Dragons On the Fringes of Space - More Hostile Rpg Commentary

 “The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age. ”

― H.P. Lovecraft

 So we've been pitcing around a bit about the Hostile rpg campaign that we've run in the past year or so aka 'The New England Boi's'. And one of the things that's come up is the fact that the player's PC's haven't come up against Xeno's and my answer was .. yet. 


Now why is that?! Because of the fact that space is big and I mean really big! The odds of the PC's encountering the Xeno's are very rare. But the fact that the corporations have been searching for them indicates that there has been contact in the past. And its this contact that we see forming the basis for the player's future interactions and this especially true if we look at the reviews such as Shawn's from Drivethrurpg; "The book details a variety of "evolved" xenomorphs, that is, they have new features that make them a little different then the stock aliens. This includes some which breathe fire, other which create spores, or others which are puppeteers. Each one has a full explanation of their lifecycle and the game stats you need to terorrize your unsuspecting adventurers. It also includes a small 40-50 person mining colony which is being terorrized by the aliens. It has full maps and stats for the colony and colonists. " 
The evolved xenomorphs is very important here.These are xenomorphs with unconventional abilities & special characteristics. The players even if their familiar with the perfect organism from a certain multi million dollar franchise isn't going to expect them do some of the abilities that the 'evolved' have. The player's PC's even less so. 

PC's can stumble into the middle of the Xenomorphs at anytime because of the misdeeds of the corporations. The fact is that illict cargos, weird missions, and explority mishaps could create the perfect adventure fodder. But when combined with motive & player opportunity then its the perfect combination for trouble. 
The boring & routine can easily sucker the players into a trap take the ubitious Pioneer station. They in every star base, the appear almost at every fuel station & fill up point, and on every interstellar job site. But they are also the perfect resource &  trap; "The Pioneer Stations. The 600-ton Leyland-Okuda Pioneer is a general purpose industrial operations platform, a five-man space station designed to serve as an operations center, drone control, fuel store or supply dump". A multimillion dollar disaster or coffin waiting in space. 

At some point a cargo of eggs or xeno's is going to make to a Pioneer station & then let the mayhem begin. But could the xeno's be even more dangerous then the player's PC's  have ever encountered?! Are they more of a danger then the Earth has encountered?! If the forms of the aliens are only one plot point on their evolutionary graph and the PC's are food, sex, or simply storage is there more going on here?! 
These are the questions that you as the dungeon master have  to ask & keep asking. Because if the xenomorphs are changing & evolving between each encounter then they could be learning. Learning to become indifferent to mankind and its tricks. There is no place warmer in space to hide then mankind. But where that leave us in a hostile univere?!