Introduction

"How did it come to this? After all our struggles. We fought back the darkness brought about by The Nightfall. We survived the Twilight of humanity. The bright light of hope for our future that burned so brightly only a year ago is now but the flicker of a candle.

We fought the aliens back multiple times in the last century. On Earth, in the seas, in space. Yet we could not stop their latest weapon. The Biomass. Our last efforts bought us time but little else. In desperation our last ditch effort was set into motion.

The Cult of Sirius. May all of them be damned to the ninth circle of Hell. They sold themselves to the aliens in return for a floating city. Safe in the sky they would have watched the Biomass consume our world and bestow their prophetic fate. We bestowed them another fate.

We took their floating city, named the Omen by the cultists. We built enough ships to launch an attack on the Omen. We took it from the Reticulans and the cult both. Here we thought we could safely develop new weapons against the Biomass. Reclaim the Earth once more.

For weeks we transported people and supplies off the surface as we slowly lost base after base to the Biomass. It's advance had been slowed by our earlier strike but still it came for us, a slow creeping death pushing us off of our own planet.

We had one chance, and it failed. The Psionic Cannon was brought to the Omen. Here we thought we could safely strike node after node of the Mass until it stopped growing or died. The weapon itself worked but it was huge and immobile. The idea of mounting the cannon on the underside of the Omen solved these problems. We thought we could safely fly over the Mass and strike it whenever and where ever we wanted with impunity. But we had let our guard down to the other threats around us.

The Cult struck us while all our attention was focused on the cannon. So many supply ships coming and going while people and materials were being evacuated from the surface they could have replaced a transport ship with their own men. Maybe they had been hiding on the Omen for weeks. It doesn't matter. There was a ceremony for the first orbital strike against the Biomass. Almost all of the CoE leadership was there. The cult bombed everything.

The Omen was lost. Most of the council members were killed in the attack. My remaining soldiers were able to kill the cultists as they attempted to retake the Omen. It didn't matter in the end though. The engines were damaged in the attack. No one knew the Omen's systems well enough to fix them. With the Omen falling to the surface we abandoned the city.

The fleeing ships had nowhere to go but back to the surface. Most went for North America where the Biomass was still taking its time crossing the Arctic Circle. We were going to head back to the base at Denver, gather together what resources we could and make our stand in northern Canada. The Biomass needs a new node every few hundred miles, and is weakest in freezing environments. The plan was simple. Set up a perimeter of bases across the north and never allow the Mass to form any nodes close enough to threaten the continent. It would have a permanent war of attrition against a force that wouldn't ever stop. It would have been hell.

Fate smiled upon us though. Two events spared us from a perpetual war against the Biomass. While recovering in Denver the Biomass stopped growing. We don't know why, or how, but the guess is some sort of psionic catastrophe. At the same time the Mass stopped growing almost every psionic human or hybrid suffered some sort of psionic assault. Many died from whatever happened. Many were driven mad or lost their powers. Only a handful of people still possessed any psionic capability after the event.

The second event was blind luck. One of our ships fleeing the Omen was damaged and flew far off course. It found something. A second floating city at the edge of our atmosphere. A new hope for us to live somewhere safe, to use as a base for our cause."

*static* "Sir, we're almost there." *static*

"God speed men. Find us a new home."

Introduction - Above

Hey guys and welcome to the second, much delayed, UFO thread! This will be part 5 or so of the ever increasing 6 part saga between myself and Guava Moment to span the entire X-Com series. If you have no idea what I'm talking about here, you maybe need to read up on whats come before this thread.

So here's a very brief over view of the LP series in chronological order (chronological by story line):

X-Com: Enemy Unknown. Found here on the LP Archives.
X-Com: Enforcer. Coming soon.
X-Com: Terror From The Deep. Also found here on the LP Archives.
X-Com: Apocalypse. Found here on the LP Archives.
UFO: Aftermath. Found here also on the LP Archives.
UFO: Aftershock. You're reading it right now.
UFO: Afterlight. Coming eventually.
UFO: Extraterrestrials. This might be coming.

So what the hell? You're doing this all out of order?

Sort of. We didn't plan it like this at first. Guava made his epic apocalypse thread and I asked him to leave an opening for me to continue the story. Guava never knew Microprose sold the X-Com rights to Altar Games so we made a pact. He does all the X-Coms and I do all the UFOs. God help us all.

Of course I intend to make this thread enjoyable for everyone even if they have not read what came before it. Though I will say I highly encourage everyone to read the other threads. Before, after, during, whenever, go read them sometime.

The Let's Play Archive

UFO: Aftershock

by Jade Star

Introduction

Table of Contents