Just when you thought it was safe to... TFTD, the soldier genocide simulator.

[Saphroneth]

This is the first time we actually saw one on approach. Let's try and catch it on the ground... maybe that'll give us the base coordinates as well as yet more Elerium.


Enemy ship has landed in the Kalahari.

Ready Go



Landing area secured.
"Got it. Now, someone make us a keyhole."

"Alien commanders usually lay an ambush around the command area of the ships... and intel says that's there."

"I think we got him."
"Don't be cocky. They're Mutons, it takes more than you think for them to realize they're dead."


"Okay, everyone, standard search and clear. Send the gorillas on ahead when you spot 'em."




"That went pretty well, man."

"Armand! Look out!"
"Wha-!"
*Freeem*

"NO!"
DIE
"Is he okay?"
"Not with a hole this big in his throat. Sorry, he's gone."

Another of the old guard, lost. For glowing rocks.
Well, this will not stand.
Gather the men. We have our target, we have our objective.
The Muton base will not even burn, because that would imply that there was something left.

[Saphroneth]

"Orders, sir?"
"Only one. Burn them all."

"Tanks are advancing, little resistance. Strange floating entities spotted, classified Celatid. They'd be a threat if they didn't have the most potent acid in the world and no sense of ballistics."
Mutons with Blaster Bombs. I have one of you already. Fire the weapons at your own feet.

"All of you, burn."
Watch out, Leo! I didn't get that one!
"Gaah! Flash burns... someone be ready for me in the staging area, major wounds here."

"We got you, we're not losing another. Though you might have to sit out Cydonia at that."

Target identified.
Full cluster there... got them. And a Blaster Launcher there, too? Fun time.

"It's better. There's two."


"Okay, that seems like we're done. Set the Elerium charge and let's go."


The blast scoured the entire desert clean of life for thirty kilometers in every direction. There weren't many civilians left to evacuate.

New policy: Lockdown. We respond to terror attacks only. Shoot down the flyers we see, but no ground missions, as we're about up to combat strength for the Manus Celer Dei, and the Izanami-no-Mikoto is nearly at assault readiness, but any loss of psi troops will jeopardize the ultimate objective.

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

The difference is more that I need Psi amps for the Psi active soldiers (over half the crew), Medikits for nearly everyone (they've saved as many people as my entire casualty list by now, if not more) and blaster ammo for the heavy weapons.
And since loading up everyone with a HP and NO extra ammo is 2 per person and 4 is about the outer limit, I need to downgrade to las for some if I'm to carry blasters for the others.

If you're really trying to save on inventory space, you can probably cut down to one medkit for every 3 or four soldiers, and move it around by throwing it, and slashing secondary weapons off the psis. I don't remember how it works for items over 80 that you move from phase one to phase two, but at the very least, you'll be able to replenish with whatever the baddies have in the Cydonia base, so it's not essential that everyone have heavy plasmas, or even secondary weapons.

[Saphroneth]

We didn't assault any more crashed UFOs. No more desperate fighting in the incongruous corridors of a landed alien vessel in the middle of a field, no more of that.
Instead the troops picked for the Cydonia mission trained, and we all waited for two things.
The Izanami-no-Mikoto to be finished, shaken down, transferred to the US base, and armed with the atomic Fusion Ball launchers, designed specifically to crack the alien base shield.
And for the Commander to be ready.
She'd been in at the start, only seemed right she'd be in at the end.

Okay, now the scientists are just bored.


They were the only ones. The soldiers were getting tense, worked up, keyed up for the last mission.
And, of course, the pilots were still having a field day.
Borealis downs a Terror Ship.
Not, of course, that the Firestorm stopped firing until the target was a pile of slag in a lake of glass twenty feet deep. Plasma weapons allow for quite remarkable devastation, if recovery is not an issue.


