Why such fanatical resistance?

[goduranus]

I was reading the story and it struck me as odd why humans in the game are fighting the aliens so fanatically. First the humans attack the survivors of a downed space ship, then shoot down survey ships carrying non-combatants, then finally launch nuclear weapons at landed ships that destroy both humans and aliens alike. All this as a response for aliens taking a few dozen humans. For all we know, the aliens could have just wanted to mine some natural gas at the north pole or something.

[thothkins]

if there's ever a hint that someone in the forums is aiding an alien invasion force to take over the planet, yours is the first name I'm going to mention goduranus

here are some options:

- Xenonauts are in fact a religious splinter group who believe that [insert deity of your choice] cannot have created life elsewhere in the Universe in [his/her/it's/sanity blasting] image.

- All this stuff about Iceland incidents is clearly a big fib. Roswell, Aztec, numerous sightings, abductions, retrievals decades before this 1979 invasion date. We've known about them, and their hostile intentions, for ages.

- We made contact with them the 1930s Ghost rocket flap over Scandinavia. After negotiating with them, humanity made it's usual attempts to control/subjugate and destabilise them. The aliens are only here in revenge for infecting that last trade delegation with smallpox.

- It's all a huge front for advanced US military craft form the 60s coupled with the products of German genetic experimentation of the 1940s. What better way to get all the funding you want or stage a coup or sell lots of weapons globally than if you control all sides of the conflict.

[Kat Tsun]

The only thing the humans were trying to do was talk to the aliens when they started shooting. >:

[GizmoGomez]

Yeah; read Crimson Dagger, and you'll understand why they attacked first and aren't here for peaceful purposes.

It is a valid point, though.

[ihatealiens]

They nuke it because of reapers creating something worse then a zombie apocalypse ?

[GizmoGomez]

Honestly, nuking it seems overly extreme. Carpet bombing would be acceptable, or gassing the terror site.

[thothkins]

I think the fear is that saturation bombing would level a larger part of the city than intended, and that the aliens may possibly survive conventional munitions. With a tactical nuke, it's hoped that it will take out a designated area and sterilise it completely. No Sebilllian sewer dwellers.

[GizmoGomez]

Yeah, that is true. Actually, I found a nice website recently showing the effects of various nukes in a google maps style setting.

The davy crocket wouldn't be super bad, necessarily. You just wouldn't be able to enter that district of the city for a while.

It's nuclearsecrecy.com, but their website's down at the moment.

[thothkins]

It's nuclearsecrecy.com, but their website's down at the moment.

there's a 404 saying "It's a secret. Didn't you check the site's name?"

[Kat Tsun]

If it's 1979 it would be MGM-52 Lance or MGR-1 Honest John. Davy Crocketts were removed from American inventory before 1970. Davy Crocketts are too small to attack cities with anyway, they were meant for attacking company sized units of infantry.

Edited July 22, 2013 by Kat Tsun

[GizmoGomez]

Well, you don't want to level the city; only sterilize the terror site. But, you're right, that device would be too small.

[Mordobb]

In doubt i would level it all, you don t want hidding alien, and genetic contamination of any kind causing weird mutations on plants and animals.

Hiroshima was there and i guess a lot of info had already been taking showing contamination deacrease rate.

Anyway what is a few millions lives (if that much) when you are in the billions.

2 or 3 years, if that much, of sex without contraception ? And a stony monument ?

Laughable, in front of an extermination threat.

I see a lot of literature ay way to get those for free or are they reserved to Higher ranking colaborators/backers than me ?

[Commissar Pancakes]

I smell...heresy...

[Kat Tsun]

In doubt i would level it all, you don t want hidding alien, and genetic contamination of any kind causing weird mutations on plants and animals.

Hiroshima was there and i guess a lot of info had already been taking showing contamination deacrease rate.

Anyway what is a few millions lives (if that much) when you are in the billions.

2 or 3 years, if that much, of sex without contraception ? And a stony monument ?

Laughable, in front of an extermination threat.

I see a lot of literature ay way to get those for free or are they reserved to Higher ranking colaborators/backers than me ?

