Esperanza needs YOU! (Let's play UFO:Extraterrastrials!)

[JonB]

Guys, I'm not too good with writing funny. Please help me with quirks/habits/whatever or at least give me suggestions on how to do it better.

Well, aparently you had me as the only one paying attention to the briefings, so you can roll with that. Either a hyper-observant lunatic who is willing to stun first and ask questions later sort or as someone taking this whole debacle seriously.

*ahem*

FROM: JonB@cfa.mil.gov.com.org
To: (Director)

Re: Equipment

Dear sir. During our first mission, we encountered a slight difficulty. You see, it was so dark that those xenos hid from our murderous intent desire to party. We need flashlights or something like that for next time. Or lights of any sort, really.

[FaxModem1]

Fax Modem's personal log:

Apparently they sent out the other pilot instead of my on the latest UFO interception. Do they not realize how high speed I am? I'm dangerous. I'm full of focus and concentration and can take out an entire wing of-Hey Cutie, what's your name?

*Log ends*

[Zixinus]

Flight security recording, audio-only, Red Raider 1:

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Darkevilme: So, we're gonna shoot aliens? Mr.Suit didn't tell me much.
Zaune: Who's Mr.Suit? 
Darkevilme: Erm, you know? The guy in the suit who won't give his name, keeps telling you that everything is classified and keeps shadowing you?
OmegaChief: None of us have someone like that. 
Coaan: Sounds like a parole officer. Why do you have a parole officer? 
Darkevilme: Wait, you guys don't have one? 
atg: What? No! I volunteered! I thought you did too!
Darkevilme: Well, I sort of did too. It was either this or prison. I was considered too violent for other community service.
Vortex Empire: Even from wildlife duty? 
Darkevilme: Yeah, especially that.
Coaan: Dude, how the hell did you manage that? You practically don't see people for most of the time. What did you do, fuck a Tricruis?
Darkevilme: Well, not exactly. 
Voxtex Empire: What do you mean not exactly? What the hell did you do?
Darkevilme: Well, while I was, you know, getting the snap-camera pictures I saw a small one. And I wanted to pat it.
Zaune: That's understandable. Those critters are cute. Wait, a small one? As in a kid?
Darkevilme: Yeah, it didn't have those head-horns yet, so yes.
xthetenth: Let me guess: you managed to get between a mother and his kid? 
Darkevilme: I think so. Next thing I know, I'm beating the living shit out of something big and furry with a rock. 
Zaune: DUDE, YOU KILLED BAMBI?!
Darkevilme: What?
Zaune: It was on the news. Some maniac killed the small, cancer-cured Tricruis kid that got hit by a car. The driver managed to nurse it back to health and it found it's mommy. 
Darkevilme: Oh.
Zaune: It became friendly to humans. It had an ident collar too, with camera mounted on. The thing gave a live feed. 
Darkevilme: Oh.
Zaune: It was a symbol of the Esperanza wildlife foundation. 
Darkevilme: Oh.
Vortex Empire: Well, it was an accident. 
Zaune: Shit, and I'm rolling with you? What have I gone into?
OmegaChief: The one organization that does not have to pay for property damages!

After-action report:

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Zaune: Guys, which one of you has flashlights?
OmegaChief: Flashlight? What for?
Zaune: It's dark?
atg: I have cyber-augmented eyes. Fuck your flashlight.
Coaan: Yeah, except it has less low-light sensitivity than a regular human eye. You're just as fucked.
Zaune: Guys? Flashlight?
OmegaChief: We don't have a flashlight.
JonB: Yeah, it was not like we needed one in last mission.
xthetenth: Though, the buggers did almost sneak up on us. 
Zaune: So let me get this straight: we are the first and last line of defence against an alien menace for Esperanza, we have the latest armor and weapons, but no one thought of getting us a flashlight?
Vortex Empire: Pretty much, yeah. NOW SHUT UP AND CHARGEEEEEEEEE!

Immediately after landing, the CAF soldiers were fired upon.

The gas is from a misfire from a creature nicknamed "larva": the spit appears to make a toxic cloud that eats trough armour.



Vortex Empire, with his fearless charge, led his squad right into the enemy killzone.

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Vortex Empire: I'll see the bogey! I'll get him! Here's to fine marksmanship!

FIRST SHOT MISS!



SECOND SHOT MISS!

THIRD SHOT resulted in a crying anguish of a Tricruis from a distance.

