A Realistic Backstory for the Aliens

[Arthanor]

Interesting read! I finally managed to read through the whole thing and don't regret it. That being said, it seems like it would benefit from thorough reading of all the paedia articles from both EU and TftD. I really like your patient ecological twist on the aliens, that fits well with their way of acting in the games: They don't send an army, they try to sway the governments into joining them. They don't revive everyone in T'leth immediately, they do it slowly, conserving resources and minimizing their impact on the planet until the message from Mars tells them that they are under threat.

Assuming what we read there is true (and genetic lineage should be easy to assess in the times of TftD), Gillmen were active amphibious reptilian beings during the time of the dinosaurs (a reference to the fabled "intelligent dinosaur", I guess) that were mostly destroyed at the same time as them, when T'leth crashed on Earth. At that time, they entered a symbiotic relationship with the aquatoids, presumably helping the survivors with local knowledge and manpower, while the aliens provided technological support that enabled the species to survive the cataclysm (maybe prompted by their guilt at destroying the current order of the planet, going by your ecological take on aquatoids).

Another comment I had is that I'm not sure of the usefulness of introducing terranoids. It would make a lot more sense for the aquatoids to be like they are if there was little land on their original planet. T'leth would have been sent early in their history, before the apparition of terranoids and sectoids), as the aquatoids' first foray in space travel. Maybe they realized that sending water laden crafts in space was not a great idea (more massive than gasses, more difficult to ventilate) and that not all planets were covered in water (astronomy from underwater is not easy.. they might be great at gravitational astronomy using gravity waves, being used to tides and other gravity based phenomena, but it's hard for them to properly observe stars and the spectral composition of other planets from underwater), rather rapidly. Then they could have gone straight to the space faring, versatile sectoids.

The longer they spend on land, the less it makes sense that they would send aquatoids to settle other planets, and especially that the aquatoids of T'leth didn't have access to the sectoid strand to help them fight the ground based humans, or take control of the world in the millions of years that they had.

Finally, I think making The Great Dreamer the "founding species" would be interesting. The cydonian brain could be an evolution, after millions of years emphasizing psychic control at the detriment of everything else. The Great Dreamer is a formidable being that could stand against humanity should it be awakened, but it needs implants to control its minions, whereas the brain can't do anything, but it can control aliens through sheer psychic might.

[The Reaver of Darkness]

I really like your patient ecological twist on the aliens, that fits well with their way of acting in the games:

Yeah, I saw there was a plethora of reasons that they needed to be a relaxed, slow-paced people. Us not standing a chance of fighting them notwithstanding, were our planet invaded by an aggressive race like humans, it would be blindingly obvious they're here.

Assuming what we read there is true (and genetic lineage should be easy to assess in the times of TftD), Gillmen were active amphibious reptilian beings during the time of the dinosaurs (a reference to the fabled "intelligent dinosaur", I guess) that were mostly destroyed at the same time as them, when T'leth crashed on Earth. At that time, they entered a symbiotic relationship with the aquatoids, presumably helping the survivors with local knowledge and manpower, while the aliens provided technological support that enabled the species to survive the cataclysm (maybe prompted by their guilt at destroying the current order of the planet, going by your ecological take on aquatoids).

That's a neat take on it. Maybe the aliens altered the Gill Men and later Mutons and Humans to look like them. Maybe they coerced our development slowly, biasing us toward a specific form. Tasoths could be an earlier iteration of what later became the Gill Men.

Another comment I had is that I'm not sure of the usefulness of introducing terranoids. It would make a lot more sense for the aquatoids to be like they are if there was little land on their original planet. T'leth would have been sent early in their history, before the apparition of terranoids and sectoids), as the aquatoids' first foray in space travel. Maybe they realized that sending water laden crafts in space was not a great idea

The longer they spend on land, the less it makes sense that they would send aquatoids to settle other planets, and especially that the aquatoids of T'leth didn't have access to the sectoid strand to help them fight the ground based humans, or take control of the world in the millions of years that they had.

Their planet is mostly ocean, like ours. At first, only a small fraction was habitable, slivers along the shoreline. But as their technology grew, they inched their way deeper and deeper, and eventually they could live on the bottom of the ocean. By the time they were capable of going that far, they were also able to control their population size. There was no need to go on land, so they didn't do it. They studied the stars I'm sure, as they were a watchful people, but they wouldn't have thought there were other planets out there.

