How to Overthrow the Alien Overlords: Reboot

[dbsousa]

I loved this original thread, before it got all NGD.

 

Can we start again?

 

I like the idea of multiple species that have prejudices against each other that the humans can exploit.

 

In my version, the Psychic race is most sympathetic to the Earthlings, and is working to subvert the Brute race. The Green race sees the others as guinea pigs in their next medical experiment, and the Honorable race sees the others as barbarians with useful skills.

 

What other weaknesses would the aliens have to exploit?

[Basil]

Re: How to Overthrow the Alien Overlords: Reboot

 

Thanks for the reboot.

 

To follow up on a post from before the flamefest started....

Edit -- plus, if the 4 billion or so died by orbital plasma bombardment, no corpses -- just ash.

A plasma weapon is kewl,

A plasma weapon is neet,

In the atmosphere its range

Is just a couple of feet.

 

Any plasma beam/bomb in a gas like Earth's atmosphere loses energy to the gas so rapidly it's no use. And past a certain point the more power put into it, the shorter the range.

 

Not to mention that pumping that much energy in the atmosphere is going to have significant effects on the climate.

[Basil]

Re: How to Overthrow the Alien Overlords: Reboot

 

Another post from before the flamefest I want to repond to:

 

Although dead Humans would probably make good fertilizer for the fields' date='[/quote']

Oh {blank} no! You do not want to do that; any disease the deceased had (including ones s/he was a "carrier" for) will land up in the soil. From there, the germs may be taken up by the plants, and enter the food supply. Not a good idea, to put it mildly.

 

they wouldn't get much work done planting or harvesting the crops needed to support the alien armada.

 

Therefore since it is necessary to keep the slaves alive; the conquerors MUST expend resources in this area.

But do they have the resources? Can they handle burying 4,000,000,000 bodies in the few months of the invasion? Can they be buried in such a way to be sure there wil be no pollution of the air or of the ground water (the latter being the hardest to do, and the most necessary). Can the aliens construct concrete liners, or other waterproof "vaults" for that many corpses?

 

And burning them is not a solution. That would require immense amounts of fuel, to make sure the burning was complete, and it would cause lots of air pollution. And there's the chance (small, but existant) of disease organisms surviving the fire---at least enough to spread with the smoke.

 

Don't forget, all those bodies have to be gathered, transported, and stored until they can be disposed of. Which gives plenty of time for rot to set in and disease therefrom. Not to mention you're now moving the loci of infection around, widening the chance for exposure.

 

No, the problems will be far too much for a ragtag piece of an army to deal with, while they're also trying to maintain their equipment and bodge together the infrastructure they need to survive. In the scenario as given, the aliens will just write off the human race, and leave it to sink or swim on their own.

 

Because if they've got the technology to zip around space and exterminate sapient races, they've got agricultural tech that would make Earth's best look like an Erector Set. Including AI's that will handle food production from start to finish with no need for "people" (aliens or humans) getting involved at all.

 

In my own campaign' date=' one race with matrix (ie: psionic) ability is the Zen Rigellians. They are a race of healers, their medical science surpasses all other races in the alien Alliance. Though I'm sure they and the rest of the personnel in the fleet's Medical Corp (they're not ALL Zen's) would be pulled into other duties from time to time, it would seem the only major ongoing medical task they have is care and feeding of the animals (Humans). My thought was that, given their medical technology, they could probably vaccinate the lot of them through additives the food. Do they have the resources to do so? Dunno, what else are those medical frigates doing?[/quote']

I'm sorry, but unless they are literally GODS the sheer size of the problem will defeat them.

 

That, or they grab a few thousand humans right after (or during) the invasion, take them to (oh say) the moon, set them up in a self-sustaining colony, and let them stay there until all the pandemics on Earth run their courses and all pockets of the diseases die off for lack of hosts (i.e., after all humans on Earth are dead), then take them back to Earth. And that wait will be counted in generations.

 

BTW, it's quite likely in such a scenario that some of the pandemics reappear, having either found non-human carrier (i.e. unaffected) hosts, or "hibernated" in the soil as spores and such.