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atg: I'm pretty sure that was Bambi's mother.
Zaune: Yeah, great marksmanship, but try aiming for the aliens next time? You know, THE ONES SPITTING TOXIC GOO AT US?!

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Darkvilme: I can't get a lock! I can't get a lock! These fuckers must be using some stealth technology or something!
Coaan: You didn't forget to pull down the thing's camera lens cover, did you?
Darkvilme: Oh shit! YES I DID! SHIT!

Unable to fire back and due to the lack of cover, Beta squad is under heavy fire. Darkvilme is hit, disabling his shield and the toxic fumes immediately knocking him off his feet.

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Zaune: shouldn't we drag him out of there?
OmegaChief: Nah, he'll be fine.
Darkvilme: IT BURNS! IT BURNS! AHHHHHH! 

Vortex Empire runs out a zig-zag between the fumes.

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Vortex Empire: You want bullets? I'll give you bullets!

STRIKE ONE!



STRIKE TWO!



STRIKE THREE and YOU'REEEE OUT!

Vortex empire succumbs to his bleeding injuries and falls unconscious.

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JonB: Fuck this! You want a piece of me? Have this!

JonB successfully throws a grenade that kills the enemy larvas that lay down fire.

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JonB: And that's how we do this! No fucking around, no penis-compensation, overwhelming force!
Vortex Empire: Like *cough* I did *cough* with *gurgle* your *cough* *cough* mother?

Beta Squad groups together to try and heal each other's injuries with stimpacks.
Problem is, that they do this without going to cover or securing the area.



The result is a new, powerful grenade thrown right into the middle of the group.

Due to the combined damage the toxic cloud and the plasma grenade, both Darkwilme and Zaune die.

Only JonB is left standing due to the fact that his shield protected him from most of the damage.

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JonB: VENGEANCE!

Meanwhile, Alpha squad is checking out the nearby area.

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xtetenth: I swear, there should be a brake room here somewhere with muffins. I can smell muffins!

Meanwhile, while his squad is either dead or dying, JonB attempts to regroup with Beta squad.

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JonB: All dead. Dead. Only I survived. I must complete my mission.
Coaan: What's up?
JonB: THEY'RE DEAD! Didn't you hear me lamenting?
OmegaChief: Seriously? I thought you guys were handing it OK.
xthetenth: Geez, sorry to hear that. Come with us then, I've already found muffins! Muffins for all!

Eventually, JonB regrups with Beta squad, sweep the area and stumble upon the crashed UFO.



Coaan is immedealty fired upon.

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Coann: NOOOOOOooooo....
OmegaChief: Think you fucking aliens are big, aren't you? Well, it's my turn to give punishment!

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OmegaChief: Fuck! 

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OmegaChief: Oh shitshitshitshitshitshitshit...

Meanwhile, atg, instead of firing upon the enemy that can be seen, preemptively throws a grenade at an open section of the UFO.

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JonB: Er, guys? Another one is right here.

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Jonb: AND YOU DO IT THIS WAY!

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JonB: Oh, shit, forgot about you.

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atg: I'LL HANDLE THIS! Take THIS YOU FO... er, fiend?

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atg: AND TH...this? Shit?

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atg: oh, I actually managed to hit him!
JonB: and he's out too! Thank you!

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OmegaChief: Guys?

OmegaChief is fired upon from the shadows!

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atg: SHIT! FUCK! THAT'S IT, GRENADE!

With a deathly scream, the last alien dies.

MISSION SUCCESS!

After-action report:


JonB: practically took this all by himself, 5 kills
arg: 2 kills
Omegachief: while still giving succesful fire support, no kills

JonB has been promoted to PRIVATE FIRST CLASS!
atg has been promoted to PRIVATE!
OmegaChief has been promoted to PRIAVETE!

Units lost:
Darkvilme, Rookie, no kills. His parole officer has been notified. His parole officer has been seen dancing shortly thereafter.
Zaune, Rookie, no kills. His complaint about flashlights filed, noted and promptly ignored.

NEXT UP: After-mission analysis and the heavy tracks start to roll!

[OmegaChief]

I belive I can sum up this operation in one word:

Flawless Victory!

I mean I'm still alive, the aliens are all dead, and I get to muck around in the medbay for a while now too!

[doom3607]

Does this mean I get to use a bazooka next time? To protect this planet for Lord Cthulhu's later culinary delight?

