Date: Redacted
Location: Redacted Redacted
Codename: Phone Home
Subject: Changeling specimen recovered from conflict in India
Project Lead: Dr. Richard Tygan
Project Assistance: Dr. Klaus Bergmann, Dr. Claudia SchneiderPreface: I can only relay my pure astonishment with the specimen brought to my table for examination. A more viable means of neutralizing this creature must be found for both the sake of our soldiers on the front lines of this invasion, as well as the future of our species.
Subject: Changeling Drone
Classification: Caretaker - As per Doctor Moira Vahlen's identifying report.
Coloration: White carapace with greenish-teal wings, eyes and shell
Height: 1 Meter
Weight: 40 Kilograms
Gender: FemaleCause of Death: Starvation, Exposure
The subject of this report appears to be far more malnourished than its counterparts in North America. Noticeably thin and shorter, the subject's internal organs appear to be limited in both size and function. What I can only assume to be the stomach of this creature has become vestigial with practically no benefit to the drone itself. This development is most likely to be a result of its preference for 'love' as a sustaining force rather than the metabolisms of more common creatures. In place of a functioning stomach appears to be some sort of organ that would normally hold large amounts of the chemical that our alien advisers refer to as a 'love storage' were the subject not starved.
Further traces of this chemical compound can be found in the creature's lungs, as it appears to not breathe the same air we do. The lungs of the drone appear at my best guess to be the center of chemical production as it held the highest remaining amount of the chemical that sustains the drone's body. How the drone is able to produce this chemical is guesswork at this point in time, though from traces of human DNA within the chemical it is highly likely that they cannot produce this chemical without a host. Whether this sharing of DNA is gained through 'love' as reported or by some other means will require additional study.
The creature is cold-blooded, more specifically the variant known as Poikilothermic. The body was able to withstand temperatures of two thousand degrees Celsius without becoming damaged, though temperatures exceeding this number rapidly began to cause stress fractures in the subject's exoskeleton accompanied by rapid expansion of the tested limb. The procedure was halted in time to prevent catastrophic loss of the subject and further degradation of the subject was narrowly avoided. A far more interesting discovery was the creature's intolerance to lower temperature environments. Cold storage of the body presented far more serious fractures in the carapace when the autopsy was continued in the following morning, leading to the practice of keeping the corpse heated to at least room temperature to prevent further damage.
Further temperature stress tests were undertaken with an unaffected limb, and it was discovered that super-cooled liquid had the most visible effect on the exoskeleton of the test subject. The carapace of the caretaker was brittle to the touch, often chipping in areas with soft contact. The viability of using these liquids must be investigated further if we are to develop weapons in order to defend our planet against these invaders. This vulnerability to lower temperatures may explain the sudden halts of conflict in the Chinese and Indian theaters when a storm rolls into the area, followed by moments of quiet before the temperature rises to more habitable conditions. It also explains the alien's disinterest with an invasion into Russia with their predominantly arctic climate as well as the mountainous regions of India and China remaining largely untouched.
It should be noted that a pressure washer was used to break through the carapace of the changeling for further study. Before this vulnerability to colder temperatures was discovered, several diamond tipped industrial saw blades were used to cut the chest open.
Another interesting discovery about the subject was the lack of fluid that we would normally associate with blood within the creature's body. Only a few droplets of liquid were found within the heart and brain of the drone with a greenish coloration. When examined, the blood was revealed to be a heavily concentrated form of the chemical stored within the large pools reported to be housed in the Caretaker's Spire of a hive. Whether this refinement of the chemical is inherent to this particular discolored drone or to the larger hives of changelings remains to be seen, however it appears that this harvested 'love' appears to replace the blood of their bodies, leading to a distinct need to collect more of this chemical compound in order to survive.
It is unknown if the subject is able to be revived with a dose of the chemical 'love' compound, as our love for science was understandably not suitable for the revival of the deceased. This causes a great deal of concern for the reported incapacitation of an allied Changeling Queen currently residing in the United States as a complete lack of love will cause the Queen to undergo the same starvation state as this drone, leading to her eventual death.
