Hobbes Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 Honestly, I see no point in trying to fit in TFTD into the timeline, the game itself was just a re-skin of the original game to attempt to cash in on the fans. All the equipment is virtually the same and the logic is bent to allow for that.Not that it should be dismissed though. I still cringe everytime I see Triscenes/Xarquids on land missions (where's that blaster launcher?) I would more readily dismiss Apoc than TFTD because of the differences and how it doesn't really fit with the two previous games. But hey, both of them exist and even if Genesis was to move away from Apoc they still made a point of fitting it on the whole story. If you read the introduction to Genesis on the Dave Ellis interview I think they managed it quite well...it would make most sense for the aliens to strike at Earth whilst it was still recovering from the dimension war.IMHO, TFTD is UFO but more vicious, more boring, more challenging and a couple more adjectives. I still remember getting my head served on a platter on the first games I played after finishing UFO thinking "Hey, this shouldn't be such a deal after beating Cydonia". Not that it should be dismissed though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Veteran Posted July 3, 2003 Author Share Posted July 3, 2003 I personally think that TFTD was a fantastic addition to UFO. It hasn't changed much with respect to gameplay, development, research, aliens, weaoponry or anything else at all! But it is on the whole a good game. It took me a long time to complete and the storyline adds a lot to the history of XCom and the aliens.In fact thank you guys very much! You've just let me discover the background story to XCom 6! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Veteran Posted July 3, 2003 Author Share Posted July 3, 2003 Whoops Seems I inadvertantly locked this topic when I last posted! Well it's open again now so please keep telling me what you would all like to see in an XCom timeline! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hobbes Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 You've just let me discover the background story to XCom 6!Are you talking about the Genesis plotline or did you just had a moment of inspiration? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Veteran Posted July 3, 2003 Author Share Posted July 3, 2003 moment of inspiration my man! I've been trying to figure out a background and storyline for the new game that the fans are making. It was actually not in this thread but I came in here and it struck me. I don't want to reveal anything too much but I think if this game goes ahead then it should be a very interesting change to the normal XCom games... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hobbes Posted July 3, 2003 Share Posted July 3, 2003 Well, I've come up also with answers for this questions related to my fanfics. Problem is, most of it won't be revealed until the third novel Good luck with Xenocide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Veteran Posted July 4, 2003 Author Share Posted July 4, 2003 Not Xenocide. This is another game. I think I may have a name for it but it's not even been discussed yet! Anyhow I'm now starting work on the complete timeline. Including the events of this new game (Even if the game isn't completed these events contribute a lot to the events of the 5 existing XCom games) The timeline will have to be written from an alien point of view (in the way that Star Wars was written from the droids' points of view!) It will cover all of the major events in the XCom universe over the course of several million years... Don't expect to see me for a while... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Demi-Godly One Posted July 5, 2003 Share Posted July 5, 2003 "Several million years"?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hobbes Posted July 5, 2003 Share Posted July 5, 2003 "Several million years"?!T'Leth arrived at Earth at the Jurassic Period, some 50 million years ago. It was their first colonization attempt of the planet. Hmmm, this makes another question come up to my mind: why haven't the aliens conquered the galaxy in all that time? They haven't since Alliance would have brought the Ascidian race that was fighting them but in that case what else is there...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Veteran Posted July 5, 2003 Author Share Posted July 5, 2003 You know what? I can answer that question But I'm not going to because it may give stuff away... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loonie Posted July 5, 2003 Share Posted July 5, 2003 ::says in a tough American voice:: Ya wanna know what I believe? I'll tell ya what I believe. Here is my version of the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the history of the X-Com UNIVERSE (at least all of the stuff that involves X-Com and Earth. The whole universe would take up too much space ) Many many years ago... ...there was a group of aliens called the Aquatoids, who evolved in an aquatic world and were slowly beginning to evolve through a natural evolutionary process. And in doing so they did quite similarly to Humans as they evolved with practically everything that we have. However as they advanced through their technology they soon realised that their sun was beginning to expand and becoming hotter and hotter. Soon the radiation and the temperatures