Mutons. Teh.
The Izanami-no-Mikoto is complete.
Amber, Susan and Tsu (Or Amaterasu, Susanoo and Tsukuyomi, as they are known on mission) were transferred to the US base post haste, as the base had finished their shieldbreaker weapons.

Nine days remain.
And meanwhile Uta Keller was pleased to note that her kill count finally exceeded that of the commander, at 41.
No one else came close.
These things are disgusting.
And apparently, despite their "venom" being acid that can eat through anything on earth and even UFO hull - natural production of Chlorine Trifluoride, Alien biologists are insane - essentially harmless in combat.
They can't calculate ballistic trajectories.
They cannot tell where that blob of anti everything goop will go. So they don't use it.
Dunno about you, but I'm relieved.

Interesting...

Lies. All lies.
Mutons... smart? What are the lab people smoking these days? I know that, thanks to various quirks, the CERN tunnel does have places that are outside any jurisdiction, but come on.

Weapons loaded.

Chryssalids. Dangerous in close quarters.
Guess what an underground base on Mars is? Yep, close quarters. Everyone bring a Psi Amp.

Security camera feed, medical bay.
"Well?"
"Physio therapy is complete, no further problems."
"Right. Time for a little payback."
Announcement to all hands.
"Attention, all crew of the Manus Celer Dei.
This is your Commander speaking.
We're about to go on a mission that is perhaps the most noble one any man or woman has ever taken on. This is not about the promotion of one nation above another, not one idea, not one faith.
This is for the survival of all humanity.
I would wish that I knew some of you a little better. I know that all of you have your own reasons for fighting, whether it's for a loved one, or a country, or an idea, or a faith. Maybe you're even just out for yourself.
All of that is fine.
Whatever your reason, it's what makes you human. It's to be treasured. It's what you have that's different from the extraterrestrial bastards that want to blast us back into the stone age for existing.
Nothing more needs to be said, but this.
We came in peace, for all mankind.
We will not make that mistake again.
...
Everyone draw your favoured loadout.
Cabal and GLaDOS to their chassis.
We lift in ten.
Dagaille out.

[Saphroneth]

The Izanami-no-Mikoto and the Manus Celer Dei were both tougher ships than the Ethereal Empire had built or even conceived of, in their thousands of years of existence. The ships rivalled the durability of a Jjaro Super Dreadnought, and were so small and fast as to be nigh impossible to catch.
That said, Cydonia was extremely well defended.
It had to be, to have the chance of fending off the machinations of the mad AI from the future, Durandal, and his S'Pht'Kr. The entirety of reality, of time, was in flux after the cataclysmic battle of Lh'owon and the Humbling of Battle Group Seven, to say nothing of the Trih Xeem and the great gravity station, Aye Mak Sicur.
That attempt to release one of the Sleepers had mostly failed.
Mostly.
It had allowed this one, an attempt to at one stroke obliterate the meddlesome human race and free the W'rkncacnter buried in a deathless state somewhere on their globe.
But things had not gone well thus far, for their very interference had spawned X-Com.


"We're ready for jump back here, everything secured. You?"
"Yeah, green across the board. We just need the Mikoto's ready signal."
You have it. Estimated height needed for Tunnel Drive operation is 32,000 Km.

The Tunnel Drive was a truly remarkable piece of kit. It allowed instantaneous travel across any distance, by transporting the ship using the drive to the next place along a projected line where the gravitational potential energy was exactly equal to the starting point.
It conserved energy, linear momentum, angular momentum and definitely NOT Einstein's Relativity.

