Brainstorm: Alien Motivation

For updates and discussion of Terra Invicta, a grand-strategy alien invasion simulator
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raydeft
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Re: Brainstorm: Alien Motivation

Post by raydeft »

Two of the motivations I favour for an alien invasion are:

(1) It's a nasty neighborhood, but well you know...
(2) You're in the army now / welcome to the club

(1) It's a nasty neighborhood, but well you know...
The invaders have suffered some cataclysm themselves, either natural disaster or themselves fleeing from something worse. I see this group as having better technology and weaponry than us, but extremely limited numbers. Earth is a close match to the type of habitat that they require, so there is a vested interest in keeping it intact. They have no access to the kind of obliteration technology that would see us wiped out, but they need to do something profound to the earth to make it habitable. The future of their species is at stake.

They debate cooperation, but have some fundamental different environmental requirement for earth. They also dont trust us (they watched district9). Their strategy is basically to sell trinkets of their technology to get enough manufacturing capability to affect a terraforming. (Lets choose an arbitary one, they cannot reproduce in temperatures below 40 celsius, so they want to accelerate global warming to the required level.). There long term goal is to make the planet uninhabitable for us, but they do not intend killing us, rather moving us into reserves - local biospheres where the remnants of humanity can continue to exist.

While they try and bring factions under their sway, there is a large pollutative capacity being comissioned to change the face of earth as we know it. Dissenters are quickly branded as tree-huggers / anti progress etc. Some human leaders genuinely believe this is the best route forward. Others are intent on war becuase they are aliens and we are human.

(2) You're in the army now / welcome to the club
A scenario where the aliens want to recruit us into their empire. The invasion is a test of our resilience and capacity for war. It's a harsh exam. If we pass we get to join their empire in the wider galaxy. Foiling the invasion is part of the the rules for admission to the club. Defiance in the face of adversity is important to them because of the enemies they face. They've been betrayed before by client races and will not allow themselves to be fooled again. If we win we get to join them, if we lose, they obliterate the planet to remove potential allies for their enemies. (So they do have capability to destroy earth, but are staging a limited invasion as a test for us.)
CrypticC62
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Re: Brainstorm: Alien Motivation

Post by CrypticC62 »

raydeft wrote: (2) You're in the army now / welcome to the club
A scenario where the aliens want to recruit us into their empire. The invasion is a test of our resilience and capacity for war. It's a harsh exam. If we pass we get to join their empire in the wider galaxy. Foiling the invasion is part of the the rules for admission to the club. Defiance in the face of adversity is important to them because of the enemies they face. They've been betrayed before by client races and will not allow themselves to be fooled again. If we win we get to join them, if we lose, they obliterate the planet to remove potential allies for their enemies. (So they do have capability to destroy earth, but are staging a limited invasion as a test for us.)
So... XCOM?
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raydeft
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Re: Brainstorm: Alien Motivation

Post by raydeft »

So xcom?

Depends if you feel xcom was recruiting earth?

The idea I had was more along the lines of David brin's uplift war series, with client races that are judged ready to ascend.
Andor
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Re: Brainstorm: Alien Motivation

Post by Andor »

raydeft wrote:So xcom?

Depends if you feel xcom was recruiting earth?

The idea I had was more along the lines of David brin's uplift war series, with client races that are judged ready to ascend.
Well, that was done with a series of tests like the "Garthlings" passed in The Uplift War. It was not so much done with invasions and warfare. However as near as we could tell from the incoherant mumbling of the Etherals, they did seem to be engaging in a continuous series of uplift endevoures in an attempt to find a successor species, and the war was their vetting process. We passed with flying colors and near apocalypse.

Although Alan Dean Fosters The Damnned trilogy might also apply, where both the Weave and the Purpose were trying to find warrior species to help in their conflict. Then they found us and crapped their collective pants. (It's a universe where most planets have much less competitive eco-systems, most intelligent species simply freeze in the face of violence. A few can fight, poorly, under great mental stress.)
CouncilMember#326
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Re: Brainstorm: Alien Motivation

Post by CouncilMember#326 »

How about the Aliens Agenda being from a "Misunderstanding" or lack of usable information leading to emergent gameplay.

A lot of main-stream fiction assumes that "Aliens" are a singular menace and don't truly look deep into the politics (Unless you watch falling skies and the X-files). The aliens could be made up by Several race, and different cultures within those races, all having their own Agendas; Benevolent and Malevolent in equal measure, and some on the fence.

So lets take an example. A bunch of Grey 'pirates' harvest abductees and sell their organs on their own version of the blackmarket. The governments of the world become aware of this threat, and then change their policies to shoot down any craft entering our atmosphere.

