Storyline of Afterlight

[Xomul]

So, how does Afterlight joins with Aftershock and Aftermath? I haven't finished Aftershock yet, but am about to meet the wargots up and personal...but from those Afterlight screenshots, it doesn't look like they're a dispatch team sent by the Laputians after their success on Earth(if thats what really happened)...Can someone fill me into that?

[Accounting Troll]

It is set at the same time as Aftershock, but it doesn't involve the Laputans. Shortly after the events in Aftermath, an expedition was sent to Mars to begin terraforming it for eventual colonization. The human characters in Afterlight are either the members of this expedition or their descendants.

 

Considering how the Laputans lack the most basic understanding of human history and technology, it is unlikely that they are even aware of the plan to terraform and colonize Mars. It remains to be seen how much the terraformers know about what has happened on Earth since they left.

[Xomul]

Ohhh, now that clears stuff out a bit...but then, if the Martian colonists have such high technology(high enough for them to colonize an entire hostile environment AND kick alien butt), whatever happened to those who stayed on Earth after Aftermath? I thought a few went to live in Laputas, but those who stayed, shouldn't they have some of those tech too?

 

And the Laputans, i dunno, but the developers made them look like complete idiots....i actually feel ashamed to cower behind friendly forces during those 'help eradicate enemies' missions cos my people lack armour and only have Reticulan lasers, while those friendlies have...full commando training and bazookas and stuff

 

But yeah, it would be fun to see the terraformers being able to link up with the laputans, a new Human empire, possibly a completely new game which you command fleets! argggg!

[Crazy Gringo]

Well the people that was left behind on Earth didn't stay on Earth itself.

They stayed on the flying islands known as Laputa due to the fact that the biomass was supposed to kill of all exsisting life on the surface of planet Earth. But you are right that the humans that stayed behind are somewhat dimwitted when it come to Earth technologies....But then again they have lived some 50 years on the Laputa with none what so ever earthly thing. Perhaps the Reticulans somehow kept them in a state if ignorant bliss never caring much about their past or their future just living one moment of the time. I mean the greys certainly had the means to do it (psionics).

[Accounting Troll]

Aftershock has never given a statisfactorty explanation of why the Laputants were so ignorant. In the intro movie, the guards chasing the rebels were firing AK-47s, so some old human technology still existed on the Laputa. There is also the related question of why the survivors on Earth had managed to make so much progress in the fields of cybernetics and psionics, and why they still possessed working radio.

 

ALTAR deliberatly left some unanswered questions in Aftermath, which were answered in Aftershock when we saw a new layer to the storyline. I suspect that we will see the same thing happen with Afterlight.

 

The Mars expedition may have been a joint human/Reticulan expedition. The Laputas are clearly refitted Reticulan ships, and they have a limited lifespan. According to Aftermath, A Reticulan ship is a living organism that has a symbiotic relationship with the pilot, and neither can survive without the other. When the pilot falls ill, the ship malfunctions, which is probably what happened to that Laputa in the intro movie. As the Laputas could not be a permanant home, I suspect that the Reticulans intended to turn Mars into a permanent hom for themselves and the human survivors.

[TYR]

Well folks to make it simple i doubt altair ever invested much time into a decent story nor it seems that they have a script or something like that. I found it quite funny to see what was behind the biomass thingy in AF, but generally it is true that many details are unexplained and do not match as for most games that is.

 

For the laputians you must imagine that the reticulans in AM where unable to take earth by force it seems, their resources where limited and probably the female "beeing" advised them to make a deal or they came up with that conclusion on their own. I think that these laputas where constructed for the specific purpose of acting as arche noas for mankind and of course for overseeing the biomass operation itself.

 

So lets predict that a few hundred thousand ppl worldwide survived the biomass in bunkers or very isolated areas it is just reasonable that they adapted the human technology again, for example the russian army has what like 60 tank divisions? They probably have a billion shots of ammo and equipement sealed in bunkers for eternal war, now imagine the remnants finding such weapon stashes.. There you go, about the cyborg psi stuff i could explain the following way... Not all of earth territory was under control by the RDE forces, and probably they had to leave some of their own ppl down there as well and just took the best up to savety, so lots of others where still on earth and they had to adapt technology quickly if they wanted to survive.

