Aliens in shadowrun. Options

[FuelDrop]

Has anyone ever tried to run a campaign with extraterrestrial elements in it? if so, how did it go?

[Tanegar]

Hmm... xenomorphs as low-grade Horrors...

[Neraph]

Insect spirits.

[ShadowDragon8685]

I wanna do an X-COM Vs. Shadowrun game, but the real trick is how you handle the alien's psychic powers with the fact that Shadowrun canon says psychics are a huge load of bollocks. Also, how the aliens interact with magic.

[FuelDrop]

I wanna do an X-COM Vs. Shadowrun game, but the real trick is how you handle the alien's psychic powers with the fact that Shadowrun canon says psychics are a huge load of bollocks. Also, how the aliens interact with magic.

Isn't there a Psychic tradition for magic? because that could kill two birds with one full auto burst of ground-to-air guided missiles.

[almost normal]

I wanna do an X-COM Vs. Shadowrun game, but the real trick is how you handle the alien's psychic powers with the fact that Shadowrun canon says psychics are a huge load of bollocks. Also, how the aliens interact with magic.

Depending on realities, magic could really screw things up. If the aliens *truly* threatened the world?

ATTENTION ALL MAGIC USERS. SORRY ABOUT THE PAST FEW YEARS. WE KIND OF NEED YOU RIGHT NOW. IF YOU WOULDN'T MIND, PLEASE SUMMON SOME PISSED OFF SPIRITS IN ANY UFO YOU HAPPEN TO SEE, OR WE'RE ALL DEAD. SINCERELY - THE NEW WORLD ORDER.

Even assuming the most conservative of numbers, there's a few million people on the planet who could summon a spirit.

So I guess the aliens bring anti-magic devices? I dunno.

[Udoshi]

I wanna do an X-COM Vs. Shadowrun game, but the real trick is how you handle the alien's psychic powers with the fact that Shadowrun canon says psychics are a huge load of bollocks. Also, how the aliens interact with magic.

Critter Powers. Problem solved.


Perhaps make them resonance-based in nature - just using tricks that the frankly infantile earth-based resonance culture hasn't had time to develop yet - to avoid the whole Magic In Space thing.
Also R&D opportunities.

Still, x-com vs shadowrun is what I came in here to suggest, and hey look someone did it already. Good job.

[Larsine]

The only official mention of ETs in Shadowrund was in the Shadowrun: Trading Card Game, where there was an "Abducted" card.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Hrm...

What if being in the presence of one of the alien's reactors counted as being in the presence of both a -12 Mana Void and a +12 Mana Warp, with their effects stacked numerically; IE, every round of exposure, everything which is astrally-active has to resist 24P damage, and the Magic rating of all characters in the area is reduced by 24, while the effective Force of all spells is raised by 24 for drain purposes, and you roll on the Mana Surge table.

A Great Dragon might survive spellcasting in the vicinity of an elerium reactor... But he wouldn't want to! (Naturally, the aliens themselves are completely unaffected by this.)

They'd be dangerous, and "lol spirit swarm from everybody on Earth capable of summoning even a Force 2 spirit" wouldn't be the answer (since the spirits would get torn apart before they could do jack shit,) but if you ran into some sectoids down Redmond way, you could whip up some mojo and electro-fry them same as any punk steppin' in your turf.

[Udoshi]

I'd be more inclined to make the alien's technology based around a partial working solution to the magic<->matter conversion problem.

We already know that some free spirits can convert mana to real objects(wealth), so it's theoretically(in the plausable sense, not the optimization sense) possible to bridge the astral and the mundane.

That is to say, I'm suggesting that another possible solution is to make certain parts of the aliens tech 'work on magic'. Not everything, but perhaps reactors, rayguns, and defensive shields have unpredictable effects on the astral in their general vicinity. perhaps the power sources themselves produce astral shallows in their vicinity, and then spirits are introduced to the unpleasant surprise of being shot by alien blasters. Something that shouldn't normally be possible.

To the first party to successfully invent an artificial mechanism capable of producing and sustaining a magical effect with no assistance from a living magician or spirit, I leave 8 million nuyen for additional research into the fusion of magic and technology.

And then every corporation starts fumbling over each other to be the first to put together a successful retrieval team for alien gadgets, because holy shit they break physics and metaphysics as we know it.

[hermit]

Has anyone ever tried to run a campaign with extraterrestrial elements in it? if so, how did it go?

Between extraplanar enemies of several kinds, Matrix 'magic' and a ton of secret societies, what do you need Aliens for?

