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The Network: Campaign Setting Idea


Super Squirrel

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The Network

12 weeks ago, a total of six thousand pods were shot from an alien craft orbiting modern day Earth. The trigectory of these pods specifically targeted major military institutions in all corners of the globe. The craters from the impact themselves were enough to completely disrupt modern military capabilities. But the pods which all survived impact opened and hostile aliens began attacking and destroying the military forces at these bases. Most island countries are left untouched. Japan and England have but a single pod each to contend with. Shortly after the invasion begins, all satellites are destroyed.

 

11 weeks ago, most military heavy countries in the world have managed to regroup and provide enough force to dramatically slow what is now believed to be a full scale military invasion of Earth. Fortunately for the inhabitants of Earth, the aliens seem limited to ground forces only. The oceans have remained safe from attacks. Air forces, while difficult to use successfully due to the loss of most strategic air bases, also are effective in pushing back alien advances.

 

9 weeks ago, it has become apparent that a wide spread of forces is unsuccessful. China, Russia, and the United States have been forced to give up portions of its soil to the Aliens in order to sustain a force strong enough to defend crucial remaining bases and industrial resources. Due to the lack of alien naval power, the US retreats to its western and eastern coasts, leaving the middle of the United States unprotected. Russia withdraws to its western borders and forms an alliance with all contries with Atlantic Coast line. It will offer naval power and support in exchange for supplies to secure its remaining land.

 

8 weeks ago, the President of the United States issues orders to declare on alien controlled Panama. Large invasion force begins taking control of Panama, giving the United States access to the much needed Panama Canal. The Panama Canal becomes the third most defended location by the United States after its naval shipyard in Groten, Connetticut and the Naval Command Center in Norfolk, Virginia.

 

7 weeks ago, the alliance in Europe strengthens and all countries involved create the the European Network. England, like most smaller island nations, has been left relatively untouched and becomes the central command point for the European Network. The United States, whose West and East coast have been limited to easily jammed radio communication, establishes a communication grid using Submarines.

 

5 weeks ago, the United States extends its underwater communication grid across the Atlantic and contacts a Russian sub. The EN assists the United States in forming a communication chain between all remaining countries. The project is code named: The Network.

 

4 weeks ago, negotiations between the US and the EN conclude. First priority between the nations is to support expanding the Network to contact all countries still in the game. Second priority is to retake coastal lands with access to crucial resources needed. Astronomers who have been monitoring the activity of alien orbital crafts report that the crafts have seem to left orbit.

 

2 weeks ago, French scientists discover that it is possible to send electronic text transmissions overland by creating impedence on alien transmissions. The transmissions are restricted to 10 kilometers. The system is named Voleur Transmissions or VT for short.

 

Last week, a team of US special forces successfully deploy a team within Alien control lines by means of a night time HALO jump. The team begins reporting back the first intelligence of Alien operations beyond the battle zones.

 

Yesterday, the US Special Force team discovers that aliens are relying on high powered transmission relays to establish their communication grid. They propose that it may be possible to redesign chief components in the transmission relays to extend the VT Grid deeper into alien controlled lands.

 

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I'm mostly curious if anyone would find a setting like this interesting and worth playing a campaign in. Players could be anything from Military Personal going on HALO drops to Vigilante/Rebels with communication to The Network by means of the VT Grid.

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Re: The Network: Campaign Setting Idea

 

The Network

12 weeks ago, a total of six thousand pods were shot from an alien craft orbiting modern day Earth. The trigectory of these pods specifically targeted major military institutions in all corners of the globe. The craters from the impact themselves were enough to completely disrupt modern military capabilities. But the pods which all survived impact opened and hostile aliens began attacking and destroying the military forces at these bases. Most island countries are left untouched. Japan and England have but a single pod each to contend with. Shortly after the invasion begins, all satellites are destroyed.

 

11 weeks ago, most military heavy countries in the world have managed to regroup and provide enough force to dramatically slow what is now believed to be a full scale military invasion of Earth. Fortunately for the inhabitants of Earth, the aliens seem limited to ground forces only. The oceans have remained safe from attacks. Air forces, while difficult to use successfully due to the loss of most strategic air bases, also are effective in pushing back alien advances.

