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Why do you think the aliens invaded?


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You know, they could all be part of a interstellar mining corporation. Perhaps the aliens simply want our metal. But they have a bottom line to meet, so they don't have the massive resources of an entire intergalactic space army, but rather something more akin to an exploretory force.

So they came for our mineral wealth, but eventually realized that they could exploit the biosphere for profit as well, so they decided to start mining us too.

"And from planet #945785-III, we have semi-intelligent hominids..."

That's right, space zoos.

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Wow that is one boring reason. Is it a deus ex machina solution or something? Or do you get to know the reason early on with a proper motivation as to why that reason is ok?

Been a while, but as far as I remember they broadcast their reasons while trying to hunt down survivors. It was all about the ability to travel at relativistic speeds. Once you accelerate a bunch of big rocks fast enough, by the time the other planet sees them, they won't be able to stop them. As soon as they impact, life on that planet is over.

Which is exactly how they took out earth. The only few survivors are a bunch of scientists and astronauts that had been off planet during the attack

Also, they've been recieving earth broadcasts for a while, and fighting aliens is a predominant theme among science fiction, so they think us predisposed to that sort of thing.

They even quote the enterprize blowing up a borg cube I think.

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They had just received the 1936 olympics broadcast and ascertained we are a race of competetive warmongering xenophobic expansionists.

At first, they figured they could quietly abduct humans and splice the 'enlightened, peaceful' genes into our own... but no, the darn humans just had to send in the jets and go nuclear. THIS MEANS WAR!

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Been a while, but as far as I remember they broadcast their reasons while trying to hunt down survivors. It was all about the ability to travel at relativistic speeds. Once you accelerate a bunch of big rocks fast enough, by the time the other planet sees them, they won't be able to stop them. As soon as they impact, life on that planet is over.

Which is exactly how they took out earth. The only few survivors are a bunch of scientists and astronauts that had been off planet during the attack

Also, they've been recieving earth broadcasts for a while, and fighting aliens is a predominant theme among science fiction, so they think us predisposed to that sort of thing.

They even quote the enterprize blowing up a borg cube I think.

Any chance that you can find out what the title for this book is? I want to attack it and call it lazy writing but I think I should read it before I do something like that.

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The game takes place in the late 70s, so they're obviously here for disco music and cocaine, precious resources that humanity refuses to give up.

Also, you're now imagining people blasting Bee Gees or ABBA in the chinnok.

Even Kiss went Disco... that was so sad...

I think they are blasting the Ramones, who doesn't love the Ramones!

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Who knows, in this alternate timeline, maybe they signed up to the Xenonauts, not some record label... Squad names anyone?

Capt Abba, Take Sgt BeeGee to the flank and Corporal KC will take the sunshine band and sneak up from Behind, while Commander Cody will take the lost planet Airmen on a frontal assault of the ship! Nah, don't worry the Base will be fine, we left the Village people there to defend it.

Edited by nutbarz
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Brain gave a fairly poor reason at the end of Enemy Unknown as far as I'm concerned... But I did notice one thing throughout Enemy Unknown whilst trying to answer this question myself...

They collected an awful lot of our stuff... Wasn't uncommon to see Cows being autopsied on Terror and Supply ships... And in Supply Bases you could see all kinds of funky stuff, humanoid skeletons that are clearly... Well Human skeletons, amongst other relics of ours.

So let's look at what we know:

-Elerium is limited.

-They kill everything, not just people, but the local wildlife as well. (Evidenced by the killing of cows, which they've no reason for other than stereotyping. I seem to also remember seeing dead snakes and vultures from time to time.)

-They won't attack en masse, nor do they send in the upper echelon right away. (Mutons, Ethereals. Also not to be mistaken for not being able to attack en masse; maybe they could've and just didn't.)

-They attack in small bands; not sending full battalions even, instead sending in something more akin to a Special Ops squad.

-They seem to prefer subtlety and infiltration to out-right war.

The one thing this tells us definitively: They want us alive. -Us-. We can also safely assume Brain lied; they prefer to maneuver using political machinations, so of course they're comfortable with lying. (Yeah, pot-shot at politicians, so sue me.) But why do they have so much of our stuff? Why do they have what equates to a biological museum? What's the point?

