Our World

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Od Of Ol On Ou

Our World

The 21st Century in the Universe you are stepping into looks, on the surface much like the one you are familiar with…for much of it’s human mythology and history is shaped by interaction with ancient aliens.

This humanities origins are vastly different to our own, rather than being the product of natural evolution on Earth, we owe our existence to an ancestor-race, known only to most SEF Personnel as the Ancients, who arrived on Earth from a distant galaxy, giving us legends of Atlantis and other mythical advanced civilizations that coexisted with humanity before fading into legend and myth. This is not to say that theories of evolution are wrong, just that Earth was largely guided by our advanced ancestors and that our passage of evolution from apes occurred not here, but around some distant star in another galaxy. The impact of the Ancients was huge, within the myriad tongues of humanity they seeded a memetic code that, allowed to gestate without conflict, would evolve the human tongue to one similar to the hybrid tongue that is modern English, this would prove important later.

Though the Ancients would fade from Earth and the Galaxy, their most profound impact would be a single device the Stargate – seeded on almost every inhabitable world of Milky Way (and beyond) these great portals allowed instantaneous travel between worlds – enabling the rapid growth of intergalactic civilizations that discovered them and learned how to use them.

It would be a second race that would have a profound impact upon the development of civilization on our world and around the Galaxy, the Goa’uld. A race of snake-like parasites that had built an intergalactic Empire by invading the bodies of stronger creatures and usurping their technology – but they were dying, few creatures could sustain their parasitic invasion for long, and they had entered into a war with other races in the Galaxy that they were not winning.

Around 9,000 BC the Goa’uld leader, Ra, fleeing a battle discovered Earth by accident and soon found that us, humanity, its native inhabitants proved to be both excellent hosts for their kind with bodies that could be sustained , with their advanced technology, for millennia. To control their Empire’s most precious resource, us, Ra made Earth his Throne world, and divided it amongst his most powerful subjects – these Lords are the origin of many of Earth’s early civilizations from Egypt, where the Goa’uld first landed, to far flung South America and China, the Goa’uld ruled Earth for nearly six thousand years of our History. Tales of the cruel rule of these aliens were the origins of the mythological gods of ancient civilizations, where a god is sometimes inexplicably capricious and cruel, that is often a retelling of some horror meted out by the Goa’uld upon their prehistoric human slaves. Not all ancient religions owe their existence to the Goa’uld in some cultures, the Goa’uld assumed the role of existing gods, using their advanced technology to intimidate the population into the belief of their divinity.

But the Goa’ulds horrors were not to last – humanity, united for a time in its prehistory, rose up against the Goa’uld and despite being far outmatched by their technologically superior oppressors managed to defeat them driving them to their ships and back through the Stargate that they had brought to Ancient Egypt. Earth was spared destruction but for two reasons. The first is that the ships that Ra would have had to commit to destroying it would have involved them admitting their defeat by ‘savages’ thus speaking of Earth became a taboo amongst the Goa’uld for fear of offending their ruler. The second was that in the years they had ruled Earth portions of its prehistoric human populations had been plundered for the many other worlds of the Goa’uld Empire, by the time Earth rebelled it was no longer as important to the Goa’uld for they had stable populations of human slaves populating much of the Milky Way. And so, as the people of Earth buried the Goa’uld and forgot how to use their ancient technologies as they eventually decayed into nothing, the people of Earth became to the Goa’uld a cautionary myth, and to their slaves a hopeful legend of freedom, known only as the Tau’ri.

Of course, not all Goa’uld left Earth, that much is important to our story, some exiles, left behind continued on, including one King of the Britons, Math ap Mathonwy, the exact nature of how Math came to remain on Earth is not known, but it is known they ruled over Briton as a slave-colony using a Stargate based in the Kingdom of Gwynedd in modern-day Wales. When the rule of Math ended, the Britons took their Stargate and buried it beneath a stone circle known today…as Stonehenge – and then the rule of Math too faded into myth as humans retelling them filled in gaps called technology ‘magic’ and little by little obscured the Aliens that had created their world from history.

