Story Idea

[coolp]

Okay... here's an idea...

 

in the year [user time +5) all research equiptement on the moon suddenly stopped transmitting to the earthbound scientists... the US government chalks it up as the equiptment got old and simply stopped working; but conspiracy theories abound.

 

[user time +7) Hubble Space Telescope suddenly blows up. There is no obvious cause, the only thing that is known about the explosion was that the area around the telescope turned a light shade of blue right before the explosion.

 

[user time +10] Stories of Alien abductions are more frequent, cattle are found slaughtered, radars at military bases have frequent power surges, and television signals appear scrambeled much of the time. The final piece of evidence occurs when a F-16 is shot down by an unkown combatant, and found in a smoldering hulk, singed straight through, still glowing a faint blue, not unlike that of the Hubble. The United States approaches the UK, Canada, Japan, China, India, and Israel, and together they decide to form an organization to investigate these strange occurences, and to deal with any threat there is. All the nations pledge funding, troops, scientists, and engineers. But can they stop the alien invasion?

 

 

 

The reason I put only a few countries is that it is more manageble for an organization like that to only consist of rich countries, and it would tie into a multiplayer idea I posted earlier...

 

 

Thought?

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Intresting. However, we do already have a basic story. Of course, some of your ideas could be incorporated into it...

 

I believe the story we are currently using is Bruenor's Excellent Alien Origins CTD. (Found on the ctd assets list.)

[coolp]

didn't even see that...

 

Wow thats good... nm =)

[Breunor]

We can always incorporate additional ideas into the storyline. We could mention that occasionally a commercial satellite stops transmitting, and at some point hubble had a critical failure and a rapid descent from orbit, burning up during reentry. The aliens wouldn't destroy satellites on site, they are using stealth and not bringing attention to themselves. But if they thought the object could detect them they would take it out quietly. Hubble of course would go, it's a huge looking glass that could watch sectoids bathe on Mars. The occasional "commercial" satellite could later be confirmed as a military spy satellite, with the potential ability to see a passing ufo.

 

The F-16 will be the YF-23 of course, and it would be simple enough to say the UN is funding the project, from a special fund each member nation contributes to. We can say regional representatives give the UN its funds, and then use what the original game had.

[Syntax Error]

If i have understood your text about the Origin, we don't know exactly what is the "Overmind"?

[Cpl. Facehugger]

The humans don't.

 

For the Project members (like you and me) the overmind is a vast sentient mind that enslaves other species. (And, if we go with my idea of the Vaaish, the overmind fights the Vaaish.)

[Breunor]

According to Arthur C Clark, the Overmind is an energy based life form out in space, and in the book Childhood's End humans eventually evolve into energy and go meld with it. Perhaps j'ordos or some other Dune fan could tell us the name of the huge brain-looking creature I seem to recall being in the movie? That's probably where the original xcom people got their idea from. In any case, we can come up with a story about it, or not bother since it would not be in the game. We only see the big blob at the end of the game. But most games like Warcraft have a detailed story explaining lots of things not pertinent ot gameplay, so we can come up with all kinds of details. The only thing I would suggest at this point is don't put lots of physical details about it in the text, until we have the model for it approved you could end up rewriting everything...

 

Here's my thought on what the Overmind could be- in its own galaxy the Overmind is a nebulous mass of energy with no physical abilities, but it can manipulate matter using TK and can MC other life forms. A chunk was sent to help run this operation, but being so far from the collective mind required Overmind Jr to assimilate physical matter to sustain itself. Enough energy goes into maintaining this form that it can't do much beyond MC the aliens on Cydonia, who then delegate death, destruction, and mayham down on earth...

 

If people don't like that feel free to work on other ideas, or expound upon what we currently have.

[Syntax Error]

Obese? An huge brain-looking creature? A mass with no physical abilities? God Damn the Overmind is my neighboor!

 

I think i could write something about the past of the Overmind and Its goals, the conquest of many solar systems by Its henchmen, the degeneration of those, a Terra Formation, the disappearance of the dinosaures, the lost continent of Mu, very old engravings shelves found in Amazonia... can i do that or it is too late?

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Go right ahead. You may want to refrence my "Vaaish War" text for some information on why the overmind is doing what is doing (in my mind.)

 

Anyway, Bruenor, the Brain creatures in the Dune movie were the guild "Navigators" who had been immersed in spice so long that they mutated, and gained the ability to fold space with their minds. And see the future and stuff like that. They competed with the Bene Gesserits (sp?.)

 

Lastly, uhh, nevermind.

[j'ordos]

You could try to tie in the pampa's of Nazca too.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

And the Maya/Aztec Pyramids, and the Ancient Chineese buildings, and especially the Nazca lines (although J'ordos may have already mentioned it.)

 

Personally, I would like it if Earth was visited by a benevolent alien species who kind of got us started with civilization. Perhaps they knew that the overmind (or the Vaaish) would come for us one day. In fact, I think i'll do up a little history of this just to show what I mean.

[j'ordos]

You could try to tie in the pampa's of Nazca too.

Well, just what part of that line didn't you understand?

[Syntax Error]

We can call them Builders.

 

They come and help the mankind to build funny stuffs like Pyramids and they go away, but in their travel they meet the Overmind and then...

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Here is that idea I promised.

 

The "Builders" name is just a placeholder until we can think up a cooler one.

