48 replies to this topic

[Cpl. Facehugger]

This thread is purely for coming up with a cool back story for xenocide. Remember to be creative! Also, we need a backstory for the humans and the aliens!

So far, we have the gulf reformation wars, formation of the New union of Soviet Republics, and the emergence of the asian hegemony.For the alien side of things, we have a great deal of information about the ammenomites (sp?, aka etherials) But we need more info about the other aliens, and what the overmind is doing at present.

Personally I would like to see the overmind fighting a multi-front war that prevents it from sending 50,000,000 battleships on day one (makes sense from a gameplay pov too!)

I will do up the history of some of the events, your job is to do the rest and to come up with new ones!

Edited by Cpl. Facehugger, 09 April 2004 - 09:42 AM.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

That was in the latest avalanche ctd (actually bruenor wrote how the everyone banded together to annhilate terrorism

[fux0r666]

I think that you should not include any information about the aliens before the game starts and reveal those facts in the ufopedia through research.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

No, you fail to understand. This thread is for us as project members to work out the backstory, and of course propose new ideas for it.

I made it to provide a centralized thread where we can discuss any and all ideas realting to xenocide's backstory.

Edited by Cpl. Facehugger, 18 September 2003 - 03:32 PM.

[fux0r666]

okee dokee!

[Cpl. Facehugger]

I suppose it could be changed, but, it would be nice to have some irony in the game in that earth finally achieved realtive peace to have it wrecked by some smelly aliens.

Edit: It could be solved in one year if everyone, every country on earth worked towards ending terrorism. And that is virtually what bruenor wrote, and I agree with his ideas.

Edited by Cpl. Facehugger, 18 September 2003 - 04:12 PM.

[fux0r666]

Perhaps having an outside threat like the aliens would start to put an end to human squabbling while they focussed on the real threat... Of course that would only really happen in an all out conflict with a clearly defined enemy... And since the aliens are influencing people psychologically and politically by infiltration there would be new groups that dissent.

You could mark the visitation by a great period of massive political upheaval. Remember, being visited by aliens from another planet is a huge philosophical, scientific and religious revelation.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Good idea.

[Extralucas]

People always will have goal, needs, or any other reason to fight each other. Some groups will want to use current situation for their own profits. Besides, wasn't X-Com suposed to be secret orgaznization? That would mean goveernments don't officially agree that aliens exists, and they want to conquer humanity.

[fux0r666]

Right but there would still be a mass of media coverage on visitation, etc.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Yes. If you read Bruenor's excellent alien origins, you will get learn that the first encounter was televised, and x-corps is not that secret...

[Extralucas]

I read but, er, it appears I missed it somewhere.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Here is the relevant quote:

"In fact, many nations were able to witness parts of the battle on live television, and they were terrified. The Xenoincursion Emergency Summit was held, and the decision was made to create an international organization to deal with this new threat. All research into the aliens would be centered there, to focus the resistance effort. They would try to determine where these aliens were from, what they wanted, and how to defeat them if they were all as hostile as this first example indicated. International monetary support was guaranteed, as were the rights to build bases of operations wherever they would be the most effective. (The Overmind said, Crap!)"

[Extralucas]

Hmm... Crap? I must be really tired if I didn't notice that ... Changes a little my concept of it all....

[Breunor]

Hmm, to the earlier comment about the avalanche ending terrorism, I don't think I said that, rather something like "have countries fighting "terror groups" rather than blow up the palestinians". I don't remember what it was now, but I agree that having definite solutions to major political issues is a bad idea, rather there could be conflicts that are resolved using new tech. But there's always the chance of the problem coming back.

On a different note, I came across this site which has historical artwork which apparently shows ufos and the like from hundreds and even thousands of years ago. Copyrighted on that site, perhaps we can use some of the artwork from the original source in the background descriptions somewhere?

[j'ordos]

If that'd the reason the governments keep it secret, then why doesn't xcom announce it's existance to the world? "Now you can't afford to cut our funding anymore, damn bureaucrats!"