Both the Gate of Math, and Ra’s Gate in Egypt would be found again at the turning of the 20th Century but thought largely to be hoaxes and the providence of occultists and conspiracy theorists until the end of the Century and the beginning of the 21st.

A Familiar World

The 21st Century is, before your character was inducted into the Stargate Expeditionary Force (SEF), incredibly similar to our own – though the world leaders are different, the politics are much the same but the names are different. Whether they were succeeded by these leaders or never existed is not important – the important events of the 20th and 21st century have happened – but we make the vaguest of references to them, we try to keep them from intruding in our canon but leave them in place to minimise the amount of ‘facts’ we need to learn to enjoy the game. Not because these events aren’t important, but for many of us Stargate LRP is an escape from ‘real world’ events, so it’s best not to keep commentary current – when important things happen on Earth that are worth talking about they’ll be in downtime packs and lore drops.

What is important, is that when you were inducted into the SEF, your character learned that their reality represented only a narrow focus – maybe they were smart enough to scratch the surface of the truth and that’s why they were brought into the SEF, but for most people the revelations provided by their induction into the SEF are shocking. For nearly Thirty Years, the Governments who signed the accords that formed the International Stargate Coalition have successfully hidden not only the existence of devices used to travel to entirely different worlds, but has at several times in the 21st century successfully hidden from the population that it has been a hair’s breadth away from alien invasion.

Welcome to the SEF, now you’re part of the conspiracy.

The Stargate Project

Though now the Stargate Project refers to a single operation, it has historically referred to three separate organisations, the American-led Stargate Command (SGC), the United Kingdom Gate Command (UKGC) and later the Stargate Expeditionary Force (SEF).  In the mid-90s the United States, who had been experimenting in secret with the Stargate, formerly buried in Giza by our ancestors when they’d rebelled against the Goa’uld, managed to work out how to operate the Gate establishing a successful portal to the distant throne world of Ra, still the Supreme Leader of the Goa’uld millennia later. In on exploration mission, this expedition, the predecessors to the SGC re-sparked an ancient conflict with our former overlords that continues to this day by killing Ra and bringing about the end of his dynasty and the emergence of many new leaders amongst Goa’uld who had been waiting in the wings for the fall of the Supreme Leader.

Members of the UK Intelligence Services learned of the American’s secret project, and connected it to an identical device that had been dug up by Victorian archaeologists beneath Stonehenge and had gathered dust in a sub-basement of the British Museum. This was relocated to Bletchley Park, and formed the foundation of an off-the-books operation, the UKGC – however eventually compromises and corruption in the leadership of the UKGC forced it to be reigned in by the UK Government, placing it under military control in the form of the SEF.

For the past fifteen+ years the SEF has stepped through the Stargate in search of new worlds, new technologies to better Earth, and to protect it from its enemies – you are now a part of that, and you find yourself shouldering those responsibilities alongside your new comrades.

A Wonderful and Terrifying Galaxy

The SEF contains the majority of its explorations to the Milky Way Galaxy, though some other species such as the Goa’uld exist, much of it is populated by humans who have lived very different histories to us, their ancestors. Some rebelled, or were abandoned by the Goa’uld founding cultures independent of their rule – while others continue to labour as slaves to the Goa’uld – the memetic code placed in our languages by the Ancients mean that many humans of the galaxy speak a language very similar to ‘English’ and this has made it easier for the SEF to communicate with them and convince them to turn against their Masters.

Much of the Galaxy remains the domain of the Goa’uld, these sadistic aliens living as if they were gods over populaces kept in mediaeval conditions. There remains a very real and very dangerous conflict between the people of Earth and the Goa’uld and as the SEF explores it constantly looks to undermine them while strengthening Earth.

