The Cloudkin or Oorts as they are derogatorily referred to by humans are a species from the Oort Cloud of the Sol System.
Biology[]
Cloudkin are pale-green, bipedal reptilians with orange eyes and razor-sharp teeth. Physically, they are significantly weaker than humans, which is why they rely on exo-suits—not only to match human mobility, but also to breathe safely. Earth’s atmosphere is lethally toxic to their species, making such suits essential for their survival..
History[]
In 1984, in the town of Duke Andreas, Pennsylvania, the Cloudkin set their plan to invade Earth into motion. They deployed a three-member scout team, teleporting it onto an empty construction site. After performing an atmospheric scan, the aliens discovered that Earth’s air was incompatible with their biology and that their exo-armor would need modification. One scout, however, dismissed the concern with contempt. They weren’t here to adapt, he said—they were here to cleanse the planet. The Thinkers of the Cloud would handle the purification of the Third Orb once humanity was gone.
To the Cloudkin, humans were spoiled occupants of a world undeservedly fortunate: Earth, unlike their fractured home, possessed continuous solid ground. As the three scouts prepared to move, they detected signs that they were not alone. Eager for blood, they planned to hunt down and kill any locals they found.
They did not realize they were being watched. From the shadows, Thomas Bruin—a nobody night guard at Great Dane Security Solutions and a lifelong underdog—observed them. Recognizing the trio as an alien scouting party for a coming invasion, he rushed to alert his two fellow guards, but both were fast asleep. With no help available, Thomas improvised a desperate plan. Using his colleagues as unwitting bait, he lured the Cloudkin into a false sense of security and killed one by crushing it beneath a stack of girders suspended from a crane.
The two remaining aliens closed in on Thomas. He fired his service pistol again and again, but the bullets flattened uselessly against their exo-armor. One Cloudkin grabbed him by the face and lifted him off his feet. At such close range, Thomas jammed the pistol into the alien’s filter port and pulled the trigger. The shot ruptured the mechanism, and the exo-suit began to leak, letting Earth’s atmosphere seep inside—fatally toxic to the species. The alien staggered, its armor hissing as it failed.
The second Cloudkin, enraged, charged to avenge its companion. Thomas scrambled through the construction site, grabbing whatever tools he could reach. Exploiting the same weakness in the suit’s filters, he battered at the vulnerable points. After a brutal struggle, he broke through the armor and killed the alien. The last Cloudkin, gasping through its damaged suit, vowed that more of its kind would come to claim Earth—before Thomas executed it.
Just as Thomas’s fellow security guards finished praising him for the kills, more Cloudkin began materializing in the streets. Thomas rushed outside and rallied the crowds, urging them to fight back. Drawing on humanity’s capacity for raw, unrestrained violence, he inspired civilians and police alike to stand their ground. Despite their superior technology, the Cloudkin were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers and ferocity of the people Thomas led. Before long, the streets were filled with humans wearing Cloudkin skulls as helmets and celebrating atop piles of alien corpses.
Thomas’s heroism in halting the invasion made him a global celebrity, elevating him from an unknown night guard to a symbol of resistance. But the victory did not last. A year later, in 1985, the Cloudkin returned. Their ships appeared over cities such as Philadelphia, London, Hong Kong, and Rio de Janeiro, deploying their soldiers once more. Faced with this renewed threat, humanity again turned to its unlikely champion. Thomas was recruited by the FBI to help coordinate a counterattack.
The Cloudkin then issued a worldwide broadcast. They declared their intent to exterminate humanity but offered a single path to peace: Earth was to send Thomas as its representative. The world reluctantly agreed. Thomas was transported aboard the Cloudkin mothership under the guise of negotiations—only to be pierced through the chest by the Cloudkin leader, who confessed that this had always been their true plan: to kill Thomas and shatter Earth’s spirit before the final assault.
Though the Cloudkin leader mocked Thomas who was clutching his disemboweled gut, the alien informed him that her kind played the long game and opened the room for his terms of victory to his confusion. In the streets of Earth down below the mothership, Cloudkin and humans fought, with the latter using technology taken from the alien invasion first invasion. Despite the advancements, the Cloudkin still had the upper hand, slaughtering many of Earth's soldiers, as they had been preparing for the conquest of Earth from their realm in he Oort Cloud as they were desperate to claim solid ground as a new home. The alien were even prepared to kill young children as the boasted that they learned humanity's tongue, logic and other ways to dismember human society.
However they standing armies of Cloudkin received a command to retreat much to their confusion. Though they obeyed the command, teleporting from the surface of Earth back to their ships. The sudden retreat confused many humans as it was obvious that the Cloudkin had the upper hand and humanity was barely holding on. Though these voices were dismissed, as many were drunk on the assumed victory of driving the aliens from whence they came.
Thomas Bruin also teleported down from the mothership, much to the shock of the masses who had assumed him dead. But Thomas revealed that he was victorious against the Cloudkin commander, bringing back her heart as proof. He claimed that the death of their leader terrified the Cloudkin and that was the reason why they retreated.
For his service in saving Earth, Thomas Bruin was awarded the Special Service Medal. And in 1992 he rose to become a US Senator, marrying Michaela Brune-Browne a member of one of Pennsylvania's oldest political dynasties.
Culture[]
The Cloudkin appear to be a spacefaring species that travel in flying-saucer-type vessels. Their technology includes energy weapons, bladed armaments, and matter-to-energy transport systems.
Terminology[]
- The Cloud - The Cloudkin Homeworld or the Oort Cloud
- Matter Movers - Energy blades that can cleave any molecule.
- Thinkers - Scientist Caste
- Third Orb - Earth
- Zorting - A sexual profanity
Sources[]
- War Wolf Issue 001
- War Wolf Issue 002