If XCom was slower...

[The Veteran]

Stemming from what I struck upon in another forum here's something for everyone to think about...

An average UFO game runs for two years (1999-2001) TFTD starts in 2046 I think or somewhen around then. That means that the tachyon beam from mars takes 45 years to reactivate the alien colony, T'Leth.

The Apocalypse interdimensional invasion force arrives on earth in 2084. 38 years after TFTD.

So what if XCom had been slower with the original invasion? What if the war didn't end in 2001? What if the scientists interogating the Ethereals had all been psionically poisoned or were just skiving off the day that the commander was captured?

What if the war had lasted another 38 years...

That would mean that the alien colony on earth wouldn't be awakened until the time of the Apocalypse invasion of earth and therefore Mega Primus would not exist.

In my opinion this would be a very good thing for earth... Reasoning follows now...

The apocalypse aliens would be spread so thinly over the planet's major cities that they are annihilated in months. The technology salvaged would allow all alien flying subs to be annihilated instantly and cloaking devices, teleporters and shield systems would all allow mankind to utterly annihilate the alien forces under the seas. We would be so quick to reach T'Leth that it wouldn't have a chance to take off and rise above the sea. Therefore there would be no catastrophic explosion in earths atmosphere and Mega Primus style cities and reforresting are never necesary.

So what do you think of that then?

[Alan]

or, seeing as the brain was never destroyed, the aliens attack would step up a few notches, annihilate the human race, and then engage in a long war with the dimension aliens.

 

or... even if it all panned out like you said... consider what a huge underwater explosion would do to the earth.

 

*loves picking holes in arguements* :devil:

[Bastiaan]

If this if that, it happened as it happened even if it didn't really happen...or will happen....yep...

[The Veteran]

Quiet bastiaan! This is a serious discussion.

 

Bear in mind that the aliens are only attacking earth because Mars is running out of everything. If the war lasted long enough on earth they may just run out of craft anyway!

[Bastiaan]

Alright then, carry on.....

[Alan]

but are they from mars? if so then how come theres still some left in interceptor?

[NKF]

I believe the UFO aliens were an advance invasion fleet, with Mars being their staging base. It's amazing what a few cloning vats and replicators can do to swell the ranks of the alien fleet. What I don't know is how they made the elerium crystals. They plant them perhaps? Or is it just a natural resource found only on some planets?

 

The brain really cannot lay claim to creating the human race. It was, aftar all, a ploy to save itself. Classic villian response. The rebuttal is said best by the soldier in System Shock II, "nah" (followed by the firing of a gun).

 

Although they were probably the second invasion fleet, seeing as T'Leth was carrying the first, but some solar flare had buggered their navigation systems so they had to crash and go into stasis while repairs were under way (hard to do when everyone is asleep). I guess the second invasion fleet only just found their cousins when a bunch of X-Com soldiers showed up and gave the master brain the big heave-ho. Zap, T'Leth aliens get a wake up call and they spend the next 40 years or so reorganising and preparing themselves. Revenge? Don't know.

 

The interceptor aliens probably come from their home dimension or what not. Seeing as they're fighting with the Ascidians in Alliance (since the game was never released, I don't know if it's in the official timeline yet).

 

Say, what is the name of our alien foes anyway? Apart from their individual species names. Or are they just a mutual alliance so that they can go about and conquer the universe for fun and profit?

 

The sectoids in the food chamber in Apocalypse are probably earth engineered ones, seeing as they've interbred sectoids with humans. Well, I suppose you could make tame ones considering the clones have all their knowledge 'downloaded' into their heads. A few tweaks here and there, and bam, they're as docile as a cute puppy with no thoughts of rebellion. Pity the bio chemists don't know how to replicate the sectoid's brown tan. Oh and they're underfed.

 

Or, the apocalypse aliens have ravaged the sectoids' homeworld and these are the last remaining survivors?

 

Are the Apocalypse aliens merely pawns for another alien species altogether?

 

Would their battleships last five seconds against the original Avenger?

 

Isn't everything I just typed a big load of rubbish?

