What Alien Threat?

[Mithras]

Hi,

I'm working on a new subsector-sized MTU, just a small isolated human federation. I want the federation to have a decent military and navy, but I don't want another subsector of UPPs and another human culture to detail, I want to lavish my creative energies on this federation.

But, do you have any ideas what kind of threat they could be facing?

robots?
aliens popping randomly out of jump-space? (scary!)
unknown raiders using warp-drives to strike out of no-where?

All help appreciated!!

 

[pmbnss]

Ape-bots Need Our Women!!!

Ape-bots. Ape-bots with atomic blaster eye-beams.

Why exactly they'd need our fainting, cigarette-smoking, hour-glass shaped, beehive and horn-rimmed glasses wearing, domestic-focused women is beyond me, but they need them.

:devil:

 

[mike wightman]

Go find the secrets of the second imperium thread - loads of ideas there

My advice would be leave lots of non-specific leads so the players can make their own paranoid conclusions - then you go with the best of them.

 

[far-trader]

Berserkers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker_(Saberhagen)

 

[mike wightman]

But I have to add - jump kraken

 

[snapshotbygdw]

TRY:

"The Mote in God's Eye" by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.

 

[Mithras]

Ape-bots. Ape-bots with atomic blaster eye-beams.

Why exactly they'd need our fainting, cigarette-smoking, hour-glass shaped, beehive and horn-rimmed glasses wearing, domestic-focused women is beyond me, but they need them.

:devil:

Mmmm, interesting. I may have to reject it on the grounds that I am allergic to ape hair

 

[Xerxeskingofking]

Hi,

I'm working on a new subsector-sized MTU, just a small isolated human federation. I want the federation to have a decent military and navy, but I don't want another subsector of UPPs and another human culture to detail, I want to lavish my creative energies on this federation.

But, do you have any ideas what kind of threat they could be facing?

robots?
aliens popping randomly out of jump-space? (scary!)
unknown raiders using warp-drives to strike out of no-where?

All help appreciated!!

A Star Nomads Culture, who live on giant, deep space worldships that harvest interstellar Hydrogen to power thier jump drives. they live on huge Bussard Ramjets, which travel at stupidly high real speeds (like 5-10% Light Speed). they do long, slow loops around the subsector, trading for what they need, and taking what they can't trade by force.

 

[pmbnss]

Hair Club for Ape-bots

It need not be true-ape hair, the cyborg ape-bots may have found an non-allergenic replacement for hair, perhaps carbon nanotubes, or flexible stainless steel.

Or that's what they need the women for - non-allergenic ape-hair replacement therapy.



Sorry, it's been a long day!

I do like the star-nomads though, particular is blended with von neumann-esque machine intelligence/berserkers.

 

[Rigel Stardin]

Berserkers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berserker_(Saberhagen)

Dang good books...

Great men read a like

 

[LiminalMask]

If you want to keep it to one subsector, what about a civil war? Or insurgency? a Rebel Alliance? Religious fanatics?

Or, put one hex in your subsector with a gigantic world (with 7 suns or something exotic), populated with a very-high-tech alien force that conquers by building giant jump beacons in an enemy hex and teleports the entire planet into the system...

Just off the top of my head.

 

[Mithras]

s**t, that's scary!

If you want to keep it to one subsector, what about a civil war? Or insurgency? a Rebel Alliance? Religious fanatics?

Or, put one hex in your subsector with a gigantic world (with 7 suns or something exotic), populated with a very-high-tech alien force that conquers by building giant jump beacons in an enemy hex and teleports the entire planet into the system...

Just off the top of my head.

 

[robject]

Hi,

I'm working on a new subsector-sized MTU, just a small isolated human federation. I want the federation to have a decent military and navy, but I don't want another subsector of UPPs and another human culture to detail, I want to lavish my creative energies on this federation.

But, do you have any ideas what kind of threat they could be facing?

robots?
aliens popping randomly out of jump-space? (scary!)
unknown raiders using warp-drives to strike out of no-where?

All help appreciated!!

