Who Buys All Your Alien Hardware?

[mobius]

maybe this has been discussed before, but this glaringly obvious enigma just occurred to me

 

why is there such a large market for unusable alien technology (assuming only X-Com has learned the uses of plasma weaponry, UFO navigational units, etc. as of yet, with its own private army of elite specialist xenoresearchers), mutilated, rotting alien corpses, and psychedelic alien recreation pods, et al? seemingly insatiable in fact, as the inhuman tech/corpse market can never be saturated, and appears to have virtually infinite supply of cash to what I would think is a relatively limited market, considering the nature of the goods

 

further, this would seem to have a few side-effects. one, I thought X-Com was a secretive project. thousands of plasma weapons, metals not of this earth, and actual alien bodies would surely be discovered at some point. no conspiracy could be widespread and disciplined enough to conceal alien invasion from the panicking masses [*]. do these countless millions of dollars of profit come from the member governments? less upstanding states? that would be a lot of budgetary pork to add to normal government projects, and become hard to conceal from audits and the like

 

second, with all this armament in the hands of non-X-Com entities, X-Com's demise would surely not be the end of humanity. in all likelihood, with the possible exception of advanced craft, fuel, and large scale weaponry, whatever external entities purchase X-Com surplus have many more times over anything X-Com ever possessed .. small arms, advanced explosives, alloys and armors more advanced than anything developed by man, anti-gravity propulsion systems, live aliens to interrogate, etc. if they did their own research, they could certainly learn how to use a good deal of it, and could begin detecting/recovering their own UFOs in time, leading to the salvation of the planet

 

something just doesn't add up .. I'm not one for conspiracies, but what if the aliens themselves are posing as legitimate buyers through rogue countries? indeed, X-Com could just be caught in a vicious and ironic circle, resupplying the very aliens they vow to destroy with their choice weaponry and craft components. the aliens may examine the deceased brethren and filter out their inferior DNA from their cloning control systems to improve upon the designs (sort of a consciously enforced Darwin). do you really think any group on earth has a use for hundreds of alien corpses, and be willing to pay USD20,000 each for them?

 

food for thought ..

 

 

[*] this also made me think of terrorist missions. are the surviving civilians red-flashy-thinged at the end of the mission, or are they imprisoned? what about the unexplainable and sometimes extensive property damage?

[FullAuto]

why is there such a large market for unusable alien technology

 

Ever seen Raiders of the Lost Ark? You know, with the fedora and the whip and the Nazis? Remember what the US government does with the Ark of the Covenant? (If you haven't seen it, they tuck it away in a warehouse in an anonymous crate, despite it's massive potential as a weapon). The purpose may not be to put the technology to use, it may be merely to deny other states access to it. It would be reasonable to assume that the funding nations have 'first dibs' on anything.

 

I thought X-Com was a secretive project. thousands of plasma weapons, metals not of this earth, and actual alien bodies would surely be discovered at some point. no conspiracy could be widespread and disciplined enough to conceal alien invasion from the panicking masses

 

Ever look at the Above Top Secret website?

 

second, with all this armament in the hands of non-X-Com entities, X-Com's demise would surely not be the end of humanity

 

But X-Com consists of the cream of the crop. Their soldiers, scientists and engineers are all the top men in their fields, and so the only ones left if X-Com were wiped out would be the second-raters, the dregs, and where the finest had failed, how could the second-best hope to win? If the Alien War became a true war instead of an ongoing guerilla conflict, you'd have humans fighting humans, as states that signed pacts with the aliens attacked other countries and were attacked in turn, global panic etc etc. Probably. Remember, humans are clever individually, but stupid in groups.

 

do you really think any group on earth has a use for hundreds of alien corpses, and be willing to pay USD20,000 each for them

 

I can think of a few, but if I told you I'd have to kill you.

 

are the surviving civilians red-flashy-thinged at the end of the mission, or are they imprisoned? what about the unexplainable and sometimes extensive property damage?

 

I imagine the surviving civilians are tucked safely away somewhere, or just have their families threatened until they start blubbering. As for the property damage...well, accidents do happen. :angel:

[Neorapsta]

Yes, its amazing what marsh gas reflecting off the light of Venus can do to the 2nd floor of your house :angel:

[FullAuto]

"To the mystification of local authorities, Mr Smith misidentified an outbreak of Spontaneous Human Combustion for an explosion, and described 'flashes of green light' among his many experiences. He is being held at the local police station on various narcotics-related charges."

