Basically it starts out like this: in the world of Zootopia there have been for the past few decades occasional sightings of these guys...
Strange hairless big eyed jerks that engage in nefarious actions. Now they've been showing up in greater numbers alongside other unpleasant individuals. As such the various prominent mammalian states of the Zootopia (of which Zootopia is the capital of the most prominent) universe have created an international organization dedicated to protecting their planet training elite special forces to repel these invaders. Right now their assets are limited to a single underground base with a research and engineering crew, a satellite and a small number of special forces armed with basic combustion based weapons, a few basic low orbital interceptor aircraft and VTOL transports. This organization is known as ZCOM.
You are in charge of ZCOM and must protect this world from alien attacks.
What do you do?
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hahahahahaha, omg, how do you manage to keep coming up with stuff like this? "You know what would make the Zootopia universe even better? Alien invasion!"
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Okay, I just saw the movie tonight (and loved it. Come for the cute furry characters, stay for a plot that could belong to a classic film noir detective flick and a pro-social message that's neither sappy nor heavy-handed), and I've been playing the original X-COM: UFO Defense (using the excellent Open XCOM utility).
ZCOM's biggest simultaneous challenge and opportunity is going to be the diverse range of physical characteristics of its forces. There is just no way that a typical citizen of Little Rodentia is going to be able to handle (or move at all) a Heavy Plasma, and even someone like Officer Hopps is going to have to handle a pistol sized weapon like a carbine.
Does that mean they're useless? No, it does not.
Officer Hopps clearly has a very large movement rate and a good ability to exploit cover and concealment, meaning that she'd be an excellent scout. Tiny rodents are just as intelligent as anyone else, so they'd be a good choice for the ZCOM science teams, since they could let you pack hundreds of brilliant minds into the limited space of the underground complex. I imagine they'd also be great at working on miniaturizing the tech, since they'd have fine dexterity that a larger species couldn't match.
Those larger species, though, would make great heavy weapons troops. An elephant could probably carry a Heavy Plasma as a backup weapon and use a vehicle-sized Laser Cannon or Plasma Cannon for a weapon, and wear much thicker armor while doing it.
As for what I'd DO? Err, stock up on Avalanche missiles and start researching laser weapons. Also start a big recruitment drive, because we're going to need a lot of cannon fodder.
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As I recall the plot of X-COM was that the alien overlords (Ethereals) were looking for a superior slave race that had the full combination of psychic powers, physical durability and aggressiveness/tactical ability. The reason for the slow invasion of Earth was that they were testing and analysing the humans before conquering and enslaving them. In Zootopia I would assume they would only be interested in abducting/enslaving the large carnivorous species; they might use the others for food (in the original game excess humans were converted to nutrient slurry), but the small species would probably be of no interest at all. Although this also depends on the distribution of psionic powers; the X-Com cannon suggests that psionic power is at least partly dependent on brain mass so the tiny species may be rendered irrelevant there as well. I would expect the aliens to do a lot more abductions and testing as they now have to analyse lots of different species for slave potential instead of just one. Considering how they try to play the nations of Earth against each other and make deals piecemeal, no doubt they would adopt a similar strategy of trying to turn the groupings of the Zootopia society against each other as well.
Out of universe I'd probably write some long winded blog post with highly suspect logic about how clearly the invasion of "Strange hairless big eyed jerks that engage in nefarious actions" on a planet of animals living in harmony is a allegory for humans disrupting the nature and how they are completely different from any other species on earth, alien even, hence why humans not being in the world of Zootopia has a name like Utopia. Because a world without humans is a utopia and would be disrupted or destroyed with humans coming into the picture. Also something about how Zootopia is clearly liberal propaganda and is sexist and is racist and hates America.
In universe I'd probably see about making strong alliances between various nations and groups. One thing the X-Rays always could do well to defeat humans is to divide and conquer. Also conquer countries nobody ever heard of. A united defense against the alien (human) menace will mean they will have a harder time establishing a foothold or creating native allies. Playing the "everyone for themselves" with only ZCOM acting internationally is a sure fire way to lose.
ZCOM should be the heavy hitters but everyone should be working together, sharing tech and resources. Its been awhile since I played any XCOM but thats seems to be a major problem they had, not working together. Every nation doing their own thing with only XCOM working internationally.
Like others, I'd be a speciest and take advantage of different species advantages and disadvantages. Larger animals will make good heavy troops while something like a rabbit probably won't. But a rabbit would probably make a decent sniper, able to move fast and small enough to escape notice. A bigass Rhino probably ain't going to be able to conceal himself as easily.
I just wonder if it would be easier or harder for the aliens to infiltrate with the sheer number of intelligent species?
Zeropoint wrote:Officer Hopps clearly has a very large movement rate and a good ability to exploit cover and concealment, meaning that she'd be an excellent scout.