But agreed, I like my Xcom secret too, if only to make sure there aren't some geeks trying to find out where your bases are and then getting MC'd by an Ethereal

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Ok, I have done a very basic and partial current events story for the overmind. I want your help to make it better.

Attached Files

•  Alienpartialbackstory.doc   26.5K   24 downloads

[Cpt. Boxershorts]

Alternitive Vaaish-race rational (great name, btw. Has he noticed?)

Backstory-
I just finished re-reading a couple books called "The heritage Trilogy" Not terribly well written (I don't recommend it), but they had a great concept for aliens - "The Hunters of the Dawn". Basically, it's an attempt to explain Fermi's Paradox (ie: why the galaxy isn't overrun with intelligent species...even at sublight speeds, it wouldn't take a species more than a couple million years to occupy every habitable planet in the Milky Way).

Essentially, there's a race that wanders around squashing any race that gets too advanced. Whether it's the same race all the time, or just a cultural thing that reoccurs each cycle of civilzation is debatable, but they always show up sooner or later.

So basically, 65 milliion years ago, the Overmind(1) was spreading out, conquering other races, when they drew the attention if the current 'Hunters of the Dawn'. Bang, Cydonia is smashed, and T'leth is shot down over Earth, with all other Overmind intallations in the Sol sytem destroyed. The Overminds are driven back to their home system, with their developing empire destroyed.

Fast-forward 65 million years. The Overminds have dragged themselves out of the stone age back to their former glory. However, this time they were careful not to attract the Vaaish until they were (so they thought) ready to deal with them.


(1) Another idea is rather then the Overminds being the same race that built T'leth, they just found a lot of their technology, including genetic tech, and locations of the other aliens' homeworlds. In TFtD, the aliens think that the Overminds are the same as the T'lethians (for lack of a better word), because of the signal.


This also gives us places to go for sequels...Earth allied with the overminds to fight the Vaaish, Aqua aliens fighting the overmind's bunch, etc...

-The Captain

Edited by Cpt. Boxershorts, 07 October 2003 - 08:12 PM.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

After careful consideration, I like your idea better.
Actually reminds me of many alien races, for example, the shivans, the heechee's enemies (name escapes me), etc.

No To my knowldage, Vaaish doesn't know. I hope he doesn't mind, but if he does, I can change it quickly to my second (admittedly much worse) choice.

Hmm, I will rewrite it in some way to incorporate the ideas you have mentioned. Don't expect it tommorow though, I might be busy

[Cpt. Boxershorts]

Shivans & Heechees? What book/world?

-The Captain

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Shivans: An advanced and evil race in the first two freespace games (freespace 1 and 2 respectively )

Heechee: An advanced race that dissappeared from the galaxy (due to dark hunter like race) and left all sorts of advanced alien technology. They are found in the games Fredrick Phol's Gateway and Gateway 2 (may also be a gateway book, not sure about that though.)

Sectoid: Plasma Fodder.

[Kamikazee]

deleted

Edited by Kamikazee, 07 January 2004 - 11:32 AM.

[mikker]

hmmmm....

i think we should focus on the overmind(s) to be the bad guys. In every movie, and every game i've ever played whitch stared an overmind, it was EEEVIL.

but the whole point means that the we do something diffrent....hmmmm...yes, we could make the overminds good.......

Edited by mikker, 07 December 2003 - 07:45 AM.

[mikker]

Unfourtnatly, when a x-corps agent was examining the alien control consoles, he accidentally pressed a button that sent a powerful tachyon “wake up call” to anything alien that might still remain on earth…

awwwwww, poor Tommy!


i've read it, and i like it. This leaves for a continue indeed

well, the overmind is steadily loosing its war agenst the Vaaich, and cannot win unless he gets imidiete reanforcements. He, PERSONELY goes to Earth (after he finds out the moon-brain is destroyed, and that trip could take as long as for us to beat up the aquaz), and 'beg' the human for help. He says that the human cannot fight the war on their own, and frankly, neither can the brain. x-corps agree, and off to Xeon 2/somewhere else far far away they go!