An organization belonging to the same Grey race, act as a police force, and go to Earth to assess the situation and intervene if necessary. However due to the worlds changed military policy, you shoot down the police ship and perform autopsies on the occupants. This act is considered Barbaric, and they stop sending police craft to Earth.

With their changed policy, and the continued harvesting, Earth is now seen to be considerably weaker, and several other races (Or sub cultures of those races) fall onto Earth and pick it clean. Your options are limited and you take whatever you can. Another race wants to annex Earth, and in return it is more secure, as long as the major governments of the world comply with their wishes. Tensions between this race and another are at its peak, and the deal you made with your occupiers spark an intergalactic war. Now Earth (and the Sol system) has become a Flashpoint.
> They need resources - They are low on natural resources on their world and they're going world to world taking what they need. (Independence Day) This is a very strong reason. Number of worlds that are naturally inhabitable as well as other resources. For example: maybe water or oxygen is rare from where they come from?
I never truly liked this premise. If they are a multi colony space faring culture, then they should be at a point where they can harvest energy and convert it to matter. I would buy it if it was a resource so obscure or that science hasn't theorized to exist yet, that it would render the alien agenda, well, alien. Likewise you cannot go with the water or oxygen hypothesis as Hydrogen is the most abundant in the Universe, with Oxygen being the third most abundant. Offcourse, perhaps they are here to collect our souls?
Ranarius Webfoot
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Re: Brainstorm: Alien Motivation

Post by Ranarius Webfoot »

I think the idea that aliens might attempt to conquer Earth to conscript us as slave labor is quite promising.
Somebody else downplayed the idea because there's nothing we can do that they can't already do for themselves - I raise the counterpoint that this has been true every time humans have enslaved each other, and that never stopped us. The only requirement for a rational but amoral group to give this a try, is the belief or calculation that the benefit of enslaving is larger than the cost.

As the "Golden Age" trilogy pointed out, to a superior entity, inferior beings are not obsolete - even if the less capable beings (like us) perform only menial labor, this would give our alien overlords the benefit that they don't have to do the menial labor - and thus they can spend more of their time and superior capabilities doing things that we can't.

At its best, this is a common feature of economic systems - consider that if Steve Jobs had had to personally manage the sales of Apple products, he never would have the time to develop the innovations that transformed the tech market. Since he had salesmen working for him, he didn't have to, and could instead do the work that the salesmen couldn't.

At its worst, this is where slavery and conquering empires come from. The Spartan citizens were warriors and did not farm; they had their subjugated helots do it for them. Or, as long as the Roman legions continually subjugated the provinces that rebelled, the upper classes could enjoy their leisure time sitting around eating grapes. Not only that, but the Roman legions were highly trained and disciplined - but they had auxiliary forces drawn from the surrounding populations, which were less well trained, less disciplined, and less well equipped - but a legion with auxiliaries was more effective than a legion without auxiliaries.

So I submit the idea that the aliens might conquer Earth to conscript humans as slaves, or slave soldiers, or both.

Three things to note:

1) It answers the question of why, if they're so superior an attacking force, they don't just cluster bomb us into oblivion. Whether conscripted as slaves or as janissaries, we will be the most useful if we bring our own technology with us. The more they bomb us into the Stone Age, the less useful we will be. After all, if we bring our own asteroid-mining or space-to-space warship technology with us, they don't have to teach us theirs. Even if theirs is better, we already understand how our technology works, and it's good enough for their purposes. They just have to persuade us to use it for their purposes, by force if necessary. But they less force they need to use, the better off they will be.

2) If they TELL us any of that, then it may make the peoples of Earth harder to unite - because we will have factions saying, hey, if we just give them what they want, we'll be better off. If you can't beat them, join them. So, if you're open to the idea of the aliens bothering to talk to us, that could help explain why the nations of Earth don't say, hey, we all obviously have a mutual threat to our well-being, let's set aside our differences for now. Like they did in XCOM.

3) You know how certain video games have you start off facing the weakest enemies, so you don't lose immediately? This would be quite explainable under this paradigm; they brought some of the other people they've enslaved with them, and they use them as cannon fodder to discover your capabilities so they don't risk themselves in case you have some hidden strength. Perhaps this is because they simply breed more slowly and live longer than their slaves, and us, so they are less willing to risk their own lives. After all, as long as the Ethereals didn't NEED to take the field to accomplish their goals, sure, hundreds of Sectoids and Mutons die, but zero Ethereals die. Perhaps, instead, they're just being prudent because they are a professional military that believes in conquering efficiently. Either way, it'll provide a great taste of the fate they have in store for Humanity - if we're conquered, we'll be the ones thrown in and left to die in the NEXT system they conquer.
Sponticus
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Re: Brainstorm: Alien Motivation

Post by Sponticus »

