MyBaselessGuide: Area 51

MBG presents the very first MyBaseLessGuide: our special series of guides and relocation handbooks to the military’s most tippy-top secret, super weirdest, and/or 100% fictional posts.

Welcome

If you’re reading this, then you’re lucky enough to be one of the elite few uniformed men and women assigned to this post. Or you’re imprisoned here alongside hundreds of thousands of your fellow internet vigilantes who tried to rush the fences, awaiting interrogation and/or carbonite freezing. Either way, you made it through the front gate. So congratulations and welcome to Area 51! And, as our intermittent allies the Klingons (yes, the Klingons are real and they are a hoot) like to say, “Qapla!”

History

Area 51 began as part of the Nevada Testing Site where the US Army conducted some of it early nuclear weapons experiments during the Cold War. The aliens initially made contact on this very site (not some of the other rumored first contact or crash locations) in an attempt to find out what kind of moronic species would repeatedly and intentionally irradiate its own planet. They encountered humans and, according to top secret official documents, “immediately understood” all the nuking (The Super-Secret Diary of Harry S Truman Do Not Read Hands Off Especially You Bess, Library of Congress). Several species that made contact since graciously offered to assist in the process of destroying our world, but we Earthlings are always quick to assure them we have it covered.

One of the earliest known visits from our far off neighbors.

As the Cold War went on, Area 51 continued to serve as a repository for many highly classified projects and discoveries that required utter secrecy in the name of national security (various experimental aircraft, the missing 18 minutes of Nixon’s tapes where he admits he’s mysterious hijacker D. B. Cooper, the real Elvis, a bunch of weird space babies like in Space Odyssey: 2001, etc). Today the base is used mostly for storage, as oversight of earth-alien relations has shifted from the military to the first alien/human hybrid born on our planet, Elon Musk. Plus, nearly all funding for aircraft development has gone to perfecting the F-35 Moneypit II stealth fighter, so there’s not a lot of new aircraft testing these days.

Still, the protection and storage of the secrets kept here is vital to keeping our nation safe and its inhabitants unaware of how close our planet came to getting Death Starred. A bunch of times. And recently, too.

So close. So recently.

An interesting note about the future: after the coming attempted breach by the Internet hordes, the base will become colloquially known as “Meme Massacre Mesa” if what the people in the Time Travel Division say is true. But they are a real bunch of pranksters, so who knows.

Units

Much of the personnel on base fall under various secret agencies, Department of Defense sub-organizations, and absurdly well-paid contractors from major defense industry corporations (Lockheed, Boeing, Stark Industries, whoever it is that makes MRE’s taste so futuristic yet so terrible at the same time, and others) who get paid way more than you will ever see in your entire life. They have nicer cars, bigger houses, and better behaved children too. But Area 51 is home to a few permanent units with proud histories, elite personnel, and relatively few cases of alien abduction.

Eat your heart out, Top Gun.

Experimental Aircraft (Excuse) Test Squadron – Perhaps the hardest working men and women in the whole US Air Force, if not the entire DoD, the airmen of this highly classified and vital unit are responsible for manufacturing the myriad excuses and explanations for the failures, setbacks, and cancellations of pricey aircraft projects. Ever since the military first experimented with that stupid looking saucer thing back in 1959, these creative folks served as the frontline in the war for justifying billions in defense spending on things like the weird looking X-29, the nuclear powered NB-36, and that one jetpack that allegedly caused what the doctors call “explosive sterilization.” Allegedly.

Nobody in this picture had any children. Coincidence? Officially: “yes.”

Actual US Space Command – Come on, you think we haven’t had a space command set up and functioning for years? How could we have stopped those Death Star-ings without one? Nah, the real one’s here, has been ever since those aliens first showed up to say hi. The one with the stargate and the dissected aliens and the super-secret recipe for Tang (You’ll never guess what it’s really made of! And if you do, you’ll wish you hadn’t. It’s gross).

Roswell Cover-Up Containment Squadron – The elite team of Air Force logistics and security personnel who oversee and protect the stored wreckage of the weather balloon that crashed in Roswell, New Mexico in mid-1947. Yes, it really was just an Air Force weather balloon. The real coverup was to hide the fact that the balloon was a communist spy.

