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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Maethras" data-source="post: 1116569" data-attributes="member: 8802">Currently, the only d20 Modern (Set in modern times.. there is one medieval game using the rules) campaign I'm involved with involves..A semi-secret private organization (with secret activities), the similar government organizations in cooperation or competition with them, and extraterrestrials.Earth has been visited in the past by alien spacecraft.  Occasionally, one of these bad boys has crashed.  Even more rare, they've been shot down.  This organization and certain governmental organizations have been racing each other to grab up these artifacts for years.  They've also attempted for years to back engineer the darn things, with very little success.  However, they have managed to figure out how to power certain key systems and, eventually, how to get them to, more or less, operate.  If they then take this sleek, high tech and shielded space craft and crudely cobble on many times its mass in 'Earth developed' technology and parts (controls, life support backups, maneuvering backups, banks and banks of computers, armor, storage space, weapons, etc).. they have what amounts to a far more crude-than-the-original, but functional, space-faring vessel.  Activating the more 'controlled' parts of the ship such as any weapons they may have and Faster-Than-Light travel remained elusive for a while.  Not only the system for operating it, but figuring out, in an enormous universe with little information, where the hell to go anyway.  Needle in a Haystack.  You know.Faster-Than-Light travel was figured out.  The ship has a requirement of a Psionic Navigator who uses the ship's systems to enhance his ability for one (and only one) specific purpose.  They fly out to a certain distance away from the home planet.  The telepath takes the ol' navigation seat and sends his mind out.  Since psionics (and by extrapolation 'thought') essentially travels instantaneously in d20.. the telepath probes across the reaches of space for 'pockets' of thought.  A planet with, say, six billion people on it certainly qualifies, as do some much lesser populated worlds.  A skilled navigator can even key into nonsentient thought activity.  Anyway.  Navigator and the Pilot work together to input this data into the ship, and the ship leaps off into faster-than-light travel.This has the benefit of leading any spacefaring mission to a very potentially earth-like world (since there's life there, there's a higher chance of being earth-like than just throwing darts at a star map) and leading to places of extreme interest (potential dangerous peoples, threats, resources, and allies).  It also has a much higher chance of taking folks to Where They Really Don't Wanna Be.These organizations explore, some occasionally exploit, and most are on the lookout for anything Out to Get Us.  While highly advanced species are out there (that's where we got our ships), they haven't been met in actual space as yet.  With what few and crude resources Earth has, they wouldn't hold much hope for actual space *combat* anyway, if it came down to it.  General rule of space combat If An Enounter With An Advanced Race Goes Awry is to try very very hard to run away, even though it probably won't help.  However, Earth has discovered some interesting facts about these advanced members of alien race(s).They have been kidnapping people, looks like.  And other stuff.  Our genetic code has been seeded on other worlds.  Humans are already *out there*, often Ala SG-1, working for someone else (or were originally working for someone else).  As often, they are the subjects of what appear to be experimentation with that genetic code or perhaps simple evolution away from the baseline human.  There are divergent animal species as well, and either original examples, or something very reminiscent, of primitive human species such as Neanderthal out there.  Some of these humans and human-like people have become pretty advanced, some haven't.  Organizations have allied with some and warred with others.  Many of them *work* for these organizations now, providing military manpower and crew for ships (conveniently untraceable crew, too.  Noone on Earth will miss a few thousand people who die if they don't exist, some of the crueller organizations might say).  Some of the organizations spend a lot of time with these people, forging bonds and training them with what technology they can (Modern technology, mostly) to help prevent or at least slow any threatening incursions onto their respective territories (and, primarily for us, Earth).  They also often work to stop anything that looks like a Genetic Weapon being bred (monstrosities being designed for a crude/cruel form of warfare), or the harvesting of key resources.  And, of course, they do their best to beg/borrow/steal advanced technology from anywhere they possibly can.That's really the best they can do at the moment against the most advanced of species out there.  Their contacts with other, less advanced species are mixed.  Ranging from friendly to outright hostile. (Our last mission was to rescue the last few survivors of a planet-bound outpost from a throng of maurauding modified Formian (from D&D) aliens (kinda like Starship Troopers, in a way)).Furthermore, ... this post has gotten wayyy too long.  I'm ending it.  Here.</blockquote>

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