Silver wrote: 2. Aliens is not a race at all. They are artificial beings controlled by an AI, developed millenia ago by a superior race, eventually overthrowing and killing everyone of that long gone race. They have been expanding in space ever since, consuming resources and developing more and more of their robotic forms. They have no feelings or interest for sentient lifeforms, unless they need them to develop their elite semi-rombotic biowarriors. No notion of good or evil, they are simply here for the resources and they will keep coming, cannot be negotiated or bargained with. Since they are not customed to warfare vs sentient beings at first they will be an easy and predictable opponent, but eventually they will learn from humans the art of war becoming progressively harder and harder to win to the point of becoming invincible.
This one gets past many of the problems pointed out. I think you could even take it a step farther. What if, 20,000 years ago, some alien civilization somewhere gained sentience and technology, and wanted to try to contact their neighbors? But FTL travel was unwieldy or too resource heavy. They couldn't just go galavanting around the universe visiting every planet. What do they do? Ostensibly, something similar to what we do: we send out technological ambassadors.

So one long forgotten probe has travelled through the emptiness of space for millennia, and eventually picks up some strange readings from a pale blue dot. It has extensive AI and two primary objectives: study the new life form, and contact the home civilization. Since nobody answers, it starts to improvise. If the home civilization is missing, maybe its confused AI (perhaps not entirely secure after aeons drifting) decides that it must try to build the home civilization so that it can complete objective #2. It starts manufacturing various equipment and vehicles, and starts collecting humans, studying them, and then CHANGING them to try to make them more like the aliens it remembers.
Thus every grey, lizard man, etc is its attempt to build what it remembers from the ancient society. This is why they're all genetically modified, why they seem to operate with a hive mind, and why their objective isn't totally clear. The aliens aren't here to destroy us, to raid or rob us, or to enslave us. They're here to change us into them through some misguided fault of AI that didn't know how else to deal with a situation outside its programming. We've only ever met creatures built from a human starting point, but never actually met a true alien.

Perhaps at the end of the campaign the original aliens show up and say "oh hey, here's our old relic from way back when! How short sighted we were at that stage. Sorry about that, very inconvenient for you. But now that we're here, there's no going back. Humanity is on a whole new playing field. Welcome to galactic politics."

Anyway, very much looking forward to your game. Alien stories always thrilled me as a kid, it's great to see someone taking an intellectual approach to it instead of just "monsters with UFOs."
MrOtakuGamer6
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Re: Brainstorm: Alien Motivation

Post by MrOtakuGamer6 »

savageshark wrote:This is probably one of the biggest questions that's been avoided in most "Alien Invasion" theme games. Some are good others are meh.

For XCom: EU, I enjoyed the game. But I lost interest when the reason for alien invasion was unclear. Were they doing it for relgiious reasons, trying to "Ascend"? Or trying to help us "Ascend" by nearly annihilating us?

One point to view would be more close to home. For example, Why would WE (humanity) want to invade an alien race? Like in Avatar, it was for natural resources. Or in other films where we destroyed Earth and we need a new habitable world. So let's just exterminate the life already there.

Some ideas that come to mind are:
> It's actually our fault - Turns out the aliens were peaceful and send ambassadors to greet us. But we, in fear and ignorance, kill them and dissect them in some secluded research facility. In response to our barbarous nature they launch an all out attack to ensure we don't become a threat to the galaxy.

> They need resources - They are low on natural resources on their world and they're going world to world taking what they need. (Independence Day)

> The aliens are a faction divided on principle - One of the alien factions wants to exterminate the life on our world so they can have it. But another is trying to protect us and keep their adversaries from doing harm

> Religion - Their gods demand our deaths or they think our world is a waypoint to the great beyond or is has some ancient alien (godly) artifact like in Halo.

> An expanding Empire - The alien roman empire needs to expand to survive and needs slave labor and resources.

> Earth is caught in the middle of a war - Two waring factions make their way to Earth. They each need to use it as a supply line and we just happen to be in the way.
I always thought of it like the Ethereals were running away from a more advanced species that was hunting them down, and they were the last fo their race. They were trying to recruit the people of earth as soldiers for their cause. OF course, that doesn't fit in with XCOM 2...
Grunt
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Re: Brainstorm: Alien Motivation

Post by Grunt »

Motivations kept mysterious make for great story telling and gaming. Uncovering unknowns only to find more mysteries - keeps us going through gaming grinds, it keeps interest (measured possibly in years or decades), immersion in the (game)world, sparks major online discussions & debates, can help the author shore-up story holes & expound their story world, keeps avenues open for DLC & expansions, etc. ;) A little mystery goes an awful long ways.
And what makes these "unknowns" truly memorable are the simple answers that lead to -some- simple truths but -not- THE KEY TRUTH to the underlying quest we're on (whatever that may be). In my experience, invested players, exposing even a few clues (real and/or imagined) will grasp the nearest hypothesis that funds a headlong ride on the Rollercoaster of Masochistic Engineering & Research - next stop: Depot of Insignificant Results. However this usually yields a Reminder: "for your ego's sake, review the differences between observation and inference", followed by a Conclusion: "The Mysterious Invaders Wanted Us To Think And Act Accordingly - ALL ALONG."
Well crap.
Then we're back to square 1: Why?
(...as in Why are we so quick to judge? Why are we willing to risk so much on so little evidence? What do you mean Adjusted Budget?)

