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[Dohon]

Frequently Asked Questions

What is it?

Threat Unknown is an After Action Report (or AAR) of the game XCOM: Enemy Unknown. Threat Unknown will be a story based upon a playhtrough of the XCOM game. You will be able to read about the exploits of brave soldiers and scientists against the alien menace. The struggle will be long and hard, but humanity will prevail! Hopefully …

The playthrough itself will be conducted on the Classic Ironman difficulty. Every mission and major event will be detailed extensively. The updates themselves will be in the written form, but the writing style itself will be varied. One update might feature a more general overview while the next is written from the perspective of one particular soldier. There will also be several 'extra episodes' that delve deeper into the relationships between the soldiers and how they behave themselves in the middle of an Alien invasion.

Can I be in it?

Since XCOM offers very extensive customization, it would be a shame not to use it! Therefore, you can have your own soldier in this playthrough. But before you submit your soldier, here are a few rules:

* You may submit one (1) soldier and one (1) non-combatant (researcher, engineer, pilot, etc...). You cannot take the role of key NPC's (Bradford, Dr. Vahlen, Dr. Shen, …). Soldiers take priority, unless you only want a non-combatant only.

* You decide how detailed your soldier is. If you submit a name and nothing else, that is okay. If you want to write up a very detailed backstory, that is cool. I will work with what I got. Keep in mind that XCOM is a very random game. Therefore, it might not be possible to make everything fit.

* Dead is dead. No exceptions. You cannot apply for another soldier in case he/she dies.

When can I read it?

As soon as possible. Once I can beat Classic difficulty, I'll start the playthrough. Updates will be done after every completed operation. Real-life doesn't allow me to have a regular updating schedule for the coming year. It will be better by the summer of 2013, but updates until then will be infrequent.

[Remalle]

Ooh.  This is interesting, posting to watch for now.
By the way, might want to fix that link.

[MaximumZero]

Oh, I'm so in. Maxclones, awaaaaay!

[Mephansteras]

All right then, looking forward to this when it actually happens!

[Dohon]

Cheers for the interest, folks! Remember, if you want to have your own little soldier in-game, post the name, nickname and class / profession here. That way, I can already start chipping away at the profiles.

[Mephansteras]

Cheers for the interest, folks! Remember, if you want to have your own little soldier in-game, post the name, nickname and class / profession here. That way, I can already start chipping away at the profiles.

Is Class really an option with the new game? You'll either be holding off on putting people in until someone levels who gets that class, or putting people in as rookies and seeing what they get.

I suppose you could let people pick which route they want to take.

[MaximumZero]

I'm easy to do.

The original Max Greene was killed in a horrifying flying suit prototype failure, before X-Com had an actual enemy. However, enough of his body was found to make clones, to make use of his vastly high potential. Clones of Max Greene (henceforth known as "Maxclones") have been used in numerous experiments, mostly thanks to the clones' bravery, extreme overconfidence, self-destructive tendencies, and love of explosions. An international treaty has been signed to keep no more than one Maxclone in any infantry unit, due to an almost suicidal urge to engage in combat when in a theater of operations. This has resulted in extreme losses to civilian escorts, soft targets within range of the clones, and munitions. While in base, the Maxclones are happy to exaggerate rumors and stories to absurd levels, and drink as much alcohol as humanly possible, especially when allowed to associate with one another. They tend to shy away from training and exercise, except Combatives and Explosives training, and shirk responsibilities whenever possible. All in all, the Maxclones are not terribly good soldiers, but when properly motivated, they are a force of destruction like no other. Most Maxclones are short, caucasian, and dark haired. All identify as Americans.

[Dohon]

Cheers for the interest, folks! Remember, if you want to have your own little soldier in-game, post the name, nickname and class / profession here. That way, I can already start chipping away at the profiles.

Is Class really an option with the new game? You'll either be holding off on putting people in until someone levels who gets that class, or putting people in as rookies and seeing what they get.

I suppose you could let people pick which route they want to take.

It is something I have worried about and once the game is released, I'll get a feel how the system works. If it takes one participated mission to level up (or one kill or the equivalent), I can dance around the issue narrative-wise. If I know what the class will be after the mission, I can then look-up who has requested that class. Bit of a clunky approach though.

