The X-Com Files: All Y'All Gonna Die
Re: The X-Com Files: All Y'All Gonna Die
This seems like a good time to reflect that all meatsack species are squishy and horrifying, especially to each other.
https://escapepod.org/2011/06/23/ep298-the-things/
https://escapepod.org/2011/06/23/ep298-the-things/
Re: The X-Com Files: All Y'All Gonna Die
yeah but assimilation means you got all that borg/Arcturan dance music stuck not only in your head, but also in your peripheral nerves and pseudopods, forever
nah fuck that
nah fuck that
Placeholder for something witty that doesn't make me sound like an asshole
Re: The X-Com Files: All Y'All Gonna Die
(Sorry, been on vaca doing mushrooms in the woods of VA)
Cyberweb
As we move through the processing queue of the gulag at the Red Forest, one of the WizKids from the cult gathering coughs up a lead on a facility the hackerlings been using for... it's gotta be crypto, right? Mining crypto?
The team piles into the UAC ship we bought, which we've named the "Vulture". It makes a pretty quiet landing for a VTOL craft.
Pretty nondescript startup in the San Fransisco area. I want to say that them still working at 9pm is suspicious but nah that's pretty par for the course.
This isn't a particularly tough fight for the most part, they taze whoever they encounter and cuff them for processing.
One big exception: There's a particularly strange-looking biz casual type with a tie for a belt who takes four agents and an X-rat to bring down. He was armed with some big, bulking, weird-ass weapon nobody can really discern:
Once he's down, we cart him back to the ship.
Yep. Crypto. Hngkong and atog set the charges.
There is a seven-hour marathon interrogation with the gentleman with the tie belt. He exclusively identifies as "The Onceler", and is for all intents and purposes unbreakable. He spits a bloody tooth in atog's face and tells her to eat shit.
Atog wipes the spit from her cheek and orders him pumped full of drugs and dunked into the rat farm for two days. In time, he talks.
The Onceler is, in fact, some kind of cyborg, able to switch on and off pain like the slur filter on the hot new Intel app. The tech appears fully human-made, as shocking as that might be.
This man is a "Technomad":
The only other kilobyte of info we're able to juice out of this guy is that this Cyberweb thing seems to go a hell of a lot deeper than dogecoin. They've got transhumanist ambitions, and they've got all the angel investor money in the world to put it into practice.
Time to shut down this startup...
Cyberweb
As we move through the processing queue of the gulag at the Red Forest, one of the WizKids from the cult gathering coughs up a lead on a facility the hackerlings been using for... it's gotta be crypto, right? Mining crypto?
The team piles into the UAC ship we bought, which we've named the "Vulture". It makes a pretty quiet landing for a VTOL craft.
Pretty nondescript startup in the San Fransisco area. I want to say that them still working at 9pm is suspicious but nah that's pretty par for the course.
This isn't a particularly tough fight for the most part, they taze whoever they encounter and cuff them for processing.
One big exception: There's a particularly strange-looking biz casual type with a tie for a belt who takes four agents and an X-rat to bring down. He was armed with some big, bulking, weird-ass weapon nobody can really discern:
Lightning Thrower
This somewhat ramshackle weapon emits deadly electric discharges. Like normal lightning, they cause severe burns and shock. If the target survives, they are likely to be rendered unconscious. However, its power rapidly drops at distances beyond 12. The Lightning Thrower is powered with a Cyberweb battery.
Once he's down, we cart him back to the ship.
Yep. Crypto. Hngkong and atog set the charges.
There is a seven-hour marathon interrogation with the gentleman with the tie belt. He exclusively identifies as "The Onceler", and is for all intents and purposes unbreakable. He spits a bloody tooth in atog's face and tells her to eat shit.
Atog wipes the spit from her cheek and orders him pumped full of drugs and dunked into the rat farm for two days. In time, he talks.
The Onceler is, in fact, some kind of cyborg, able to switch on and off pain like the slur filter on the hot new Intel app. The tech appears fully human-made, as shocking as that might be.
This man is a "Technomad":
Technomads form the core of Cyberweb. They are cyborg scientists and engineers, pursuing unearthly knowledge. They are also completely amoral and a little crazy. Our agents should approach them with utmost care, since they are much tougher than they look and they use exotic, high-power weapons that they build for themselves.
The only other kilobyte of info we're able to juice out of this guy is that this Cyberweb thing seems to go a hell of a lot deeper than dogecoin. They've got transhumanist ambitions, and they've got all the angel investor money in the world to put it into practice.
Time to shut down this startup...
Re: The X-Com Files: All Y'All Gonna Die
So it's what every typical crypto-mining operation would describe itself as.
How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.
