Science Fiction Thriller CLOSED The Visitor

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T h e
V i s i t o r
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A Science-Fiction Thriller​

The explosion had taken the locals by storm. In the dead of night in the vast deserts of Nevada, a mighty cloud of fire and flame erupted near a small remote village, leaving everyone in shock. The government wrote it off as a failed military flight exercise.

Ever since then, nothing has seemed to make sense. After all, what kind of plane leaves the land a mile around it completely burned to ash?

Maybe it's just the crazy locals again, trying to sell some big "alien conspiracy story." Typical. A bunch from this area were always trying to sell of UFO pictures.

Or maybe, just maybe, it's something more...

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Game Overview

Welcome to The Visitor, a science-fiction thriller starting in the ghost town of Nelson, Nevada. Legend tells of a small diner operating in this abandoned town called Sam's Diner. It was here that the strange email told you to go and meet the mysterious "G."

The chances of somewhat actually responding to this email were low, but the recipients of the email were very carefully chosen. Those with a desire to find out more of the unknown. And with all the events involving "The Explosion", it was only natural that those few amateur sleuths would show up.

And that is exactly what you did.

How to Join

This game is planned to work with a very small cast. Only about 3 players or so. Read the above passages to help flesh out your character sheet, and then send one to me, the GM, using the template below. If you want assistance or need some ideas, don't hesitate to contact me on a PM.

Once you have created your character, submit it to me via. PM for approval and double-check you have read the rules.

Character Sheet

Image (optional):
Name:
Age:
Nationality:
Occupation:
Equipment:
Biography:

Rules

1. Obey the TOS as expected.
2. GM's world is law.
3. PM your CS to the GM for Approval
4. No Godmodding as usual
5. Keep swearing to a minimum
6. Have fun !

 

Approved by @Master Vo'Un'Var thank you!



Name: Saori Nishimura
Age: 27
Nationality: Japanese
Occupation: Investigative journalist (freelance)
Equipment: Press pass, CIA ID (stolen), microchip scanner/cloner (stolen)
Biography:
Intelligent, articulate, curious and tenacious; Saori was attracted to journalism from a young age. With a flair for languages, she studied Journalism and International Affairs for five years in Montreal and speaks English and French fluently. She returned to Japan and broke a story for a national newspaper busting a ring of “psychics” scamming the elderly with miracle cures for cancer. She also tackled a Chinese gang trafficking North Korean women and running illegal brothels out of massage parlours. Her senior colleague stole the credit for that, so Saori quit and went freelance. Her anonymity worked in her favour as she sought to investigate international stories. She worked in Northern Iraq and Syria, exposing government and IS atrocities, using aliases for bylines to Reuters, the BBC and CNN. This endeared her to the US government – who were looking for international consensus for a regime change – until a change of administration brought a more pro-Russian stance and the decision to leave this region to its fate under Russian influence. Saori was forced to sneak and bluff her way out of trouble several times before reaching Greece.

Saori was working from Ukraine, following a story across Europe about Russian cyber-agents agitating for a break-up of the EU using disinformation campaigns. She came across a freelance group based in Russia called ПРАВДА (Pravda). She was prevented from learning any more because next, suddenly, she was hit with a lead from the deep south of the USA.

UFO stories were of course nothing new, and the "serious" press were well aware of the alien sightings industry in the gutter press. Saori had dedicated her life to debunking myths.

But this lead had come from someone she trusted. Now she is investigating all aspects of this, sensing deeper truths lie behind government announcements...

She is armed with her international press pass and her wits. She also has a discarded CIA ID she recovered from a warzone in Iraq (with her picture and alias “Sara Nishima” carefully grafted on). She is unsure if the previous owner is dead. These get her past most doors – the clandestine nature of the CIA usefully means no-one, not even other agents, challenge it, though she is aware eventually a red flag will be raised and the Americans may catch up with her. Finally she once “liberated” a small microchip code scanning and cloning device while searching the offices of a criminal gang in Tokyo (before she called the police in). This neatly fits inside the case of a beeper device she carries and she can use it to bust security locks.