Facts about the world

Five Important Facts the SEF knows about the World

1. Though politics are the same, the International Stargate Coalition (ISC) shows we can work together in the face of greater threats  – formed after the near-invasion of Earth in 2015 the ISC was formed to help facilitate co-operation in off-world operations, and home-world defence between those countries who know of the Stargate Program and the existence of aliens.
2. Knowing about Aliens wouldn’t fix the world’s problems – one of the reasons that the ISC was formed to keep the Stargate secret is because of the fear that knowing about aliens would only exacerbate the world’s problems and divide it for too long likely allowing the Goa’uld to destroy us before we could unite.
3. Nuclear (Naquadah) Power and Crystal Computers are Alien Tech – the US Government has led the road to using Naquadah, a potent fuel mined by the Goa’uld that can be used to make compact and highly efficient reactors using technology refined at Area 51. At the same time a UK Gov part-owned computing company, Legion, led by former SEF members has exploited the crystal computing technology of the Ancients to introduce ‘Earth-safe’ forms of this technology greatly advancing computer sciences, and indeed AI research.
4. Nobody wants to see the results of the meeting a Goa’uld and a soulless Corporation – deliberately sabotaging private attempts to get into space has become part and parcel of the ISC’s mission whose need to control who goes into space is essential to maintain secrecy around alien technology as well as Earth’s own defensive fleet of craft. 
5. An Ancient Terraformer has kept us from killing our planet, but it’s been on the fritz – following several extraterrestrially-caused environmental disasters, the SEF managed to return an Ancient Terraformer to Earth, this has been set up in Mombasa where it is operated by the ISC. Unfortunately the SEF is looking for ways to fix it as it has become damaged and appears to be causing strange weather events.

Recent historical events

Five Historical Events that are unique to our Universe

1. In the Early 2000s a Solar Flare devastated much of Africa – previously thought impossible the intense solar radiation caused hundreds of thousands of deaths and turned some areas into glassy wasteland. 
2. In the Early 2010s a plague ripped through Earth’s population – in 2012 a previously unforeseen plague killed thousands as it ripped though Earth’s population over the course of a few months and then, just as suddenly as it had emerged, it seemed to vanish.
3. In 2014-2015 Earth experienced multiple near-meteor strikes and aurora-like magnetic storms in its upper atmosphere cutting off many satellite-based services – described as being the result of Earth entering a patch of previously unseen solar debris this event caused global communications havoc for over a year – the nations of Earth are still repairing the damage to much of Earth’s satellite infrastructure.
4. In the early 2020s the Chinese and Russian Leadership underwent sudden change – the former Russian leader was assassinated by unknown assailants resulting in some shifts of power the current Russian leadership is liberal-conservative. Internal struggle within the Chinese State Executive in recent years has resulted in shifts within the Chinese Communist Party but little wider change.
5. In recent years there have been several bold Terrorist attacks with massive casualties – a large bomb in the Brazilian City of Sao Paolo in 2020 and a dirty bomb set off in Mombasa in 2022 by unknown terrorists.