"Okay, we are at the required height. Plotting states we'll come in over the Noctis Labyrinthus. From there, we got a flight down the Coprates Chasma before we hit the former ocean basin, and we're in LOS of Cydonia for the last dozen miles."
Transporting in three... two... one...
A soundless flicker, and a new place.
"Crap!"
Battle Reflex Alert!
"They were expecting us! Mikoto, on my left flank. We've got the plasmas, we'll burn you the path."
Psi defences up.
You can count on us.
Each plasma weapon the Manus Celer Dei carried had one hundred shots in the capacitors. Once the two thousand mile running battle had crested the dunes and the objective was in sight, each gun held barely ten.
"Right, we're in position. Remember the plan?"
"Yep! I've trained for nothing else, remember?"
"Good. Okay, firing!"
The plasma fire scattered harmlessly off the Cydonia Main Base shields in a multicoloured firework display. The return fire was a Fusion Ball that detonated barely five hundred metres off the formation's flank.
"Aah!"
"Sunova... Tsu, you get anything?"
Pole One located, firing.
The Izamani-no-Mikoto slammed a Fusion Ball of her own downrange, through the point in the current shield configuration where there was no defence, and the cleansing fire of antimatter wiped one of the Cydonia shield generators off the face of reality.
"We got it!"
"Great, only three to go."
The shields had shifted in their patterns with the loss of that generator, and so the shields had to be probed again.
A total of three more times, the two tiny, deadly craft ran the gauntlet of fire from the base to punch a beyond-nuclear fireball through the shields and weaken that same defence.
Until, finally, they failed. And at almost the same moment, the Mikoto was bracketed by the base turrets.
"Amber!"
Nothing left... I think they're-
"Nothing? At all? Any wreckage?"
No... how strange.
"Strange nothing, that was the Tunnel drive! Clever girl, she went back to Earth in time!"
Her duty is done. Now is ours.
"Yeah, I gotcha. Hey in the back, we're setting down in thirty seconds. Looks like the turrets have shot their magazines dry."

[Saphroneth]

"Okay, everyone got it? Green pyramid is the teleporter."
"Right. Tanks, give us a perimeter."

You'll be... still alive.
Understood.

Under fire! Sectoid class Aliens detected.
"Well, so much for doing this easily... Psi corps, engage!"

"Oh man, we are so lucky. Objective located and marked, Commander! It's barely twenty meters away!"

"Damn, a guard we didn't spot!

"Neutralize him, quick!"
Too late.  He's called in the coordinates, brace for artillery.

"Get moving, people! And someone crack that teleporter open so we can fit the tanks in there!"
"On it, Captain."

"Okay, that's one blaster round, how many are left?"
"Eleven total, but we might want to redistribute the blaster launchers to people with more upper body strength."
Okay, everyone ready? The pyramid won't hold out much longer.
"Use the damn radio, Akira!"
"Yeah, we're fine. You're clear to jump back, Manus. We'll call you when we need you."
Good luck, Commander.

Jump Pad Activation Initiation Start.
*****Transport when ready*****



"Sunova..."

"That damn thing split us up! Good thing it didn't do anything worse."
"Should be OK, we're within comms range. Okay, everyone, remember there's likely a major psi presence here. Only highly skilled operatives to open their minds for combat."

"Good luck, guys. And keep in touch."

[Saphroneth]

Happy Fun Time Launcher!
"Right, let's see..."
That Chryssalid behind you is scary. You should blow it up.


"Man, that's satisfying. Follow me, everyone!"
"Zander, wait!"

*Thu-kooooom*
"...the alien bastard responsible for that dies. NOW."


Additional xenos battle creatures identified! Some form of silica based entity is also present.


"Commander, I've found the Ethereal responsible."
"Thank you, sergeant."
DIE


"Uplink... successful! I've accessed all the Sectopods on the floor, transmitting kill command."


"Gaah!"

[Saphroneth]

"Thank the lord, it was a Celatid. That gunk's eating the floor, but it's not got on the suit."

"Hey, goopy. Eat this!"

"More on the flank. Covering fire."


"This looks promising, it wasn't a part of any of the bases we hacked into."

"Sir, wait. I'll go first."
"You sure, Hans?"
"Sure as anything. Besides, you're the one with the pure psi potential that's shielding us all, right? Compared to you, we're all expendable."
"Okay. Just... be careful."