would doom them on their planet and they simply had to find a way to leave it. Sure enough they began constructing vast motherships which would carry their populations into the stars and away from their homeworld which was now becoming more and more inhospitable. And so they did, abandoning their homeworld forever. As they began traveling the stars however they needed quite vast supplies and workforce in order to sustain their enormous needs, since them being an aquatic species travelling through space they most definetly did not find it too easy to maintain their natural enviroment. So they began exploring space and soon enough encountered several species who had not yet ascended to their level of technological development. Amongst these were such as the Tashoths and also came upon some other creatures which could be used either as beasts of burden, or could aid them greatly in their studies of genetics such as the Tentaculats. The importance of genetics was obvious since their reproductive systems were beginning to fail for some reason (quite possibly because of prolonged space travel without natural aquatic habitat) or also because their death rate was quite high, even in their artificial enviroment aboard their spaceships. As it was they had achieved a breakthrough in the art of cloning and could now replicate their species, though there were quite possibly still limitations. They also came upon the element of Zrbite, a most interesting, albiet volatile, element which allowed them many of their discoveries. But whatever the reason they may have had for cloning they continued to conquer these races and began to use them as their workforce, thusly managing to sustain themselves relatively well. But they knew that this was only a temporary solution and they needed another planet much like their own homeworld in which they could prosper. They sent out many of their humungus colony ships, commanded by the Ultimate Aliens who kept cohesion through the use of the molecular control technology, in order to find and terraform such a planet and upon their success of terraforming contact their stellar Aquatoid cousins to inform them that they had found one such planet. And one of those planets was Earth to which a colony ship called T'leth was sent commandeered by one of their Ultimate Aliens. 65 million years B.C. As the colony ship arrived in the system of Sol after a long and exhausting journey they were completely cut off from communications from their Aquatoid people for a long time now. The only way they could contact them was through the use of the powerful Synomioum devices which could only be activated when enough power was supplied to them, something that was impossible on a ship, but quite possible using a planet's resources. In any event they had scanned the system and sure enough they found Earth to do very well indeed, though a certain neighbouring planet called Mars seemed to do quite well too, though not that much (will tell more about this later!). They made haste to initiate the colonization effort and that would have marked the end of Humans before they had even showed up on planet Earth. Had it not been for a violent solar flare which sent the massive colony ship careening down through the planet's surface and right in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. As T'leth impacted it of course threw up enough dust to cool down the planet severely, bringing several species like the dinasours to a gloomy end and allowing mammals to become more dominant with their warm blood. Meanwhile as the ship crashed it suffered enormous damage in many of its systems. The only thing that the crew could do to save themselves was to put themselves into suspended animation just minutes before the impact and programmed the computer to wake them up afterwards, along with the Ultimate Alien. The aliens survived, but the computer's program did not execute as planned due to a malfunction that occured during the crash. It only managed to wake up a small group of aliens, but those were randomly picked and not enough of them were engineers to reactivate and repair the colony ship's systems. The small group of aliens quickly realised that to repair T'leth was a futile task without the Ultimate Alien's, or the computer's, guidance. They could only occasionally succeed to revive a few of their comrades who were still in cryo, but even then they did not know if they were reviving engineers or not, due to the fact that molecular control was possible only on concious entities. And so these aliens slowly reawakened some of their comrades every now and then and managed to keep a small group of them always awake. Aside from this they also began exploring the world on which they had landed. Soon enough they encountered a dying race called the Gillmen, who had apparently been devastated due to the vast climatic changes that were taking place since T'leth's arrival. The aliens, knowing that more workforce could be very useful in their task of colonising Earth, offered to give them shelter in their colony ship and thusly save them from extinction if they were to remain on the outside, but under the condition that they assist the aliens in their plans to colonise Earth. The Gillmen agreed also because they had little choice, but despite their addition they too of course knew practically zero about T'leth and its mechanics so they could not repair its systems as well. The aliens also