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Roswell Incident

Is there any Champions Lore based around the "Roswell Incident" in the 1940's? I was trying to see if the Qularr, or Gadroon, had something to do with the crashed UFO, but couldn't find anything.

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  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    I looked at every Champions source I thought might mention Roswell, without indication that it's part of official CU history. But you have to remember that said incident wouldn't have the same resonance on Champions Earth that it has on real Earth. Modern Man's first encounter with extraterrestrials was nearly a decade earlier, and much more public; the landing and attack by the "Martians" in New Jersey in 1938, based on the broadcast of the radio-play adaptation of H.G. Wells's War of the Worlds in the real world. Aliens were already a publicly-known reality by 1947 and the Roswell Incident.

    However, those invaders -- now known to originate from the Sirius B star system -- were encountered by superheroes on several subsequent occasions, most notably a much larger attack on New York City in 1967. If you wanted to base a story, origin, or the like around the Roswell Incident, those Sirians would be the likeliest creators of said crashed spacecraft, which was probably a scout ahead of the second invasion.

    Let me know if you want more information. :)
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    BTW per official Champions Universe history, the Qularr first became aware of the human race in 1964, so it's unlikely the Roswell ship was one of theirs, although not impossible. The Gadroon are also possible, but their first invasion of Earth occurred twenty years after Roswell, so again, not likely.
  • dialamxdialamx Posts: 931 Arc User
    Knowing the Sirians would have a scout ship in the area helps. The idea was my alien character's ship was the one that crashed at Roswell, but I knew Earthlings in Champions already knew about aliens at this point, and would not have a reason to immediately attack. The only races I could remember as a regular invading force was the Qularr and Gadroon, which is why I mentioned them. The story is supposed to be, my character's ship was shot down by another alien force which caused it to crash in 1947. So, having it be a Sirian scout ship, not long before their invasion, fits nicely with the story.
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    Did you intend for your character to be a Sirian? If so, have you read any Champions references about them? If not, there's a significant amount to unpack. ;) Also, what role did you want the character to play in the setting?
  • dialamxdialamx Posts: 931 Arc User
    Honestly, the character came up from the in-game Cryptonian title. A truncated version of his backstory is, he's more of a the traditional "Little Green Man" who's planet (Cryptonus and thus he's a Cryptonian) was destroyed. He remembers there was once a separate colony of his people near the Milky Way Galaxy. When trying to find them, his ship gets shot down, causing him to crash in Roswell. Humans find him severely injured and unconscious. No knowing anything about his race, or physiology, he was placed in a Cryostasis pod in the Area 51 base. They hoped to preserve him until they could figure out how to heal him. He's awakened during VIPER's attack, and capture, of Area 51 in game. He escapes and all he wants to do is get his ship back from VIPER, and learns his best bet to do that is to work with the heroes trying to stop VIPER.
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    edited August 2020
    Ah, I see. The character's from an alien race of your creation, then. So you just wanted an idea of who would shoot his ship down. The rest of the setting's alien info isn't really relevant. Got it. :)

    Incidentally, according to Champions Beyond, Area 51 is just part of Nellis Air Force Range used for aircraft testing, just as the American government says it is. "Area 52," which UFOlogists in the real world claim holds the proof of aliens, also exists on Champions Earth, but it's mostly a decoy for people who are trying to unearth the truth. The real American repository for alien artifacts, biological materials, and even live prisoners from past invasions, is "Area 53," aka "the Tunnel" or "the Vault," a large complex dug out of the mountains near Nellis AFR. Only a very few people in the government know it exists.
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    edited September 2020
    dialamx wrote: »
    Honestly, the character came up from the in-game Cryptonian title. A truncated version of his backstory is, he's more of a the traditional "Little Green Man" who's planet (Cryptonus and thus he's a Cryptonian) was destroyed. He remembers there was once a separate colony of his people near the Milky Way Galaxy. When trying to find them, his ship gets shot down, causing him to crash in Roswell. Humans find him severely injured and unconscious. No knowing anything about his race, or physiology, he was placed in a Cryostasis pod in the Area 51 base. They hoped to preserve him until they could figure out how to heal him. He's awakened during VIPER's attack, and capture, of Area 51 in game. He escapes and all he wants to do is get his ship back from VIPER, and learns his best bet to do that is to work with the heroes trying to stop VIPER.