[FuelDrop]

Between extraplanar enemies of several kinds, Matrix 'magic' and a ton of secret societies, what do you need Aliens for?

So that the runners can be neuralized by the Men In Black, obviously! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Or maybe it's just that I was curious to see if anyone had run something like that before. An alien invasion is one of the few things that could plausibly unite the megacorps (though only until the threat was gone, at which point they'd start squabbling like children over salvaging whatever tech the invaders left behind), and I was interested in how people had run with this concept in the past.

Does that technically means this thread was trolling, as its sole purpose was to gather replies?

[ShadowDragon8685]

Neutralized by the MiBs - or else recruited by the X-Com Project for being one of the first and few groups to successfully fight off the aliens. (Alien abduction squad shows up near the players' doss, and by the time the X-Com Project assault team lands, the players have already mopped up.)

[FuelDrop]

Neutralized by the MiBs - or else recruited by the X-Com Project for being one of the first and few groups to successfully fight off the aliens. (Alien abduction squad shows up near the players' doss, and by the time the X-Com Project assault team lands, the players have already mopped up.)

Stupid: Flying halfway across the galaxy to kidnap an individual and perform tests... that have already been performed by the species themselves and are easily accessed.
Really stupid: Doing this to humanity, who combine in one species staggering belligerence and enough stupidity that you could probably find someone who'd volunteer.
Too dumb to live: Attempting to kidnap the streetsam instead of the bum loitering outside his safehouse.

[hermit]

What I meant to say is, I don't see a need to toss in cliché aliens into the menangerie we already have in shadowrun. They fill no specific role, have nothing interesting to offer, and, on a personal note, are an utterly retarded idea to begin with.

[almost normal]

on a personal note, are an utterly retarded idea to begin with.

I initially agreed with you. The idea that life just happens somewhere is a mathematical impossibility. But then It's shadowrun. You've got magic, dragons, vampires, zombies, ghosts, trolls, elves, dwarves, and quantum entanglement communications. Mathematical impossibilities are pretty common here. Might as well embrace it.

[The Dread Polack]

I would probably never do this. My reasoning isn't as snarky as some of the replies here, but I do think there is more than enough in SR to play around with without tossing in aliens. Also, they seem out of theme. Yes, something that doesn't actually fit into SR!

But as an interesing discussion: The reasons that alien life is likely to exist elsewhere in the universe don't really change once you introduce magic, IMO. So, one of these societies could figure out how to visit our planet. Some things to think about: what is the mana level on their planet? Most of the posters so far assume none, but it's equally possible that aliens come from a world with an even higher level of mana than ours. How does their world connect to the metaplanes? Maybe they have regular contact with spirits that are very different from Earth's. Maybe they don't have a problem with nasty spirits like toxics and insects. Maybe theirs are worse. Maybe they never had a problem with Horrors. Maybe they killed them all with tech, like some speculate humanity might be able to do this time around.

In fact, maybe this has something to do with why they're visiting Earth. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

According to SR, deep space is supposed to be a mana void, right? If they are awakened, then they will have to deal with this some how, either by finding a way for their magic to survive the trip or by keeping it alive somehow- maybe through the use of a "living ship" or by carrying a portable source of astral energy. Maybe they don't travel through space, but instead through the metaplanes. This could allow them to skip over the mana voids completely.

If you don't want the aliens to be awakened, and you want them to be antagonists, you could make them and their tech create a mana warp or void. I would probably not make it a complete void, but at least cause problems for mages. You could also look at Cyberzombies for some ideas. It could be that the have a negative essence rating- either for natural reasons- because they are simply not compatable with Earth, or because they are so thoroughly genetically engineered. I can see this being quite likely from a highly advanced race.

Alternatively, magic might be more effective against them, as they have no way of dealing with it. Like in War of the Worlds, where they were unprepared to deal with our microbes, they could be unprepared to deal with our magic. The above mentioned scenario, where mages all over the world drop spirits on them could work nicely once the Earth manages to figure it out and coordinate an attack. In the mean time, the PCs could dealing with the panic and helping to figure this out.

Additionally, I would take the opportunity to introduce all manner of mysterious technology. Wreak havoc on your tech-based PCs by making none of their gizmos and weapons recognizable. If their physiolgoy is different enough, then there's no reason their devices will look like ours. It will be a struggle to figure out what they're even doing, and harder to develop any strategy for dealing with it. Armor and armor modifications could be less effective against their weapons, while their weapons more so against our armor. Also, they can of course do all kinds of things even the advanced tech of SR can't. Energy weapons, force shields, teleporters... You can go crazy.