[Kryten]

It looks like you need more troops, so sign me up for whatever's free; preferably some kind of sniper or heavy-weapons guy.

[Dave]

Darkvilme: I can't get a lock! I can't get a lock! These fuckers must be using some stealth technology or something!
Coaan: You didn't forget to pull down the thing's camera lens cover, did you?
Darkvilme: Oh shit! YES I DID! SHIT!

I laughed at this.

Also:

Dear Diary,

I finally got to see an alien. But I didn't get to kill it! Why can't I seem to manage to kill aliens? And then I got shot so I was forced on medical leave! Totally lame.

Dave

[Zaune]

Well, that was ignominious.

[Force Lord]

Force Lord's Personal Log:

Ugh, still playing defense at base. Heard that our team got banged up on its last mission. Hopefully they have space free for my tank. And I still haven't scraped up the funds to upgrade my ride. All in all, it's been a bad day.

[JonB]

I'm awesome! I'm awesome!

*happy dance* *happy dance*

Who's the xeno slaying badass now guys?!?!?! Huh?

And now that I've opened my big mouth some alien is gonna shoot it, I'm ready for all those free drinks you guys owe me for saving your collective asses.

((OOC; Damn. Never had one of my characters be that lucky so soon. Or ever, I think. I can't help but wonder what the RNG is going to do to make up my karma.))

[The Yosemite Bear]

ow my friggin Back, time to try to get more Oxy and Vikings from the pill dispensory, the nurses keep telling me that I might get addicted, dammit the aliens shot me in the fuckin back when I fired that knockout gas missile...

[Zixinus]

Spoiler

Just to note: in-game story sort of allows reviving of dead units. There is some brain-damage to solve and perhaps cosmetic surgery (practically, I just hire a new unit and re-name them), so if someone would like to have their characters revived, just say so.

Again, I'm lagging behind and some of the people who volounteered will only show up once some others are dead. Having soldiers on the base constantly costs money and I'm still fledgling around to get enough money.

To clarify how I play the game: I haven't played this game before and I barely got further than where we are currently. I'm playing on Easy and with a few beneficial settings to go, to allow screwing around as a Let's Play (yeah, I should do those more). For example, I've set soldier death at "tough" so most everyone won't see their characters dying all the time.

It may not look like it at the moment, but the game is pretty lethal. So far, we've been lucky.

OOC; Damn. Never had one of my characters be that lucky so soon. Or ever, I think. I can't help but wonder what the RNG is going to do to make up my karma.

You're squad leader.
Taking point with untested weapons.

Does this mean I get to use a bazooka next time? To protect this planet for Lord Cthulhu's later culinary delight?

First off: this is not Earth, Cthulhu doesn't live here.
Second: I'm gonna get to you as soon as there is space.

[FaxModem1]

OOC: Do they have pilot characters, or are the vehicles just parked there?

[atg]

Sweet. Seems I need to use 'nades more often.

[Zixinus]

Spoiler

OOC: Do they have pilot characters, or are the vehicles just parked there?

I wanted to rename the aircrafts themselves, but it seems I can't do that.

As for the tanks: you have a human face, but not human stats. I think I get a new guy every time I get a new tank. Not sure though.

[Zixinus]

MEMO
From: Lieutenant Commander Miroslava
To: All non-combat, non-command personal
Subject: Betting pool
Body: Look, I know what the combat personal are like. I receive your complaints daily and I have a unusually hard time getting the soldiers in line myself. The Commander has a very naive outlook on them, so my hands are tied in how much I can discipline them. Yes, I have been vomited on too.
But the betting pool will STOP RIGHT NOW. No matter how bad these people bad, they are still soldiers risking their lives. Even if it weren't aliens, this sort of behaviour is unacceptable. I know this is just a few bad eggs and all, but if I hear one more person waging money on which soldier dies next, they'll be fired if it turns out to be true. The only reason I'm not doing the same to a certain person is because I don't want to raise the Commander's suspicion about this. He is already too much on the side of the combat personal, I do not want him antagonized towards the rest of personal. Remember how he suspects that the Esperanza council is infiltrated by aliens, despite evidence to the contrary? Do YOU want to be subject of such paranoia?
And before any rumours start: I did not bet myself and did not lose money. I admit that I expressed a desire to do so, even named how much and who, but never actually done so.

