Characters / Conspiracy X

Humanity

Aegis

The ostensible heroes of Conspiracy X, Aegis is a powerful secret organization with origins in the Roswell Incident. Their cells have infiltrated many branches of the US government, major corporations, and other international groups, subverting their collective resources to the overall goal of Aegis — learning about and ultimately defeating the aliens who now threaten humanity. Aegis' cell structure and impregnable HERMES communication network make the organization both very flexible and very difficult to infiltrate.

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• Area 51: The base of operations for Aegis, ground zero for their efforts to reverse-engineer alien tech, their Aurora aircraft program, and HERMES, a massive computer system and database for relaying messages and information among Aegis cells.
• Benevolent Conspiracy: Aegis' self-appointed mission is to protect humanity from supernatural and alien threats by any means necessary. The National Defense Directorate (NDD, or Black Book) has a similar mandate but their government backers want returns on their investment, meaning that the NDD concentrates on acquiring alien technology as well as knowledge. As a result, the NDD straightforwardly collaborates with aliens like the Greys and the Saurians. The moral dubiousness of these actions has led to the NDD being portrayed as the Evil Counterpart to Aegis.
• Cool Plane: The creations of Aegis' secret Aurora Project, particularly the Aurora III, which boasts an Atlantean nano-cybernetic control system, Saurian fusion engines, and a Grey lens for weapons targeting, making it the only interceptor on Earth with anything resembling a respectable rate of downing UFOs. Unfortunately, all these syncretic systems mean the pilot needs not only a lot of training, but both a Pilot Control Interface System implant and the Telepathy psychic power. From a logistics point of view, putting together one of these incredible machines and a pilot qualified to fly it is Difficult, but Awesome.
• I Did What I Had to Do: A not-uncommon theme among Aegis operations. Aegis is fighting a Secret War against the greatest threat that the human race has ever known. The stakes are so high — and the situation is often so desperate — that Aegis has no qualms about committing ethically questionable acts if it serves the greater goal of protecting humanity, up to and including assassinating Presidents of the United States.
• Creature-Hunter Organization: While Aegis is primarily an alien-fighting organization, some cells also investigate the various monsters produced by Earth's Seepage (the byproduct of humanity's nascent psychic powers).
• The Mole: Security leaks are always a concern for Aegis. When they can't keep people from betraying the organization, the HERMES system and cell structure are designed to limit the amount of damage that traitors can do.
• Master Computer: In the 1950s, Aegis built a massive computer system and database based in Area 51 dubbed HERMES that handles communication among the Aegis cells and serves as a repository for any information that cells gather.

The National Defense Directorate / The Black Book

The nemesis of Aegis, the National Defense Directorate (also known as the Black Book) is another product of the Roswell Incident, and similarly has deep hooks into the US government and other powerful organizations. The main differences between the two conspiracies are that the NDD uses a strict paramilitary hierarchy rather than Aegis' cell structure, and the NDD has chosen to side with the aliens rather than fighting them. This collaboration has given the NDD both alien technology and alien allies, making them a very dangerous threat to Aegis.

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• Bastard Understudy: Contrary to how Aegis views them, the NDD's leadership doesn't see themselves as selling out humanity to the aliens. Rather, the NDD believes that they're only collaborating with the aliens to get access to their advanced technology so that they, the NDD, can fortify humanity for the inevitable Alien Invasion. (Of course, Aegis would scoff that even if that is the truth, the NDD has long since become the mask.)
• Black Helicopter: The NDD has two types of black helicopter, their standard transport, the Raven Stealth Helicopter and the Ghost Surveillance Helicopter which handle their spying needs. Not only can they both fly silently, they have biomimetic sheaths that allow them to blend into the surroundings.
• Les Collaborateurs: How Aegis sees the NDD and their various deals with the aliens, although the NDD's leaders would insist that they're doing what is best for humanity.
• Necessarily Evil: The NDD's own leaders readily admit to new initiates that much of what they do would very likely be called reprehensible by the very population that they are ostensibly charged with protecting, but likewise maintain that existential necessity does not allow for better alternatives. Given the setting, Aegis can be similar.
• No Such Agency: The NDD is a secret part of the US military, with its existence known only to a few top officials and its funding coming through the portion of the U.S. military budget assigned to covert or "black operations", leading to its other name, the "Black Book".
• Villain Protagonist: If and when players don't want to play as Aegis operatives, the very first alternative offered, in The Hand Unseen sourcebook, is the NDD. To be fair, the first page of the book presents the NDD's view that their purported villainy is "a comforting myth" told to Aegis recruits.