It all comes back to the cows. The Scientists only had it half-right, see. They weren't just mushing down the cows into a nutrient-paste to feed themselves, they also wanted their genetic material. This also explains why they were attempting cross-breeding between Sectoids and Humans; they had to understand the principles of how our gene's would bond to the gene's of other species, and it makes more sense to bond them to something more similar first. And in order to understand our genetic history and diversity, they collected our stuff and studies us, from time immemorial to present day.

This all leads up to my hypothesis; the cow abductions, human abductions, and genetic hybridization were all linked. They wanted a docile human race, to genetically bond us to cows, which are fat in the nutrients they seem to so desire. This whole war started over food. They're facing a famine that threatens to force them to extinction. The aliens aren't all buddy-buddy with one another just because they happen to have a good nature towards diversity, they're doing it out of common interest, and a war between any groupings of their respective species guarantees mutual annihilation, where-as warring with the primitive humans at least gives them a chance. This even explains why they don't field much other than Sectoids to begin with, as well as the political machinations and the small numbers of troops they field; an army marches on its stomach, and you can't feed an army if you don't have food. It also explains why the Earthly governments would even consent to an alliance with the Xeno's; they're trading what they see as certain destruction for slavery, which in their twisted minds still gives us a chance.

They don't want our Gold, Platinum, what-have-you, they want us. They want us. For food.

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This all leads up to my hypothesis; the cow abductions, human abductions, and genetic hybridization were all linked. They wanted a docile human race, to genetically bond us to cows, which are fat in the nutrients they seem to so desire.

Or maybe they wanted to breed a smarter cow.

Perhaps they read The Restaurant at the End of the Universe and thought the Dish of the Day was a fantastic idea?

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  • 2 weeks later...

In Enemy Unknown I always assumed the first aliens to arrive were just scientists, interested in the biology of the planet and trying to do their work quietly. They certainly didn't expect to find an 'intelligent' species (they still don't consider humans intelligent until we kill the Brain at the end). So the initial scouts aren't made up of soldiers at all. They fired first on us because they were scared (imagine you'd just gone to Africa, say, and several lions surrounded you. You have a gun. You'd shoot wouldn't you? Last thing you'd expect is for the lions to go away and come back with a gun of their own!)

So after a few ships go missing the aliens send some more experienced people in (equivalent to sending the police).

The police get shot too. So send in the army. And when that fails get your allies to help you out too. There's never a massive invasion force because the higher ranked aliens never believe it could be that difficult to harvest our world. (Using the Lion analogy, nobody would sanction an all out war against African Lions now would they? Well, maybe once one arrived at the White House with a machine gun...)

This also fits in (sort of) with what the Brain told us at the end of the game - that they seeded Earth in the first place and were just coming back for a harvest (the initial scientists were here to check up on us. But perhaps the 'crop' has been left longer than they intended).

It's even possible that the Brain's final request (for humanity to come and join them) was actually legit.

Like in a lot of conflicts, there's no definitive Good and Bad side (that just depends on whose side you're on) - it's simply a colossal misunderstanding :)

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Well i'm refering to Vladimir Vasiliev book too much. It says that there was a civilization on mars but then it perished. Alien base on mars is smth like a factory. It does not expand it's economy or industrial capacity. It produces aliens and their ships. This factory is smth like a unit. This unit is applying a strategy that is not very flexible. Alien intellect is limited in terms of imagination. The purpuse of the factory is limited. Aliens (sectoids etc) are much more clever then humans but their intellect is castrated.

Alien base wakes up somewhy and starts to operate. This is xcom

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I believe that Chris has said there is a huge alien fleet around Earth that is slowly adapting its ships so as to fly in our atmosphere. That gives me the impression of poor planning on the aliens part. I can think of two reasons for that.

Either this fleet has the last survivors of some horrific event and have been running away looking for a safe place to settle on, kind of like the show Battlestar Galactica or the Migrant Fleet in Mass Effect. They are a ragtag fleet with few naval personal and even fewer soldiers. This could explain the noncombatants on board the ships that you shoot down, they have a lack of military personal but plenty of civilians to help crew the ships. They are here to simply make Earth their new home and they don't care about humanity.

This could be used to set up a sequel for Xenonauts in which we encounter those who the original aliens were running away from.

Or it could be that this is a cliche alien invasion fleet but one that has been hastily sent out and the alien commander is busy screaming at the stupidity of his superiors at sending him out with no intel and no proper equipment for conducting a invasion.

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