XCom Files Episode 9: The Latest Batch · 3:59pm Mar 26th, 2016
Yeah, so, I'm still doing this, I guess.
Hoo, boy.
The black market? But they're grays. Wouldn't that make it the gray market? The dark gray market?
Whatever.
It's a good thing we just finished our recruiting drive. Can't afford to lose another man. That'd be a tragedy. Sorry Monarch Dodora. Rest in pieces.
Speaking of corpses we exhumed on a battlefield.
Fantastic.
Oh hey, blueprints. Where are the engineers? Patch me through the computers...
Aragon?
Oh. You didn't die.
Aragon: "I fucking duct taped it bro. Military grade duct tape. Did you know that was a thing? Holy shit. It's like bulletproof superglue I guess."
You're still on the payroll then. I suppose you're entitled a bonus or something to make your job easier, I guess?
Aragon: "Yes, do I get a hammer now? A screwdriver? A blowtorch"
No, you don't get a weapon, a cocktail or some weird fetish thing. Get your broom buddy to go build this. You keep sweeping. You get to keep sweeping up. That's your reward. You don't have to do the heavy lifting with your tiny weak noodley wuss arms.
Aragon: "--Ha! Ha ha ha! Fuck you, we don't have enough power! You're going to have to wait for the power relay to finish, by which point I--"
Will still have two weeks of sweeping to do while the engineer I assigned to patch up your duct tape fixes to the new power relay will be able to build the new rooms, yes.
Aragon: "... do I at least get my broomchete yet?"
Broomchete?
Aragon: "Machete broom. Broomchete. Come on, this is amateur hour stuff here."
The paperwork is in the system.
Aragon: "Why? I have duct tape! I have a broom! I have a machete! I can do this!"
The paperwork is the insurance rates skyrocketing. You are more dangerous than the radiation leaks.
Aragon: "What about Magello and Ariamaki and Blue Paladin?"
They have two states: Recovering in a hospital bed, and as far away from here as possible
Meanwhile, Monarch Dodora's replacement steps up to the plate...
DarkZero: "Harken, extraterrestrial mighty, and despair! For with mighty sword and shotgun slung, xenos fear what I bring to bare!"
Galahad: "Ah ha! A fellow! I hark indeed to thine tongue, sir knight!"
DarkZero: "Another poet?
A simple test I give you
Do you understand?"
Galahad: "Why yes, I understand your olden tongue. You speak a language I am most familiar with!"
DarkZero: "And yet you do not recognize the haiku?"
Galahad: "Begging your pardon?"
DarkZero sighs and goes to lament his intellectual isolation in his fluorescent yellow journal.
So this is bad.
This is... hrrm.
Incredibly tiny project soul-suck progress, halving my income or more soldiers who drop into Overwatch range to shoot for free, basically no-risk experience... Yeah this is a hard choice.
But first, we have another janitor to retrieve with a fat dump of intel. Score! Now we'll be swamped with people who can do the actual work while Aragon mops!
DarkZero: "Though this shotgun
Fires like raging Hades
Have we not done
Upgrading, engineer lady?"
"Well, the good news is, we finally got the alloy needed. The bad news is... we blew most of our budget on cake this month."
Blue Paladin: "Ah, cheer up, guy, cake is better than shotguns, right? I mean, you can't eat a shotgun."
Cave: "Well. Kurt Cobain did. I guess you can't eat a shotgun more than twice?"
Norm: "You can't eat cake twice either, unless you misunderstand the concept of eating?"
Blue Paladin: "Wait you're both new?"
Cave: "Hi, I'm the new IT guy, because everyone else kept yelling 'magic' and spraying liquid bandaids on people?"
Norm: "Yeah, see, I used to do that, but just rolling with the 'magic' card seems to get you further. Now, I wonder if I can attach an air-horn to this thing..."
Cave: "Please don't."
Blue Paladin: "And attach a vuvuzela to the air horn?"
Norm: "That would be incredibly obnoxious. So, obviously."
War Journal #195
New team seems fresh. Bringing in the IT guy. Bottom of the barrel, meet scraper. Scraper, barrel. I'm sure you've been introduced before, but not quite so intimately.I'm not sure whether or not my inclusion here is a saving grace or a bitter insult. Considering that I am only a 'Squaddie', I'm going to presume the latter.