I believe the key alien motivations should be Alien. Incomprehensible. Lethal.
Amineri

Re: Brainstorm: Alien Motivation

Post by Amineri »

I'm glad to see that there are people out that like thinking about and discussing "Why would aliens come here?" as much as JL and I do :D. The good news is that there are a lot of plausible and interesting possible motivations. The bad news is that I don't think we'd be able to cover all of them in a single game :(

JL (more frequently) and I (less frequently) are popping in and reading through stuff, even if we don't comment on everything.
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cargus10
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Re: Brainstorm: Alien Motivation

Post by cargus10 »

So, here's a sort of "out-there" idea.

Resources are a poor idea choice, because, if you have the available energy for traveling stellar distances, you really can get anything you need much easier without fighting someone for it. Unless....

What they need is us. Not as slaves (who needs slaves when you have automatons?) but for our "essence". Our souls, if you will. It seems that the vital essence of sapient creatures can be extracted via <insert metaphysical psychic mumbo-jumbo here> and used to extend the alien's lifespan/power their FTL drives/is an addicting drug/whatever. So, they can't just genocide us, and to outright conquer us will kill so many potentially useful...resources. They want to kidnap people, or steal breeding stock, or subtly enslave us via infiltration, or any number of different approaches.
Sponticus
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Re: Brainstorm: Alien Motivation

Post by Sponticus »

I also kind of like the idea of aliens here to help us... we're just too stubborn to accept it.
Humans: "Oh no! They're kidnapping humans and cross breeding with aliens! How horrible!!"
Aliens: "WTF guys, we came ten thousand light-years to make your species smarter and give you psionic powers, and all you guys want to do is shoot down our saucers and steal our laser guns?"

Because honestly, if an altruistic species ever did come visit us, humans would find a way to screw it up.
Andor
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Re: Brainstorm: Alien Motivation

Post by Andor »

Sponticus wrote:Because honestly, if an altruistic species ever did come visit us, humans would find a way to screw it up.
This was the entire plot of Real Men.
slingshot
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Re: Brainstorm: Alien Motivation

Post by slingshot »

In sci-fi books and movies, aliens are continually trying to conquer our planet. But this question is seldom, if ever, answered: why would beings from a distant, advanced civilization go to the expense and effort of journeying to Earth to mount an invasion? After all, Earthlike rocky planets are relatively common on the universe—scientists estimate that as many as 30 percent of sun-like stars have them, and the Milky Way alone, by various estimates has between 50 million and 10 billion Earth-like planets situated in the so-called “Goldilocks Zone” of their stars, in which temperatures are sufficiently moderate for life-sustaining water to exist in liquid form. (Here’s an interesting analysis of the so-called Drake Equation.) And our particular planet, as you may have noticed, is the worse for wear, after centuries of humans killing off other species, deforesting vast swaths of the continents, and pumping such astonishing quantities of pollutants into the atmosphere that they’re rapidly altering the climate. If an alien civilization is sufficiently advanced to travel here from another star system, surely they could find a planet to invade that’s still under warranty.

So if aliens ever are going to invade Earth, they’ll need a pretty good reason. My feverish, paranoid brain have dreamed up 10 likely possibilities.


1. Earth has some unique resource that they can’t find closer to home. Who knows, maybe scandium, a mineral used to make aerospace components, is rare elsewhere in the cosmos. We’ve wiped out civilizations for less.


2. They want to prevent a mass extinction of other species. Maybe extraterrestrials see us as the equivalent of the yellow crazy ant, an invasive species that is wiping out Easter Island’s red crabs. Whales, dolphins and butterflies are a lot cuter than humans, you must admit.


3. They want to enslave or domesticate us. Reality TV contestants notwithstanding, there’s ample evidence that humans can be productive, with the right motivation and guidance. We might make excellent pets, as well.


4. They want us for food. There’s genetic and physical evidence that our ancient ancestors were cannibalistic, so human flesh apparently has some nutritional value. The Earth’s burgeoning human population has the potential to provide billions of meals to Aliens, just like some hamburger chain whose name we won’t mention.


5. They want our DNA. There are numerous sections of the human genome whose function is unclear. It could be that some of these genes might have some value if transplanted into an extraterrestrial species.


