UFO Fanfiction Discussion

[FullAuto]

I thought our atmosphere was eventually lethal to the aliens, anyway? Or is it so eventually that they've got time to arrange a rescue mission?

[storm turmoil]

point: we have an untouched, intact UFO here folks! ( the medium scout)

 

point being, the folks at base are going to want that, and undamaged if possible.

 

if we rig the osprey and the ranger, can the two of them lift it, do you think? or are we going to have to cut it up?

 

also, what gear do we have as salvage? we have at least a couple of plasma weapons, but what else?

 

personally, I'd recommend we recover a mind probe ( it's a big blue ball. thats about all we know right now.)

maybe some of the more esoteric alien gear the game doesn't go into as well.

 

any other suggestions?

[FullAuto]

I believe someone mentioned the UFOs as being rather light (first mission, I think it was?) so either of the craft will manage it, I imagine. Some plasma weapons, yup, could do with a mind probe, have some strange stuff happen whenever anyone touches it, ummm...some Sectoid equipment belts?

I can imagine those getting 'appropriated' pretty quickly by the troops.

[Bomb Bloke]

Er, hang on, hang on...

 

We aren't actually swinging the UFO between our two craft are we? I'm no pilot, but instinct tells me that tying two ships together is not a good idea. It also says that any method other then tying the UFO securely onto the top/bottom of one of our craft is a bit... Well, dangerous, to phrase it lightly.

 

Unless you're using a helicoptor, of course.

[FullAuto]

The UFO's light enough to be carried by either craft, we don't have to use both of them.

[storm turmoil]

I had both craft lifting the thing not because of weight, but because of size and bulk.

 

and yes, it seems like it would be dangerous, but in reality, it's a relatively common manouvre ( with helicopters, that is, but with the 'Ranger being VTOL nad the Osprey being a tiltrotor...)

 

The idea being, after this, the teams are going to want to come up with a better way of doing this, just because it is so counter-intuitive

 

on a serious note, I asked my brother, Who was ex british army logistics about this several times ( He's the one who suggested it) and He assures me that it is safe as long as you don't let the load swing too much. Of course, we've got the best pilots in the world on the job...

 

...but it doesn't mean they aren't going to bitch like mad when they get back to base about 'this crazy stunt the engineers made us pull'

 

as for not tying it securely, the UFO is too big too fit very well, hence why I had it slung.

 

another thing the pilots are going to bitch about when they get back. Junkyard electromagnet crane, anyone?

 

of course, this means that when X-com starts having to recover larger UFO's, we're going to need a bigger recovery craft to handle it. suggestions?

[FullAuto]

I don't think helis are going to be sufficient for the bigger ones, unless we start using a fleet of Chinooks.

[Alitorious]

Well, how many whole ones are we going to want, too? I think I was the one who jumped the gun on the first recovery, and made them chop it up when they really should have tried to carry it. But after we get a few complete saucers will we really want to haul every one home intact? After all, people seeing a bunch of helicopters airlifting UFOs back to base may start to get a bit suspicious.

Who knows. Maybe after we understand their computers, we can fly them home ourselves.

 

Oh, yeah. I'm back. Woo. I'll get a post up soon, with my ideas of wrapping up some of the loose ends. If anyone doesn't like it too much, I can still change it.

[storm turmoil]

not many, its just that this is one of the first, intact, un-shot-down UFO's theyve come across, with all the juicy goodies untouched. want it? Hell yes they do, and not cut up if possible, so they can see how it works.

 

once they have a better idea of how the things work, cutting 'em up won't be such a big deal, but right now, The UFO research is at the blue sky point, meaning that they don't know how cutting it up will affect how it's systems work. ( the UFOpedia mentions that the hulls are wired with integrated circuits in the alien alloys entry, so cutting the Hull up could mess all the systems up)

 

once we get to supply ships and harvesters, to say nothing of battleships, we'll need something bigger even if they're cut up. later, once we've got ufo power sources worked out, it might be possible to construct a kind of recovery platform to do that, but until then, the only really easily recoverable UFO's, will be, ironically, those that go down over water, simply because it will be easier to winch the buggers up off the bottom and stick 'em on a ship than try to airlift the buggers away.

[Alitorious]

Yeah, I knew they wanted a whole one. I even alluded to it in my post covering the extraction of the first one, but I figured they didn't want to strap it underneath the Ranger. I didn't know that's what they could actually do. (That one was a landed medium scout, too. It woulda been really nice to bring that one home in one piece. Oops?)

 

Well, now it's up. I figured we really want to let both Gia and the other guy escape, even though Gia's still in hot water. I don't think it's anything she can be fired for, however. Maybe just lose flight status for a couple weeks?

 

Marvin Rice can probably make his getaway a lot more easily without an interceptor on his tail.

 

And am I the only one who thinks we should start sending some spooks over to America to... "tie up some loose ends," shall we say?

 

And I think I like this Donald "Bighorn" Ramson. Can we bring him home? Transfer him to Pine Gap? Pwease? Pweeeeeeease? Maybe bring some regular fighters, too, so they can at least try to get all pilots in the air at once? (Perhaps if another one flies over Australia?)

 

Oh, and Storm, I can see that you're a good writer. (Yay for more writers! ) I just have this one teensy little complaint. Occasionaly you seem to capitalize pronouns. However, in certain monotheistic cultures, a capitalized pronoun refers specifically to their diety.

It doesn't offend me, I must add. I feel really bad complaining about something so small. It just gets a bit confusing for me, and it may have the potential to offend others.

