Brainstorming for a Sci-Fi Noir Game

[Zombra]

OK, so this campaign didn't get off the ground yet, but interest has renewed with the players so I am reviewing my ideas. See if you can figure out how many different sources I stole this stuff from.

The MacGuffin I think is a pretty good one. It is an alien artifact recovered from the Xeno homeworld before the human fleet blew it up. Yes, the aliens have been destroyed. The artifact is a computer or information storage device with a record stating "We are doomed, the humans are destroying the homeworld, we lose". So the whole alien war was a real thing, but its continuation is a hoax on the part of the military to keep humanity united. A cryptologist and/or computer scientist of sufficient skill will be able to coax this proof out of the device. Obviously the military would not be happy if this was made public. There is a conspiracy of top officials who knows about the hoax and the rest of the military still believes it's fighting an honest battle.

The artifact was heisted from the military at some point by a corrupt communications officer and some of his criminal friends (including one of the PCs), most of whom don't even know what it is, just that it's incredibly valuable. The officer was in touch with the base commander (a conspirator). The commander wanted to recover the artifact and kill the officer to keep the secret, but he didn't have the chance. The captain of the comm officer found his decryption notes (trying to figure out what the artifact is), including a bunch of unforgable alien script, concluded that the comm officer was a Xeno spy, and shot him dead at his station.

One player character is a military lawyer, who has been called in as defense counsel for the captain. The base commander doesn't want the notes or the existence of the artifact to become public knowledge, so he falsifies evidence to make it look like the captain is paranoid and went temporarily insane. The lawyer will be under pressure to enter an insanity plea, but the captain is going to be steadfast and demand his day in court so he can warn the people about spies. When confronted with conflicting evidence (falsified notes), the lawyer may begin to suspect a cover-up and investigate the situation.

Meanwhile, the criminal PC mentioned above has come to the planet to find her partner and help cash in the artifact ... but once she learns he's dead, she may choose to try to find where he hid it on her own. Eventually it will come out to the lawyer that the artifact is a real thing and the captain isn't crazy, so they will work together tracing the dead officer's contacts etc. to try to find the device. And once it becomes clear that the lawyer knows about the artifact, the base commander will have no choice but to order his liquidation. A botched assassination tips him off and he becomes a fugitive with no choice but to hide in the bad part of town.

I think that's pretty good for a start. I'll need to establish a couple of good trails left behind by the comm guy as to where he would have hidden it (spoiler: I think a final climactic adventure into the bowels of the mines would be good), but those can be sketched in later. I also still need to put together a bigger cast of characters, who the comm guy was dealing with, other criminal big wheels with their own schemes and so forth.

Ultimately they'll find the artifact and either figure out what it is or not. If they figure it out, they can hide the information on a dead man switch ("Kill me and this will be on tomorrow's front page in 10 newspapers") and bargain to sell it, or choose to reveal the truth to the world, or whatever they like. If they don't figure it out, they can still try to sell the thing or get rid of it or turn everybody along the way in to the cops and call it good.

I'm also trying to work in a third PC, who looks like he may be an Outland type character, a disgraced cop assigned to a corrupt post here on the station, but I'm having a hard time figuring out how to motivate him and get him working with the group. There's got to be something like his brother got killed, or something like that, so he ends up hunting the same criminals that the other PCs are looking for.

 

[Zombra]

Oh yeah, another idea for the third PC would be a North By Northwest ripoff where he's on the shuttle to the planet and somebody just hands him a briefcase, and then assassins mistake his identity and come after him and he has no choice but to investigate. Crossing his path with the other PCs in a situation like that could be tricky, but shouldn't be too hard with cooperative players.

 

[Ranselknulf]

Oh yeah, another idea for the third PC would be a North By Northwest ripoff where he's on the shuttle to the planet and somebody just hands him a briefcase, and then assassins mistake his identity and come after him and he has no choice but to investigate. Crossing his path with the other PCs in a situation like that could be tricky, but shouldn't be too hard with cooperative players.

I think this sounds a bit contrived.



Hmmm.. How about a kidnapping gone bad, This is a much more believable series of events.