 

9 weeks ago, it has become apparent that a wide spread of forces is unsuccessful. China, Russia, and the United States have been forced to give up portions of its soil to the Aliens in order to sustain a force strong enough to defend crucial remaining bases and industrial resources. Due to the lack of alien naval power, the US retreats to its western and eastern coasts, leaving the middle of the United States unprotected. Russia withdraws to its western borders and forms an alliance with all contries with Atlantic Coast line. It will offer naval power and support in exchange for supplies to secure its remaining land.

 

8 weeks ago, the President of the United States issues orders to declare on alien controlled Panama. Large invasion force begins taking control of Panama, giving the United States access to the much needed Panama Canal. The Panama Canal becomes the third most defended location by the United States after its naval shipyard in Groten, Connetticut and the Naval Command Center in Norfolk, Virginia.

 

7 weeks ago, the alliance in Europe strengthens and all countries involved create the the European Network. England, like most smaller island nations, has been left relatively untouched and becomes the central command point for the European Network. The United States, whose West and East coast have been limited to easily jammed radio communication, establishes a communication grid using Submarines.

 

5 weeks ago, the United States extends its underwater communication grid across the Atlantic and contacts a Russian sub. The EN assists the United States in forming a communication chain between all remaining countries. The project is code named: The Network.

 

4 weeks ago, negotiations between the US and the EN conclude. First priority between the nations is to support expanding the Network to contact all countries still in the game. Second priority is to retake coastal lands with access to crucial resources needed. Astronomers who have been monitoring the activity of alien orbital crafts report that the crafts have seem to left orbit.

 

2 weeks ago, French scientists discover that it is possible to send electronic text transmissions overland by creating impedence on alien transmissions. The transmissions are restricted to 10 kilometers. The system is named Voleur Transmissions or VT for short.

 

Last week, a team of US special forces successfully deploy a team within Alien control lines by means of a night time HALO jump. The team begins reporting back the first intelligence of Alien operations beyond the battle zones.

 

Yesterday, the US Special Force team discovers that aliens are relying on high powered transmission relays to establish their communication grid. They propose that it may be possible to redesign chief components in the transmission relays to extend the VT Grid deeper into alien controlled lands.

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------

 

I'm mostly curious if anyone would find a setting like this interesting and worth playing a campaign in. Players could be anything from Military Personal going on HALO drops to Vigilante/Rebels with communication to The Network by means of the VT Grid.

 

I would find it interesting, but I would love to play the "normal guy in the wrong place" rebel. Some small arms, no high tech weapons or body armor. No high end training. It would be interesting to see what info/sabatage you could do. Maybe 25+25 characters with limited equipment.

Aliens??? What are they like biologically (I have many hours of graduate level biochemistry)??? How do they think? What do they want?

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Re: The Network: Campaign Setting Idea

 

I would find it interesting, but I would love to play the "normal guy in the wrong place" rebel. Some small arms, no high tech weapons or body armor. No high end training. It would be interesting to see what info/sabatage you could do. Maybe 25+25 characters with limited equipment.

Aliens??? What are they like biologically (I have many hours of graduate level biochemistry)??? How do they think? What do they want?

I was thinking that ground forces have been mostly in some sort of protective suit / body armor and that early advancements were planned to prevent fallen alien soldiers from being recovered by their enemies. Thus information on them would be limited or restricted as GM access only. Though enough intelligence would be known that it is known they are biological and would know what the aliens look like outside of their body armor.

 

Perhaps a good early adventure could be capturing an alien alive or dead.

 

The idea is from the original X-Com games. The problem with the X-Com games (at least from the alien perspective) is that that they come in and scout first. So by the time you have the powerful alien attack ships you already have alien technology. This would be a campaign world where taking back the planet from the alien invaders would take a very long time, if possible at all.

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Re: The Network: Campaign Setting Idea

 

Actually, I'm just talking about making the campaign setting. I host Aldaric Gaming, and I'm probing interest for the next Campaing Setting to add in. I wanted to do a Dark Champions feel campaign next and was trying to find out if this idea would be popular enough to be used.

