Twilight:2000-Different Direction

[M-Type]

Hey all, in watching the new season of Falling Skies, I started forming the idea of running a T2k campaign that would run host to an alien invasion in the year 2000, maybe even earlier and breaking up the Twilight War.

I figured I could find some sort of Traveller stuff for either vehicles/equipment/species, as I know there's stuff can links up with v2.2, which I would be running.

Anyone have any good idea on anything I should look at or buy?

[StainlessSteelCynic]

I can't remember if it's from Traveller or from 2300AD (I think it's from 2300AD but I'll have to wait till I finish work to check my books), they have a few alien races that are really alien compared to the normal "it looks like a human just different" type.

I'm thinking about the Pentapods specifically because they had a range of human compatible bio-tech that could leave the Players thinking "I don't care what benefits it has, I am NOT putting that thing on my face!"

2300AD used to be called Traveller 2300 but got a name change because it doesn't actually relate to the Traveller universe but being a GDW game, it has some familiar stats and some that are close enough to enable some easy changes to suit the Twilight 2.2 rules.

P.S. I just realized, the Dark Conspiracy game probably has plenty of material you could use and again being a GDW game, it's rules are the same as T2k 2nd edition. The main rules book even has a small section on converting from T2k to Dark Conspiracy.

[Targan]

The Kafers from T:2300 would make great alien invaders and there are lots of pictures and stats available for their weapons, vehicles and equipment.

[M-Type]

The Kafers do look like a good source. The Pentapods sound like they could work too, as the players could begin to adapt and try to use their technology against them as the campaign progresses, especially if it's compatible with humans.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Some of the Dark Conspiracy equipment could be interesting, specifically the gear in the Dark Tek equipment book (ignore the artwork, most of it is really, really, really bad!)

There's some alien items that have an interesting side effect for humans - if you use them, they have a cost, they require the user to provide lots of their own body energy and this must be replaced, typically by eating x-number of kilograms of meat...
Except that the meat has to be raw... and fresh...

Or they make the user more open to mind-control from the aliens.
I'll have to wait till I get home to check the books for specific details but if you don't want to wait, you can get the books as PDFs through places like DriveThruRPG for a reasonable price.

[Adm.Lee]

I'm not familiar with DC, but I used to like 2300AD a lot. I'd say you really want to use the Kaefers, they're plenty scary.


2300AD, the 2nd edition, was very close to T2k v2.2. There is a new edition out this year, but that uses the Mongoose edition of Traveller rules (pretty close to Classic Traveller).

[M-Type]

Took a peek at the sneak peak of Darktek on RPGnow. Looks useful. I could have it as humanoid alien race with this bio-technology. Then it could be compatible with humans after a "gestation period" or "evolution cycle" or something.

The Pentapods stuff was out of this world, literally. That re-breather crab-squid thing? No thanks :P

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Originally Posted by M-Type

...The Pentapods stuff was out of this world, literally. That re-breather crab-squid thing? No thanks :P

You know, that was pretty much my reaction when I read about it. Sure it's useful but DAMN it's creepy and it reminds me of Aliens just a little too much

[weswood]

Every now and then I go through a phase where I want to be an author and try to come up with some ideas. Here's my alien invasion idea:

Primary alien race has been spying on Earth for years, at least decades. While this info gathering is taking place, the aliens are putting together an invasion fleet. Said fleet contains at least 12 big ass ships, probably more. The fleet moves to Earth's solar system, parks in an orbit on the opposite side of the sun from eath. At least 2 "factory" ships break out of the fleet, hit some asteroids, mine asteroids and manufacture the various assault craft needed.

The main fleet is keeping out of earth's view by orbiting the sun on the same path/speed as earth. The majority of the assault forces have been in deep sleep until now.

There are two alien races involved, the "masters" and the "grunts". The masters are the fleet crew and the officers of the assault force. The grunts are basic cannon fodder. Instead of transporting the millions of needed grunts God knows how far across the galaxy, I thought it would be easier to have some breeder stock in stasis sleep and awakened just prior to the invasion. I wanted a race that was quick breeding and quick to grow to adulthood and at least smarter than a rock. Pigs fit the profile but pigs can't carry weapons, so in my mind I crossed pigs with humans to come up with the grunt race....And ended up with D&D orcs. Okay, whatever, works for me anyway. Breeder orcs awake, put to work. My space orcs grow to young adulthood in app 5 years, I gave the fleet 20 years hidden to grow armies and for the factory ships to produce assault craft.