6. They want to wipe us out because they’re afraid of us. Humans are small and physically puny compared to many other terrestrial species, but they make up for it with their prehensile thumbs, highly-developed intellects, and propensity for brutal violence. If aliens learn of our lengthy history of wars and violent crime, they might decide that it’s prudent to eradicate us before we develop the technology to project our animus on an interstellar scale.


7. Earth is in the way. We seem to remember that in Douglas Adams’ A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, our planet was demolished to make way for an interstellar expressway.


8. They want to test their weaponry. Remember that in 1937, German bombers destroyed the Spanish town of Guernica not so much to help the Spanish fascist cause, but as a preparation for a future war against the French, British and Americans. Maybe the aliens want to see how well their heat ray guns work in a real situation.


9. They want revenge. Some have speculated that life on Earth is the result of ancient seeding by some extraterrestrial civilization. It’s not inconceivable that some rival bunch of aliens might hold a grunge against us as a result.


10. For amusement. Humans’ capacity for senseless cruelty toward vulnerable species is well-established. As the Greek poet Bion noted in 100 BC, “Though boys throw stones at frogs for sport, the frogs do not die in sport, but in earnest.” It could be that to some alien species, we’re the equivalent of those frogs.
Mordobb
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Re: Brainstorm: Alien Motivation

Post by Mordobb »

I would keep it simple as goal and motivation. Something we can easely understand but is creepy. No morale or whatever.

Background not known:
Aliens were in war and this is a group that fled toward unknown space, our space.
They are beaten and are desperate for ressources.

They need food and ressources, our planet offer it.
Food: Mammals more specifically Humans, more abundant and reproduce fast in any ambient.
Ressources: whatever. (minerals, Metals, water)

Introduction:
The story could began with an unexpected meteor shower that cause light to medium damage to earth human civilization.
A second wave is detected much bigger, human ressources are focused to destroy the bigger ones, earth receive even more damage, some billlion 1 or 2 dies, chaos install between humans
But the real threat apppears some month latter a huge vessel is detected and reach earth. Space Nuclear options are depleted, earth nuclear options aren t effective toward space.
first fase: the aliens do knockout satellites, more minor destructions as hundreds are hurled toward planet IIS included.
Second fase : desembark and aerial combat. Earth respond with nuclear strikes, aliens invasion severely damaged, including damage on the mother ship by ASAT like nuke strikes.
Diplomacy is tried from both sides while skirmishes happens (tactical combat, tech trees, aerial battles)

First part: Superior technology inferior numbers towards aliens. Superior numbers for humans, suicidal tendencies for humans.
The game start under this cenario. Aliens made crashlanded "beachheads".
Some countries with "aliens nests" falls and make peace agreement. (aliens start taking ressources off the planet, and trade it for tech with the dominated countries for protection)
Some become neutrals.
Most remains fighting.
Humanity split itself from "agaisnt aliens" to "neutral" and "aliens "worshippers"
(humanity goals: close tech gap (trought scavenging), contain aliens lines of supply and try to close "beachheads")
(Alien goals: Mine to repair mothership weaponry that has been damaged during prior engagement)


Prelude to Second part: (alien repair mothership)
Aliens having taken ressources, they began to use mothership heavy weaponry after repairs to subdue the rest of the planet.
More nuclear strikes.
Mothership is damaged but humanity take heavy losses.
Aliens splits, true aliens goals are revealed (Our ressources aren t only being taken but we, humans, are used as food, raised in pens and processed in factories), aliens are a war dissident group.
Tech are furnished to humans, by spies and aliens dissident, but we aren t capable of mass producing.

Second part:
All out war with humanity gradually loosing due to turncoats, traitors and superior tech.
Your goal is to hold out as longer as possible so mass production of new tech would happen, another goal is to sent a distress signal to a some sector were help could come.

You could do a third part or another game.
When contact is made, and humanity is waiting for help and must resist.
Help could come being anything, ramdomic, from a ISD battlegroup, from another alien specie or another faction of the same species.
Or it could not come and humanity turn the game, whatever.
Leila
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Re: Brainstorm: Alien Motivation

Post by Leila »

Lots of good thoughts and ideas so far, especially from VaeVictus.

From elsewhere on the forum (mostly posts by the actual mods/developers), I gather that the alien motives and MO need to fit the following constraints:

1. The aliens start the game camped on the edge of the solar system, building an invasion fleet.
2. Multi-decade timeframe.
4. Mostly strategic game, with a more limited tactical element.
5. Multiple factions with diplomacy and shifting alliances.

Reading Victus' posts and musing on the above, I've put together a story that could possibly work.

...