In another life Saori perhaps would have been a spy, and she deploys this arsenal, along with charm when necessary, in her insatiable quest for the truth...

 

GM Note, the game will start in approximately three days

 

GM Note: There is still room for one more player, but after that (or after a few updates into the game) the game will be closed indefinitely.

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The Visitor
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The lights flashed brightly in the night sky, high above the suffocating ground below. A strobe effect blinding to all burst out over and over, forging a spectacular and unnerving presence high within the heavens. Few were able to witness it, and fewer thought of it as something more than a plane or stars.

The two pilots sitting in the cockpit of the commercial airplane flicked a few switches, bored of the uneventful flight and growing tired. The captain had not received much sleep, and was behaving rather recklessly, failing to consistently follow protocol.

A bright flash appeared ahead of them, and the two narrowed their eyes.

A storm? Not possible in this weather... Then what was it? Another plane? Again, impossible. They would have been notified.

The Captain stopped dead in his tracks, his face growing pale and his eyes wider, and he slowly tapped his co-pilot on the shoulder, directing their attention ahead of them.

The two of them let out screams that unnerved each and every one of the passengers on the flight. Fear took control of the passengers, and they all began to shriek in horror as the windows of the plane revealed the impossible.

---

Sam's Diner, Nelson, Nevada

The old mining town, Nelson, sat in the arid landscape of Nevada, empty and quiet. The only open signs of life was an old man sitting on a rocking chair outside of the 50's themed Sam's Diner. The town had a population of 37, with only a few visitors arriving to look around the town year round. It had been abandoned due to danger of flooding, leaving its mines and tunnels open to explore.

It was here, in Sam's Diner, that they had been called to. An e-mail from someone merely known as "G." They claimed they had information on something huge. Something which would shake the world they knew.

Of course, a few skeptics could not refuse the urge to dispel this false claim. That is why they had come to this place. To prove that this "G." was insane, and show it to the world.

There were about six people in the Diner: A waitress, three men belonging to a film crew, a journalist, and one other. A radio was playing in the background, reporting a headline story about a flight that vanished while flying over Nevada.

A man with a short stubble and messy black hair sat at a booth in the corner, a coffee in hand with bacon and eggs in front of him, with a few slices of toast neatly stacked on a plate beside his breakfast. He was keeping an eye out for those whom would catch his eye.

Of the people he watched, two caught his attention. The first was Morgan Bennett, a director and filmmaker that the man had seen a few documentaries by. The second was Saori Nishimura, a freelance journalist that the man was familiar with. A colleague of Nishimura had forwarded her the email from "G.", before disappearing from existence completely.

The man cleared his throat and signaled the two towards him, motioning them to the direction of the seats in front of him. Finally, perhaps, the world would see what is going on in this place. The truth could be uncovered once and for all.

@HanSolo29 @Kurisan

 

Saori Nishimura
Sam's diner, Nelson, Nevada

The bell above the door tinkled as Saori entered Sam’s Diner, but there was no rush to greet the new customer. The bored waitress carried on reading her magazine. It was as sleepy as the rest of Nelson, Nevada.

Still, Saori felt it was a moment of import; to finally arrive at the destination for which she had set out from the other side of the world. When she had first received the forwarded email from Dennis Brousseau, editor of the Globe and Mail, she had thought it was spam, or a scam. But it had been nice to hear from her old boss, the man who had given her first real newspaper job.

Dennis had picked Saori up after a disastrous internship at the ABC-7 news channel in LA, when she was down and very close to quitting the business altogether. He had nurtured and guided her, and she owed him her success. He had given her the confidence to keep at it, and helped her get her job at Yomiuri Shimbun. Dennis was a straight arrow, old school – always quote the source, verify, and never print without proof. So, the vague allusions to alien sightings in the Deep South USA were out of character, obviously some kind of joke.