DarkZero: "Into the abyss we ride, we Valkyries we, adrenaline high and firepower high calibre, we go where angels fear to tread."
Cave: "Oh, so you play Borderlands too, huh?"
DarkZero: "What? No, it's by E. M. Forster, turn of the century..."
Cave: "Also a main story mission in Borderlands 2. Good game. Shoot and loot."
Norm: "Ah, I think I followed the Twitter of one of the characters. Who was the one that said 'picking giblets out of your teeth for a week'?"
Blue Paladin: "You follow Ariamaki's Twitter?"
Horizon: "Wait, I thought that was from your Tumblr?"
Cave: "It was in the junk code of Magello's MySpace page..."
Norm: "Mr Torgue, I think, actually."
Blue Paladin: "Okay, so we were all pretty close."
Cave: "Well, this is... distressingly quiet. "
Blue Paladin: "Yeah, most places we visit tend to be cleared of civilians. Don't know if it's us doing it or ADVENT. Either way, less problematic ethical conundrums!"
Norm: "Not wanting to shoot because of an ethical conundrum is pretty ironic considering the amount of philisophical ethics debates being probably the biggest reason I've wanted to shoot someone. Possibly myself."
DarkZero: "Onwards, then, oh brothers, oh comrades in arms, oh warriors of rifle and gunfire, cry havoc and let slip the men of war!"
Horizon: "You are supposed to be the stealth operative"
Norm: "Question... how?"
Cave: "He's brighter than he is thick."
Blue Paladin: "I 'unno, he sounds pretty smart to me."
Norm: "Yes, Blue, but you also listen to right wing daytime talk radio."
Blue Paladin: "I don't... I don't see your point?"
Cave: "True or false: "Democrats are trying to take my guns away""
Blue Paladin: "True. Because all politics is now evil aliens and my gun is a warcrime when used on law enforcement and peacekeepers as opposed to declared combatants."
Cave: "Wait, we're technically war criminals aren't we?"
Horizon: "No technically about it; we're criminals, and we're at war. What do you think happens if we get captured?"
Поздрав Лоренс
Translation: "Take no prisoners!"
Horizon: "Wait, who's Lawrence?"
DarkZero: "Alarm! Alarm, I cry, for they have spotted me!"
Norm: "Yeah, I think he broke the whole 'stealth' thing."
"Alright, so, this is called percussive maintenance. Yet to find something it didn't fix eventually."
"See, now, when you break cover so literally, Cave, it's infinitely more useful."
Norm: "Oh hey, look, through the hole in the building you can see the truck the engineer's hiding out in. So uh... I guess don't blow that up?"
Horizon: "I'm fairly certain he's not 'hiding in' so much as 'locked in', according to the intel."
Blue Paladin: "So if he's locked in, do blow it up?"
Norm: "I have lockpicks."
Blue Paladin: "And I have grenades, now we're just talking in circles."
Horizon: "Everyone move up, check the flanks. Norm, you check the roof and I'll follow. Paladin, you take right side flank. DarkZero, you just, uh, you do you, I guess."
DarkZero: "All I can be is what I am, and everything that I am is all I can be."
Norm: "That's great, buddy."
"Roof looks clear to me. Or, at least, I'm not getting shot at. Six of one, half a dozen of the other."
"Evac is clear too. I can see that much, but not everything in between apparently. I think somebody turned off the sun?
Fog of war rules are super weird.
"Wait, nevermind. Naked fog monster just appeared. He has full cover, too, so uh... huh. He's hiding behind the civillians armored truck. Still can't blow it up, huh?"
Blue Paladin: "I mean, I wanna?"
Cave: "I can't fix broken people."
Norm: "What are you, a shrink?"
Horizon: "How many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb? Just one, but it has to want the change. Seriously, though, if you blow up the VIP I will be very miffed."
Blue Paladin: "Wait, don't I outrank you, sir?"
Horizon: "I don't know, do you?"
Blue Paladin: "... well I did just call you sir so I guess..."
Norm: "Look, I don't care who's in charge, so long as I don't get shot at."
Cave: "Amen. Right, now, music choices for this?"
"Kickin'."
"Your sights are true, so lend me your aim so my own might be true."
Blue Paladin: "Oh, cool, I didn't know we could give circumstance bonuses!"
"Okay, so, I have a 75% chance to annihilate him...
"...And a 35% chance to blow some new holes in him...
