Stellaris, Part 2

Stellaris - Part 2: Wherein we boldly go where no one has gone before and immediately hate/kill the things we find there...

The Terran Corporate Alliance has been expanded. Mostly through the use of giant space-station, rather than colonies. It turns out that contrary to what might have been suspected based on our rosy starting location (with lovely Continental worlds in two of the three closest star systems), most of the galaxy is uncomfortable and poorly prepared to host a corporate luncheon, much less human habitation. So we build enormous space stations to expand our official borders (though I’m not really sure about the utility of “borders” in space), medium-sized space stations to rip the minerals out of all the planets within those borders, and little space stations to rip open the fabric of the cosmos itself so that our ships can jump through the holes and reach new stars. Big, medium, and little. It’s like Goldilocks and the three bears…if the three bears devoted to the extraction and exploitation the universe’s natural resources. And in TCA children’s books, they are.

The Twax’lhdar (the giant four-eyed chickens we beneficently attacked without provocation in our last episode) live on chilly Alpine worlds. Humans can technically survive there if they have a good sweater (presumably one that would be made from Twax’lhdar feathers), but there’s a huge penalty to happiness for living on a world so different from your homeworld. And, what with the chattel slavery and all, company morale already isn’t everything it could be.

Technically the Gorf, a sentient fungoid people with stone-age technology, live on a roughly Earth-like planet nearby. They probably would be easy to conquer (they’re essentially mushrooms, right?), but presently we’re generating a ton of research points by studying them from orbit and I don’t want to give that up. Also, one has to assume that the homeworld of a fungoid species would require some serious mold remediation before it would be up to code, and that sort of thing is expensive.

The closest unoccupied colonial candidate is way out on the edges of known space, some 3 or 4 wormhole jumps from Earth. I send off a colony ship and rename the planet Far Point in the hopes of attracting Patrick Stewart to my empire. Shortly thereafter we encounter our second space-faring neighbors in the stars just beyond Far Point’s borders. Last time we made 1st contact, it was with enormous, intelligent birds. What new, unfathomable, wonders does the infinitely various complexities of the universe have in store for us this time?

Oh, for crying out loud…

Alrighty then. Apparently God has some sort of feather-fetish. Good to know.

It turns out, upon farther investigation, that the Sibulan aren’t actually that bad, as alien scum goes. They’re certainly our favorite of all the giant space-birds we’ve met so far! Unlike the Twax’lhdar, with their naïve (and frankly, offensive) beliefs about equality and the inherent dignity of peoples, the Sibulans are a Constitutional Dictatorship. Like us they are “authoritarian,” “industrious,” and “thrifty.” We can work with that. I set about making friends, both because it’s easier to sell stuff to your friends and because Far Point is essentially on their doorstep and I’m in absolutely no position to defend it. Also, they’re kind of cute.

Over the next years/decades we meet even more strange aliens, not all of whom turn out to be over-grown buzzards. For example, there are these enormous wild space-squid, each one larger than my biggest starships, who soar effortlessly between the stars, peacefully grazing on the vapors of gas giants. Naturally, I dispatch the Corporate Armada to murder and dissect as many of them as possible. Yay science!

We discover “Void Clouds,” mysterious nebulas of gas, small particles, and electric charges which have, miraculously, achieved sentience over the countless eons of their existence. Naturally, I dispatch the Corporate Armada to murder and dissect as many of them as possible.

We meet the Lahtrepians. Like the TCA, they are run by a megacorporation. Unlike the TCA, they are devoted to the principles of equality, peace, and spiritualism, which makes me think they’ve somehow missed the point of running a business. Their empire is on the far side of the Sibulan. The Sibulan don’t like them. We don’t like them either. I make a note that exciting franchise opportunities exist in that area.

And finally we meet the…oh, crap.

Behold the Reshethi [Holy] Guardians. They’re a Fallen Empire, a Stagnant Ascendency to be specific. Incredibly advanced and ancient, they once bestrode the stars like gods but have now settled into a placid apathy from which they will neither expand nor seek conquest. You’ll note that their power is listed as “Overwhelming” in every category. As Holy Guardians, they’ve dedicated themselves to the preservation of a series of “holy” Gaia worlds and will violently express their disapproval to any empire that tries to colonize one of them, but otherwise they just seem to sit there. In short, the Reshethi are an old man, forever sitting on his porch, with a shotgun in his lap and a big ol’ sign that says “KEEP OFF THE LAWN!” I inform the Armada that there are decidedly NOT exciting franchise opportunities in THAT direction.

