Okay, let me clear up any confusion. Saka doesn't dislike clones, she dislikes that so many of the same person are running around and it hurts her brain to think about it DX
X-COM RP THINK TANK (part2)
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Next mission is up. Will post the results once Gem is ready.
Mission is up! Please enjoy!
DarkGemini24601
Well-Known Member
Or be an ass, and don't. :3
Was awesome, love the suspense and conclusion.
BMPixy
Well-Known Member
2/10 too much noblebright.
Kidding aside, I thought XCOM stood for Extra-terrestrial Combat Unit, not Extra-terrestrial Combat Unit, if you understand my emphasis. Almost seems like we got more X-Rays on base than humans. While this series of plot additions is well-executed, I find myself disagreeing more and more with the direction we're taking. It was believable when it was just Dante, made some form of sense when I-12 or Ogedei were co-operative, but then we started letting them wander around outside of their cages, and then the EXALT/Legion split happened, and now we've got a ship's worth of Muton women roaming around, a co-operative Ethereal and most recently the Four Horsemen. I probably would have run this quite a bit differently, hewing a little bit closer to the original plot, but, I'unno, I always read XCOM as a game about humanity's paranoia about outsider attack finally being justified and the cost of ensuring our fears do not become our futures, rather than this whole shebang we have going on right now.
In my opinion, everybody seems a bit too trusting, too willing to extend an olive branch, and to be honest I kind of hope that eventually something happens that exposes the naivety of that mindset when you're dealing with a collective of aliens who want nothing more than to beat down our resistance and enslave our kind to be free from their ailing bodies. But hey, that's just my opinion, and I'm not the GM. I'm just here for the ride.
Kidding aside, I thought XCOM stood for Extra-terrestrial Combat Unit, not Extra-terrestrial Combat Unit, if you understand my emphasis. Almost seems like we got more X-Rays on base than humans. While this series of plot additions is well-executed, I find myself disagreeing more and more with the direction we're taking. It was believable when it was just Dante, made some form of sense when I-12 or Ogedei were co-operative, but then we started letting them wander around outside of their cages, and then the EXALT/Legion split happened, and now we've got a ship's worth of Muton women roaming around, a co-operative Ethereal and most recently the Four Horsemen. I probably would have run this quite a bit differently, hewing a little bit closer to the original plot, but, I'unno, I always read XCOM as a game about humanity's paranoia about outsider attack finally being justified and the cost of ensuring our fears do not become our futures, rather than this whole shebang we have going on right now.
In my opinion, everybody seems a bit too trusting, too willing to extend an olive branch, and to be honest I kind of hope that eventually something happens that exposes the naivety of that mindset when you're dealing with a collective of aliens who want nothing more than to beat down our resistance and enslave our kind to be free from their ailing bodies. But hey, that's just my opinion, and I'm not the GM. I'm just here for the ride.
Well... um... sorry? This kinda came outta left field, so I'm not sure how to react. All I can say is things are constantly changing, new things are added to keep things fresh, most of the characters seemed open to the idea of doing all we can, even if that means gaining unusual allies, and...
Well, to be honest, while I loved the game, I'm... not that big a fan of the story. It is incredibly bare-bones, and is obviously only there to serve as a reason for the fighting. There is never, ever a real ethical debate, which is odd, considering the occasional comments made by Shen and Vahlen. It feels really odd for me to refer to it as a Tactical RPG, because there is no RPG elements to it other then leveling. No arguments, no real story development except for the few things added to EW and the last speech by the Uber, no ethical issues with torturing information out of aliens or slicing them open, or executing captives we only take to get there weapons, the crew you grow attached to have no voice out of battle, and there is never talk about civilian deaths or killing a teammate while mind controlled.
This is why this game produced the various RPs based on it. This one has so much wiggle room, which is needed since we aren't using the game as a platform. As such, we are free to move away from it. I'm mostly along for the ride with everyone else, though I do feel the need to add something myself. If you don't agree with it, please feel free to show that through your characters. Have Albert go to the Commander and tell her off. Have Fay snap and shoot Death in the head. Like I said, I'm constantly adapting.
DarkGemini24601
Well-Known Member
And we have plenty of proof that the Horsemen are willing to help us. Plus, when you enslave races, why would they NOT resist? Almost none of the races joined willingly. I-12 is neutral, he holds his own life in the highest esteem. Why would a more bland story where we can uniformly brand the aliens as enemies be better?
In my opinion (although this is fiction) that strikes me as racist-ideology. Like Atka has said, the aliens aren't demons, so treating them all like they're evil is racist. And writing justified racism seems...off to me.
Not saying that's how you think. It's just a bad theme to put forward.
BMPixy
Well-Known Member
Yeah, sorry for not making my feelings known earlier, that's always been one of my big problems. But, regardless, it's nice to hear your reasoning behind this. You're the GM, you're the one who gets final say over everything, I'm just voicing my concerns. I might take up your suggestions on those, though it'd probably be reversed of who's doing what, even as my fear of disapproval tells me not to do so.
