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UOO-1 Fan Report


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UOO-1

Unknown orbital object one first showed up in the GRACE satellite network, originally designed to map the surface gravity of Earth, as a systemic error that was thought to be a simple bug in the analysis software. Since then, we have been able to infer the existence of a 200km spire-like object which actively avoids collisions with the rest of our satellite systems.

Of major concern is that UOO-1 seems to pick orbital paths which maximize lines through major cities. Of minor concern is the fact that we've been unable to detect any further evidence of its existence through even our best EM listeners. It was unknown what would happen if we send a probe directly to UOO-1, but with no further investigative options, we decided on that course of action.

Yu-Chang Wide Spectrum was launched 14 hours ago. It was the most expensive object we've ever put in LEO outside of the ISS itself and it flew a direct course to UOO-1. As expected, it changed orbit shortly before impact, Yu-Chang adjusted to match and UOO-1 made and impossible maneuver. We know of no material that could have survived such an acceleration, even solid steel would have rendered itself into molten slag subject to those forces. The moment Yu-Chang began its own course correction we lost contact. Six minutes later, we lost London as I'm sure you saw all over the news before boarding the Skyhawk.

High-speed photography, as part of our nuclear war early warning systems, indicate the city was destroyed by a light-speed beam (most likely a laser) in the exa-watt range burrowing through the atmosphere, turning our own sky into super heated plasma and allowing it to detonate like an air-burst nuke. The resulting EMP should have only been powerful enough to knock out local electronics, not the worldwide shut down that's rendered most modern military technologies fried and useless. Why and how UOO-1 created this beam is unknown, but the immense heat has revealed some orbital anomalies in the IR-spectrum. We are currently investigating. Considering how quickly it went from a passive to an active agent, further London events are not out of the question and may happen again soon.

The good news is that the nations of the world banded together over this event rather than starting World War 3. The bad news is that we are at war and know next to nothing about our enemy.

This organization was created in 1957 shortly after the Iceland Incident (see attached briefing) and sadly has had very little funding since. Much of our equipment is obsolete by today's standards and while our budget has been massively increased as of this morning, we are no where near ready to take on the alien threat. You are in charge, commander. This is the only international cooperative and it may be humanity's final hope. What are your orders?

Edited by ApolloZani
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Invasion Doctrine

The London Event did not directly coincide with the global failure of all electronic systems. While recovering the final transmissions of our satellites has proven difficult without modern computers designed to actually read our once endless data streams, timestamps are easy enough to find with punch cards and old ENAICs. EMPs are, in essence, light and so subject to its own speed limit. If UOO-1 was solely responsible for why this communication came through fax instead of email, we'd expect to see our last timestamps in an expanding bubble from one side of the world to the next. Instead, it was a coordinated near-simultaneous failure.

Our planet was bombarded in a shell, one that originated hundreds of kilometres up and from so many point sources, it was almost easier to imagine we simply overlooked some major aspects of physics, but we must face facts. We are surrounded by thousands, if not millions of UOOs. Considering some of the reports we've been receiving from our sponsor states, incursions from these UOOs has already begun.

The few working aircraft have had several encounters with pilots reportedly only able to track atmospheric disturbances rather than anything concrete. Unfortunately, it would seem that the worldwide EMP was not a one time only event. The few guided missiles we've been able to build since the attack have all fallen out of the sky.

Anything relying on technology more complicated than a vacuum tube might as well not exist in this war.

However, there is one piece of good news. Whatever the aliens are using to disguise their craft is not fully transparent at 918.6nm, an IR frequency readily absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere but easy enough to create and install on the "Angel" modified MiG-25s already in our hangers. Last week, aerial warfare was dominated by a doctrine of no-escape-zones and beyond-visual-range reconnaissance. Today, we're back to dogfighting.

We can only hope the newly adjusted radar algorithms provided by the Americans will be enough to detect the atmospheric disturbances we've heard of and that our fighters will be up to the task of taking down our unknown enemies.

