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What's your story for the aliens?
Smellincoffee
Posts: 963 Member
Aliens definitely exist in Maxis-sims world, and have since SimCity 3000 & The Sims 1: cities could be visited by ufos, and Sims there could be abducted. As the series has progressed, we've seen more and more aliens, until now in The Sims 4, there are alien nights at the bar. So...how do you explain them, and how do you play them?
My head-canon is that the aliens (who I call Xenons for some reason) began visiting the Sims world 20+ years ago, and didn't realize that Sims regarded their attempts to communicate and learn about life on Sim-Earth were perceived as abductions. As more people were abducted it became impossible to hide the fact that there are aliens. The military wanted to rally and stop the Xenons, but were so out-classed that the Xenons didn't even realize they were under serious attack. Eventually, the Sims learned that the Xenons' home planet was mostly uninabitable now, and that they lived in space and were interested in partially settling Earth. Although the Sims couldn't really STOP them, the Xenons were given a small area where they were allowed to settle among humans (Strangetown in Sims 2), in exchange for trading tech. In the last 20 years, Simworld's tech has grown exponentially thanks to that trade, with the ability to clone sims and have talking robots, etc, and more and more aliens have settled. They now live everywhere, not just in Strangetown, but often assume human guises so that their hosts won't freak out by how many aliens there really are. There are different-colored Xenons just as there are different-colored sims. There's a sims ministry that is just about Xenon-Sim relations. (Er...diplomatic relations, not bedtime relations.) The plants in Strangeville may or may not be from the Xenon's home planet. (However, I just realized why I call them Xenons: the alien world in Half-Life is Xen.
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My head-canon is that the aliens (who I call Xenons for some reason) began visiting the Sims world 20+ years ago, and didn't realize that Sims regarded their attempts to communicate and learn about life on Sim-Earth were perceived as abductions. As more people were abducted it became impossible to hide the fact that there are aliens. The military wanted to rally and stop the Xenons, but were so out-classed that the Xenons didn't even realize they were under serious attack. Eventually, the Sims learned that the Xenons' home planet was mostly uninabitable now, and that they lived in space and were interested in partially settling Earth. Although the Sims couldn't really STOP them, the Xenons were given a small area where they were allowed to settle among humans (Strangetown in Sims 2), in exchange for trading tech. In the last 20 years, Simworld's tech has grown exponentially thanks to that trade, with the ability to clone sims and have talking robots, etc, and more and more aliens have settled. They now live everywhere, not just in Strangetown, but often assume human guises so that their hosts won't freak out by how many aliens there really are. There are different-colored Xenons just as there are different-colored sims. There's a sims ministry that is just about Xenon-Sim relations. (Er...diplomatic relations, not bedtime relations.) The plants in Strangeville may or may not be from the Xenon's home planet. (However, I just realized why I call them Xenons: the alien world in Half-Life is Xen.
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Comments
I like your "Xenons" story, though. Half-Life was a very cool game, too.
Because I can't; I keep all sigs turned off.
The planet Sixam takes roughly 220 years to circle the sun once. For twenty of those years it is close enough to allow travel from and to Earth (if technology level is sufficent, that is). In the past, contact has been mostly with the Omiscan priesthood. Interestingly, their accounts of Sixam's culture and technology vary, as there have been several setbacks. In the 1818-38 cycle Sixam's tech was at a low point (due to war or desaster, haven't decided yet) and they had to pick up some earth inventions, that led them to develop a steampunkish technology. In the 2038-58 cycle (my game's current time) Sixam and Earth are about on par. That allows me to play a more intrigue and economy based story rather than an invasion.
Alien disguises aren't really disguises, but the result of eating Earth foods. With Sixam foods in their system, they manifest their alien form, but when they regularly eat earth food, they change to the human coloration, eyes and whatever else.
I keep a lot of my alien backstory sketchy, to later build upon when maybe new packs bring new gameplay elements to weave in. I also sometimes retcon things, for example originally Sixam was an exoplanet, not part of the Solar System.
Details (longwinded & self-indulgend
Relations
Strictly feudal Sixam is divided into several noble houses, but they act as a unity in their dealings with Earth. Those nations of Earth that are aware of the aliens took up negotiations individually. So far these are the USA, Canada, Russia and Sulani.
