UFO Fanfiction Discussion

[Carlos the Jackal]

Well Veteran thought that it was time to retire the preceding thread, and i must agree, I was only slighty behind him in suggesting it as its been bugging me for some time. Rather than renaming it, I thought It best to get a fresh start to avoid the stagnation that appeared to be setting in a bit.

 

Well, now that we have a (shiny :inlove:) new discussion thread, post away madly, on topic, mind you :hmmm:

[DocFrance]

Alright, time to get this show started.

 

First off, I don't think it's such a good idea to have the war started by just one aircraft being shot down. If that were the case in RL, we'd be at war with Canada right now (in the news - some US pilot bombed a group of Canadians in Afghanistan). Not all attacks are a declaration of war. After all, we are STILL X-INV. Our job is to determine if that was an act of hostility, or just an "Ooops, wrong button." We, the authors know that the aliens are hostile, but the characters don't. Second, just one unknown pilot in a jet doesn't quite hit home, does it? This probably sounds clicheic, but I think the event that changes us from X-INV to X-COM should be pretty dramatic, like in our last fanfic. In that one, Chicago was assaulted on Xmas Eve by a large group of Snakes and Chryssalids. Alot of people were killed, the city was pretty much ruined, and it affected alot of people at Pine Gap. One week later, on 1 January 1999, X-COM began full operation to study and FIGHT the alien MENACE.

 

Just my $0.02

[Carlos the Jackal]

Yes, indeed, one incident would not be seen as enough, but bear in mind that it was interpreted as an attempt to assinate the leader of a funding nation. And somewhere along the line someone renamed the organisation and with all the stuff Ki-tat wrote. personally id like to drop the renaming, declaration and the terror site/prime minister stuff kitat put in. I can edit it all out, but I wouldnt do that without general aproval of the contributing authors.

[Snikers]

One incident? That's odd, I thought it had changed after there had been a lot of deaths,

aliens making people give up their families and shooting down stuff...?

[Tammy]

The impression I got was that alien attacks had been going on for some time but that they had only just established for sure that aliens were the culprits.

[JellyfishGreen]

That's the impression I was trying to give with the Commander's briefing speech, that due to the mass of information (massacres, abductions, UFO reports) gathered by X-INV, a decision had been made by the UN Council to start deliberately obstructing the alien activity in the air* and to attempt direct interference with an abduction or other landing using a small armed squad of troopers.

 

Moreover, such a decision had already been made by the funding organization the previous week (month?) and the orders had been given to recruit more people into the organization to allow its new operations. When the soldiers in Russia were given their transfer orders, their destination was already named X-COM. And we're in the first week of game-time already.

 

The operation is very small at present. Two jets and three squads of ten soldiers vs the occasional scout (small, medium, and large).

 

But the alien's response to this interference is going to be stepping up their operation - and in a month or two after the first recovery, they start things like terror missions, infiltration missions, base building. AND the Brain starts sending in other species to back up the Sectoids. (Quite a surprise when you assumed we were at war with only one species.)

 

X-COM steps up their response in kind - more recruits, more bases worldwide, more funding from the UN - and now we DO have a full-scale hidden war.

 

*At this stage, I felt the fighters weren't authorised to fire on UFOs, but they could go up armed, and getting authorization to RETURN fire would seem logical, but have far-reaching consequences. = arms race.

 

So, it's the soft approach with increasing danger over time.

Our first mission as X-COM would be against a small scout or such, but we aren't combat-ready yet, we need to write in what the days or even week of training was like. Then the commander will declare us ready to respond to the next sighting.

 

Sound good?

JellyfishGreen.

PS. yay shiny new thread.

[The Veteran]

Nice shiny new thread Carlos. Jys one more favour in the fanfic area please as Idon't believe I have the power bestowed upon me to alter the goings on in your domain!

Now that we have a singular discussion board for UFO, could you change the thread I started to UFO character profiles?

 

That's all... And I agree it does seem quite sudden to declare war. Plus the fact that we have to begin exactkly on the 1st January. Does anyone in the fic even know what the date is?

[DocFrance]

I think it's late November or early-mid December...

[Ki-tat Chung]

*0451 Hours, Breifing Room 1, Barracks, Pine Gap, WA, Australia, Australia, Earth*

 

"As you know soldiors, this is war, and in war, nothing is fair. The aliens will use all the tricks in the trade to kill and destroy all human beings.