Edited by ApolloZani
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1 Week, 3 Days, 11 Hours, 2 Minutes

Another city has been destroyed. In part because of this organization's coordination, we were ready for this latest tragedy but not enough to begin evacuations. By one measure our response has been phenomenal, hundreds of ICBMs were modified in a matter of days to surround a spacial target we can no longer track with only a few seconds of warning. All our calculations suggested UOO-1 would not be able to dodge that kind of onslaught, but it didn't need to. Every one of our nukes was remotely detonated before getting within a hundred kilometres of the spire.

Pictures of the fireballs in the night sky have already begun circulating in recently re-popularized newspapers and panic is becoming as large a concern as the invasion itself. However, we must not lose perspective. Our organization is safe, as are any facilities that can weather a nuke.

It's clear the aliens have enormous technological superiority, but their plans do not seem to include scouring the planet of all life. UOO-1's beam does a good job at destroying cities, but it only does a good job of destroying cities. Many states have been building bunkers since London Event 1 and those in the middle LE2 have survived intact. LE3 will almost certainly happen within the next ten days, but without precise readings (the still intact atomic clocks present in museums have proven difficult to requisition) we can't speculate beyond the power of our stopwatches.

As humanity is not particularly short of cities, we seemingly have some time. We are besieged, but with the first success of our interceptors and ground forces we've proven our enemy is not invulnerable. If mechanical computers and bullets can take them down it is not a completely unfounded assumption that recovering more of their technology will give us an even greater edge.

Edited by ApolloZani
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Classification: Probe

The surprise felt in Research was equal only to our elation. That the first one-on-one encounter with an alien vessel could ever end in our victory was not something anyone truly believed until the ship itself was rolled into the lab. Though it is small, measuring less than fifteen meters from tip to tail, it has raised more questions than answers.

As a ship it is nothing more than a millimetre thin shell. The material itself somehow acting as both the method of propulsion and energy storage for operations, every part of it vibrating at hypersonic frequencies that enhance a resonance field effect enabling reactionless motion. When this was discovered, we made the mistake of trying to repair the ship as a smaller version of itself and were greeted by a new hole in the ceiling when it tried to resume its flight plan. The impact thankfully broke our temporary chassis and only minor injuries were reported.

Strategically, this suggests that UOOs may be taken down by mangling enough of the hull. Nothing inside is critical to its operation, indeed all recovered components seem to be nothing more than our own classified sensory apparatus, complete with serial numbers that match already existent devices. We can easily surmise they've been spying on us and we should assume they're aware of our desire to reverse engineer their technology.

Considering the capabilities the aliens have demonstrated thus far (interstellar travel, orbital terror weapons, ect.) we are forced to conclude that this ship is nothing more than an expendable reconnaissance craft. A part of their plan they expected us to find. As such, we classify this signature as merely: Probe.

Edited by ApolloZani
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Non-Combatant Equipment, Previously Alien Armaments

Ship beams that tear through steel like paper. Bottled lightning that leaves hardened soldiers unconscious. Armor that's stronger than kevlar yet breaths like egyptian cotton.

Chemically, the recovered fabrics worn by our alien friends are little more than thermoplastics and no more special than a grocery bag save for the fact that it melts at 400 degrees. The secret to its properties is in the larger structure. As hard as its been to rapidly convert our electron microscopes to make photographs instead of digital images, the results speak for themselves. Their clothing is basically a weave of perfect crystals, aligned in a manufacturing process we currently cannot hope to replicate. For now, we can only repurpose the materials left from battle and unlike our friends, we'll make sure it offers head protection.

The, "lightning guns," (creatively named in field reports) are a bigger mystery. While our soldiers aren't wrong, it is electricity, it's not nearly high enough voltage to bridge the gaps we've been seeing (not that it would explain the accuracy.) A deconstruction of the weapon revealed that it generates its arc much like a taser with the barrel itself tweaking the charge until it creates its own containment field (which does explain the accuracy.) The civilian applications for intrinsically stable electrical fields might be as endless as the radio with immediate military applications requiring further research. None the less, this particular method results in a far more effective stunning effect and it won't take long for Research to devise a short-range substitute until we can fully replicate the effect.

