The X-Com Files: All Y'All Gonna Die

[Mothra]

The A.I. Core

So, you might be asking yourself, "if we're using 1980's-level weaponry here, how are Ziiro and mharr fucking sentient robots?"

Well the answer is: Cyrstals. Japanese crystals!

Alenium Shard



According to Kiryu-Kai data, this strange crystal is apparently of unearthly origin. Moreover, its internal structure is incredibly complex, with a network of microscopic pathways filling it entire volume in a manner suspiciously similar to an organic brain. When exposed to eletrical stimuli, these pathways grow and reorganize themselves accordingly, forming new connections and breaking down old ones; in other words, it behaves just like a biological neural system. It is also able to store and release energy in a highly controlled manner.

The Kiryu-Kai experimented on these shards extensively and finally found a way to 'awaken' them, resulting in creation of some sort of consciousness. They did not have the time to find any practical applications for these, but if we finish their research, we might have a powerful tool to help us in our effort. Or perhaps a better term would be 'powerful allies'?

Alenium Shard Awakening

The Kiryu-Kai legacy contained extensive documentation on development of thought patterns within Alenium crystals. Considering apparent lack of sufficient theoretical base and the disjunction of this knowledge from Earth science, such information can only be assumed to have come from some extraterrestial source. Effectively technical and start-up documentation, it should enable us to 'awaken' an Alenium Shard into a state of consciousness not unlike our own. Such an intelligence is capable of learning and self-improvement. Moreover, if sufficient care is exercised, it will be predisposed to align itself with us, although the process takes considerable time. Once mature, it achieves characteristics to easily link itself with a variety of technologies, like robots or intelligent weapon systems.

AI Unit

These Alenium-based AI units are used to control drones and other mechanized units. They can fit a number of chassis designs, which can be swapped in the same way as human armors.

An awakened Alenium Shard is automatically assigned a scout drone chassis to enable it to interact with the environment.

AI units work exactly the same way as human agents. Instead of human armors they have robotic chassis they can be plugged into. If no chassis is selected, the AI unit automatically uses the Scout Drone chassis, which comes with the unit at no additional cost. If an AI chassis is destroyed in combat, we can still recover the unit by the AI Unit Restoration transformation.

Since AIs have a degree of consciousness, we should think of them as living beings rather than machines, with their own needs, thoughts and preferences (though mostly simple or limited). For this reason, an AI takes one space in living quarters.

Which leads us to Ziiro and mharr's current bodies, these janked-up rink-a-dink door-opening shitboxes:



Love this mod.

[Mothra]

With Red Dawn's leadership deposed, we move in to fill the vacuum.

I set up a second base of operations in South America with all the money I got from selling off prisoners and guns to the grey market.

I've also invested in a new vehicle, a 5-person humvee. The X-Van will remain in use for covert missions.





Meanwhile, the Mig is doing a pretty solid job keeping the occasional UFO out of the sky. It gets pretty banged up each engagement, but, it's working.



Usually it's more sectoids...



...but in one case, they had THIS friendly fella running around too! Scared the everloving shit out of me while the team was combing through wheat fields in the middle of the night:



The fellas in the lab open it up. Not really a lot of useful info here but sure:



Every little bit helps I guess.

Which brings us to:

The Farmer Saga



Every now and then I get a mission to go investigate a cattle mutilation, or scope out the site of a UFO sighting.

In both cases, this involves the humvee rolling up into a field, usually wheat, finding farmers milling about, tazing them, and black-bagging them into our underground bunker gulag. I wouldn't necessarily have through to do this, but this was what the mission perimeters were! Capture farmers alive for questioning about the alien encounter.



We got these sweet new electric prod things that are a step up from the baseball bats. They hurt a LOT, there's a lot of screaming usually, seems bad.



Dawwww



Interrogations last days, just plying these fools for everything they know. I get daily reports of the juiciest reveals:













This becomes a pretty regular event. I go out there in the dead of night, taze all farmers in sight, throw them in the prisons, and get to the interrogation.

Eventually this seems to reveal less than valuable information. I stop prioritizing these, but, I also forget to ever release the farmers from captivity. Like, months and months pass without me remembering they're down there. Pretty fucked up, but, that how it be.

