Welcome to Part Nine of X-COM II: The Earth’s Revenge!
Our story continues...
Recap
We are in the tenth month of the war between Earth and its alien invaders. By the ninth month of fighting--despite successes on the battlefield--it was clear that the aliens were overwhelming us with numbers, and support for our cause was dwindling. Germany, France, and England had all joined forces with the alien cause. UN funding for our war effort was getting slashed across the board. X-COM security incompetence led to an alien leader successfully committing suicide in captivity, and set our research back by two months. We were no closer to learning the secrets of our alien enemies than we were five months into the war. New alien bases had been discovered in Portugal and Germany, giving the aliens three bases of operations on Earth. World opinion was swinging in favor of the aliens. In short, things looked grim.
In the past month, however, we made shocking progress against our foes. With the alien infestation spreading and world opinion tipping against us, FOFC X-COM launched two daring raids on enemy bases in Portugal and Germany, both of which were stunning successes. In the process, agents captured “Poindexter”, a top-ranking Sectoid Commander, and one badly needed to crack the aliens’ secrets. By mid-month, X-COM interrogators had finally broken the prisoner and learned that nearby Mars is indeed the home of our foe. Furthermore, rumors abound that our alien prisoner is only weeks away from giving us enough information to allow us to begin planning an assault on the enemy planet. The deadly, enervating, defensive war that we have been fighting has tried agent and civilian morale, and this news that we may be able to finally bring the fight to the aliens has given our planet a badly needed boost of hope.
In other areas as well, significant progress has been made. Research gains during the month have lead to breakthroughs in both aircraft and armored vehicles, both of which currently have prototypes under construction. X-COM agents have also finally begun training in PSI-Ops, which should help even the table against the aliens’ devastating mind attacks. Funding is back up to all-time levels, and profits from successful missions have allowed X-COM to expand operations at SAM COM, open AFRICA COM, and begin construction on ANT COM in Antarctica. A wave of hiring has added badly needed recruits to our forces. In short, there is hope that our struggle is not in vain.
Despite this optimism, there is one huge, dark cloud on the horizon--one that could ultimately make these gains insignificant. There is the growing belief that the aliens have discovered the location of our EU COM base, and that an alien attack on that critical installation is not a matter of “if”, but of “when”. If attacks on that base come, they will be fights that we cannot lose. Doing so would mean disastrous setbacks in weapons production and research, and would wipe away the gains of the past month and more. Our efforts are only one loss away from spinning badly the other way. In short, our situation is precarious, and victory far from certain.
It is here where we’ll resume our story. When we last left off, we were in the midst of one of our harrying tactics against the enemy: our EU COM Skyranger was circling the alien base in England and waiting to pounce on an approaching Supply UFO. We’ll pick things up with their attack.
Read along as the fight rages on, as the brave men of X-COM II slog their way through encounter after encounter against our deadly foe, and the fate of the planet hangs in the balance.
By way of explanation
This "dynasty" is a participatory story using the Microprose game X-COM: UFO Defense. If you'd like to sign up, just post here to let me know. You don't need to know anything about the game, basically you just read along and post comments as you like, although at times there are decisions to be made where input is requested. In almost all of those cases, you don't need to know anything about the game to make an equally bad decision as I usually do.
Past Links
A Sectoid cyber attack on our computer systems took out much of the recorded history of our fight against the aliens, but these few recent links remain. Efforts to regain public access to the lost annals continue.
X-COM II (Part VI)
X-COM II (Part VII)
X-COM II (Part VIII)