Moving on to aircraft, Maintenance has some troubling news. Reports of projectiles have been greatly exaggerated, expecting to find holes pierced through the avionics, they found only outward shorn pieces of the hull pried off without much damage to the internals. With diverse reports of flyby "tractor beam" abductions and nothing from the recovered craft that seems to be a weapon, we believe the barrage seen in dogfights was that same "tractor" with an incredibly narrow area. Pliers can either delicately grip a pin or cut through wire depending on the mechanical advantage involved, this is the same idea just on a much greater technological scale. We can't yet activate the reactionless "tractor" field effects outside of laboratory conditions, but we can convert our hangers to support those conditions. While the range is only line of sight, it will give our fighters and dropships a no doubt helpful boost on launch.

These are not the armaments Research expects from an alien force that sent the world back half a century in a single night. The armor can be easily improved with a facemask, the stun guns aren't designed to kill, and the probe's defenses are less effective than our own autocannons. This is the equipment of non-combatants. 

Our hopes for a true glimpse of their power lies in the pistol from field reports, the one that shot a hole through everything it passed, the one that detonated when it was fired outside of alien hands. Research cannot provide further insights without those hands, commander. We need an alien. Alive.

Edited by ApolloZani
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Interviews: Caesan

Subject is a 138cm (4'6") tall alien with grey skin, internal temperature 34C (93F), isolated in an airtight room with N2/O2 mixed to match environment of recovered craft. Dr. Patel leading, communicating through microphone and polycarbonate bulletproof glass. Excerpt begin 8h21m into recording.

Dr. Patel: "Why are you killing us?"
[Subject presses itself against the glass as if looking for something.]
Dr. Patel: "This again. Why don't you ever..."
[Subject loses interest. Patel watches the subject return to the center of the room before taking out a picture of their child and smiling. The subject approaches the glass and Dr. Patel radios Acquisitions.]
Dr. Patel: "Hello, yes. When will the fMRIs arrive? No, I only need the data. Emotions, yes, please fax them to Engineering."

The breakthrough happened after running a gamut of known linguistic exercises, from visual-noun relations to printed instructions. While the subject (hereby referred to as the caesan) initially reacted promisingly to written languages (English, Mandarin, Hindi) when offered step-by-step guides on how to escape its confinement, it quickly ceased responding to any form of communication after receiving none of the promised results. Though this created some internal strife and debates on priorities of pursuit, one of our team members continued indirect interrogations (verbal, visual) and discovered that the caesan remained responsive to local emotional reactions in our own staff.

Since no one on the base could control their thoughts to a fine enough degree, Engineering built a simple model of the human brain which pumped blood-oxygen contrast analogue through various lobes based on data gathered before the war. It did not take long to establish continuous communications, beginning first as morse code (happy for dash, sad for dot) then improving until the newly developed PSIAC (psionic systems for interaction with alien caesans) which was achieving 4kb/s two-way links for everything from text to video.

Despite establishing communications and building an amiable rapport with our guest, it hardly knew anything about its own world, yet alone the war. In fact, the casean in our possession was only a few days old and had little knowledge beyond its orders of surveillance and subduction of humans. The few relevant memories shared indicate mass production facilities, fleets of hundreds of ships in waiting, and suggestions of a hierarchical command structure with more than a few species seeming to give orders, but between the low quality of the images and a lack of understanding from its source, we can't say much more.

Developing PSIAC taught us much, but it taught the ceasan more. At 0400 this morning, it managed to convince one of our guards into letting them escape. It did not go far before that same guard managed to subdue it. In the short period it was out, many of our staff reported feelings of intense fear and outright paralysis. An internal review is being conducted and the ceasan is being kept comatose, but we should be weary. If a few days of training is all that separates emotional influence from outright control, we may yet see harsher battlefield conditions when facing this species.

Edited by ApolloZani
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Interviews: Sebillian

Subject is a 199cm (6'5") tall alien with green scales, internal temperature 39C(103F), isolated in an airtight, climate controlled, steel-plated room kept at 28C(82F) with high humidity determined by subject itself when given access to controls. Dr. Eze leading, communicating through microphone only. Excerpt begins 19h50m into recording.