 

For AL this is the first time i actually read something about the story, and it sounds pretty vague to me, it may be possible that it was part of the agreement with the greys that the original laputians where allowed or not allowed to colonize mars, however i think that this may be a secret project, the laputas where probably just barely large enough to hold the population, now humans tend to breed very rapidly and organizing things must be very tricky under such a situation. I would imagine this like the tv series earth2, if i remember correctly the situation is very similar, earth is .... up and ppl live on a space station, now you send a team to develop and build a bridgehead on a new world, you dont hang this on the big bell until your sure it works would u ? AF starts with a revolt, probably it was a malufunction or even sabotage we will never know, if we spin that further the only ppl who knew of the mars expedition may have been killed during the riots so the "masses" on the laputas where unawhare of the bigger plan, keeping the people stupid makes it easier to control them, does work well on earth

[Crazy Gringo]

I remember Earth 2. It showed promise until some noncreative persons nerfed it and thereby got it cancelled.

Now that I think of it....Psionics is in play as a form of crowd control.

Why I know this is because I completed Aftershock. So complete the game and find out for yourself.

One question though. Is the human/greys on Mars are under the same 'influence' as their counterparts on Earth guiding them toward this terraforming proces? Cycle of life thoughts here.

And what is the history of Mars in the UFO A-series universe?!?

[TYR]

Now that I think of it....Psionics is in play as a form of crowd control.

Why I know this is because I completed Aftershock. So complete the game and find out for yourself.

 

I do have completed aftershock long ago, i just didnt want to tell the comming out directly here since some ppl may have not completed yet.

 

SPOILER WARNING !!!

 

Basicly the story was like this: The giant spacetravelling species (cant remember their name) convinced some reticulans on an outpost to leave their hive and join "her". This was done by psionic power which led the reticulans to earth where "they" created the biomass, she used them to anihilate the oposition on earth, im not aware why this species needs earthlike planets, probably their springoff feeds from biological components. However the biomass was nothing but some sort of superpsi signalfire to guid "male" beeings of that species to earth, which explains why 2 of them showed up sooner or later, one with the wargots and the other with the spaceghosts. "She" was sitting on the moon waiting for the outcome of the battle.

Thats the story we know so far, since the game is called afterlight i would imagine that it has nothing to do with the first 2 parts, the female beeing was killed by the laputians so there should be no more psionic influence going out from her. The original greys are friendly and are non hostile to humans so we will see a total new enemy i think. probably the psionic impulse drew the interrest of some others, probably they would like to colonize the solarsystem themselves since the major oposition is practically anihilated, or the psionic impulse awoke a race of marsians from asleep like it happened in UFo TfdD... speculations over speculations personally i would say we wait and see

[Accounting Troll]

My personal theory is that it will turn out that the Reticulan Empire is a lot nastier than it was originally portrayed. It is suggested in Aftershock that the myrmecols have the ability to travel at faster than light speeds, which is something that the Reticulan ships cannot do. The Reticulan government knew that a myrmecol was behind the rebellion on one of its colonies, but chose to do nothing partly in the hope of studying the myrmecols to learn the secrets of their power, and partly to eliminate the potential threat posed by humanity without being seen to be warmongers by the other intelligent races out there.

 

I'm really looking forward to the release

[DPG]

I purchased both aftershock and aftermath, found them both rather badly finished. Aftermath was buggy and slow, also felt like it had been rushed out. Aftershock felt like aftermath with a few upgrades. After seeing the new game and its features, I'm hoping that finally the programmers have been given the scope and time to create a wholly new game rather than a cheap sequel. It does look like they've been given this, and so I've pre-ordered it from play (only £18!). I always liked the story and background, but the limited graphics, slow loading time and repetitive missions began to grate on me after a while.

 

This new one looks a lot more polished and like they've taken on board critics advice and implemented it rather than ignored it and soldiered on. I also prefer the new cartoony graphics, may look less realistic but the old system meant everyone looked the same at a distance and never looked that real anyway. Limited camera movement frustrated me as well. At least this way they look more individual, stand out more from the background, will be able to show more emotions and the weaponry will look more impressive. Also, whereas the aliens did look good during the last two games, I think the new one's will look even better, and hopefully even larger than before.

[Xomul]

well i hope afterlight can at least get those physics right....like missiles and grenades...

[Crazy Gringo]

well i hope afterlight can at least get those physics right....like missiles and grenades...

They works better then in UFO Aftershock.

I don't know if they pulled out the old UFO Aftermath code and tweaked it a little. But grenades and rockets works just fine when used by a person with enough skill. Otherwise you should be getting those UFO Aftershock moments.