Well, now that we've met the neighbors, my next goals are mostly about internal development. My frontier outposts and diplomatic agreements with the Sibulan have strictly limited by influence. We've developed terraforming technology and are about to start harvesting some a strategic resource which will reduce terraforming costs by 25%, so I might be able to transform some interior worlds into places worth living. It might also be time to try and transform the Twax’lhdar from tributaries into a full-on subsidiary (aka vassal) of the TCA. And I'm seriously considering simply invading the Gorf homeworld. It's a nice, big, Earth-like planet. We'd lose the society research from the space station, but could gain a lot of physics research on the planet. Also, the Gorf represent an untapped market segment.  We've developed a strong relationship based on abduction, involuntary probing, and dissection. No doubt they'll welcome us with open arms...er, fungal pods, or whatever.

And we have robots now! They aren't good for much (our slaves are more efficient in every way), but they can live anywhere without complaining. If I can upgrade them to true androids, I think I could start a robotic mining colony on some sort of hellhole planet without having to terraform it first. And we could upgrade them further to true artificial intelligence to make them more efficient! And then connect them all together in a network stretching between the stars and across the sky! A "Sky-Net" if you will. I don't see how that could possibly go badly...


This is the galaxy in 2229:

Stellaris!

Behold the glorious Terran Corporate Alliance! A global plutocracy dedicated the material enrichment of mankind (or at least to the capital-owning members of mankind). Whereas some theorize earth developing into some sort of pinko-commie democracy with namby-pampy ideals about liberty and equality, the TCA embraces a more manly sort of authoritarian materialism!

Now, are the minimally paid lower classes working the food and mineral tiles “slaves”? Technically yes. Are they wretchedly unhappy? I don’t know (we don’t track those numbers) but who cares! They’re [presumably joyous] dedication to labor, combined with our innate industriousness, thriftiness, corporate structure, and domineering mining guilds give the TCA a whopping 25% bonus to both industrial production and energy generation. And isn’t that really what life is all about? Yes. Yes it is.

If we believed in God (which we don’t, being fanatic materialists), we’d have to assume He was smiling on us. A complete survey of the solar system reveals a combined 18 minable resource and research sites! I haven’t played this game much, but that’s far and away more than I’ve ever seen in a single star system. And mining resources, baby that’s what we do! Humanity spends a relatively [I assume] long time focused on developing our home system in order to establish a powerful economic engine.

Early interstellar exploration reveals that there are, in fact, extraterrestrial life forms … just not any intelligent extraterrestrial life forms. However, continued expansion demonstrates that life on other planets comes in three different flavors of stupid. Alpha Centuri and Sirius both have remarkably (some might say suspiciously) earth-like planets full of alien fauna and flora, but none of it evolved enough to scratch the dirt with a stick. Our first encounter with sentient life comes in Lytirin star system where we find the Gorf, some sort of mobile, conscious, mushroom people still living in the stone age. Early analysis suggests that they won’t make good  employees and probably aren’t edible. 

We build a frontier outpost (the first of our Babylon stations) over their star and an observation post over their planet to secretly abduct, probe and study them…aggressively. Shortly thereafter they mysteriously gain the “fanatically xenophobic” trait. Yay science!

The next sentient species we counter proves that a society can build starships and still be stupid. The Twax’lhdar are giant birds devoted to equality, peace, and spiritualism. Bless their naïve little hearts! Needless to say we hate them immediately. We look forward to bringing them on as sub-minimum-wage out-sourced employees of the TCA.

The Corporate Alliance and Twax’lhdar State have an uneasy peace for a while, but one of our various unauthorized spying missions into their system of origin reveals a flotilla of 16 missile-armed corvettes. In my book, that sort of extreme dedication to the safety and preservation of their homeworld can only be interpreted as a belligerent provocation. In terms of technology and population, we’re about equivalent with the Twax’lhdar, but our various traits and whole-hearted commitment to strip-mining every planet within our borders means our industrial base is considerably stronger than theirs. We commission a “Grand Corporate Armada” of 20 corvettes; they have essentially the same loadout as the Twax’lhdar ships, except that we have deflectors and they do not. At this point our interstellar mining operations are so extensive that the shipyards above earth can focus on the non-stop construction of corvettes and our mineral stockpiles will still increase every month. We declare war. The Twax’lhdar ambassador’s response is only two stuttered words “But w...why?” [I wish I had that screenshot!]