A civil war ending in an industrialized, fascist state in control of the core systems?

I'm still a Firefly fan, you see.

 

[hdan]

You don't want anything so nasty that a group of players with whatever sidearms they would carry can't confront a group of them successfully. Which generally leads you to "man sized monsters" of some sort, unless you're willing to outfit your players with some pretty serious hardware. (Exosuits? Space Cruisers?)

Obviously something like the OTU's Aslan or Vargr make good antagonists. They're clearly intelligent, but can be ruthlessly "inhuman", destroying whole colonies with their battle fleets. Players would probably interact with them peripherally - bumping into scout ships and whatever passes for "privateers".

If you don't like the OTU's "Furries", then you can turn to other classics:

Robots/AIs (like "Mass Effect"'s 'Geth' or "Battlestar Galactica"'s Cylons) - hive mind AIs with a religion hostile to your players.

Bug/Lizard-Men (like "Space: Above and Beyond"'s 'Chigs' or Spriggan Miniature's 'SPUGS') - non-mammalian critters that want our resources but are different enough psychologically that there can be no meaningful commerce.

Xeno/Bugs (Alien(s), Warhammer 40k's 'Tyrannids' and 'Gene Stealers', HP Lovecraft's 'Mi-Go' and 'Old Ones') - Insect or Fungoid monstrosities that may not even be alive in a way we understand, but which have roughly man-sized "drones" and enough technical capability that they might be intelligent (or maybe just parasites on a living starship?)

It might be fun to do a disgusting race of slimy and unsettling *things* that are alien and horrible in every way possible, but turn out to be quite intelligent and unwilling to deal with horrors like Humans, who are clearly abominations that Must Not Be. Maybe we remind them of some pest on their homeworld, or maybe "dry" creatures remind them of their own excrement on a visceral level, and they really can't help but be repulsed by us, even after they learn that we're not just some parasite that hijacked a more civilized species' equipment after destroying them. (After all, life forms with a fixed volume skull can't possibly be very intelligent - there's no room for their vacuoles to expand!)

 

[shadowlord]

alien threat

You could also go the "Space above and beyond" route. So far in their exploration no Alien life forms have bee found. Then a particular world was colonized and on some subsequent supply run the colonists were found slaughtered by something using weapons that left some strange signature. Seems that there are aliens out there we just haven't traveled far enough yet to meet them. The colonized world was one that they claimed for themselves and we are seen as treaspassers.

 

[Mithras]

Oh a bag of great ideas.... the HP LOvecraftian horrors took me by surprise, but I'm getting great ideas from all of these!

 

[Enoki]

There are two general categories of evil monster bad guys;

Type A: The big city smashing single monster. Exemplified by Godzilla. They usually lose.

Type B: The insidious you never see it coming type: The Thing or Pod People. They usually win.

You can mix the two in various ways to create something in between.

If it were me I'd opt for less than overwhelming Type B's. Something like the human federation goes to one of the other planets and brings back something bad. The crops fail. Kudzu x 10^9 that grows on anything including you!

Silicone, etherial, liquid lifeforms are also fun alternatives done well.

I prefer that the "other" not be some evil sort that wants nothing but to conqueror the universe. Too obvious. More fun if they want to study you including the occasional disection or, they want pets. The we can manipulate the humans scenario is also fun if you assume the "other" has a British sense of humor (eg., they like Monty Python).

The more the players can't quite figure out what to do and what's going on the better the game is. It keeps them involved with each other and you.

 

[navanod]

Hmmm...how about some type of parasitic organism ala The Puppet Masters? The twist is that they're basically peaceful, and need help from the humans to fight another bigevilbad on the other side of their space.


Inflicting The Thing on players is just evil.:devil: Especially if they've never seen it.

 

[saundby]

Back to the sixties: a generational conflict. Perhaps something new has convinced many of the youngsters to literally rid themselves of the older generation. Or maybe some alien fungus is controlling their minds, like those mind-controlled ants.

 

[Blue Ghost]

But I have to add - jump kraken

Already done. Thank the Japanese;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xZnh7yCqiQ&feature=related