When they decided they had to expand beyond the ocean, the land was the obvious choice. At this point, much of their technology was far superior to ours, having been in development for over a million years past computers. They still didn't know other planets existed, because it wasn't important to them. They built terratoids because it brought them resource efficiency for over a million years. It was their first major alteration to their own genome. Sectoids came much later as an advanced form, when they had a lot of experience both with the rigors of space travel and with altering their genome, and probably they sampled genes from life on rougher worlds, microbes surviving on worlds that lost their atmosphere, perhaps.

They probably sent Aquatoids into space for any of a few reasons:
1.) Aquatoids were around 75-80% of their population
2.) Terratoids were weak, energy-inefficient compared to Aquatoids
3.) They needed to bring water along for long distance travel anyway, to protect against cosmic rays.
But maybe I'm wrong and they would have sent Terratoids. It's not important really, I think I've decided pretty firmly at this point that the Aquatoids aren't the founders.

Finally, I think making The Great Dreamer the "founding species" would be interesting. The cydonian brain could be an evolution, after millions of years emphasizing psychic control at the detriment of everything else. The Great Dreamer is a formidable being that could stand against humanity should it be awakened, but it needs implants to control its minions, whereas the brain can't do anything, but it can control aliens through sheer psychic might.

That's a cool idea! Maybe it was a member of a race with lots of experience altering genetics. They had imbued themselves with the greatest traits they had come across or even invented, such as psionics. This one went rogue perhaps, and sought its fortune in a new sector of the galaxy. It's a bored megalomaniac maybe, trying to play God, and creating servants in its own image--although since its direct appearance is variable, it makes us look the way it envisions an ideal version of itself.




One last thought:
I had this idea a while back that they colonized Mars first, when it was lush--they considered Mars more habitable due to its lower gravity. They made a small Earth expedition which relied on supplies from Mars. The Martian climate destabilized and the Mars colony fell into minimum operational status and was unable to support the Earth outpost, so the Earth outpost went to sleep. They lived so slowly that they failed to react well enough to the changing climate. Fast forward to now, and the Mars colony is making trips to Earth to gather food and genetic material, as they continue to perfect their Mars climate resistance while also trying to beef up their gravity tolerance.

They wake up the Earth outpost as a last effort to survive. It goes into overdrive mode, depleting most of its stored resources in 40 years, preparing for an invasion.
Would be neat if we had all the tech from the first game in TFTD, and we needed it because what the aliens bring to bear against us after preparation is so much more fearsome...

[Droggarth]

Read everything in this topic yesterday. Interesting lore stuff I must say! Not often at all when I feel somewhat at home.

Through years of sometimes playing X-Com 1 and then 2, I've always considered ethereals and sectoids to be allies with each other unless it just seems like it is. Considering that the sectoids are the first ones to appear on the X-Com radars the first time in the game, can't help but feel that the ethereals might very well be the ones pulling all the strings apart from the large brain entity.

Either sectoids needed to to gather the intel first themselves on the ground to figure out which slave species to send as warfare tools or it could be the other way around as in that the ethereals being responsible for sending in inferior psionics in first to see what they can or could do. Still a grey area for me though unless I consider the fact that the second game has aquatoids and no hint of ethereals what-so-ever other than the lovecraftian terrorizing horror unit (Tentaculat) which made even me stay away from those at least 10-20 tiles away if I had no molecular equipment using armored backup-infrantry yet.

TFtD was/is a kind of game where I had to rethink my approach to hostiles to make my small super squad matter again with hiding, saving TUs for enemy turn in case a lucky reaction fire opportunity from my side and once I spotted something extremely dangerous I either shot at it from a safe distance or took control over it with the TFtD's psi-gun alternative to also visual-sweep the area from the alien's side if in-case there's more of them over yonder and if I had the chance I used the opposition's own forces against them.

And good grief.. don't get me started when I ran into both Tentaculats, Bio-Drones and Hallucinoids along with their masters all at once in the cursed 2 to 3 part battlescape mission progressions.. and then there's always that one last hiding foe in some unknown damn corner or a closet. x_x My experience of course with TFtD goes back long before OpenXcom supported the second game so I played it with Dosbox and so I have not played it for years now and have kept to playing the original instead from time to time.

In-game around-the-corner alien sledgehammer head-smack surprise shenanigans aside. I've always been interested about the aliens of the game and what actual story and backstory they could have.

[SteamXCOM]

 Xcom UFO Defense came out at a time which there was quite a bit of alleged UFO sightings together with some of their crewmembers
 The Greys are quite well represented by the Sectoids and Snakemen vaguely resemble the reptilians.
 The mysterious hooded Ethereals  might have corresponded to the Nordic aliens though out of the gown the subsequent  XCOM series' depictions of them certainly explode any idea of that.
 