Irritatingly, the Twax’lhdar home-defense fleet elects not to vainly sacrifice itself against our larger Corporate Armada, suggesting that these pinko, peace-nik birds aren’t completely stupid after all. They’re just cowards. Their ships huddle around their home planet’s starbase, which has too much firepower for the Armada to tangle with, refusing to join battle even as my ships sail about vaporize the local, allegedly “civilian” mining and research stations. I withdraw the Armada back to the nearest wormhole station. I have a plan.

The Twax’lhdar ships have warp drives, so they can travel freely between any two stars in their range, but it takes them time to travel, you can see them coming as soon as they enter sensor range, and their warp engines have to cool down after they arrive before they can warp out again. My wormhole-drive ships are tethered to massive wormhole generating space stations I have to construct in the outer-reaches of star systems and can never travel outside the range of one of these stations. But they can travel instantaneously between the wormhole station and their destination, arriving with almost no warning.

I break three corvettes out of the Armada and send them to raid a small Twax’lhdar colony in the Xiger System. The planets industry is woefully under-developed by Corporate standards, demonstrating a clear need for new management. As hoped, only a few days into the orbital annihilation of Xiger’s inhabitants, the Twax’lhdar fleet is detected warping into the system; having calculated that the far outgun the raiding party, they’ve finally left the protection of their starbase in a cloyingly sentimental effort to rescue their nestmates. The raiding force, in a bold display of devotion to the company which should be emulated by all loyal employees, recklessly hurls itself at the Twax’lhdar fleet, guaranteeing that the battle commences on the outer edge of the system. A number of middle-manager level are vaporized by the opening Twax’lhdar salvo. They will be forever memorialized in printed certificates of appreciation.

Once the Twax’lhdar fleet is fully engaged, the trap is sprung: my wormhole station opens up a tear in space-time immediately behind them and the rest of the Corporate Armada pours through. None of the alien corvettes survive long enough for their warp engines to recharge and take them back to the protection of their starbase. I savor my victory. Tastes like chicken!

With the entire enemy fleet destroyed, I dispatch armies of unpaid interns (:::cough::: slaves :::cough:::) to carry out an aggressive corporate restructuring of the Twax’lhdar colonies. I still can’t take their homeworld because the starbase is too strong, but it doesn’t matter. They surrender and become an official franchise (aka tributary) of the Terran Corporate Alliance. Henceforth, they will pay us 25% of all the minerals and energy they generate. Our HR department declares the settlement a Win-Win solution.

As humanity marches into the year 2221 everything is going great and everybody is happy … Except for the Twax’lhdar … And the Gorf … And possibly the slaves (we don’t track those numbers).

Next time: We launch a more expansion exploration of the galaxy in search of other species in need of a good*, honest, job. Also: Robots! Because nothing makes a giant corporation more lovable and community focused than extensive automation.

FTL

We're taking a break from XCOM for a bit and trying something different.

So this is FTL (“Father Than Light”) a indie-game about traveling through space. The premise is that our little spaceship has been tasked with taking crucial information about the evil rebels to our allies in the virtuous federation. We expect to fail. The game is designed to be very, very hard to win. The fun is not so much in seeing if you can beat it as in seeing how far you can get before you die. We’ll travel from star to star encountering various other ships and (most of the time) shooting at them. Ok. Let’s customize our ship and get started.

            In the spirit of doomed ventures and futile struggles, let’s name our ship “Fool’s Errand.” I’ve customized the crew such that the fate of the galaxy will now hinge on the combined efforts of Ron Paul, Ralph Nader and Ross Perot. I don’t see how we could possibly fail!

            

The only part of the ship that actually requires a crewman to operate is the bridge, which needs a pilot, but having someone man a subsystem increases its efficiency. I put Ron Paul in charge of our shields and, because the thought amuses me, assign Nader to our weapons system. We’ll let Ross Perot drive…I hope that doesn’t turn out to be a mistake…

The might ship Fool's Errand

 Right out of the gate we run into a moral quandary. Interstellar pirates are harassing some unidentified ship. They offer us a substantial bribe to look the other way, but that just wouldn’t be right. Third-party candidates to battle-stations!