[mharr]

This data being filed under Serious Combat Analysis makes its existence at least 110% funnier.

Also woo Battle Skutters.

[Mongrel]

"Stats For Nerds"

[atog]

I look like Billy Dee Williams but hey that's ok I got my Colt 45

[Z%rø]

Which leads us to Ziiro and mharr's current bodies, these janked-up rink-a-dink door-opening shitboxes:

[Mothra]

The Cryptid Wars

The spiders keep coming.



In fact, strange, long-rumored monstrosities of all sort have been popping up en masse across the globe. No theories on why, all of a sudden, there are suddenly hundreds of these things appearing across the globe when typically you just have The One Chupacabra, The One Mothman, The One New York Rat.



One of the more difficult mission types are zombie hoards, where you land in the jungle or forest, dig in with mounted machine guns, and mow down wave after wave of zombie.









Our intelligence officer puts out some feelers, and their report is crystal clear: We must capture and interrogate Rutger Hauer's character from Split Second.



This yields a single lead at an otherwise unassuming industrial plant in Nigeria.

Now, this mod has added stealth missions as a thing: You are limited to concealable weapons such as crowbars and knives, and are meant to explore the map until you encounter somebody on-site that is hostile to you.

We put together a team with Upthorn, hngkong, Wheels, and Grath, who take the X Van. They have a pretty jacked-up loadout:

Upthorn with a crowbar...



hngkong with a wrench...



Wheels with a shiv...



And Grath with a BOOM BOX



We get to WORK





There's a lot of space to cover, but we eventually find a few guys.

Wheels stabs one until dead with his trademark shiv (that he carved from a cafeteria spoon etc).

He scopes out the bod.



Wheels obtains coin like maereo

The rest are as but a stiff wind before the unimaginable power of Wrench.

The boom box seems to like, de-moralize the enemy? And raise their panic level? Pretty strange weapon. Fun though!

Boom Box

This type of oldschool radio/cassette player can be found in possession of hip teens around the world. While much better sonic equipment can be bought for cash, only a genuine, used boom box has that electric urban sound (from the underground) which really gets your blood pumping!

If a need arises, it can also be used to smash people in the head, just like skateboards or mobile phones.

Stat-wise, it boosts the user’s bravery by 100% while also docking the enemy’s energy and morale.



Grath uses it to basically disable an enemy by blasting them with sick beats until someone with a blunt weapon arrives to beat them unconscious.

In the basement level, we find a pretty interesting item...

[Mothra]

Boom Box options are as follows:

[Mongrel]

Kinda disappointed... why did they use 90's stuff instead of classic breakdancing tunes? :(

[Mothra]

My guess is that these modders are all 90's kids, and this was their best pull for "what would be loaded onto an olde-timey boom box".

[Grath]

Gotta be blasting aliens with What Is Love, though.

[mharr]

What's the source for that zombie autopsy though, because the art's a perfect match for the original Enemy Unknown cartoon gore.

[Mothra]

What's the source for that zombie autopsy though, because the art's a perfect match for the original Enemy Unknown cartoon gore.

I wondered that too. A lot of the original art is spot-on for UFO's style.

Even stuff that they stole from other shows or movies they've adapted very well into the aesthetic.

[Büge]

Even stuff that they stole from other shows or movies they've adapted very well into the aesthetic.

That one's straight-up a Magic card.

[Mothra]

Da Rats





This opens the way for a new type of facility:

Rat Farm

This facility allows breeding Giant Rats for X-Com purposes. Constructing it requires 10 wild rats to start the colony. Attempted breeding has a 50% chance of producing a random number of offspring.

One facility allowed per base.

The gang's all together...

[Mothra]

Now if anyone wants to be a giant man-sized rat.................

Don't be shy.....................

Simple as renaming ol' Sgt. Squeak here................

[Angry Beaver]

I volunteer as tribute.

[Mothra]

I volunteer as tribute.

[Mothra]

Cults

The Council has tasked us to investigate a sharp uptick of cult activity across the globe. They suspect alien influence.





HOOO-le okay, lot of people here!!