Subject: [using communications board] WATER. GIVE. HOT.
Dr. Eze: "Now you know the deal, no more coffee until you hit the target."
Subject: TRY. OR. DIE.

It was shocking easy to get the subject (hereby referred to as the sebillian) to cooperate after it ended its rage-like attempts to escape. The creature itself was in fact the one who provided the means when it began scratching into the walls. Assumed to be symbols at first, it was clearer on review they were simply drawings. We've begun matching the rasping noises it made under the assumption of language, but decided prudence should prevail and continued the majority of our communications in the languages both parties knew. Namely ours.

The sebillan cannot speak English, or any of the other human languages it knows, yet it could understand us perfectly with some conceptual limitations. When asked to perform simple tasks such as pointing out its flight plan, it asked for food in trade (with preferences for fish and hot drinks). When asked how its weapons worked, where it came from, and what the goals of the invasion were it said it did not know and would not accept anything in trade. A (disabled) weapon was offered and it refused to pick it up which leads us to believe it has some sense of honor or equivalent.

Battle strategy was procured at the cost of a climate controlled room and its answer were rather straight forward. Defend the craft and its crew, attack from the darkness, flank and close in. It was told our weapons are nothing to be afraid of and thinks its current confinement is some sort of test. It believes it will soon be in a new crew on a new mission and it believes all of us should be killed on sight.

We can confirm it fears fire.

Research had hopes we turn this one, however not even a photographic representation of a human could survive its presence. None-the-less, the sebillian remains complaint and steadfast in its confinement. Records of its non-human language grow by the day, yet it may be some time before we can truly make use of them.

Edited by ApolloZani
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Interviews: Reaper

Subject is a 180cm (5'11") tall alien with birefractive violet carapace, internal temperature measured 45C (113F) on acquisition and continued to lose heat until reaching 16C (60F) on expiration, isolation varied through lifetime. Dr. Patel leading, communicating through microphone and two layers bulletproof ALON "transparent aluminum" glass. Excerpt begins 0h0m into recording.

Dr. Patel: "Subject appears to be waking. Speakers on, please. Thank you. Can you under--"
[Subject immediate rushes glass, stabbing its claws through the first layer and scratching second]
Dr. Patel: "Abort! Everyone out!"
Dr. Eze: "Control, call quarantine measure two."
Dr. Millner: "Get ready to block the door!"
Dr. Patel: "Out! Get out now!"
[Subject breaches second layer before steel shutter safeties engage and team evacuates frame left]

We would have better luck talking to an ant than coming to any form of understanding with the subject (hereby referred to as the reaper). Considering that our little terrestrial friends can pass the mirror test and this creature cannot speaks as much for its purpose as anything else. The only sign of intelligence came when we left it in a dark room without stimulus. It ran along the wall until arriving at its origin, then began digging with the same ferocity it approached everything else. Cognition research was abandoned at this point.

The reaper had little concern for anything that wasn't of sufficient biomass to enable its reproductive cycle (approximately 35kg). When introduced to three calves, recently dead, asleep, and awake it only attacked the last. As with field reports, gestation took less than a minute. Thanks to a combination of fluoroscopic and IR imaging we've gained some clues about this gruesome process. It seems the elerium capsules present in its blood are a crucial element, inner spikes previous assumed to be for structural support in fact pierce its own chitin to add the final catalyst. Though such violent procreation (the host dies within 30 seconds, do not assume killing the host will stop a reaper) generated intense bursts of heat, the emerged adult will always be colder than the mother. Because of this, a reaper swarm's time to extinction can be crudely estimated from IR cameras alone and likely has a maximum range of 50km from ground zero. Research does not recommend testing.

Considering the amount of available chemical energy compared to emerging adults, Research concludes reaper limitations are a built-in feature. Instances cannot survive more than 48 hours, even under ideal circumstances a swarm will always burn itself out. These are manufactured weapons of terror, more virus than animal. Research recommends any and all encountered reapers be destroyed by whatever means possible to prevent mass casualty events.