We make short work of the pirate scum: our missiles vaporize their ship’s shields, allowing our repeating lasers repeatedly play havoc across their hull! But lo! What’s this? The unidentified ship turns out to be a rebel scout, one of our sworn enemies. We have the option of either destroying them and stripping the burning hulk of their ship for supplies or granting them their lives in exchange for promises to slow down the pursuing rebel fleet. I have trouble envisioning Ralph Nader gleefully shooting at a helpless opponent, so we decide to let them go. 

Somewhat later we face another challenging adventure: pirates! They want one of my former presidential candidates to take as a slave, which implies they have a buyer with rather quixotic tastes. But we won’t be surrendering any old white guys today; open fire, Mr. Nader! Give ‘em hell!

We are once again victorious. The battered and bloodied slavers offer to turn over one of their human cargo to us in exchange for letting them limp away. We accept, since we could use a new crew member and all the slaves would just die if we destroyed the ship. Our prize turns out to be a Mantid (an insect-like alien) to which the game has randomly assigned the name Makail. We’ll call him “Gorbi.”

We press on through many systems and encounters. Poor Gorbi doesn’t last long; we get boarded by a quartet of Mantid assault troopers who proved to be more than we could handle. In a final act of desperation, I end up rushing Perrot, Paul and Nader into the med-bay and venting the rest of the ship into space. The cold vacuum of the eternal void forever silenced our assailants, but not before they finish off our own Mantid crewman (crewmantid?).

In what turns out to be our final encounter, our intrepid political trio stumbles upon a rebel attempting to make contact with a pre-space flight civilization, hoping to bring them onto their side in the war. A different alien ship is trying to prevent this and preserve the planet’s native way of life. Our choices are (A) try to make contact with the aliens first and win their support for us, (B) try to preserve the alien’s native culture by attacking the rebel ship, or (C) ignore the whole situation. Our crew discusses these options and their non-interventionist beliefs convince them that we should stay out of this situation; after all, we have no exit strategy. Unfortunately, they’re all politicians and, stated positions aside, can’t resist the opportunity to intrude into people’s life and do some campaigning; we choose option A and, as a result, end up in a fight with the alien ship.

 Which results in this:

Everything went wrong: the ship caught on fire, we got pummeled by enemy missiles, and our own weapons couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. And thus concludes our brave venture. Farewell good ship Fool’s Errand. Farewell good crew of third-party candidates. Time to reload and try again. Next time we're bringing Donald Trump!

Operation Glass Calm

Alright, time to go kill some aliens! Everybody on board: Zed, Shepard, Alexi, Mary, Daniel...wait, where's Daniel? A quick look at the roster shows that he's injured and out of action for a while. Apparently some glass from that exploding car (which so tragically flunked us out of our last mission) caught Daniel in the arm. Being the quiet, shy sort of trooper he is, he didn't say anything but decided to deal with it himself. Turns out the scratches got infected and Daniel has a half-a-degree fever. Since the fate of humanity is in our hands, any sort of fever is a non-starter for going on a mission, so Daniel's sitting this one out. Time to call up the man on the roster...or, er, woman on the roster, as the case may be.

Sophie Brown

Sophie is from rural England and has been defending the cows on her family's farm from alien abduction since she was old enough to milk them. She joined the army at 18 hoping to see a little more of the world and by 20 had been flagged as a tactical prodigy with an amazing gift for predicting enemy movements on the battlefield. Unfortunately that meant that the parts of the world she saw most were inside military think-tanks and briefing rooms writing and reviewing strategy manuals.

XCOM plucked her from the shadows (or florescent lighting, as it were), offering her a chance to get back in action in exchange for her help unraveling the mind of an enemy unlike any other. Sophie is smart, thinks fast on her feet, and possesses a wealth of knowledge about all things military and strategic. She's a bit of a light-weight when it comes to pop-culture, however; her whole life has been on a farm and in think-tanks. Shepard's joke about trying to infect the aliens with "Bieber fever" went right over her head.

Operation Glass Calm, (Abduction) Mendoza, Argentina

So Sophie is in for Daniel. We'll give her the med-kit for this mission. Zed still his had grenades. We're taking the Arc-Thrower along this time, hoping to catch us an alien for interrogation; it'd be nice to know a little more about what these guys are up to. The problem with the Arc-Thrower is that you have to be really, really close to the alien to use it and it doesn't always work. That means there's a chance you could find yourself staring straight into the muzzle of plasma rifle held by a very conscious ET who is more than a little perturbed that you just tried (unsuccessfully) to taze him. The job has a suicidal, take-one-for-the-team quality to it that is right up Shephard's ally, but Zed says "no," he wants his assault trooper loaded down with extra body-armor, not stun-guns. If someone else tries a stun and it doesn't work, Shepard might be able to get to them in time to blast the alien, but if the point man himself is left holding the bag he'll be on his own.

