Nick Reynolds

This weekend at Dropzone 2026 I had a great time playing against type as ICC Investigator Lang in Paul Watson's High Frontier (Aliens/Predator/Prometheus) #LARP

Usually I'm unable to get out of my "affable technician" stereotype but having said to several people out of character "Investigator Lang is not nice" I then backed that up early on by having a Federal Marshall immediately execute an archaeologist who'd been infected with a mutagenic contagion.

Then did two more myself.

I got to be "ruthless Megacorporation collaborator", in charge of the mission and directing various teams, hearing what they had to say and deciding what we did next. At various points Lang would announce things and end it with a "does everybody agree?" without offering any other options.

Lang wasn't egotistical though: I deliberately got the various teams/specialists to go off and do their thing but he was ruthless in pursuit of the mission. At one point I was urging the Colonial Marine Sergeant to send more Marines into the meat grinder of a Xenomorph nest because we weren't getting the scientific samples we needed from inside fast enough. I managed to persuade the synthetic that was putting itself in danger dealing with casualties to stop doing so because he was worth more than those casualties. When I asked people to do morally bad things I told them to remember that "Investigator Lang ordered them to" if anybody questioned them about it later.

I got into a great working relationship with the Colonial Marine Surgeon who hated Lang on a previous mission but saw exactly what he was trying to achieve this time and agreed with the "ends justifies the means" way of going about it.

In a meal break as I stomped about in my black shirt and big boots, Dai called out "hey Investigator, have you lost your armband?". Yep, I would happily "fascist corpo overlord" as ICC Investigator Lang again. I didn't wear the weird Blake's 7-esque plastic military jacket this time though, I would have ended up with heatstroke.