In the course of its captivity, it escaped a 60cm thick steel room, a 110cm steel armored box, tore through ramping electric palisades until unconscious, stood on white hot semi-molten copper floor until its legs gave out, endured a 135db siren until deafened, ran 6km at dead sprint before destroying the treadmill, implanted two guards (larva removed, full recovery expected), damaged one hundred and eight pieces of equipment, and set off countless alarms during its stay. It does not feel pain nor fear. It does not stop or slow until death. In light of this, Research humbly requests that no more living specimens be acquired.

Edited by ApolloZani
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  • 3 weeks later...

Xenoethnology¹

Knowing your enemy is the first step to victory, that belief is one of the few we share. Extensive public and private discourse about the purpose and nature of the invasion has been raging over telephone lines, letters, and increasingly dirty radio signals this past month, much of it worthless speculation. What we've been able to access from datacores and crew recordings is similarly worthless ideas about us. From gossip about the food each of us eat to pseudo-scientific jargon about theoretical military capabilities, "Who can beat who in an unarmed fight," there remains some nuggets of truth in the trash.

Hunters in Iceland found evidence of what we assume was a preliminary forward base test. It did not contain the same alien materials present at the 1957 base, but it did have markings we would never had the chance to see otherwise. Blueprints and directions that we've only recently deciphered, with some help from the alien species we've kept in containment. The room prepared for, "sequencing," stood out for having aesthetically pleasing flourishes carved into every inch of the stone walls.

A recovered log from an abduction mission began some analysis on what parts of our genome lead to what advantages. Much of which we already understand with the exception of one file focused primarily on our mental abilities. A single term in particular showing up more than 26 times in a 400 word transcript. "Untapped potential." Alongside another important term with multiple translations².

The Chinese-Indian Joint Venture for Alien Intelligence have been sending each other information via microwave beams for some time. In their now typical rounds of testing, they've attempted several different kinds of encryption as well as plaintext versions in the hopes of seeing a result, last week the transmission was finally interrupted by a UOO, which was quickly destroyed by an overzealous SAM. Interference only occurred with an unencrypted message regarding an alien's genome and further attempt to bait have been met without success.

Combining these, and many other, disparate pieces of information yields a picture of our enemy. An out-of-focus, poorly lit, cut-off picture.

Our enemy values genetic engineering to a degree that borders on religious purpose. A multispecies hierarchy that shares some traits (all produce the same blood, have identical lungs), improves others (reaction time is directly correlated with assumed ranks), and conservatively keeps certain traits within one species. It would be trivial for their engineers³ to transplant many of the coagulation factors seen in Sebellians to the other species encountered thus far. In fact, several of these extreme traits are present as a single continuous sequence easy enough for us to take advantage of, given a few billion more dollars and several decades of research.

Until then, we finally have some working knowledge on the alien's shared language⁴ and can perhaps leverage this into a proper interrogation upon capture of an alien who understands they're fighting a war.

1. Term heavily debated at time of writing.
2. "Master," "Creation," "Weapon," "Gift."
3. Assumption. Do they have engineers?
4. Sixteen total have been identified at time of writing.

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Nice update.

I think the 'xenoethnology' term is a little off - ethno relating to a nation. Might make more sense if the aliens had a set of communities, rather than just the one monolithic force. Looking around, xenology already seems to be an established term. For the purposes above, that could probably be modified as 'cultural xenology', to distinguish it from the other aspects of studying alien biology or their technology. In fact, thinking about it, studying the alien technology would fall into two further categories: the reverse engineering of their tech, and probably some translating/tracing of their path through the natural sciences.

It might be interesting to take a poll of the community, see if anyone is actually involved in the sciences around genetics. I know this is beating an old drum, but I'd like to have science reports that are edited by writers who can vouch for the science. There is a place for the [insert mumbo jumbo science terms] style of writing, but I think that xenonauts takes itself a little more seriously than that. Similarly for the other sciences. Unfortunately, I suspect my speciality in social sciences probably won't find much application. Doesn't help me with computer games, nor in finding a job :(;) 

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@Ninothree Thanks for your thoughts! If you have any more, feel free to let me know!