I'm not asking for universally evil aliens, I'm just saying that it seems odd to me that every faction outside of those who are canonically the bad guys end up joining XCOM. Maybe writing Albert so much has influenced my thinking here, but it is pretty evident that the majority of the aliens are, in fact, demons. For every Dante, it seems we've got four Samuels and a Gula. Vicious monsters that see human life as something to be toyed with and discarded when used up. It riles me up when I see them being treated so trustingly, hell I probably would have stripped Luxuria's mind of all useful information and consigned her to life as a living battery for what she's done. Sure an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, but that's why you make sure they can't come for your eyes. And hey, I guess that's why I have the characters that are staunchly anti-alien.
I'd also like to point out that some assumptions might be being made here. There is nothing to say this won't come back to bite X-COM, or that the horsemen can be completely trusted.
And Ayame doesn't trust them, I made that pretty clear at the start of the mission.
And Ayame doesn't trust them, I made that pretty clear at the start of the mission.
DarkGemini24601
Well-Known Member
I don't like Luxxy, don't get me wrong. But the reason the majority of the aliens are evil? The Ethereals. And I think we can pretty universally say their race has fallen to darkness. But as for the others? For the most part, they're just cruel puppets controlled by puppetmasters that make them so.
And for EXALT...well, I'm writing Elene realistically. She isn't black and white good or evil. Human cloning is wrong, but she's okay with it, because of the pursuit of unbarred science and because she is one. And a lot of her internal thoughts are supposed to show that she's no saint. But I wasn't going to write her evil. Lusett's primary goal was science, and she passed that on to Elene through biological programming. Elene hates Viktor for killing Lusett, so she was never going to help him. And the easiest way to pursue science is with XCOM's large team that can also help her eliminate Viktor.
Desmond doesn't hate the Ethereals entirely but he doesn't trust them. Desmond is really one of those characters where people won't know what he is thinking because Desmond has learned over the years that every shadow has something hiding in it, no matter how large or small. If anything, EXALT has taken the place of the aliens because they really don't have any redeaming factors.
DarkGemini24601
Well-Known Member
And Legion has become something entirely separate. They're Lusett's EXALT, not Viktor's.
Well... some of the Ethereals have redeeming factors. But they are the enemy, and while I'm not going to speak for every alien at this point, I can almost guantee there will not be a 'make-piece' ending to this. The Ethereals are still the enemy, and X-COM will fight them until they are gone, and unless there is a reason to believe they will never, ever come back, this could turn into an Ender's Game situation.
And that goes double for EXALT. The alliance between Legion and X-COM is one thing, but there will be no piece with EXALT (not that Viktor would agree with it anyway).
And Morrigan has expressed her dislike about the idea of cloning. She 'allows' it to maintain the alliance, and because she isn't a hypocrate, and isn't about to talk down to Elene for cloning when her scientist and engineers are playing God with soldiers' genes and cybernetics, not to mention the psi labs.
Adrammalech
Well-Known Member
Conversation!
I think that as we are all sci-fi nuts/writers/nutty writers we are a little more accepting when it comes to the idea of alien-human cooperation. That said, as a society, we are also a little more accepting than we usually have been (sexualities, ethnicities, disorders), and I personally like to think that will bleed into whenever we make first contact, as opposed to the usual old timey idea of crazy gray midgets descending from saucers that we immediately shoot at.
I know my Luxuria arc is "controversial," and it does go through an approval process whenever I continue it. If it allays any concerns, it should be noted that this is kind of a "honeymoon" phase (it will become A LOT more hostile relatively soon) and Luxuria will never be released from her cell peacefully and take up a room with people like some kind of ally. Although no major catastrophe has happened yet, Luxuria is using the room Emily gives her malevolently (tried the mindrape when she lowered the dampeners, and made Emily's dreamscape Ethereal instead of actually hers), and Emily's internal conflict is balancing if and when to give her that room.
Emily personally is more accepting because her social quirk is that she's always posing to get the advantage. This is apparent when she's dealing with Luxxy's psionics, and present but far more subtle with AIs (Alice), and recently clones (Nick). Internally, she's as paranoid as anyone else, she just knows screaming 'evil robots' won't help when the evil robots come.
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Frostlich1228
Well-Known Member
And I'm sure you know how Ammelia feels about the aliens. She only tolerates I-12 and hasn't gone to speak with Luxeria even though she openly spoke with Dante. However, Ammelia's distrust only really extends to psionic aliens. Aliens like the Thin Men and the Mutons are worth trusting in her opinion, because she has actually met nice members of that race. (Dante and Odegai(She has heard lots of good things about Odegai))
However she has had nothing but bad experiences with Sectoids and Ethereals, the Sectoids in particular.
In short, Ammelia distrusts psionic aliens because she feels they are monsters who are corrupted by their own power.
Ps. Mary doesn't really know what do think, but would probably distrust them first considering how many people they kill and the fact that she never met any good aliens like Dante. So she would probably hold a similar opinion to Ayame.
I'm actually interested in seeing the negative way Ammelia will react to meeting Death, and the negative way Death will react to meeting Emily.
DarkGemini24601
Well-Known Member
Well, yeah. We'll try to save what Balmadaar we can, but most of the Thin Men and Sectoids are too far gone. In the end, I think it'll be up to what's left of the Balmadaar to repopulate their race (pimp Ogedei xD) and try to rebuild. The Temple Ship might still go kabloee in one way or another, but we're hopefully not going to execute the Legion staff and our alien allies at the end to 'make sure' and 'tie up loose ends'. (Though Legion...we'll see how the council feels about them in the end)
We are literally turning into Mass Effect right now...and I approve..
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