Extraterrestrials

The Atlanteans

The inspiration for UFO cultist legends about "Nordics" or "Space Brothers", the Atlantean species mastered nanotechnology (and, by extension, immortality) hundreds of thousands of years ago, only to ruin their own home planet in a nanotech disaster. The relatively few survivors were left to wander the galaxy, seeking whatever glory or amusement they could with their endless lives. The Atlanteans' meddling on Greyworld inadvertently pulled the Greys into a space age of their own. On Earth, the Atlanteans' search for a weapon against the Greys lead them to create the human race from a combination of primate, Atlantean, and Grey DNA. Since that time, the Atlanteans have attempted to rule over humanity, first as overt kings, then as distant gods, and today as secretive Illuminati-esque manipulators.

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• The Ageless: Thanks to nanotech, to the point if they want to pose as a human for any significant length of time, they need to use more nanotech to give them the odd wrinkle or grey hair. (Though the modern era of rampant cosmetic surgery has given them a little more wiggle room.)
• Ancient Astronauts: The Atlanteans who created/enslaved humanity made the humans worship them as gods. Atlanteans still made use of God Guise to manipulate humanity after they rebelled even though the Nameless Priests outlawed it (they want humanity under only a few religions; Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Etc. Easier to manipulate a few big religions than lots of little ones).
• Atlantis: The aliens from "Adlan’ns" who came to our planet decided to build a city in the middle of the sea called Atlantis (and another called Lemuria) to rule over humanity. They then scuttled their own cities after the humans rebelled and decimated the Adlan’ns population on the earth.
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Remember that famous general or religious leader or mythological figure from human history? There's a non-zero chance that they were actually an Atlantean involving the local humans in some grand plot... or just toying with humanity for their amusement.
• Big Eater: They need to eat a lot of calories to power the nanomachines in their bodies.
• Brought Down to Badass: Detonated a nuclear device on top of an Atleantean so that the EMP knocked down the nanites keeping them immortal? Good for you! Now you just have to deal with a perfectly normal, mortal being who has bones and muscles made of diamond, bulletproof skin, nerves coated in room-temperature superconductor, and a quarter-million years' worth of combat experience. And better do it quickly, because in five minutes or so their emergency systems would've kicked in and restored them to normal, at which point, given that you've just endangered their immortality, you'd be lucky if they don't just decide to make a point by obliterating you with a particle accelerator shot from their orbiting spaceship.
• Casual Interstellar Travel: Notably averted. For all of their godlike technology, the Atlanteans could never create a faster-than-light drive, and their fastest ships peak around 70-80% of lightspeed. This makes interstellar journeys last decades, sometimes centuries, and while this may be a non-issue for survival purposes (they are immortal), a century of isolation in space is still a century of isolation in space. They literally invented AI just so they'd have something to do during these journeys.
• Crystal Spires and Togas: A common aesthetic for Atlantean technology. Because they've advanced to the point where they can quite literally afford to design their technology with aesthetics first, confident that the functionality will still be superior to anything else around, and because every Atlantean likes to design their own artifacts to suit their own sensibilities of the moment, it's more of a fashion statement than anything.
• EMP: One of the surest ways of permanently dealing with an Atlantean, as their nanites aren't 100% radiation shielded. A powerful enough EMP, such as from a nuclear detonation, stands a better than 50% of temporarily shutting down the nanites keeping them immortal, giving you a small time window within which to kill them before their emergency systems kick into actions and bring them back online.