As for the Xenoethnology, I chose that term after going on a wikiwalk. I've been trying for an idea where there are multiple cultures and languages separated by a caste system. Where engineers speak a different language from the soldiers and officers have their own culture which scientists aren't allowed to join. This system isn't something the organization has completely figured out yet but will get there with an officer capture. However, the fact that this didn't come off shows the extent to which I failed. I might go back and edit it to make it more clear later. :)

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Yeah I can imagine a caste system being a solid structure for a multi-species alien collective. The fierceness with which each new species resists assimilation would give it its place in the hierarchy. And the stability of the hierarchy would be maintained by rules that prevented different species from mixing. Easier to squash a rebellion if it only consists on one caste - even if that caste is soldier, they can't survive independently. Brings that issue of genetics to the fore. If you control the gene bank, you control the species diversity, and you can make them into a specialised caste - you wouldn't want them multi-tasking because then they'd be breaking caste boundaries.

Looking forward to hearing the report of the officer interrogation. This is one of the things I liked about XCOM: the fairly subtle hints that Vahlen was absolutely ruthless when it came to tearing apart alien captures.

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@ApolloZani This type of caste system really reminds me of the Tau from Warhammer 40k. Most subject species are heavily augmented to be reliant on one another to exist in the alien empire. Any race too rebellious to join in the process of assimilation will just be bombed out of existence by the UOO. Because of this the empire might be stretched very thinly with only a few dozen planetary managerial Praetors for each planet and the aliens that we already know of are just from the local galactic sector closest to our solar system to respond. This will later handily justifies having more types of alien as the Xenonauts get more headway as they’ll mobilize more developed parts of the empire to the war. The invasion in the eyes of Earth in the eyes of the empire is like the East India Company trying to invade India or the French Foreign Legionnaires invading Indochina but getting too much resistance.

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On ‎6‎/‎25‎/‎2020 at 1:22 AM, ApolloZani said:

As expected, it changed orbit shortly before impact, Yu-Chang adjusted to match and UOO-1 made and impossible maneuver. We know of no material that could have survived such an acceleration, even solid steel would have rendered itself into molten slag subject to those forces

I hate this bit.

Not only is it unnecessary (you don't need super-acceleration or impossible manouvers to alter trajectories, and the UOO-1 changed trajectory before that without it), it is also stupid. Acceleration that would MELT STEEL for a 200km object? This isn't science-fiction it is pure techno-magic fantasy. Even for a tiny object hat would be insane, and for a big one, it's insane squared.

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Timeout for not liking something? Are you sure I'm the one acting inappropriately?

 

Also, I have no idea what lines you are referring to, but I don't idolize Arthur C. Clarke or anyone else for that matter, so I wouldn't refrain from criticism. No sacred cows for me, thank you.

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Okay folks, I need people to step back. Trashman made a valid criticism of a part of the text he didn't like. He addressed the argument (or in this case, the text), not the person. There's no need for anyone to make comments about each other. 

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Haven´t read this threat fully. I aggree fully with Max_Caine that no one has the right to vilify someone.

Normaly I would aggree Trashmans Arguments for our Standard we have today and in about the next 100 Years. Extraterestials are not only technological better then all Humans, they are lightyears ahead.

So it´s not impossible that they laugh about us with our atomic warheads and deactivate them with direct laser Hits without an explosion in Xenonauts 2. But if we do enough R & D then we can find the Weakness and get there. Such Elements are a must have (like in the new XCOM the Temple-Ship and the second enemy Threat, in XCOM 2 the Avatar-Project and the Choosen).

If we don´t have it Xenonauts 2 would like the Original with only new Graphics.

I´m very exicetded how they wanna do an similar Element in UFO2ET, because in UFO ET the captive Aliens (Commanders) tell you that the Humans had damaged the Mothership badly with such Warheads and they need from the Human Colony the Energy-Cristals (like here Alenium and in the X-Com / XCOM-Row Elerium).