More subjects will be needed in order to establish a base-line level of changeling biology, yet with the different colored drones and the stark contrast from a single hive to the next, it may be impossible to determine more similarities and vulnerabilities shared between hives without further cooperation from non-hostile changeling Queens and their hives.
Recommendations: For now, I would advise our forces to commandeer any vehicle or system of highly pressurized water to counteract the extreme conditions that these changelings are capable of surviving. Kinetic force in the form of standard munitions seems to injure the carapace and cause fractures, but is not reliable in passing through the shielding ever present on the battlefield.
More development will be necessary to create weapons capable of consistently defeating the alien threat posed to our planet, and a greater understanding of each hive's weaknesses will need to be investigated. It is highly likely that different sub-species of changeling will have weaknesses and strengths relative to their native environments. For now, we humans must use cold water to defend our planet.
There must be a better way.
-Doctor Richard Tygan
It's okaym it was very interesting, dispite being short
He had this hinted at a while ago. Remember the fire extinguisher on the helicopter . Blue hated it when spayed.
Time to invent the ice gun in X-Com... I mean, in this changeling invasion.
8458244
As far back as Chapter 3 actually, when Blue was still a drone; when given a bath by Maria, she reacted in pain at the touch of cold water from the tap.
8458246
*whistles innocently*
8458246
We've already got the Frost Grenades/Frost Bombs from the "Nest" DLC.
Couldn't we just mass-produce those.
This makes it interesting reading learning about the physiology of the changelings in your canon, & it ispretty good after eating chips & soda.
Hope to read the next upload soon, especially the arrival of the main 6 to Earth, the danger of King Sombra, & if they can successfully contact Queen Sun Blue.
Looks like that Liquid Nitrogen powered car might have a suprise use?
Supermarket wall freezer cabinets?
Chicago Meat warehouse?
At the very least, Camping Gaz? Or even butain gas cigarette lighters for point action?
Most likely just use polythene, polystyrene foam tanks in C130s filled with atomospheric pressure liquid CO2 that ruptures on being dropped on a swarm? Or would Liquid nitrogen be cheaper, easier as should only take three times teh foa,m thickness for the lower temp with the guys already being in arctic gear anyway?
Welp, at least they are no longer race of mary sues :p
Also: aliens have the same weakness as the aliens in Signs *ding*
8458522
Not so fast: from what i understand of the Aliens in "Signs," they were chemically burned by water (fun fact our atmosphere is laced with water vapor); these Changelings are not vulnerable to water itself, they are vulnerable to cold temperatures, so getting rained on must feel to them, like getting pepper sprayed (fraggin painful, but usually not deadly).
Oh cool, Tygan, I hope we get Bradford somewhere. Hell, Maybe Xcom is being set up even as we speak to deal with the Changeling menace.
8458697
Well, they do have to rebuild the Cheyenne Mountain Complex; and are doing so with the assistance of Blue's Tunneler drones. It probably goes without saying that the new facility will be vastly upgraded, since it was originally just built to be a hardened command and control center for NORAD; but now it has a new vital mission to perform, and the existing facility was poorly equipped for the task now at hand.
8458767
But will we get central?
8458828
Only Sanny would know that; but it could happen.
High pressure water streams are actually used to cut through stuff in many industrial applications and may apply more kinetic force overall than bullets in battle, especially at close range, because the stream is constant, so it may be a better option for downing the magic shields. It depends on how they hold up to constant, unrelenting assault as opposed to periodic impacts and explosions. The constant pressure may drain the changelings magic reserves quicker.
8458987
There are a few problems with trying to weaponize water jet cutters:
- The equipment to run them is comparatively massive.
- Running the cutter as an open cycle system prevents the machine from recycling the water, and garnet abrasive material.
- The cutting stream is meant to be fired within millimeters of the target surface; the further away the nozzle is, the more pressure is lost from the stream in transit.
On the other hand: riot control water cannons, stand a very good chance of making a difference here; in addition, firefighters would also be well suited to this task, as their fire hoses, and truck mounted water cannons, are what the riot control water cannons are based upon, and their bunker suits might afford them some measure of protection from the intense heat being generated near the warrior formations.
