ErikModi
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Campaign Idea: Return to LV-426

Fri 10 Dec 2021, 07:10

So, one of my favorite bits in Alien EU is from the first story of the Bug Hunt anthology, Chance Encounter, where the crew of a ship on a biological survey happens to see some Xenomorphs. Having no idea what they are, they report a description of these "Leapers" to the Company, who asks them to try and get some samples. . . but warns them not to take any unnecessary risks to do so. The Captain even comments, "It makes me nervous when even the Company is concerned about what they might be sending us into."

If you take only the first two films into account, signs point to the diversion of the Nostromo being just some executive wanting a look at something potentially interesting. When the ship vanished as result, whoever this was burned the files and never looked back. Leading to no one in the Company in Aliens believing Ripley about what happened, and in that film, Burke is explicitly acting entirely on his own ("There's no exclusive rights for anybody!") It's really only in the third film that the Company is portrayed as unambiguously villainous, out to get the Alien at all costs. The more I think about it, the more it seems odd that Weyland-Yutani goes from "We don't believe you so hard you're grounded" to "It's a magnificent specimen!" between Aliens and Alien 3. Combined with other weirdnesses in that film, it's easy to see why a lot of fans like to call it Ripley's hypersleep nightmare.

(For the record, taking it's production troubles into account, I think Alien 3 is an astonishingly good film, I just wonder what might have been if Fox hadn't set a release date without having a writer, director, script, or even concept, and instead waited for the right combination of elements to make a film that wanted to be made, not one the executives decided needed to be made.)

Because, let's be honest. . . thanks to Ellen "It's The Only Way To Be Sure" Ripley, there's no physical evidence or hard data available on these creatures by the end of the second film. No specimens (living or dead), no detailed analysis of remains (Ash's facehugger studies were blown up with the Nostromo, Bishop probably wasn't able to salvage his data before Hadley's Hope went blewie), no camera recordings (Nostromo's recording equipment was mostly down per dialogue in both films, the Marines' helmet cam footage probably went with the APC and dropship), nothing at all to convince Weyland-Yutani how truly dangerous these Xenomorphs are.

But what if, starting at about LV-426, humanity is entering an area of space where the Xenomorphs are more common? What if more ships, expedition groups, or even colonies are lost to them? What if, bit by bit, pieces start trickling in that start forming the truly ugly picture? What does Weyland-Yutani do then?

Instead of seeing a goldmine of biotechnology research, they see an existential threat to humanity. . . and worse, an existential threat to their profits. Their first encounter cost them a very expensive starship and its payload, the second a colony complex and atmosphere processor, as well as costing the UA a platoon of Marines and raising tensions among already tense governmental and corporate superpowers. How much else did they lose in starting to get the picture?

Rather than attempt to arrange a blundering into an Alien specimen to bring back to the bioweapons division, an investiture of funds and infrastructure is called for. LV-426 is the perfect place. The terraforming process was mostly finished, it still has a breathable atmosphere, just plunk down a new atmosphere processor to finish and maintain as needed. Then start building the biggest, most heavily-fortified research base in history. Invite the Colonial Marines to take up security, and the UA to send their own scientists to assist. Of course, offer the same arrangement to the 3WE. Maybe even invite the UPP to join if they want (though probably expecting their response of "No thank you, capitalist pigs"). Maybe even invite representatives of competing corporations, as show of how serious this new threat is. The goal would be the same: to capture and study a Xenomorph specimen, but not for bioweapons potential, to learn how to effectively exterminate them.

Not sure precisely how secret this base would be. . . if it would be tippy top secret, it's known to exist but you need the right clearance to know where, or what. Regardless, the place would soon become a magnet for spies. Every organization that wasn't invited to the party (and probably most of the ones who were, come to think of it) would try to get spies into this facility. Could lead to every major character being a spy for some other group, leading us into what TV Tropes calls a Flock of Wolves, which could be fun.