A fun thought experiment, at least.

[Lionhearted]

Some considerations.
Space is huge, like really huge, like... (you get the idea)
Which means going anywhere in space takes a very long time unless you somehow bypasses the FTL barrier. So likely visitors would be.
Machines: Machines dont age or lose track of their goal, they're ideal explorers and settlers, finding habitable worlds and establishing them for when their masters eventually arrive
Habitats: Let's assume that these aliens haven't unlocked things like cryosleep or immortality, that means in order to go somewhere they would need self sustaining colony ships that would arrive generations after they first left the homeworld
FTL capable: This alien race is so advanced that were basically fucked regardless.

Although I would tend to agree that insect spirits and horrors make more then good stand-ins for aliens.

Had an idea a while back of making a insect spirit invasion on an deep space platform brought on by an SURGE event that would temporarily open the metaplanes on the space habitat... presto, space horror.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Stupid: Flying halfway across the galaxy to kidnap an individual and perform tests... that have already been performed by the species themselves and are easily accessed.
Really stupid: Doing this to humanity, who combine in one species staggering belligerence and enough stupidity that you could probably find someone who'd volunteer.
Too dumb to live: Attempting to kidnap the streetsam instead of the bum loitering outside his safehouse.

To address your points:

Stupid: Not all of the tests they want to perform have been performed by metahumanity

[ Spoiler ]

In X-COM: Enemy Unknown, the aliens are testing for psychic potential.

In Shadowrun, they might be testing for something like that, or they might be testing for something the corps have tested for before, but their technology is much better at it, so where the corps declare "not happening," they can discern the differences. (Such as predicting with 100% accuracy who will Awaken as what.)
Stupid (Point 2): They may not actually be able to access all the info they want, even if it's already in metahuman hands, whether from simple communications barriers to the information not being hackable from the 'trix.

Really Stupid: It's entirely possible that "asking for volunteers" never occurs to a species which is used to conquering for what it needs. I mean, how often do the megas ask for volunteers, as opposed to just kidnapping folk?

To Dumb to Live: They probably have all the street bums they need by now; now, they want an example of a cybernetically-augmented or otherwise unusual specimen; especially if they're doing research to see what they can come up with that kills those pesky pink apes dead.

[Prime Mover]

Aliens invade the matrix......
Unable to travel the distance required for a physical invasion. The aliens have long ago launched a signal that seeks to subvert matrix/resonance capable cultures.
This could allow an ongoing meta plot in a home game without disrupting cannon too badly.
Facing off against mysterious alien AI's plotting in the background.

[Tanegar]

Aliens invade the matrix......
Unable to travel the distance required for a physical invasion. The aliens have long ago launched a signal that seeks to subvert matrix/resonance capable cultures.
This could allow an ongoing meta plot in a home game without disrupting cannon too badly.
Facing off against mysterious alien AI's plotting in the background.

What do they gain from that? Cultural hegemony on an interstellar scale is pointless (and, indeed, impossible) without FTL communications... and if they have FTL comms, they probably have FTL drives, which invalidates your premise.

[The Dread Polack]

If decades of serial sci-fi have taught us anything, it's that you don't need air-tight reasoning. You can always justify these things later. IMO, the standards are even lower in an RPG for such things, as long as you have fun. I think people are getting too caught up in the holes here. We all know Prometheus didn't make sense, but it still would have made an awesome RPG adventure.

[Tanegar]

We all know Prometheus didn't make sense, but it still would have made an awesome short RPG adventure.

Fixed that for you. Any properly paranoid group of PCs would have burned that temple to the ground the instant they discovered the black goo. Failing that, the instant dead bodies started cropping up without explanation.

[The Dread Polack]

I picked a bad example for the Dumpshock Forums (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Lionhearted]

What do they gain from that? Cultural hegemony on an interstellar scale is pointless (and, indeed, impossible) without FTL communications... and if they have FTL comms, they probably have FTL drives, which invalidates your premise.

Same reason they probe people, because most alien "invaders" are really bored teenagers.

However I wouldn't say that FTL communication makes it logical to assume FTL travel.
First off you can attach information to a mass less particle, pushing something already moving at the speed of light beyond it surely is easier then trying to do the same to something that isn't.
Second of all, quantum entanglement, like in Mass effect. Is a real thing and is the closest we managed to teleportation