[Chuckg]

Re: How to Overthrow the Alien Overlords: Reboot

 

To follow up on a post from before the flamefest started....

 

A plasma weapon is kewl,

A plasma weapon is neet,

In the atmosphere its range

Is just a couple of feet.

 

In a realistic hard-SF campaign, yes. However, in-atmosphere plasma guns are a long-established genre trope, and a *moderate* amount of rubber science doesn't harm most SF campaigns. The real trick for a DM is in knowing when to stop.

[Manic Typist]

Re: How to Overthrow the Alien Overlords: Reboot

 

Why can't some of the aliens just eat the dead bodies?

 

What?

[dbcowboy]

Re: How to Overthrow the Alien Overlords: Reboot

 

Here's a link to the list of BattleLords races.

 

Races

 

I expect to definitely use the Eridani, Mazian, Phentari, Python Lizards and Zen Riglen.

 

Those Phentari would be good because they hate the Eridani and like the taste of Humans (interesting position if they ended up being the ones the Resistance had to ally with).

 

Chatilians in small doses since they're telepathic and could make it too difficult on a hidden resistance movement.

 

Mutzachans in small doses, since there're aren't many to begin with. Won't be any near the power level to generate Matricies as high as Space Fold (Lord, what would the point cost for that be in HERO?).

 

Ram Pythons are a very popular race but I don't think I need both them and the Python Lizards. Again, maybe in small doses.

 

Cizeracks are okay but in the end they're just big cats and not as exotic as I'd prefer. We'll see.

 

Most of the other races I'm just not fond of and some are down right silly. I think the above would be more than enough to keep me busy. While it will be work to convert all these, hopefully they'll be new to the players and BL actually has some rich racial histories and descriptions in the rule books. Hopefully borrowing from that will save me time to work on other areas of the campaign.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: How to Overthrow the Alien Overlords: Reboot

 

Chatilians in small doses since they're telepathic and could make it too difficult on a hidden resistance movement.

 

Don't remember if I mentioned this in the other thread or not, but you could always just have their telepathy not work on humans.

 

Could also be part of a misunderstanding that leads to the initial attack. Alien leaders propose open talks with Earth leaders for the resources they need. Like all civilized races, they open the exchange with open telepathic contact to demostrate their good will.

 

"Commander - nothing's getting through - the Earthlings must be shielding their thoughts somehow!"

 

"It's a trap! They must be plotting some manner of treachery! Open fire!"

 

And no coming back from that, even after the aliens eventually learned that it's just some fluke in humanity's psychic makeup and wasn't a deliberate attempt at deception.

[bigdamnhero]

Re: How to Overthrow the Alien Overlords: Reboot

 

[Raises hand and swears to play nice]

 

Actually, you might be able to make Basil's points about disease work for you (with a minimum of rubber science). Maybe the aliens didn't PLAN on wiping out the human race; they wanted us and our civilization relatively intact because they needed us and our resources to rebuild from the disaster/defeat that led them here in the first place. But humanity fought back harder than expected and the aliens had to kill, say, a billion people before the fight was over. Neither victor nor vanquished could handle that many dead bodies in a timely manner, so the pandemics broke out and wiped out another few billion. 5 years later, the only humans left alive are those who turn out to be genetically immune to the major diseases. (Insert handwavium here to determine how many are left.) Meanwhile, without our "help" the aliens' position has also deteriorated so they are much weaker than it was 5 years ago. Maybe they haven't been able to repair/maintain all their tech? Maybe some of the diseases have even jumped species and infected the aliens, depending on how similar their pysiology is?

 

 

bigdamnhero

[Karmakaze]

Re: How to Overthrow the Alien Overlords: Reboot

 

OK, I'll bring this over from my last post over there:

Speaking of mass deaths, the early portrayals in Y - the last man (http://www.dccomics.com/features/Ylastman/) was interesting in that vein. (In that case it's not aliens but some yet-to-be-determined effect that left almost everything with a Y chomosome dead. Our hero and his pet monkey are just about the only exception...) I have some issues in that I think the damage to the biosphere would have been greater than portrayed, but otherwise it's a pretty interesting apocalyptic scenereo.