Interesting stuff about clones. Maxclones, that is.

Now this is something I could not have imagined myself. This is gonna be interesting. Real interesting.

[Mephansteras]

Well, I guess I'll just give you a soldier and let things shake out as they will.

Shadow
Male
American Caucasian
Brown Hair

A rather dour and silent man, Shadow is determined to take out the alien menace. His background is a bit of a mystery to most, although it is known that he served in Afghanistan for several tours of duty. He got his nickname because he prefers to stick to the shadows and flank his opponents.

(He can start as a rookie. Hopefully he'll get Assault or Sniper, but if he gets Support he'll make extensive use of smoke grenades. Heavy...not sure. Still mostly flank attacks, I guess. Maybe stay back and provide suppressive fire and use the rocket launcher to blow holes in buildings for the other soldiers to go through.)

[MaximumZero]

Interesting stuff about clones. Maxclones, that is.

Now this is something I could not have imagined myself. This is gonna be interesting. Real interesting.

Honestly, it's a cheap backstory and an excuse to get me killed in ridiculous and hilarious ways. Also, I'm usually limited to six clones.

[Itnetlolor]

All of a sudden, I am recalling a past Bay-12 LP of XCOM which I tossed in Lizzie Shinkicker to help out Gendo with his base in Tokyo-3.

[Dohon]

Well, I guess I'll just give you a soldier and let things shake out as they will.

Shadow
Male
American Caucasian
Brown Hair

A rather dour and silent man, Shadow is determined to take out the alien menace. His background is a bit of a mystery to most, although it is known that he served in Afghanistan for several tours of duty. He got his nickname because he prefers to stick to the shadows and flank his opponents.

(He can start as a rookie. Hopefully he'll get Assault or Sniper, but if he gets Support he'll make extensive use of smoke grenades. Heavy...not sure. Still mostly flank attacks, I guess. Maybe stay back and provide suppressive fire and use the rocket launcher to blow holes in buildings for the other soldiers to go through.)

Aight, he's in. I'll do my best to make him either an Assault, Sniper or Support. The first two preferably, would fit a lot with his grim-get-the-job-done-attitude.

All of a sudden, I am recalling a past Bay-12 LP of XCOM which I tossed in Lizzie Shinkicker to help out Gendo with his base in Tokyo-3.

Well, if you want to have another go at shooting little grey men, I'm always looking for more canno ... recruits.

[Rexfelum]

I dunno, maybe I could volunteer one of my X-COM characters from playing the original.

Consider, if you will, Gerard Dreyfus.  He is a soldier, like in the original.  He looks like one of the soldiers from the original.  And I know you can't guarantee he'll be awesome and ascend to the top of the officer rankings (deservedly), but that's what he did in the original.

He also used heavy plasma a lot.  And then there was the time I had him as the sole defender of a base, but the base never got attacked, so he rejoined the other teams and was still awesome despite his "time-out."

--Rexfelum

[Dohon]

I dunno, maybe I could volunteer one of my X-COM characters from playing the original.

Consider, if you will, Gerard Dreyfus.  He is a soldier, like in the original.  He looks like one of the soldiers from the original.  And I know you can't guarantee he'll be awesome and ascend to the top of the officer rankings (deservedly), but that's what he did in the original.

He also used heavy plasma a lot.  And then there was the time I had him as the sole defender of a base, but the base never got attacked, so he rejoined the other teams and was still awesome despite his "time-out."

--Rexfelum

Everytime I read the name Dreyfus, I can't help but think of the Dreyfus affaire. So, the French Gerard Dreyfus will join XCOM and (hopefully)  proceed to kick ass. If you say, looks like a soldier from the original, do you refer to the blond, Guile hair?

[Mephansteras]

Aight, he's in. I'll do my best to make him either an Assault, Sniper or Support. The first two preferably, would fit a lot with his grim-get-the-job-done-attitude.

From what I gather, what class a soldier gets is basically random once they level up the first time, so we'll just have to see. Might be interesting to see how his general strategy works with whatever class he ends up with.