And nearly any kind of player character could fit in. Marines for security. A robust collection of scientists. Officers and administrators for the soldiers and civilians. Corporate representatives of a few different persuasions. Medical staff. And, of course, the "oily rags" who bust their asses making sure all this fancy hi-tech crap actually works. A way to get an interesting assortment of characters who wouldn't normally interact closely all working together.

I would be tempted to start things as the facility is close to, but not fully operational. The last few personnel are trickling in, the final sections of the base are being brought online, biological containment protocols are being tested and drilled. But in a few weeks, maybe a month or two, they'll be ready to head out and look for a specimen.

The Derelict would be the logical place to start. Maybe it survived the destruction of Hadley's Hope completely intact. Maybe it's damaged, or partially or fully buried. Maybe it survived but its cargo did not. Either way, could make an interesting few sessions, excavating and exploring the place. Then maybe get in some star-hopping actually looking for a Xenomorph to bring back, if one can't be found on Acheron.

I have some thoughts on details about how the facility should be built, but I'm no mapper. I'll describe it as best I can soon, though.

Thoughts?
 
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ExileInParadise
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Re: Campaign Idea: Return to LV-426

Fri 10 Dec 2021, 16:09

Because, let's be honest. . . thanks to Ellen "It's The Only Way To Be Sure" Ripley, there's no physical evidence or hard data available on these creatures by the end of the second film.
Watch the last 20 minutes of ALIEN (1979) again... and look for this:
How much "goo" does the cocooning alien hiding in the shuttle leave around before Ripley can flush it out of its hiding place?

When Van Leuwen says "the team found no physical evidence" I'd ask: what happened to all that physical evidence of an 8-foot alien cocoooning itself into the cabin?

If you need corporate conspiracy - well there you go - someone identified "some alien residue" and spirited it away before the ICC investigators got to it.

I'd bet Burke knew exactly where that Alien DNA sample got off to.

But, to fit in with the the RPG idea that he starts to figure out and go searching - Van Leuwen didn't know during the inquest.

So, from the beginning - there's some physical evidence unaccounted for - and since we see the harpoon gun still stuck under the door of the Narcissus, we know Ripley didn't just clean it up ...

Left over evidence from ALIENS is even easier - just because a fusion station "rapidly disassembled itself" s has nothing to do with wreckage "out past the Illium range".

And oh yeah - what about the Runner lair on Fiorina that got overlooked when the installation was mothballed?

At the start of the RPG timeline there are at least 3 ways "in" to alien DNA plotlines that Ripley *left behind*

Add in Alien: Isolation and well you have a whole debris ring with sleeping xenos and tons of "biological samples" to harvest - did W-Y never investigate what happened to their station after they bought and paid for it *cough cover up cough*

These are reasons why the whole "the company could never get a sample" thing makes little sense to me.
We live, as we dream -- alone. ~ Joseph Conrad
 
ErikModi
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Re: Campaign Idea: Return to LV-426

Fri 10 Dec 2021, 16:55

The Alien was never cocooning itself in the Narcissus. It found a spot it fit into and just laid there, because it's biomechanical build in blended in with the shuttle's machinery. There was a harpoon gun under the door, but nothing else. The novelization includes a part where Ripley tried to close the shuttle door on the Alien but got a part of it, the acid scorched the door but not badly enough to compromise hull integrity, but this isn't a thing that happened in the film. There might have been some drool from the alien, but after 57 years in a depressurized ship (discounting Out of the Shadows for the moment), it's probably not identifiable as anything anymore.

I can't play Isolation (I've tried, it's an awesome game, but too awesome for me to be successful at keeping my cool and playing it), but I read the novelization, and didn't Sevastopol burn up in a gas giant? As in, there's nothing of it left?