Five Answers the SEF knows about these Events

1. A Goa’uld Did It – In 2005/6 the Earth was targeted by the Goa’uld Tezcatlipoca, who used a solar probe to direct a series of massive solar flares at Earth, which caused severe damage to the planet’s ecosphere.
2. A Goa’uld Did It –  The twin Goa’uld scientists Phobos and Deimos, acting under the orders of the Goa’uld Ares (who was in turn being played by the Goa’uld Ba’al…all the knives in the back with these guys) used a bioweapon deployed via a meteor to unleash a plague on Earth.
3. A Goa’uld did it Actually this was something worse – in 2014 a human culture who had previously been ales of Earth suddenly attacked it, it was only though the intervention of Matthew Carter, a SEF Member who had turned into an Space Wizard Ascended Being protected it with a shield, giving the SEF a chance to stop it from where he has transported them outside of his shield. This was later discovered to be the machinations of an eldritch entity called Dagon that sought to bring ‘harmony’ to the galaxy via enslavement, and wished to destroy Earth to prevent a weapon hidden beneath the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland being used to stop it. This weapon was fired in 2015, ending the threat.
4. A Goa’uld did it  Actually the Space Mafia did – following the saving of Earth in 2015, the SEF’s journey across the galaxy to save it had attracted the attention of the unscrupulous multi-racial semi-legitimate trade alliance known as the Syndicate. Their inroads on Earth primarily involved the Chinese and Russian Governments, the SEF were able to disrupt their relationship with the Chinese by triggering internal party conflict to get the Syndicate out, but not before the Russian leader had angered the head of the Syndicates operations on Earth and she had shot him. The SEF eventually managed to convince the Syndicate to leave Earth by sponsoring an ally into seizing power, but few believe the organisation has actually lost interest.
5. We don’t know who did it – Investigations into these events are still ongoing. The true culprits are still unknown, but may well have off-world support, due to similar events that have occurred on other planets.

General facts

Five Facts you should know about the Armed Forces in our World

1. There is Gender and Sexuality Parity in the British Military (and most others) – Owing to events that have seriously reduced the world’s population in recent years many military’s had to reflect on old conservative attitudes that had prevented the liberalisation of military units on gender and sexuality lines. This in turn has led to even historically universally discriminatory units, such as the SAS accepting female applicants. Though old attitudes have not vanished it is possible for any character of any gender to have served in any unit at this point.
2. The British Military is one of the most advanced Militaries in the World – thanks to the presence of various pieces of technology (that have trickled-down from the SEF) the British Military has benefited from advances to armour, weaponry, communications and other military technologies to become one of the foremost militaries in the word.
3. The primary firearms technology of the British Military is CEMAT – most personnel serving outside of special forces units use a weapons technology known as Chemically Enhanced Magnetic Acceleration Technology or CEMAT (also known as Chemrail). This is a hybrid form of firearms and coilgun weapon developments giving modern military firearms a far more significant punch while sacrificing some fine accuracy which makes it unpopular with snipers and sharpshooters. If you served in the military post-2015 prior to joining the SEF you will have familiarity with this weapon type.
4. The primary fighter craft of the Royal Air Force is the Phobos F2 – Although not known to many of the RAF Pilots Trained on it, the Phobos F2 is a production model of the XAF-1 Phobos starfighter created by the SEF – it is a stripped down model of what the SEF uses removing many of its more experimental alien technologies which would risk secrecy if poked around with by aircrews without proper clearance but is a potent fighter that has largely begun to replace the Typhoon and and has seen the RAF not acquire the Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II
5. MOD Corsham and MOD Boscombe Down are off-limits – to the regular military (as well as civilians) MOD Corsham and MOD Boscombe Down are the effective ‘Area 51’s’ of Britain.

Five Facts you should know about the Intelligence Services in our World

1. MI6 is the Government Designation for the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) – Nobody within the Intelligence community would ever refer to SIS as MI6, that term is largely only used by politicians, civilians and those not educated in the nature of the British Intelligence community, using it when you should know better makes you look foolish. The SIS is responsible for international intelligence operations and have a good relationship with the SEF.
2. MI5 is the correct shorthand for the Security Service – Who do not use the abbreviation of their name for fairly obvious reasons. MI5 has historically been quite close to the SEF thanks to a working relationship between various members of the staff and its personnel. MI5 is responsible for internal security operations within the borders of the UK and its overseas territories.
3. Government Communications Headquarters, commonly known as GCHQ is the third Civilian branch of the UK Intelligence Community – A successor to the post-WW1 Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) GCHQ is responsible for providing signals intelligence (SIGINT) and information assurance to the government and armed forces of the United Kingdom. Like MI5 and SIS it has a close relationship with the SEF thanks to the work of former-director Sir Maxwell Summers (Deceased) who served also as a member of the SEF.
4. Defence Intelligence (DI) is the only branch of the UK Intelligence Community that is not Civilian – DI operates under the MoD and is a part of the British Military. DI personnel all carry military rank, and represent a broader range of skills as their duty is to provide intelligence to all arms of the British Military.
5. The National Intelligence Department (NID) is an additional arm of the US Intelligence Community – The NID have a reputation for being deeply involved in classified operations, the organisation was historically formed after the famous Roswell Crash and is closely connected with ‘Men In Black’ urban legends and extra-terrestrial sightings.