Re: The X-Com Files: All Y'All Gonna Die
When you and your cult's entire existence depends on wires, you develop a healthy morbid phobia of rat incisors.
Placeholder for something witty that doesn't make me sound like an asshole
Re: The X-Com Files: All Y'All Gonna Die
TIL that an animated Seuss antagonist seeded a whole cultural event online, leading to the legit use of phrases like 'askblog deoncelerization'.
https://madredhattie.tumblr.com/post/11 ... ler-fandom
https://madredhattie.tumblr.com/post/11 ... ler-fandom
Re: The X-Com Files: All Y'All Gonna Die
The oncelerifiation of the american male...... smdh......
Re: The X-Com Files: All Y'All Gonna Die
Buster Corps
A call comes in from Vatican City on... that phone.
Oh fuck!!!!
The helipad on this Garth Marenghi's Darkplace hospital looks pretty good. We set the Vulture down.
Buge and Zaratustra take point on this one. Mazian, Wheels, and Ziiro support.
Hallways are empty. Some unearthly sounds in the darkness outside, mixed with... panicked latin chanting?
Some kind of slime is seeping under the door to the operating theater. The gang takes up position like this is Surviving Edged Weapons and Ziiro busts the door down.
Zaratustra takes the cigar outta his mouth with a "meeeey geeead..."
A scream from the first floor.
Buge races downstairs, pistol drawn, Zara, Wheels, and Mazian follow. Ziiro tumbles down in humiliating fashion as we have not yet cracked the "stairs" tech on his shitty, shitty body.
Folks, we got slimers. Probably the same kinda thing as those megaworms we fought a while back.
The gang fires a few rounds into the closest one, and the bullets pass right on through like ballistics gel. Zaratustra switches to the taser, Buge the electro-club, and the added electrical charge seems to do the trick.
We save a doctor of some kind, who frantically babbles about ghosts, ghouls, and you guessed it: Ghasts. We can't seem to get much useful info out of the guy... something has terrified this man beyond the capacity for rational thought, and it ain't the slimers.
Calls them "Bug Eye Ghosts", which, seems a little dramatic, but, sure:
More screaming from outside, Mazian pours the slimers into a wastebin and the team moves out.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
I know a bit of the bite is taken out of this after discovering aliens exist and tsuchinoko real but
FUGGIN' GHOSTS, PEOPLE
Bullets pass through the ephemeral masses of screaming heads like they ain't even there.
Wheels draws his gunblade katana and clefts one in twain, but to his horror, it re-forms before his eyes.
Fire doesn't do jack either.
Zara starts tossing out clips for the tasers.
It takes a few turns of roudtable bustin' until these things collapse into...
Well, slime.
The perimeter secured, there's one last spectral monstrosity flying about the nearby woods. Buge and Mazian reload battery carts and take off into the night.
It's low visibility, nightvision shakeycam biz out there, but they manage to follow the haunting, abyssal deep-speech (latin) to a shambling demon skulking about the brush.
Buge beats the thing with her electro-baton, bracing her teeth as the thrashing monstrosity howls hellish obscenities from its grotesque, cursed tongue. It finally relents.
She turns the figure to the light to gaze upon its void-touched form, and despair.
Well uh...
Shit, cuff him I guess!!!
Back at Dantero Bay, atog gets to work on this Dude of the Cloth for info.
These beads go for a decent price on the grey market...
R&D takes a look at the wastebins of goo we've brought back:
They suggest the creation of a "Ghost Tank" to contain these very specific ectoplasmic entities. I figure, sure.
Light is green, trap is clean.
A call comes in from Vatican City on... that phone.
Oh fuck!!!!
The helipad on this Garth Marenghi's Darkplace hospital looks pretty good. We set the Vulture down.
Buge and Zaratustra take point on this one. Mazian, Wheels, and Ziiro support.
Hallways are empty. Some unearthly sounds in the darkness outside, mixed with... panicked latin chanting?
Some kind of slime is seeping under the door to the operating theater. The gang takes up position like this is Surviving Edged Weapons and Ziiro busts the door down.
Zaratustra takes the cigar outta his mouth with a "meeeey geeead..."
A scream from the first floor.
Buge races downstairs, pistol drawn, Zara, Wheels, and Mazian follow. Ziiro tumbles down in humiliating fashion as we have not yet cracked the "stairs" tech on his shitty, shitty body.
Folks, we got slimers. Probably the same kinda thing as those megaworms we fought a while back.
The gang fires a few rounds into the closest one, and the bullets pass right on through like ballistics gel. Zaratustra switches to the taser, Buge the electro-club, and the added electrical charge seems to do the trick.
We save a doctor of some kind, who frantically babbles about ghosts, ghouls, and you guessed it: Ghasts. We can't seem to get much useful info out of the guy... something has terrified this man beyond the capacity for rational thought, and it ain't the slimers.