 

Humans have often wondered wether we were alone in the universe. We always looked to the future for contact with alien species, but in truth, we should have looked to the past. (Builders perfer Desert/Jungle areas, and dislike lots of water)

 

Long ago, there was an ancient, benevolent (nice) race. They lived on mars, and built up an advanced, spacefaring society. Then, they met the Vaaish and a terrible war ensued, during which the Builders were virtually annhilated. However, some managed to escape in several small vessels. They dedicated themselves to the destruction of the

 

Vaaish. (note that the survivors managed to hide, yet for the most part lacked much technology, except what they brought with them.) The Ancient survivors

began cautiously scanning the cosmos for something that could defeat the Vaaish. On a small water planet surprisingly near their homeworld, they found something that might be useful (this was humans, after the ammenomites left. The Builders came slightly before the rise of the babalonyian civilization.) They gave the primitive humans a kickstart in civilization, that they hoped would be enough to allow us to grow enough to possibly beat the Vaaish. Believeing their task to be done, the Builders returned to their hiding place and hid. They did try and keep an eye on the humans from time to time though. The 1st alien war came and went, they were quite pleased that the humans were able to defeat a vastly superior enemy force. Perhaps there is hope for the galaxy, the Builders thought. Then came the underwater aliens, controled by the Partially insane Supercomputer that was onboard the alien colony ship. These too were handily beaten by the humans. Not long after the destruction of [t'leth] the Vaaish arrived. Now Humanity's true test would begin...

 

I didn't check for spelling and grammar errors. Plus, this is just a very basic outline of my idea of the story. I didn't include pyramids or other nice stuff like that becaues I wanted to leave stuff for FE to do.

[Syntax Error]

Xenocide will be a sequel of XCom TFTD! :o

I believed that you were making a kind of revival of the first UFO.

 

 

 

Anyway, i thought that the Builders were nomads, they travelled in the universe and try to help some clever species.

They came for the first time at the end of the cretaceous and found the [snakemen], the first clever species on earth, they saved some of them before the fall of a meteorite.

They came back thousands of years ago and help the mankind to build some pyramids and large stone cities all over the world, gave them a lot of knowledge and they left again.

During their travel, they met the Overmind which assimilated them (and the snakemen).

And now they are coming back to destroy us, the last obstacle for the conquest of the galaxy.

 

(It is probable that the Builders are actually Elysians)

Edited December 4, 2003 by Syntax Error

[mikker]

Xenocide will be a sequel of XCom TFTD! :o

I believed that you were making a kind of revival of the first UFO.

yes. we should proberly not talk of xcom as prequals.

 

i like the idea.

 

They gave the old empires (aztec, babylon, atlantis?, vikings, egypt) high teknology (plasma?) to ensure them victory. they also build them highly advanced buildings, plasma generators, storage places, and underworlds for them to evolve. (Atlantis might have gotten a hold of some blaster launchers )

 

then they saw that instead of picking up their weapons and evolve into a strong spíecie, they made the weapons relics, and them gods. Instead of using the buildings, they made them religius, and using them or burial champers instead of acturly what they were used for. The Builders saw that this race would be anihilated by the Vaaish by not offering any opposition at all, they made a base on Earth, and took off in some newly build vehicles to find some new spiecies that could offer something.

 

for the overmind, i've just gotten Starship troopers. The brain creature could offer some ideas?

Edited December 4, 2003 by mikker

[Syntax Error]

If Xenocid is a sequel, we don't have to make research about plasma and laser weapons, because XCom do this before in 1999.

[Kamikazee]

I have a story idea, i know you already have one but consider it maybe for a sequel etc.

 

XCOM: Uprising:

 

Briefly:

___A shower of asteroids and debris fly through known space towards inhabitted planets.

___Defense turret network brought online but it mystreiously malfunctions.

___The 'asteroids' start changing direction, they are identified as missiles and a squadren of X1s are scrambled

___Contact is lost with the squadren. Marsec etc. scramble ships to intercept, all missiles but ten are destroyed, the entire fleet is decemated.

___fog appears on the ten hit planets

___Fog contains parassite (we dont know that though) which secretly infest every one

___Riots begin, crime increses, all out mayhem ensues this will be known as the 'madness'

___Marsec, Megapol, X-com, The government etc launch remaining ships to control rioting.

___rioters slaughter them, people flee but all die, except 27 or so on the planet Maximus_Prime they flee and take hostel in an abandoned manufacturing facility beneath the ground.

___they fight off controlled people and find a cure for it (research)

___Marsec reserves and some old xcom craft come as reenforcement, secure planet blah blah blah.

___Then they proceed to the next planet but oh no the parrasite has evolved yadda yadda. I think you get me drift. Many different mutations form.

___the madness has alien knowledge so it produces alien technology.

___at end they find alien fleet ship (huge) and destroy it voila!

 

But i have many more ideas.

Constructive critiscism please!

 

 

 

This mixes X4 (the space between planets, cant let infected people leave planets etc.) and X1, 3 (can trade with gangs and other survivors)

[mikker]

xenocide is BASED ON, not a SEQUEL to x-com.

 

to synex error.

Edited December 7, 2003 by mikker

[Syntax Error]

It is well what I thought! To Maikher

[Cpl. Facehugger]

currently the plan is as follows:

 

V1: Xcom Ufo Reloaded, essientially the same as the original, but with better graphics, etc. Story is same (backstory can change all we want, so long as it isn't too evident)

 

V2: Plans are to add TFTD elements into the game, so you would have to fight overmind and underwater creatures!

 

V3: Possibly include the Vaaish, if they are even going to be used.

Also, an overmind campaign may be added too.

[Breunor]

I would say that v2 will look at variations on gameplay like fog of war and adjusting range/accuracy type things, other changes to maybe the skill system or economics. Network support will keep going in, so maybe in v3 or 4 you see the option to play either side, eventually it becomes 2 player. At any point you can develop mods to change the aliens to Vaaish or whatever, but I doubt that would be tackled by the main team over all the other items out there.