I have a few ideas for other stuff that Seb can do if Choi wants to take point on the interrogation.

Hannah is interested in the Psi stuff and the Alien Flight Dynamics (of course).  Her Tech/EDU skills (Physics/Chemistry/Biology/Metallurgy/Engineering) are much categorically better than her (non-existent) Interrogation skill.

Will try to get an IC aftermath post up as well.  Double Down will want to see Painter (and might find out about Karolina, then).  And won't mind working with Diver at all; I mean, Hannah does think that he is hunky after all ... uh, was that said out loud?

Have you all seen this guy?

https://www.isaacarthur.net

He does super intense hard-science dives into future technology on YouTube and SoundCloud. One of my engineering buddies showed me a few videos and it’s going to be all over for my free time.

Did anyone pick up the War of the Chosen expansion for XCom2?

Perhaps James could major in alien interrogation and minor in xenobiology?

-

Here's what I have for everyone's research interests.  Assume there are about six to eight weeks of downtime before the next operation.  That should give your characters time to commit some science, in addition to having a week or two of leave.

Hannah: Psi; alien flight.

James and Seb: Interrogation of the Attar; autopsying the squid.

Cooper: Psi.

Michael: Plasma weapons.

I'll PM you the key points of your respective findings later today; feel free to elaborate and improvise around those.

As for other loose ends...

Caradoc will keep the arm but he is looking at significant reconstructive surgery and is unlikely to return to duty with Grey Cell.  Mewes is pushing for him to accept a commission and return to TF47 as the unit's flight surgeon once he completes rehab (remember, he technically completed medical school but never finished the process of becoming a board-certified physician.

Karolina has been transferred to the neurology clinic at Bródno Hospital in Warsaw.  In addition to her skull fracture and TBI, she broke her right arm, right leg, eight ribs, and right collarbone, and lost her spleen and one kidney.  She will be capable of receiving visitors starting around late July.

With Caradoc out, the team needs a new medic.  If anyone wants to start a secondary PC or recommend a new player, I will entertain suggestions.  Otherwise, I will generate a suitable NPC.

Detective Adriana Salcedo and Officer Lee Morris, both Miami PD, are TF47 friendlies in Florida and may be developed as NPCs or future plot hooks.  The same applies to Inspector George Symonette of the Royal Bahamas Police.

Despite Grey Cell's early intervention, Dana Albinson will never fully recover from the stroke the aliens induced.

John Ceelen will mostly recover from the heart attack he suffered when the Attars came after him in the Bahamas.  He and Robert Paddon will join Green Cell as part of the alien flight dynamics research team, based at the Woomera Range Complex.  They will also recruit the so-far-undescribed Alfredo Herrera, though his failing health will limit him to an occasional consulting role.

Darnell Hawkins will join Green Cell as a translator - and as an occasional stabilizing influence on the psi experiments.

Mark Branham and Ramón Rice, along with the so-far-undescribed Owens and Wolanski, will be floating research resources for as long as their health and sanity last.  Owens and Wolanski are nuclear engineers turned general physicists.  Branham is self-taught in mind-machine interfaces and will immediately take to pissing off Dr. Ghosten.  Rice is an aerospace engineer.  All four men are psychically active (and, as a side effect, are multilingual - though not to the extent that Hawkins is).

I can stat up "The Saint" as our new medic if people want.  Seems like it would make more sense than reading someone else new into the organization to pull someone from the sidelines.  I was thinking I might build him around my old 18D's background from the Stalemate War.  That would give him enough science background to be useful.

I'll also reach out to my one buddy that I think might be willing.  His writing chops are certainly up to snuff.  On the flip side, he and his wife just had a baby #2 so....

The IRL folks I know that I might recommend come as a pair (husband/wife) and realistically, they need some RPOL seasoning.  If Octagon was active, I'd recommend him, but sadly I don't think he's doing much RPOL these days.

Key's if you've got someone IRL who'd be interested in RPOL, I'd certainly support bringing him/her onboard.

Some other admin stuff...

Everyone gets 12 general XP and 1 skill-specific XP for UFOlogy for the third mission.  Additional skill-specific XP awards will come from your activities in the aftermath thread, as usual.

Before getting too far into the aftermath, I suppose I should make sure that everyone wants to continue the campaign.  I feel like this mission ran about six to nine months longer than it needed to due to my own disorganization and lack of a clear vision for where I wanted this part of the story to go.  I will not be offended if the group's consensus is that we should take a break or quit while we're not too far behind (if we were going to quit while we were ahead, the end of the first mission was the right time).

If we do want to continue, where do you guys want to see the story go from here?

I'd like to continue. I quite enjoy this game. Honestly, I feel a little out of my depth at times- the weak link in the player group. Not being familiar with XCom, I get the sense that I am missing something. I sometimes struggle with knowing how/what to post. I don't mind improvisation, but I don't want to overstep. In terms of the direction of the campaign, I don't know where to go from here.