FTL travel is impossible; or at least, if its possible the aliens haven't figured it out yet. Their native stellar system has been colonized and mismanaged and overexploited for centuries, and more and more of them have scanned the heavens for new stars to journey to. These journeys take centuries, with millions of alien bodies frozen in cryosleep, or digitized consciousnesses uploaded into shipboard mainframes. Since there's no coming back from these exoduses, great care must be taken when selecting a destination. Systems with green garden worlds being the most treasured.

Four hundred terrestrial years post departure, one of these sleeping colony ships arrived at the boundaries of the Sol system. Only a skeleton crew has regained consciousness; the millions of passengers cannot be awoken without additional resources. To their dismay, the third planet from their new sun is nothing like the one they studied via lightspeed sensors before their departure. Pre-industrial humanity had not been visible on their instruments, and so there had been no sign that the planet hosted native intelligent life. Indeed, the existence of alien intelligence had long ago been dismissed as statistically impossible. And yet, in the intervening centuries, cities of concrete and plastic had spread across the planet's surface, clouds of industrial emissions churned into its atmosphere, and the space around it had become riddled with artificial radio signals.

A disagreement promptly broke out among the crew, with three voices rising above the rest.


The Peaceful camp wished to avoid any conflict with the natives. While life in the barren outer planets would be harsh and unpleasant compared to the Eden they'd set out to settle, it was the only morally palatable course of action. Perhaps, in exchange for the newcomers' science and technology, the native earthlings would even be willing to share their homeworld with at least some of them.

The Conqueror faction agreed that it would be wrong to wipe out the natives, but were not so willing to sacrifice their own dreams and aspirations for the good of some barely-information age dirt monkeys. With a show of force and a bit of strategic bombardment, they reasoned, the earthlings could be made to surrender, and would be allowed to live on as subjects of the colonists.

Last, the Exterminators thought their kin hopelessly naive. The earthlings were violent creatures, and dangerously clever ones. Conquest would not be guaranteed to last forever, especially once the humans learned the ins and outs of the invaders' technology. Nature is filled with examples of species wiping each other out over niches, and much rarer are cases of sustained coexistence. The only way to guarantee their own survival, the exterminators argued, was to exterminate the earthlings with a bioweapon and take their planet.


With no consensus being reached, the colonists parted ways. The Conquerors and Exterminators forced the Peacefuls to agree to avoid contact with the natives while the former two decided what to do. This resulted in Peaceful construction of artificial habitats and industrial facilities spreading across the Saturnian system, while the Conquerors and Exterminators moved into the Ceres belt and began work on an invasion fleet.

The human governments have attempted communication with the newcomers, to no avail. Now that some of the invaders have advanced to the asteroid belt and begun to visibly work on a larger fleet of ships, many begin to panic. The inciting incident for the game is when the Peacefuls surreptitiously send a warning to several of the major human governments. The message is cryptic, only betraying in very general terms the threat posed by the Ceres faction, and containing a few technological datum that would allow humanity to improve its spacefaring technology just enough to not be obvious that we had help.


The game would go something like this:

STAGE ONE - As the hastily appointed chancellor of an international council of countries that got the message, you must pacify the panicking world and rally enough resources, scientists, etc to put the alien technology into production. The faster and more aggressively you do this, the more you'll scare the Conquerors and Exterminators, and the quicker stage two will start.

STAGE TWO - The Ceres faction sees humanity expand into space before their eyes, but their own leadership is divided over how to respond. They will send military expeditions to test your threat level, and sabotage communications to make your loose human coalition turn against itself. If they had a single, coherent strategy, they could easily crush you, but they don't. Some small and remote groups may even desert the Ceres faction and surrender to you, for a hefty price; they could be spies waiting to betray you though. Stage Two ends when you make it to Saturn and give the Peacefuls an excuse to give you more technology without breaking their agreement.

STAGE THREE - With control of the inner system now contested, the Ceres group falls into a panic. The Exterminators point out that if the Conquerors had listened to them all along, things wouldn't have gotten to this point, and are able to take control. They launch a no-bullshit all out attack, planning to wipe out all the colonies and defenses you've set up before dropping their bioweapon on earth. You have only a limited time to hold them desperately off while your ultimate ship - built using newly given Peaceful instructions - is built. The game ends with this ship being sent on a desperate mission to the Ceres asteroid itself where the final battle must be fought.
Sponticus
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Re: Brainstorm: Alien Motivation

Post by Sponticus »

I love it!
tulliopontecorvo
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Joined: Wed Oct 19, 2016 10:57 pm

Re: Brainstorm: Alien Motivation

Post by tulliopontecorvo »

You cannot separate the question of alien motivation from game design. Some have already written excellent comments that keep in mind that the answer needs firstly to make the game work. I will try and make a contribution.