Scout, spy, saboteur, and possibly sniper as well. GURPS Aliens included a six-inch tall rodent-like species called the Cidi who excelled at all of those things.
Though I've never played XCOM, I imagine the main problem would be the time necessary to gear up to fight the aliens properly. In the series UFO, it took SHADO ten years to get to that point(UFO "Identified," and "Confetti Check A-OK").
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Zeropoint wrote:ZCOM's biggest simultaneous challenge and opportunity is going to be the diverse range of physical characteristics of its forces. There is just no way that a typical citizen of Little Rodentia is going to be able to handle (or move at all) a Heavy Plasma, and even someone like Officer Hopps is going to have to handle a pistol sized weapon like a carbine
Officer Hopps clearly has a very large movement rate and a good ability to exploit cover and concealment, meaning that she'd be an excellent scout. Tiny rodents are just as intelligent as anyone else, so they'd be a good choice for the ZCOM science teams, since they could let you pack hundreds of brilliant minds into the limited space of the underground complex. I imagine they'd also be great at working on miniaturizing the tech, since they'd have fine dexterity that a larger species couldn't match.
Those larger species, though, would make great heavy weapons troops. An elephant could probably carry a Heavy Plasma as a backup weapon and use a vehicle-sized Laser Cannon or Plasma Cannon for a weapon, and wear much thicker armor while doing it.
Another thing you could use the size disparity for is vehicles. The mice would make good pilots because they're probably about the same size as the computers that run modern fighter jets. The elephants could probably wear heavy weapons and replace tanks altogether.
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phred wrote:The mice would make good pilots because they're probably about the same size as the computers that run modern fighter jets. The elephants could probably wear heavy weapons and replace tanks altogether.
X-COM has those mini-tank weapons platforms which are canonically remote controlled. You could put a micro species operator in them, but it's not clear that would be any more effective than remote operation, which seems to be fully effective in the games. You have to ask actually, if they have effective UGVs, why aren't they using UCAVs instead of manned fighters. Perhaps the short range comm links are immune to alien jamming, but the long-range comm links aren't. Or the UFOs can jam high-bandwidth data links effectively while airborne, but not while on the ground.
A problem with having the pilot being small is that you can only save so much space miniaturizing his command interface before the cost of doing so outweighs the benefits.
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As I recall the plot of X-COM was that the alien overlords (Ethereals) were looking for a superior slave race that had the full combination of psychic powers, physical durability and aggressiveness/tactical ability.
No, they were primarily interested in psychic ability, with physical ability being a secondary consideration. Spoiler
In the second, newer game the Ethereals were dying and were looking for a species that might offer them a cure. Humans offered the possibility. So in case of Zootopia, they'd probably be interested in all species in hopes of possibly useful genes.
In Zootopia I would assume they would only be interested in abducting/enslaving the large carnivorous species; they might use the others for food (in the original game excess humans were converted to nutrient slurry), but the small species would probably be of no interest at all.
Hard to say. No XCOM game ever really elaborated on the alien's exact agenda. I wouldn't put it past the aliens to try and study all the species.
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As I recall the plot of X-COM was that the alien overlords (Ethereals) were looking for a superior slave race that had the full combination of psychic powers, physical durability and aggressiveness/tactical ability.
No, they were primarily interested in psychic ability, with physical ability being a secondary consideration. Spoiler
In the second, newer game the Ethereals were dying and were looking for a species that might offer them a cure. Humans offered the possibility. So in case of Zootopia, they'd probably be interested in all species in hopes of possibly useful genes.
Spoiler
They're not so much looking for a "cure" as a replacement. They're trying to build new bodies that they can transfer their consciousnesses into, and found that humanity has enough of the right genetic components to use as the basis of their new avatar.
Guys... the spoiler tags are pretty borked... they don't function in posts with quotes. If you need to post a spoiler, do a separate post for it without any quotes.
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Starglider wrote:
phred wrote:The mice would make good pilots because they're probably about the same size as the computers that run modern fighter jets. The elephants could probably wear heavy weapons and replace tanks altogether.
X-COM has those mini-tank weapons platforms which are canonically remote controlled. You could put a micro species operator in them, but it's not clear that would be any more effective than remote operation, which seems to be fully effective in the games. You have to ask actually, if they have effective UGVs, why aren't they using UCAVs instead of manned fighters. Perhaps the short range comm links are immune to alien jamming, but the long-range comm links aren't. Or the UFOs can jam high-bandwidth data links effectively while airborne, but not while on the ground.
Do you know, I'm not entirely sure the original description of the Interceptor doesn't allow for it being a UCAV.
Certainly the researchable craft that use alien technology are manned vehicles, but then they also presumably have inertial compensators or something to move like they do. They wouldn't be at a disadvantage against crewed enemy UFOs.
