Piracy. An X-com oneshot (Hopefully funny)

[Rogue 11]

"Welcome to your X-com recruit orientation."

The officer was bored. He'd done this for every new batch of recruits since X-com as reactivated to deal with the incursions to Mega Primus. After the size of the threat became apparent they were expanding rapidly. That meant a lot of new recruits.

He went through the usual routine.

"Now we'll show you a movie with a brief summary about the history of X-com." The movie was dull and contained nothing not found in public education these days. He wished he didn't have to see it yet again.

He didn't know it but he was about to get his wish.

The X-com logo appeared on screen.

"X-com is a proud organization which has operated in various degrees of readiness for over 80 years."

'Huh?' That was very similar, but he'd heard it so many times he knew that wasn't the correct opening line. Had they replaced the movie without telling him?

"How did X-com become such a kickass organization?" Kickass as a slang word had gone out of favor ages ago. This was definitely not the regular tape.

"To answer that we have to way back. Several centuries back."

Several wooden ships filled the screen apparently trading broadsides.

"In the 1600s pirates were rife. They ran around raiding honest Spanish pillagers and slave drivers shipping back their fairly stolen gold from natives who really weren't spending it enough to excite the economy from the new world."

'What?' That didn't make any sense at all.

"They eventually diversified and started shooting up everyone, thus ending up pissing off the royal navy and getting the shit beaten out of them in pitched naval battles of the like we do not have the special effects budget to portray accurately. That stung a bit. When the Ninjas got in on the action."

Scene of what appeared to be a black clad guy with a sword flipping out and killing a room full of people in less than five seconds rolled across the screen. The recruits were watching in rapt attention.

"An extended two fronts war took it's toll on the pirates. By the time the late 20th century rolled about. Pirates were destitute and out of action."

A beggar in a pirate outfit sat on a street corner of what looked like a 20th century city.

Suddenly the visuals shifted. Instead of pirates it showed first alien war aliens. Aliens UFOs zipping across the screen. Aliens slaughtering what appeared to be a military force. And aliens in general being mean.

"Then the new enemy arrived. They fought in ways totally alien to earth. We were unable to beat them. We needed something new."

The scene switched. Suddenly there were a bunch of stereotypical look pirates picking up old X-com weaponry and arming themselves up.

"We found it. Pirates were uniquely suited for this type of warfare. Which in general boiled down to 'steal all their stuff and figure out how to use it against them'. Something Pirates were pretty good at. As well as excelling at unconventional warfare."

Now the scenes switched. Suddenly actual combat footage from X-com missions took the screen. Looked like helmet cam footage. The more insane over the top events of the two previous wars. A young captain dodged aside a slash from a Chryssalid just barely while spraying fire from his laser pistol into it's face. A squaddie parried a Lobsterman meele attack with a thermal shock rod and then stabbed him. The same squaddie on a surface mission round house kicked an Aquatoid in the head in a second story building sending him flying out of it.

A teenager with glasses held up a blaster bomb launcher next to a farm, and in quick succession fired and reloaded and blew up everything taller than two meters in quick succession with the bombs. The captain from before came face to face with an Ethereal just as he opened a door and couldn't get his gun up in time instead head butted it in the face repeatedly before dodging aside and letting the camera wielder blaze away with a plasma gun. An X-com Avenger landed skidding at high speed crushing a Muton into paste.

Several more scenes of generally more extreme X-com combat incidents rolled about. Incidentally most of them appeared to be from the same combat team.

"Their most important job was the generally stealing anything the aliens had which wasn't nailed down and on fire. And even that wasn't a guarantee for a determined reformed pirates."

In base security cam footage. Showed crate after crate of equipment recovered from an attack of an alien base. There was a lot of it.

The camera switched to the inside of a Barracuda.

"Their ability to steal the aliens toys were unparalleled. Soon humans had everything they had and more. Even so occasionally old pirate habits did float to the forefront."


"So we're pirates. We loot, we pillage, we rape, we burn." A squaddie was saying. Suddenly a gauss pistol flew up from a sergeant leaning back apparently almost asleep. Even without sitting up properly.

"Hold the rape."

"Aw, c'mon. Please?" He turned away from the camera towards the sergeant.

"I said hold the rape."

"Spoilsport."

The camera switched again. To X-com personnel in general blowing the shit out of aliens.

"At any rate X-com with their reformed pirates proceeded to kick the aliens asses in space. Then went on to kick their asses under the sea as the aliens foolishly believed that hiding in Davy Jones locker would save them from the fury of the pirates."

Footage from the T'leth assault where an X-com force sortying without permission had thrown every firepower restriction out of the window.

Sonic oscillator beams raked the seabed from the Levathian, More Pulse Disruptors fired in one engagement than either those or their landside cousins anywhere else had been. In general more firepower than any battle save possibly the battle for Cydonia unleashed in one place.

"Fat chance. Even calling on the aid of Chtulu didn't save them."

'Huh? Who is Chtulu?'

Then it switched to more recent pictures of the new alien menace.

"Now a new group of aliens have arrived. These have not learned the lessons the outer space guys did and therefore have no way of knowing just who they are going up against. These poor miserable wretches can't know how utterly beyond fucked they are, but we're going to show them aren't we?"

Large parts of the audience couldn't restrain themselves and a joint "Hell yeah!" rang out from them.

"Because that is what X-com does. This high tech pirate and generally all around awesome organization stands ready to do it's duty. But never forget your roots."

It switched to a still image. From a costume party back in AW-1 for troopers to wind off. An entire team had gone has pirates and wore pirate regalia with X-com badges added. The badges identified them as X-com first combat team. Legendary pranksters of their time.

And for whom somebody in this time had decided they wanted to follow in their footsteps.

On the photo somebody had written 'Yaaaar Mateys. Time to plunder some aliens' in rather crude, but still readable handwriting

"Always remember fellow pirates." At that the film ended.

"The commander is not going to be happy about this." The introductions officer muttered under his breath.



Just an idea for a fic I'm considering writing. As it's not looking like I'll get around to it I figured that this little bit can stand as a one-shot nicely.

[Satori]

First Comment!

Love this. Hilarious.

[Xon]

X-COM, using plasma cutters to steal stuff bolted down and anything else they can move since 1998

[Darth Smiley]

The next person to be promoted to 'Captain' in my game gets named 'Blackbeard'.

[Academia Nut]

The 'steal anything not nailed down or on fire' bit made me laugh the most. Reminded me of a quote on characters in D&D, and roleplaying games in general.

"PCs: they'll steal anything that isn't nailed down... and they often carry nail removing devices just in case."

So does this mean that we will be seeing more activity from you Rogue 11? Because you have some of the funniest, wittiest writing on this board.

[Rogue 11]

Hopefully. I like writing. Got an inability to stick with one idea for long though. That's my biggest problem. Especially as I hate abandoning stories.

[Academia Nut]

We should start a support group then. As I'm both of our fanbases will tell us...

[Rogue 11]

Heh. May actually work too. We'd just need a few more members :p


ATM I am considering taking the setting of this one-shot and turn into a full blown story. As I intend it as an X-com story covering the three primary games. it'd be a rather big project though. I'd hate for me to lose interest partway through.

[Academia Nut]

Well, I must say, the early stages of writing Thousand Shinji when Chris and I were "in competition" really got me going, and having him beta for me really helped. Having a proofreader adds a lot to motivation I think.

Now if only there were a collection of writers on this board ready and willing to help each other out and discuss things. Perhaps lead by a moderator who has not checked his in box since... May 2007 it would seem.