 UFO lore has gained traction with  the writer Whitley Strieber books, which gives alleged accounts of his contact with what appear to be extraterrestrials and their motivations, (though  Whitley himself draws no conclusions about the identity of the alleged abductors).
 
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_alleged_extraterrestrial_beings
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitley_Strieber

[The Reaver of Darkness]

I'm glad you liked my topic! I'm still collecting ideas for whenever (if ever) I get around to a re-write.

Still a grey area for me though unless I consider the fact that the second game has aquatoids and no hint of ethereals what-so-ever other than the lovecraftian terrorizing horror unit (Tentaculat)

The tentaculat does not use molecular control. That is what the tasoths do. Tentaculats are basically just flying chryssalids.

It's difficult to tell who is using the mind control, so you kind of assume it's the smart-looking brain alien, rather than the primitive-looking lizard alien.

[Droggarth]

No, no no. By "Large alien brain" I meant the one you destroy in the first game's last mission and as for the tentaculats, my mind wandered back when I played it and I played it with a super squad so that mind control alternative molecular control in TFtD failed each time the AI used it on my troops (that or I used some kind of cheat tool as I usually do to make my troops immune.) but tentaculats, they covered the ground's tiles fast in each turn and even my super squad was in a real detrimental outcome once a tentaculat got close and used its attacks.

And also by "molecular equipment using armored backup-infrantry" I meant my super squad, a branch of it using that molecular control tech to take control over the tentaculats as fast as possible to give my self room and a break to think whenever I saw them either approaching or around a corner hiding.


Good grief.. am I losing the ability of how to put things into words or something!?! *strong headdesk*
Anyhow despite that I just needed to respond what I meant exactly, I'm interested to see where this lore will go as there has never been to my knowledge a backstory of the game's hostiles apart from ufopaedia entries.

[The Reaver of Darkness]

X-Com: Interceptor seemed to be making some backstory for the sectoids, but I didn't play very far into that game.

Good grief.. am I losing the ability of how to put things into words or something!?! *strong headdesk*

I never had that ability. I think not having it is a sign of genius. =)

[Droggarth]

Oh, yeah, X-Com: Interceptor only just now remembered it. Last time I played it was also years ago and I remember reading the ufopedia there after tachyon blasting the hostiles inert in hopes of getting more stuff to put into research and manufacture. I was better at flying the X-Com craft with the over-sensitive mess of the controls of the game than actually managing stuff across the RTS-esque game map.

I never had that ability. I think not having it is a sign of genius. =)

Heh, thanks. Does seem like so as I can think of various stuff from one thing after another thing faster than I'm able to verbally say or write to keep up. I find myself tad too often unable to translate my thoughts over to words, takes longer to say than to think.

[SteamXCOM]

 Once at a stage of "completion,"  (lore like this can be revised endlessly, look at Batman and Superman from their inception for example), you could take it and add it as "get one free" UFOpedia bits one can get interrogating the aliens.  Each bit would be part of the story , stand alone yet fitting together.

[Droggarth]

Indeed. Does seem fitting, though I am a rather jaded person due to my open minded way of thinking in most cases.

As for the lore. From what I've gathered by playing the game over the years, most of the aliens are not only altered but enhanced by cybernetics or other such artificial stuff like a floater's lower body swapped with a large device that also gives ability of flight. It is rather strange that sectoids and ethereals are pretty much the only ones without major artificial alterations, same goes for some of the pets/terror units more or less but that goes for all pets that can be tamed to be part of something without artificial means of control, that and mind control can be easily used also to command them and perhaps even without directly controlling their bodies/brains but give them mere mental info of what to do and what they'll get for doing it to motivate and move them.

Sectoids and ethereals could very well be a governing part of some alien government where they are the overlords of. From slavers to enslaved life forms who are subject to be changed into some cybernetic units of workforce and/or warfare. The massive brain entity in X-Com 1 could also very well be not the only one around if beings from other star systems are concerned and since they probably all have long lifespans and/or immortality, time doesn't seem to concern them as much as they have enough time to be patient and observing, X-Com merely threw an unexpected wrench into their (slow) operations thus forcing them to be assertive, quick and cruel. Throwing everything to win and gain control over another enslaved species.