[FullAuto]

Welcome back, Alitorious. Long time no see.

I would suggest we acquire a cargo ship of some kind, staff it with people from one Navy or another, and use that to transport UFOs in future. We airlift it to the ship, the ship takes it to Oz, and then gets airlifted from the coast to Pine Gap. Lot less exposure that way.

[Snikers]

Wow. I was wondering how we were going to pull that off. Good to see you back, Al.

[Alitorious]

Thanks for the greets. It's good to be back.

 

Of course, mister Rice isn't quite in the clear yet. After all, flying a helicopter through streets is bound to attract some attention. Still, this is more likely attention from the regular authorities that we can assume he can take care of.

 

Hrmm... who would Pickering send to America to help deal with things? Like smooth things over with politicians, attempt to recover the laser pistol, try to get rights over the downed terror ship (if the ship is still there, Mwa ha ha )

Yeah, I've got an idea about the ship.

[Bomb Bloke]

How about we send Terrance Garvy?

 

... He's some random character mentioned somewhere in the fic with no background whatsoever.

[Alitorious]

I was actually thinking sending Pickering, Valerie Deacon, and Paul Jasper. Pickering probably wants any excuse to get out of there, Valerie could use the introduction to field work, and Squad 3 isn't back up to full strength yet anyways, right?

 

We could post something about Garvy, who feels ignored all the time, is actually second-in-command or something and gets left behind again to watch over the base.

[FullAuto]

Ah, right. Do we need more characters for squad 3?

[Alitorious]

Well, the post on page fourteen says:

 

Alexander Fitzwilliams

Nathaniel Jacobson

Igor Zhandovich

Paul Jasper

Jack Howitz

Rocio Lee

<soldier needed>

<soldier needed>

<soldier needed>

<soldier needed>

 

I think we can add Samuel Johnson to that, but it's still undermanned.

 

Oh, I've also edited my post with a bit more story. Whatever Pickering, Deacon, and Jasper do can be up to someone else better at that Tom Clancy stuff (FullAuto? ). I've got an idea for the recovery of the Terror ship from the Potomac, what Davies is doing over there, and, of course, the ill fate of Ramson and/or his wingmate.

[FullAuto]

Moi? I suppose I could whip something up.

I'll also knock out three soldier characters.

[Bomb Bloke]

FullAuto's making new characters? I'll get the meat grinder ready...

 

Nothing wrong with sending Jasper, squad 2's up next anyway.

 

Rice probably won't have much trouble on the road. I mean, people tend to run from rampaging helicoptors.

 

Speaking of choppers, I really don't like the idea of tying three craft together (two carrying the other one). I'm certain it would be near suicidal in reality. A bit like flying along with a parachute behind you, or something. I say we introduce a chopper to our fleet and use that now, and in future.

[storm turmoil]

Bomb bloke: that was the idea behind doing it, actually. it does work, but...its not popular, not with the pilots and not with the passengers, so next on the shopping list is a big 'eavy lift chopper for this kind of thing instead.

 

which leaves the osprey for aretefact recovery and personnel transport ( and captured aliens, once we get that far) and the 'ranger back on its own job, instead of having to double up.

 

what chopper do we want? chinook?, sea knight? super jolly?

[Snikers]

You know, now that he's not bothering the Xcom troops anymore Marvin is pretty unimportant. If we want to tie up some loose ends, however...I can write up something to get him off the streets and the diplomats scattered.

 

What are we going to do with Bernard? I guess we'll deal with that when we get back to base.

[JellyfishGreen]

what chopper do we want? chinook?, sea knight? super jolly?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The biggest one you can find.

 

Seriously, we hashed over UFO recovery ages ago, and you really wouldn't want to airlift this fella all the way to Pine Gap in Australia. Probably you'd take it to the nearest coastline (Atlantic, in this case) and drop it on a pre-hired cargo ship of sufficient size. This puts the troop carriers back on their normal duty.

 

A heavy lifter would do the same for subsequent UFOs and/or we can chop them up for road haulers. All this is arranged by XCOM's little known logistics and transfer department. eg in the background and only mentioned in passing in the fic. It means that the scientists have to wait weeks for the UFO to arrive at Pine Gap (and/or we fly out the scientists to the UFO) but since the study of an entire UFO isn't really a game research topic anyway it looked like a point I could ignore safely.

 

JFG

 

PS. Snickers, sounds good, I'd like to hear that Mr. Rice got his family released, and if the yakuza/corp guy accidentally lets any information drop, the XINV sweep team might eventually get it out of Mr. Rice, which would leave a plot thread to be tied up with our eventual raid on behalf of Terrick.

[FullAuto]

@ st: Chinook, I tihnk. They can lift a shitload and everyone knows what they look like.

 

@ BB: Oh yes, kill my characters. Bastards.

[Alitorious]

You know, I just realized that I have a couple filler characters already made up. I didn't use them when I made them because, for one, I had no idea how to write for them, but I also figured there were enough other soldier type main characters already. They're both on JFG's character sheet.

 

But methinks FullAuto is gettting protective of his characters. Maybe we should quit killing them off so easily?

(Hey! I just realized that I haven't killed anybody in any of my posts. Nya nya! )

[Snikers]

Geez, FullAuto, if you don't want your peeps killed maybe you shouldn't throw them up for Squad 3!

 

I'm not sure how much tonnage a shitload is, but if they really can lift that I also want to throw up my support for the Chinooks.