 

Also (as also prev. mentioned), the current post-Apocalyptic game I am in handled the "undefeatable" aliens by having Earths defenders' failure be only a near failure. Earth fell, but most of the invader's resources were destroyed as well, so they really only hold a few enclaves on the planet. The aliens were slavers - they would find a suitable planet, trigger a world war before they were detected, and then mop up the planetary resources and enslave the survivors. In Earth's case, they just didn't properly calculate for the metahuman population. Among other things, many of the alien slaves were freed and are just about as hosed off with the invaders as humanity is, which provided some allies, and also knowledge about the invaders modus operandi and technology.

[Manic Typist]

Re: How to Overthrow the Alien Overlords: Reboot

 

Some really good ideas are starting to emerge...

[Chuckg]

Re: How to Overthrow the Alien Overlords: Reboot

 

Could also be part of a misunderstanding that leads to the initial attack. Alien leaders propose open talks with Earth leaders for the resources they need. Like all civilized races, they open the exchange with open telepathic contact to demostrate their good will.

 

"Commander - nothing's getting through - the Earthlings must be shielding their thoughts somehow!"

 

"It's a trap! They must be plotting some manner of treachery! Open fire!"

 

They have never, in the entire history of their species, ever met or even conceived of the hypothetical possibility of a sentient non-telepathic race? That stretches disbelief majorly.

 

A general point is that any species intelligent enough to figure out that the secret is to bang the rocks together is either:

 

1) relatively civilized enough that war is something they don't happily leap into the instant some little thing first goes wrong, but instead wait for something remotely resembling an actual /casus belli/

 

or:

 

2) barbaric idjits

 

Now, you can have your aliens be 2) if you want, but I thought we were trying to get *away* from the camp SF 'Genghis Khan with spaceships' alien invaders.

 

I mean, seriously, even if they *haven't* ever found the idea of the mind-blind before, you have your aliens jumping straight from 'they might possibly be betraying us!' to 'KILL THEM ALL!' without even taking a nanosecond to stop at 'OK, people, stay on your toes!'

 

Nope, at the first suspicion of anything wrong, they just up and cut loose with the nuking. No presumption of innocence, no nothing -- straight from 'something is wrong' to 'genocide!' with no hesitation.

 

They *supposed* to be psycho? If so, then go for it. If not, then see argument above.

[Chuckg]

Re: How to Overthrow the Alien Overlords: Reboot

 

I mean, wouldn't it be more reasonable if they went:

 

"In our culture, it is considered a sign of good faith to open one's mind to another. We have attempted to do so to you, only to have our contact efforts rebuffed and you concentrate upon shielding your own thoughts and not even acknowledging our efforts to share our own. We *strongly request* that you explain why you have chosen to open these negotiations with such a gross insult!"

 

"... ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh, you're NON-TELEPATHIC. Boy, are our faces red! Sorry!"

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: How to Overthrow the Alien Overlords: Reboot

 

They have never, in the entire history of their species, ever met or even conceived of the hypothetical possibility of a sentient non-telepathic race? That stretches disbelief majorly.

 

A general point is that any species intelligent enough to figure out that the secret is bang the rocks together is either:

 

1) relatively civilized enough that war is something they don't happily leap into the instant something first goes wrong, but instead wait for something remotely resembling an actual /casus belli/

 

or:

 

2) barbaric idjits

 

Now, you can have your aliens be 2) if you want, but I thought we were trying to get *away* from the camp SF 'Genghis Khan with spaceships' alien invaders.

 

I mean, seriously, even if they *haven't* ever found the idea of the mind-blind before, you have your aliens jumping straight from 'they might possibly be betraying us!' to 'KILL THEM ALL!' without even taking a nanosecond to stop at 'OK, people, stay on your toes!'

 

Nope, at the first suspicion of anything wrong, they just up and cut loose with the nuking. No presumption of innocence, no nothing -- straight from 'something is wrong' to 'genocide!' with no hesitation.

 

They *supposed* to be psycho? If so, then go for it. If not, then see argument above.

 

Or, after millenia of ruling a multi-galaxy empire and being extremely out of practice in dealing with low-tech, single-species non-spacefaring races, they make a mistake or misinterpret something.