She had called him to have a laugh about it, perhaps see when their paths might next cross somewhere in the world, and had been shocked when the G&M staff had told her he had suddenly disappeared. Her disquiet had deepened when she had checked her work-phone mailbox at Yomiuri and listened to a hasty message from Dennis. “I’m sorry I can’t explain, Saori; just get to Sam’s Diner, Nelson, Nevada. Trust me on this.”

Dennis had taken a chance on her when she really needed it. And now he was missing, possibly… Well, she did not want to think about that. She owed him an investigation.

And, somewhere deep down, she was stimulated by the feeling there was a story to be had here. So she had taken the next flight out of Tokyo…

... and ended up here in her little Honda rental. Nelson proved to be just as desolate as expected. The nearest motel she could find was ten miles down the freeway. One could drive through Nevada a hundred times and go right past it without noticing it. An old mining town, the prospectors had come, ripped open the earth, sucked the seam dry, then moved on to Texas, leaving a dead town behind.

Dressed in her usual business attire, Saori had drawn looks from the few residents that had laid eyes upon her. She was very obviously from outta town.

The diner was almost empty, but for… oh, was that Morgan Bennett? Saori had never met him, but knew of his work. He was serious and respected – Saori shared his passion for debunking myths. It was inconceivable that he would be here except for the very same story. He would probably be unknown in this backwater, but to Saori he was a Hollywood star and she suddenly felt shy as a schoolgirl.

Then a man with messy black hair cleared his throat to catch her attention. He was in a booth in a corner, with a breakfast before him. He motioned her to join him and… yes, Morgan and his crew, too!

Was this the mysterious “G” from the email?

She took a deep breath and approached the man in the booth. She said, “Excuse me, I’m Saori. I’m here because of an email sent to Dennis Brousseau. Do you… know anything about that?”

TAG: @Master Vo'Un'Var @HanSolo29 ​

 

Sam's Diner, Nelson, Nevada

The man stood before the two of them, clearing his throat and dusting crumbs off his trousers.

"Brousseau, eh? Yeah, sounds about right..." He mumbled, sniffing slightly and turning away from Saori to Morgan. "Listen, Bennett, right? I've seen some of your movie things... This is worth your time. In fact, you woulda happily waited five hours when you get your hands on this." He said with a grin, before motioning to the seats in front of him and sitting down.

"Let me ask you a question, both of ya. A plane crashes in the middle of the Nevada desert, and the government swoops in and creates a thirty mile radius around the crash. What kind of plan crash requires the amount of secrecy that this one did, eh? Don't answer!" He quickly added, leaning forward.

"There was no plane crash. One of our boys managed to sneak inside their military exclusion zone. They got this big old camp surrounding some sorta crater. A bunch of science-y things. You know what's crazier? The man said the land around this spot was unrecognizable. Completely destroyed."

The man leaned back, a look of dissatisfaction on his face. "I tried talking to the locals about this. They won't say anything. The group of weirdos who snuck my boy into the zone vanished... One guy almost spilled the beans on something, but quickly stopped himself. None of them trust me. Me and ol' G haven't been taken too kindly here."

He grabbed his mug of coffee and took a large gulp, before stabbing at his hash browns and continuing. "That's why we need you guys. Newcomers with a clean slate, and pros at this kinda thing. Me and G can't do this alone." he stopped, before stuffing his face with a forkful of hash browns soaked in egg yolk and leaned back lazily.

"Sho whadya shay?" he asked, tilting his head to one side.

Tag: @HanSolo29 @Kurisan

 

Saori Nishimura
Sam's diner, Nelson, Nevada

Saori got into the booth and sat down opposite the man - who had not yet given his name, though he was not "G", she noted.

She listened to his explanation and bit her lip. A crash with an exclusion zone could mean all sorts of things; government testing? A new MOAB, Agent Orange or other chemical weapons, even tactical nukes. It would be no wonder curious civilians might be detained. Why did people always leap to the conclusion it was aliens? She was sure the US government even actively encouraged these rumours, to cover whatever they were up to.

So, there might be some sort of story. If it were nukes the Yomiuri certainly would be interested. In any case, she owed Dennis to see this through.