Edited by mikker, 07 December 2003 - 07:44 AM.

[Breunor]

Part of me is asking, how is this backstory for v1? I can see it for v2, where a new threat is found/expanded upon, but it seems like the scope of the story is bigger then it should be. Just my 2 cents...

Could folks take a look at some of the entries missing in the CT list, like for the in game things? Let's get some of those items hammered out and then come back to the items like this.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Well for V1, we could just, as Cpt. Boxershorts suggested, have the overmind say something like "You fools, I was your only hope against the Vaaish!" <Sputter, cough, die>

[Vaaish]

Alternitive Vaaish-race rational (great name, btw. Has he noticed?)

He just did.

You can tell I don't drop by these forums much.

Anyway while I'd prefer that my name not be used for an uberevil life destroying alien race, I do come with a few other name you might you:

Chak'Ra (alien race I came up with years ago, never did anything with besides design how they looked.

tilræði

or

àrsaidh

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Ohh, but the Vaaish just sounds so cool! "We are the Vaaish. You will be cleansed."
Alright, I'll think of another race name.

[Breunor]

"They come from the land of ice and snow, where there's a midnight sun and the hot springs blow. The Hammer of the Vaaish will drive our ships to new lands, fighting the humans, singing and crying, 'Valhalla I am Coming!' On we sweep, with UFOs, our only goal with be that humans fall!" -butchered and paraphrased from Led Zep memory of course.

[Andrew]

Oh man. I'm going to cry I just lost a giant post .. Ok I'll start over.

Hi there, This is my first post but I’ll skip any of our formalities and go straight to a contribution that I can make.

As I have read with the back story you guys seem to want to include organizations of some sorts that deal with the Aliens. That seems great! However you may want to include other real world events that can link up with Alien activity. Makes things seem so much more eerie.

For example:

The Roswell Incident

Heavens Gate Cult Massacre- For those of you who don’t know or remember, the Hale Bop comet passed by Earth. And the followers of the cult believed that a space ship was trailing behind it. In summary they killed themselves, because they believed the spaceship was going to heaven.

Hitler and WWII- Could use the premise that this was a unsuccessful attempt to use humans to conquer themselves. Hitler’s rise to power was through some sort of Alien technology or enlisting the Alien’s help. In return he would provide large sources of humans for Alien consumption. Effectively conquering the world in the 1940’s. However this was ultimately halted by the official establishment of the first of a series of Government sponsored organizations to combat this threat. Which worked solely to steal and research new technologies which could combat the unseen Alien threat. ie. Atomic Weapons and rocketry. . (Ok so shoot me I just watched heck boy. More on my thoughts on organizations in a moment.)

The Bermuda Triangle- Some type of downed alien craft causing all those disturbances. High concentrations of Elerium 115(I don’t know the name) doing all those weird stuff.

Pyrimids- Plenty of theories on that.

My thoughts on Organizations:
I do not believe that an organization the size of (for lack of a better term) X-Corp, could be drafted in one night. Which is how the following came to mind.

Imagine if you will an earlier encounter with the Aliens. Extremely Low-Key, but at the same time a real eye opener for the United Nations (If we assume that they would be the organization at the top of the World’s politics.) It proved to them the existence of extra-terrestrial beings. However due to international bickering and the Cold War. No real militaristic and defensive steps were taken to ready Earth. Although one pre-caution was taken, the creation of the Department of Alien Activity (To be renamed) whose sole purpose was the documentation and analysis of all Alien sightings. (With of course some protocol which would be enacted if some big event did take place. We could give it a cool name and refer to it often. Like how did they did the Halo series, “the Cole Protocol”.)
This would cover the base of a preliminary organization which would then step into the role of the X-Corp.

That’s my thought for tonight on the back story. Also what has come across my mind, is a series of documents or communiqués that we would release ever so slowly that would build up hype and give the public some of the back story before the game would ever be released. Whenever that is.

Please leave any comments that could help me in my future ideas and posts. I’m totally open to any and ALL criticism. I’m sorry that this turned out to be so long, I was just trying to reply .

