Above As So Below - The Hidden Agendas & Robert E. Howard - Cepheus Engine rpg & The Gerry Anderson Factor Continues

"I am older than the world:
Older than life.
The race of man is a babe in the cradle of Time.
I am Alpha and Omega.

The first and the last;
The circle without end.
I am a serpent with its tail in its mouth;
I am a triangle whose tips overlap a circle.

I am the older sister of Destiny.
Before man was, I was:
And after man has vanished from the Universe, I will be.
Time is a phantom, built by the mind of man;
There is no Time.
The thing that men call Time flies before my wind;
Time has beginning, duration, ending.
I am that which was, is and shall be;
Unceasing, Neverending, Eternal.
Number all the sands of all the shores of all the worlds
Of all the Universes.
And let each sand represent a million centuries;
And they all shall not be a single instant
Of Eternity.

For I am numberless and unnumbered,
Eternity had no beginning nor shall there be ending.
I am Alpha and Omega.
That which was, is and shall be;
Numberless and unnumbered."
Eternity
by Robert Ervin Howard


Let's pick it up for a Seventies Sci fi rompe with the influences here coming hot on the heels of our last blog  entry here.  This blog post pick up in another direction entirely namely plugging into the another tactic with another storm front of another set of unknown space craft. What the Hell are we talking about here?!? 

Artwork by Andrea Bonazzi used without permission.

Imagine if you will that the UFO's we see in our campaign are not the only craft kidnapping people for ages from Earth prior to the moon being wretched from orbit? One of the keys to this is  Michael Brown's Omega 99 campaign setting.  Omega 99 offers a moon with some interesting alien neighbors in the form of  the Edari, the Kahgg, and the Mecharchs.  These neighbors might be familiar to the inhabitants of Earth because the Earthlings have encountered them before! 
Last time I spoke about these aliens being servants of Greys or Reticulans. But imagine for a moment that Zozer Games Attack Squadron Roswell's discs. Are rival Reticulans or another race that is running scared about humanity.  ‘Attack Squadron Roswell’ by Zozer Games  is a  pre-Cepheus Engine (it uses the MG1e / Traveller rules set) game. Now this rival group of Greys works for a different Lovecraftian entity.  

These aliens see the Reticulan empire of 'These Stars Are Ours' rpg setting  as rivals & competition. Competition because the clock is ticking. Humanity is becoming far more wise to the intrusions within our solar system. Reading through this review of  'UFOs - Ships of the Reticulan Empire' from the Alegis Downport Blog the seed is planted. Why?! Because the Reticulans have a fully formed empire. But their motivation for humanity is one dating back thousands of years. 

Once the monolith on the moon is found ala 2001 a Space Odyessy all bets are off. The signal is sent & all other aliens powers are going to be aware of this. For humanity the motivation is FTL & the reaching for the stars.
For the aliens its harvesting of a valuable reasouce in the form of mankind. A very malliable resource that they can shape into tools to help across the interstellar void. And both of these go back to my adopted uncle from the U.K.'s 2000AD prog, issues circa 1978 with the iconic Dan Dare series. In this scence Dan could have solved the FTL issue quite quickly with some of the artifacts in this scene.

If we take the point of view that there are rival factions of Greys serving higher dimensional Lovecraftian gods. And these are opposed to the 2001 style aliens where does that level humanity?! Could humanity be merely a commodity at this point. Imagine that by the time of the 1980 of U.F.O. humanity became aware of the Deep Ones or other underwater Lovcraftian races. 
Humanity would be desparate for some advantage perhaps submarine the technologies of SHADO Skydiver submarines had far more unnatural sources?! 

Humanity occupied by its recent devestation of the Moon leaving orbit is now open to praying by dangerous forces above & below the waves. SHADO has to step in & take charge as the Martian colonies seize the opportunity to raid Earth. And SHADO moves into the position of global & interstellar military power in keeping with the Robert E. Howard ethos of action & violence begets order. Again this situation & others are indictive of the type of affair that we see in Orbital 2100 from Zozer Games.