encountered various aquatic lifeforms like the Hallucinoids and prehistoric creatures that were about to go extinct like the Triscenes and took them under their wing so that they could also assist them in colonisation. However since this was still a very small group without technological advancements colonisation went painstakingly slow. They knew that the only chance that they had was to contact their stellar cousins and recieve help in repairing T'leth so that colonisation may proceed in a normal fashion. And so they began constructing the twelve ancient sites containing the Synomioum devices that would house the power from Earth's resources, whilst also exploring Earth's seabed for those resources. All of this for 65 million years... Meanwhile back in space... ...the other Aquatoid expeditions had not found any other planet suitable for colonisation. In as many as 65 million years none had come even close to their homeworld. As the years went by their genetic attempts also allowed the Aquatoids to adapt to the enviroment aboard starships. Gills and aquatic traits were slowly removed with each new batch of clones and during that time period the Aquatoids transformed themselves through genetic manipulation into a species more suitable for space travel. The Sectoids. They still however desired a homeworld and expeditions kept being sent. Many of their colony ships simply ran out of energy or fuel and were stranded whilst even more of them however were subjugated by another alien race that was expanding rapidly through the stars and had enough power to crush the Sectoid empire. That was the race of the Ethereals. The Ethereals had soon encountered the Sectoids and they too had possesed their own vast array of species (along with cloning themselves as well), such as the Snakemen and a race which they had genetically altered completely for the purpouse of warfare and of which only two known versions exist. The first being the test species called Floaters and the improved and final version of the species being the Mutons (idea by Pickers from XCAS - great idea). Other than this they had also conquered various other feral species such as the Reapers, Chrysalids, Celatids and Silacoids and also later constructed various mechanical entities (one of which was later to be constructed and was known to X-Com as Sectopods). With such a vast array of more superior species and much more advanced technology the Ethereals quickly subjugated the Sectoids and their slave species. Being still of some intelligence however the Ethereals decided to give the Sectoids some leeway in the empire that they had created and allowed them to have some of the minor tasks. This allowed the Sectoids to remain the only other really smart species in the empire, though at quite a cost of being subjected to the Ethereals as their slave servant species. Up till the year 200,000 B.C.... ...when the Ethereal Empire sent several ships over to the system of Sol as one of the Sectoid's, or Aquatoid's, colony ships was also sent there. Not finding T'leth because it was buried underwater they did however note the rich life on two planets in the system of Sol. Earth and Mars, both of them quite lush and green at the time. They decided to execute now something which was far beyond the genetic feats of the Sectoids. To create a whole new species with such genetic coding that it would eventually aspire and rise towards the level of the Sectoids or Ethereals. As the species would continue onwards it would of course rise in the technological level as well, but just at the moment when the Ethereals believed it to become so advanced that it could effectively fight them, they would come forth and enslave this species that they had created, thusly giving them enormous numbers of slaves - all of this recieved simply by starting the species with a few altered individuals. And thus they had set forth some of these individuals on both the planets, Mars and Earth, leaving behind a force on Mars to monitor the results and subjugate the species when necessary. The main alien contingent then left, leaving behind one of their Alien Brains which could communicate with the remainder of the empire and also coordinate the aliens forces there (this point is alas flimsy and I cannot explain as to how the Ethereals couldn't do the coordination. Maybe after the destruction of the brain the aliens just got demoralized but still.....bleh. This point is flimsy ), along with several cloning facilities which allowed the Ethereals there and the races under their command to create as big an army as it was necessary, not to mention a humungus stockpile of Elerium-115. And so time progressed and it soon became apparent that the Martian civilization was beating the one on Earth by its technological advancement. And exactly what the Ethereals had planned for happened. Just before they could have developed the technology to rebel against the aliens they enslaved them and signalled through the Alien Brain for the Ethereal slave ships to take them away as workforce for wherever they might be needed (this prompts the idea that someday somewhere we might discover ANOTHER Human race under the yoke of oppresion from the Ethereals. A most interesting thought . The aliens then remained on Mars and without its former 'Human' race to cultivate it it slowly descended into the barren planet that it is today. Now all that the aliens would need to do is await for when the other Human race on Earth would become ripe for the plucking! 