This mission becomes, no bones about it, an unending massacre, where Zaratustra, Friday, Buge, and Grath dig in with SVDs and pick them off at a rate of 8 a turn.

We encounter some really wild factions here:

⇳ Click to Expand Summary

Westmen

Proudly calling themselves 'refugees of modernity', Westmen believe in the futility of human civilization in the face of various threats. They plan to create an alternative, based not on cities - as these can be destroyed easily - but on small, hidden communities. They speak highly of guerrilla warfare, but many don't perceive themselves as soldiers. In fact, all they agree upon is that civilization is doomed and they had better be somewhere else when it happens. They steal any resources they can, and they call it 'salvage operations'.

Cave Man and Cave Girl

These people take a very firm stand on the possibility that humanity has alien origins: they vocally deny it! They dress in furs and leather to show their 'self-raised, self-reliant sentient species pride' and they seem to follow a loose collection of New Age concepts, such as reincarnation beliefs or veganism. Although mostly well-educated, they seem to be rather easily manipulated by anyone with basic information control.

Easy Rider

Easy Riders originate from trailer dwellers around the world, or rather their most anti-government fringe. Their aim is total personal freedom, primarily of movement and privacy. They shun regular work, but often pick up odd jobs - legal or otherwise. They are mostly well-spoken and known for their talent to associate themselves with people in power, which helps their cause tremendously.

Luchador

There is a strange rumor on the streets: if you eat a Zombie, you will gain inhuman strength and vitality (and probably sexual prowess too). Well, these Luchadores actually went and did exactly that. And in their case, it worked! We're not sure why, but some people manage to actually absorb Zombie blood and squeeze it for bio energy, receiving a sudden boost to their physical capabilities. This process is quite dangerous and painful (you are subjected to all sorts of physical stress and feel feverish for days!), but the results are pretty awesome, as you can see. It also decreases intelligence and may cause destructive behavior, so you'd better stick with our X-Com solutions.

Luchadores usually live in small groups and are fiercely territorial. Caution: they are also easy to underestimate.

Stormy

Some alien tech found its way to Earth's black markets, including the so-called Storm: a cheap knockoff of Red Dawn's serum. This very expensive substance proved not effective enough for serious customers, so the dealers decided to target insecure but determined (and rich) teenagers instead. Promised physical perfection, these teenagers became so motivated that some of them managed to activate the serum with strong will and dedication to physical activity. Now called Stormies, these kids maintain their subculture of physical abilities, combat prowess and free love - a subculture that was in fact created by the suppliers of this serum. So deep down, they're just brobdingnagian nerds.

And honestly, we should stop this alien tech trade. Who knows what will be next?

Pinky Devil

This group follows a culture centered on occultism and fashion: praise Lucifer, look good. This, umm, religion doesn't have many members, but they often take part in various rituals - from smashing windows 'for Satan' to really interesting orgies. Also they are often drugged, so watch out.

We don't exactly know the tenets of their faith, because pretty much every member has their own version. They do however believe in demonic beings and they intend to reincarnate as such. Something does seem to be a bit off about them...

Wizkid





Cleric of Apocalypse

Clerics lead Outposts of Apocalypse, independent orders of Brothers. Curiously, they do not have any higher-ups; as anarchists at heart, these cultists are unwilling to form a complex hierarchy. Clerics are recruited from Brothers by a body of three or more older Clerics, based on intellectual and psychosocial abilities.

Motor Man

These people feel that some kind of war is going on, and think we’ve already lost. But they also think nothing ever changes, and that humanity will survive somehow. Live fast, die young, steal the last drop of energy from a civilization doomed to ruination - that’s their motto. In practice, they travel between smaller towns and wherever they go, they spread chaos and steal what they need.

We bring em to the gulag and get to work. Lot of interesting odds and ends, certain groups using alien technology, but not much that adds up to a clear picture.



Upthorn, Wheels, Mazian, and Brentai are put on a few missions to capture high-ranking cultists.



Brentai trying out a 90's-era gun here, the P-90. Preddy dope.....







Aaaand binga.



It's taser sticks, a black bag, and we're off to get some answers.

[atog]

Blue box looks like a robit. Did you try turning it off and then on again?