Assault begins. The fleet, consisting of 10 primary battle craft, is assigned 1 ship per continent. 7 continents, 3 primaries are reserve. My storyline didn't include T2K so the first thing the masters do is drop a series of nukes across the world, set to airburst and wreck the power grid and infrastructure. After the nukes, kinetic energy weapons -barely guided rocks- strike major military bases. The aliens wait 3 months for the mass deaths caused by starvation, disease and anarchy created by no electricity, very few vehicles and no way to move tons of food off the farms and into sities.

Then they drop. Here's where things might seem goofy to some. My brain just doesn't alway work normal. The main forces are dropped from orbit on giant eggs. Some type of super ceramic shell that will stand up to atmospheric entry burn and not crack on landing. Of course there will also be space to earth dropships and air/space assault craft but fewer of these. I just like the idea of some poor yokel standing in his field and sees a meteor shower crashing and house sized eggs land. Hiding in the tree line watching these giant eggs crack and hatch and out comes....

Giant mechanical insects. I didn't want to go with standards wheeled and tracked vehicles for my aliens, so I went with mechanical insects. Giant spiders would be the armored personnel carriers, scorpions for main battle tanks, mosquitoes and wasps for troop and assault helicopters. Birds- primarily raptors, hawks and eagles, take place of jet fighters. Large cargo aircraft would be normal (futuristic) craft.

Leadership positions and all the vehicle crewmen would be of the master racer. My master race ended up being based on drow elves from AD&D. They've always been my favorite bad guys and they've always used goblin races as slaves.

The three reserve primary battle ships are all drow, better armed and armored than the general fleet orcs. They're used in trouble spots.

My small arms ended up being electo magnetic railguns shaped like crossbows. Smaller versions are carried as sidearms. The drow are armored and have helmets that look like full face motorcycle helmets while my space orcs are generally unarmored. I haven't worked out how they're armed.

Not for everybody's taste but sounds fun to me.

[M-Type]

That's crazy. In a good way. I decided to go with the Kafers, bought the sourcebook. Started converting their vehicles to T2k v2.2 stats. My plan is that since they see humanity as their mythical "boogeyman", they're attacking Earth as a preemptive strike, to try and rid the universe of them.

They just come smack-down into the middle of a broiling world, two steps from WWIII.

And they really enjoy a "good fight", so I feel like they won't nuke humans before they land, but instead challenge them with their military might. If/when humans become a REAL problem, they'll resort to nuclear bombing.

I also thought that they might attack weapons silos and manufacturing facilities, but leave population centers alone because of their nature revolving around "troops" and others.

The more people alive, the better the fight y'know?

EDIT: I've been using Random.org's geographic coordinate random generator to decide on some initial landing zones. The 'winner' so far? North Africa/Middle East. Might have to incorporate some RDF in there!

[mikeo80]

Nice!!!

I especially like the idea of Orcs as your "grunt" force and drow as your "Special Forces".

Eggs from the sky. Not so far fetched. Heinlen's immortal Starship Troopers used an "egg" to get the MI from orbit to planet. Multiple layers, self ablating to take care of heat issues. Yours are probably a little bit bigger...so what. Idea works for me.

Depending on size of invasion force, Earth is pretty much screwed based on your scenario. Sounds a lot like the movie Independance Day. Except bad guys use nukes and kinetic warheads vs. ray guns.

Earth is going to need some kind of "Ace up the sleeve" to survive this....

A group I played with toyed with an idea of invaders in TMP universe...Morrow was one of the last, organized forces left. And it is not truly military in nature....

Any Who.....

I want to see more!!!

My $0.02

Mike

[stg58fal]

Weswood, interesting idea. I like it.