• Endless Daytime: The Adlan’ns planet was placed between its system's star and a stellar cluster, meaning that it was never darker than Earth's twilight.
• Flying Saucer: It is noted that while Atlantean ships are designed to the personal taste of the Atlantean, most are saucer shaped or spheres for ease of movement through the atmosphere — and for aesthetic reasons.
• From a Single Cell: As long as an Atlantean has Memory Preservation System intact and some Blood Surgeon nanites they can regrow their entire body and conscience. They even have a malleable spherical implant about the size of a golf ball called a Emergency Nanite Reserve that rests somewhere deep within the body shielded from most things containing back-ups. This makes them really really hard to put down permanently.
• Genius Bruiser: Being hundreds of thousands of years old and enhanced head-to-toe with ridiculous levels of nanotech, the average Atlantean is both superhumanly intelligent and incredibly difficult to kill.
• Grey Goo: The Nameless Priests, Adlan’ns spiritual leaders, decided that the population had grown too soft and deliberately made nanotech that deconstructed any organic matter. Unfortunately, the destructive nanotech worked too well and ruined the entire planet, forcing the few Atlantean survivors to flee into the galaxy.
• Healing Factor: The Atlanteans can heal the most grievous wounds, even near-total obliteration, thanks to "blood surgeon" nanites.
• Human Aliens: Justified in that they are the Precursor Ancient Astronauts with a hand in human evolution, even splicing in their own DNA, though with increased levels of psychological malleability to make humans easier to control. Atlantean psychology, by contrast, is practically Nietzsche's Übermensch, or even predatorial.
• Kill It with Fire: Burning an Atleantean is one of the most efficient ways of dealing with them, as the nanites' comparatively low heat tolerance destroys the clusters around the injury and halt regeneration until the Atlantean can reach safety.
• Made of Iron: Between skintight armor that laughs in the face of modern human weaponry, nano-augmented skin that can stop bullets dead and survive exposure to outer space, bones and muscles made of diamondoid fibers, and blood surgeons which can repair any wound in a matter of seconds and render them immune to poison, diseases or aging, taking down an Atleantean takes to require some combination of fire, alien technology and possibly nuking them.
• Nanotechnology: Most of the tech Atlanteans have is based on nanotech. Humans can use it but due to physiological differences, there are often dangerous side effects. Nanotech systems are also vulnerable to powerful EMP.
• Never Gets Drunk: Their nanotech neutralizes alcohol (and all other toxins), so it is difficult for Atlanteans to stay drunk unless they drink continuously.
• Punctuation Shaker: The Atlantean languages use a lot of apostrophes and dashes though it supposed to be rendering their language in a way that humans can read.
• Telepathic Spacemen: Notably averted, as they specifically do not have any psychic powers or even understand how psychic powers are possible. This led to the animosity between them and the Greys, as the Atlanteans want to believe that their own species is the pinnacle of evolution, yet the Greys command powers that no Atlantean has ever had.
• The Man Behind the Man: The Atlanteans' modus operandi. Most of them loathe getting involved in a plot personally, instead preferring to work through multiple levels of human pawns Illuminati-style. As an example, they were behind the foundation of both Aegis and the NDD, orchestrating the conflict between them and carefully managing it under the belief that it would stimulate humanity's technological progress to prepare them for the return of the Saurians.
• We ARE Struggling Together: Ironically (given humanity's own divisiveness), the Atlanteans suffer from their own lack of unity. Their species faces potentially existential threats from the Greys, the approaching Saurian fleets, humanity's nascent psychic powers and increasing technological sophistication, and the (now organized) Forgotten. While there are Atlanteans individually tackling each of these problems, nothing has been able to inspire the remaining Atlanteans to work together.