-

I'm digging the game and would like to see it continue.  As to where to go...maybe we can leverage some intel out of our prisoner for a "smash and grab?"  We're kind of in the reactive space, it might be nice to be a little more proactive in the defense of Mother Earth.  Ferreting out the mole might be interesting, but given our track record for posting on investigation missions we're probably a bit more suited to direct action after some digging around on the ground.

I'd love to continue as well.  I very much enjoy the game, though I am the slowest to post.  So, I completely understand if that is detracting from anyone else's enjoyment, I get voted off the island.

@Rae: I am surprised, Rae, that you feel that way.  I am a much slower poster and while I have played XCOM, my knowledge of RL military nomenclature, protocol and tactics/strategy is definitely lacking; undeniably, the weakest of the group.  Honestly, I have always felt that I am the weakest link.  </@Rae>

If we were to follow the XCOM mold, then we'd have to escape an alien crash site (after fortuitously we shot down some alien scout with our outdated tech - or was that something like Chapter 2 ...:D), and then assault a base eventually as alien activity ramped up (or was that Chapter 3 ... :D).  Oh, and a terror site (which with Crysalids is not my favorite XCOM missions - I lost a lot of good men on those scenarios - so, I am not advocating that one.  At least, not until we get blaster bomb tech...).

Love to do some RP with the old VO-45 (er ... the new Green Cell 'recruits').  Be interesting to talk with both Ceelen and Hawkins (on the "they know a lot we don't know" front and are not bonkers).  And then talking with the Belize boys about their sequestering would likely be enlightening (and really frightening, I suspect).  Honestly, what scares me about Hawkins is that everyone else is afraid/wary of (or driven crazy by) the alien tech.  Except her.  Guess that is part of the Aftermath thread, though.

So, are we getting enhanced body armour as part of our pack out now?  And plasma pistols?  :D

I'd like to carry on. I'm in the same boat as Rae - I know absolutely zero about X Com but I guess that can be a double edged sword as everything is 'new' to me. It also suits having a character who is (or rather was) UFO sceptic. But like Rae it leaves me a little light on suggestions as to what to do next. Do we have any abductions that need investigating?

@Dcoda, the thought literally crossed my mind as I was writing this that Seb would also want to do some follow up with the old geezers. He and I are both curious about why the alien activity paused for a number of years and iirc Branham said there was a guy who had been collecting an archive of sorts, so Seb would like to have a word with him as part of the Aftermath.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:40, Sun 11 Mar 2018.

I can delete that Ghosten post if necessary, but it was kinda fun to write.

And no one here is a weak link.

I don't think that's the case.  I think the players who are familiar with XCom may occasionally make assumptions that are already invalidated within my GM notes... ;)



Nah, leave it up.  It fits.



^^^ This.

Just a randomn thing, but I have thought from time to time that it might be interesting if there was something like a Russian / Chinese / Israeli equivalent of Grey Cell. Would we work together if we encountered them in the field, the enemy of my enemy is my friend? Or would we work against each other, perhaps unintentionally? Would we share knowledge and tech with each other or would we end up spending more time watching them than watching the xenos? If they were Russian where would Andrey fit in?

(Yeah, I'm picking up on an old Stargate trope...)

I don't know why this made me think of Grey Cell, but I'll leave it here anyway.

https://www.theatlantic.com/sc...r-we-survive/554513/
This message was last edited by the player at 18:51, Sun 18 Mar 2018.

Teg,

You cool with point buy to build the medic?  I'm still waiting on my buddy to decide, but I'll be building the character either way.

Works for me!

Trying to figure this whole two character thing out...seems relatively strait forward.  Except I can't see a character sheet for SSgt Martinez here.  Also, it looks like my friend has elected not to join us on RPol at this time.  Oh well.

Well, in another game where I have a second character, the Character Details page has a dropdown to the right of the Character Information section that allows you to select the character that you want to view.

The Character Details page does default to your primary character, I believe.

Okay, I got that far, but for whatever reason I can see Dacovetti’s sheet.  When I switch the character sheet option goes away.

That is likely on Teg's side.  Either the sheet isn't active/created or is doesn't have its edit privileges set correctly at this point.
This message was last edited by the player at 22:35, Thu 22 Mar 2018.

Cool.  Thanks!

I like this idea. It makes sense that other power blocs would be seeing some of the same things, regarding E.T. activity, and perhaps responding similarly. Or, perhaps the aliens did what Cortez, Pizarro, et al did and are playing human enemies against one another...

As GM, I've toyed with the idea of the player party meeting another, similar group just to see what happens. I'm no Drizzt fanboy (I read the Crystal shard in high school and that's it), but one of the neatest bits in BG2 was when the player-controlled party meets said NPC's party in the city necropolis (Yes, I did fight and kill them all, just to see if I could- then I reloaded from an earlier saved game and made nice).

-