Mary's the next to volunteer; she still want to prove her worth, especially since her first mission was a failure and she'll be the only Ryan going this time around. Zed doesn't like this idea either, but he's running out of choices. Sophie's playing medic; as a sniper Alexi will be too far away to use the Arc Thrower; and, loaded down with a rocket-launcher and grenades (which he isn't about to give up), Zed isn't agile enough to do the job. Looks like Mary will get her wish.

Here's the team for Operation Glass Calm:

We're headed to Argentina. We had several calls for help, but I can only go to one place at a time and Argentina offered to bolster XCOM's engineering staff and, at the moment, I really need some more engineers. One of the other calls came from Asia. Not responding means that panic there will increase, which is problematic since our failed mission in India means that they're pretty freaked out already. Hopefully they'll hold on a little longer; the engineers will help us get some satellites up so we can see the alien's coming. That should come everyone down a bit.

We touch down outside a convenience store. A freaky alien pod is sitting outside. Civilians seem to have already evacuated the area or been rendered unconscious by the aliens. We should be able to revive them once the ET's are dealt with. Shepard checks the store and spots 2 sectoids inside investigating the candy bars; maybe they're intrigued by all the chocolate that says its from "Mars." Sectoids are the smallest and weakest of the aliens; they're genetically designed cannon fodder, pumped out of cloning facilities en masse (we know this because we autopsied one earlier). Since these guys aren't too touch and they're cornered, Zed decides to let Brown and Ryan (the rookies) take them down for the experience. If they can wound one of them we might be able to go in and capture him.

They have everything at these places: sodas, candy, coffee, aliens...

 Shepard positions himself by the door; if they rush out he'll blast them. Alexi takes a position behind the alien pod to keep an eye on all approaches, lest something unpleasant come along while we're in the 7-11. Mary and Sophie take position and open fire...and miss...and miss again...and keep missing. This is not encouraging. If it weren't for the fact that the aliens are also demonstrating remarkably poor marksmanship we would have a problem. Finally, one of the sectoids fires out a blast of plasma and incinerates a chunk of concrete about 2 inches from Mary's head; her pony-tail catches on fire. She puts it out and is fine, but that's enough waiting for Zed; he opens with his heavy Gatling gun and he doesn't miss. Two dead sectoids. Clean up on aisle 5!

Mary isn't at all happy about this show of over-protective paternalism, but the middle of an alien abduction isn't the time to discuss it. Two more sectoids are in an alley around the corner. One disappears through a doorway into what looks like a library. The other scampers up a drainpipe to the roof and prepares to rain down plasma on my squad. This is why we have snipers! Alexi scopes in on the sectoid on the roof but before he can pull the trigger and blow the little guy's head off, Sophie, to the shock and wonderment of everyone, blasts him off the roof with a precisely aimed burst from her rifle. Apparently, while she isn't comfortable yet with the idea of spraying bullets around a convenience store, she did get a lot of practice shooting pigeons off the barn roof when she was growing up. Seeing that little grey alien up there brought it all back.

That leaves one left in the library. It's alone, it's cornered, and by God Mary Ryan plans to take this one alive or die trying (which is a distinct possibility). Zed doesn't like but realizes this the best shot they're going to get and there's no point in letting Mary carry the Arc Thrower if he isn't going to let her use it. Also, he's pretty sure she's going to try it no matter what and there's no point in losing a good soldier to the brig for disobeying orders if you don't have to. Shepard kicks in the door and spots the sectoid hiding behind the paranormal-teen-romance section; it's big enough to provide a lot of cover. The next few moments go like clockwork. Zed's heavy automatic rifle lays down a steady stream of suppression fire, keeping the sectoid's head down. With the alien cowering and unaware, Mary charges in the room, Arc Thrower at the ready, Shepard is two steps behind her with his shotgun; if the high-tech taser doesn't work on the first try he'll have one shot at the alien before it reduces Ryan to cinders. Seconds later the sectoid is passively twitching on the ground as electrical currents shot-circuit its nervous system. We have our first live captive and Mary has her self-confidence back.