Like I said, by Alien 3, the Company seems to know exactly what these things are and why they should want them, but that seems an odd switch from where they were in the first two films. If you take Alien 3 as canon, which is perfectly fine, then yes, the Company knows how bad these things are but doesn't care. My question, that started this idea, is what happens if they don't realize how horrible the Xenomorphs are, then start to figure it out? Do they still persist in being Stupid Evil and pursuing them at all costs? Or do they go for pragmatism and start looking for a way to wipe them out?
 
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ExileInParadise
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Re: Campaign Idea: Return to LV-426

Sat 11 Dec 2021, 01:36

The Alien was never cocooning itself in the Narcissus. It found a spot it fit into and just laid there, because it's biomechanical build in blended in with the shuttle's machinery. There was a harpoon gun under the door, but nothing else. The novelization includes a part where Ripley tried to close the shuttle door on the Alien but got a part of it, the acid scorched the door but not badly enough to compromise hull integrity, but this isn't a thing that happened in the film. There might have been some drool from the alien, but after 57 years in a depressurized ship (discounting Out of the Shadows for the moment), it's probably not identifiable as anything anymore.
Ridley Scott's own statements about ALIEN describe it cocooning itself in the Narcissus.
Quotes with references here if you want to follow up:
https://alienexplorations.blogspot.com/ ... alien.html

There are also a number of references in the interviews that came on the extra blu-rays in the recent editions (after the 2003 special editions were assembled).

So, that leaves Van Leuwen's statements either an intentional cover OR he got duped - as I described earlier.
For the RPG, I like the idea that W-Y (Burke) duped the ICC and Van Leuwen starts to figure it out when LV-426 drops off the net.
I can't play Isolation (I've tried, it's an awesome game, but too awesome for me to be successful at keeping my cool and playing it), but I read the novelization, and didn't Sevastopol burn up in a gas giant? As in, there's nothing of it left?
Look up the Alien Isolation Web Episodes.
It's a story version of the game plot ... but told in retrospective.
Before Sevastapol falls completely, a lot of debris (and more) is strung into orbit...
Like I said, by Alien 3, the Company seems to know exactly what these things are and why they should want them, but that seems an odd switch from where they were in the first two films. If you take Alien 3 as canon, which is perfectly fine, then yes, the Company knows how bad these things are but doesn't care. My question, that started this idea, is what happens if they don't realize how horrible the Xenomorphs are, then start to figure it out? Do they still persist in being Stupid Evil and pursuing them at all costs? Or do they go for pragmatism and start looking for a way to wipe them out?
The RPG includes Michael Bishop still hunting for xenos.

But, going back to "how the company knew"

If you just look at ALIEN standalone - the company already knew plenty enough to push Ash on board Nostromo as a sleeper and re-route it.
The shipboard computer partly deciphers the message with Ripley just messing around.
It's entirely plausible that the signals picked up had been full deciphered before Ash was even placed on board - and that W-Y had coldly calculated for Ash to harvest xenos from the Nostromo crew.

And if you include all of the newer movies - then you also have ADVENT (Alien: Covenant extras) where David-8 completely dumped the entire biological database to W-Y years before Nostromo left Thedus.

W-Y knew long before Alien3.
We live, as we dream -- alone. ~ Joseph Conrad
 
ErikModi
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Re: Campaign Idea: Return to LV-426

Sat 11 Dec 2021, 02:52

Yes, sure, "the Company knew long before Alien 3" is a valid interpretation of the film universe.

That's not the one I'm going with here.

That they didn't really know is also a valid interpretation, though far less common.

That's what I'm interested in exploring here, not the Stupid Evil interpretation of WY (and other Companies) that's been done to death. Which isn't to say it's bad... if "Company Evil" works for you, great, awesome, go for it, stupendous.

I'm just trying a different take.
 
