#xcom aliens

[korbensoi]

Me: nah, I'm not drawing sci-fi stuff The need to explain aliens for Bradford x Commander OTP ask: exists Also me: haha stylus goes brrr

[1stprototype]

You know what the Illuminate military really needs? Some snakes with human traits.

[unfailingeagle]

GIRL DINNER 💅

It's rather rude to interrupt them like that

[heljay]

I promised to make this OC ship everyone else's problem and I'm living up to that promise

Listen. They're cute as hell. And also, fit together perfectly considering Cargo is a neurodivergent wreck needing to learn to stand up for herself, and Echidna is a neurodivergent queen needing a place to let her guard down. Also Berserkers are sexy.

I had a whole meta post about learning to kiss your alien gf when said alien gf doesn't know what kisses are and also her mouth doesn't quite work that way. (They figured it out.)

Side note yes there is a reason why half the nails on Echi's hands are cut short

[savior-of-humanity]

how the fuck did i forget to upload this. anyways. the commanduh........ (pose reference by albanenechi)

[thecountofs]

Snakeman! (hand-drawn sketch)

[leflairzone]

Some X-Com + Aliens vibin'

[funeralprocessor]

I feel like the existence of the skirmishers (and everything from Chimera Squad) make XCOM come across as massive pricks wrt the aliens. Like the game goes out of its way to dehumanize the aliens (exclusively referring to them as it, saying their all brainwashed and mind controlled, etc) but then turn around and have ex-Advent be people who were at least aware during their time as drones, vipers and sectoids and mutons being obviously sentient and having their own culture, hell, the Ethereals are clearly people too. And then Chimera Squad shows us a future where they're actually treated as such and nobody makes as big a deal about it as I think they should.

[jingo]

dude literally said "darn right I look delicious"

[spaceferren-comics]

Changed the snakes color palettes

[korbensoi]

Xcom 2 as a cool strategic game with badass soldiers fighting badass aliens?

Yes, but how about

Xcom 2 as a minefield of feelings, traumas and bittersweet endings.

Xcom 2 canon and fan characters as meanings of processing your own struggles.

Xcom 2 Bradford as processing your grief and feelings of being "useless".

Xcom 2 Lily as processing the expectations, sometimes unbearable and overwhelming, that others put on you?

Xcom 2 Tygan as processing your past mistakes, the ones that make you think your life is now forever ruined, and yet is isn't?

Hell yes.

[das-boog]

Heya folks! If you been enjoying the latest Cyberrats art, the new kickstarter is live!

Cyberrats is a rules light, tactics heavy LUMEN system game inspired by xcom, teenage mutant ninja turtles and shadowrun. Players are mutant rats and interns for one of three evil, world-spanning megacorporations when aliens invade the earth. Not so bad, on paper. A good disaster now and then is good for your bosses bottom line. The issue is that a rival megacorp, Valdivian, has the issue well in hand and refuses to share the alien-fighting market. An unacceptable scenario. Your job is to sabotage the "real" heroes, secure the contract, save the world, and clock out of your shift.

Cyberrats: Rise of the Briny Bastards expands on ideas introduced in the first game, expanding both tactical options AND downtime actions to flesh out who your mutagenic operative is, what their relationship is to their team and what they're really fighting for when their checks are cashed and the dust settles. We've also introduced a bunch of new mutators and classes, a toyetic submarine, and a new enemy faction in the form of an ocean that hates your player characters personally.

Cyberrats gameplay is designed to contrast risky, dangerous missions with the personal stakes of the characters. You'll watch your helpless intern slowly build out a 90s-action-figure's worth of extra weaponry, powers and relationships with other players and npcs that can synergize for more and more impressive combat strategies. The numbers are stacked in the enemies favor, and you're encouraged to find unique ways to break the game balance to survive!

If you're like me, and like the crunch of a game to add weight to its emotional stakes but ALSO don't want to have to memorize 4 different chapters on how to grapple someone, I highly recommend it! You can find the kickstarter at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2018387307/cyberrats-rise-of-the-briny-bastards

[etherealvoidechoes]

Raal’Maker and His (Human) Shells

First off, so sorry to the anon that asked this like last year+, but how so many things went around that time it just completely slipped from my mind. Read more for ~~spoilers~~.

So why are Maker’s shell-bodies human-looking and don’t look more like the Hybrids? 

Technically, all of his shell-bodies are spliced to varying degrees, but human DNA makes up the majority of it since human DNA has been rather pliable and fairly compatible with a plethora of DNA. They definitely look less human under all the clothes.