8459041
Fighting Aliens with Firefighters
8459049
The standard Firefighter Bunker suit is specifically designed to cope with dangerous levels of heat; though it wont do squat to stop a plasma bolt, so ideally they need some added armour on top of the bunker suits.
It's going to be weeks or months before any of the besieged armies start getting the gear they really need to fight this war; so as the Canadian Army does: if the gear you need isn't available or doesn't exist yet, improvise; beg, borrow, steal, or salvage, don't spare the duct tape, and don't waste time trying to make it look pretty, just make it work.
Addendum: When multiple oil well fires needed to be put out in Kuwait in 1991 after the end of Desert Storm; Hungarian engineers, improvised what may well be the most powerful fire fighting vehicle ever built, "Big Wind:"
They took a T-34 tank hull, tore off the turret, strapped a pair of Mig-21 jet engines too it, and hooked up high pressure water sprayers to fire massive quantities of water straight into the jetstream from the engines.
8459041
Riot/fire hoses and firetrucks would have the same problem you mentioned, lack of water supply. So if it can be overcome for that type of gear, then it would be overcome in the same way for high-pressure streams which probably use less water anyway. Obviously it depends on how many streams of water we're talking about. And yes, water cutters are meant to be used very close to what they're cutting, but with the proper weaponization it would still be as effective as a fire hose if not more so if it could maintain enough PSI before getting to the target (which is why I said "especially at close range"). A fire hose would deliver a greater volume of water at a lower PSI. It just depends on which you think is more important,volume or pressure. The developed weapon would probably be some combination of the technologies depending on the answer to that question.
8459090
Hey, if they pumped some liquid nitrogen into that wind machine, it would probably be pretty effective for slowing the changelings down don't you think?
Edit: Because jet engines usually move wind.
8459158
That could work at very close range, but using water is simpler, and gives better effective range for our purpose; also pumping Liquid Nitrogen directly into a jet turbine, is a quick way to smother it, and to make the turbine blades explode from thermal shock.
Also, you seem to be thinking of Turbofan engines; which these are not.
8459154
Water Cutters are extremely specialized equipment; a critical component to their cutting power, is the garnet gemstone dust they inject into the water stream, which normally is able to be reclaimed in a Water Jet Cutter machine. trying to weaponize these machines would be expensive, time consuming, and at anything other than point blank range, they will only push enough pressure to hit the target like a miniature (and much less powerful) fire hose.
Trying to blast the Changeling formations at range; pressure is plenty important, and heavy firefighting equipment is designed with plenty of it, but volume will be critical here. the Water Cannons are intended to be used as deterrent weapons, they will struggle to do any actual damage to the Changelings, but if they can be doused in water, the cooling effects on their chitin, will inflict substantial pain, slowing them down, or even forcing them to withdraw.
8459202
No, I meant putting it into the air stream to make a really chilly breeze, not run it through the engine itself. Several could chill the air downwind in a wide area and act as a deterrent, thus slowing the changelings down. It's not meant as a means to kill. A better counter would have been to point out how cryo-bombs could be a better use of materials. I just shared it because it's an option (doesn't mean I think it's the best one).
For the other thing I was thinking more along the lines of concentrated, high pressure water streams, not the kind that use grit. Adding grit obviously adds a whole new layer of complications.
As far as the practicality of any of these ideas, humans have come up with impractical seeming weapons before, some of which proved more useful than others. All the machinery and infrastructure already exists to make any of these reality, especially when the fate of humanity is a stake.
8459289
You basically just described a firing line of riot control, and fire truck water cannons; which is what i was arguing for in the first place.
You where suggesting using Water Jet Cutters, nearly all Water Jet Cutters use grit; those that don't are little more than small, high pressure, water guns, hyper specialized to deliver high pressure, with a limited volume, over an extremely short distance.
8459382
Except that those aren't designed to apply deadly force. You've been arguing volume and I've been trying to point out the power of more concentrated pressure. I never said your idea was dissimilar or bad. In fact, it's obviously the easiest thing to implement on the field immediately because you're not inventing any new contraption, just applying existing equipment to the situation. What I'm suggesting is an upgrade to that.