She also gets a promotion to "squaddie" and a specialization. She's a sniper now, our second, and will stay in the back row, though I suspect she'll be more inclined to get into the thick of things than the brooding Alexi is. With all the indoor fighting in this mission, and Sophie picking off the one sectoid on the roof, he didn't even fire a shot. Sophie get's promoted as well and, thankfully, specializes in support. She'll carry a med-kit from now on and a smoke grenade too. Nice work team.

Back at the base our sectoid goes into the Alien Containment Facility to await its "interview". Zed and Mary get a chance to hash things out. Her nabbing the sectoid impressed him and he's willing to admit that he doesn't need to look out for her...well, not any more than he looks out for the rest of his team. In exchange for that respect, she agrees that he's in charge and promises not to do anything stupid to try and prove herself. Over the next few days that spend a lot of time together, mostly working out in the gym, discussing tactics and past experiences. Zed has finally found someone willing to listen to his old war stories.

In other news, we get our monthly report card from the secretive council which pays our bills. They give us an 'A', which is fairly generous, what with that dead general and all, and some more money and people. Looking at the condition of the world, I see things are going pretty well except in Asia. Calming things down there will be our next priority.

Dramatis Personæ

We're going to begin in medias res because (1) I like the phrase "in medias res" and (2) its no fun trying to write about something that hasn't happened or characters that haven't been created. So...

Our Story Thus Far:

Aliens have come to earth! They're not nice aliens like ET, nor are they blow-everything-up-aliens like in Independence Day; they're more the randomly-abduct-a-few-people-here-and-there-while-sinisterly-plotting-evil sort of aliens. A council of nations, led by a bald guy whose face we can never quite make out, has created an international organization tasked with figuring out what these invaders are up to, stopping them, and in the mean time, saving as many people as possible. The world is on the verge of panic; it's up to us to keep things under control until we can sort this situation out. We have a giant underground base in Europe (which can be expanded later), a small force of interceptors, a squad of elite soldiers to work with.

Our base, or "the ant farm," as it's known.

So far, results have been mixed. Our first contact with the aliens went rather badly, which was, I'd like to emphasize, NOT MY FAULT! Mission #1 (operation "Devil's Moon") is an in-game tutorial which, no matter what you do, kills three quarters of your soldiers. It's kind of depressing. After that, things went better for a while; we launched a satellite, developed a weapon capable of stunning an alien but not killing it (the "Arc Thrower"), built an Alien Containment Facility in our base to house the little buggers once we capture them, saved some people from abduction, rescued someone who managed to escape from alien custody, and shot down a UFO! Not too bad if I do say so myself. And in all that time, we only had one additional fatality, so, thus far, the most deadly force we've encountered was a poorly scripted tutorial.

We join our team at a time when things are a little bit somber. After in-game weeks of success, we've just had our first "failed" mission. The squad was tasked to retrieve a military officer whose unit was pinned down by an alien abduction force in India. I don't want to go into the details of this particular mission, but to make a long story short, remember this: when cars are on fire, they sometimes explode. So, don't put anything you want to keep (like a military officer you just risked your life to rescue) next to a burning car. That's a tip; write it down.

At least the entire squad made it out alive. And, without farther adieu, here they are: the people who will save humanity (also, one person who tried but is dead now).

David ‘Zed’ Ziegler (Heavy Weapons)

Zed is the cornerstone of the XCOM squad, the ‘old man,’ our highest ranking member and the lead combatant on most missions. He’s been with us from the beginning, since the first tutorial mission of the game which forces you into a specific sequence of moves to walk you through the basic mechanics of tactical combat and, incidentally, kills off all but one member of your team.

Zed was the sole survivor of that mission and the experience changed him in a deep and personal way. For instance, going into that mission he was a young Latino rookie named Humberto Gonzales, but in the wake of that initial tragedy he felt the need to embrace the Israeli nationality randomly assigned to him by the game, to age about 30 years, and grow a nice thick mustache.

He also got a promotion and developed a special talent with heavy weapons, which gives him a rocket launcher as well as the standard grenade that most soldiers carry; which is to say, Zed blows stuff up. The game discourages the overuse of explosives because they prevent you from capturing alien weaponry and equipment intact for study purposes. The game’s scientist persona, Dr. Vahlen, regularly complains when valuable artifacts are reduced to debris. Zed doesn’t give a damn about research. He knows that the best way to keep a Martian plasma rifle from blowing a hole through your squad mate is to turn it, and the alien holding it, into a pile of ruble. And that’s good enough for him. 