The character: is a guy/girl/xir relaxing at an entertainment space station hub. Large resort type craft with all sorts of exotic and unique pleasures waiting to be experienced. Just what is needed after a successful business venture/military academy graduation/college graduation. Xir is watching a zero G fight between a bear and a monkey with two laser knives. While sipping on multicolored prismatic drink xir checks their betting cred with their neural implant uplink. Odds favor the monkey but if the bear can survive another 3 min's the bears trainer can throw in the mystery weapon and then things could get interesting with side bets. Xir turns their head to the noise of a stranger in a wrinkled suit collapsing in a chair a few tables away. The stranger looks like he hasn't slept in days and gazes about nervously. Xir thinks about sending the man a drink to help him get into a festive mood but before xir can process the thought through the neural uplink the bar erupts in screams and yells.

Xir turns back to see the monkey tumble away from the bear losing one of it's laser knifes in the bears high density composite metal armor. The bear's rear leg drags behind it uselessly but only 2 minutes remain until the mystery weapon is in play. Xir turns back to the mystery man and orders him a drug mix drink designed to make humanoids carefree for a few hours. About this time the stranger pulls out small privacy field generator and the tables goes completely black. Light and sound simply stop entering or exiting the fields barrier. The automated drink delivery drone is already on it's way though and descends through the field to deliver the drink. The field shuts off almost immediately and the man hurriedly puts a black book with a cross on it's cover in his pocket. The smashed drones bits lay fizzling in the drug alcohol cocktail scattered on the table.

Xir feeds the image of the book into the neural computer uplink and discover it's a Bible. He must be one of those religious agitators causing trouble throughout the region. A mind interface forcefully establishes itself and Xir is in conference with a station security guard. "Well that was rude, but you can make it up to me handsome" xir pouts at the buff guards mental image. The guard ignores xirs come on, "How long ago did you see this imazzzzzzzzssSSSzzshs" the connection breaks. The stranger is standing beside xir with an uplink neutralizer rod in his hand. Cries of dismay fill the bar and a woman falls to the floor two tables away. "Come on you stupid fucking monkey and fight" she screams. Xir glances at the holo image on her table and sees the monkey has lost it's second laser knife and has a broken arm. The bear is slowly closing on the monkey. The man quietly whispers in xirs ear, "You fucked with the wrong preacher trannie heretic". Pulling out a small pistol he presses it against xirs side. He sighs, "I knew this was a bad idea coming here. Second coming my ass"

Xir stares at the man confused, "I just ordered you a drink bro, relax". Without a word the stranger pulls xir up to their feet and pushes xir into the hallway. "If you want to live you will stay quiet and not make a scene until I'm off this station". The man pushes xir into a transport pod and pulls out a shuttle encryption key device and begins the preparatory unlock sequences while the pod begins to accelerate down the transport tube. Xir looks at the pods entertainment monitor and sees the mystery weapon box being lowered into the arena. The monkey rushes the bear, ducks a heavy paw swing and leaps off the bears back to grab hold of one of the boxes chains. The monkey swings up and disappears into the box. Xir turns back to see the man staring at her, "I have no desire to kill your kind, I wish you wouldn't have put me in this situation"

The pod begins to decelerate and the man is concentrating on his shuttle encryption key. Xir tries the neural uplink again but it's still not working. "What do you want from me, why don't you just leave me here and go I won't tell anybody where you went". The man's frowns, "you lie poorly and it wouldn't matter anyways, the security are planning to kill us both when this pod reaches the shuttle hangar." He holds up the tablet and a security cam image of rifle wielding guards positioning themselves outside the transport tube shuttle hangar exit. The man looks sad, "My mission is a failure". Xir smiles at the man, "Why would they kill me, I'm just here having a good time." Xir turns to the entertainment monitor and sees the monkey standing on top of a decapitated bear holding a plasma chainsaw. "A fucking plasma chainsaw, hot damn".

The man slaps xir "Pay attention you degenerate piece of shit, I'm giving you a chance to live and this plan requires two people to work". Xir rubs their face looking hurt. "Ok, what do i have to do?" The man pulls out two white metal spheres and pushes a button on top. "When the door opens stay close to me". The pod comes to a hissing stop and doors open. The speaker hisses "Thank you for riding happy tubes for all your travel needs". The man throws the first white sphere and the guards fire a few shots before a loud woosh sound fills the compartment knocking the man and xir to the floor and he drops the second white sphere which disappears out the transport pod door. Another loud woosh sound fills the air. The man is laying on top of xir staring into xirs perfect green eyes, "well.. umm. yah, lets go". Disentangling themselves they run out the transport pod and run into the busy hangar.