The Greys

The most "familiar" of the alien factions (at least in the public zeitgeist), the psionic Greys were indeed involved in the Roswell Incident, and they do indeed abduct humans into their flying saucers and experiment on them for seemingly inexplicable purposes. In reality, the Greys have a long-standing grudge against the Atlanteans, who introduced them to the concept of violence, and came to Earth because the "static" produced by humanity's nascent psychic powers is slowly destroying the Grey species. The goal of their experiments is to transform humanity into a Grey/human hybrid species who are psychically harmless to the galaxy — and utterly under Grey psionic domination.

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• Alien Abduction: The Greys have been abducting humans since 1903 to study them, trying to figure out how to stop the psychic static. As part of the alliance with Black Book, the Black Book agents help pick out the abductees, clean up any evidence, help out with researchers/facilities if needed and sometimes do the abducting for the Greys (though Greys prefer to do it themselves rather than be spoon-fed humans by Black Book).
• Aliens Never Invented the Wheel: Since Greys have their psychic powers, developed shaped coral devices, can change their bodies almost at will, and evolved in their planet's oceans, things like fire, electricity, and machines in general are completely alien to them. They just never developed the need for what humans think of as "technology". In cases where the Greys need to understand or use technology, they bring in their Black Book allies and metahuman subjects to do it for them.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: The Greys are easily the most "alien" of the invading species. While the Atlanteans and even the Saurians can readily pose as humans and infiltrate human societies, the Greys are incapable of physical violence, have no understanding of human art or individuality, see non-organic technology as a weakness, and seem to be incapable of caring about anyone but their own kind. Their only way of infiltrating humanity is to alter humans to be more like Greys.
• Brown Note: When the Greys have contact with the psychic "static" that humans create, it drives them mad. To be fair to humanity, the Atlanteans gave humans psychic powers as a weapon against the Greys... and this ploy is already working far better than the Atlanteans even realize.
• Casual Interstellar Travel: Of the three alien species, the Greys boast the only practical means of FTL travel, as they use special lenses that allow their ships to teleport across interstellar distances. This feat isn't necessarily easy for them, but as interstellar travel goes, it's an order of magnitude more convenient than "immortally wait at sublight speeds" (the Atlantean method) or "use an experiment FTL drive that trapped the remnants of our whole species in a time warp for literally eons" (the Saurian method).
• Deal with the Devil: The Greys allied with the Black Book by offering psychic backup in return for the Black Book's assistance with the Greys' metahuman program. It is explicit that the Black Book has gotten the shorter end of this agreement — not only have the Greys secretly inserted far more metahumans into the general population than the Black Book can keep track of (and that the agreement permits), but metahuman infiltrators have also significantly compromised the Black Book, giving the Greys even more influence over their organization.
• Dying Race: The psychic Static that humanity generates is slowly killing the Grey as a species, even across interstellar distances. This is both the motive for their plot against Earth and their greatest secret.
• Exposed Extraterrestrials: The Greys do not wear clothing or armor. Thankfully for prudish human observers, they also reproduce asexually and thus have no genitalia of any kind.
• Flying Saucer: The preferred configuration for Grey starships.
• The Greys: They adhere closely to most of the tropes from real life Grey/UFO mythology.
• Keeping the Enemy Close: The Greys and the Black Book see their alliance as such, with both sides trying to get the most knowledge out of the other while being fully aware of how dangerous they are to each other.
• Half-Human Hybrid: They are making Grey/human hybrids termed "metahumans" since they don't produce static with the added bonus of being easy to mind-control with the Greys' psychic powers. Though since humanity was created as a hybrid of Atlantean DNA, Grey DNA and a native earth monkey the percentages of their ancestry are somewhat complicated. In most ways, the metahumans have the best of both worlds, with heightened psychic powers as well as the ability to understand human technology, blend into Earthly society, and resort to violence.
• Mental Fusion: Greys can combine their powers and thoughts boarding on Hive Minds. This is such an intrinsic part of their nature that it is almost unheard of to see a single Grey operating alone (unless some crisis has separated it from its gestalt-mates, that is).
• Organic Technology: Greys use coral shaped by their Psychic Powers both to enhance said powers but also to build things like their spaceships. Most of their machines and devices are simply the grown coral wrapped in a metal cover to protect it. The Greys even shape their own bodies to better suit them. Their mindset is such that they perceive other species' use of non-organic technology as a crutch rather than an advantage.
• Perfect Pacifist People: A rare villainous example! As life on their homeworld centered around psychic dominance, the Greys never had a concept of physical violence until they encountered the Atlanteans. Even now, the average Grey is psychologically incapable of throwing a punch or firing a weapon even to save its own life, and can only use their powers to flee or disable attackers. At the same time, the Greys care absolutely nothing about the well-being of the humans that they experiment on, and are working to psychically enslave all humanity.
• Psychic Powers: In the original game, Grey psychic effects were not much more powerful than what human psychics can do, but their psychic power regenerated with a speed that human psychics can only dream, allowing the Greys to use their powers far more flagrantly than a human psychic would be able to. In the Unisystem version (where there are no limits on how often psychics can use their powers), a typical Grey simply has more levels in psychic powers than most human psychics can dream.
• Sapient Alien Cetaceans: The Greys were similar to terrestrial cetaceans before making contact with the Atlanteans which caused the Greys to decide that arms and legs were more useful for getting around. They eventually decided that becoming air-breathers was a winning move, too, as space travel was tricky enough without having to keep their vessels filled with water.
• Squishy Wizard: The Greys have more powers than anything short of a high-end Incarnate/Infused. They are also by far the least physically badass of all the paranormal beings in this setting. It's difficult to exploit their weakness, though, as their aversion to violence means that they will use every trick in their book to preempt any scenario where a human could just shoot them.
• Telepathic Spacemen: Greys are the only aliens who have genuine supernatural powers. The Atlanteans and Saurians can do many things that would seem magical to humans, but in their case, it's only via their sufficiently advanced technology.
• Turned Against Their Masters: The metahuman project went so well that the Greys decided to also uplift dolphins, who as a species have much more in common with the native life of Greyworld than humans. It didn't go so well, and now the Bermuda Triangle is the home ground of "Blues", aggressive Grey/dolphin hybrids who are far more a conduit for psychic static (and supernatural corruption in general) than any human.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Before they met the Atlanteans, the Greys were contently stagnant on their home planet. The Atlanteans not only introduced the Greys to the concept of violence, but also created humanity, who are now wrecking all life on Greyworld with their unrestrained psychic Static. The Greys didn't start the conflict with the Atlanteans, and they had no hand in creating humanity, but now - if the Greys want to survive - they're going to have to either render humanity extinct or transform all of humanity into their psychic thralls.