 

Edited by Alienkiller
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Bioelectronics

The lack of anything resembling traditional electronics has so far been baffling. Recovered craft have no wires, transmitters, and very little conductive metals of any kind, yet the various systems operate in conjuncture performing rather complex tasks. Until recently, we believed the alloys had a memory mechanism we had yet to unravel. With the control center of the latest UOO signature, we can now confidently say that their computers are unlike anything humankind has ever produced.

It is, in essence, a captive brain. Highly specialized to run the calculations need to keep airborne, regulate weapon systems, and other functions we've yet to map out. Throughout the hull, what was previously misidentified as organic contaminates from combat, are networks of growing, living nervous tissue. Feeding off the pure elerium each meters long cell contains and explaining why their craft continue to function perfectly in the face of their near constant EMPs. Communicating with samples has, unfortunately, proven useless. While the various systems provide an ideal medium to attempt an interview, the input/outputs are rather simple analogues of what we could expect from talking to our own machines.

As a result, these samples can be easily co-opted to perform tasks we've since been locked out of. Missile guidance, automated radar processing, and fifty years of advances for our fighter jets will again be in our grasp.

However, this method of computation does provide some disadvantages compared to the properly shielded computer clusters under construction in the deeper caves of the world. First, its significantly slower. It takes far more time to send a signal through a neuron than through copper which helps explain why their air superiority fighters have had similar reaction times to our pilots despite lacking any themselves. Second, there are no easy ways to encrypt the information present. It's entirely possible that if we start listening, we won't need those computer clusters to break in.

We know all craft have some means of long-range communications. Reports from Israeli AA ground crews have noted sudden cessations of bombing runs after a minor success only to be escorted out of atmosphere by some form of rescue craft. Since we've been unable to find any transmission equipment on recovery, the method they use is either very small or very weak.

It's possible we will have to take down some manner of coordinator if we're to recognize the technology, likely present in either an as yet unseen ship or an undiscovered ground base.

Edited by ApolloZani
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Psionics, Human

With each new war comes different tactics, technology, and strategy. This has been true for every war since the dawn of human history and has never been more true with this this one. It is not the fittest who survive but those most adaptable to change and we are certainly not the fittest. Our enemies can think faster than us, use technology out of fiction, and employ abilities we can scarcely understand but with expectation comes a measure of control.

Psionics is still a budding field based almost entirely on recorded battlefield data and analysis of our resident coma patients down in Containment. Recent advances have allowed us to recreate some of the effects we've seen. The basic theory is similar to a parabolic dish, sending an image of any given construct (in this case, a brain) and focusing it on a target. The target then experiences your own thoughts and depending on so many factors they can broadly be defined as, "skill," any number of effects can occur. While no one so far tested has managed to display the kinds of control we've seen in field reports, certain individuals have a near intuitive understanding on how to cause hallucinations and even direct gestalt communications.

Unfortunately, such a dish must be built in 4-space. Mathematically, it can be described as a holographic projection into the complex pane of space-time, existing without mass, charge, or time meaning it disappears the moment we cease supporting it. Such support initially required an entire lab space to contain, though as with all mechanical technologies miniaturization contains some obvious first steps.

To that end, psionic training rooms have been designed and are awaiting your approval for installation in unused sections of the base. Such training will not enable a soldier to perform these feats on their own, but will provide a safe space to be on the receiving end of mind-mind incursions and let us better learn how to resist without the dangers of being in the field at the same time.

Edited by ApolloZani
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@TrashMan

That's kinda the point? XCOM stuff is all science fantasy. The opening cutscene that started this whole genre shows muscly pink apes in green unitards ordering an attack on some nameless street with a slam of their fist against a boring throne. Xenonauts still has those roots. We fight bipeds with brain powers that employ magic battery crystals to charge up naked singularities, which the aliens keep stored on their bridge like some dashboard trophy.

Fantastic science is the name here. We fight off an alien invasion from aliens who are used to invading other aliens in the span of six months with a team of less than 100 people on a shoe string budget, there needs to be some leeway in the science.

That said, I do think about these sorts of things. I didn't look up GRACE's specifications or anything that crazy, but I have gotten the chance to play with some pretty fancy geological gravity detecting equipment. I figured if current tech can find something like a UOO, it would have to be as big and as heavy as mineral deposit. That gives UOO-1 a lower bound of mass in the realm of hundreds of thousands thousands of tons.

