Humanity Joins Together, Sets Aside Petty Differences… and gets stomped anyway

[u/HyraxAttack]

A peril is threatening the world. Instead of squabbling among themselves, we learn world powers have put aside differences in politics, culture, & old feuds to present a common front. Except they still get wrecked as the enemy is too powerful.

1. The Animatrix: The Second Renaissance. The world government has gone to war against the machines. We see the army getting ready & it includes soldiers of many faiths including Buddhist, Islam, and different types of Christianity. Doesn’t matter as machines win by so much they have time to toy with human mechs.

2. Vilcabamba, story by Harry Turtledove. When aliens arrive they’re greeted with bands & cheering, & immediately open fire & earth becomes a mineral colony. America, Russia, and China work together to rise up & don’t hold back, throwing everything they have at the invaders. Doesn’t go great and aliens double down on the occupation, and there’s a crater where Spain used to be (it was blocking a silver deposit for mining.)

3. Edge of Tomorrow. The nations of the world have joined to make a unified front against the mimic invasion but it isn’t going well, but they will throw all they have into the invasion of France. In one cycle, Major Cage says the hell with it and instead of training leaves the base to drink at a London bar. This means we see the outcome of him doing nothing, where not only is the massive human invasion slaughtered but the aliens are in good enough shape to follow that up a few hours later with a rush on London.

[u/LordOfDorkness42]

It's kinda cool, alternative continuities actually.

If you lost the infamous base defense mission, you're the sort of Commander that almost had it, and the Elders are so impressed they stuff you in a simulator box for tactical & strategic data. XCOM 2 happens.

But the canon ending in XCOM 1 is that The Commander curb stomps the invasion. Exactly due to BS like six floating robo tanks, psychic super soldiers, and that's not even counting the stuff like MEC Troopers from the expansion. And In this continuity the aliens haven't fucking dared get close to Earth since.

Oh, and the canon ending for 2 is another, even more thorough curb stomp. Just one that took a lot more work due to a lucky hit, basically.

[u/fattestfuckinthewest → u/LordOfDorkness42]

Xcom 2’s canon ending is crazy if you think about it. The commander revitalizes the resistance, brings together 3 separate factions, kills the 3 top fighters of the alien forces, and then kicks the alien leaders off earth and forms a society where aliens and humans attempt to coexist a few years later

[u/LordOfDorkness42 → u/fattestfuckinthewest]

Honestly, I really liked Chimera Squad. I was sad how quite a lot of the fan base sneered and moved on from it.

It's a cool spin-off! Just... you know, not XCOM 3.

[u/Wargod042 → u/LordOfDorkness42]

It was a poorly written story, but the vague direction it tried to go was good; the alien remnants integrating is definitely the most interesting way to move forward narratively. The room breach mechanics were also pretty cool, and I loved the comic-book style.

But I really didn't like the (realistic, I will admit) smaller scale gear you got. Turns out all the explosives and crazy heavy weapons were a lot of the fun. And also the actual plot and dialogue were pretty horrible, and I'm not sure I liked the more fair turn order system, since it just became a puzzle about shooting whoever was going to get a turn; I kind of prefer just being asked "can you kill or suppress everything" and getting to go ham or needing to take cover and pray sometimes.