The Saurians

The inspiration for conspiracy theories about shapeshifting alien reptilians who are infiltrating the government, the Saurians were Earth's original sentient inhabitants, having evolved during the age of the dinosaurs.

By the height of their civilization, the Saurian species was divided into two opposed power blocs - the Gna-Tall nation and the Coalition. The Coalition ended up fleeing Earth, developing the Saurians' first means of faster-than-light travel (using an artificial gravitational singularity) in the hopes of colonizing other worlds and returning with a force to conquer Earth. However, the Gna-Tall pursued the Coalition starships and caught up with them just outside the solar system. In the ensuing battle, the Coalition activated the singularity drive in desperation, trapping both fleets in time. Back on Earth, Coalition terrorists engineered the demise of the Saurian civilization, culminating with causing a massive Gna-Tall orbital station to plummet to Earth (which became the impact that wiped out the dinosaurs).

Now, 65 million years later, both the Gna-Tall and the Coalition starships have begun to emerge from the singularity. Like the other aliens, their initial activity on Earth remains hidden, but the day is approaching when the two sides will bring their fight into the open — and humanity will be caught in the crossfire.

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• Alien Invasion: A Saurian invasion of Earth is inevitable, as most of the Saurian species is only now beginning to escape the time warp that ensnared them 65 million years ago. The Gna-Tall Saurians (the ones who allied with the NDD) escaped the warp first, but are painfully aware that it is only a matter of time until the Coalition Saurians (the much stronger archrivals) also emerge from the warp. When this happens, an apocalyptic war will erupt on Earth — and the Gna-Tall are desperately manipulating the NDD to build humanity into a force that will give them an edge in that war.
• Enemy Civil War: Even hidden on Earth, the Gna-Tall and the Coalition Saurians fight with each other behind the scenes, to the point that many of humanity's modern wars have been driven (or at least exploited) by the Saurians, who take advantage of the chaos to fight their own battles where humanity's clashing troops won't spot them.
• Living Dinosaurs: Some of the Coalition factions have managed to keep a few dinosaur minions from their original civilization. For obvious reasons, they will only deploy these monsters where there is absolutely no chance the public will ever learn about them.
• Lizard Folk: The Saurians are warmblooded reptilian humanoids that originally evolved from the dinosaurs well before humans.
• Matter Replicator: Matter replicators are a cornerstone of Saurian technology, but they aren't anywhere near as convenient as their Star Trek counterparts. The most sophisticated items can take the replicators days or even weeks to fully form.
• The Men in Black are Saurians that have had their bodies transformed in a human's to the point that the only way to tell them apart from humans is an invasive CAT scan.
• The Spock: While the Saurians do have emotions, they are not very strong, making it hard for Saurians to pretend to be human (they prefer their human forms to be bulky Dumb Muscle types so people don't expect much emotion from them). A faction called the Dreamspeakers has gained a higher range of emotion through their dreams, but were persecuted by mainstream Saurian society.
• Ultraterrestrials: The Saurians, in all their subraces, were Earth's first sentient beings — and they are generally unhappy that humans have taken over while they were gone.
• Whatevermancy: The Dreamspeaker have learnt to manipulate Seepage with their limited emotions, calling it dream magic or hypnomancy.

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