But really, my original point was about how much strain that could put on the multi-layered magic shields the changelings use, and how that's better than bullets. Also, thinking about it more, unless the changelings can attack through their own shields, it should be relatively easy to get up close and apply either mechanical solution we've suggested. If so, an extremely high pressure stream would be more effective, because you're putting more energy and force into the water.
8459424
ah, now i see where this got off the rails, i was never arguing to use Water cannons as a deadly solution; unless you can rig the water feed with a potent enough cooling system to chill the water stream to just above freezing temperature, the Water Cannons where never going to be more than deterrent weapons.
Quite simply; there are no good "lethal" options for armies to employ against the swarm at this early stage; only crowd control measures that can be used to slow them down, and disrupt their advance, buying time for reinforcements, and better gear to arrive.
8459442
Railgun firing solid nitrogen? Nitrogen mines/grenades? CO2 shooting flamethrowers?
8459455
I can neither confirm, nor deny, being involved with the development of any such weapon systems.
So what we really need is Pegasus storm control!
Changelings survive off love. How long until scientists decide to believe it?
Was that a defective though? One wonders...
Keep going! ;)
Snowball fights!
Arizona is doomed.
"I didn't expect this outcome, though it is intriguing."
8459442
Yeah, I thought about chilling the water too. Some areas have underground water supplies that are quite cold naturally.
What I'm more interested in than all of that though, are the mechanics of the magic shield formations. Because if you can't break the shields, is the water (in whatever form) going to be effective at all? It has been shown in story that they can take a lot of force all at once and recover quickly by rotating ranks, but how would constant force change the equation? I'm thinking it's like the difference between trying to dig through very hard rock with periodic hammer strikes as opposed to the constant grind of a drill. The drill is going to bore a hole a lot faster.
Also, is it easier to hold the shield if the force assaulting it is spread out all over it and would concentrating the force on one spot mean that the shield's energy would concentrate there and weaken the rest? If so, then several points of attack would be more effective at breaking the shields, assuming it's more difficult to distribute shield energy to multiple points. Or maybe that's not a thing the changelings are skilled enough to do in the first place, and they have to keep the shield as a constant dome of evenly distributed energy to remain stable?
8459536
Tygan is a scientist, and a Pragmatist; he has yet to see anything to disprove the explanations from Blue and her hive, for how they can do all these things that plainly defy existing science, so unlike Vahlen, he will not waste time griping about it.
White carapace (defective, firstborn of a new batch of drones) + greenish-teal (Chrysalis' brood) = Chrysalis is creating a new hive.
8459925
The shield formation's strength comes from its modularity; no single point of failure will bring down the whole thing, and directly bombarding a shield formation with Water cannons is likely to do very little damage. however, if nothing at all could get through the shields, they would have too drop the whole formation to do anything other than move in formation, or block attacks; and the weather would be of little concern to them. If brute force could work, the PLA and the Indian Armed Forces would not be having half so much trouble; since they have the means to organize and carry out saturation attacks with anti-tank weaponry, and have surely already tried that.
I suspect the shields work on the Stargate paradigm, high velocity, and high energy attacks are blocked, while slower moving objects and the natural elements pass through; which means firing a whole lot of water cannons at a formation, is likely to simulate rain, cooling the surrounding air, and inflicting pain upon the drones.
8460235
Well that certainly changes the game then.
I was thinking, if the shields didn't work like in Stargate, they might be attacking with hit-and-run tactics, using the shield formations as a base of retreat. They might do that anyway, but bear with me. Assuming the shields are less permeable, the changelings could have some means that lets them, and only them, through the shields freely or with minimal effort. That way only the parties currently on attack would be vulnerable and those at rest would be quite safe within. Alternatively, since magic seems to quickly catch everything on fire (or melt it) in this version of earth, the shields themselves could be used for attack as well as defense, since they could walk up to and burn most things in the way. The magic could also be such that it easily lets their magical attacks pass through if they originate inside the shields. There are many options for things to work without dropping formation.
ah yes...the physical needs of the human body...
