The Starborn Chronicles

[Steve]

Here is where I start to bring my campaign concept together from the various threads I've been posting before now. I'm still working up racial packages, but I do have the basics of the campaign background ready.

 

 

Campaign Background

 

On August 19th, 1990, the world changed forever, a date that is now remembered as Arrival Day.

 

A damaged starship of alien origin entered Earth's atmosphere over western China and ripped through the skies as it travelled east across Asia and the Pacific, slowing its descent in fits and starts as the crippled vessel attempted to turn a crash into a more controlled landing. During its descent, entire sections of the craft and vast quantities of its internal atmosphere vented from within and left a trail behind it. Then, at 1:37 PM Pacific Time on that day, the alien vessel came to a shuddering halt in the northern Nevada desert.

 

Two things happened on Earth that day.

 

The first is that mankind became exposed to a fungal lifeform that has since granted strange abilities to millions of humans across the planet, powers of the mind previously known only in fiction.

 

The second was the arrival of the Araulu, or as they are more commonly known on Earth, the Thals.

 

The Araulu were the descendants of Neanderthals taken from Earth thousands of year ago by an alien race, one the Araulu only know as the Hidden Masters, for none of the Araulu have never seen them. Genetically modified and used to serve as a slave race, they were created to battle the enemies of the Hidden Masters.

 

The Araulu were divided by gender and separated into a form of caste-like structure that did not permit any sort of intermixing or fraternization. Before they arrived on Earth, they did not even have a concept for it. The females were soldiers, bred to fight, and they were good at it. Most male Araulu were technicians and craftsman who maintained equipment and were subserviant to the females. But there was a third group that was obeyed by all, the Overseers. They were males with psionic abilities who acted as a form of priest and scientist caste, but they were also the leaders.

 

In the weeks and months that came after Arrival Day, a form of plague spread across the globe like wildfire, but it wasn't a fatal one. It was a fungal symbiote of some sort, one that the Araulu explained was created by the Hidden Masters to empower the Overseers. Thal women were immune to it due to their supercharged immune systems that protected them from all forms of pathogens, and they treated the Overseers with a hushed form of awe.

 

The symbiotes empowered millions of humans with psionic powers, both men and women. Men gained abilities like the Araulu Overseers had, telepathy and the ability to control minds and emotions. But human women became telekinetics, and many of them were quite powerful ones. They have since become known as esper weapons.

 

It is the year 2011, and a generation has passed since mankind learned it was not alone in the universe.

[Steve]

Re: The Starborn Chronicles

 

I had a couple of questions on the campaign background that I would welcome feedback on.

 

1) The campaign is set in the modern day, but I wanted to give the aliens enough time to partially integrate into society. My initial goal was to try a police campaign set in Hudson City that would have a few members of the Thal race joining the force. What would be a reasonable amount for time to establish them as semi-accepted aliens and able to be police? Would federal-level agents be possible, like US Marshals?

 

2) What would be a good area to use in Hudson City for something like Little Thal Town? Would it be better to have them more spread out?

[Sundog]

Re: The Starborn Chronicles

 

Nice reuse of the Alien Nation tropes. In that series, George Francisco makes Detective five years after arrival (notably, though, there are hints this was an accelerated promotion for political reasons by the city). Likewise, in AN they had "Little Tencton", where most of the Newcomers (though not all - the Francisco family did not).

 

Notably, the citizenship process had not yet been fully sorted out - Newcomers did not yet have the vote (there's an episode where that comes up in a referendum). Local police can use what requirements they choose for their police forces, but I'd not think Federal level employment (or military service) would be likely unless full citizenship provisions were in place.