Minutes, actually, depending on the height of the burst, at least for follow-up combat operations. American exercises with tactical nuclear weapons found that anywhere from 5-15 minutes was long enough to minimize exposure to immediate radiation, and short enough to prevent the enemy from regrouping and consolidating his position.

Habitation would probably be a few weeks at worst, not including time it would take to rebuild the city. Besides, the average tactical nuclear weapon in 1980 would be anywhere from 2-8x the yield of Hiroshima, and most of the damage of the city was due to firestorms caused by stoves or lamps falling over and igniting wooden homes, not the actual blast itself. A modern, Western city with stone and steel structures would be more much fire resistant and have much less fuel per sq. km.

I don't think a Hiroshima or Dresden-style firestorm would be likely without several nuclear weapons, or massive numbers of incendiaries.

The real damage is publicity. It's hardly sustainable to nuke every terror site.

And the casualty statistics at the end of each failed mission (they float around 20k for me) don't seem to back the "level the city" theory. It's more likely that they just nuke the portions surrounding the UFO, and where the Xenonauts landed; and local forces move in to secure the place from surviving extraterrestrials.

There's no reason to assume that the aliens have biological weapons in use (besides the oft seen Reaper) due to lack of symptoms among the population. Small, precise nuclear strikes followed by an attack by conventional troops to clean up alien stragglers is the most likely scenario.

Edited July 23, 2013 by Kat Tsun

[RawCode]

nuke at terror site is joke, why player can't decide do it, or not.

in case of fail and nuke rejection, allien base can popup on location, it will be logical.

[Kat Tsun]

nuke at terror site is joke, why player can't decide do it, or not.

in case of fail and nuke rejection, allien base can popup on location, it will be logical.

Why would the aliens put a base exactly where everyone knows where it'll be? They just want to kill people, not set up shop.

And I always assumed the nuclear weapons were under the orders of the national government, not the Xenonauts.

[RawCode]

last time i failed terror site, nuke killed over 12k civilians, it much more then 6 caesan can kill ever for few weeks...

total casualties before this was under 500 for 2 mounth...

this makes national goverment actual terrorists and mass killers.

also i can't understand why xenonauts with global airspace permissions, weapon manufacture permissions, ability to draft military from any country, build military bases whatever they like cant control usage of nukes?

[thothkins]

last time i failed terror site, nuke killed over 12k civilians, it much more then 6 caesan can kill ever for few weeks...

total casualties before this was under 500 for 2 month...

That's quite a lot. Perhaps there was a Bon Jovi concert on in the city centre. Cue jokes about the government nuking that anyway and then nuking the terror site.

this makes national goverment actual terrorists and mass killers.

Oh sure, but it's all in the name of the war on terror, in this case alien terror. Pick any country with a war at the moment (armed by everyone else) and imagine the horrors each side would perpetrate given an excuse of wiping out an alien threat.

also i can't understand why xenonauts with global airspace permissions, weapon manufacture permissions, ability to draft military from any country, build military bases whatever they like cant control usage of nukes?

Sovereign nations still have their armies, air forces and nuclear options. Xenonauts are being paid to tackle the alien threat. No government in it's right mind would give the organisation with early access to advanced alien technology access to nukes as well. In fact, they must be pretty worried that the Xenonauts would get their hands on something more advanced than they have.

Meet your hiring pool of Xenonauts Mr. McSpy, Ms. Teree, Mr S. Pionage...

[Kat Tsun]

last time i failed terror site, nuke killed over 12k civilians, it much more then 6 caesan can kill ever for few weeks...

total casualties before this was under 500 for 2 mounth...

this makes national goverment actual terrorists and mass killers.

also i can't understand why xenonauts with global airspace permissions, weapon manufacture permissions, ability to draft military from any country, build military bases whatever they like cant control usage of nukes?

When NATO Nuclear Sharing was first proposed, the Americans and Europeans wanted a submarine and surface fleet with Polaris rockets for a second strike capability for all NATO. They even commissioned a submarine with Italian, West German, British, American, Greek, Danish, Turkish, and Dutch crews for the NATO Multilateral Force. It all went swimmingly until someone realised that having a NATO submarine fleet, with the only country in NATO capable of producing atomic submarines and SLBMs being the USA (France doesn't count) this would be putting a sizable number of eggs into the Americans' basket.