 

You will be issued with a standard assault rifle, flare, prximity granade and a standard granade. Specilists, such as medics and heavy weapons specilist, will be informed seperatly. Here are your personal objectives during the mission and an out line of this breifing," the sub-commander said while handing out diskettes. "Read through though them thoroughly. That is all."

 

As the sub-commander left the room, each agent inserted the disk into their computer stationed at each desk.

 

"Heh, just the usual stuff. only this time we can fire at them."

 

As the X-INV/X-COM agents finnished reading, the sub-commander entered the room again.

 

"You have all been informed about the mission. Now go. And Godspeed."

Just let me assure you, these agents are the old people who used to work for X-INV. Those people are NOT us. the ting is, i thought the name had changed already, other wise, why did X-INV/X-COM hire so many people as soldiors/medics/so-on-so-forth? (i.e. us)

[Carlos the Jackal]

Ok... well I think a little editing is due. X-INV will remain so untill the first of January, but I believe at least one 'investigation' mission should be undertaken under the X-INV banner.

 

I think a few thinks need toning down/injecting with realism (Kitat :hmmm:)

So I'll hope along and do that now.

[DocFrance]

I don't mean to be anal about this (wow, I'm really raining on Kitat's picnic), but I just discovered a bit of an anachronism in our plotline. Kilam enjoys playing Counter-Strike, correct? I saw this and I decided it was an old enough game. But then I just discovered that the Counter-Strike mod wasn't realeased for download until mid-1999, half a year after the events that are taking place. I guess we could let it slide, but in the hopes of realism, Kilam could enjoy playing TFC, the popular mod for Quake 2! Weee! Seriously, who's idea was it to heal someone with a bloody axe?

 

Again, my $0.02.

[Carlos the Jackal]

I think a few thinks need toning down/injecting with realism (Kitat  :hmmm:)

Just allow me to show what I mean

 

"*1032 Hours, Batman Avenue, CBD, Vic, Australia, Australia, Earth"

 

Well, yes, we are on Earth . But throwing a terror mission in our faces while we're still sorting out characters, sorting out plot elements is a bit much

 

"Commander, I know you have only just started commanding the X-Com Project, but if you do not take control the the alien situation imediatly, The Australian Government will stop all funding and abandon the X-Com Project. Not only that, but we will evict your base from Australian Soil."

 

Its still called X-INV, not X-COM, which is still the pipe-dream of some CIA officals, somewhere (read about the selection panel in the first post). Pine Gap is not on Australian soil, that area of land is under U.S command, like the Ramstien Airbase in Germany for example. After investing so much, our government will pull out so quickly? If anything, the incidents should strengthen our resolve to do something about the attacks.

 

"Yes, I know Mr. Howard but--"

 

"DON'T CALL ME THAT! FROM NOW ON, YOU WILL CAlL ME MR. PRIME MINISTER"

 

"Yes Mr. Prime Minister."

 

This struck me as a bit too 'slapstick'

 

Posted: Oct 2 2002, 08:34 AM

 

Where, involving whom and what is this entire post based on? whats going on? didn't they already have the big speech? Who are these people?

[Ki-tat Chung]

australia twice= country and contenent.

earth= we will be on mars in the future.

alll the other stuff is confusion on my part.

[JellyfishGreen]

A terror mission at this stage doesn't fit into my view either. If we wanted to sew in Ki-tat's Melbourne incident we'd have to say the police handled it with an X-INV team following up.

 

X-INV teams I pictured as "Men In Black", spooks in suits with sidearms, certainly not packing rifles and grenades. I can't see an X-INV team having Skyranger LZ experience, as I pictured it arriving (by crate) just the week before Doc did, and the intended Skyranger pilot has now had his X-COM transfer cancelled. The previous X-INV investigators all arrived at the landing sites by car from their nearby cover-story offices.

 

Sorry, Ki-tat, at this stage we're writing different stories, speak up here so we can have a meeting of the minds. :dontgetit:

 

Carlos, I think an investigation mission could be written as a flashback, but that's not what the soldiers are here for. We could write the first X-COM mission from Lieutenant Gorman's point of view, where the Lt assumes the aliens will surrender nicely as soon as they see real soldiers with real guns. :alien2:

"The X-INV evidence indicates one alien, presumably the leader, could be armed with an energy weapon. Capture him and the rest should fall in line." Standard CounterTerrorist tactics are tried. Wackiness ensues.