You can swat a spec of dirt from 0 to 60 with a flick of your finger but moving mount everest from positive 8000km/s to negative 8000km/s takes a lot more force.

I'll finally do the math here.

Force = Mass x Acceleration

F = 800,000,000,000,000kg x (16,000,000m/s / 10 seconds)

F = 1,280,000,000,000,000,000,000N

If you put all the rockets on one side of a 200km brick and distribute it perfectly evenly it still puts out a force of 160,000,000,000N/m^2 or 1.6e13pascales.

Which is closer to having things stop being material science and start being nuclear physics rather than it is turning steel into molten slag. What I should have said was, "any known matter would have started fusing like a star, knowing what we do about the insides of stars." All this to say what I was trying to show rather than tell: they didn't use force to make the maneuver.

Thank you for your criticism. Even if you hate it, it still made me think about things and how I could do better.

Edited by ApolloZani
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Well you dealt with that more diplomatically that I did. Although you misspelled maths - for some reason you left the s off the end ;)

Honestly, I'm not such a fan of the science fantasy side of things, or at least, I prefer the fantasy to be used sparingly. In my opinion, making up something like elerium is all well and good, but when elerium can be used to do everything and anything, well, I just start to lose interest. The problem with the sci fi/fantasy in games is that the lore is often made to do gymnastics to justify the rules of gameplay. One the one hand, sure, gameplay comes first. But on the other hand, is it really so hard to write more consistent lore that doesn't sound spurious?

A little bit of hand waving is fine, so long as it supports something that compensates. Like the bioelectronics idea. It may seem a bit far fetched at first, but it brings in to question the nature of computers and how they differ from a brain. That is really interesting and it has been a staple of sci-fi for decades. Conveniently, it can also be used to justify some of the aircombat mechanics without much of a stretch. 

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@Ninothree

Scifi/Fantasy is in some cases not that anymore. Some of that could realised in the last 60 Years.

Our Handys and Tablets focuse on the Original and Next Generation Star Trek-Series / Movies for example.

An other example is the Space Flight in Earth-Orbit, to the Moon and the Space-Stations "Mir (after about 20 Years out of Commision)" / the existing one "Name forgotten". :cool:

The next Step is flying to Mars and getting a growing Colony there. The Familys with all following Generations are setet for this Project already. It´s atm an one Way Ticket. :eek:

Movies like StarShip Troopers or the Alien-Attack with the Wormhole on Earth (Name forgotten) and our Space Flights today since the 1960´s belongs on that Visionars and their Books ot the 17th, 18th and 19th Century as well as earlyer.

 

Now the Problems on that Things (Space Flight and Changes in our existing World):

The first Problem is for our Generation and all following Generations is the Fact, that we still use Coal, Oil, Atomic and similar to get Energy for our Cars, Planes, Rockets and dayly things. That Ressources will End earlyer or later.

The second Problem of that use is the destruction of our Earth-Atmosphere. That´s why Companys and Politcans wanna have Alternatives again (Wind, Water, Geothermal, special Electric-Drive etc.). The Electric-Drive get the most unpracticable there. It uses more Ressources you need for other things (Computers, Printers, Portables) and have the same Effect like Coal, Oil and Atomic in Production. Secondly our Ground Water will used for that to get the Raw-Materials.

In that case only the Hydrogen Fuel Cell is the long Range Alternative, which we use since the 1960´s for Space Travel. An other alternative is cold Fusion, which could be the next Step for Space-Travel and Energy-Production. But all that can only be intermediate steps until we find better Alternatives.

And here comes the Visionars in Computer Games, SciFi-Books / SciFi-Movies and Series etc. again.

Excactly that things you don´t like like Elerium, Zribt, Alenium, Mater-Anti-Mater etc. as Energy Cells. And if we don´t have such Ideas and using still the next 100 Years Oil, Coal, Atomic etc. we never life long expect the next 2 or 3 Generations. In that case such Ideas are a must have and come asap.  

 

 

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