Author Topic: War of the Worlds Setup Thread (OOC)  (Read 3151 times)

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Offline Hydrofoil (OP)

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War of the Worlds Setup Thread (OOC)
« on: March 23, 2016, 07:04:24 PM »
Creators Notes

So ive been looking for a reason to get back into playing Aurora, my older Aurora games have been lost to history now with the arrival of 7.0. My previous games have been more of a lets see what will happen in this marginally standard sandbox start, and they are okay and I have had some really fun games out of it but i feel like im about ready to take on something more strucutred at least at the start. Being a huge alternative history fan and a massive fan of some of the alt history fiction this forum produces I wanted to do one of my own but wasnt sure what to do untill i came accross this little Gem of an Alternative history video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it_ogiiQIA0 (What if The War of the Worlds Hoax actually happened.)

I know this idea of evil martians has been done before but watching this video got me so enthused and excited to do a what if game on Aurora. So I hope you all enjoy the fruits of my enthusiasm, and like always feed back and guidence is always welcome.

Background

- 1938 October 30th Radio broadcasts go out accross the globe about an unusual meteor showers, many people run to the windows whilst glued to their radio sets. Slowly at first reports start trickling through the airwaves about meteor impacts on earth in seemingly random places, The meteor shower goes on for hours as Radio broadcastors start calling it the most spectacular light show in human history. Many Astrologiers and Scientists are quickly drafted onto local radio stations to give their opinions and why this meteor shower is happening, many reply with that they simply dont know and that it was very unusual for this time of year. When asked about the few reports of impacts that were being reported many simply put it down to small bits of rock that did not burn up in the atmosphere of Earth.

Reports of impacts continue to grow as around the world windows are blown out as shockwaves rock many populated areas as "stray" meteorites crash land. In some cases the meteorites gauge huge holes in densly populated areas as they crash through houses and devastate streets. The reports start to cause some panic as people fear that they may be hit by a stray meteor, however the panic is largely contained to more densely packed areas and is tempered by the fact that most impacts were landing in unpopulated areas. Eventually the meteor shower stops, national emergancy services around the world begin clearing up any damage that was caused by the meteor shower. People by now are fixated on their radios wanting to know as much as they could about the meteor shower and why it happened.

An hour after the Meteor shower ends the First reports of towering bipods moving across the countryside start coming accross America Europe and Russia. Most people chalk this down to excitement of the meteor shower, but reports keep coming in its not untill tripods staert emerging from the wreckage in urban areas do people really start to realise that the meteror shower was no ordinary meteor shower. Mass panic quickly ensues as people try to escape the rampaging mechanical monsters that stood 5-6 stories tall towering over anything but great skyscrapers. In a matter of hours the whole world had become embroiled in an invasion with an alien lifeform that seemed to want to destroy them.

Over the next week National militaries will but up a valiant but futile defence trying to contain the alien invaders and destroy them, only to find out that modern weaponry had very little effect. The aliens towering weapons would depopulate large swaths of populated areas but would be limited by their movement speed not seeming to have the ability to fly atleast not in the Earths atmospere. Roughly a week later reports start coming in from military elements across the planets that the alien war machines were simply stopping some even toppling over as they continued along their paths of destruction.

Slowly but surely the Aliens rampage come to an end leaving humanity reeling from the massive destruction it caused on a global scale.  Despite the desctruction in major urban areas such as London, New York, Berlin and Stalingrad aswell as many other major capitals around the world the damage done by the alien invasion seems largely uncoordinated and ineffective. Nations are now left to clean up and ask the question "who were these invaders and where did they come from?"

Three months later, whilst the clean up operations across the globe continue. Nations around the world have been collecting up the alien technology and hording it trying to unlock its secrets in hopes that they may be able to better defend themselves should the alien menace come back. A team in Virginia America successfully manage to enter on of the tri-pod war machines beating the Germans, British and Russians to finally getting a look at the Aliens that had attacked them. What they found was like nothing anyone had imagined in science-fiction, the tri-pods were piloted by three alien creatures with 6 long tentacled arms and elongated head that curved back down what scientists believed was their backs and a small body. It does not take long for newspapers across America to get wind of the story and for the rest of the world to eventually here the same stories. Shortly after most of the major powers manage to gain access to the innards of the alien war machines and begin their own research into these mysterious alien creatures.

- 1939 21st March A German biologist Dr Hanz Freidle posts his theory on why the Martian invasion failed, he found that the aliens were from a very sterile enviroment with little to no immune system or anything that may be like what the human immune system was like. HE findings suggest that upon entering the Atmosphere of Earth the Aliens were not sufficiently prepared for the levels of bacteria present in the air and in the water, as well as any illness's from humans they had captured. His findings that an advanced space faring race could have been beaten by something as simple as the common cold caused many to laigh out his ideas but Dr Freidle defended his theory and backed up his facts slowly but surely proving that it was bacteria on Earth that had been the ultimate downfall of this Alien race.