Commander's log, 2108 February 17th

Tragedy! TRAGEDY! I have lost two of my men in the last mission. It appears that our armour is not enough: expectable result, but not for the reason I did. The armour was never meant to withstand toxic attacks. The lack of medkits, while unlucky, wasn't the chief cause of our defeat. My second-in-command suggests bad tactics, but I see it for what it is: bad tactics.
Well, maybe the several bottle of liqueur found in the Red Raider may have something to do with it too. My second-in-command certainly thinks so.

Regardless, I should be thankful to her about arranging a possible funeral on short notice. However, I have been informed that in the med bay, it is possible to regenerate the dead troops thanks to the wonders of modern medical technology. The doctor, a man Dr. Kel'Thuzad tells me that their state so far is in limbo: it is possible that enough of their brains was left undamaged to allow resurrection, but it is hard to determine at the moment.
So the funeral is off. I just wish that Dr. Kel'Thuzzad would stop wearing that goat-skull hat. I know it's part of his religion and all, but it just creeps me out.



We had to roll out the tank from backup and hope to defend the base this way.
Driver Force Lord has assured me that the sudden burst of smoke coming from his vehicle is of no consequence.



An analysis on the entities nicknamed "larva" is complete. The creature is nearly immune to all forms of chemical attack and its toxin is very vicious.
Eng. White Heaven has told me that we can replicate the toxin and weaponize it for our own use, provided once the janitorial staff cleans up the accident caused during testing this idea. Apparently they will need several days to find all the bits and pieces of the exploded alien.



In better news, I have decided to transfer Raptor 2 to our second base.
The pilot lamented that he has no worthy volleyball partner.



Analysis on the apparently more sentient Chasers, as they were nicknamed, is complete. It appears that they are the whimpier of the alien races.

*END OF LOG*

MEMO
From: Dr. Jacob Stein
To: Commander
Subject: unathorized entering of alien corpse storage room
Body: Commander, would you please tell your troops to stop entering the alien corpse room, removing the corpse from the tank and posing the bodies for photos? Aside the issue of contamination and damage to the corpses, it is unhygienic and your men do not clean up after themselves. Bringing in weapons and firing at the corpses has also happened and I assure you that the aliens do not appear to have a tendency to "rise again".

NEXT UP: TAAAAANK!
Spoiler

I have difficulty "Keeping up" this thread with how fast I play. In fact, I started a play session and forgot to start fraps, meaning that a few in-game weeks have passed with several missions that I have not logged.

[HMS Sophia]

Damn... I'll just have to bounce my volleyball sadly against the wall

[Zaune]

Hmmm... how much brain damage?

[Zixinus]

Hmmm... how much brain damage?

Spoiler

Depends on you really. I can re-hire someone as you if you would like. With luck, I may even get the same avatar image, just with slightly different stats. You'll start off again as a Rookie.

[FaxModem1]

Fax Modem's Personal Log:

"So, Raptor 2 got assigned to some other base. From what I heard, its the listening outpost. On the plus side, my kill ratio competition will be down. On the negative side, I have no one to play volleyball with. Figures, the Commander took away our volleyball privileges anyway.

On another note, I won 100 credits on a bet."

*Log ends.*

[The Yosemite Bear]

Damn... I'll just have to bounce my volleyball sadly against the wall

begins playing "The Great Escape" for Barnest2

now that I'm back in service again, I'll see how well our pistol and stun prod guy reacts to Ritalin....

[The Vortex Empire]

Good thing I'm not dead. For personality, make me a voice of reason, level-headed kind of guy, with a habit of playing thrash metal at obscene volumes at all times, including combat situations.

[Force Lord]

Personal Log:

Stupid fuel tank! How many times I have to patch it up? It's bad enough that there's sparks every now and then fron the electrical equipment. If I get into battle with this piece of shit, I doubt I'll even get to shoot! Jesus.

[Zixinus]

Sorry guys, but writing these just takes too much time and effort, much more than I originally thought. Something that with the nearing school-leaving exams I don't have that much of. Plus, I'm playing way too fast and having way too much fun just playing the game as opposed to constantly updating my progress on it and trying to make jokes.

If somebody wants to take over the LP, PM me with an e-mail address so I'll send an old savefile over.

[SirNitram]

Assuming this planet is a human colony, it is high time I was pulled from my cryogenic stasis to scream at people, design new things, rant about the uselessness of others, and beat the inferior scientists to death with my legendary spanner.

Honestly, at least this time they come from space. Last time they defrosted me, it was for oceangoing!

In short.. Legendary Scientist SirNitram reporting.