XCom Timeline

[The Veteran]

Our aliens are the Ethereal race, their true story begins where humanity's story is now. Experimenting with space-travel, genetic engineering and weapons of mass destruction. In time they become obsessed with creating the perfect being and so numerous advances are made in Genetic engineering, DNA splicing and cloning. They continue to pervert their genome with generations passing and not a single conventional birth taking place.

 

After millennia of genetic tampering they reach a point where their clones are becoming less and less stable due to breakdown of the genetic material used (read cloning+inbreeding=seriously inferior offspring) but thankfully they've kept a genetic library of all their previous incarnations, right back from basic spacefaring humans.

 

It is now apparent that the current generation of clones has lost the ability to reproduce naturally and life expectancy has become greatly reduced due to the poor quality of material being used for new clones. The result is continual cloning of 'donor' aliens which are subsequently harvested for replacement organs in order to extend the lifespan of already existing aliens.

 

This presents a partial and temporary solution to the problems being faced by the ethereals but as a species that has existed for tens of thousands of years they know a permanent solution will be needed to ensure their continued dominance of the solar system.

 

[TAKE NOTE THAT THIS HYPOTHESIS ESTABLISHES A FERTILE MARS AS THE ALIENS TRUE HOME PLANET AND ASSUMES THEY ARE NOT YET CAPABLE OF INTER-STAR TRAVEL]

 

So the Ethereals attempt to create an 'organ farm' by splicing current day ethereal dna with that of unborn human foetus' from their genetic library. The hope is that the resulting lifeforms will possess modern-day ethereal physiology but will regain the ability to procreate.

 

The result is only a partial success in creating the genderless Aquatoids, their amphibious qualities somehow imbued by the inclusion of 'filler' DNA samples from native Martian sealife. The new race is unable to procreate so must rely on cloning like their creators but they serve as almost a slave-like workforce for their Ethereal masters. Incompatabilities between the two species prevent any harvestable organs so a new plan is embarked upon and the colonisation of earth in planned.

 

A great colony ship is created to carry thousands of Ethereals, Aquatoids and various other Martian creatures to the alien infested planet. The goal of the mission is to eradicate any unuseable species and retain any bipedal creatures for farming. A solar storm causes contact with the vessel to be lost and a catastrophic collision occurs on earth initiating the death throes of the majority of species currently living there.

 

The Ethereals, wracked with failure now face disaster at home as Mars itself is afflicted by a doomsday of it's own. The Solar storm has severely altered the planets atmosphere and it is beginning to die. Attention is moved to renewed research and development of inter-stellar spacetravel and within several centuries success is achieved. Producing hundreds of colony ships and tens of thousands of clones the aliens disperse throughout the galaxy and settle numerous stars while encountering at least 2 new alien races.

 

As the fleets advance from planet to planet they rarely cease experimentation on the new lifeforms they encounter and many are absorbed into the army to help swell it's ranks. The lack of naturally occurring ocean worlds also results in the Aquatoids becoming largely 'obsolete' by Ethereal standards. Amphibious creatures, while possessing great strengths in an aquatic environment, cannot compare to some of the new landbased races they have encountered in their travels. Further DNA splicing goes on to create the Sectoid, a warm-blooded, air breathing creature. It will largely replace the Aquatoid as the main fighting force of the Ethereal race.

 

Millions of years pass while the aliens create a massive empire across numerous worlds. As planets are colonised they are garrisoned with minimal forces and abandonned in favour of the next conquest. On Mars the planet dies and all 'civilian' population ceases to exist along with all surface dwellings and constructions. A base is built at Cydonia where attempts are made to reactivate the colony ship T'leth, it's seabed location unknown.

 

The vessel is partially reactivated on automated systems and various scientific probes and drones begin surveying the planet around them. Numerous alien creatures are captured and studied thoroughly, those with potential are for donors or soldiers are genetically catalogued and imprisoned in cryo-stasis.

 

Martian Ethereals continue attempts to wake their brethren but on discovering the true location of the colony ship all attempts are abandonned. Instead a new expedition is planned and a small force of Ethereals travel once again to earth and seed it with retarded human life. Using the oldest genetic samples they can find they remove all intelligence from the new lifeforms and create a physically and mentally weak being to finally realise the dream of an 'organ farm'. The lifeforms are retarded in this way in order to account for subsequent evolution as the Ethereal's main fleet is tens of millions of miles away and no subsequent visits will be made to this 'farm' until their return.

 

On the other side of the galaxy the Ethereal main fleet has made contact with a strange race of aliens capable of inter-dimensional travel and in possession of weaponry even more advanced than their own. A war errupts immediately with great costs to both sides. For millions of uears the full force of both sides continue to fight with no serious results for either. Due to great losses for both races, and more specifically the dwindling supply of healthy Ethereal DNA, the fighting subsides and both forces fortify their positions and move on to other business in their respective dimensions.