She looked at Bennett and wondered if he felt similarly. Saori had been taken aback at his aggressive intervention into the conversation. She was not a shy person, but still she was surprised sometimes at how brash Americans could be, right at the start of a relationship.

And, to be truthful, she was slightly starstruck before him. He had that thing some people called gravitas.

Annoyed with herself, she took a breath to work up the courage to speak. She did have a question for the mysterious man eating his hashbrowns.

"Has anyone checked out the plane that was supposed to have crashed?"

A flight carried perhaps 300 people, or more. Every single one of them would have friends and family they said goodbye to, people expecting them at the other end. Hotels booked. Taxis that dropped them off. Pets with neighbours. Baggage handlers, caterers, flight controllers, flight plans, records of fuelling, landings, safety checks on the plane. To make a flight disappear - or conjure up a fake one - would take tens if not hundreds of thousands of connected people, all in on a government conspiracy, and not a single one would breathe a word of it? Impossible.

TAG: @HanSolo29 @Master Vo'Un'Var

 

GM APPROVED!


Name: Charles Sterling
Age: 43
Nationality: British-American
Occupation: Climate Scientist
Equipment: Notepad, research notes, climate observation equipment, iPhone
Biography: Charles Sterling is a prominent climate scientist dedicated to the pursuit of the truth. Born in London he has pulled himself up from nothing to one of the foremost researchers of weather patterns in the world. He has been recently largely ostracized from the scientific community for his recent series of papers regarding unusual weather patterns in the deserts of Nevada.

Graduating from Oxford with a master’s in Earth Sciences he immigrated to the US where he made groundbreaking research in the observation of weather patterns along the eastern seaboard, allowing for far more efficient travel of commercial and military aircraft.

This research culminated in his PhD thesis and his fellowship at MIT, where he teaches as a professor. Recently, however, he has been become more of an outcast among his peers. Ridiculed for a recent paper where he inquired about weather patterns in the Nevada desert, He seeks to understand the true nature of what is happening there, hoping to find a scientific explanation.

When he received the mysterious email from an unknown ‘G’ he was at first skeptical, deleting the email thinking it was spam. However he could not push it out of his mind and ultimately decided if he was going to get to the bottom of what was going on it was well worth the trip.

 

Sam's Diner, Nelson, Nevada

"Has anyone checked out the plane that was supposed to have crashed?" Saori asked, before Morgan interjected.

“I also want to know about this ‘boy’ who supposedly gained access to a highly-fortified zone,” he said. “I’m assuming this is the same guy who sent the email? This…’G’? How did he get out and why didn’t he disappear along with the others? And on the off-chance that we should agree to your proposal, how can you guarantee that we won’t meet the same fate? Or is that the catch...?”

The man shook his head, before swallowing his mouthful of hash browns.

"That plane you bring up would be a good point, if the exclusion zone hadn't been made before it disappeared. That's two supposed crashes. The original, which was meant to be military, then this new one... This only happened last night. That one I know nothing about. It doesn't seemed fake... This military one though? G knows this ain't real. Oh, and by the way, he'll show up soon."

He cleared his throat, pushing his plate to one side and locking his hands together and resting them on the table.

"The guy who got G into the zone. He's an expert. He's not American though... Really foreign. Heavy accent and all that. We've been tryin' to find him. He's hard to contact, you see. We find him again, and you've got guaranteed safe passage into the zone. Think about the money you can make off this trip, both of ya." He finished, before whistling for a check.

"It sounds crazy, I know, but give me and G a chance, alright?"

@HanSolo29 @Kurisan

Near Nelson, Nevada

Two men were seated in the back of a modified van, hunched over computers. The outside of the vehicle looked normal enough, but inside, the rear seats had been ripped out, and replaced with elaborate weather equipment and electronics lining the wall, with a few seats put there for comfort. It was in this sweltering van that Sterling and a colleague of his, Pete Michaels, were reviewing weather patterns in this area of Nevada. Pete was the only colleague of Sterling that hadn't ridiculed him when he published his recent paper regarding the unusual weather patterns in Nevada, particularly near Nelson.