99 red balloons might go by, but this traitor won’t be one of ’em.

Klingon Imperial Liaison Outpost Mek’leth-4 – The unofficial consulate of the Klingon Empire on Earth. They hold monthly classes on hand-to-hand combat, opera, and forehead ridge grooming open to all personnel. Do not drink their bloodwine or hit one with the back of your fist (the traditional way to challenge one of them to a duel to the death).

1085th Medical/Alien Autopsy Group – Whether you’re running a fever, have a broken bone that requires mending, or need a xenomorph egg removed from your large intestine before it gorily hatches from your torso and eats your family, our on-base facility is the place to get the cure and care you need. Emergency and urgent care clinics open 24/7, barring unforseen rampages by creatures escaping from the autopsy wing.

Looks like somebody’s going to have to change the sign again.

Housing and Amenities

On-base housing unit. Four bedroom, three bath, washer/dryer.

Since this base is super-extra secret, not to mention in the dead middle of nowhere, the only housing is on-base. And underground. In Fallout-style vaults. But, thanks to some technology on loan from our space allies, all our individual housing units are larger on the inside than the outside. And look exactly like British police boxes for reasons we can’t really get into here. But, middle of nowhere or not, our fine little post hosts a number of great businesses to cater to your needs for goods, services, and tasty grub.

Unidentified Frying Objects – They may not specify what the meat they cook up is, or even what galactic quadrant it’s from, but the taste will have you licking your fingers for days. No matter how many fingers/hands you have.

Mork From Ork’s House o’ Pork – BBQ so good, it’ll have you busting out of your rainbow suspenders before you can say, “Nanu nanu.”

Subspaceway Sandwiches – Maybe not the best subs in the universe, but thanks to the hyper-grub technology, they get transported directly to your stomach, bypassing your tastebuds and saving you the disappointment. Unfortunately, they still have to come out of you the old fashioned way.

Lilo & Stitching Uniform Services & Dry Cleaner – Whether you need some pants taken in after an alien shrink ray attack or a Tattooine blue milk stain removed from your mess dress, the fine people/escaped mad scientist experiments here will get it done and make you feel like a true part of their ohana.

Beam it Off, Scotty! Laser Tattoo Removal – Lock the transporter on your regret and send that poorly chosen ink (or ex’s name) beyond the final frontier!

Flossed in Space Dental & Orthodontic Clinic – You know the deal: get your teeth taken care of or no deployments. And don’t think you can just sign up for a time travel tour and go back to when you had healthy teeth because it’s the oldest trick in the book. And it could create a causality loop and eradicate the concepts of time, space, and gum health.

FAQ’s

Q: I heard a rumor that they wipe everyone’s memory before they PCS to their next station. Is that true?

A: Well, the thing about that is REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED resulting in permanent blindess only, like, 25% of the time.

Q: How often do aliens visit these days?

A: Not counting occasional, non-sanctioned extraterrestrial tourists, we usually get an official visit or two a year. Sometimes more if there’s a big Marvel movie or a new Star Wars coming out. They’re our primary interspace exports.

Q: Do we have any other interstellar allies besides the Klingons?

A: Technically yes, but things are a bit dicey these days with our fellow members of OCATO (Orion-Cygnus Arm Treaty Organization). There have been some rather high-level disputes about whether or not our planet is paying it’s fair percentage of quatloos compared to some of the other planets in the organization. A big part of the problem is we don’t know what “quatloos” are and, at this point, we’re too afraid to ask.

Q: So what do we do when all those Internet whackos try to rush the fence?

A: Raise the force field, unleash the ewoks, and call the public affairs office to begin cover-up proceedures. Pretty standard stuff.

One of our base’s crack security teams.

Q: Wait, ewoks? What can those tiny things do against a horde of humans hopped up on energy drinks and internet conspiracy theories?

A: Look, we won’t be coy with you: they’ll eat them. They’ll kill them and eat them all. That’s exactly what they did after the credits rolled in Return of the Jedi. Those things are legit space monsters and it’s horrifying.

Q: Nearly every unit, ship, and base in the military has a cool Latin motto. What’s Area 51’s?

A: The base motto is Extremum probe: “Tip of the Probe”

The VZ-9 Avrocar. Seriously, who thought this was a good idea?