Excellent idea, kudos Golden!
Ever since the shadow shard came out, I've just thought "How much harder could a space zone be?" You've put it forth excellantly.
Heres my thoughts.
Spacesuits: As far as spacesuits for missions outside the atmosphere go, I'd love costume options, but I don't think they'd get the job done. I'd say the costume options should be a bonus (like, finish this mission, get a cool spacesuit helmet!), but just equip the heroes with a temp power every time they venture out onto the surface. This temp power would be much like the Terra Volta force field, except without needing recharge. All it would do would be to show the FF bubble around you at all times. If you're already airtight, its just a mandatory extra level of protection. Some might call this a cop-out, but I think it'd fit perfectly with Paragon's scavenged Rikti tech theme. Just have the contact say "Our boys have rigged up this air bubble to keep you safe, but it'll only last for 90 mins," and then have the mission on a 90min timer.
Villain Groups: I don't know why, but a bubble of atmosphere on the moon thousands of years ago just seems to me like something the Orrenbagans would get in on. I mean, they've always been the high magic prehistoric society that at least matches modern advancement. I agree that a new alien villain group would be cool, but for some reason it just hit me like a CoT thing.
Perhaps a few overgrown Orrenbagan structures out amongst the vegetation, with a few CoT battling back plants. Say they came here when they found out about it at the height of their power, never heard back from their explorers, then lost their bodies and had to wait. Now they're sending their thorn-possesed mages to get back their base. A story-arc about them from one of the contacts would be cool, where you slowly uncover why the CoT has shown up, how they got there (powerful magic portals), and why those buildings are so old... nothing major, just one contact. The final mission of the chain could involve smashing all their spirit portals so they cant send more people up. Then the contact could pass you off to, say, the igneous guy, or the 5th Column guy, like on Striga.
I'd also think the Rikti might show up, but maybe only to the extent that, say, the Trolls show up in KR. You know, occaisonally have one or two rikti watching the igneous or plants going "Why didn't this place show up on the scanners?" Perhaps they could show up in one or two of the new alien missions, just have one or two fighting near the entrance saying "Earth is OURS!!!"
Your 5th Column, I agree would fit in well (Nazi Moonbase!!!), but my question would be did they build their own rockets or hijack the secret American rockets via subterfuge? IE, the secret launch pad is leveled in a massive explosion, blamed on rocket fuel, and a few days later while command moves to a secondary pad, contact with Alpha is lost. The explosion would've hidden the launch of the rockets there, hijacked by Column.
An alternative could find Column operatives in South America with their own secret launch faccility. Heroes would have to come back down to Earth and take a Hero Corps chopper to get to it, in a mission to destroy or disable it before the Council use it tocome up and settle old debts with the 5thies. I think this would be the cooler of the two.
Asthetics: Honestly, I think it'd be awesome if the entrance was a rocket pad. It wouldn't be hard to do, they've already made one launchpad in Warburg, just put a shiny new rocket or space shuttle or the like on a small island (or oil-rig like launchpad) off the coast of Peregrinne. The "Abandoned" islands off the coast of Peregrinne full of Rikti monkeys would be an ideal location. It wouldn't even have to launch, just have a cool "door open" anim like an airlock (with the walkacroos gantry, of course), and have it constantly shaking a bit and making a rumbling noise, like the portals do. I know teleporters are easier, but it would just be absolutely cool to fly there in a shuttle.
The Beta Military guys could wear spacesuits with the gloves and helmets off (maybe still wearing Army hats?), and carrying normal assault rifles. Even if the spacesuits were Army camo (although I'd prefer the traditional NASA gear, red and blue docking rings obviously hanging open for the missing gloves and helmet, white with a big american flag on the shoulder). As if the Army is ready to go onto the surface if needed, or ready if someone collapses the bubble. Oh, and the occaisonal Jetpack/MMU soldier patrolling above the base would be awesome. Maybe part of the walls or some of the inner buildings of Beta could be made of rocket booster stages dug into the surface and built around. This might even work better for Alpha, make it look like they built it out of discarded Saturn boosters before the Column took over (I know the boosters dropped off far from the moon, but come on, its a comic bookgame
). Adds to the area's flavor.