In my own spin-off personalized story/backstory of my Gazer commando is that he's essentially in a rogue group along with other gazers who have managed to get control over the overlords for a short period and escape along with majority of high-end advanced tech, willing to sometimes turn themselves into customized cybernetic super units just to fight against the draconian evils that is sectoids and ethereals and whatever else is at the helm of the proverbial slaver whip, to demoralize the overlords with shock and awe attacks by singular units from ground and EVA commandos to unexpected destruction of fleets by said commandos in superior and faster spacecrafts to drop in and out, leaving little trace thus making not only the X-Com fighting for freedom but also a small branch of aliens willing to help the X-Com.
That is why my avatar currently is one of the main gazer commando's face. And I must stretch again that what I just wrote about gazers is purely of my own fan-fiction basically, to keep myself interested playing as them.

[SteamXCOM]

I
Sectoids and ethereals could very well be a governing part of some alien government where they are the overlords of.

 Were not the Sectoids a "manufactured" race?
UFOPEDIA

Spoiler:

STR_SECTOID_AUTOPSY_UFOPEDIA: "The autopsy reveals vestigial digestive organs and a simple structure. The brain and eyes are very well developed. The structure suggests genetic alteration or mutation. The small mouth and nose appear to have little function. The webbing between the fingers, and the flat feet suggest aquatic origins. There are no reproductive organs, and no clues as to how this species can reproduce. They are most probably a genetically engineered species."

of the ETHEREALs
...They rarely appear on earth since they seem to rely on other races to pursue their objectives.

[Droggarth]

Woah, damn I've been getting things backwards big time then. 'scuse me, spoke of them that way because of their use of mind control and other telepathic attacks, related that with them being in control because it feels like a natural trait to use against foes, I have read the ufopedia many times but usually my time is still filled with geoscape and battlescape the most.

Something more sinister and ominous must be the governing element, like that brain entity, something that uses lesser species as cannon fodder in frontlines, kinda explains why sectoids are first to go into the proverbial meat grinder. Mystery remains, like what are the origins of that brain-being and what's beyond that one controlling element.

Thinking here about it more and it all starts feeling a lot more like something out of a lovecraftian horror.. and I love that feeling, a feeling that this fine piece of music describes perfectly:

Spoiler:

X-COM Apocalypse Soundtrack - 32 - An Empty Home: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhjEOZZ90Fk
and X-COM Apocalypse Soundtrack - 18 - Alone in Mega-Primus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH7CNI85voo

This is part of the reason of why I love space to death. Like imagine you're an explorer onboard your first starship, alone to almost alone, making sure you're in the safe zone by checking the radar equivalent of true space age sensors as usual, from sphere of influences aka planets and their stars to possible exo-planets and smaller objects in case something approaches or is out of the ordinary until that one day comes where something truly fascinating happens for better or worse, an anomaly of unknown and of alien origins, one way or the other it'll happen by either sensors picking up traces of something odd and/or artificial, or you see/spot something clearly out of your ship's window or through a screen/monitor that displays visual info from a camera, or you don't manage to notice it until you are captured by some other sentient life that has noticed your ship in their area of space.

Or all of the above, putting Murphy's law into high gear and everything odd happens, from one experience to another, leading up to a capture or something along of those lines. It's quite possible to have an epic good day or a bad day where somebody dies, something breaks, something falls, something crashes, something that lands you in a hospital and to top it all off, you've found out that the person you know has been lying to you the whole time or something and the next day or a week after when you finally regain consciousness you're asking yourself what the actual frell did just happen or what didn't happen and how the actual hell did everything go so bizarre, arse-backwards crazy bonkers within a span of a day.

[The Reaver of Darkness]

I like to think of the brain from the first game as being like a Zerg Cerebrate from StarCraft. One possible background for the creature is a servant construct made to act as a psionic nexus to control the aliens' forces. But on the other hand, the Ethereals are stopped along with the others when the brain is killed, so it may very well be much more important than that.

Another hyothesis is that the final alien in TFTD is a being of immense power and is behind both invasions, perhaps it's a being attempting to make the solar system its home. The brain may be a proxy for it, carrying its mental patterns and operating while the alien sleeps, keeping it safe and hidden. They wake it up perhaps because it has been threatened where it lives, and it can no longer hide.

[SteamXCOM]

 .

Thinking here about it more and it all starts feeling a lot more like something out of a lovecraftian horror..

Yes there are some similarities between XCOM and Lovecraftian lore.  The cultists controlling things in the world trying to make way for the awakening of the  long slumbering Cthulhu.  The latter appears to have powers that reach beyond his coma influencing some to heinous acts and others into madness. 
 
 While Cthulhu is  demonstrable fiction with  origins in a fertile imagination, UFO lore to exist on the edge of reality if not a part of it.  Reasonable and otherwise credible people actually state they have been abducted by UFOs and have been experimented upon.  When the TV show Invaders aired, I heard of anecdotal stories of some parents not allowing their children the watch it "because something like that might really be going on."  Regrettably I cannot lay my hands on the source of those quotes but you get the idea.
 
