TheTomahawk

First time, long time. I haven't been able to play much of the Alpha as my Mac isn't really letting me enjoy combat yet. I guess I'll cool my jets until the Beta. At any rate, here's my idea for a sequel. Arriving at the final showdown, the crew realizes that they'd bought themselves a one-way ticket. They secure victory and manage to commandeer a lightly-armed alien warship to limp back home. After approaching the Earth, the surviving members of the expedition have an Admiral Ackbar moment: It's a trap! Relativity played a trick on the intrepid heroes in that ten years have passed since they left. And another trick was played on them, this time by the villainous aliens. It turns out that the invasion was a red-herring and a means of testing our response. The aliens, lizard people, had infiltrated all levels of government ages ago and helped create Xenonauts to control the only organization and people that might be able to stop them. They then turned the Xenonaut technology and personnel, as well as heretofore unseen weapons and aliens, against the returning heroes. Worst of all, they managed to turn public sentiment against the original Xenonauts. They hide their alien identities and convince the human populace that the returning Xenonauts must have been complicit in the original alien invasion to be returning in the alien spaceship. Our heroes realize that they are again outgunned and outclassed by the aliens. They have some gear aboard their stolen ship and it turns out that there was one secret base that they kept hidden from both the Xenonauts who stayed behind and the alien usurpers. They must now assault their former bases, scavenge fuel and equipment, recruit conspiracy theorists to bolster their forces and stop the usurpers' propaganda, and use insurgent tactics to disrupt the enemy and generally make Earth too inhospitable for them to stay. Oh, and for an added measure, they discover that aliens in cryosleep on their ship feel betrayed by the new reptilian masters of Earth and want to aid the returning Xenonauts in attacking them, though a disruptive 5th column element may exist amongst those forces. The game would feature the good guys conducting raids for resources and terror missions to disrupt the status quo. Along the way, they recruit (or kidnap) other humans who may be amiable to joining the resistance. They also abduct political, business and military leaders as there's no way to know who the aliens and humans are without examining them. They manage to turn some of the human leaders too and merely experiment on the ones found to be reptilian. While much of the technology is pilfered, captured scientists, engineers and bases keep the research tree and manufacture of assets part of the game. Despite the grim and gritty feel, this game has a science fantasy aspect too. In the intervening ten years, technology like micro-mech (think a two-by-one unit that houses a single character who can dismount), cybernetics and genetic manipulation (nascent human psionics and super soldiers through alien hybridization) have become a reality. Our heroes are hopelessly outgunned and must stealth, melee weapons (like ka-bars, TFTD-eque power weapons and my eponymous tomahawk), guerrilla tactics and alien co-conspirators to win back the planet. We are Earth's greatest heroes, we are pariahs, we are the resistance. Anyone else amped about the having the Beta in six weeks and change?