EDIT: I just realized How old this topic was. Oh boy.

Edited by Andrew, 09 April 2004 - 01:09 AM.

[Kamikazee]

I think you guys are trying to hard, If you look at all good xcom like games many of them (the first installments) always give very little or vague info, which make the entire experience a bit more mysterious. Sure i would like to here about how our backstory is effecting the scenario but rather than trying to make some complicated story leave the player in the dark until V2 or right at the end of V1 where we can leave some teaser info.

Why does this have to be a second encounter? why can it not be the first? Just say X-com/X-corp wotever u want to call it was set up by some rich guy a few crumbs short of the full biscuit, when the aliens pay a visit this guy scares the governments into funding him by telling them spooky campfre stories or some bull like that.

But overall id like it if the aliens were after us (to harvest or experiment?) rather than our planet as this would make later Vs eiser (when we have moved the story off earth.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

We need a backstory, otherwise we as developers cannot really write a forestory.

[Kamikazee]

I understand that but why does the fore story have to be so complex?
a short understandable story is best with a nice little twist that leads to a kinda open ended ending as a teaser.
You dont want to make a complicated back story if its gonna restrain our creativity, do you?

[Cpl. Facehugger]

I understand that but why does the fore story have to be so complex?
a short understandable story is best with a nice little twist that leads to a kinda open ended ending as a teaser.
You dont want to make a complicated back story if its gonna restrain our creativity, do you?

The forestory is simple. The players aren't going to learn anything about this stuff until near the end of the game, if at all.

[Andrew]

Well it depends on really how much 'epicness' we want the player to feel. Do we want them to feel that every battle is the last battle to save man-kind from annihliation, and the he or she is the last baston of rightiousness in the world. Or would we rather him or her feeling like an outsider of some sorts recieving little tidbits of info at a time.

A totally immersing story? or.. not....

And about the whole rich guy thing. In my mind it seems impractical that such an orginization could ever spawn over night. Rome wasn't built in a day... But this isn't Rome... So it all depends on the feel that we are going for.

Edited by Andrew, 09 April 2004 - 01:25 PM.

[Jesus Escariut]

*off topic*
You know if the end of the world was near there would be a "XCom" it would be owned by microsoft and it would be the biggest and baddest military just like the xbox.

*on topic*
okay how many here have an old game manual... like Heroes of Might and Magic 1 ? (i picked that one cause its laying in the box next to me) anyway it is a True manual it has a story behind it. I love reading game manuals that actually have a story to them.. it imereses me into the game more.. now days when you buy a game you get a cd and a 2-3 page book 2 of the pages are about how not to scratch the cd and how you can have seizure from playign games. The last page is the disclaimer... I think it would be nice to have a brief summary on the first page.. but have more of a story some where else, maybe with some cool drawings done by the art dept (like warcraft had).

Edited by Jesus Escariut, 09 April 2004 - 02:22 PM.

[j'ordos]

Yeah, most of the manual in Warcraft 1 was story, about the history of the "Brutal Orcish Invasion of Lordaeron"... flip the manual and suddenly you got the history of the "Heroic Orcish Invasion on the Pitiful Humans": (written report from Orcish Scout leader) "We went through gate, found many weak screaming things...slayed many...had much food...now Ghrôkk stop, head hurt from writing"
Some games still have much background, but rather as .pdf and I always liked a printed manual better, I remember those good old days when a game made by Microprose came with at least 2 telephone books equivalents
So I think lots of background material is good, those who aren't interested can skip it, the others can delve into it if they want to.