 

 

- NKF

[Alan]

The brain really cannot lay claim to creating the human race. It was, aftar all, a ploy to save itself. Classic villian response. The rebuttal is said best by the soldier in System Shock II, "nah" (followed by the firing of a gun).

 

ah, system shock 2... oh how i wanted to say "but i made you first" (in joke for those who have played system shock 1 as well)

 

Say, what is the name of our alien foes anyway? Apart from their individual species names. Or are they just a mutual alliance so that they can go about and conquer the universe for fun and profit?

 

well, considering that all the names for the species are merely human equivalents... and noone would have thought to give them a name... the name for the aliens is most likely 'Aliens' or 'them'.

 

 

Are the Apocalypse aliens merely pawns for another alien species altogether?

 

funny you say that but... they are.

all of them, from the lowliest anthropod up to the queen herself are pawns for the micronoid aggregates. (the tiny little things that inhabit the aliens blood streams). or so i recall.

[The Veteran]

Well the first alien invaders in UFO were the Ethereal race but other than that I don't know...

But I think I'd like to disagree with what NKF just said...

 

I think that galaxies away from our own (where XCom Alliance was meant to take place) lies the main forces of the alien empire.

The control brains are like the control bugs from starship troopers and each one of them controls the aliens in one system. Therefore by destroying the base at Cydonia we have effectively saved our own system from the grip of the aliens.

T'Leth was sent millions of years ago as a 'colonisation' fleet NOT an invasion fleet. (I'm disappointed in you NKF)

That killed absolutely everything on earth and for thousands of years there was no life.

Then the Ethereal race sent another colony ship to the milky way but seeing as their initial target was in an ice age they moved on to a similar planet. Mars. This was at the time just as earth is now (except without people burning fossils, killing the atmosphere and building huge pointless cities in the middle of jungles...

Anyway as the aliens colonised Mars they began to destroy their surroundings by use of their science.

Eventually they ended up using their newly developed Psionic powers to control all life on Mars. Therefore all life was unecessary and soon died out as did the Ethereal's capability of reproduction in any way other than cloning.

Therefore large vats were created and armies were born (This was also happening in their central space)

The armies that had been created were sent to earth to colonise here and then they returned to mars after seeding the planet. Thousands of years (and one spot check in the year 0) later the aliens returned in the 20th century to check on their seedlings.

Finding that they were far more advanced than expected the Martians attack. And so begins Alien War 1

[NKF]

Heh, writing stories has never been my forte.

 

Yep, I forgot T'Leth was out to explore strange new worlds, to seek out life and new civilisations, to boldly go where no soggy tendril has gone before...

 

Brain == SS brainbugs, good analogy. It's the glue that holds everyone together. The communications hub, so to say. Once the communication structure breaks down...

 

I still like to think of the UFO aliens as parasitic conquerors that go from planet to planet ravaging them and milking their resources for all their worth, rather than as an advanced race of botanists.

 

Thankfully, the game has so many plot holes in it and inconsistencies between the games (i.e. a sectoid's colour, whether or not a chryssalid has those two thingies jutting out their shoulders, etc.) that we can freely fill in the gaps with... well, practically anything. Until the next game, if one ever gets released, offers some more insight.

 

- NKF

[Neo]

I still like to think of the UFO aliens as parasitic conquerors that go from planet to planet ravaging them and milking their resources for all their worth, rather than as an advanced race of botanists.

Wasnt that wat the aliens did in Independance day?

[The Veteran]

It certainly was my friend...

Still I'm afraid the Ethereal race was the creators of life on earth. The thing is though... if they hadn't tried to colonise it in the first place there would never have been an ice age and we'd be millions of years more advanced...

[Carlos the Jackal]

Ah.. its backround-plot slugfest time!

Huzzah, ok, here we go.

