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Post number 22 in this thread has a few hints that I dropped.

A game I played in had Area 51 as an independent military group, like NORAD, only evil. Even their standard basic grunts were genetically enhanced (minor regeneration, a bit stronger and more agile, better senses). Their spec-op soldiers were basically three generations beyond the Splicer OCC, looked almost completely human. All their soldiers were immune to silkworms.

Oh, and Area 51 had tamed several varieties of the bugs for their own use. Bombardier Beetles doubling as farm livestock to pull plows, etc. Assassin bugs patrolling their sewers to keep out invaders, etc.

that sounds like a neat start. personally, i'd be wary of using UFO's directly, but perhaps the eggheads at groom lake managed to isolate themselves from hardlines and stayed safe. they then refitted their vehicles and aircraft to be more bugproof (without organitech*), and started a plan to outlast the problems. they could take in a lot of survivors from southern Nevada, both military and civilian, creating a 'freehold' of sorts, a safezone.
with plenty of experimental tech on the base, they could easily have some pretty impressive weapons and vehicles available, but in short supply, as resources would be limited.


of course, if you really want a conspiracy angle, perhaps the scientists in Area 51 had figured out how to do limited dimensional travel as an outgrowth of a failed anti-grav project, and they unknowingly brought the bugs to earth by exploring the previous bug hiveworld. if you really want 'alien' tech, perhaps the previous hiveworld had some advanced tech that the eggheads grabbed and did limited reverse engineering to.



(* i would assume that if you replaced the wires between avionics with fiberoptic systems, you could contain any bug intrusion. so if it hops into the radar, it couldn't get to the flight computer or targeting system. you'd need a dozen bugs to take control of one plane.)

Years ago on an earlier incarnation of the board, Bood Samel proposed the idea of the grays (the big-headed aliens with the almond-shaped eyes) having control of Nevada, or at least Area 51.

Area 51's where I dump any crossover I might feel like dropping in a campaign. Although I tend to avoid that these days, since its hard finding crossover ideas that are both hella awesome and lighthearted enough for SF.

Rallan wrote:Area 51's where I dump any crossover I might feel like dropping in a campaign. Although I tend to avoid that these days, since its hard finding crossover ideas that are both hella awesome and lighthearted enough for SF.

Great idea. Maybe pre-y2k they were researching space/time, or even investigating some actual alien tech, that supposed crashed spaceship.

During y2k they ripped that area of space time, destroying the base, but now anything could come out of that area. People that go into it disappear (because they end up on an alien world).

Juggalo Dead Boy wrote:I've been trying to figure out an alien group who would have a personal vendetta against the bugs; a group to help humanity out when the going gets a lot more tough than even NORAD expects it to during their final push. The grays may work, though I have reservations about using them for my campaign.

The ETs that I came up with as foes for the Bugs aren't necessarily there to help the humans. In fact, they actively dislike them. That may be an angle worth exploring in your game as well.

Legion wrote:Just curious, what have some of the people out there done with Area 51 and Systems Failure?

Never used it, since finding players for an RPG game is hard enough were I live (unless I want to game with junior high kids, but being 30 thats always struck me as a little creepy) and finding some for one as little known as Systems Failure it almost impossible, but I've always though of it as maybe the reason that the Bugs invaded and seem to have a vendetta against the human race. I was going to have Area 51 doing experiments with space & time (transdimensional stuff), and they accidently trigger some sort of cataclysmic in the Bugs homeworld/dimension. Maybe we made contact and they got a virus at wiped out a large portion of their population, or maybe we don't ever realize it but our meddling with space & time has a ripple effect (maybe even a power surge in our equipment that causes some sort of back-feed) that wipes out their dimension and only a few escape in time, but due to temporal distortion this happened 100+ years ago for them (and probably in the 1980/90's for us). I was going to use this to explain the statements made by the Bug that killed the President.

would be nice to own an area 51...
http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-area51/pd