Defending the Earth from the Truth…?
Hello everyone! I hope you’re having a fantastic weekend. Things have been a big disorganised here in the Miniature Martin bunker, which led to a delay in this week’s article. But, here it is now, and its the first in a look at the ‘factions’ vying for victory in the world of Saucer War One. Join me as we peek inside the locked filing cabinet containing the secrets of ANTIC!
“Actually, Mr. President — You don’t ‘need to know.’ “
ANTIC is the ultra-secret, international organisation behind all the UFO conspiracies. Formed in 1952 as the world’s governments scrambled to stop the Noordican and Nazi threats from space, ANTIC maintains squadrons of human-made saucers in hidden bases all over the world. Concealed beneath a cloak of misinformation and deception, ANTIC is not afraid to take extreme measures in the name of defeating the alien menace.
Forever caught in a delicate balancing act, ANTIC must take the fight to the skies but never reveal the reality of its covert war. Therefore, as this leaked Order of Battle reveals, ANTIC is split into three Commands: JAPE, CAPER and PRANK.
JAPE is the arm of ANTIC charged with forging the arms of war. All the saucers and super-technology essential for fighting the Noordicans comes from JAPE’s secret factories, buried beneath the Canadian Rockies or hidden in Siberian forests.
CAPER is the operational command of ANTIC. It controls the actual saucer squadrons and their bases, assigning personnel and machines to respond to any threat anywhere in the world.
PRANK is ANTIC’s espionage arm. Many of its operations read like the most outlandish spy novels, filled with the dark dealings of CLOWN agents out to steal the best R&D projects, or silence anyone who have seen too much. PRANK has fingers in many nations’ intelligence services and news agencies, and they use these connections to ‘control the narrative’ about flying saucers, ensuring the general public consider them the ravings of crackpots and hoaxers. Ridiculing and humiliating witnesses, destroying evidence, paying off scientists and politicians are all part of PRANK’s sinister but necessary duty.
It takes all kinds of people to fight a war that is as much about what we believe as it is about hammering Venusian saucers full of 30mm cannon rounds. Because of this, ANTIC have a recruitment policy of turning away no-one as long as they can contribute to the fight. (While keeping their mouths shut). Neither colour, creed, race nor sex are reasons to reject someone from the ranks of the most important force-at-arms in Human history.
ANTIC has several distinct saucers it can bring to the table, all inspired by real-world lenticular aircraft: We’ve already revealed the sleek NS-97 ‘Silvercat’, and it has several stablemates including the big, spearhead-shaped ‘Omega’, the two-crew ‘Silverhound’ and the Russian ‘Diska’: A brutal, buzz-saw ramming-saucer!
(We’ll be seeing more of the other ANTIC saucers as work on Saucer War One progresses. Stay tuned…)
Why play as ANTIC?
ANTIC saucers are highly customisable compared to those of other factions.
Their experimental saucers and weapons permit strange and unpredictable combinations that ensure an ANTIC force always has a surprise up its sleeve. Also, playing an ANTIC force will appeal to fans of classic jet aircraft of the postwar era. All those silver discs people saw in the 50’s? Yep, that was ANTIC, lifting from hidden underground or underwater bases to tangle with the Noordican invaders.
For all their dubious morality, ANTIC can rightly claim to be the defenders of the Earth, and they look cool while defending it too!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this first glimpse into the factions of Saucer War One. You can probably guess from their Table of Organisation that there is a lot more yet to be revealed about ANTIC, and the people who keep us safe from alien invasion (and the truth…)
Next time we will explore the incredible, ancient history of the Noordicans, and what has forced them to come to Earth, thousands of years after being abandoned upon the hell-world of Venus. Until then, fellow Miniaturists:
Watch the Skies!
Miniature Martin 