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Re: The Network: Campaign Setting Idea

 

Actually' date=' I'm just talking about making the campaign setting. I host Aldaric Gaming, and I'm probing interest for the next Campaing Setting to add in. I wanted to do a Dark Champions feel campaign next and was trying to find out if this idea would be popular enough to be used.[/quote']

Aldaric Gaming? On-line? I am interesting in playing in the game.

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Re: The Network: Campaign Setting Idea

 

Kinda has a John Ringo (author) feel to it. While that's not normally my preferred genre, there is something appealing about the whole thing. Kinda like 'Red Dawn' with aliens instead of Cubans and Russians. Yeah, I could see it...

 

Definitely an interesting and workable idea.

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Re: The Network: Campaign Setting Idea

 

SS, it sounds fine, and is well presented...but (and don't take this personally) there's nothing really new here in this scenario to make me sit up and take interest. I'm sure you'll come up with a tonne of stuff if/when you actually run it, but this seems more like a teaser or setting seed than an actual setting so it's hard to judge it either way.

 

Rob

 

P.S. Althought it does make me think fondly of an anime series from my childhood called "Thundersub" in English, about aliens conquering the land and the final battle on the sea.

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Re: The Network: Campaign Setting Idea

 

Kinda has a John Ringo (author) feel to it. While that's not normally my preferred genre, there is something appealing about the whole thing. Kinda like 'Red Dawn' with aliens instead of Cubans and Russians. Yeah, I could see it...

 

Definitely an interesting and workable idea.

Yeah, I was looking at my DVD shelf yesterday and saw Red Dawn and realized it was a very similar.

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Re: The Network: Campaign Setting Idea

 

SS, it sounds fine, and is well presented...but (and don't take this personally) there's nothing really new here in this scenario to make me sit up and take interest. I'm sure you'll come up with a tonne of stuff if/when you actually run it, but this seems more like a teaser or setting seed than an actual setting so it's hard to judge it either way.

 

Rob

 

P.S. Althought it does make me think fondly of an anime series from my childhood called "Thundersub" in English, about aliens conquering the land and the final battle on the sea.

Nothing new. Interesting. I'll have to reflect on that and see if I can come up with something. If you have any ideas yourself, I'd love to hear it.

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Re: The Network: Campaign Setting Idea

 

Nothing new. Interesting. I'll have to reflect on that and see if I can come up with something. If you have any ideas yourself' date=' I'd love to hear it.[/quote']

 

Alien Invasion stories are a dime a dozen, and have been since Wells wrote War of the Worlds. Hollywood can recycle the same old stuff because they just keep doing it again with modern special effects for the period. But, if you want to do one in print or gaming, you need to spice it up a little.

 

Generally, I see two ways to "spice it up", either you present a good twist on the aliens, or a twist on the situation. Most authors tend to put a spin on the aliens (ie their goals (they want water), their biochemistry (they're plants who grow inside dead dogs), their society (hive mind vs free will), their technology(ultratech? just above ours? biotech? Mecha?, etc)) since that's often the most interesting to the writer.

 

Occasionally, you'll see versions where the twist is on the scenario the characters find themselves in (ie they're trying to assemble the anti-alien nanite device to kill the alien weeds from sigma six that have infested the midwest but it's scattered over 6 labs across the midwestern US! Or maybe the PCs were superheros before the invasion, or supervillians who were in prison during the invasion...Hmm..that could be cool, all the heros are dead, and the grand supervillian prison's population is humanity's last hope...) but generally there needs to be a tweak that makes the story unique.

 

Saying "aliens show up and we need to fight back!" isn't gonna cut it unless your players already know you're the type who will provide them with a good story no matter what. (And even then, it makes it hard for them to make characters...)

 

Rob

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Re: The Network: Campaign Setting Idea

 

The campaign premise seems good enough, you should spend more time on developing cool aliens, the command structure of the players is just background material.

More about aliens! How do they fight, how do they live, what do they want, and what do they want?

Off course way you gm it is more important than the actual premise look at the premise for signs or the premise for battlefield earth (the aliens not the rest). Think about how you are going to let the players experience the alien presence.

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Re: The Network: Campaign Setting Idea

 

Thanks.

 

So far I've been thinking of a way to make the aliens different enough that it isn't some common, overused cliche. Probably because I'm currently reading Stranger in a Strange Land, I am toying with the notion of Aliens existing on four planes of existance and thus their weapons are forth dimensional. But how to depict that, physicly, I am not sure.