[M-Type]

Alright, the tallies are in. Here's the list of kafer Zones and accompanying Landing Sites:

TF-Africa:
Latitude: 30.30551, Longitude: 22.72491 (Libya)
Latitude: 17.71649, Longitude: 23.65413 (Chad/Sudan border)
Latitude: 10.04314, Longitude: 31.48368 (Sudan/South Sudan border)
Latitude: 28.03690, Longitude: 30.32798 (Egypt)
Latitude: 29.53853, Longitude: 25.39280 (Egypt)
Latitude: 24.64701, Longitude: 21.95893 (Libya)
Latitude: 9.83741, Longitude: 50.09875 (Somalia)
Latitude: 9.37103, Longitude: 46.96373 (Somalia)
Latitude: 2.45910, Longitude: 18.59487 (Congo)
Latitude: 28.72209, Longitude: -3.60839 (Algeria)
Latitude: 14.17226, Longitude: 7.15210 (Niger)
Latitude: 7.69726, Longitude: 33.38167 (South Sudan/Ethiopia border)
Latitude: 15.06227, Longitude: 3.39281 (Mali/Niger border)
Latitude: 24.80019, Longitude: 16.40162 (Libya)
Latitude: 8.60560, Longitude: -1.41711 (Ghana)
Latitude: -33.51074, Longitude: 18.45996 (South Africa)

TF-Antarctica:
Latitude: -81.81271, Longitude: -33.76586 (Antarctica)
Latitude: -84.02254, Longitude: -133.87114 (Antarctica)
Latitude: -85.22012, Longitude: -33.06584 (Antarctica)
Latitude: -80.34345, Longitude: 33.16060 (Antarctica)
Latitude: -82.16520, Longitude: 5.49866 (Antarctica)
Latitude: -70.73540, Longitude: 90.76352 (Antarctica)

TF-Indian Ocean/South Pacific:
Latitude: -31.16759, Longitude: 119.08155 (Australia)
Latitude: 16.28864, Longitude: 99.49356 (Thailand)
Latitude: 19.16922, Longitude: 79.42678 (India)
Latitude: -15.86917, Longitude: 127.15646 (Australia)
Latitude: -19.88341, Longitude: 121.95495 (Australia)

TF-Middle East:
Latitude: 45.94177, Longitude: 69.81704 (Kazakhstan)
Latitude: 39.51683, Longitude: 63.91462 (Uzbekistan)
Latitude: 44.56383, Longitude: 60.04057 (Uzbekistan/Kazakhstan border)
Latitude: 39.32952, Longitude: 62.08549 (Turkmenistan)
Latitude: 18.32606, Longitude: 43.63435 (Saudi Arabia)
Latitude: 39.35482, Longitude: 67.05784 (Uzbekistan)
Latitude: 19.33118, Longitude: 45.09730 (Saudi Arabia)
Latitude: 31.17852, Longitude: 73.02840 (Pakistan)
Latitude: 35.16016, Longitude: 66.26751 (Afghanistan)

TF-North America:
Latitude: 64.67088, Longitude: -158.67668 (Alaska)
Latitude: 39.12533, Longitude: -103.52299 (Colorado, US)
Latitude: 35.37953, Longitude: -109.42933 (Arizona, US)
Latitude: 47.00874, Longitude: -81.70060 (Ontario, Canada)

TF-North Atlantic:
Latitude: 71.64703, Longitude: -21.77599 (Greenland Coast)
Latitude: 58.33981, Longitude: -4.77477 (Northern UK)
Latitude: 58.33981, Longitude: -4.77477 (Northern UK)
Latitude: 54.10364, Longitude: -0.48261 (UK)
Latitude: 68.33370, Longitude: -34.56636 (Greenland)
Latitude: 78.40506, Longitude: -22.43946 (Greenland)

TF-Russo/Asia:
Latitude: 60.99247, Longitude: 115.69902 (Russia)
Latitude: 36.66270, Longitude: 121.30036 (China)
Latitude: 59.31081, Longitude: 106.47137 (Russia)
Latitude: 23.06051, Longitude: 120.31345 (Tiawan)
Latitude: 54.00312, Longitude: 157.78873 (Kamchatka)
Latitude: 37.42400, Longitude: 108.89143 (China)
Latitude: 47.08324, Longitude: 40.86853 (Russia)
Latitude: 33.47646, Longitude: 100.74075 (China)
Latitude: 58.01858, Longitude: 90.01667 (Russia)
Latitude: 45.36790, Longitude: 103.74632 (Mongolia)
Latitude: 48.49300, Longitude: 91.12623 (Mongolia)
Latitude: 34.70280, Longitude: 108.90575 (China)
Latitude: 58.99492, Longitude: 128.22900 (Russia)
Latitude: 38.89846, Longitude: 100.42309 (China)
Latitude: 29.23262, Longitude: 89.20704 (China)
Latitude: 38.25517, Longitude: 90.84879 (China)
Latitude: 66.59919, Longitude: 78.43736 (Russia)

