens. The ending will be bitter-sweet as the PCs get away, but they are running from a ruined world--their homeworld.





But, the biggest thing that should happen in this adventure--and I think this is what is going to make this Traveller adventure exceptionally memorable--is that, at some point in the adventure (maybe the first time one of the PCs are shot), they all realize that all of the Marines--all the PCs--are synthetic humans. They are late TL 15, just pre-Tl 16 androids that look exactly like humans.

This should be the big WOW! of the adventure. Every player realizes that his character's dreams and memories have been programmed. He is a machine.

And, he never knew it.

Humans were not sent on this suicide mission.

Replicants were.