[Jman4117]

I imagine the funding nations get the stuff. They are getting a "return on their investment" by buying all your surplus equipment at rock bottom prices. Who wouldn't pay $20,000 for their very own alien cadaver, or a mear $130,000 for advanced plasma weapons technology?

 

As for the civilians they are probably either ridiculed as lunatics, or are rounded up ino concentration camps.

[FullAuto]

Concentration camps? Complete with ovens and showers? That's a bit strong, Jman.

[Jman4117]

Most governments are willing to "make people disappear" to keep things secret, so why not X-com?

[FullAuto]

X-Com's mission doesn't seem to be the suppression of knowledge about aliens and the conflict, they seem to leave that to the governments concerned, I think.

[Snikers]

Most governments are willing to "make people disappear" to keep things secret, so why not X-com?

If that's true, why the feck am I wasting valuable resources saving their useless hides?

[FullAuto]

I haven't seen the word 'feck' used in so long. As well as making a good point, Snikers, you almost made me laugh 'til I was sick.

[Pumpkinhead]

I've often pondered those very same questions

 

I was thinking about the terror sites, which are meant to be major cities, and how many people would, in reality, be in the vacinity of the fire-fight. I've had New York terror sites so many times. I don't think a million people walking the main streets of NY could be rounded up or even flashy-thinged

 

It makes you wonder how secret this secret organisation really is!

[Jman4117]

Some wierd gas that clouds their minds? They do wander about like headless chickens.

[Pumpkinhead]

Some might

 

A little off topic, but I love the line in ID4 where the news reporter says "Once again, the LAPD is asking Los Angelenos not to fire their guns at the visitor spacecraft. You may inadvertently trigger an interstellar war."

[FullAuto]

Now there's a city the aliens would regret hitting with a terror mission.

[Jman4117]

Urban gangs armed with AK's?

[FullAuto]

L.A. Times Headline: "Aliens Caught Up In Gang War: 12 Dead In Drive-By."

[sluissi]

I was thinking, as far as the selling stuff happened, the governments may just be giving you credit for stuff you turn into them, which after the war is over, they can either sell themselves, or use in some way. I don't think you're actually selling it to anybody.

[JellyfishGreen]

why is there such a large market for ... mutilated, rotting alien corpses

Some excellent points, although I'm sure alien corpses are in high demand among biology researchers - they'd be eager to buy at least a dozen of any new species...

 

Terror site results:

Alien corpses recovered: 23

 

Say, have you tried this new sushi?

[Pumpkinhead]

A new flavour of Soylent Green!

[NickAragua]

What makes the problem worse is the following:

 

When I sell alien technology, I sell guns only. I keep the clips. Furthermore, while I sell plenty of alien alloys, I keep more or less all of the Elerium. Therefore, all the $130,000 plasma guns that I sell are completely useless, except as clubs.

 

However, keep this in mind: X-Com engagements are strictly small-scale. In an unmodified game, at most, you'll send out 26(?) guys in the avenger. The aliens usually have a similar maximum limit. The equipment you recover is, therefore, limited to about what 26 people can carry. So, after each mission, I sell about an average of about 10-15 alien plasma guns. In fact, I wind up running barely over a hundred missions in an average game. So, 100 x 10 = 1000, which means that, during the course of the game, X-Com will be selling off on the scale of several thousand alien cadavers and plasma guns.

 

It's actually not that hard to conceal the sale of that many weapons. That sort of stuff routinely changes hands every day in the world, and most people don't know about it.

 

The alien alloys are constructable with local materials, so it's not too hard to conceal that, either.

 

It's true though, I find the sale of thousands of alien corpses at 20k/corpse to be somewhat ludicrous. Then again, people buy all sorts of weird crud. They probably sell 'em on E-Bay or something.

[Pumpkinhead]

They probably sell 'em on E-Bay or something.

Imagine finding a bona fide Plasma Rifle on E-Bay for the amazing price of only $126,500! What a bargain!!

 

What currency do you suppose the game uses? $US?

[NickAragua]

Well, I suppose they could use Australian or Canadian dollars, too, who knows. Any other countries that have "dollars" as their currency?

[FullAuto]

I know at least one Asian country uses them, but I can't remember which.

[Jman4117]

Taiwan or South Korea maybe?

[FullAuto]

Taiwan probably does, but there's another one too, I think. I can't remember, nor can I find it.