 

And certainly after just having come from a disastrous rout that resulted in them having to destroy one-ninth of their empire JUST TO SLOW THE INVADERS DOWN, they might be a tad jumpy.

 

If the US had to nuke say, New England or the Pacific Northwest in order to have a chance at slowing an invader down, I imagine we'd be a tad touchy in the immediate aftermath too.

 

But no, of course, that would stretch disbelief majorly.

 

Certainly, we never have any trouble here on Earth within our own species with any cultural snafus or misunderstandings, like something as silly as getting mobs together to attack another nation's embassy because of a cartoon.

 

Perish the thought.

 

And certainly, a two-line throwout to help spark an idea must be taken as a fully detailed campaign background, and therefore must be vigorously attacked due to so horrendously offending someone's sensibilities. Riiiiggghht.

 

Here's another thought - have fun with it. "The reason the aliens attack is: they hate cheese and any cheese-producing or consuming societies are an abomination on the face of the universe."

[Kristopher]

Re: How to Overthrow the Alien Overlords: Reboot

 

Wasn't reading the other thread, so I'm not certain how the discussion of disease got started, but something to keep in mind:

 

For the most part, disease-causing organisms have to evolve to invade their victims as much as their victims have to then develop immunity to those organisms. A random virus, or bacteria, or protozoan parasite, can't simply infect any being it runs into automatically.

[Chuckg]

Re: How to Overthrow the Alien Overlords: Reboot

 

> Or, after millenia of ruling a multi-galaxy empire and being extremely

> out of practice in dealing with low-tech, single-species non-spacefaring

> races, they make a mistake or misinterpret something.

 

Only if you're running a totally campy game. Now that you've established them as having run a multi-galaxy empire, you just established that they are an extremely cosmopolitan, long-lived race.

 

I.e. -- the odds of them being unable to grasp the concept of non-telepathic sentients is nil, because unless humanity is the only non-telepathic species in multiple galaxies, they'll have *met* prior "mind-blind" civilizations by now.

 

Edit -- actually, didn't dblsousa say, in his setting material, that his telepathic aliens were allies with several non-telepathic species? There, they've already run into the phenomenon.

 

> And certainly after just having come from a disastrous rout that

> resulted in them having to destroy one-ninth of their empire JUST TO

> SLOW THE INVADERS DOWN, they might be a tad jumpy.

 

Yes, jumpy of this planet of primitives that don't even have warp drive or FTL radio. Mmm hmmm.

 

BTW, now that you've written that Invaders are on the way that required the destruction of one-ninth of a *multiple galaxy star empire* just to slow down, you know what? The entire game is pointless.

 

Literally, what's the point of saving Earth? The Invaders are coming. A force of destruction that a multi-galaxy star empire can't even begin to slow down. When they get here, what do *we* do?

 

You just put a threat on the game board (even if waaaaaaaaay off to the side) that makes *Galactus* look puny. At this point, everything else is totally screwed, unless you literally leave an Infinity Gauntlet lying around for humanity to pick up. The players are fighting to beat the alien threat so that in the few years' span of time we have left between Liberation Day and the arrival of The Horror From Beyond, we'll be celebrating those few years without aliens occupying are real estate.

 

Hrm... you know, if the entire galaxy's going to be destroyed anyway, I think I'll just concentrate my last few years of life on making my peace with myself and God, not in fighting another war that has no real point. Even a valiant gesture of defiance only works if you've got something to be valiant *for*.

 

> If the US had to nuke say, New England or the Pacific Northwest in

> order to have a chance at slowing an invader down, I imagine we'd be

> a tad touchy in the immediate aftermath too.

 

> But no, of course, that would stretch disbelief majorly.

 

Absolutely.

 

> Certainly, we never have any trouble here on Earth within our own

> species with any cultural snafus or misunderstandings, like something

> as silly as getting mobs together to attack another nation's embassy

> because of a cartoon.

 

Certainly, the analogy between a few thousand rioters in a street and attempted planetary genocide is exact and carries over very well. Furthermore, a military expeditionary force from a civilization so old and so advanced that it actually had a functioning multi-GALACTIC star empire compares both in experience, temperament, and intellectual ability to Islamic fundamentalist rioters.

