Who Killed Richard Nixon This Time?

The Set-up

This is a campaign starter for GURPS Illuminati. It presents an initial situation and ideas on how to take things. What happens next is up to the twisted mind of the GM...

The game takes place in the modern day, 1995 or thereabouts. At least a couple of the PCs should be law enforcement officials: local police, state troopers, FBI, or even Secret Service. Other PCs could be investigative reporters, psychiatrists, freelance computer hackers, etc. It would be helpful if the characters had at least some sort of acquaintance relationship before the scenario begins. The GM should discourage the PCs from being conspiracy theorist types, and probably should not let on about the type of campaign it will be until the game is underway.

The Beginning

The campaign is initiated by the discovery of a body while dredging a river for the body of a local mob figure. But the body found is not what was expected: instead of Joey "The Fish" Caroselli, the body found id that of former President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon! It's six in the morning, and the aforementioned law enforcement PCs are at or are summoned to the discovery sight, a couple miles outside of the city.

The body in question is quite dead, and appears to look just like Nixon in 1969, except for the fact that he has been sitting at the bottom of a river for a day or so.

Exhuming Nixon's body from its supposed gravesite will reveal that the body entombed there has transformed to a sticky green ooze. Tissue and blood analysis on the found body will positively identify it, as much as possible, as Richard Nixon, ca. 1969.

At some point the PCs will become separated from the body of Nixon, whereupon it mysteriously disappears. Any report expected to mention the incident has either been rewritten or never filed. There is no mention of the event in the media at all. If the PCs persist in trying to find out what has happened, they will face pressure from their supervisor to drop the matter. Further persistence will result in anonymous threats to the PCs and their loved ones. Eventually, the PCs will encounter Agent W.

What is Going On

Since 1948, aliens have been kidnapping world leaders and replacing them duplicates. The replaced leaders sometimes showed personality or policy shifts, but as often as not only those closest to them noticed any difference, and the changes were attributed to the 'pressures of the job.'

In 1953 members of various national investigative agencies (CIA, KGB, Interpol, etc.) began to realize what was going on. To protect the world from what they figured would be a horrible truth, these investigators formed a secret cabal, known only as The Agency, to cover up what was going on. Over the years, The Agency has infiltrated organizations around the world, to the point where they can effective monitor and control information dealing with the abductions. To date, The Agency has been highly effective in crushing any suspicion in the populous that something untoward is happening to their world leaders.

While they have been quite successful in their primary mission or covering up the truth, The Agency is still quite in the dark as to the reasons for the abductions. Various members of The Agency have their own pet theories: Some feel that the aliens are trying to control world events, perhaps for the better, perhaps the worst. Others think that the aliens are uninterested in Earth's politics, but just want to examine our leaders. Some think that there is more than one group of aliens stealing world leaders. A small faction believes that it is all a clever ruse by the aliens to force the formation of The Agency so that the humans will hide the existence of the aliens on Earth and cover up whatever the aliens are really involved with.

The discovery of the real body of a world leader has only happened once before: in 1984, Anwar Sadat was found frozen in the wilds of Siberia. Agent K handled the situation with ruthless efficiency...

Campaign Suggestions

Things can go in just about any direction the GM cares to take them. The GM should make sure that each of the PCs has some motive to investigate the situation, until the point where they are in so deep they cannot escape. In their pursuit of the truth, they will find that Agent W becomes their constant nemesis. Here are some suggestions of events and directions that the GM may wish to pursue:

One week after Nixon's body is discovered, Joey "The Fish" shows up at a local television station, claiming that he was killed by a mob rival, but was revived onboard an alien spacecraft and returned to Earth. Is he telling the truth? Did the aliens swap the mobster for Nixon? Or is this some cleaver ruse by The Agency to discredit the PCs' investigation?
The PCs are suckered by a false group of UFO hunters, really an Agency front, who lead the PCs down a wild goose chase.
The existence of The Agency is leaked to the PCs by an Agency member who is tired of all the cover-ups. The member of course disappears or dies the next day.
Instead of fighting against the PCs, The Agency eventually decides to bring them into the fold, whether they want to be part of the conspiracy or not.
To their horror, the PCs discover that they are alien duplicates!

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