Another Crossover: Species!

[erikmodi]

So, I've done a thing.

A movie that I really enjoyed from the time it first came out is Species, and not just because it has Natasha Henstridge naked a lot (don't get me wrong, that's a definite selling point). But I love the ambiguity of the film, how nebulous it is how much of a monster Sil really is, and how much she was made a monster because she was raised in a lab in isolation as a science experiment.

The amazing Alien RPG by Free League Publishing already got crossover ideas spinning in my head, and I wrote up my own rules for Predators, Terminators, then decided to throw in Species, just for fun. Well, it turns out someone else had the same idea, and there's a great Alien-Species crossover story on Archive Of Our Own. So, I started writing my own version, tying in a lot with the expanded universe lore provided in the RPG. That story is nearing its end, and I decided. . . what the hell, why not make some cards, too?



One of the main characters, United States Colonial Marine Corps Sergeant Davis AW Pike. "AW" stands for "Artificial Womb." This was first mentioned, so far as I know, in Nightmare Asylum, the second Dark Horse Comics Aliens series and the second novelization thereof, in the person of General Thomas AW Spears. The Artificial Womb Soldier Program is detailed in the second sourcebook for the RPG, the Colonial Marines Operations Manual, which talks about it being started when a draft bill was shot down and the Corps went looking for alternative solutions to a shortage of marines. The program turned out excellent soldiers. . . except for the tiny little drawback that, because they were literally raised from birth in a military training environment, they were at best stoic and cold, at worst barely functional sociopaths. Either way, they could never be meaningfully retired and integrated into society. The book notes the project has been shut down and the last crop of AWs are just now entering service. Not for any moral or ethical concerns, but because it's just too damn expensive to pay for the entire upkeep of lots of human beings for literally their entire lives.

This leads to the meat of the reason for my crossover story. In the film Species, aliens send a message to Earth with some alien DNA and helpful instructions to blend it with human DNA. The resulting hybrid goes from conception to birth in about a week, and after about three months is biologically somewhere around 12-13 years old. It's at this point Sil escapes from the lab, then enters a cocoon in which she goes from 12-13 to 18-20 overnight (Natasha Henstridge was 19 when the film was made). This alone makes this hybrid genome very interesting to people who want to keep a variant of the Artificial Womb Soldier Program around, since you'd save an acre of time growing soldiers and could thus scale production with need. So, in a secret lab, a new hybrid has been grown, and one of the experimental goals is seeing if she can make a suitable marine.



The hybrid, designated I5E, codename Lise, is about ready to start that testing, and a possibly boneheaded decision by the general running the base sees Pike brought in as her drill instructor.  Of course, there's an entirely different kind of drill she'd like to instruct him on, nudge nudge wink wink.

The hybrids in Species have some pretty exciting abilities:



They can transform into a sort of combat form with all kinds of vicious weapons, and regenerate from nearly anything. HR Giger was brought on to design Sil, and there ended up being some disagreement between Giger and the filmmakers and executives about how to handle Sil.



Giger did not want to have flamethrowers in the climax of the film, feeling it would be too derivative of Alien. He also designed Sil's hybrid form to be translucent (an effect easily missed in the final film), and envisioned her glowing with molten heat as she grew angrier or more threatened. The studio nixed this, and did use fire in the climax, though retained Giger's suggestion of killing Sil by grenade to the face, under the logic of "nothing can live without a head." Well, come Species 2, the most awesome part of that film is a hybrid regenerating the entire top three-quarters of his head after sticking a shotgun in his mouth (long story). Finding Giger's initial ideas compelling, I've used them in my crossover.

AW is a resource for Artificial Womb soldiers. There might be cards that trigger specifically for them. In the RPG, there are four attributes which max at five for humans, and each govern three skills. AWs can have up to 6 in strength, but a max of 2 in Wits and Empathy, reflecting their DNA and lifestyle being designed to make ideal soldiers. . . and nothing else.

Species Hybrid identifies characters with this particular mingling of human and alien DNA, giving them access to hybrid powers.

Esper is a resource indicting a character is psychically sensitive. The RPG mentions things like esper tests offhand, and leaves open the possibility that the Xenomorphs communicate telepathically, but does not confirm it.

I might do more with this as more ideas come.

[erikmodi]

So, between Alien: Isolation, Aliens: Fireteam Elite, and the RPG, the thrust of the Alien franchise at the moment seems to be moving away from the Aliens being Zerg, mowed down in impressive numbers but there are always more, to credible threats on their own. In the RPG, even a single Scout (Runner) can be a threat to a squad of marines armed with pulse rifles, with lots of armor and health and very, very fatal attacks.

I kind of like this, even if it goes against Dan O'Bannon's reasoning for giving the Alien acid blood in the first place -- the Nostromo crew could just shoot it and end the movie, but he felt the monster being bulletproof (or laser proof, the Nostromo crew had laser pistol sidearms that were never seen in the finished film) was lazy and improbable. So, here's my idea for helping Alien players get "tall" instead of "wide."