8458987
I'd be investigating if those shields can stop more esoteric forces like microwaves, although the microwave gun used on humans would be useless since it only affects the upper layers of the epidermis, not a full body cooker as you might find in the kitchen.
Another would be sonic and ultrasonic weapons. It would be interesting if changelings are more sensitive to their effects and if their "default" kinetic shield used to stop bullets would offer any resistance (not likely at all). Yes, a shield of silence would work but also deafen them.
Knowing that certain insects can see into high/lower bands of light that we cannot, could intense light emitters be designed that are harmless to us but blinding to changelings?
I assume world scientists are aggressively working on how "magic" operates as well as a means to mitigate it. Either shielding or ablative material/forces. As it stands, humans have no defense whatsoever against zappy magic.
8460810
Not really. All you need is something to disrupt the formation. Humans are fighting, in effect, a Roman legion.
8460446
SNT weapons? Thermobaric bombs? Tesla cannon?
So, in other words, they'll be icing their enemies from now on? At least it was some progress.
It's also pretty sad that the only specimen that anyone was able to recover for an autopsy was a 'defective'.
Let's hope that the injury patterns observed with that drone will be applicable to the ones that are not considered defective.
... then again, it has been stated that there have been pauses in fights when a cold storm rolled in, so it holds a lot of weight.
I'm sorry, what? Methinks you've watched too many movies.
8462024 Yeah, everyone knows Canada is the land covered by glaciers all the time!
Dan Vs. says so! And Dan always struck me as an honest fellow.
8465220
Exactly. Until that show gets renewed and they do an episode on Russia, nobody's allowed to make statements about it.
Lol.
I love how connected this is to the xcom games! Changelings as the alien invaders, how come no one else thought of that!? Xp
Cold water? Why not use that frozen chemical that freezes everything it touch's? What's it called again?.......cant think of it. Xd
8466237 Liquid nitrogen evaporates too quickly when not held in sufficient quantity.or pressures. Attempting to use that as a weapon would require a ton of safety gear as well as finding a way to not have a stream of it boil off in transit.
Did anyone else notice a problem with the color of the specimen ? Here's a hint.
They are basing everything off of a defective Changling!
8468608
Dammit, that sucks. Would have been very useful.
Why not use it as a bomb that you drop from the air? Like a plane or something.
8466237
8468608
Liquid nitrogen is a chilled element, not a chemical compound (if I have my definitions right). I believe what you were looking for are chemicals with endothermic reactions. Which is brilliant! I never learned a whole lot about chemistry, so I can't think of examples, but this video explains the concept and demonstrates it with the dissolving of ammonium nitrate in water. I'm sure this or some other chemical could be used as a weapon in this story.
8473250
Anything is possible when the fate of your species at risk.
8468683 but changelings turn white when starved of love
But Queen Catalyst said in chapter 39:
I can't think where you got the idea that a starving changling turns white. I would gladly revisit my thoughts if you would please cite where you found that idea.
8484224
Changelings do no turn white when starving; only "Defective" drones have White chitin, and they are born that way.
8468683
It is the only intact cadaver available for dissection and unrestricted testing; you work with what you got.
More to the point, this Defective bears the colouration of Chrysalis' brood; which can only mean one thing...
8473250
Some of the problems with trying to weaponize Endothermic reactions:
- Endothermic Chemical Reactions are inconvenient at best, and downright impractical at worst to reliably mix, and deliver to the target; their not like napalm for example, which is premixed and sustains its reaction once lit.
- Cryogenic Liquids evaporate rapidly in open air, as pointed out by Voldine; and thus any weapon relying purely on them is going to be limited in range, and mostly limited to just chilling the air in the immediate area of the weapon... unless you brute force the problem with sheer quantity to compensate for losses during deployment, or you get clever with a hybrid design...
8468608
Heavy safety gear is a given for deploying any kind of realistic Cryo weapon; and devising such weapons, within the confines of realism is always going to be a tall order, with unavoidable, harsh trade offs.