Calls them "Bug Eye Ghosts", which, seems a little dramatic, but, sure:
Bug Eye Ghost
This malicious apparition is in fact a psionic energy node, manifesting as a 'creature'. It is mostly made of energy and ignores most environmental hazards, except violent energy discharges and psi attacks. It is mindless, but perceives human minds and hunts for their psi energy, which is unpleasant to the victim and may even be fatal. To quote the classics, it's life, but not as we know it.
More screaming from outside, Mazian pours the slimers into a wastebin and the team moves out.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
I know a bit of the bite is taken out of this after discovering aliens exist and tsuchinoko real but
FUGGIN' GHOSTS, PEOPLE
Bullets pass through the ephemeral masses of screaming heads like they ain't even there.
Wheels draws his gunblade katana and clefts one in twain, but to his horror, it re-forms before his eyes.
Fire doesn't do jack either.
Zara starts tossing out clips for the tasers.
It takes a few turns of roudtable bustin' until these things collapse into...
Well, slime.
The perimeter secured, there's one last spectral monstrosity flying about the nearby woods. Buge and Mazian reload battery carts and take off into the night.
It's low visibility, nightvision shakeycam biz out there, but they manage to follow the haunting, abyssal deep-speech (latin) to a shambling demon skulking about the brush.
Buge beats the thing with her electro-baton, bracing her teeth as the thrashing monstrosity howls hellish obscenities from its grotesque, cursed tongue. It finally relents.
She turns the figure to the light to gaze upon its void-touched form, and despair.
Well uh...
Shit, cuff him I guess!!!
Back at Dantero Bay, atog gets to work on this Dude of the Cloth for info.
These beads go for a decent price on the grey market...
R&D takes a look at the wastebins of goo we've brought back:
Ectoplasm
This mysterious substance is undoubtedly normal matter, but its chemical, quasi-organic composition is chaotic and hard to explain. Moreover, it is charged with residual mental energy. It decays quickly and requires a special facility for further studies.
Spectral Entity
This aggregation of psionic energy is especially powerful. It feeds on negative human emotions, converting psionic energy into ectoplasm. Its hunting strategy is to induce fear in victims and drain them of mental energy as they are paralyzed with terror. It only responds reliably to violent energy bursts and psi.
They suggest the creation of a "Ghost Tank" to contain these very specific ectoplasmic entities. I figure, sure.
Ghost Tank
The Ghost Tank is a special containment unit for ectoplasm-based entities. It can hold up to 10 such beings for an indefinite amount of time.
Light is green, trap is clean.
Re: The X-Com Files: All Y'All Gonna Die
The Ghost Tank is just one of those same wastebins outfitted with RGB lighting, isn't it?
Re: The X-Com Files: All Y'All Gonna Die
L... little bit...
Re: The X-Com Files: All Y'All Gonna Die
Any day I get to beat a man of the cloth is a good day.
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Re: The X-Com Files: All Y'All Gonna Die
I'm just tickled to see a Dark Place reference.
Re: The X-Com Files: All Y'All Gonna Die
How much can I get for a dead mostly human priest, mostly intact, gently abused. Asking for a friend
Placeholder for something witty that doesn't make me sound like an asshole
Re: The X-Com Files: All Y'All Gonna Die
Alright Friday, we got two recruits here with enough kills to earn them the callsign "Friday". What's your pick?
I went with Sokhna in-game but I can swap it pretty easy. Lemme know.
I went with Sokhna in-game but I can swap it pretty easy. Lemme know.
Re: The X-Com Files: All Y'All Gonna Die
With Red Dawn and Black Lotus absorbed into our "family of friends", we've been reasonably confident X-Com stands as the biggest fish in the pond. The Council, for some frustrating reason, will neither confirm nor deny this. They're fully willing to fill us in on cults, cryptids, terrorist cells, and any small group that might threaten the stability of their region, but for anything at our level or bigger, we get crickets.
The Russian bloc council member contracts X-Com to retrieve a fugitive, "David Vincent" before somebody else does. We take it as a promising sign that we've become the best option they have this side of the hemisphere.
Dossier on David Vincent: ⇳ Click to Expand Summary
We take the job. Can't hurt to get in closer with the highest seat of power in our world.
Men in Black
The mission docket is light on details but identifies the "Men in Black" as the aggressor. Usually that means "G men", but the Council ARE the G men, so, ┐('~`; )┌
Vincent's holed up in a dinky little safe house in the Denezhkin Kamen Nature Reserve. Brentai, hngkong, Grath, and a fresh-faced greenhorn by the name of Friday put down nearby with the Vulture and key into the panic room.