 

The main fleet leaves for earth where they have been told fresh organs are ready to be harvested but on the way they encounter a further alien race, the Ascidians. These aliens pose little threat and so the fleet detaches a battlegroup to eliminate them. Even so the war will prove to be inconclusive for millions of years until in a strange twist human intervention saves the peaceful Ascidians from their own Ethereal ancestors.

 

On earth, human civilisation is thriving and evolution has been far more rapid than expected by the Ethereal overlords. The main fleet arrives at the edge of the system and sends small scouting parties to assess the planet. Many subjects are abducted for examination and experimentation and much is learned about the planet. There is widespread evidence of a recent conflict on the planet and the Ethereals detect the residue of multiple nuclear weapon detonations on the planet's surface.

 

Realising they may have waited too long the aliens plan a full-scale invasion of the planet but the loss of a scout and it's subsequent discovery by human authorities poses a serious problem for even the large fleet present. All over the planet eyes turn to the stars and organisations emerge to combat any possible alien aggressors. The increased attention laid on the aliens prompts a delay in the invasion and a further 50 years pass with no action being taken.

 

During this interval, alien-human hybrids infiltrate human society and sow governmental distrust, international disputes and generally instill fear and suspicion into the world's populace. A major objective of this ploy was to convince the planet that no alien contact had ever been made and it succeeded in seeding conspiracy theories aplenty. Many of the major world players relaxed their gaze on the stars and instead became more introvert and suspicious of their earthly neighbours than of any alien threat.

 

With the majority of earth's attention now directed away from the Ethereal's presence the invasion was once again considered. The majority of the fleet busy with the 2 serious alien threats already encountered, the Ethereal presence was significantly less than desired but a large-scale invasion would destroy all human government and serious military organisations in a matter of weeks.

 

The Ethereals now made a fatal blunder however and after establishing a significant presence at their old Cydonia base they redirected much of the fleet back to the dimension war. Relying on cloning to maintain the war effort from Mars and infiltration and negotiation to win it on earth the aliens embarked on a guerilla war. Using incredibly small amounts of troops they attacked large cities and instilled fear in the human population that had never before been known.

 

Many governments fell for the aliens promise of peace and cooperation and signed pacts with the invaders but others put up a serious fight. The secret organisation XCom was rapidly formed when the alien invasion began and their constant hampering of alien operations returned hope to humanity that they could be defeated. Many other anti-alien forces operated from earth but all fell to the Ethereal war machine and only the internationally funded organisation XCom survived.

 

They fought the aliens at their own game, operating from secret hidden bases and attacking with small forces and surprise as their only weapons. Most notable of the events to take place during this time is the deployment of a highly advanced mechanoid to combat the alien menace alongside the standard troops. Originally an XCom project it had been cancelled in favour of a smaller tank which could accompany troops without attracting attention.

 

An invasion on the defunct laboratory where this prototype was being developed inadvertently triggered it's program and through an AI representation of the projects founder the machine went on many unofficial forays into alien infested territory. A constant thorn in XCom's side, the Enforcer carved out even larger swathes of destruction than the aliens themselves and was anything but subtle and secret. The organisation later claimed that this walker was actually of alien origin in an attempt to avoid difficult questions but the secret was revealed soon after AWII when the laboratory was finally discovered in it's ruined state and XCom was clearly implicated.

 

Nonetheless the Enforcer was also entirely successful at claiming vast numbers of alien lives. In fact a small part of the alien fleet that had returned to Mars in order to assist the invasion, when failure became a distinct possibility, was instead directed to combat the Enforcer at the loss of all lives including several genetically engineered monsters created specifically for the task.

 

The Ethereal invasion was finally thwarted by XCom when they invaded the main base at Cydonia and destroyed the controlling 'alien brain' which had arrived with the main fleet to control the invasion forces. With the controlling power removed there was no way for the aliens to communicate with the fleet and so further reinforcements would never be dispatched. The remaining survivors on earth were soon mopped up by XCom troopers and on Mars the same scenario played out.

 

At the end of the war, XCom finally came into possession of the errant Enforcer walker which was promptly deactivated and placed in secure storage for the forseeable future. The new technology that now existed on earth was the fuel of numerous advances but as Elerium supplies dwindled it became apparent they could not continue to capitalise on this alien technology unless a renewable source was possessed. This resulted in the construction of a human colony on Mars to serve as a mining base for Elerium which would keep Earth supplied for the forseeable future.

 

Soon after colonisation of Mars several colonists were lost and equipment went missing. Fearing espionage or worse a security force was established to protect mining interests on Mars and not long after it was placed in operation it became apparent that not all the alien life on Mars was destroyed after all. A small group of Ethereals survived the purge of Mars and had been busily rebuilding the nerve centre of the Cydonia base.