 

/sarcasm off

 

Some things don't scale up too good when analogizing. This is one of them.

 

We are talking about here about attempted planetary sterilization. Try to, when making analogies to something like this, have the analogy involve the actual use of a nuclear weapon.

 

You cannot substantiate your point merely by reminding us that idiots exist in the universe. Idiots exist anywhere and everywhere. You also have to make it plausible that these idiots could be in charge of so much, and have come so far, and achieve such great things... and still be complete idiots.

 

[snip]

> And certainly, a two-line throwout to help spark an idea must be taken

> as a fully detailed campaign background, and therefore must be

> vigorously attacked

 

Oh, for cryin' out loud. Why the hell must everybody immediately scream about how they're being so 'attacked' simply because somebody points out that their idea had a gaping plot hole in it? Here's a hint -- you want people to not point out that your idea has gaping plot holes, don't write any ideas that have gaping plot holes.

 

Your reasoning is not magically exempt from being examined logically, and you can't try to claim personal offense to fool me into believing that it is.

 

[snip]

> Here's another thought - have fun with it. "The reason the aliens

> attack is: they hate cheese and any cheese-producing or consuming

> societies are an abomination on the face of the universe."

 

How many times have I said this or some variation of this?

 

"My logical objections apply only to serious games. If you want campy silver age whacky, then go for it."

 

Answer: Counting both threads, approaching half a dozen.

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: How to Overthrow the Alien Overlords: Reboot

 

BTW, now that you've written that Invaders are on the way that required the destruction of one-ninth of a *multiple galaxy star empire* just to slow down, you know what? The entire game is pointless.

 

Literally, what's the point of saving Earth? The Invaders are coming. A force of destruction that a multi-galaxy star empire can't even begin to slow down. When they get here, what do *we* do?

 

You just put a threat on the game board (even if waaaaaaaaay off to the side) that makes *Galactus* look puny. At this point, everything else is merely delaying the inevitable, unless you literally leave an Infinity Gauntlet lying around for humanity to pick up.

 

Actually, I'm just pulling that from the original GM's description. Bring it up with him.

 

> If the US had to nuke say, New England or the Pacific Northwest in

> order to have a chance at slowing an invader down, I imagine we'd be

> a tad touchy in the immediate aftermath too.

 

> But no, of course, that would stretch disbelief majorly.

 

Absolutely.

 

 

Riiiiggght.

 

> And certainly, a two-line throwout to help spark an idea must be taken

> as a fully detailed campaign background, and therefore must be

> vigorously attacked

 

Oh, for cryin' out loud. Why the hell must everybody immediately scream about how they're being so 'attacked' simply because somebody points out that their idea had a gaping plot hole in it? Here's a hint -- you want people to not point out that your idea has gaping plot holes, don't write any ideas that have gaping plot holes.

 

Your reasoning is not magically exempt from being examined logically, and you can't try to claim personal offense to fool me into believing that it is.

 

Please show me how saying that the idea was being attacked, I claimed I was being attacked personally? Without resorting to "that's how other people meant it in the past"? No, wait, don't - I don't care. Instead I will close in response to your comments:

 

This argument presupposes that I am morally required to place your enjoyment at a higher priority than my own. Which, last time I checked, I'm not.

 

Insert "concerns", "priorities", etc. in place of "enjoyment" as necessary.

[Chuckg]

Re: How to Overthrow the Alien Overlords: Reboot

 

I notice you've completely abandoned actually talking about the ideas in question.

 

Probably because there really is no way to defend them.

 

Oh, and if the original author wrote that into his scenario, then I strongly suggest he write it back out, unless 'an exploration into complete futility and existential despair' was his objective. Anything that can so overmatch *them* won't even regard *us* as a light snack, and there really isn't much of a way around that.

[Kristopher]

Re: How to Overthrow the Alien Overlords: Reboot

 

It's possible that this is the first species they've encountered that they can't contact telepathically, even though it's not the first non-telepathic race.

 

**shrug**

 

Just thinking out loud...