    If you want your character to be a "little green man," that raises some ironic possibilities re the Sirians. As described in Champions Beyond, the majority of the Sirian invaders resemble the "Greys" from popular UFOlogy: short (3'-4'), grey-skinned, with wedge-shaped heads and large all-black eyes. However, a minority of them are green-skinned, taller (up to 5'), intellectually superior, and sometimes manifest psionic powers. The Greens form the ruling caste over the Greys. Humanity knows little more than that about Sirian culture or history -- even the race-name is just what humans call them. So there would be no barrier to claiming that "Siria" is the Cryptonian colony world your character was searching for, if you wanted to.

    (There's more to the Sirian story, but only necessary to know if you want your character to continue to seek them as part of his story-line.)
  • dialamxdialamx Posts: 931 Arc User
    bulgarex wrote: »
    dialamx wrote: »
    Honestly, the character came up from the in-game Cryptonian title. A truncated version of his backstory is, he's more of a the traditional "Little Green Man" who's planet (Cryptonus and thus he's a Cryptonian) was destroyed. He remembers there was once a separate colony of his people near the Milky Way Galaxy. When trying to find them, his ship gets shot down, causing him to crash in Roswell. Humans find him severely injured and unconscious. No knowing anything about his race, or physiology, he was placed in a Cryostasis pod in the Area 51 base. They hoped to preserve him until they could figure out how to heal him. He's awakened during VIPER's attack, and capture, of Area 51 in game. He escapes and all he wants to do is get his ship back from VIPER, and learns his best bet to do that is to work with the heroes trying to stop VIPER.

    If you want your character to be a "little green man," that raises some ironic possibilities re the Sirians. As described in Champions Beyond, the majority of the Sirian invaders resemble the "Greys" from popular UFOlogy: short (3'-4'), grey-skinned, with wedge-shaped heads and large all-black eyes. However, a minority of them are green-skinned, taller (up to 5'), intellectually superior, and sometimes manifest psionic powers. The Greens form the ruling caste over the Greys. Humanity knows little more than that about Sirian culture or history -- even the race-name is just what humans call them. So there would be no barrier to claiming that "Siria" is the Cryptonian colony world your character was searching for, if you wanted to.

    (There's more to the Sirian story, but only necessary to know if you want your character to continue to seek them as part of his story-line.)

    That's actually really cool. I could make that work well for my story, and Nemesis (even though that system is now obsolete)
  • jonsillsjonsills Posts: 6,317 Arc User
    Are there conflicts between the green and grey Sirians, as far as is known? For instance, could the ship have crashed because the Greys were trying to overthrow their Green commander?

    BTW, Dial, Earth isn't "near" the Milky Way - it's deep inside the Milky Way, about two-thirds of the way out from the core to the edge, residing in what our astronomers have termed the Orion Arm of our barred-spiral galaxy. Galaxies are big. Really big.
    "Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"

    - David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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  • yeah, if you wanted a colony near the milky way, you'd have to pick a planet in one of its satellite dwarf galaxies (yes, the milky way apparently has satellite galaxies)​​
    #LegalizeAwoo
  • dialamxdialamx Posts: 931 Arc User
    jonsills wrote: »
    Are there conflicts between the green and grey Sirians, as far as is known? For instance, could the ship have crashed because the Greys were trying to overthrow their Green commander?