TF-South America:
Latitude: -32.18313, Longitude: -63.87699 (Argentina)
Latitude: -14.51724, Longitude: -68.76138 (Bolivia)
Latitude: -46.45255, Longitude: -74.55375 (Chile)
Latitude: 8.55332, Longitude: -63.35993 (Venezuela)
Latitude: -34.89654, Longitude: -65.24072 (Argentina)
Latitude: -21.56322, Longitude: -45.79673 (Brazil)
Latitude: -5.70830, Longitude: -78.65820 (Peru)
Latitude: -15.72970, Longitude: -74.49838 (Peru)
Latitude: 0.90667, Longitude: -79.04195 (Ecuador)
Latitude: -24.73065, Longitude: -53.95693 (Paraguay)
Latitude: -2.18486, Longitude: -63.19453 (Brazil)
Latitude: -6.24561, Longitude: -52.93872 (Brazil)

They're kind all over the place. Any ideas on troop movement/base placement you can think of? Also: first time in history the US isn't invaded by aliens :P

The Kefar vehicle stats I worked out are pretty good, their 'bugbuses', 'crawlers', and 'jeeps' are relatively equal to human vehicles in armor, but their tanks are above and beyond. It'll keep the players from trying to charge a tank head-on if they get an Abrams. Or three. Their hover-tanks though, so I gave them low suspension 'armor' so to include the tactic of knocking out the anti-grav generators and grounding the lumbering beasts.

[Panther Al]

Is it just me or did Europe make out OK in the landing lotto?


Looks like while Russia and most of the rest of the world get stomped, Europe (and to a lesser degree) the US is doing alright.

Pity about England - they got landed on by both feet...

[M-Type]

Yeah, I just kinda hit 'Pick Coordinates' and logged it anytime it landed on something that wasn't water. Which was a lot, all things considered

I'm building a Google Map with all the locations marked. I'll have to share it when I finish it.

[DocSavage45B10]

Hmmm, maybe Turtledove should write WWIII: In the Balance, and ATL ATL where the Lizards drop in the middle of the Twilight War...

[M-Type]

I was thinking about those novels when the idea started to form. There'll have to be a NATO/Warsaw Pact team-up to fight the alien invaders!

[M-Type]

As promised, here's the Invasion Map documenting the landing sites of the Kafer forces.

I was trying to think about reasoning behind Europe's/North America's desolation. Maybe to do with the Twilight War somehow?

Well, they could just be saving the last superpower for last? And Europe because....it's there? The Kafers do love a good fight, and maybe they think the Americans will put up the best one?

EDIT: In looking at the map, I'm gonna chalk it up to saving it for last or lack of resources. I mean, they're basically surrounded, so the Kafer will get to them eventually...

[Benjamin]

Some of the clustering in North Africa and the Middle East can be attributed to the fact the Kafer home world is generally hotter and drier than Earth. Also, other areas that are less similar to their home world could be left to the less powerful Kafer suzerains. Reading the Kafer Sourcebook would be very helpful if you haven't done so yet.

Another old RPG that you might want to consider is Domination by StarChilde Publications and it's table top companion, Sabot & Laser. These games postulate an alien invasion of Earth occurring in March of 1992. The invasion starts in southern Africa and sweeps north. I found it very easy to move the date of the invasion to March of 1997 during the Twilight War. We played T2K with invading aliens as our primary game in college and it was a blast. Some of the human vehicle stats are a bit off in Sabot & Laser but the alien stuff can easily be converted.

Both are on sale at noble knight.com for $5.00.

Hope this helped.

[M-Type]

Yeah I figured Africa/Middle East/bits of South America would be fine for the Kafer (I bought the Sourcebook, so I took a quick peek during work).

My idea for the Antarctic cluster was that of some sort of fuel depot or airbase, but they really weren't prepared for the brutal winters (same with Alaska and Russia). This would give the humans an advantage at getting the upper hand on them in these locations.

And the Kafer could be bombing North America/Europe as they "clean-up" the rest of the world, some sort of 'challenge' to the two powers to try and fight them.

Took at look at those two books too. Looks promising, I may have to pick them up.

[Panther Al]

All said - that landing in Ontario is actually rather brilliant. Smack dab in the centre of some of the most productive Iron and Copper mines in central North America.