 If such a possible truth is set aside and we dip back into the world of Xcom, the governments are concerned and rightly so, since elements their populace is being terrorized, pressuring those respective governments into some kind of cooperation with the aliens.  There is no D-Day  invasion with UFOs covering the horizon from one end of the sky to another, there are no divisions of national armed forces called up. 
 
 If the governments do not co-operate with the UFO agenda, then more of their populace will be terrorized, destabilizing those in power who are meantime probably explaining those incidents away as the classical "gas leak," or disgruntled  militants in Halloween costumes or some such.   It is a conflict that exists as a slow intense burn that nevertheless exerts considerable  influence one way or another . 
   
  Because the scale of the game is around 1 on 1 Aircraft vs UFO encounters; a handful of bases around the world with less that a few hundred people  total with around a dozen soldiers per mission securing UFO crash sites, going on anti-terror missions and alien base destruction, it would seem the threat and  response are both very low key; beneath the  public-at at-large radar.   In this vague way they are like the accidental detectives stopping the machinations of the  cultists of Cthulhu, where the actions of a few individuals hold considerable weight.
 

[Droggarth]

I like to think of the brain from the first game as being like a Zerg Cerebrate from StarCraft.

Indeed! Makes a lot of sense and even more so to me as I've played StarCraft myself, when it came to controlling the Zerg I had the most fun with burrowing units as either on-the-field makeshift cloak to save them a few paces away or as a surprise trap attack along with usually Mutalisks being an aerial/space unit backup, and yeah.. one can watch a few video clips of Zerg flying units in space too, moving about by their own natural means of invisible propulsion but seemingly slower than whatever X-Com alien ships can pull off.

Yes there are some similarities between XCOM and Lovecraftian lore.

The second game was/is definitely a fine example of that! Not only did it capture that Lovecraftian element but it was the first game to me that made me dig deeper into the origins of it all and that's where I ended up reading wikis and info about some to most of the stuff in his books along with playing a PC game or two.

As for both fictional and real life aliens, the unknowns have so many variables. Like aliens who have grown up and evolved as cruel, conquering and otherwise just bad news, may have no concept of them doing something bad, and if they do have that concept they'd have already a deflecting answer or a quick counter-question to get away with their malevolent nature and means to an end through violence. However, not all aliens are like that, just like in nature it can make way for both good and evil to emerge on their own and by default it means that there'll also always be somewhere good space-faring species too, like the United Federation of Planets and Vulcans from Star Trek who are capable of putting yet-to-evolve to evolving life holding planets for example under their protection for a while, sometimes in hopes of gaining new allies perhaps to help keep everything that is good and precious in life and protect it from evils of destruction.


Personally I'm on the side of exploration, observation, life and good, despite having a strong case of pure rage sometimes within me. It is a pure rage that stems from when lights go out, when there's too much death and suffering, when hope and freedom starts going away by true darkness. It is that pure rage in me that'll try its best 110% to keep a light of life burning and away from death, hence why after watching Interstellar movie that poem spoke to my heart, that first part of Dylan Thomas' poem that old scientist in the movie says:

Spoiler:

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Took me a tad bit to understand its meaning completely originally but now while thinking of it again and writing it I understand it even more now than ever and why it speaks volumes to me. Point I'm getting at is humanity needs to work out its problems and achieve space-faring status to survive and not only surviving in space but being able to cope with hazards from nature to artificial sources. Here's a motivational speech ending from Babylon 5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6EDzhDv-Is

With all of that said, I can finally say what I meant to say from the beginning of the post somewhere. Any of you ever thought about the fact why after the first nuclear bombs were tested and dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, suddenly so did also start the odd sightings of different kinds of flying crafts with record breaking speeds, speeds that without some kind of inertial damper technology would turn any human and other creatures into bloody paste against a ship's interior areas, that aside there's of course other incidents from closer sightings to actual up-close encounters that even I can't ignore anymore since I've done a lot of digging myself and filtering out details through my own brain's BS filter of some event/incident to analyze it all, since I'm not as biased and as close-minded like everyone else so my proverbial gates are wide open but with proverbial emergency forcefield shields ready to activate just in case. Anything I can't explain or otherwise find answers to initially I just throw them in my grey bucket area until future can provide more info on the matter.


Sorry that this got so long but hopefully for a good reason, something we all can agree on is that thanks to real life events of whatever happened, we have gotten many great Sci-Fi stuff from movies to games to even people being inspired by Sci-Fi shows and movies to make some tech from there a reality in one way or another!