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Re: The Network: Campaign Setting Idea

 

Some questions to answer as a GM, and some answers provided by other authors:

 

A big question is why are they here (Compatible biospheres are rare? This used to be their home? Some other bizarre astrophysical reason why our planet is valuable, like it sits at a wormhole junction or something, and they want a base of operations? Complete accident, they've invaded the wrong place?). Keep in mind that just about any physical resource would be easier to extract from the asteroid belt, or at least another planet without vicious talking apes on it.

 

Another is why did they land troops first, as opposed to, say, dropping big rocks on all our important cities, etc (They need our biosphere intact, and didn't want to risk an ice-age? They didn't expect us to be here when they came home, and didn't bring big weapons? Some other political force in the cosmos would retaliate if they wiped out an indigenous intelligence? Planet based defenses are so advanced in their tech that 'boarding' is the only real option for warfare?).

 

A third is why did the ships leave the troops here (The ship engines would eventually warp and degrade the planet's magnetosphere, letting in lethal radiation that would spoil the precious biology? They went to get some reinforcements; they never expected to have to fight, and these troops aren't soldiers so much as outraged explorers returning to an infested home? What they're doing is illegal, and jump-ships orbiting a low-tech world would be a dead giveaway? They expected to have advanced tech resources to plunder to fuel their ships, but without that, they're restricted to 'in-system' drives and hydrogen scooping - they're all out by Jupiter until the troops can build a refueling depot?)

 

Answers to questions like these will greatly inform the overarching plotline of the game, but not necessarily the game to game stuff - you're still plugging aliens on Main Street. In fact, you can have the accepted theory be totally wrong from the real one, and have the heroes be ostracized for advancing a rival (correct) theory. For instance, if the President thinks they just want to share our ecology, but they really are pirates setting up a base, then his proposed peace initiative (we can share Gaea's bounty) is useless or worse, etc.

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Re: The Network: Campaign Setting Idea

 

Some questions to answer as a GM, and some answers provided by other authors:

 

A big question is why are they here (Compatible biospheres are rare? This used to be their home? Some other bizarre astrophysical reason why our planet is valuable, like it sits at a wormhole junction or something, and they want a base of operations? Complete accident, they've invaded the wrong place?). Keep in mind that just about any physical resource would be easier to extract from the asteroid belt, or at least another planet without vicious talking apes on it.

I would say that the simplest answer is the best. They are here because we have oxygen that they can breath without terraforming a planet and that we have man power to provide physical labor.

 

Another is why did they land troops first, as opposed to, say, dropping big rocks on all our important cities, etc (They need our biosphere intact, and didn't want to risk an ice-age? They didn't expect us to be here when they came home, and didn't bring big weapons? Some other political force in the cosmos would retaliate if they wiped out an indigenous intelligence? Planet based defenses are so advanced in their tech that 'boarding' is the only real option for warfare?).
Because the troop drops acted as rocks and they could immediately move into action and secure key military locations. After securing the key locations, establishing control over unprotected settlements is easy.

 

A third is why did the ships leave the troops here (The ship engines would eventually warp and degrade the planet's magnetosphere, letting in lethal radiation that would spoil the precious biology? They went to get some reinforcements; they never expected to have to fight, and these troops aren't soldiers so much as outraged explorers returning to an infested home? What they're doing is illegal, and jump-ships orbiting a low-tech world would be a dead giveaway? They expected to have advanced tech resources to plunder to fuel their ships, but without that, they're restricted to 'in-system' drives and hydrogen scooping - they're all out by Jupiter until the troops can build a refueling depot?)
Psychological Limitation: Overconfidence

 

Answers to questions like these will greatly inform the overarching plotline of the game, but not necessarily the game to game stuff - you're still plugging aliens on Main Street. In fact, you can have the accepted theory be totally wrong from the real one, and have the heroes be ostracized for advancing a rival (correct) theory. For instance, if the President thinks they just want to share our ecology, but they really are pirates setting up a base, then his proposed peace initiative (we can share Gaea's bounty) is useless or worse, etc.
I'll probably make a section for The Network with these questions and Theories on them with a section for GMs only for "The Truth".
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