Blue Paladin: "And if 35% + 75% = 110% then that means I need to aim for both of them at once!"
Norm: "Math checks out."
"Explosives: 110% chance of you having a bad day"
Cave: "Yeah, I can't fix that."
Paladin: "Why would you want to?"
Norm: "Open flames near petrol pumps?"
Paladin: "'Petrol pump'? Wow, you are so Canadian."
Ово је српски!
Translation: "You'll pay for that!"
Horizon: "Wait, what? No-"
Okay, so you might have noticed this installment is a bit picture scarce. There's a good/terrible reason for that:
More than half of the images were like this. I didn't bother uploading them. The camera just refused to co-operate this game.
Like
What even the fuck is this?
"Well. I could absolutely, certainly go down there and face psyzombies. Or I could stay up here and do my AV guy routine. Decisions, decisions...
"
"Friendship with robots is magic."
"Why, yes, I am just that good, thanks for noticing. Could you go and tell that to any of my old employers, they never seemed to notice."
Blue Paladin: "Big whoop. You unlocked a van. But your kill count is still way below tier!"
"I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over the sound of me being right?"
"Okay, Cave. You can do this. You gotta believe in yourself. It's the eye of the tiger, buddy, it's the thrill of the fight. Risin' up to the challenge of our rivals....
"And the last known survivor stalks his pray in the night, and he's watching us all with the eeeeeeeeeeeye-
"Yea, I see a rose plucked by fair comrade in arms, a thing of metal and mayhem, resting by corpse'side. I should prose it so that it may bloom righteously among our true cause against its wicked wielders, oh irony."
"Tool! Noob boon loot!"
Horizon: "Please stick to murdering the enemy before butchering poor, innocent palindromes?"
Norm: "That was meant to be a palindrome?"
Blue Paladin: "Wait, didn't Weird Al do a song about those?"
Norm: "Yeah, he did. It was called 'Bob'."
Cave: "Of the tiger!"
Norm: "No, that's something else."
"Speaking of something else... We've got incoming."
"Hut hut hut hut hut hut hut hut-"
"Okay, hey, so, remember that thing I said about the landing zone being clear? This is no longer true."
"Let them come. I got the eye of the tiger, baby, yeah!"
This is now officially my name for the Overwatch symbol.
"Do you seek to quarrel, sir? You dare seek to dive behind cover? I bite my thumb at you sir, I do."
Horizon: "Romeo and Juliet?"
Norm: "Obviously there's a snaketits out there that we aren't seeing that he's trying to impress."
Horizon: "... gross. Why would you... I mean, they're terrible. Why would you want to... you know...?"
Blue Paladin: "Rule 34?"
Norm: "Yeah. I think Magello is drawing fanart of them back at base."
Horizon: "Aren't both his arms still in plaster?"
Blue Paladin: "Yeah, he's holding the pen with his mouth."
Norm: "Funnily enough, he doesn't realize the irony is, Meg started making rule 34 of him doing that. It's recursive."
Blue Paladin: "Huh, so I guess it's like... porn ce- WAIT SHIT!"
"I TOTALLY FORGOT I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE SHOOTING AT YOU HUH?"
"I've got this one locked down."
War Journal #196
Admittedly, my respect for my team might be greater if they could actually land a shot today. It speaks volumes of my team that the ones landing the most shots are the ones who were brought in as dedicated technical support.
"Sorry, Horizon, were you muttering something under your breath? I was distracted by the whole... shooting people thing."
Case in point.
Blue Paladin: "Hey, you can't use tactics! That's for cowards!"
Cave: "I wouldn't mind using tactics, sir."
Norm: "I am completely fine with being a coward, actually. Cowards tend to live longer."
"Sorry, Paladin, sir. Allow us cowards to demoralize them, so that you might be a big damn hero and charge them for us."
Blue Paladin: "Fantastic plan!"
Super dead
Last grenade! Landing zone should be oh fuck were joking-
It'ssss okay, we do ssssssee how ssssssomeone could find ussss... erotic.
Norm: "Thank God she didn't ssssay sssssexual or I'd have to scrub my brain out with bleach."
Horizon: "Yeah. Terrible. That tongue."
Norm: "No, point taken. That tongue is actually pretty hot."
"Sssssuch kind wordssss."
"Ah, lady, perchance we might settle this with our words? Need we not resort to violence?"
