Twilight:2000-Different Direction

[DocSavage45B10]

Hmmm, maybe Turtledove should write WWIII: In the Balance, and ATL ATL where the Lizards drop in the middle of the Twilight War...

[M-Type]

I was thinking about those novels when the idea started to form. There'll have to be a NATO/Warsaw Pact team-up to fight the alien invaders!

[M-Type]

As promised, here's the Invasion Map documenting the landing sites of the Kafer forces.

I was trying to think about reasoning behind Europe's/North America's desolation. Maybe to do with the Twilight War somehow

Well, they could just be saving the last superpower for last And Europe because....it's there The Kafers do love a good fight, and maybe they think the Americans will put up the best one

EDIT: In looking at the map, I'm gonna chalk it up to saving it for last or lack of resources. I mean, they're basically surrounded, so the Kafer will get to them eventually...

[Benjamin]

Some of the clustering in North Africa and the Middle East can be attributed to the fact the Kafer home world is generally hotter and drier than Earth. Also, other areas that are less similar to their home world could be left to the less powerful Kafer suzerains. Reading the Kafer Sourcebook would be very helpful if you haven't done so yet.

Another old RPG that you might want to consider is Domination by StarChilde Publications and it's table top companion, Sabot & Laser. These games postulate an alien invasion of Earth occurring in March of 1992. The invasion starts in southern Africa and sweeps north. I found it very easy to move the date of the invasion to March of 1997 during the Twilight War. We played T2K with invading aliens as our primary game in college and it was a blast. Some of the human vehicle stats are a bit off in Sabot & Laser but the alien stuff can easily be converted.

Both are on sale at noble knight.com for $5.00.

Hope this helped.

[M-Type]

Yeah I figured Africa/Middle East/bits of South America would be fine for the Kafer (I bought the Sourcebook, so I took a quick peek during work).

My idea for the Antarctic cluster was that of some sort of fuel depot or airbase, but they really weren't prepared for the brutal winters (same with Alaska and Russia). This would give the humans an advantage at getting the upper hand on them in these locations.

And the Kafer could be bombing North America/Europe as they "clean-up" the rest of the world, some sort of 'challenge' to the two powers to try and fight them.

Took at look at those two books too. Looks promising, I may have to pick them up.

[Panther Al]

All said - that landing in Ontario is actually rather brilliant. Smack dab in the centre of some of the most productive Iron and Copper mines in central North America.

[DocSavage45B10]

Or maybe they are (more) rational and dropped rocks on NA and West Europe (and Japan and the Chinese coast) figuring they would take out the brightest lights from orbit and mop up the rest. What they weren't expecting was the world to be in the middle of a hot war with all the armies of the great powers slugging it out on the plains of East Europe/Russia

Those darn Tosevites shouldn't even have land-cruisers, the recon satelite showed barbarians in iron, by the ancestors!

Yeah I figured Africa/Middle East/bits of South America would be fine for the Kafer (I bought the Sourcebook, so I took a quick peek during work).

My idea for the Antarctic cluster was that of some sort of fuel depot or airbase, but they really weren't prepared for the brutal winters (same with Alaska and Russia). This would give the humans an advantage at getting the upper hand on them in these locations.

And the Kafer could be bombing North America/Europe as they "clean-up" the rest of the world, some sort of 'challenge' to the two powers to try and fight them.

Took at look at those two books too. Looks promising, I may have to pick them up.

[M-Type]

Honestly, my backstory was that a Kafer recon ship spotted humans during the 1800s and called in the fleet, with news of finding the Aach*ah. The 'military' (aka everybody) builds up and begins their trek across the stars.

The arrive on the doorstep of the Twilight War, with those tiny Acch*ah now using chemical weapons/nuclear missiles/space flight, tanks, etc.

Which was basically copying Turtledove's Tosevite issue and the aliens from Out of the Dark.

[Benjamin]

Depending how closely you are sticking to the rest of 2300AD canon, getting from Kafer space to Sol is a heck of a long trek. Also, I think the Kafers would not have been able to get a FTL probe or ship to Earth in 1800. Of course if you're willing to throw in the Ylii then the Kafers could get their info on Earth from ancient Ylii documents. These would be nearly 100,000 years old (unless you decide that the revived Ylii civilization has also launched long range exploratory probes, which is more plausible than the Kafers doing so).

Another way you could handle the invasion is by stealing the wormhole idea from Blue Planet. In that game there is a stable wormhole leading from Sol to Lambda Serpenti. The nice thing about this is that Lambda Serpenti is a major Kafer star system and would be a could launching point for the invasion.

Benjamin

[Chris]

I really like the idea of plundering the Kafer. I played in a 2300 game back in the day. Those guys didn't make any sense from a player perspective. One of the better alien antagonists GDW ever did.

Are they coming sub-light or do they have the 2300 drives

Looks like a fun time.

[M-Type]

I like the Kafer too, because they really are so...alien. And we're basically their worst nightmare, so their hate for humanity is justified. I wouldn't second guess them at all. GDW really did a good job on them.

If the players really try to dig into how they got here, I'll probably say it's some sort of AD2300-level drive. I'm trying to stick to as much canon as possible, but I'm breaking some of it obviously. I do intend to have the Ylii too, at protected Kafer ground bases and such, so they don't get discovered until later. I can use the excuse 'The Ylii did it."

A wormhole would be neat, because there'd be no way to 'plug it'. Humanity would have to start reverse-engineering Kafer/Ylii stuff, and head in themselves.

Then there's a totally new campaign

I'm also giving the Kafer some goodies from the Darktek manual. Giving the players the options to use the stuff to is an added bonus I'd love to see, especially the 'feed' problem.

