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[scrdest]

Let's be clear here. There are like 40 (in log war in normal X-com its more like 20 tops) soldiers.
Sure tehy go here and there do missions but the entire world is fighting. Goverments ask you for laser weapons and regular soldiers fight and die in thousands.

Sure X-Com destroy one ship and one of the leaders behind the invasion but that was pretty much a meeting point stablished by the aliens as a final test for the selected x-com psi trooper.

Test with an integrated awards ceremony. Also - not just for the Volunteer, for humanity as a whole - the Volunteer is just a representative of what the human race could produce at its best.

It's like some country hosted the World Cup in... whatever, and the victorious contestant assassinated the president while shaking hands with him.

[puke]

Somehow I'm imagining a cross between the opening scene of The Last Boyscout and the ending of Death Race 2000 (original with Carradine and Stallone).

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[miauw62]

I would be furious if the XCOM-2 plotline was "And then they roflstomped you", in spite of all those better-than-anything-they-have guns, your psychics, your robots, you destroying the temple ship and shooting down every UFO they sent at you, and whups you're back down to kevlar vests and m16s.

"What if you were on vacation in the bahamas when the aliens showed up" is a way better storyline in my opinion.

TBH, I was imagining the aliens just murdering all of XCOM, and this game's protags being a rebel group inspired by XCOM rather than XCOM itself.

E: I do understand the points other people made, though. I may even prefer the current AU thing they've got going.

[Rolan7]

The temple ship's Ethereals complain as you kill them that "this is not your path!"  The test was not to kill the uber ethereal.  If the test was more than a desperate gambit, which I still don't believe, then the goal was to reach the Uber Ethereal and join them.

The aliens don't need XCOM's volunteer, they already utilize powerful human psionics.  Which is why they do everything they can to end the XCOM project while keeping humanity alive.  They even release chryssalids on cities to erode support for XCOM.  If XCOM doesn't stop those chryssalids, the nation leaves the council.  Probably because it's *swarming with chryssalids*.  The aliens are practically killing off whole nations, damaging their prize, because it's the only way to stop XCOM.  That's not a "test", that's them getting desperate.

It's true they start with smaller ships and weaker soldiers.  Besides gameplay/storyline segregation, this makes sense if they didn't see humanity's psi potential at first.  Or understand how effectively we'd resist them.  They act like their resources are limited, so they probably are.  Consider the number of intact ships we capture, including the Slingshot battleship.  Yet no mention of FTL drives, even as theoretical technology we can't figure out soon.  The implication is that the temple ship is producing a wormhole, or psionic "rift".  Easily explains the limited number of UFOs, and why its destruction is considered a victory.

Additionally, and this is speculation, I bet the temple ship itself doesn't have a FTL drive either.  It might have had to fly here conventionally, explaining why it stuck around to be boarded.  It also provides a way for XCOM 2 to be won:  Like in XCOM 1, X-COM 1, and Half Life 2, the alien occupation can be cut off from their empire for a loooong time.

Dr Chen was right that the aliens could destroy humanity easily, but not that they could conquer.

[ChairmanPoo]

What I would do, if I was the scriptwriter

- The all-powerful Ethereals are gone (or at least severely weakened), but there are still legions of their former servitors alive, now freed from the shackles of Ethereal-slavery, and with all their tech avaiable. Worse, some of those servitor aliens have psi-powers (sectoids)

- Since the whole Ethereal-test gambit is now off, they quit their terrorist tactics and simply rush the planet. Exalt joins the party as your friendly neighbourhood quislings. They already wanted to strike a deal with the aliens before. And their new management is less powerful and more likely to be willing to strike a deal.

[scrdest]

With X-COM a known threat, that would be Game Over Screen: The Game.

And even if that was somehow handwaved, you get Power Creep - either X-COM is suddenly taken over by Senior Officer McLuddite who completely and randomly orders the destruction of anything past ballistics and kevlar or you have to go beyond plasma - and that ends up with you having to go SMAC and have guns that shoot probability or whatever.

[puke]

The tech roll back shouldnt be a problem. 

20 years of post apocalyptic guerrilla warfare and no funding, things break.  You might have a couple weapons laying around, but you probably cant reload them until you get back on your feet and recover some of the lost technology you used to have.

Oh well.

[Sheb]

I'd prefer something along the line of the Volunteer coming back a hero after blowing up the Temple Ship, but having been turned into a tool of the aliens by the experience. Using a mix of status and mind control, she takes over XCOM. Most of the previous leadership either flee or is prosecuted for wrecking human-alien relations and creating a major environmental disaster by taking out the Temple Ship.

XCOM under Volunteer leadership changes its name to ADVENT and start building new domed cities to host the remnant of humanity, as some member of the old leadership create a new, guerilla XCOM to take down the aliens.

[Dorsidwarf]

So there's two camps of thinking...

Either this is an AU where Bradford was a traitorous commander and the Volunteer somehow fits in through psionics or something to save XCOM

Or this is post-first-game where the Volunteer was a traitor and Bradford saves XCOM?

Damnit Bradford

[umiman]

I wonder how many pages you guys are going to reach before the game even comes out.

[10ebbor10]

So there's two camps of thinking...

Either this is an AU where Bradford was a traitorous commander and the Volunteer somehow fits in through psionics or something to save XCOM

Or this is post-first-game where the Volunteer was a traitor and Bradford saves XCOM?

Damnit Bradford

There are no two lines of thinking.

There's the game's canon, which has been literally stated numerous times to be that XCOM loses early and hard.

And there's people going on a tangent.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I wonder how many pages you guys are going to reach before the game even comes out.

Considering it comes out in three months, at the earliest?

A lot.

[puke]

There are no two lines of thinking.

There's the game's canon, which has been literally stated numerous times to be that XCOM loses early and hard.

And there's people going on a tangent.

This isn't in question, is it?  The hype must be strong to spur this much controversy, Firaxis should be proud.  Maybe they just made up whatever they thought would outrage the most people and generate conversation, and the actual game plot is totally different?

Tangents for the Tangent God!  Secants for the Circle Throne!

I wonder how many pages you guys are going to reach before the game even comes out.

ALL OF THEM!

[Krevsin]

The tech roll back shouldnt be a problem. 

20 years of post apocalyptic guerrilla warfare and no funding, things break.  You might have a couple weapons laying around, but you probably cant reload them until you get back on your feet and recover some of the lost technology you used to have.

Oh well.

Psi soldiers don't break or wear out near as I can tell. And dedicated machinists can keep things running for a veeeeery long time.

[Sheb]

Yeah, but if XCOM lost early and hard, you didn't get psionics.