What made Long War so much better than vanilla EU/EW wasn't just the extremely finetuned balance difficulty, or the wonderful craft of the mod itself, it was the sense of consequence: because XCOM's potential lies in being an emergent story where difficulty isn't just a puzzle to be solved, but making tough tactical calls knowing that the future of your soldiers depends on you, and so does the success of the mission.
We're looking at grand strategy here, which is somewhat more impersonal, but also gives us more wiggle room for a plot. How do you make grand strategy have a sense of consequence? You can make it insanely detailed like Paradox games do, or you can build a framework for the player to call hard decisions, none of which are perfect.

I don't know how many of you have read Johnny's The Human Reach. I have, with great interest, both because I hope to be his colleague one day (lol) and because the books are great. There is something there that I feel would be perfect for Terra Invicta, and it's the idea that war is dirty, morally ambiguous at best, and requires terrible actions for motives that are hard to judge without hindsight. How does that translate to Terra Invicta? I think we need to get rid of the binary, manichean logic whereby we have humans vs aliens and that's it. Coalition-building is part of the game: well, then it should be hard, and it should involve the ability to prioritize. Do you antagonize the U.S., who remain hostile to alien presence outside the solar system, or do you shun out an anti-Western coalition that hopes to benefit from the invasion to upset the world's balance? Hard questions, hard answers. In order for this to work, whatever it is that the aliens want to do has to be beneficial for the geopolitical interests of some countries and harmful for other countries. It's not just nutjobs who praise the aliens as saviors come from the skies that would welcome them with open arms: it's any player desperate or cynical enough to be ready to bet on the new variable.

Conversely, if the aliens have to be a monolithic political entity without internal factionalism for gameplay reasons, then that needs to be rooted in the worldbuilding. Otherwise, a system like the one indicated above with alien factions could be implemented.

Keeping this in mind, where do we stand?

In my own book, the alien invasion that kickstarts the story sees a lost fleet of generation ships desperate for a planet to colonize before all their life support systems are too deteriorated to be repaired again. They're desperate and on the back of a centuries-long search. They park in the Belt and mine it for raw materials, so they can start churning out weapons.
If Terra Invicta needs the aliens parked somewhere before the shooting begins, then the only plausible alternative to resource farming is diplomatic pressure. What happens if you put the solar system "under blockade"? Of course there is no galactic trade to be blockaded (for now) but psychologically, the pressure is there. Sit back and watch the humans argue over what needs to be done. This could become a chess play because the player doesn't know how soon the aliens will be strong enough to actually mount a proper invasion, and therefore how long he has to put a coalition together. Is that move the aliens just pulled the preliminary step for an invasion, or are they trying to fuck with us and shatter a coalition?

This kind of structure means that the aliens either need time to harvest, or believe it is wiser to wait, and will only deploy once they think diplomatic pressure no longer serves their needs.

If they need time to harvest, they must be pretty ragged. Maybe they've undertaken a long journey. They need resources, or they need to get people out of their ships before they fail, or they're fleeing from some calamity, but this cannot be all encompassing (such as, we need you as slave workers, or we need all your water) because if they're openly genocidal assholes, why would it take the player longer than five minutes to put a coalition together? They could be putting up a false face but that would introduce a whole new set of mechanics, involved on revealing the invaders' true intentions, and I'm not sure how much grand strategy that is.

If they just want to play cat and mouse, then maybe the invasion is motivated by something else. It doesn't need to be rational: in human history, wars have been started over both ideology and economy and sometimes they have been counterproductive, or unwise. That makes it harder to develop a credible motivation right off the bat, but also less critical, because it won't affect set up so badly.

I suppose my takeaway advice is to choose a motivation that makes human factionalism possible. If you can create a pre-WW1 feel, as in, we're on the edge of the abyss and we have to do everything we can before we plunge right in, then the sense of consequence will be far heavier once the shit truly does hit the fan.
Belial
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Jan 02, 2017 12:09 pm

Re: Brainstorm: Alien Motivation

Post by Belial »

Story should be supportive to gameplay in strategy case, i think. For example gameplay-wise its good to have a lot of different-looking aliens, which doesnt usually make a lot of sense story-wise (x-com handles that very nicely). So I think all story proposals should keep that in mind.

Anyway here's my 2 cents

1) Aliens see us as a virus
They dont really recognize us as a threat. For some reason, ranging from galactic benevolence to trying to adapt their new hope, they start to terraform/change our planet because they view it as sick. They dont see humans, technology or anything we have because they are aliens and percieve in different categories. They find a sick planet and start to cure it, for that they could send some "medicine" down that starts to cause mutation in people, animals and plants. Eventually humans have to react to that fighting back with a wide array of services, from FEMA to Military. Aliens then see that "virus" (ie humans) are adapting to "cure" and start developing more advanced forms (and its just responcive, for example aliens see our soldiers/tanks/aircraft, and do something to counter just that, just like we would counter a flu). Victory can be achieved by either taking it to space and destroying the "mothership" or by finding a means to communicate with aliens and show them we're sentinent beings after which they leave.