 

After initial attempts to contact the fleet had failed due to their now astronomical distance from Mars the remaining aliens turned their attention instead to the still dormant colony ship of T'Leth. They abducted miners for genetic material and slave workers and commandeered human technology to repair their own. After many years of repairs and numerous attempts the aliens finally succeeded in sending a Tachyon pulse to the colony ship thus waking the sleeping aliens there.

 

As soon as the pulse was detected by the MArtian Security force an expedition was sent to it's source but it was many years before it's purpose was known. Finally however, the last alien to ever set foot on Mars was destroyed along with every last remnant of the alien base at Cydonia.

 

Deep beneath Earth's oceans, T'Leth now stirred again. The badly damaged vessel retained none of it's original hull by this point, having long since been eroded by the strange water that formed the oceans of Earth. It owed it's survival completely to an unending rebuilding process carried out by drones and repair bots. Using materials native to earth the vessel had been almost completely rebuilt inside and out, retaining less than 30% of it's original components.

 

The colony ship having long since flooded, no Ethereals or other landbased aliens survived more than a moment after the cryo-stasis chambers released them, many having already died on impact or from drowning caused by breaches in their capsules. The Aquatoids were now reawakened however and quickly set to work on the ancient prisoners that had been captured by the automated systems long ago. Many new lifeforms were experimented on and those deemed fit for combat were cloned, bred or constructed in vast numbers. This resulted in the reintroduction of several long since extinct species back into Earth's oceans.

 

At this point XCom no longer existed in it's original form with only a private investor retaining one of their experimental underwater facilities in order to launch recovery missions of UFOs downed in the war. As soon as mysterious disappearances began to be reported however the organisation was re-established under international funding and as the aliens became brave enough to venture forth from their sunken city XCom was there to greet them.

 

With no reinforcements or communications with any other alien races there was little hope for the Aquatoids and their plans for domination and as soon as XCom discovered the location of the underwater city that provided their base of operations an attack was launched.

 

T'Leth, like all Ethereal colony vessels, had at it's heart an 'alien brain' though 65million years had seen significant changes in the one encounter at Cydonia all those years earlier. The brain on board T'Leth was still very much a living creature though it relied heavily on artificial life support for survival. As soon as the human presence was detected, the creature began T'Leth's final rise from the seabed. Something it was by no means ready for. As XCom troops reached the aliens chamber the city was already tearing itself apart and unbeknownst to XCom they were about to destroy it completely. With the alien creature being all that held the city together, it's death sealed the fate of millions.

 

The colony ship had just broken the surface of the world's oceans when the final shot was fired and with the ancient alien's demise the city errupted in the most spectacularly devastating eruption ever to have occurred on earth. Equalled only by the fallout caused when it first arrived on Earth, T'Leth was now responsible for a whole new disaster on earth. Massive amounts of radiation and an unending smog covered the planet in a matter of months and flora and fauna alike withered and died.

 

With mankind struggling to survive vast new cities were built in an attempt to preserve pockets of humanity. Mega Primus was the first erected within a massive atmospheric wall which not only kept the smog at bay but also helped to slowly undo the damage already done. It wasn't long before yet another alien threat emerged however as the Ethereal's war with the dimension aliens reached a new stage hundreds of systems away.

 

While the Ethereal fleet had long since left the dimension gate through which they were facing the strange alien race that dwelt there, a large force had been left behind and the fighting had never truly stopped. While the Aquatoids were being readily defeated on Earth however the Ethereals fighting the dimension war had begun to win fight after fight.

 

With no planets to wage war across, they were engaging the dimension aliens in vast warships and were determined to capture the dimension technology sported by their foes. With the development of a propulsion system that permitted inter-dimensional travel they finally had the upper hand against the poorly defended alien outpost in their path. Relying mostly on their dimension gates for protection, these strange aliens had always considered them 'one-way' systems.

 

Now that the Ethereals had broken through to the true dimension of these aliens they wreaked havoc on them, destroying all off-planet resources and blockading any stellar traffic. Short of staging an invasion of the alien's own planets they had effectively beaten this ancient enemy.

 

The dimension aliens had other plans however and their remaining planets and colonies hastily began the opening of multiple dimension gates inside their atmospheres to escape the Ethereal blockade. All attempts failed however and the Ethereals now brought their most devious weapon into play.

 

Constructed in their own dimension and transported to that of the aliens in it's component parts, the Ethereal's massed an army of gigantic doomsday weapons to finish this strange foe once and for all. They were simply planet killers and would destroy not only the aliens but their worlds as well.