The man pulls xir into a information alcove and begins digging through his briefcase. "What were those white pods?" xir asks peaking around the corner. The man pulls out a spiked cylinder with a handle coming out the bottom. "The spheres were part of a Blackhole generation field kit. One sphere to turn on, the other sphere to turn it off." Xir is impressed "Thats some high grade military equipment, I learned about that stuff in during my college/military/business". The man pushes a button on the bottom of the spiked cylinders handle and blue arcs of energy begin to circle the spiked cylinder. The man points to an entry on the information console, "This is our ticket out of here, my shuttle is too hot to get to now".

Exiting the alcove the man pushes a second button on the spike cylinders handle and a small invisibility field forms around the pair. "Lets hurry, this is only good for a few minutes." They make it to the shuttle and finally catch a lucky break managing to get into the cockpit before captain locks the door. "Time to DIE!!" the man swings the spiked club into the captains exposed jugular and quickly ends him. "He's already got the shuttle ready for launch, we just have to take off and alter the course once we are beyond the stations security radius."

Xir stares at the console displays as the shuttle's infinity engines swiftly leave the station behind. "Ok, I still don't get it, why did you need me for all this anyways?" The man pulls out his bible and rests it on his lap. "The twelfth order of baptist hopw disciples has waited for the signs of the second coming for nearly 200 years. Unfortunately our wait continues, I've brought you along to be my sex slave"

Somewhere along the route to the coordinates the Twelfth order of baptist hopw disciples attacks the shuttle for it's rogue preachers degeneracy and they crash on a large mining asteroid colony.

 

[Ranselknulf]

ok, not really believable, but whatever. Religious fanatics of some sort or kidnapping might be ok though ;p

 

[Zombra]

This isn't about my game any more, is it?

 

[Ranselknulf]

Yah, i got a bit distracted there heh

 

[Tzaero]

Sounds like the government has morphed into militaristic junta or something else totalitarian.
It would explain how they could effectively suppress information of the alien enemy, as usually this stuff leaks out.

You could hone the N by NW premise by to having the PC being mistaken for the leader of subversive democracy restoration group, and the PC may even be a lower ranked member in that organization who might be on the trail of the device already.

 

[Night Goat]

The MacGuffin I think is a pretty good one. It is an alien artifact recovered from the Xeno homeworld before the human fleet blew it up. Yes, the aliens have been destroyed. The artifact is a computer or information storage device with a record stating "We are doomed, the humans are destroying the homeworld, we lose". So the whole alien war was a real thing, but its continuation is a hoax on the part of the military to keep humanity united. A cryptologist and/or computer scientist of sufficient skill will be able to coax this proof out of the device. Obviously the military would not be happy if this was made public. There is a conspiracy of top officials who knows about the hoax and the rest of the military still believes it's fighting an honest battle.

Why haven't the soldiers realized that they're not actually fighting anyone?

The "artifact" being just a recorded message seems kind of lame too. Something like that could be faked with sufficiently advanced technology - much less advanced than interstellar travel - so it's not like it would even prove anything.

 

[Zombra]

Why haven't the soldiers realized that they're not actually fighting anyone?

It's not a boxing match - more of a chess game in deep space where you can't see any of the enemy pieces. They aren't out laser shooting doods every day. Neither side can tell where the other side is, so it's pretty much down to building ships, training men, scanning for radio emissions, and trying to guess where the other guys are hiding. At least, it was until humanity lucked on the homeworld.

The "artifact" being just a recorded message seems kind of lame too. Something like that could be faked with sufficiently advanced technology - much less advanced than interstellar travel - so it's not like it would even prove anything.

Sure it would. Technology isn't a linear scale - just because humans developed things in a certain order doesn't mean aliens will too. The device will be based on a technology unlike anything known to science and experts will be convinced as to its authenticity. I think that's sufficient for the purposes of an RPG.