[Jesus Escariut]

Okay I was sitting here thinking (yea i know hard to believe) , but anyway I liked the idea of using the previous world events as a starting stone for the invasion? i forget who posted it but UFO Art I came across that in one of these threads. (if a mod knows the original poster you may edit my post to give credit to them)

After reading that site and looking at the images it is obvious UFOs have visited our planet. I don't care if any of you believe that. I have also been reading a lot of other sites about aliens, and people that have seen the blue book report... having read all this i have a good idea for a back story.. well a start for one at least

The aliens (greys, vipers, etc) have been visiting out planet off and on for thousands of years now with increasing activity. So you can think of them as scouts. We say something along the lines as the governments of the world have been hiding this from the public for fear of a mass hysteria. The aliens become hostile and no longer obey the treaties they had with the governments. The alien force has finally arrived and fully setup their beach head on cydonia and begin to launch their attack.

When this happens the world goes into a big dispute as some groups claim the aliens are "angels" and other claim they are "deamons" and its armogeden blah blah blah.. this causes a lot of problems since no one govt. can take on the force with out stepping on another govt. toes. so the UN holds a confrence and they setup the X-corps

[Andrew]

Yeah I forgot to mention that we should include the religious hysteria and occult that go into a frenzy after the "offical" contact with Aliens. Just like the movie Contact.

I agree with the whole manual thing as which was kinda what I was talking about. I love manuals I read them over and over again it kinda puts you there. So while you are playing you feel you hvae a historical purpose of a sort.

When I mentioned a series of documents or communications, I think Halo (again) and some other games released stuff on their site. like scrambeled communications and tidbits of information and details.. It got my intrested.

[Danny252]

The aliens (greys, vipers, etc) have been visiting out planet off and on for thousands of years now with increasing activity. So you can think of them as scouts. We say something along the lines as the governments of the world have been hiding this from the public for fear of a mass hysteria. The aliens become hostile and no longer obey the treaties they had with the governments. The alien force has finally arrived and fully setup their beach head on cydonia and begin to launch their attack.

When this happens the world goes into a big dispute as some groups claim the aliens are "angels" and other claim they are "deamons" and its armogeden blah blah blah.. this causes a lot of problems since no one govt. can take on the force with out stepping on another govt. toes. so the UN holds a confrence and they setup the X-corps

And splat go the aliens..
Religious guys..
Suspicious guys..
Hysteric guys.. ::
Confused guys..
Angry guys..
Amazed guys..
And guys with plasma rifles.. :plasma:

Also I agree with j'ordos, we sure need a good manual with a storyline. It entertains me reading manuals for hours on end for some reason.

Edited by Danny252, 10 April 2004 - 10:30 AM.

[Andrew]

So just to let me get more info. Do we have offical backstories written up? Or would anyone (or me) like to have a crack at it, and begin incorporating eveyones ideas into a product.

[Puasonen]

So just to let me get more info. Do we have offical backstories written up? Or would anyone (or me) like to have a crack at it, and begin incorporating eveyones ideas into a product.

Feel free to write whatever you wish. But before that, I suggest you read every topic at http://www.xcomufo.c...hp?showforum=56
Feel free to use everyones ideas and keep in mind that this game will be heavily influenced by x-com enemy unknown so it would be nice if you have read all the alien stuff you can research in that game too.

[Kamikazee]

???
Whered my reply go. did a mod delete it?

[Kamikazee]

I was thinking, we were doing some 8ull in science about ecology or somint today. WHen i logged on just now i thought of a possible story for da aliens.

Okay the aliens were a lot like us once (shown in autopsies), like us thay had a massive population growth (this was before they had colonised other planets as they didnt have the tech yet). things were rather unfortunate for them, there were mass famines and global warming (yep they had it too). In attempts to produce more food chemicals were used which increased cancer to such a stage they began contemplating genetic engenering to cure their now global genetic cancer. But instead they decided to genetically modify a sample of the problem pests and fungi, resulting in a shortened life and svere problems for that species that would eventually be spread through genetics killing off the species totally. thus meaning chemical be needed no more, increasing food yield and saving their lives. However it was already to late. the cancer was present genetically in 4/5 of the population and was incurable. They gain space travel.

Heres the choice they either.
A.) come to kidnap us to use us to cure their cancer.
B.) come to kill us in order to save the other animals on earth which they now want to repllace the ones they killed cos they realise it was a lame idea

Not the best in the world but thought i might as well add it.