Originally, Sterling had noted the strange absence of heat near Nelson. A cluster of ice cold desert, which had now been sealed off by the U.S Government. It was nothing but odd. His paper detailed this, and was quickly waved away.

It was now that he was sure there was something very very off. Pete yelled out, pulling Sterling towards him to show him something on his screen.

The same area which Sterling had seen the strange cold spots, suddenly had a burst of heat. An incredibly concentrated circle of heat, spanning about three miles. The readings... That wasn't possible. 400 Fahrenheit?

"This was taken last night. I'm going to check the news, scientific journals... See if there is anything I can figure out..." Pete finished, rapidly typing to begin his research.

If Sterling bothered to research anything, he would know that a flight going over this exact area was reported missing. Explosion? Doesn't explain the size... What on earth could this be? Maybe the 'G' Sterling had heard from knew something about this. But was it worth going to Nelson to listen to a guy who was determined aliens were involved?

@Shadowsun

 

Saori Nishimura
Sam's diner, Nelson, Nevada

Saori listened and her eyes widened slightly. Two crashes? That was very rare in the generally amazing safety record of flights. A coincidence? Possibly. By the laws of probability they were occasionally inevitable.

That it was a military plane first strengthened her initial theory it was some kind of weapon testing gone wrong. However, “G” knew it to be fake?

She really needed to talk to this G, so was glad to hear he was turning up soon.

Then the hashbrown-eater-with-no-name introduced another player in his story; a foreign “expert” that could ghost them into government exclusion zones.

Finally he said, “it sounds crazy, I know, but give me and G a chance, alright?”

Saori sighed. In coming all this way from Tokyo she had already consented to do that. She was not going to turn round now, though she wasn’t really interested in the promise of lots of money to be made. She wondered if that comment was for Morgan’s benefit.

She turned to Morgan and said, just a little shyly, “Would you like some coffee, while we wait for G?”

Then she turned her knees in a way that signaled she wanted him to let her out of the booth so she could go to the counter to order.

Before she left, she asked their mysterious host, “This foreign expert, is he European?”

She hoped to get some idea of his origin other than ‘somewhere in the world that is not America.’ If this was about weapons, she wondered about the Russians...

TAG: @HanSolo29 @Master Vo'Un'Var

 

Charles Sterling
Near Nelson, Nevada

Sterling was dying.

The pulsating summer heat vibrated against his body creating a slimy layer of sweat between his skin and shirt. His British body used to the damp and murky weather of the UK did not take kindly to the arid hotness of the desert.

The events of the last week were a blur, heated like the haze of the desert. He remembered how it all began. Like a light switch it a sudden decrease in temperature. Cold enough that ice would of formed. In the middle of a desert. It simply made no sense.

What was perhaps more mysterious was the quick dismissal of his findings. The scientific community was known to be a fickle one, but to be met with so much push back and to be ridiculed by so many of his peers... It created more questions.

The final cherry on top of the cake of mystery was the email from one named 'G'. Who were they? How much did they know?

Questions upon questions.

Sterling turned to Pete's screen. The shock spread across his face like wildfire.

A dramatic rise in temperature, on a scale unheard of: three miles and over two hundred degrees Celsius. The amount of energy needed would have to been vast. It was more than enough to kill any humans and most living creatures that were caught in the area. Hot enough even to turn the sand into glass. To put it simply it would have burnt the desert.

Sterling quickly went to his laptop, looking at recent news articles. One in particular caught his eye.

Plane crash over Nevada Desert.

The time of the crash coincided with the time of the heat signature. Just like the cold spots coincided with the cold spots. Once was a coincidence, twice? High unlikely. There seemed to be some connection between the crashes and the rapid changes in temperature. There was only so much he could conclude from this van however. It was time to meet this 'G'. If he could get him closer to the source, perhaps then Sterling could finally get his questions answered.

TAG: @Master Vo'Un'Var