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: How to Overthrow the Alien Overlords: Reboot

 

It's possible that this is the first species they've encountered that they can't contact telepathically, even though it's not the first non-telepathic race.

 

**shrug**

 

Just thinking out loud...

 

No, that would involve actually reading the original idea.

[Kristopher]

Re: How to Overthrow the Alien Overlords: Reboot

 

No' date=' that would involve actually reading the original idea.[/quote']

 

 

I haven't read the original idea.

 

From what I've pieced together here, I honestly don't know if I'd buy it as a rationale for invasion/bombardment.

 

I was just thinking out loud...

 

 

Not getting involved in the disagreement.

[Metaphysician]

Re: How to Overthrow the Alien Overlords: Reboot

 

I think the problem, here and elsewhere, is people misestimating how powerful a space opera civilization, and its navy, is.

 

Imagine a tribe of Aborigines. Now, put them next to a complete US Navy Carrier Battle Group plus Marine Expeditionary Unit.

 

Thats a good parallel for "Earth vs Interstellar Civilization."

 

Now, granted, if your talking about a supers setting, then ( to extend the metaphor ) a couple of those Aborigines can bounce bullets, outfly F-18s, and maybe even blow the carrier up. But, the point is, the power level of a starfleet needs to be accurately judged to figure out whether Earth, even Supers Earth, stands a reasonable chance. And if they don't, then the enemy needs adjustment.

[Chuckg]

Re: How to Overthrow the Alien Overlords: Reboot

 

It's possible that this is the first species they've encountered that they can't contact telepathically' date=' even though it's not the first non-telepathic race.[/quote']

 

And this alone makes them jump straight to kill kill kill? Kinda lacking an intervening step here again... and again, you're writing them as psychos.

 

And if you want 'em to be psycho, why not skip the telepathic mistake part entirely and just have them shoot first? Why do it this way instead? So that two-thirds of humanity can be sentenced to death for the crime of lacking telepathic elements for their gene pool? This improves the story, either tone-wise or suspension-of-disbelief-wise, in any way how?

[Supreme Serpent]

Re: How to Overthrow the Alien Overlords: Reboot

 

I haven't read the original idea.

 

 

Not getting involved in the disagreement.

 

Wasn't referring to you, good sir. Your comments are actually spot-on with what was originally posted:

 

Don't remember if I mentioned this in the other thread or not, but you could always just have their telepathy not work on humans.

 

...the aliens eventually learned that it's just some fluke in humanity's psychic makeup and wasn't a deliberate attempt at deception.

[Kristopher]

Re: How to Overthrow the Alien Overlords: Reboot

 

And this alone makes them jump straight to kill kill kill? Kinda lacking an intervening step here again... and again, you're writing them as psychos.

 

And if you want 'em to be psycho, why not skip the telepathic mistake part entirely and just have them shoot first? Why do it this way instead? So that two-thirds of humanity can be sentenced to death for the crime of lacking telepathic elements for their gene pool? This improves the story, either tone-wise or suspension-of-disbelief-wise, in any way how?

 

I was just thinking out loud. I am not taking sides in this disagreement, just throwing out an idea that had a slim chance of forming the basis for discussing the differences.

 

My bad.

[Chuckg]

Re: How to Overthrow the Alien Overlords: Reboot

 

It is not a personal disagreement. It is not a contest. It is an effort to find a workable scenario, by peer review -- meaning that non-workable scenarios which are posted get logically examined in detail and noted for flaws. These flaws are then rewritten around and revised scenarios are posted. Then the revised scenarios are themselves rigorously examined and tested for weak points. Repeat step A long enough, and at last, a fully workable idea -- or sevearl -- will be achieved. Think of it like debugging code, if that helps.

 

However, this process cannot work if the meme gets passed around that we're *not* allowed to do our very best to find, and point out, whatever plot holes might exist, but must instead smile and nod and applaud mediocre efforts because to do otherwise would be uncivil or something.

 

OTOH, if people want to keep acting like it's a contest, and personally invest themselves to the point that they cannot separate the logical dissection of their argument from their own hurt feelings or personal pride, then this thread is screwed.