Scientists, tourists, exchange students, workplace interns etc. travel back and forth with relative freedom, there are speciality restaurants and I also built a campground on Sixam. I do not have RoM, but in my headcanon the magic world is either a moon of Sixam's or maybe the planet consists of several asteroids held together by a shared gravity field (torn apart in a war, maybe?).
Motherplant
She is the head of a noble house, but got left behind during the 1818-38 cycle, believed dead. In truth she'd only went dormant, and in the present was found by scientists, who revived her. However, Mother was confused and then her reproductive cycle set in, that Earth's ecosystem had no counter for.
After the crisis was solved in 2039, the investigators learned the secret of Sixam and returned Mother to her home. They promised to keep quiet about it, but then the abductions started.
Abductions
The noble houses were not aware of those and when they got accused by the victims, they payed compensation in addition to helping stop the assaults.
It turned out that Morgyn Ember, Sixam's head scientist, and Elijah Kamski, Earth's most brilliant mind, had teamed up in secret. Their goal was to find whether some specific dna sequences still existed in humankind and to what extent interbreeding was possible.
Morgyn found the dna he was looking for, but not in humans. Baffling as it sounded, it was in their androids. But Elijah had created those androids and to him the discovery was equally baffling. What the heck was going on here?!
The dark secret
Long ago Sixam mainained a colony on Earth. With each away-cycle the colonists became increasingly independent, to the point where during one cycle the noble houses ordered a complete retreat, for fear of their colony growing into a rival during the next circle. When the colonists refused, they got bombed from orbit.
This act of genocide was covered up by Sixam's rulers, who taught future generations that there had been a colony alright, but that it had perished during an away-cycle. Earth was just too dangerous to permanently settle. However, the Omiscans kept knowledge of the original events and after many forays into the omiscan ruins, my sims now know the full story.
Morgyn believed in the lie he had grown up with, however, they suspected that there had been breeding between early humans and Sixamites. Morgyn's goal was to find proof of that theory and then enjoy the chaos that would ensue when thousands of earth people suddenly turned out to have ties to current rulers or claims to the funds of noble houses that didn't exist anymore.
Tie in with Detroit Become Human (the PS4 game which this save is based on)
Originally I didn't want to include aliens in this save, but then one day they grabbed an android from his home and not just, that, Daniel returned pregnant. I hadn't felt the need to make my androids sterile, because try for baby is always user-directed, so there was no risk. So now I had a little cyborg coming and a backstory to write that explained why a robot would have an half-alien child.
Fortunately in Detroit the androids are powered by a (fictional) substance called thirium, which is mined in the polar regions mostly. Androids also start to deviate from their program code in that game, they develop fears and desires. I decided to combine these two facts with my alien backstory and declared that thirium is what's left of the perished/destroyed colony, basically the desecrated remains of the settlers. Normal servos therefore cannot deviate, only androids running on thirium.
Upon realizing this, Morgyn now believed they could bring back the colonists. They not just analyzed dna anymore, but started creating the hybrid babys. Morgyn erred, each hybrid child is a new individual, no cloned alien.
With that backstory in mind I randomize possible bloodlines for my abduction babies and for each android who sends in a blood sample for a test. So far many blood samples contained enough recoverable dna to prove kinship (and thus apply for citizenship on Sixam), but only sim's thirium was pure enough to allow linking to a specific family: Connor Anderson, an international negotiator. He is related to a poor family of factory workers, so no political upheaval yet.
The Paranormal
I wanted this save to be about androids, and I still do not allow vampires, animated skeletons, talking ghosts or spellcasters to exist, but some lowkey paranormal activity (island spirits, komorebi spirits, haunted lots) is subtle enough to fit in. In my headcanon it occurs whenever Sixam and Earth come close. This also means that Guidry is no ghost in my game, but an A.I. that projects a picture of itself into the room.