Norm: "Okay, yeah, poet-boy's in it deep. Have some magic."
Cave: "You're just calling it magic to roll with it aren't you? You don't actually believe that?"
Norm: "It wouldn't even be the dumbest thing I'd seen today. Don't worry, you get used to it."
Cave: "My entire job is to stop you guys treating the technology like magic wands and staffs."
Blue Paladin: "Well, mine's +4 Vorpal, so technically-"
Cave: "You are doing the opposite of helping."
Blue Paladin: "Shooting is a form of the opposite of helping?"
Horizon: "Only if you miss."
"Happy to help, then."
"Ahh... hrrm."
"Don't worry, I'm moving up to take your-
-totally forgot she was on overwatch ow ow ow ow ow
Yeah, so, that sucked.
"My candle burns at both ends, it will not last the night..."
"YOU SHOT ME I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU SHOT ME THAT HURT DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH BECAUSE I CAN SHOW YOU ARRRRRRGHHHH"
"...But oh, my friends, and ah, my foes, it casts a lovely light!"
"I AM GOING TO TURN YOU INTO A PAIR OF SHOES AND A NICE HANDBAG"
Norm: "Wow. So, squad leader turns vaguely metrosexual when he's mad. That's new."
Horizon: "I find this deeply uncomfortable on levels you cannot even comprehend."
"Anyone mind if I do our job and actually escort the VIP to the drop zone? You know, the mission thing? No? Cool. Well, I'm outie. I'm also picking the track."
Blue Paladin: "I think he's insulting us somehow..."
Norm: "Well, either that, or he tried to find the album with Bad to the Bone on it and got this instead."
Cave: "George Thorogood fan?"
Norm: "If you're asking me if I'm old, then yes."
"Three rounds left and only Paladin got shot in the arse. Today was a good day."
Promotions!
Cave is now officially the magitek IT guy
Paladin is emotionally devestated by being shot in the arse by a walking fetish caricature
And we have a new shipment of uniforms next time!
Well, this was a delight! Just watch the cake budget more carefully in the future.
Horizon for best totally average human
Operation Night Hole? Really?
Out-of-universe, I can't decide if Firaxis is doing this on purpose or if they just got lucky.
In-universe, you gotta stop letting Aragon pick operation names. He says he's picking random words. He is not.
Thank god I'm a decant shot. Let's hope that holds. (Of course it won't, it's XCOM)
3828106
Giggling so hard right now... xD Oh god that new uniform, too. The DLC that just dropped is.... odd. xD
BTW, Numbers, would you like any strategy tips from us or are you trying to avoid spoilers much? Like, I could tell you how to unlock the <REDACTED> building for the base, and get <REDACTED> early on, but you'll definitely need to get some more supplies and power first.
*swats at Horizon* Stop that! How are you even censoring words as I speak them??
3828319
Already done a playthrough, already have a tech tree on me.
Heeeeeeeey, I don't listen to the radio!
Whew, got shot, clenched a bit at that.
Mayhaps Cave can bring a Battle Scanner when he gets a chance? If nothing else, he can give it a good punt when everyone else talks about how it's some mystical scrying sphere.
Also, getting shot in the ass would probably shake anyone up. Just ask Channing Tatum.
3828734
See, I think Numbers' assessment on why you were shaken is a little unfair.
Vipers don't walk. They slither. This report is unfairly inaccurate.
3829104
More likely Glenn Beck came on the radio while I was getting treated in the quinjet. It was just all too much.
3829190 What does Glenn Beck do in the context of an Advent-governed Earth? Encourage people to hoard Elerium?
This is all that popped into my head with that last image...
Question: Do we need to be worried about Aragon making some sort of "sweeping under the rug" pun when they're on a mission at some point?
3830020 Shhh, we don't use the P-word around base. Once they get started, it never stops... *shudders*
3830020
Nah, the squad will probably just brush him off. They'll be too concerned with either getting mopped up or impressing Serifina to bother messing with his puns. Unless he makes some kind of dirty joke, of course. Then everyone will probably join in while they're on cleanup detail.
Damnit now I wonder if I should get involved
I just needed to note here: I am completely out of brain to write my after-action reports with, but this remains glorious, and it's great seeing me in action.
The good news is that I have been working on actual writing!
I'm going to just giggle myself to death here, if you don't mind.