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[Teneb]

I do wonder one thing. Why the bloody hell did we lose, if it's truly within the first few weeks? What happened differently?
Also, WHY ARE WE STILL LISTENING TO THE COMMANDER

I favour the theory posted earlier in the thread that said the commander in this alt-verse was initially Bradford, who failed many missions by ordering his men to dash stupidly into peril.

But it says 'Welcome back'. I highly doubt we'll play as Bradford. Maybe Bradford took over halfway due to some bullshit? Actually, that makes...A lot of sense. The Commander gets demoted and Bradford takes over, fails, and The Commander must lead XCOM to save Hoomanitee.

What Umiman said. You likely lost your first XCOM run. Pretty much everyone did. In-story, XCOM has no save system, they can't just start a new game. XCOM tried. XCOM lost. Simple as that.

[Neonivek]

Or the aliens sent a message back in time, saw they were going to lose, so instead they just bombarded the planet from space a bit.

[kilakan]

Also that yeah, the whole 'game slowly scales up difficulty to make it more interesting.' Isn't something that would tend to happen in real life, XCOM probably just got stormed by muton beserkers and cryssalids before anyone even knew what was happening.

[Shadowlord]

Bradford got you shitcanned to McMurdo by the Council, followed rapidly by anyone who wouldn't follow his dashtastic orders. Soon you've got a crack squad who actually use their brains, and Bradford is exposed as an alien plant when he just hands XCOM HQ over to the aliens. Shortly thereafter the Council goes dark and the aliens establish their New World Order.

They just landed a UFO next to McMurdo, and you're mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore.

#ItCouldHappen

[scrdest]

Also that yeah, the whole 'game slowly scales up difficulty to make it more interesting.' Isn't something that would tend to happen in real life, XCOM probably just got stormed by muton beserkers and cryssalids before anyone even knew what was happening.

Ooooh, you're so wrong. This explicitly is not a case of gameplay and story segregation.

[KingofstarrySkies]

Aye, the reason was-Well, Dr. Shen put it well.
'If they wanted to invade, there's not much we could do to stop them.'
They're testing us. For a good reason.

[Rolan7]

In my opinion they're testing humanity, not XCOM.  Once XCOM starts confounding them, the terror missions start, and they're constantly trying to subvert the XCOM project's government support.  Doesn't make much sense if they're relying on XCOM specifically to create a volunteer.

And eventually they assault XCOM headquarters directly attempting to destroy it.  To do so they practically ruin four psionic humans they engineered, themselves, without any reliance on XCOM.  Clearly their abduction and experimentation programs were working so well that they thought they could afford to sacrifice these specimens - humans who exhibited psi powers well beyond anything XCOM ever discovers.  And yet they were expendable, if it meant ending the primary source of human resistance.

I don't think the Volunteer was supposed to come from XCOM.  The aliens do their best to erode XCOM's support, pursue their own highly successful research, try to wipe out XCOM directly at high cost, then do their best to kill the Volunteer *on the temple ship*.  I think the closest this gets to being their plan is them thinking "Well, I guess our only chance now is to tempt XCOM's volunteer and hope it defects.  Otherwise it'll probably kill us.  Throw everything at them anyway, just in case...  Call it a test."

Hm, I still think EXALT was working on a volunteer.  They were certainly after Annette.  Maybe the canon result is that EXALT, surviving like cockroaches, was able to train their own Volunteer who cooperated with the aliens.

Or heck, maybe the aliens did just build their own.  I'd rather it be EXALT, though.  Or have a rejected EXALT Volunteer be an important part of the story.

[Sheb]

Yeah, I spent enough time looking a stupid Exalt's deathcam that I really want those guys to be around.

[Quartz_Mace]

Please do not refer to rookies as or derivatives of the following: meat shields, blood bags, mobile cover, red-shirts, the distraction, dead men walking. It reduces their willingness to function as such.

Really brings me back to the original game.

[miauw62]

I haven't played the original XCOM, but maybe you won, the aliens got extra pissed and sent in a huge fleet that steamrolled XCOM, even with their awesome gear? Or is there something in the plot preventing that?

[Neonivek]

I haven't played the original XCOM, but maybe you won, the aliens got extra pissed and sent in a huge fleet that steamrolled XCOM, even with their awesome gear? Or is there something in the plot preventing that?

No... Heck maybe the earth was devastated due to the light-speed engine... and the aliens came down and "saved" the human race knowing they couldn't get home and invaded insidiously. Then they did a power play and beat the Xcom in a week.

[puke]

I haven't played the original XCOM, but maybe you won, the aliens got extra pissed and sent in a huge fleet that steamrolled XCOM, even with their awesome gear? Or is there something in the plot preventing that?

No, there is nothing preventing that and it is the most reasonable way for the plot to progress.

Except that isn't what is happening.  Firaxis has told IGN that they are scrapping the original game, it never happened, earth surrendered at the beginning of the war.

I try to fixate on the snakeboobs, though.  They make me less upset than the bad script writing.

[ChairmanPoo]

There's a contradiction between that stuff they fed us about this being based on a defeat in the first game's campaign, and the remarks about "the Volunteer survived". If this was based in a lost campaign, there would be no successful Temple Ship mission, and no volunteer, obviously.

Therefore: The defeat referred to during XCOM2 happens sometime *after* XCOM1.

[Neonivek]

There's a contradiction between that stuff they fed us about this being based on a defeat in the first game's campaign, and the remarks about "the Volunteer survived". If this was based in a lost campaign, there would be no successful Temple Ship mission, and no volunteer, obviously.

Therefore: The defeat referred to during XCOM2 happens sometime *after* XCOM1.

Which honestly makes a LOT more sense given the types of aliens we see (being hybrids)

Hopefully we will finally find out what the Celestials were beyond "energy beings".

[puke]

There's a contradiction between that stuff they fed us about this being based on a defeat in the first game's campaign, and the remarks about "the Volunteer survived". If this was based in a lost campaign, there would be no successful Temple Ship mission, and no volunteer, obviously.

Therefore: The defeat referred to during XCOM2 happens sometime *after* XCOM1.

no.  that would be nice, but no.

When they're talking about the volunteer, theyre not saying that he survived into xcom2.  they're saying that in the end cinematic it was intended to show him surviving and they wanted to clarify that.  It isn't a contradiction, its just a different topic.

I'm hoping they change their minds, they probably wouldnt have to alter the game at all to fix the plot so that the first game was still relevant.