SEF Facts

10 Facts you will quickly learn about being a Member of the SEF

1. Not all of the SEF are from Earth – there are a number of aliens (some of which are human) that serve in the SEF some of whom are refugees from their worlds who the SEF have granted asylum and who show their gratitude by serving alongside the SEF, some of whom act as liaisons between their races and the SEF.
2. Not Everyone is a Soldier – although the SEF is organised as a Military Unit and reports into the UK Military’s structure it has a historical tradition of recruiting specialists from the Intelligence and Security Services as well as from amongst Earth’s civilian population. In recent years the formation of the ISC has increased the fusion of civilian and military roles but all are expected to be trained to use weapons to defend themselves.
3. The SEF recruits from all Military branches and Multiple Countries – Navy, Army, Airforce and many Special Forces units have sent personnel to the SEF and it is increasingly seeing more international recruits into its Military personnel, who are fully integrated into the units chain of command.
4. The SEF offers a number of advanced training opportunities – because of its daily need to interact with alien technologies the SEF offers all personnel access to advanced technical training, including the opportunity to access academic qualifications that other branches of the military would not provide the funding for. The unit provides training for members of all branches for combined-arms roles; it is the only place where a Rifleman could receive training in the piloting of spacecraft, for example.
5. All serving SEF Personnel are considered to be on permanent deployment – SEF personnel are on permanent standby, they can be called on at any time to leave the Earth and their leave can be cancelled at a moment’s notice. Their pay reflects this. Relatedly, SEF personnel receive a generous Dependents Allowance to provide for accommodation of partners and children as well as support providing care for any children and their education at boarding schools.
6. There is a higher death-in-service rate among SEF personnel – the galaxy is a dangerous place and the casualty rate among SEF personnel is higher than any other unit, there is an established covenant between the SEF and its personnel that the unit will ensure any dependents are taken care of for life upon the death of a member of the SEF.
7. Civilians are treated as Officers Socially – Civilian specialists are, as-per British Military custom, afforded the same respect as an Officer, and are generally encouraged to socialise with Officers. Their position in the SEF Chain of Command does not necessarily reflect this with their grading as a civilian specialist being included on SEF rank charts to determine seniority and command.
8. The SEF does not employ Private Military Contractors – PMCs, or as they are perhaps less affectionately known ‘Mercenaries’, represent individuals who have sold their skills as soldiers for private security and military interests. While the SEF has certainly recruited individuals who have been formerly employed as PMCs it does not contract their services as PMC Contractors.
9. The penalties for exposing the SEF are severe – SEF personnel are held to a strict secrecy, their communications are heavily monitored and they are made to sign enhanced copies of the Official Secrets Act. The penalty for stepping out of line and deliberately breaching the OSA surrounding the SEF’s operations is not simply losing one’s job, it can be life imprisonment and isolation from the wider world in order to protect it’s secrets.
10. Undercover And Solo Work Is Rare, And ‘Secret Squirrels’ Are Discouraged – SEF Intel don’t tend to operate undercover unless they have to, though the situation occasionally calls for it the SEF is encouraged to operate as a unit and compartmentalising information is specifically discouraged as it has, in the past, got people killed when an Intelligence Officer hasn’t shared the full details of a mission.

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