 

As for a date: Say it's late Tuesday evening, December 29, 1998. First day of training is Wednesday Dec. 30. Thursday is second day of training & New Year's Eve, Friday is 1 Jan 1999 and potentially first mission.* Note in the game you are busy assigning research and construction projects and rarely get a UFO the first day, right?

 

I admit it's easier to write interaction without worrying about what time it is, but it's now after evening meal in the mess hall and Raven and Trigger want to go up for a training flight! (Make sure they get permission.) As soon as that's over, we better mention a night having gone by.

 

Comments welcome

JG

 

*I checked the calendar. Any more realistic and we'll uncover a conspiracy theory

[Crazy Photon]

*Crazy Photon speaks through the lab's intercom*

 

"All scientist personell come in for preliminary briefing, come in ASAP. Photon out"

 

(We have to coordinate reseach with all who will write for scientist characters)

[The Veteran]

Don't worry JFish, Trigger and Raven are going to get permission before they go up from Tactical command but I didn't write about it because that will be done from the cockpit later on...

[Crazy Photon]

Yes, but there are several scientists, so it'd be nice to prepare a "general briefing" before the mission

[Wormfist]

we're here cphoton

[JellyfishGreen]

Photon, feel free to write Sanjay into your scientist's briefing, he'd love to get a tour of the lab.

 

How do we get laser research started - were secret research materials released to us? Or do we only start looking at advanced personal weaponry after we realize rifles are weak against Cyberdisks, entailing meeting them on a mission first?

 

One of the first projects could be Doug's bio-scientist Chris working on his non-FDA-approved medkits.

 

Carlos, how about X-INV MIB's worldwide (?Australia-wide?) maintain their positions? Some I've reassigned to base security, & others (like Paul) go on X-COM missions, but most still carry out investigations.

The guys who recruited Paul and put him on the plane didn't know he would end up in the X-COM program, but they think of themselves as X-INV, and they were ordered to ship this guy to Pine Gap.

 

PS. Thanks, Vet, just have her home by midnight.

I presume Trigger's been flying the Interceptor for a week or two but hasn't had the chance to tail any UFO's yet. Instead of just proving "my engine's bigger than yours", can Gia fly the Interceptor with Trigger in the navigator seat?

 

JG

[Ki-tat Chung]

ok, how about this? the terror site remains, but the convo between the commander the the pm is different. maybe it'll go along the lines of:

 

"I know you are just investigating, thus the "INV" part of X-INV, but isn't it obvious that these alens are hostile? If this isn't taken to the UN, we will, as a nation, declare war on them. With or with out X-INV and/or the UN's consent."

 

any other things i might be able to change?

[JellyfishGreen]

I'd still have to say, why are we seeing a terror site now, what is it driving in the plot?

 

If the aliens are trying to hide their presence, they wouldn't go on a terror mission. But when they realize X-COM are popping up and foiling their plans*, a few saucers are lost, maybe then they have a reason to go on terror missions - to draw X-COM into a battle and learn OUR capabilities, maybe, or just to try threatening some funding nations at random, or both. That would make more sense to me.

 

JG

 

*like the Scooby gang, only armed, with a supersonic Mystery Machine. Zoiks!

[The Veteran]

I would also have to say exactly the same thing. The troops aren't fully interacting, people aren't writing enough about their characters the research team hasn't even been mentioned, there are no squad assignments, one of our interceptors has still never been flown and we just are not ready for a mission yet! (besides we've decided the date and it isn't even January 1st yet)

 

And JFish, Trigger's been at the base for years and will have been practising on the prototype for about a month before the Hurricane arrived about a week ago. I could take her up with me I suppose but I'd always figured that the Hurricane was a one seater...

[DocFrance]

I could take her up with me I suppose but I'd always figured that the Hurricane was a one seater...

So what's the problem?

[Carlos the Jackal]

Well, Dr. Hacksaw has been through the fanfic, and now all the blood's been mopped up and the spare body parts carted away in a wagon, I think we can all agree that the fic's much neater.

 

Sorry, Ki-tat, I'm afraid you lost one post and had two othered edited, while I also edited my own.

 

But I think the end result is that the fic mas benifited cause now we have no interuptions to the establisment of character and situation.

 

*Oh yes, and Sniker's post, I tidyed up the whole thing, put it in paragraphs, no changes to content though*

[Ki-tat Chung]

np