Other Sixam aliens are here for science or serial romance depending on the story. I don't take them too far outside the norm but the children of the Sixam aliens are open season for every story. Kerrigan and her daughter discovered vampirism is a good way of having "children" so Kerrigan's daughter sought out and became a vampire with the aspiration of having a vampire family. She ultimately feels empty because they aren't biologically connected so she makes enemies out of her creations.
I view sixamians as sort of more posh safe colony of aliens who do the earth travels as like tourist thing and have like nobles and royals and such
and abduct some cows for fashion and make pretty field patterns and that kinda stuff
they are mostly friendly and want to get close to humans but little off about how to interact
then there is the evil colonies of aliens that are constantly attacking other colonies and earth and abducting sims for weird experiments and such and are slowly creeping their way in the midst of ordinary sims to take over the earth easier
and then there is moonwalkers which are basically like soldiers and spies for the evil aliens that got their colony pretty much murdered by the evil aliens but they were brainwashed by them to do their dirty jobs for them
and should they ever realize that... well surely they could switch sides
as for like other existing occults
i sort of treat them as being caused by ancient day aliens mixing with humans
it's sort of "all magic came from space" and "all occults are human mutations caused by alien activity" type of spin
mainly cause i watched too much xfiles where everything becomes
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I also tried to play out the Sims 2 Bella abduction story at some point. So I think I turned Bella into an alien, and she has a clone walking around somewhere.
1. Doctor Who marries his beloved Donnarose in the TARDIS while they are traveling through Time & Space.
2. Kathryn Voyager & her beloved Chakotay get stranded on an Earthlike Planet & begin to fall in love.
3. General Jack O'Neill throws out the d.u.m rule book & falls in love with Cor. Samantha Carter while chasing bad Aliens.
Today, the woman and the alien are still living together, now as a couple raising the latter's daughter, who is all grown up. Oasis Springs has become the Earth's alien capital, so to speak, with one neighbourhood being inhabited exclusively by sims from other planets and their offspring. There is even yet another alien species that showed up shortly after the first one, the Asari (yes, the ones from Mass Effect if you are familiar with that game), who aren't actually aliens from a gameplay perspective, but blue-skinned, tentacle-headed spellcasters and vampires with alien powers added via cheat. I have yet to decide whether they're from the same planet as the green species, but yeah, that's the story of the aliens in my game so far.
Something wicked this way comes!
I don't use MCCC.
He lived in a shack I built in Brindleton Bay and had a pug who wasn’t exactly what he seemed either.
A second version of him got rescued by a conservationist during a Sulani monsoon. Then his betrothed turned up looking for him...
The other is an alien impregnation within the Sigworth family. So Dylan got pregant and Jess kinda flipped out, with ya know, memories of the Mother and stuff. The problem is that uh, Jess took it out on the kid and that's grounds for divorce right there so I divorced the two. Dylan picked up Christie, her brother Neil and alien daughter Sally off to Brindelton Bay. So far nothing too strange is out of the ordinary but she says strange things sometimes and seems to know more than is usual and seems to be more mimicing whomever she's closest to.
...by the by, I'm neurodivergent and Sally's thing is me playing out the being weirdly "off" sort of vibe. I'm planning for her close relationship with her brother to fracture and break down once he becomes a teen and no longer finds her cool. Which is very much how my relationship with my own brother went. -sad sigh- But unlike myself, someone else has taken up a friendship with her at least, Elsa Bjergrsen, though, which'll be nice.
The way things are looking right now isn't too good for aliens now that one of the siblings are spellcasters-in-training with (deadly) untamed magic.
I actually do not currently have any aliens in my game, but I do have a guy in the astronaut career who lives in Strangerville and is obsessed with finding out if there is life beyond this world. I plan to have him go to Sixam when his rocket is finished, eventually I want him to fall in love with an alien and bring them back to Earth to live with him. Following that event, more aliens will discover that it is quite nice to live on Earth...
I named the alien Nadia Ilene (Not a alien), who is an alien that lives in the town, and her fashion is outdated to the 50's. So, her disguise is a 50's house wife, with the blonde hair and blue eyes, and a mole on her face, since that is what she saw in the movies that managed to be broadcast to their world. She just adopted two dogs to fit in a bit more as well.
I know it sounds kind of dumb, but that is her backstory.