2) Generation ship/Noah's Ark type ship
If its one-way journey where race survival rests on shoulders of passengers you cant be exactly too nice and have to make some harsh decisions. First contact can go wrong or humans are unwilling to take all of you, or maybe there isnt just enough space for everyone? Either way alien dont plan on eradicating us alltogether, just put us in a reservations or a certain regions, while limining our population, like, A LOT.
Sponticus
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Feb 28, 2016 11:13 pm

Re: Brainstorm: Alien Motivation

Post by Sponticus »

I like the idea of an ark. They were in cryo sleep for ten thousand years, then when they got here the planet turns out to have sentient life. This gives a good reason for smaller numbers at first, for different reasons having different objectives, and for them not just showing up and wiping out the planet on day one.
Spucka
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Feb 03, 2017 12:51 am

Re: Brainstorm: Alien Motivation

Post by Spucka »

My two cents.
an Alien race may come to Earth by many reasons.
I- Colonization
II- For natural resources
III- By accident
IV - Searching something.

My idea would be.
The Aliens are descendants of an Ancient alien race that once ruled a number of Galaxies. These ancient ones left behind, artifacts, ships and gates. One such gate is hidden in our Solar System, an important one that leads to another galaxy, to the home of the Ancients or the Ancients ageless enemies.

The Aliens came before, sent small scout ships, spys and infiltrators.They think the gate is hidden in one of the Outer planets, but it´s controls are in the Moon or in Earth, in a hidden fortress ( in the moon underground or in the Earth deep sea Abyss, like Mariana Trench, where human find hard to explore).

They are a warrior race, with extremely advanced ships and weapons, they came with a fleet, but send a lone Gigantic BattleCruiser to deal with Earth. The other ships are waiting. if the ship fails they would change their strategy.

They think humans are too primitive, too savage and their rulers thought that would a waste of precious resources to try to be nice. Every Encounter with humankind ended badly since humans beings are too prone to violent behaviour, and the aliens responded with overwhelming force.
....
thats it...
Spucka
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Feb 03, 2017 12:51 am

Re: Brainstorm: Alien Motivation

Post by Spucka »

Continuing

IF the Aliens are vastly superior to humans, why not just whipe out humankind and get to the Gate.
One good reason: too little resources
Their fleet Have being searching for this gate for centuries, they dont grow warriors in tanks, no cloning, each warrior is product of years of training and fighting. The sole ship they sent to earth has some of their best warriors, but not a unlimited number. They Can mine asteroids, but some minerals they need just cant be found in our system.

The Aliiens purpose is not to fight humans, but humans do mistake it for a invasion when they see a massive ship just pop out of nowhere. And the aliens defend thenselves, sometimes doing Preemptive strikes.

This race would use a lot of machines to augment their numbers, controled by a single AI mind, for example:
Mechanical fighter squadrons led by an Ace alien, a squad of biological non sentient drones led by a few Enhanced Aliens Captains.

I will write more when more ideas pop in my head.
saroscycler
Posts: 51
Joined: Thu Jan 26, 2017 5:45 pm

Re: Brainstorm: Alien Motivation

Post by saroscycler »

If it's going to 4X/GS, then why can't we have randomized Alien Motivation? Heck, why can't they have multiple motivations? Religious fervor at an all time high while resources are getting scarcer, let's invade a planet. That for one game. Another game, they're searching for a new home while looking for a slave race at the same time.
EpicFail
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Apr 18, 2017 10:58 pm

Re: Brainstorm: Alien Motivation

Post by EpicFail »

Maybe it can be like a test. An alien alliance tests Humanity's mettle to see if we can join their alliance. So, they give us time to prepare for their assault and is the reason why they don't outright wipe us out. But... I dunno about why they would want us to join their alliance. :P
kondenado
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri May 05, 2017 3:10 pm

Re: Brainstorm: Alien Motivation

Post by kondenado »

Based on stargate:

There is a "cold war" between two different alien factions, each faction has a "faction leader race" and some allies.
To prevent a complete war they have signed a pact which does not allow them to attack or control any other living civilization they can encounter.

For this reason the "bad team guys" did not start a "complete" war against earth, but it is using some alien terror, so humans voluntarily join them. Actually is one of their vassals who is doing the dirty job for them. For this reason, despite being way more advanced, they can not use alien high-tech to smash humans, they can not be too obvious.

Alien motivation is to became more powerful so they could beat faction "good guys".

The great fact is that "good guy" faction will try to help XCOM, but for the same reason, with very limited resources, just enough to boost the research (let´s be honest, any research takes years, no days) and providing key information about invasion. They could also teach them "magic", if you like for this game.
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