EDIT: I just can't wait for the first combat encounter with them, while they're still 'stupid'. Man oh man, those players are gonna get it handed too 'em.

[Jason Weiser]

Here's my idea....

The Kafers through sub-light exploration, discover a local wormhole in the Gamma Serpenti system. They explore the wormhole, only to discover the other end opens somewhere around Saturn. A scout is sent to do orbital scans of the one inhabited world in the system...and lo and behold, they find a world equivelent to the tech level of the Kafers on or about the cusp of the 2nd Kafer World War (their first nuclear war). Striker of Stars was right! New worlds and new races to conquer! Starting with this one...known as hu'mans. And oh, look, they kill each other too! These will make EXCELLENT opponents, plenty of mind-enhancing violence!

To our POV, the Kafers arrive ca. November 1995 1st ed timeline...The Soviets are hip deep in China. NATO's on alert, and the rest of the world is holding it's breath. The Kafers unknowingly speed the inevitable process along by dropping deadfall nuclear devices in the high kiloton range on the capitols and C3I centers (the ones they can detect from space) of the superpowers. Superpower paranoia results in them blaming each other and a short nuclear exchange results, with a broken-backed conventional conflict following. The Kafers soon land troops in Africa and Latin America and build "Safe-Places", then they begin to branch out...finding conflict wherever they can. Soon, word gets around what is left of the telcom networks on who really started the war, but the human armies are crippled due to the nuclear exchange.

The Kafers aren't all powerful either. Not all the Suzerains are on board with invading Earth, and are happier killing other Kafers. Moreover, the wormhole is a logistical bottleneck, with only two Kafer warships or freighters able to transit the wormhole at a time. Thus, the Kafer buildup is slow and limited, and soon, much of the Kafer advance boggs down due to a lack of men and supplies....

[M-Type]

I like it. I was throwing around the idea of the whole Cold War paranoia behind the landings, like recon ships being spotted and mistaken for UFOs, then attributed to either NATO or Warsaw Pact bombers or fighters.

You worked it very well. I'll probably use it. The warmer places fall first, because the Kafer are more comfortable there, then they grudgingly head out of their comfort zones when the humans prod them.

The wormhole bottleneck is also a great idea, because it could provide some ample opportunities to human forces, 'Hey, they haven't gotten a shipment in 2 months, and they can't get a freighter until next week. We strike tonight!' style.

I was wondering on how to convert their weaponry to v2.2 stats however, as it's (obviously) listed for AD2300.

[weswood]

Nice!!!

I especially like the idea of Orcs as your "grunt" force and drow as your "Special Forces".

Eggs from the sky. Not so far fetched. Heinlen's immortal Starship Troopers used an "egg" to get the MI from orbit to planet. Multiple layers, self ablating to take care of heat issues. Yours are probably a little bit bigger...so what. Idea works for me.

Depending on size of invasion force, Earth is pretty much screwed based on your scenario. Sounds a lot like the movie Independance Day. Except bad guys use nukes and kinetic warheads vs. ray guns.

Earth is going to need some kind of "Ace up the sleeve" to survive this....

A group I played with toyed with an idea of invaders in TMP universe...Morrow was one of the last, organized forces left. And it is not truly military in nature....

Any Who.....

I want to see more!!!

My $0.02

Mike

I read Starship Troopers but it was so long ago I can't remember the details. That egg detail may have just stuck in my mind.

I never figured the exact size of the invasion force but that's why they drop nukes and KEWs, to reduce the population to a more managable level.

There was never an "Ace in the Hole" for earth, I never got that far in the planning. It's even worse than I posted earlier, I'm a hard corps conservative, I was going to poke at the liberals. In my America, private ownership of firearms have been illegalized except for reproduction black powder weapons and single shot cartridge weapons. Ammo is regulated to 20 rounds purchased per year. Not only would the civilians who would take up arms to defend themselves from alien invaders, they would have to deal with "a civilian police force as well trained and as well armed as the US Army" reporting to a radical liberal president.

Maybe a rebellion by the orcish grunts. Hmmmm.

Thanks for the kind words for my strange ideas.

Wes

[mikeo80]

There was never an "Ace in the Hole" for earth, I never got that far in the planning. It's even worse than I posted earlier, I'm a hard corps conservative, I was going to poke at the liberals. In my America, private ownership of firearms have been illegalized except for reproduction black powder weapons and single shot cartridge weapons. Ammo is regulated to 20 rounds purchased per year. Not only would the civilians who would take up arms to defend themselves from alien invaders, they would have to deal with "a civilian police force as well trained and as well armed as the US Army" reporting to a radical liberal president.

Wes

I would think that the "radical lilberal president" would be the last probelm local defenders would have to worry about. After all Washington, DC is at the south end of the brightest congregation of nighttime lights (Some have called this area the Megaopolis, northeast corridor, whatever.)

IMHO, that concentration of light, radio, TV and other EM signatures would make certain that they received either a nuke or a rock.

Now the remainder of the civilian/military is going to be fragmented due to nuke/kinetic strikes. As soon as they get confirmed reports of "Large humanoid warriors", the gloves come off, and every armory left gets emptied into the hands of what ever voluteers show up to go "critter hunting".

And yes, I can see some modern day Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett setting up at 200+ yards with his/her Kentucky Long Rifle..... Or Sharps Buffalo Rifle...

There has got to be some kind of leadership cadre in with the orcs..

SOOOO...

As soon as these "other critters" (read drow) are identified...

THey get introduced to .45 or .54 soft lead at (moderately) high speeds... Right between the eyes.

My $0.02

Mike