    BTW, Dial, Earth isn't "near" the Milky Way - it's deep inside the Milky Way, about two-thirds of the way out from the core to the edge, residing in what our astronomers have termed the Orion Arm of our barred-spiral galaxy. Galaxies are big. Really big.
    yeah, if you wanted a colony near the milky way, you'd have to pick a planet in one of its satellite dwarf galaxies (yes, the milky way apparently has satellite galaxies)​​

    As I mentioned, it's a truncated version of the backstory, so I didn't go into all the details. But, since this seems to be an issue that needs detailed clarification, that part of his story had him traveling to the center of the Milky Way galaxy to activate his ship's sensors. From the center, he could send out signals across the entire Milky Way, to try and track signals of his people. However, he got shot down before reaching his destination.
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    jonsills wrote: »
    Are there conflicts between the green and grey Sirians, as far as is known? For instance, could the ship have crashed because the Greys were trying to overthrow their Green commander?

    Humans actually know little about Sirian society or culture. Their caste distinctions appear quite rigid, but that could just be a feature of their military. Some of their captured records refer to a "Great Green" in a leadership role, but it's unclear whether that's an individual or some sort of ruling oligarchy.

    However, if we're looking more into Sirian society there are a couple of points I should bring up. According to Champions Beyond the Sirians invaded because their home world was on the verge of environmental collapse due to "industrial accidents" (really more over-exploitation), and they wanted a new one. In the Earth year 1977 they were becoming desperate, and attacked Malva hoping to steal terraforming technology to save their planet. The attack turned out as any sane person would expect: the Malvans annihilated the Sirian fleet, then tracked them back to their home world and scoured it practically clean of life. A few hundred Sirians still cling to their dying world, but the majority of the scant survivors wander the stars in the few large ships they had left. They'll probably be extinct in a couple of generations.

    OTOH, Golden Age Champions presents a very different version of the Sirian invaders, one clearly based on the radically nonhumanoid Martians from the original H.G. Wells War of the Worlds novel. I corresponded with GAC author and former Hero Games president Darren Watts about the difference, and he said the humanoids from CB were Steve Long's interpretation of the Sirians, while those from GAC were his own. (GAC was published after CB, and after both Darren and Steve had stepped down from their respective administrative roles at Hero.)

    The company's position during their tenure was that the latest published version of the setting should be considered the "official" one. However, I pointed out to Darren that since he asserted in GAC that his Sirians controlled a small interplanetary empire, keeping the conquered sapients under their rule as slaves (and food), the CB Sirians could be one of their conquests. As the GAC Sirians had the same physical restriction under Earth's gravity as the ones from Wells's novel, they might have used the CB Sirians as ground troops during the invasion. Humans not encountering the GAC Sirians, never knew the truth.

    Darren agreed that that sounded perfectly reasonable. He even awarded me a No-Prize. ;) Given that explanation the two versions would not be incompatible.
  • bulgarexbulgarex Posts: 2,310 Arc User
    yeah, if you wanted a colony near the milky way, you'd have to pick a planet in one of its satellite dwarf galaxies (yes, the milky way apparently has satellite galaxies)​​

    As does Andromeda, the other giant spiral galaxy in our Local Group of galaxies. In the Marvel Comics universe, the Kree Empire controls the Large Magellanic Cloud, fourth-largest galaxy in the Local Group and a satellite of the Milky Way.
  • stormturmoilstormturmoil Posts: 10 Arc User
    bulgarex wrote: »
    Humans actually know little about Sirian society or culture. Their caste distinctions appear quite rigid, but that could just be a feature of their military. Some of their captured records refer to a "Great Green" in a leadership role, but it's unclear whether that's an individual or some sort of ruling oligarchy.

    That mention of a 'Great Green' makes me wonder if it's some sort of expy/homage to the Mekon of Dan Dare in Eagle Comics, especially given mention of greater physical resilience, intelligence and Psychic powers among Greens

    Granted that was Venus rather than Mars (or Sirius B)
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