GURPS X-COM: Second Research Phase
The intrepid soldiers of my X-COM campaign have just completed their second field op and returned alive but not unharmed. They discovered and explored a huge Forest of Woe in southeastern Brazil, met a new and more dangerous type of enemy, and brought back what seems to be an alien defector.
At this point I once again invited the players to step out of character for a while, and we entered the game’s second strategic/research phase. The bonus event they got this time was a debriefing of the alien refugee, because Sokolov was their head scientist. Had it been one of the others, this would have been a normal research choice and would cost points.
Bonus Event: The Refugee
The alien is around 1.5m tall, and quite skinny. Its body is covered in a dark purple, chitinous carapace, over which it wears clothes. It has four arms and two legs, and moves in a somewhat discomforting and “twitchy” fashion. Its seems to wear a mask, as there is a clear seam between its face and the rest of its head, but this “mask” is soft and warm and almost human-like, and moves like it was a natural face. It’s a strong royal blue in color. The alien’s eyes are yellow with black pupils, and it has a very pronounced nose. This being does not have a gender as humans conceive of the concept.
As a genderless alien who wants to come and meet us, it was inevitable that the refugee would receive the code-name of Ziggy (from David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust). Despite Dr. Vahlen’s strenuous protests, Dr. Sokolov elected to debrief X-COM’s new guest by personally interviewing Ziggy, since it was capable of communicating in English.
Ziggy’s use of grammar was quite peculiar, and it refused to use the pronoun “I”. Sokolov soon found out the movements of its mouth didn’t match what it seemed to be saying, and recordings of the interview only showed it speaking the same alien language the PCs had heard over their comms multiple times. As a result, the interviews were all transcribed the old-fashioned way, using the services of a stenographer.
Ziggy gave X-COM some basic organizational information on their opposition: they were made up of multiple alien species, some from previously conquered worlds and some engineered for war. The leaders of this force called themselves the Ebon Masters, and arrived on Earth through “gates”. The trees were part of a weaponized, artificial ecosystem it called “The Moon Flower”. Ziggy had been only a civilian clerk in the employ of the Masters, so he wasn’t able to provide much in the way of specific strategic detail.
Ziggy also referred to something called “The One Power” several times, and said none of the species previously conquered by the Masters had such an advanced mastery of it. Figuring that misunderstanding out quickly revealed that the advanced alien technology on display so far was, in fact, magic, and that humans were totally ignorant of it. Ziggy became as fascinated by this revelation as Sokolov was about the existence of magic.
Like the rest of the alien Masters, Ziggy’s look and culture are a mashup of the original Ethereals from X-COM and the devils from the excellent Kill Six Billion Demons comic. It’s the equivalent of a Blue Devil, so low-ranked but quite intelligent. Ziggy also has a conscience, which makes it nearly unique among its species.
The whole “friendly alien helps X-COM” idea sprung from a My Little Pony fanfic, of all places. That story is here if you’re curious, and though it becomes a bit muddled later on its premise was interesting enough that I decided to recycle it with a more campaign-appropriate alien.
Research Options
This time, the players had 2 research points to allocate. Their options were the following, with the ones in italics being new:
Cutting-Edge Research
- Advanced Medkit (this was Vahlen’s “free” project”) 0/1
- Personal-scale combat drones (this was Shen’s “free” project) 0/1
- Project Stardust (Employ Ziggy as part of the research staff and harness the One Power) 0/2
Alien Artifacts
- Pinnochio (Puppet of Ruin) corpse 0/1
- Rosie (Bakegumo) corpse 0/1
- Alien guns 0/1
- Alien swords 0/1 -Alien Explosives (from grenades/RPG rounds) 0/1
- Black Trees (Study those substantial Black Tree pieces) 0/1
- Red Dust (It’s sprinkled over every alien body and artifact, as you’ve discovered earlier) 0/1
The group discussed this for a while. Two new players had joined the group at this time, and they provided their input as well. In the end, Project Stardust won out. It was the equivalent of researching psionics in the computer games, and it was even more vital here than in the original material.
The One Power: Setting Information
What Ziggy called “The One Power” is the ability to cause direct changes to physical reality by visualizing them in extreme detail and willing them into existence. It’s called that by the Ebon Masters because they never before had encountered a civilization that managed to achieve more than a medieval level of technology without resorting to it.
Ziggy’s description of the theoretical underpinnings of the One Power match a lot of human occult lore, sharing several similarities with Kabbalah and Pythagorean numerology among other sources. Manifesting a given effect requires modeling it through an equation in the alien numerological system, and then repeatedly solving it in one’s mind. Using it in practice requires more than an active imagination and skill at mathematics, however!
Medical scans show Ziggy’s body is permeated by an extensive network of circuit-like metallic filaments, made from the same materials detected in the tree fragments. These are naturally occurring in every species capable of using the One Power, according to the alien. These “circuits” act as a conduit for it, and take on some of the work of processing those mental equations.
Once X-COM’s scientists and engineers figured out the basics of how all of that works, they realized it wasn’t much different from modeling a physical process in software. With this knowledge in hand, they were able to separate the steps of building the necessary model (“compilation”) and running its simulation enough times to manifest the effect (“execution”). Sokolov didn’t like calling these things “spells”, so he named them “metatronic loops” to make the whole thing sound more scientific.
The One Power: Game Mechanics
Behind the scenes, the One Power as used by the aliens is basically Ritual Path Magic from GURPS Monster Hunters 1: Champions and GURPS Thaumathology: Ritual Path Magic. The main break from those supplements is that the aliens are able to use it to create permanent items and constructs, which is where all the “TL 4+n” stuff comes from.
The bit about naturally occurring “magic circuits” is swiped from the Fate franchise; their game effect here is to allow a character to buy Magery (Ritual Path) and Ritual Adept. Humans in this game lack these circuits and so can’t use “classic” RPM at all. However, this discovery allows them to build similar circuits into computers, giving them access to the Technomagic variant from GURPS Monster Hunters 5: Applied Xenology.
The immediate game effect of this discovery was to add a new item to the group’s master equipment list: the Metatronic Device, a hardened, custom-made PDA that could store one metatronic loop in its memory and run it at the tap of an icon. The thing’s processor would burn out after the effect ended, but it would be possible to carry several of them into the field. The first loop available was one that completely protected everyone in a given radius from the Hostage Effect (AKA psychic numbness) for up to 6 hours.
Players can also elect to learn ritual magic paths from now on - once they do, they’ll be able to develop their own loops using the top-of-the-line setup at X-COM HQ and take them into the field using the PDAs. For now they’re limited to what the NPC scientists can make.
Another, less visible effect of the discovery was to give X-COM access to the magical side of every other discovery they made through research! This is why researching the One Power was so vital - every possible countermeasure for the Dreams of Ruin involves a healthy dose of magic, particularly the higher-end ones. They couldn’t arrive at any of those solutions without this knowledge.
Once the choice was made and the effects explained, I took a little time to come up with their next mission. In the next update to this series, we’ll begin covering Operation SNAKE OIL.