Whilst discoveries were made on the biology of the aline race that attacked earth there were still hundreds more questions to be asked, as one was answered 10 more cropped up as more and more ideas cropped up as who these Alien species were. The answer to who the aliens were came several months later on the 10th of November, During a study of one of the Alien war machines computer consoles a Russian and British Science team stumbled accross a star chart of earth Accidentally. The Alien language was yet to be understood by this point but pictures made it very clear that the invasion of Earth was staged from Mars. The British government under Winston Churchill looked to cover up the findings, but Leaders in Moscow had other ideas. Seeing an Idealogical foe and something to unite the socialist states behind Stalin unveiled that the Alien invasion came from Mars and started a long campaign of propagander to deamonise the Martian Threat.

Other powers such as the Reich were quick to also take up the propaganda rallying the population against the potential threat of another invasion. Leaders of the Allied powers took a similar but more subtle approach, seeing that war on Earth had effectively been snuffed out in favour of a greater threat in the Martians. The three factions of the world began an arms race pooling their resources and researching the Martian technology to reverse engineer it so they could better defend themselves should the martians return.

Over the next decade human technology would be propelled forward by hundreds of years thanks to reverse engineering Martian technology. The invention of computer systems and many other technologies that many could predicted would be hundreds of years off.

- 1942 Following the discovery of Nuclear fission two months after the Martian invasion, the first successful nuclear bomb test was conducted by the Third Reich in January of 1942. Later on that year both the Americans, British and Russians also developed their own nuclear bombs.

Fearing that the Martians may strike again at Earth the governments of the world tightened their grip around their civillian populations in order to better protect them. All over the world Observatories spring up the red planet for any sign of activity that might tell of another impending martian invasion, unfortunately even with the recent discoveries in computer technology Current telescopes were no powerful enough to get a decent look at the red planet. The allies began building a network of radio telescopes across the United States and the British Empire building a ground based Orbital surveilance system.

- 1948 The Third Reich launches the first satelite into Earth Orbit, the Schutzengel-1 was equipped with a small Radar unit and various scientific equipment to help in the Reichs mission to better understand space and to protect The Reich and the human race from the Evil Martians.

- 1949 NASA and the Allied Space Agency also launch an object into orbit around Earth, unlike the German satelite the Allied satelite carried a powerful radio telescope that would be able to get a better picture of what was happening on Mars. When it came online the first pictures returned from the Satelite were underwhelming showing no surface activity on Mars no cities or flying object that might show that there was life on the planet. Some speculated that the Invasion was more of a colony attempt to move the Martian Race from inhospitable red world.

The space race would continue, as more technology was reverse engineered from the Martian wrecks. The Space sector quickly became one of the largest industrial sectors across the globe. Whilst it was one thing to try and watch out for another Martian invasion there was many who wished to stop one before it could even happen either by intercepting an invasion before it could reach earth or invade the Martian homeworld and wipe out the threat before it could even leave the Martian homeworld.

- 1952 The Third Reich is the first to Land on the moon, setting up up a perminant colony on the moon the Reich set about exploring for vital materials and resources that they could not aquire on Earth. Not wanting to let the Reich gain a Key Stratigic foothold no matter what evangelical rhetoric they spouted both the Russians and the Allies began funding their own missions to the moon.

Later that year a British Scientist Dr Kari Rahjesh made a discovery that would change how humanity looked at the building blocks of the universe. Ever since the Martian invasion failed and the nations of the world started to reverse engineer one mystery had remained largely elusive to every researcher. What were the massive machines that were so impervious to weapons at the time made out of. Kari Rehjesh made the disovery that the alloys and metals that made up the armour and much of the wiring and internals of the death machines were previously undiscovered materials with Transnewtonian properties. This discovery forced Einstein (now working in America) to re-evaluate his hypothosis on relativity. The properties that made up the Martian Tri-pods quite litteraly shattered many of Sir Isaac Newtons laws on physics.

On the 21st of December the USSR launched the largest rocket ever built, its payload was a giant telescope with a lense 20meters in diameter. It was rumoured that it was so accurate that anyone watching Mars through it would be able to grains of sand move across its red deserts. To test the device and calibrate it the Russians first turned the new telescopes gaze on Deimos ones of Mars twin moons, only to spot several installations on the surface of the world as well as some smaller objects hanging in orbits of the moons. Fearing the worst the Kremlin does something rather unprecidented and informs both the Allies and the Axis powers of what they had found.