1947 On a rutine flyover over the United States of America a UFO experiences one of the rare occasions of engine problems and it is forced to crash land in the desert. Immediately the US authorities begin to scramble and deny the crash in order to investigate just what this is. The world continues onwards unknowingly whilst the goverments begin to hear word of this and begin examining this problem, being aware of the aliens now. The Ethereals themselves are not pleased but ultimately believe they can predict the Humans' moves. But seeing as how the goverments are now aware of them they decide to step up their reconnisance flights and mission throughout Earth so as to determine more and more as to how they would conquer it and plunder its resources and inhabitants more efficiently. All of this results in the increased flyovers of UFO's being reported throughout the world. Up until 1998... ...when the UFO flyovers are stepped up higher than ever as the aliens believe that the time for the harvest is nearing. The goverments can no longer start to hide this and so - X-Com (from here on follows of course the official storyline ) Needless to say the aliens never thought it important enough to send for reinforcements right until X-Com surprised them at Cydonia. Apparently the aliens were wrong to underestimate the Humans' resourcefulness and their ability to adapt and had as a result lost. And as the Alien Brain was destroyed it sent a single tachyon emission in the hopes that it would reach the other alien forces, but to no avail. It did however suceed in reaching another alien force however... In the depths... ...the tachyon beam did not mean anything to the T'leth computer. But it did contain enough power to allow the computer to reactivate its program sufficiently. And so it began to reanimate the sleeping aliens, as they begun their experiments and geared up to continue the reactivation of the 12 sacred sites in hope that the Aquatoid empire still exist. As such they also stepped up their raids on ships, underwater drill sites, resources in general to have enough of them not only to contact their stellar cousins but also to clone and activate enough of their kind to dominate Earth and transform it into an aquatic paradise just right for the Aquatoids. Of course they had no way of knowing that by now there were no more Aquatoids other than themselves and that their empire had been subjugated. And it all escalates until... 2040 When their activities escalate to such a level that X-Com is once again needed. (official storyline again please ) And so just before T'leth had managed to be activated along with the Ultimate Alien which, whose leadership would've proved fatal for X-Com (yeah I know. It's supposed to be indestructable but quite frankly I find that stupid ), the colony ship is destroyed. In moments all of the work that they had accomplished is for nought as the molecular control network that they had built also disintegrates and the aliens are mopped up promptly. (official storyline about Earth's progression) The Ethereal Empire in the meantime is completely unaware of all of this and continues onwards, not having recieved a signal from Sol it assumes all is going according to plan. That is of course until their forces clash with that of X-Com's in "The Frontier". As the war progresses it becomes painstakingly evident to the Ethereals that their detachment that was supposed to harvest the Humans had made a grave error and the the Humans themselves were now nearing the Sectoid's and Ethereal's level. Their only hope is to incinerate this race quickly before it causes even more havoc on the Ethereal Empire's interests. And so the Doomsday weapon was constructed. But X-Com prevailed nonetheless through their resourcefullness once again. (X-Com official history from here yet again.) ------- And that's it! Quite a few holes there could be inside this explanation but still it does explain it in the way I see it. The one thing I haven't figured out though is as to why or how the Sectoids could've been been captives of the interdimensional aliens in Apoc, but still. I won't try to solve that part too much, suffice it to say that they encountered each other at one point somehow. Cheerio! P.S. As I have demonstrated...YES it is important to include ALL parts of X-Com's official storyline games, even 'crappy' ones as TFTD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Veteran Posted July 5, 2003 Author Share Posted July 5, 2003 You had me right up until the end Loonie but anyone who can dismiss TFTD so swiftly is not a true fan. I'm also sorry to say that you aren't going to be happy with the new timeline when it's finished! You needed to include the Apocalypse aliens and you've missed that part. There's also no mention of the Ascidians and as for all of the races the Ethereals enslaved, where did they come from? Every time you create a race, you have got to give it a background, a history, a planet, a society and many other things! Someone should be able to ask you anything about the way you think things happen and you should be able to answer. I'm sorry but I don't think there's anything in this timeline that agrees with your version! It's too loose and it doesn't utilise the scale of the universe. You've used hundreds of alien races in this one storyline? I find it hard to believe that the Ethereals could have explored so much without having conquered the entire universe! Just give me a week and I'll let you know what happened... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loonie Posted July 5, 2003 Share Posted July 5, 2003 ??? We're THAT serious here? Heheh, okay okay. I step down from the podium. Heh. To be frank I just gave a thought on how this thing could've played out not really too complete. As I said it has some holes in it, so no need to bust my b*lls over it because I'm not saying it's god knows what. Just a thought on what could've happened. Besides who says that the Ethereals existed for 65 million years as a spacefaring species? They could've become one later on. And even if a race does have the knowledge to go into the stars there are reasons as to why it can't like social problems, economic ones,...ect. Besides who are we to say is a "True fan"? Heh, if you think that a true fan needs to make up even more I'd say that you're asking for a true addict to X-Com more than a fan, since I myself think of it rather unhealthy that I wrote up such a long peice on the history of a game P.S. I did say "bulls" back there honest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Veteran Posted July 5, 2003 Author Share Posted July 5, 2003 I want nothing to do with your cattle! No we aren't that serious but I am I was up till 4am a couple days ago just covering a few hundred years of history. I'm at it again now and I'm so incredibly drained it's unbelievable! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loonie Posted July 5, 2003 Share Posted July 5, 2003 ouch! Heheh, reminds me of something I did once about XCAS Good luck to you then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Veteran Posted July 5, 2003 Author Share Posted July 5, 2003 cheers loon, after spending however long writing your version you'll know exactly how long winded this is! Especially when I can't leave ANY loose ends! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hobbes Posted July 5, 2003 Share Posted July 5, 2003 The aliens then remained on Mars and without its former 'Human' race to cultivate it it slowly descended into the barren planet that it is today.I can agree (in terms of logic) with your timeline, except for this point Loonie. If Mars was a lush, green world 200,000 years then it would be impossible for its atmosphere to have radically changed to the dust cold ball it is now unless some big (I'm talking asteroid collisions, nuclear war, etc.) had happened. You could argue that the civilization of the humans there had managed to control the Martian environment but it seems rather unlikely that they would have been able to evolve to that level if technological sophistication without some help from the aliens. Oh well, maybe I'll just write my own timeline Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loonie Posted July 5, 2003 Share Posted July 5, 2003 Yes I admit that was quite improbable. It could be that several things were tweaked by the aliens to allow the species to adapt but to tell the truth I hadn't thought about that factor that much. The main thing was to get a plausible enough explanation for the Cydonia ruins and the Alien Brain's convincing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Veteran Posted July 5, 2003 Author Share Posted July 5, 2003 Fear not gents. All of the queries from the last two posts have already been dealt with. Hobbes you'll be happy, Loonie you'll be impressed. (or you'll have an 'ah! of course!' moment at least ) The bit that's proving difficult right now if all of the various alien sets. Sit down and count them, you'll be amazed! I sure was... And now I'm making more? What's wrong with me!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jh316 Posted July 5, 2003 Share Posted July 5, 2003 A lot of people seem to forget this. It says clearly in the UFOpedia that Zrbite is an alloy of gold and alien bio-material. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Veteran Posted July 5, 2003 Author Share Posted July 5, 2003 Ooh! Thankyou Jh316! I'd forgotten that myself! I've already reread the alien sections in all of the UFOpedias but I haven't checked anything else yet. I guess this means I really should! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jh316 Posted July 5, 2003 Share Posted July 5, 2003 Heh. Welcome. But it was mostly directed at Loonie, when he said that the Aquatoids discovered the element Zrbite. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Veteran Posted July 5, 2003 Author Share Posted July 5, 2003 That's ok, I've since thought about it and I reckon I've got Zrbite sorted... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loonie Posted July 5, 2003 Share Posted July 5, 2003 Yes I know it was. And is it not possible for aliens to synthesize Zrbite out of their strange biomaterial (which they apparently have) and out of gold (which DOES exist in other places than on Earth too you know ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jh316 Posted July 5, 2003 Share Posted July 5, 2003 I know they could. I'm just saying you said they discovered the element Zrbite, when it's an alloy, and if it's made using their own bio-matter, I doubt they would've found out about it after leaving their home world. Unless it didn't have gold, which is extremely unlikely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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