 

The UFO aliens were here to reap their harvest, but Mars was just a tiny, almost forgotton colony amist the vast war between the Elthrical and Micronoid empires (Don't think even for a minute that the Apoc aliens were all the micronoids had up their sleeves, as Yuri himself says, "they are but a distraction" )

 

Due to a malfunction, Cydonia woke up too late, and was ment to attack us at a level of technology at least a hundred years earlier than what we had at 1999. Using clone army the brain (More an organic computer) attacks earth with gusto, but poor tactics. The Ethricals assigned to the cydonia complex (A very backwater assignment) left the overall co-ordination of the assult to the base computer and mainly involved themselves in research and negotiations with governments.

 

Very few aliens were not carbon-copy clones from the Cydonian vats, only Commanders and Leaders were posted to Cydonia from the far-away empire as Earth was barley even regarded as worthwhile in the overall sceme of things. The brain was not really equipped to fight an enemy with jets, airsupport, artillery or automatic weaponry, though *was* programmed to deal with enemys with basic projective weaponry (muskets, bolt-action rifles, ect) and the empire-assigned aliens were working overtime simply trying to compensate for the brains tactics.

 

Along the way, a scoutship found T'leth, and that *did* get the attention of the Empire, however, within an hour of the annoucment, Cydonia ceased transmission. The empire guessed correctly what had happened, and judged Earth too far away, too well armed and too much expence to deal with at that time.

 

Oh, and E-115 was stockpiled in huge amounts at Cydonia, no supply train from the empire there.

 

The brain of course awoke T'leth, which caused a whole new set of problems, stuffing up the entire earth notwithstanding.

 

Then about 80 years after the orignial alien invasion, the micronoids, the war shifting slightly into their favor, hear about earth from maybe an interrigation or captured information and decide to send a minor province that they have enslaved to to see if they can add us to the fold. They use an interdimentional species to save all the to-ing and fro-ing of standard spaceflight and let her rip.

 

It didn't work, and now we've got an axe to grind with them too.

 

As for the alliance aliens, a third major player in the struggle for power?

 

Woo! I feel better now!

[NKF]

Poor tactics? Good grief, I had the impression that the lowly grunts have "Tactics? What's that?" going on in their little round heads all day long. Come on, just look at their grunts in combat. See something? Bang! Run about in a completely random manner to throw off the enemy. See something else bang!

 

Dammit J'''hi'em'm''e', we're harvesters, not warriors!

 

Good thing they had the brain to direct matters. Or else it would have been one very short war.

 

Hmm, okay, so I guess the aliens did have a hand in human evolution, but I don't think they planted them. Another "what if": I think it was more of a happy accident really. I mean, starship T'Leth was ambling along, minding its own business, when they wander just too close to the sun and suddenly their engine stalls and they crash (couldn't re-adjust their course so they collide right into the earth), probably knocking earth slightly out of its usual orbit (and knocking a bit of the earth out too, thus we have the moon!), causing the ice age. Then things sort of happened after the other. then a couple of million years later, the aliens see this lush green planet ripe for the taking. Aha! Say, didn't our great great great great grandpappies go there? Oh yeah, can't remember what happened to them. Let's go harvest it anyway. They procrastinate and end up getting there just a little too late.

 

Of course, it's a bit of fiction, and sometimes holes are left best unfilled (especially by overzealous fans like myself).

 

- NKF

[destroyteenangst]

Are we so sure that the aliens are from another galaxy? The TFTD aliens remind me very much of an old SF story about a race called the Silurians who lived on Earth before man, but sealed themselves away underground when a they saw a giant asteroid on an almost-collision-course with Earth. They thought the 'roid would sweep past the planet, dragging the atmosphere off it and causing destructive chaos with the oceans and life in general. They set armospheric triggers that would revive them all when the atmosphere returned. But the 'roid merely assumed an orbit and became the Moon, so the atmosphere never even disappeared and thus they remained in hibernation for thousands of years.

 

Perhaps I'm really reaching here, but perhaps the same thing happened to the Sectoids after they'd been sent to colonise the Earth. Then when more Sectoids arrived from their home galaxy to check up on the colonists (hell, interstellar travel would take a long time no matter what kind of technology they had), they found the planet populated with monkeys and decided to whoop some ass in 1999.

 

Yay! Eat my admittedly-plagiarised fiction.

 

Engage nit-picking drives.