[DocSavage45B10]

Or maybe they are (more) rational and dropped rocks on NA and West Europe (and Japan and the Chinese coast) figuring they would take out the brightest lights from orbit and mop up the rest. What they weren't expecting was the world to be in the middle of a hot war with all the armies of the great powers slugging it out on the plains of East Europe/Russia

Those darn Tosevites shouldn't even have land-cruisers, the recon satelite showed barbarians in iron, by the ancestors!

Originally Posted by M-Type

Yeah I figured Africa/Middle East/bits of South America would be fine for the Kafer (I bought the Sourcebook, so I took a quick peek during work).

My idea for the Antarctic cluster was that of some sort of fuel depot or airbase, but they really weren't prepared for the brutal winters (same with Alaska and Russia). This would give the humans an advantage at getting the upper hand on them in these locations.

And the Kafer could be bombing North America/Europe as they "clean-up" the rest of the world, some sort of 'challenge' to the two powers to try and fight them.

Took at look at those two books too. Looks promising, I may have to pick them up.

[M-Type]

Honestly, my backstory was that a Kafer recon ship spotted humans during the 1800s and called in the fleet, with news of finding the Aach*ah. The 'military' (aka everybody) builds up and begins their trek across the stars.

The arrive on the doorstep of the Twilight War, with those tiny Acch*ah now using chemical weapons/nuclear missiles/space flight, tanks, etc.

Which was basically copying Turtledove's Tosevite issue and the aliens from Out of the Dark.

[Benjamin]

Depending how closely you are sticking to the rest of 2300AD canon, getting from Kafer space to Sol is a heck of a long trek. Also, I think the Kafers would not have been able to get a FTL probe or ship to Earth in 1800. Of course if you're willing to throw in the Ylii then the Kafers could get their info on Earth from ancient Ylii documents. These would be nearly 100,000 years old (unless you decide that the revived Ylii civilization has also launched long range exploratory probes, which is more plausible than the Kafers doing so).

Another way you could handle the invasion is by stealing the wormhole idea from Blue Planet. In that game there is a stable wormhole leading from Sol to Lambda Serpenti. The nice thing about this is that Lambda Serpenti is a major Kafer star system and would be a could launching point for the invasion.

Benjamin

[Chris]

I really like the idea of plundering the Kafer. I played in a 2300 game back in the day. Those guys didn't make any sense from a player perspective. One of the better alien antagonists GDW ever did.

Are they coming sub-light or do they have the 2300 drives?

Looks like a fun time.

[M-Type]

I like the Kafer too, because they really are so...alien. And we're basically their worst nightmare, so their hate for humanity is justified. I wouldn't second guess them at all. GDW really did a good job on them.

If the players really try to dig into how they got here, I'll probably say it's some sort of AD2300-level drive. I'm trying to stick to as much canon as possible, but I'm breaking some of it obviously. I do intend to have the Ylii too, at protected Kafer ground bases and such, so they don't get discovered until later. I can use the excuse 'The Ylii did it."

A wormhole would be neat, because there'd be no way to 'plug it'. Humanity would have to start reverse-engineering Kafer/Ylii stuff, and head in themselves.

Then there's a totally new campaign

I'm also giving the Kafer some goodies from the Darktek manual. Giving the players the options to use the stuff to is an added bonus I'd love to see, especially the 'feed' problem.

EDIT: I just can't wait for the first combat encounter with them, while they're still 'stupid'. Man oh man, those players are gonna get it handed too 'em.

[Jason Weiser]

Here's my idea....

The Kafers through sub-light exploration, discover a local wormhole in the Gamma Serpenti system. They explore the wormhole, only to discover the other end opens somewhere around Saturn. A scout is sent to do orbital scans of the one inhabited world in the system...and lo and behold, they find a world equivelent to the tech level of the Kafers on or about the cusp of the 2nd Kafer World War (their first nuclear war). Striker of Stars was right! New worlds and new races to conquer! Starting with this one...known as hu'mans. And oh, look, they kill each other too! These will make EXCELLENT opponents, plenty of mind-enhancing violence!

To our POV, the Kafers arrive ca. November 1995 1st ed timeline...The Soviets are hip deep in China. NATO's on alert, and the rest of the world is holding it's breath. The Kafers unknowingly speed the inevitable process along by dropping deadfall nuclear devices in the high kiloton range on the capitols and C3I centers (the ones they can detect from space) of the superpowers. Superpower paranoia results in them blaming each other and a short nuclear exchange results, with a broken-backed conventional conflict following. The Kafers soon land troops in Africa and Latin America and build "Safe-Places", then they begin to branch out...finding conflict wherever they can. Soon, word gets around what is left of the telcom networks on who really started the war, but the human armies are crippled due to the nuclear exchange.