So when it failed, the idea of a NATO submarine fleet fell through, partly because it would be almost totally under American control, and partly because Europeans didn't want to spend a lot of money maintaining a nuclear submarine fleet.

If the Xenonauts were an all-NATO force, they might have access to nuclear weapons, but it's doubtful for reasons below.

Throw in the Soviets and Chinese, and the Xenonauts would never get nukes out of nationalist reasons and secrecy, and a very concrete fear that they may prefer to use nuclear weapons on terror sites and alien bases (not their people, after all) rather than fly in CH-47s and kill the aliens the hard way.

And given the threat of such things as Reapers (which the national governments have probably encountered) a nuclear weapon is not at all unwarranted, nor extreme tbh. Far better to kill 12,000 people in an atomic fireball than watch the entire city be turned into horrible alien monsters.

Edited July 23, 2013 by Kat Tsun

[thothkins]

Far better to kill 12,000 people in an atomic fireball than watch the entire city be turned into horrible alien monsters.

Anyone else going to be modding in a terror city full of alien monsters? Yeah, me too

[Kat Tsun]

Xenonauts' version of the Bloodsucker Village.

[lightgemini]

Few points for the OP.

-They made no effort to make contact.

-They fired first.

-They didnt try to say sorry after firing first.

-They got nuked out of the sky as response, wich certainly didnt make them happy.

-They were defeated in the battle for the downed UFO, were they didnt show any sign of thinking about surrendering.

-They come back with a fleet of 3000 ships.

WHat you think they will do? At that point doesnt matter if they fired first or though they were using self-defence. Getting inveaded and possibly exterminated is what clearly is going to happen. And since they continue to avoid comunicating with anyone theres no other option to be considered.

Only hope to force withdraw of the alien fleet is to give them the idea that war with earth is going to be costly, hopely too costly to care. That means absolute determination to make the maximun damage possible to anything alien.

As for the nukes, theres no real choice other to nuke the area. Really. If the army fails, xenonauts fail, then the city is lost and left to the aliens will. Theres nothing to stop them from landing further ships and increase the terror activity.

And the Reapers. They work like a virus infection or a zombie outbreak. Once you lose control of the city, nothuing stops them from growing exponentially with only the availability of victims limting them. If the siege arond the city gets broken by a wave of hundreds of reapers, then they scatter around the countryside infecting more people and being impossible to hunt them all. After that you can be certain your whole country will fall in a matter of months, wih no army or xenonauts avoiding it. In fact sveral succesful reaper outbreaks on diferent citys around the world could grow to the point of losing the entire planet in a year or two. They are by far the BIGGEST threat to humanity. The aliens could need no more effort other than sitting down and watching the entire planet be engulfed in reaper fury.

With that picture in mind, no amount of civilian casualties matters, as they can be classified as lost to the aliens if those reapers are left alone. Nuking the place in time is the only way to be sure when all else fails.

[Solarius Scorch]

Few points for the OP. (...)

I agree with everything you said, except for the Reapers. The Xenopedia description (and common sense) clearly says that they cannot multiply indefinitely due to energy depletion. If memory serves me, one Reaper can spawn several hundred offspring, including all generations, which is still a lot but nothing overwhelming.

[MrPyro]

I agree with everything you said, except for the Reapers. The Xenopedia description (and common sense) clearly says that they cannot multiply indefinitely due to energy depletion. If memory serves me, one Reaper can spawn several hundred offspring, including all generations, which is still a lot but nothing overwhelming.

Those Reapers can still kill people with their claws though, even if they can't implant them. One Reaper dropped into an urban environment can infest as many as they can, and then the resulting army can butcher the rest of the city.

Also, we don't know if it possible for Reapers to recharge in some way, such as by consuming Alenium.

[Solarius Scorch]

Those Reapers can still kill people with their claws though, even if they can't implant them. One Reaper dropped into an urban environment can infest as many as they can, and then the resulting army can butcher the rest of the city.

Also, we don't know if it possible for Reapers to recharge in some way, such as by consuming Alenium.

Oh yes, it's definitely true, but the same can be said about a Sebillian - armed or not.

Oh, and I doubt Reapers can recharge; there's nothing to suggest this and I find it scientifically unlikely.