Zuzana (Support, KIA – operation “Lazy Crone”) and Alexi 'Spectre' Morozova (Sniper)

The Morozova siblings joined XCOM together. Zuzana’s credentials were as a former Spetsnaz operative; Alexi’s credentials were as a dropout with a drinking problem who had no life…and as Zuzana’s little brother. Zuzana wouldn’t accept a position with XCOM unless they brought Alexi into the program as well. It turns out that several months of intensive physical and mental training, without access to vodka, television, or strip clubs was just what the doctor ordered; his mind and hands steadied and Alexi earned a place as the team’s foremost sniper.

Zuzana was our first fatality since the scripted tutorial/massacre that was Zed’s first mission. The team went after a crashed UFO in Australia, took out the ET lookalikes lurking outside without any trouble, but ran into a towering figure of glowing death once they breached the hull. This “Outsider,” the ship’s captain and (apparently) a ‘being of pure energy,’ materialized and took out our senior Russian operative in a single shot. Did I mention that deaths are permanent in this game? R.I.P. Zuzana. I’m sorry you weren’t around long enough to get a nickname.

We’re still waiting to see how Alexi deals with this loss. His sister was the reason he was in the program in the first place, but he seems devoted to pulling his own weight, especially now. So far, he’s only become more withdrawn, quieter, steadier, more focused…just what you want in a sniper. Now, I’m not saying that XCOM wants to profit from the bereavement of a sibling…but when it came time to replace Zuzana we did decide to hire twins. 

John 'Shep' Shepard (Assault)

Shepard is the last component of our initial foursome. His background is police, not military. A former SWAT officer, he developed a reputation for charging straight into the jaws certain death, shoving a shotgun in those jaws, and making certain death seriously reconsider its life choices. His general disregard for his own safety is second only to his obsessive concern about the lives of his squad mates.

When the Outsider took out Zuzana, Shepard WAS out of cover and charging forward before the collection of wet materials that used to be her body hit the ground. We don’t know if you can really kill beings of pure energy with point-blank shotgun blasts to the head, but thanks to Shepard we do know that you can make them go “Arrrgh!” and dissipate in an explosive, sparkly sort of way.

As an assault soldier, Shepard can cover more ground than anyone else and still fire his weapon. Officially that means he’s the point man on most missions; unofficially it means that, if you find yourself facing deep trouble with no way out, he’s the guy most likely to come charging out of nowhere in an attempt to blow deep trouble to kingdom come.

 

Mary and Daniel Ryan

The Ryan twins are the latest recruits to the XCOM program. They were both with the British SAS, albeit in separate units, and pleased to find that XCOM had no restrictions on them serving together. As the only woman currently in the squad, its important to Mary that the other members take her seriously and treat her as an equal; she tries to make her presence felt on the field and around the barracks. It hasn't been a problem with her brother, Shepard, or Alexi, but I think Zed is going to have trouble not thinking of her as a daughter-figure, especially if she keeps that ponytail.

Daniel, like Alexi, is a quiet, reserved sort of guy. But where Alexi is brooding, Daniel is just plain shy. He's taken the time to read everything available on the extraterrestrial threat, the XCOM project, and he organization backing it.

The twins are too new to have nicknames or specializations yet. We’re hoping one of them will end up as a Support operative to replace Zuzana as our primary medic tactician. I hope it’s Daniel, because if the game randomly makes assigns both of my first female agents the role of “nurse,” my wife will take umbrage. Also, Daniel Ryan sounds like a great name for a medic, don’t you think? Hopefully it won't take the loss of a sibling for him to really embrace the role.

That's everybody. At the moment, the world is mostly holding together. The council that funds XCOM is made up of 16 member states. Every successful alien attack increases panic in the target nation and decreases their confidence in XCOM. If panic goes too high the nation will withdraw from the program, effectively surrendering to the aliens. If 8 nations withdraw their support the program is canceled and we lose the game. 

Looking at the screen below you can see that panic levels are pretty low everywhere except India, which might have something to do with our letting their general get blown to smithereens by an exploding Volvo in that last mission. You can also see our base in Germany and that we have a satellite up over China on the lookout for UFOs. Satellite's decrease panic so we'll try to put one up over India as soon as possible.

Next time I'll take a stab at describing an actual mission.