"Aaaagh..."
"Damn, plasma fire! That was some kind of ambush. I shouldn't have..."
"Calm down, Akira. Besides, didn't you see him messing with the Blaster Bombs? He knew he wasn't coming back."

***momentary interrupt, seismometers measure a major marsquake, seems half dozen blaster bombs detonated at the same time***
"...wow."
"Okay, I'm going up. Don't try to stop me this time."
"Wouldn't dream of it."

"Cripes, this place is a mess. And looks like there's a fully charged heavy plasma..."

Welcome, champion of the younger race.

Welcome... to the true origin of your species.

"So, you are the leader of this alien base. Give me one good reason why I should not just blast you right now."

You know it is true... your very mind reveals unto you the truth.

Come, join us in worship of the great ones that were, and that may still be, aid us, free the Sleeper.
"No."
No? Why? How?
"Because I am Akinori Akira. Colonel of X-Com, and Perfect class Psyker. And you're just not as good as me. Did you think I would miss the mental attack? The tendrils of thought, searching for the command override that your almighty Sleeper put there? It's not there anymore, I found it and removed it. Face it, you've only crystallized my resolve."
No! I can show you-

"Feh. Never trust a creature that's all brain."
krrskkrrk-* Commander? Anyone down there?
"Hi, Meg. Yeah, we're mostly here. Two down, unrecoverable, sadly. But we've won."




"...what was that about command override?"
"Hope you never find out. Now, I need to see someone about setting up contingencies, I think I got most of that brain's vital info before I zapped it."

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

Huzzah!


See, Cydonia isn't that tough.

[Saphroneth]

Lucky me that those Celatids have Throwing Accuracy 0, though, or they might have torn me up. 140 AVERAGE damage on that damn acid...

And yeah, there was a deal of luck lined up there. First the exit pyramid on the surface so close, then the fact that I had my troops spread out when the Blaster came in (which had only happened that turn)...
Could have gone very differently. Luckily, it didn't.

Now, time to get the antacids for TFTD. T'Leth is horrible...

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

For a challenge, you could try re-doing it with only Akira, one champion of humanity against the toughest base the aliens have


EDIT-

Are the celatids really that inaccurate? Although tbh, I don't remember losing people to them all that often. And come to think of it, on the rare times I've grabbed them, I tend to miss when I fire their acid blobs, so maybe they are. But I'm sure I've nailed a few mutons at terror sites with them.

[Saphroneth]

I have the suspicion that their (grenade trajectory) weapon is in fact modelled AS a grenade, meaning that their Throwing Acc zero (on easy) cripples them.
It's possible to hit with them as the player, sure, but that trooper took two shots, both in his square, neither hit.



Oh - think I should do TFTD in the same thread or start a new one?

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Keep the same thread. Might as well - but change the topic of the first post, I think.

... also, include a link to the new sequence in the first post. That'd be nice and friendly and stuff...

[Saphroneth]

And here's the start of part II of the XCOM saga. Terror From The Deep, infamously so hard that for several years there was a rumour that the game was locked on Superhuman. It's not, Easiest really feels like that.

Casualty list:


Sylvie Dreyfus (Seaman)
The enemy classified Gill Men, on a terror mission in Tonga. Her sacrifice let us prevent a possible grenading of the entire mission team.

Danni Carlos (Able Seaman)
Unfortunately, everyone mistook him for a girl thanks to the name. Worse was that after... his? Yeah, his death, there wasn't really enough for people to tell easily.

Galina Chipov (Able Seaman)
Damn Gill Men. This one apparently disguised itself as a stanchion or something, and ambushed her in the engine room. Wouldn't have been a problem if we could get some actual flying suits...

Victor Bakeovich (Seaman)
Fate worse than death. Presumably. Molecularly controlled on the first Alien Colony raid and left behind in the emergency dustoff.