ErikModi
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Re: Campaign Idea: Return to LV-426

Mon 13 Dec 2021, 19:08

Central Complex

The Central Complex is the main lab for studying a Xenomorph specimen once one is acquired. It has four levels aboveground, but technically ten sublevels underground. The four levels aboveground contain the Operations complex, offices for corporate administrators, communications stations, a limited armory, and anything else you would expect to find in the central hub of any "shake-and-bake" colony central complex.

Utilities ducting, piping, conduits, and the like are kept as small as possible, below the threshold where (it is believed) a larval Xenomorph, colloquially known as a Chestburster, could navigate them. They are absolutely too small for an adult Xenomorph to move through.

In the sublevels, every wall, door, ceiling, and floor is solid ceramocarbide, the strongest and least chemically reactive substance known. Sublevels 1 through 3 are well-appointed laboratories of the kind expected for a massive biological research project, and quite well appointed and even comfortable -- if you can look past the heavily reinforced structure.

Starting at Sublevel 4, the levels become a massive, square ring around a giant cage, fifteen meters on a side in internal dimensions, with solid ceramocarbide walls, floor, ceiling, and door each two full meters thick. Sublevel 4 and the bottom level, Sublevel 9, devote their entire middle to this hopefully impenetrable floor and ceiling.

Sublevel 8 is double-height, five meters from floor to ceiling (a half-meter on each level is eaten up by the piping, ducting, conduits, and so on to route resources through the facility). This is where the cage is accessed, via a massive door able to put in or take out (though doing the latter deliberately seems unlikely) any Xenomorph specimen thus far catalogued. A smaller, human-sized door in the main door allows people to enter the enclosure.

A ten meter hall leads to this door, with airlock-style ceramocarbide doors at the end and middle. All the doors that secure the enclosure operate on a two-key system: a person physically at the door must input an access keycard with clearance for the enclosure, and a Colonial Marine guard at the monitoring station on Sublevel 3 must input their own authorization and confirm the ingress or egress request. Only then will any of the doors open.

Should a specimen escape, the Marine guard monitoring the enclosure on Sublevel 3, anyone on Sublevel 8 within reach of a wall-mounted panic button placed at regular intervals, or any of the Operations staff may initiate a lockdown. All doors on all sublevels close and lock, as do any open ducts or pipes between upper levels and the sublevels. This effectively cuts off life support for the sublevels, leaving anyone trapped breathing whatever oxygen was in the area before the lockdown was triggered. Though anyone trapped in the sublevels during lockdown probably has much bigger concerns than the hours it will take for carbon dioxide to build to dangerous levels.

In the event of a lockdown, an alert is immediately sent to the Colonial Marine barracks, as well as to the personal devices of any Marines not currently in the barracks. It is expected the Marines will immediately mobilize to secure the Central Complex, determine of the specimen can be recaptured and contained, and to terminate it if that proves impossible.
 
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TheLedZepplin
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Re: Campaign Idea: Return to LV-426

Wed 26 Jan 2022, 09:29

Hi Erik,
I'm new to the forums but have been running the published material since March 2021. I'm starting to think about my own campaign ideas and found your post interesting. I won't weigh in on the historical debate. However, I think the motivations of W-Y leadership don't have to be so transparent. The campaign can center entirely on the idea of capture & kill. All the people involved in the operation could have directives around that. But two things will be true no matter what. (1) your players are highly unlikely to believe it! LOL. Just given the history of the films and the game materials so far, they just probably won't regardless of what your setup is. And (2) it doesn't matter. W-Y leadership could be doing all this as a contingency plan with every intention of also obtaining control of the xenomorphs for profit/military superiority, etc. In fact, a subplot of your campaign could be a delegation visiting the facility after operational to check on progress, lure away promising scientists, etc. I think your players might buy into it more if you sew some doubt about the intent of the operation. They may even enjoy trying to figure out who really believes in the cause and who is there to extract information for other projects or leak secrets to another faction.

Anyway, just some thoughts that came to mind and I hope you have fun with it. Sounds like a good setting however you position it.

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