 

At this same time, the human race had also begun to delve deeper into unknown space and had begun settling an unoccupied region now known as the frontier. Multiple mining colonies were established, complemented by manufacturing plants, scientific installations and multiple space colonies housing millions.

 

In their experimentation with dimension technology however, the Ethereals once again found the humans and concluded that their invasion of earth had been foiled. With the Doomsday weapons already in production and the ability to instantly transport it anywhere in the universe, mankind's time was up.

 

Even as the aliens mopped up the last resistance around the dimension aliens planets they began redirecting their spacecraft to the Frontier and very soon convoys began transporting the components of a doomsday device to a dimension gate close to Earth. XCom, now established as a multi-national corporation responsible for maintaining peace with alien races, was quick to attend the scene of these new alien attacks and AWIII began.

 

With the majority of the Ethereal resources still directed towards the dimension aliens, they soon realised they had overstretched themselves once again. XCom continued to develop more powerful craft and weapons and even managed to intercept several components of the alien super-weapon before they reached their destination.

 

As the terrifying reality of the situation became apparent a plan was made to sortie into the alien dimension and destroy the doomsday device by detonating the star which it orbited. With construction almost complete an operation was quickly launched with a Patton class cruiser transporting the XCom vessels to the alien dimension. A successfully launched Nova Bomb subsequently destroyed the star and XCom operatives hurriedly left the scene. Another decisive blow had been struck but still the last had not been seen of the Ethereal race.

 

With yet another failed attempt to destroy the human race, the Ethereals returned to the other pressing task at hand. Complete annihilation of the strange dimension aliens. Using the doomsday devices already in position, numerous planets and colonies were rendered utterly lifeless by harnessing the power of the solar storm which had stripped Mars of life so many million years ago.

 

Exhausted by war and dwindling in numbers, the dimension aliens played a final trump card by disabling their inter-dimensional technology and thus sealing the Ethereals and themselves in their own dimension. While this was a risky gambit it was to bear fruit as the majority of the Ethereal fleet was maintained outside the dimension gate due to the complications of mounting inter-dimensional propulsion systems to small ships.

 

With just a few hundred vessels and several doomsday devices present in the alien dimension, Ethereal communication also faltered as the link to their local 'brain' was cut-off. The remnants of the Dimension aliens forces proceeded to eradicate the surviving Ethereal forces at great cost but their species was saved, albeit down to a single planet...

 

The need for the Dimension aliens to regroup and expand was now vital and they quickly began work on a new method of inter-dimensional travel that would not permit the Ethereals to reactivate the drives which they also now possessed. They soon found success and developed a device which allowed only the transport of small craft from one planetary atmosphere to another although it took many years to find a suitable target for invasion.

 

Finally a target was located however and once again attention was on the humans but this time it was a foe they had never encountered before. A dimension gate appeared over Mega Primus on Earth and alien vessels began pouring through intent on possessing this new planet. XCom was now publicly operating on earth as it was in the frontier however and opposition was stiff from the outset. With the MarSec forces also established in this sprawling metropolis the weakened alien forces would find that this one city would put up an awfully intense fight.

 

As Alien interest in this war dwindled so did their resources and it was not long before victory here became a distant memory. They attempted to once again disable their dimension technology but it soon became apparent that their technology was too integrated with their homeworld and there was no way to sever the link between planets unless the invasion was successful and the planet relocated to their dimension.

 

The aliens lack of resources along with XCom's outstanding record of victory over hostile species soon culminated with an invasion of the alien dimension but this time the gates could not be closed and XCom forces poured through to attack. The elimination of key structures in the alien's capital caused irreparable damage to their dimension technology and the homeworld was promptly destroyed. XCom operatives escaped through an unstable dimensional gateway but shortly after all technology gained from the invaders ceased to function and there was no further contact.

 

Currently it is thought that all alien forces involved in AWII have been destroyed although it is possible and probable that Aquatoids still exist in the galaxy at the side of the ever-present Ethereal race. The Dimension aliens are presumed destroyed but it is unknown whether their homeworld still exists and scientists continue to theorise that they could have reactivated the original inter-dimensional systems and escaped into our own dimension. Nevertheless all technology based on the second iteration of inter-dimensional travel is now defunct leaving humans with no ability to travel between dimensions. If the original technology has become reactivated or does so in the future then the Ethereals will once again posess a seriously potent weapon which will most likely lead them back to Earth.

 

The Ascidians continue to wage their own war with the Ethereals but neither side seem capable of fielding sufficient forces or firepower to achieve any decisive goals. With a portion of the Ethereal fleet on way to reinforce this battle and the war for the dimension gate also presumably abandonned, the Ascidians may be about to witness the full might of the Ethereal war-machine for the first time in over 65 million years. In this case there will no longer be any chance of victory for the peaceful defenders and a new wave of terror could soon fill the galaxy once again.