[Saphroneth]

"Asteroids... Pandora... Polis Massa... Submarine recovery..."
"What? Submarine recovery? Does that even exist?"
"Hehe, yeah. It's where they send the... difficult personalities. Gets them out of the way and three klicks below sea level."
"There must be some mistake."
No mistake, Cadet Johnston. You are assigned to the Grand Banks base of the sub-aqua division of XCOM, effective immediately.
"Figures. Top score in the unit, and what do I get? Scut work."

The base transport was roomy, to a degree. Smaller than the training Skyranger, perhaps, but still quite adequate. Though when Uma Johnston discovered that her new assignment was as one of the combat ready troops using a harpoon gun in case of trouble in UFO salvage operations, she nearly blew a lid.
Until she met the base commander.
Akinori Akira was a well known figure on Earth, perhaps the most well known short of the Terrible Two who'd commanded XCOM on the ground and in space, but his prominence had lessened somewhat after his death in a crash in 2037.
Clearly this had been subterfuge.
"Rest assured, miss Johnston, this is no make work assignment. I can personally reassure you that not one UFO in the first war was shot down over water or even on the beach. The recovery operation is merely a cover.
No, we have more pressing matters to deal with, matters which you may or may not learn of. I hope that this is merely a vigil that will not be tested, but such luck is unlikely.
And we can't request the big guns, I'm afraid. We have an official position with the American Alliance military as an underwater weapons testing unit, hence we get good kit for underwater action, but plasmas, lasers, even Elerium fuel would indicate our presence. And I hope we are not noticed.
The thing we may have to fight would be drawn by belief, and our very power structure may be infiltrated."
The grizzled old veteran smiled warmly. It was easy to forget that this was the man who had forced a Gou'ald to self destruct on contact, who had led the invasion of Minerva.
The man who had thrown an assassin's bullets back through the sniper's own scope.
"But enough of doom and gloom! Get yourself stowed away and we'll see what you prefer from our admittedly meager selection of shooty things."

[Saphroneth]

That is not dead which can eternal lie/And with strange eons, even death may die

This is the location of the X-Com deep base.

It's kinda small, I suppose, but then we are trying to be covert at the moment.
Though the whole idea of covert ops seems to sit ill with the idea of fighting off an Alien invasion. And we've got only a short team.

Only eight troops as of yet. Reinforcements, please.

Still, that's a better showing than the guns.
Covert operations plus underwater action gear equals not fun.

Crap.
Better.
Usable.
Underwater.
Underwater also.
Handy!
Taser?

Welcome to the Grand Banks. You'll be here a while.


Well, looks like the base command's suspicions bore fruit.

At least they go down easy.

Though we'd better switch in the DUP heads on both attack subs, in case this isn't an isolated incident. There may well be escalation, and bigger subs could eat AJAX torps and keep coming.



"Okay, people, look sharp. We're trying to get hold of a submersible variant of the minitanks from war one, but no dice so far. So we're the scouts."
"Open order, move/overwatch in groups, report any sightings."

"There!"
"Fall back, let everyone else have a pop at it."

"God, the accuracy on these things is pathetic, and the muzzle velocity's not much better."
"This has a little more oomph to it..."

"Anything else on acoustics?"
"Negative. Nice work, everyone."

"So we have a tiny little scout USO, one crewman, and he's carrying an assortment of sound based weaponry. Brilliant."

Promotions:

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

I fixed your links.

[Saphroneth]

Damn, I forgot to check. What was wrong with them?

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

img url=http://... doesn't work too well.

[Inumo]

I'll be following this one a bit better this time. Good luck!

[Saphroneth]

They could not live. But although They no longer lived, They would never really die.

Good news at least, more weapons have arrived.
Since the capture of Alien life forms was eventually important in the first war, then in this one it may be so again. Tasers are to be issued to the entire crew, in the hopes of achieving a capture once the containment unit is available.