The Kafers aren't all powerful either. Not all the Suzerains are on board with invading Earth, and are happier killing other Kafers. Moreover, the wormhole is a logistical bottleneck, with only two Kafer warships or freighters able to transit the wormhole at a time. Thus, the Kafer buildup is slow and limited, and soon, much of the Kafer advance boggs down due to a lack of men and supplies....

[M-Type]

I like it. I was throwing around the idea of the whole Cold War paranoia behind the landings, like recon ships being spotted and mistaken for UFOs, then attributed to either NATO or Warsaw Pact bombers or fighters.

You worked it very well. I'll probably use it. The warmer places fall first, because the Kafer are more comfortable there, then they grudgingly head out of their comfort zones when the humans prod them.

The wormhole bottleneck is also a great idea, because it could provide some ample opportunities to human forces, 'Hey, they haven't gotten a shipment in 2 months, and they can't get a freighter until next week. We strike tonight!' style.

I was wondering on how to convert their weaponry to v2.2 stats however, as it's (obviously) listed for AD2300.

[weswood]

Originally Posted by mikeo80

Nice!!!

I especially like the idea of Orcs as your "grunt" force and drow as your "Special Forces".

Eggs from the sky. Not so far fetched. Heinlen's immortal Starship Troopers used an "egg" to get the MI from orbit to planet. Multiple layers, self ablating to take care of heat issues. Yours are probably a little bit bigger...so what. Idea works for me.

Depending on size of invasion force, Earth is pretty much screwed based on your scenario. Sounds a lot like the movie Independance Day. Except bad guys use nukes and kinetic warheads vs. ray guns.

Earth is going to need some kind of "Ace up the sleeve" to survive this....

A group I played with toyed with an idea of invaders in TMP universe...Morrow was one of the last, organized forces left. And it is not truly military in nature....

Any Who.....

I want to see more!!!

My $0.02

Mike

I read Starship Troopers but it was so long ago I can't remember the details. That egg detail may have just stuck in my mind.

I never figured the exact size of the invasion force but that's why they drop nukes and KEWs, to reduce the population to a more managable level.

There was never an "Ace in the Hole" for earth, I never got that far in the planning. It's even worse than I posted earlier, I'm a hard corps conservative, I was going to poke at the liberals. In my America, private ownership of firearms have been illegalized except for reproduction black powder weapons and single shot cartridge weapons. Ammo is regulated to 20 rounds purchased per year. Not only would the civilians who would take up arms to defend themselves from alien invaders, they would have to deal with "a civilian police force as well trained and as well armed as the US Army" reporting to a radical liberal president.

Maybe a rebellion by the orcish grunts. Hmmmm.

Thanks for the kind words for my strange ideas.

Wes

[mikeo80]

Originally Posted by weswood

There was never an "Ace in the Hole" for earth, I never got that far in the planning. It's even worse than I posted earlier, I'm a hard corps conservative, I was going to poke at the liberals. In my America, private ownership of firearms have been illegalized except for reproduction black powder weapons and single shot cartridge weapons. Ammo is regulated to 20 rounds purchased per year. Not only would the civilians who would take up arms to defend themselves from alien invaders, they would have to deal with "a civilian police force as well trained and as well armed as the US Army" reporting to a radical liberal president.

Wes

I would think that the "radical lilberal president" would be the last probelm local defenders would have to worry about. After all Washington, DC is at the south end of the brightest congregation of nighttime lights (Some have called this area the Megaopolis, northeast corridor, whatever.)

IMHO, that concentration of light, radio, TV and other EM signatures would make certain that they received either a nuke or a rock.

Now the remainder of the civilian/military is going to be fragmented due to nuke/kinetic strikes. As soon as they get confirmed reports of "Large humanoid warriors", the gloves come off, and every armory left gets emptied into the hands of what ever voluteers show up to go "critter hunting".

And yes, I can see some modern day Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett setting up at 200+ yards with his/her Kentucky Long Rifle..... Or Sharps Buffalo Rifle...

There has got to be some kind of leadership cadre in with the orcs..

SOOOO...

As soon as these "other critters" (read drow) are identified...

THey get introduced to .45 or .54 soft lead at (moderately) high speeds... Right between the eyes.

My $0.02

Mike