Vincent frantically stuffs a packet of files into Brentai's hands, making him promise to get the information to the world, no matter what. Brentai's at a loss for what to say.
Friday spots lights in the south-side treeline. The gang takes up positions at the windows.
Through the fog, squad of exosuit-clad stormtroopers marches out from the woods and starts licking shots at the house. Laser weapons of some kind that punch through walls like butter.
They're supported by be-sunglassed G-men with real basic-bitch pistols:
We drop the suits pretty easily with our new UAC rifles. These things are accurate and pack a punch... definitely been worth the money.
They don't do jack shit against the power armor, though.
The group retreats into the building and waits for the first of the heavy troopers to lumber through. Grath and hngkong jump them with shock sticks until they drop. Hngkong grabs the weapon.
Oh shit yeah.
This thing puts holes through the exo-suits real nice. The gang repeats the monster closet strat until everyone's decked out with these heavy lasers. The rest is just a matter of time, patience, and aimed shots.
We take absolutely every remaining scrap of these narcs with us on the Vulture, and deliver Vincent to the Council.
Brentai keeps the packet stuffed in his shirt. No reason the Council needs to know about that little detail.
The techs at the Shatterdome go about pulling the corpses out of the armor and repurposing them for X-Com use.
We get a good 6 sets out of the corpses we recovered.
Brentai pours over the packet, not sure what on Earth to make of it.
The Russian bloc council member contracts X-Com to retrieve a fugitive, "David Vincent" before somebody else does. We take it as a promising sign that we've become the best option they have this side of the hemisphere.
Dossier on David Vincent: ⇳ Click to Expand Summary
Okay so, dossiers are like, these odd "guest characters" I guess that are in the game, and can be apprehended or rescued. Doesn't tend to do much, but, sometimes you get stuff. I got a ninja scroll once that helped the martial arts training.
They're all random characters from movies/shows/games that the mod creators liked.
They're all random characters from movies/shows/games that the mod creators liked.
We take the job. Can't hurt to get in closer with the highest seat of power in our world.
Men in Black
The mission docket is light on details but identifies the "Men in Black" as the aggressor. Usually that means "G men", but the Council ARE the G men, so, ┐('~`; )┌
Vincent's holed up in a dinky little safe house in the Denezhkin Kamen Nature Reserve. Brentai, hngkong, Grath, and a fresh-faced greenhorn by the name of Friday put down nearby with the Vulture and key into the panic room.
Vincent frantically stuffs a packet of files into Brentai's hands, making him promise to get the information to the world, no matter what. Brentai's at a loss for what to say.
Friday spots lights in the south-side treeline. The gang takes up positions at the windows.
Through the fog, squad of exosuit-clad stormtroopers marches out from the woods and starts licking shots at the house. Laser weapons of some kind that punch through walls like butter.
MiB Executors
Executors can be ranked as junior officers, but they report to the highest echelons of the Men in Black - or perhaps their employers. They lead small teams of MiB agents in operations against humanity and also possess rare skills. Their bodies are visibly augmented with cybernetics and drugs.
They're supported by be-sunglassed G-men with real basic-bitch pistols:
MiB Agents
These individuals may seem average at first, but they are trained and equipped to the highest level possible, and beyond. They are also programmed for maximum efficiency, tenacity and ruthlessness. Do not expect them to break in combat.
MiB Agents seem to regularly undergo some sort of memory wipe or blockade that is very hard to break through, so extracting specific information from them is highly problematic.
We drop the suits pretty easily with our new UAC rifles. These things are accurate and pack a punch... definitely been worth the money.
UAC Rifle
The UAC Rifle fires three bullets in a rapid succession, allowing for a high level of fire control. Like all UAC equipment, it can work in outer space.
They don't do jack shit against the power armor, though.
The group retreats into the building and waits for the first of the heavy troopers to lumber through. Grath and hngkong jump them with shock sticks until they drop. Hngkong grabs the weapon.
Oh shit yeah.
This thing puts holes through the exo-suits real nice. The gang repeats the monster closet strat until everyone's decked out with these heavy lasers. The rest is just a matter of time, patience, and aimed shots.
We take absolutely every remaining scrap of these narcs with us on the Vulture, and deliver Vincent to the Council.
Brentai keeps the packet stuffed in his shirt. No reason the Council needs to know about that little detail.
The techs at the Shatterdome go about pulling the corpses out of the armor and repurposing them for X-Com use.
We get a good 6 sets out of the corpses we recovered.
Brentai pours over the packet, not sure what on Earth to make of it.
Re: The X-Com Files: All Y'All Gonna Die
ONE COMMENT YOU GUYS ARE KILLING ME
Re: The X-Com Files: All Y'All Gonna Die
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