This brings us up to ten troops, and -
WOW!
Seaman Danni Carlos is apparently ex-SAS, one of the Thousand-yard-stare jobs. Well, XCom has always been open to recruits from all walks of life, more so for this lot. And we'll need that skill soon.
Priority is getting the Alien weapons working and duplicable. As in the first war, we suspect the Alien's knowledge of their environment exceeds ours, and to be honest anything would be better than a flippin' harpoon gun.

New target. Good thing the Coelacanth arrived...
Oh, the Coelacanth. Turned out that in the thirties some wackjob had an underwater tank series built. We took the harpoon cannon option, in case we ever have to work above water. I consider it all too likely.

"Okay, everyone, stay sharp and let the SWS go first. We're entering hostile domain here."
"Got'cha. And everyone got their spare clips? Sound off."
*Series of acknowledgments.*
"Good. Imrahil?"
Ready to serve.
Target seen!

"Another one of the Stingray rejects. Now-"
"Sorry, ma'am? Stingray?"
"No appreciating the classics today, I swear. It's a Gerry Anderson sci fi series, you should see it. Very relevant to our current situation."
"I'll take your word for it."
"Suit yourself. Eat harpoon!"

"Nice shot, ma'am."

How did this thing move at supersonic speeds underwater without tidal waves?
"Advanced technology?"
Clearly. Moving in.

One has exited. For Dol Amroth - Alert. Taking Fire.


Conclusion: Multiple hostiles. Glacis plate thinned ~50%. Weapon analysis suggests sonics.
Also, OW.
"Fall back, Imrahil! We can provide cover as soon as we arrive, just hold on."

Revenge!
"Okay, on three."

"GO!"


"Mission success, and this one's a bigger ship too!"
"We have a power source, more weapons - and I think this one's still alive!"

"Too bad, no containment facility yet. Deliver the coup de grace... able seaman."
*Thoonk*

[Saphroneth]

I wonder where I can source apocalyptic style poetry... could be a hard find even with the Lovecraft stuff all being online.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

How do you define apocalyptic style, though?

I mean, I can write death haiku, if you want. That's probably not the same thing...

[Saphroneth]

The first chapter start quote is from the Necronomicon, the second from I think the Mountains of Madness. Good old Lovecraftian stuff, it fits the game.
And that's what I need a little more of.
Just the source of most of the common quotes would be nice, really... that or I try and find an RPG sourcebook of the right pedigree...

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

... Paranoia?

[Saphroneth]

Crud Terror Mission Gillmen Everywhere Oh God Oh God...

Permission to savescum this one?
If I do, that makes me a shoo-in for the advanced armour that is mandatory for T'Leth.
But it will also mean time itself fractures into a million pieces...

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

You mean you hadn't already been doing the wibbly-wobbly effect?

What happens if you don't?

[Saphroneth]

Horrible, horrible death, lots of.

And this mission is the first save/reload I've done since... ooh... probably about the arrival of the Mutons.

[Saphroneth]

They were first made once more aware by the great psionic pulse of the death of the local Ethereal command node.
And They began seeking the awakening of their master.

More scientists have arrived. Apparently they're working on the Alien sonic weapons.
Anything's better than the damn Jet harpoons.
Well, the Gauss tech's only marginally better, one of the scientists slapped another when he heard that plan. Lasers with tiny ammo capacity and less punch? No thanks.

No rest for the wicked.
Hang on, it's started moving. Interception please!

It's strange as hell watching a submarine take off and fly cloaked over Quebec and Acadia.


"Huh. Crashed aircraft. Who knew?"

Interesting. I'll clear some of the terrain, give better line of sight.

"What the hell?"
"My ears hurt..."
"I can't help feeling that we should carry around hunks of aircraft part, seems they're better explosives than our magna blast tech."
"Over there! The fuselage!"

"I see it."

"Another one bites the dust. Looks like that's the only hostile still moving."

"And more of this green gold crud. What the hell is it?"

Wasn't much time to relax after that mission.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Those links don't appear to work. Looking at the dir, there's no images actually loaded that match those names...