[erikmodi]

Upon some reflection, Species Hybrid gains a built-in ability, like Leader/Adaptable adding +1 to hand size.

Species Hybrids remove one damage counter during the Ready Cards Round. They have fantastic regenerative abilities. The card above that removes all damage or counters a card remains. In the film, Sil is hit by a car, and makes it all the way to the hospital and has a doctor examine her, mentioning it looks like her shoulderblade is broken, before Sil heals it, and she appears to focus on doing so. In my writeup for them in the RPG, they need to take an action to heal themselves, as it seems to be something that, at least some of the time, requires some extra focus (and thus, be worth spending a card on).

[erikmodi]

Okay. Doing a bit more work inspired by the recent directions of the Alien franchise.

As I noted for the "Structural Perfection" card, the recent thrust of things like the Alien RPG and Fireteam Elite is making the Aliens scary again. The franchise seems to want to move away from the idea that the Xenomorphs are only a threat to armed, prepared humans (or Predators) in fairly large groups, and that their main advantage is their numbers. Instead, most Aliens are treated as legitimate threats no matter how heavily armed you are, due to being just that badass and being able to think their way around most problems. So, in line with the RPG, I've reworked basic Alien cards.



First, naturally, the Facehugger, not at all dissimilar from the Facehugger that currently exists. This is, after all, the easiest form of the Xenomorph to deal with. Don't stick your face near eggs and don't let some untrustworthy Company asshole uncork some stasis tubes near you while you're sleeping, they're not much of a threat.



Now, the 'bursters. While the Dark Horse Comics and Kenner Toys had a field day with the idea that Aliens take genetic information from their hosts to influence their adult form, a lot of these. . . well, were pretty darn ridiculous. The RPG instead makes two different categories, starting with chestbursters. Humans (or something sufficiently humanlike), and animals. Okay, technically, chestbursters from humans and animals have the same stats, with "Imps" from Covenant and Queenbursters from Alien 3 being slightly different, but this is more in-line with the mechanics of the card game.



Now comes the real differentiation, the adult Alien form when there is no Queen present. These forms, the Drone of Alien and the Scout (or Runner) of Alien 3, exist primarily to start the work of securing a proper Hive. To this end, they will ambush and attack other beings to ovomorph them into eggs. These eggs aren't as robust as those laid by a Queen, but have a greater chance of producing a Royal Facehugger with which to generate a Queen. The Scout is noted to range over wider territory than the Drone, seeking hosts and a good spot to start the Hive, while the Drone is patient, quiet, and master ambush predator. In the short term, the Drone is less of a worry than the more aggressive Runner (and very aggressive Stalker Praetomorph of Alien: Covenant) but in the long term is patient and methodical approach is more likely to successfully start a new Hive.



Once a Queen is present, Xenomorph XX121 enters the "Hive" stage of development. It is unknown if the Queen controls the Hive through pheromones, body language, and vocalizations, as among eusocial insects on Earth, of if there is a psionic or telepathic element to communication, though there is evidence for the latter, including those who score high on esper tests having bad dreams and feelings when in the vicinity of a Queen, even if they are unaware of the Queen's existence. The Aliens themselves change, with Drones maturing into Warriors, sometimes called Soldiers, to do the primary work of defending the Hive and securing hosts. Scouts, interestingly, mature into Sentries, losing some of their animal-based structure and locomotion to become the first phase of Aliens specialized for guarding the Queen and the egg chamber. Some might also mature into Workers, losing much of their defensive and offensive capability in exchange for being quite able to expand the resinous Hive, cocoon hosts for implantation via facehugger, and ferry eggs to freshly caught victims.



Once the Hive grows numerous and strong, more specialized forms arise. Praetorians and Crushers (also called Chargers) both come about in roughly the same way: Soldiers and Sentries force fed royal jelly and metals until they cocoon themselves to metamorphose into a more powerful form. Praetorians are both the most fearsome guardians of the Queen and frontline generals when the hive is under attack, rallying other Xenomorph forms to follow them and enhancing their coordination and capability. On the bright side, killing the Praetorian can cause some disarray in the assaulting Xenomorphs. On the down side, actually doing that is really frelling difficult.

Chargers are the heavies of the Hive, heavily armored, unimaginably strong, and able to bowl over just about anything they hit when they get up a full charge. Anti-vehicle weapons are recommended for taking them down, but be advised -- Chargers are just as good, if not better, at taking out vehicles as they are infantry.

Consider these alternatives for beefing up the threat level of Aliens. Not sure if they should be allowed to form Groups. . . on the one hand, Groups and Tokens encourage the Alien player to breed relentlessly (ew). On the other, "quality versus quantity."