Part 17: X-COM SOLDIER BRIEFING - SERGEANT CLEARANCE LEVEL
X-COM SOLDIER BRIEFING - SERGEANT CLEARANCE LEVEL
As you are well aware, we've recently had a severe setback with our Interceptor craft. Purchasing these craft from Russian suppliees is not cheap, and we've had to turn to alternative funding to pay for it. As such, we've had to sell much of our weaponry on the black market to...less than reputable customers. Our rifles, auto-cannons, rockets launchers and laser pistols have all been sold, with our engineers making new laser pistols to sell for profit. Alien corpses have been sold to various universities that we can trust, but they haven't been able to pay very well for them.
Fortunately, we've been able to, barely, afford two new Interceptors.
Be sure to welcome our new pilots, 'Affi' and 'TTBF'. We hope they will fare better than Concordat and Michael Thane.
Thanks to the efforts of Dr. Takakumi, we have found a replacement weapon for our soldiers that allowed us to sell off our previous inventory in the first place.
We're going to be honest - we don't have a clue how this weapon works. There's something resembling a coil and rail gun hybrid that heats and launches charged plasma, but we don't know exactly how it works. What we have learned is how to disable a security device on the weapon preventing non-aliens from using it. Though we cannot manufacture new Heavy Plasma weapons or ammo, we can now use them.
We know the aliens have some kind of base of operations in the general neighborhood of the solar system. We suspect some kind of "Hive Ship" to be en route to Earth. To learn more about this, we've required the capture of alien leaders. The current stun weapon, the stun rod, is flawed at best. Melee combat is extremely dangerous and most stun users don't last more than two missions. This is a problem.
We have a solution.
The Stun Launcher is a rather simple weapon, firing a powerful less-than-lethal grenade at your foes. The resulting explosion overwhelms the senses of biological entities for roughly a few minutes. Be sure to monitor stunned aliens while in combat to prevent incidents with aliens regaining consciousness.
Study of the Floater Engineers has completed.
We unfortunately have not yet been able to translate their verbal language, so we have no information about their culture, or everyday lives.
The floatation device is very similar in construct to the alien UFOs, only miniaturized. It may be possible with more study of UFO technology to create floatation devices for our soldiers.
The Floater Engineers have given us detailed specifications of their large scout ships, but this data must be taken with a grain of salt. We have previously thought the weapon ranges of UFOs to be quite short, based on the interrogation of the Engineers, which tragically turned out to be an untruth at best, an outright lie at worst.
The Hyperwave Decoder is a fantastic piece of technology. With it we can instantly track any UFO in our detection range, know what type of UFO is it, what species it is crewed by and which one of a few types of missions it is on.
Knowing what the aliens are planning to do before they even do it is a huge advantage for us. We have improved weapons and the ability to capture aliens from a safe distance. The capture of a leader remains a high priority and should be your main objective on the battlefield.
X-COM Head Scientist,
Dr. Reis Markus
SELECTED FAN ENTRIES BELOW
Dexanth posted:
Diary L. Takakumi, Rant Entry
No clue how it works?! What the kind of nonsense is he spouting this time? I know perfectly well how it works, I just don't know how to design their security system. The actual science, though, that's easy! But pah, if he wants to labor under his false delusions, I see no need to enlighten that philistine, then.
Maybe I'll give the secret to Dommy. He and I could then raise a lovely little cadre of loyal troops, if he can just get that temper of his in check, and when all this is over...well, the world is so screwed up, it could certainly use new management.
Allen Wren posted:
From the desk of Pvt. (???) A. Wren, cleaning closet three, subsection sixteen, section two, X-COM.
As perverse as it may seem to someone not involved in the day-to-day business here at Early Light, keeping track of some of Dr. Takakumi's more entertaining eccentricities has become one of my more enthusiastic hobbies. As it appears I've basically been fully seconded to her (the labs look in worse condition day by day---what the hell are they building in there this time? Portable super-nuclear anti-matter cannons?), the list mostly exists for my own amusement. But...what began as a row of tickmarks on a sheet of scratchpaper every time she talked to herself out loud while working (double if she mentioned Ms. Cuddles) is a little longer than that now. I had a bet going with Lenny in one of the actual fighting squads that the next big breakthrough, she's gonna bust out of that lab like Frankenstein and laugh maniacally to everyone in the office...but he got splattered by an alien. I'm a tad freaked out by that shit, but c'est la guerre.
Anyway, my point is, the Doc is getting more annoyed by the day and angrier about the management, and I'm offically worried. Not just about the war (I mean, that's still some real classic. Bull. Shit.) but about the Doctor, too, and not just because I gotta deal with her crap. This goes on much longer, she's gonna melt down. And I do doubt it'll be pretty, no matter how nice her assets are. This is gonna sound dumb and pretentious and probably a bit paranoid, but if you connect the dots, keeping Doctor T from flipping her lid could very well be key to humanity actually coming out of this without much worse than the black eyes we've got right now. She flips out, the generals flip out, we argue with each other, the aliens probe all our asses 'til doomsday. Whee.
Note to self: Keep yourself (and other fools) off her nerves as much as possible. I think she's dating a grunt---she's given him looks and all that when he comes down to drop off reports and such. He better not die. He dies, we might all die.
TTBF posted:
Journal Entry #1
You know, when I signed up for this I thought I would be the craziest person here. I mean, I knew everyone would be a little crazy. You have to be if you're willing to fight against an enemy so technologically superior. But damn, some of the people here? I may claim my name is four letters, but that's not half as odd as some of the people here.
The researchers? Nuts. I have no clue what is up with them, but they took the parachute out of my interceptor. I've been told it has been recommisioned for use in scientific testing. After hearing I was hired after two pilots died to a UFO, I was hoping the eggheads were working on a better parachute. Turns out that the former pilots were vaporized instantly inside of their craft. That rules out the parachute theory. So why the hell do they need mine?
The soldiers stationed here are also rather weird. The other pilots are decent folk, and the tank operator seems to know what he's doing. But the infantry? They seem more than eager to die. I guess they're hoping that their names will be on a memorial listing those who fell fighting the alien menace. That's one way to gain immortality.
One of these guys has been walking around in a purple suit of armor. Purple ain't no camouflage I've ever heard of. He also seems to be rather sensitive about his purple posterior. Does X-COM have a "don't ask, don't tell" policy? I'll need to look into the field manual.
Terashell posted:
Playing log - Captain Dominic "Terashell" Maxwell - TIMESTAMP LOST - XCOM Facility Early Light
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No, I'm not going to mention my date with Lily, that's just ungentlemanly! Who knows who reads this before they get transcribed?
I'm still saddened by the loss of Concordat and Thane. They were good pilots and their skills at taking down UFOs are the main reason we have the tech and gear we do. We have a couple of new pilots, but at the cost of selling some of our alien tech to... shady organizations.
*sigh* Oh well, we have better weapons now, which will be great to finally try and capture a leader with. The more we know about their plans, the better...
Shut UP, Chaz!
Anyway, we'll hopefully be testing out the plasma weaponry and the new stunners the next time we get a UFO we can actually shoot down.
I should suggest mounting plasma on our birds to Lily next time I see her...
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Log Ends