More Notes
TL;DR I know right let me summerise, Martians Botched the invasion now humanity is pissed off using the Martians own tech the world plunges into a perpetual arms race in the hopes that if the Martians come back they will be able to beat them back with weapons this time and no rely on the common cold. Powers colonise the moon and an Indian Scientist for the British Empire discoveres Transnewtonian materials, Russia essentially lauches the hubble telescope to spy on the martians and thats where our Gameplay will begin 1953.

To set this up correctly im going to be taking some liberties in tech for all the Human powers that will feature in this game. Things such as military organisational structures will be completely unlocked from the start. As well as some military tech but nothing to adventurous. The Martians wont much more advanced they are meant to be and early game plotline enemy and after they are dealt with ill allow the game to open up alot more and be open ended.

I will be leaving things such as invaders on and other spoilers just to spice up the game. (who knows if invaders arrive the Martians may just become a key ally to humanity we shall see.) So yeah anyway with that bit about technology out of the way A little more detail on the political situation on Earth.

Poltical Situation

With the Martian invasion, tensions between the world powers was essentially diverted away from each other and onto an even greater threat. Hitler did not have time prepare for the invasion of poland with several major german cities turned to rubble during the brief Martian invasion. So in this timeline the Axis powers were never defeated and used the knowledge that humanity is not alone and they want to eat us to stirr up national fervor and unity against a common enemy of humanity. This has left the world deeply divided but also united against a common enemy.

Allies
Democracy and Freedom, the allies represent the most moderate group of nations they also control of the majority of Earth in terms of Territory thanks the colonial holdings of The British Empire and France. Whilst Industrialy powerful the Allies are years behind the Axis powers in terms of technology.

Allied Nations:
- The United States of America
- The British Empire (Includes Canada and Australia)
- The French Third Repiblic

AXIS Powers
Unity and power, The Axis powers are aggressive and looking to expand their influence and power in the wake of the Martian invasion. Germany is by far the most technologically advanced nation on earth currently with ambitions of expanding its reach out further than the moon. Whilst technically the least Industrially powerful faction they industrial base is certainly not to be scoffed at but it is their technology that is rightly feared accross Earth.

AXIS Nations:
- The Third Reich
- The Italian Empire
- The Empire of Japan

Commitern
The Red Flag Rises, Commitern is both the smallest faction in terms of nations but one of the largest in terms of Territory owned. Made up of the USSR and a few smaller minor states they lack technology but have the largest industrial base on Earth, and one of the largest Military forces in the game making them a major player in world politics.

Commitern Nations:
- The Soviet States of Russia


I may choose to add more nations to the blocs as and when I feel they become benificial to thr early story. There are other nations working on reverse engineering the Martian technology on earth and thus may appear on the international scene a little later on, Either part of one of the power blocs or as an individual power.

Aliens

The Martians:
Despite being able to disect and study the dead bodies of the Martian menace and reverse engineer their war machines, very little is known about Humanities solar neighbourgh. Despite the best telescopes and technology focused on the red planet the Martians have been largey able to hide their facilities until recently. Even then their facilities on Mars themselves are largely unknown, only recently have the powers of Earth been able to spot the facilities on the moons of Mars. As it stands no communication has been established with these Martians and very little of their language is actually understood. As far as humanity knows these Martians are the only species on Mars and there are not factions or nations amongst them that could be ascertained from what small knowledge was gleened from the Martian tech on earth.

« Last Edit: March 31, 2016, 05:28:18 AM by Hydrofoil »
 

Offline Hydrofoil (OP)

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Re: War of the Worlds Setup Thread (OOC)
« Reply #1 on: April 09, 2016, 06:32:48 AM »
Quick Update: Still setting up This game has taken so much longer than I expected it to.
 

Offline Hydrofoil (OP)

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Re: War of the Worlds Setup Thread (OOC)
« Reply #2 on: June 28, 2016, 02:26:49 PM »
Oooookay.... so i finally found some time to actually set this game up and Ive already gotten a year into it! so expect some Retrospectives soon!
 

Offline MarcAFK

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Re: War of the Worlds Setup Thread (OOC)
« Reply #3 on: June 28, 2016, 08:51:20 PM »
I love the setting, pre WWII is about as modern as you can get while still having a late Victorian style atmosphere.
I was considering starting a war of the worlds game set during WWI,  it would combine various HG wells ideas together. But I got really bogged down by the time travel aspect. A shame because the steam powered space ships were cool as frakk.
" Why is this godforsaken hellhole worth dying for? "
". . .  We know nothing about them, their language, their history or what they look like.  But we can assume this.  They stand for everything we don't stand for.  Also they told me you guys look like dorks. "
"Stop exploding, you cowards.  "