In the early days of his experimenting, there was more Elder, Sectoid, and other DNA spliced in them leading to the faces and skin color leaning more towards a Sectoids or the Elders, and some even had four arms as I personally believe the Elders wouldn’t want to give that up.

But that all changed after his one incident with Jynn(or any of my other Commanders) when trying to pull Asaru out of her again(not fully realizing it was just strands and he wasn’t there). Instead, what he found was a nasty psionic bomb of a backlash with a touch of something else. This nearly killed him and sadly killed or drove a few of the nearby workers mad. He barely had enough strength to quarantine his entire facility, cut the room off from the rest of it, and cut it off from his brethren as the psionic poison ravaged his system. 

Ever since that day, he had to be interned into his sarcophagus earlier than projected and cut himself off from the hive mind with his brethren as his psionics have become unstable and risk affecting the rest of them. 

In addition to his psionics becoming unstable, it’s like they have a mind of their own and actively hate his old shell bodies that had a higher concentration of Elder DNA, and somewhat the same towards Sectoid DNA and a few others. He went through a great deal of trial and error to find just the right amount that allowed compatible possession.

One bonus from the unstable psionics and power increase is it’s allowing him really test how much power a body can handle before damaging itself via feedback or burning out the synaptic nerves. It’s concerning, but the others support it since, of course, they want to be able to use their full power unimpeded and want to continue to grow said power in the future.

Though, Maker has had to shift any tests with bodies with heavier amounts of Elder DNA to the others, his current work is still useful for them as the less of their ailing/corrupted DNA they have to use to make new bodies is a good thing, but their collective superiority doesn’t exactly want to admit that. Such an attitude leads to one incident with an early prototype they had to semi-shelve due to recent events with XCOM and the Resistance becoming more of a nuisance, they’re going to bring it back out after some heavy indoctrination and more active brainwashing. Will be stealing Specimen Zero a.k.a. “Void” from that Legends game.

The shift to more human shell-bodies with the occasional experiment with some other compatible races when Va’lo’Fe supplies him with the genetic material has also left him estranged from most of his kind. They already aren’t too fond of any from or influenced by Va’lo’Fe (as the old Elder changed eons ago becoming a great deal less like they are now, (but they respect his position and most of his wisdom)), and then for Maker, they find he’s becoming more “human”/like the lesser races to their disgust(and some horror wondering if they could be infected with humanity if they’re not careful building their new bodies.) 

Through a lot of inner contemplation and reviewing what he learned under Va’lo’Fe, Maker finds it all enlightening and poetic. Even before the incident, he was enjoying all the sensations and feelings that came with possessing the various prototype bodies. Things he only felt in a tentative vicarious way when possessing a being with a will; that was always distant. But these prototype bodies with no wills, or if there were any it was quickly subsumed by his power, he felt everything with none of that distance or disconnects. And then there were none(at the time) of the subtle pains, weaknesses, and numbness that plagued his Elder body.

So he’s been embracing his human shells a little more every time he makes a major iteration. He’s still going to work on a body he can properly inhabit(or die trying) or one for those he can trust and can seem some could be persuaded to change. He’s lost a lot of love for the majority of his brethren minus those with Va’lo’Fe.

[heljay]

You ever just crank out three OC refs in two weeks because the hyperfocus is so strong

Granted I have five XCOM OCs at this point but one of them dies with just the standard in-game design and more importantly these are the three I'm hoping to get ArtFight attacks for lmao

So! Bond, I've drawn her a lot. Cargo, not as much, but I've finally gotten the hang of her combat uniform so that helps. Less so her X2 design which is barely different from the in-game Warden Armor but eh fight me

Echi is, as you can see, very different from the canon Berserker. The idea for Echidna is that she was captured during EU/EW, by Cargo, back when Berserkers weren't sent out into combat naked. Moreover, Echi is the first of the alien captives to choose to trust and aid humans, and is the whole reason Cargo escapes HQ with her life; and drags Bond, along with those two other OCs, out with her. So once X2 rolls around Echi gets unique armour taking reference from the Warden Armor, the original EU/EW Berserker armour, and a bit of the Elite Muton armour. Her scarring comes from while she was still on the invaders' side.

Also by the time X2 rolls around, Cargo and Echi are married

[savior-of-humanity]

alas. no writing energy. however i have been having severe xcom/call of duty brainrot lately so im torturing yall w/ my commander oc that i'll put on this blog (eventually)

[doolallymagpie]

XCOM squad and Zudjari squad done, at least to “can play standard-size 7TV games with them” levels.

Closeups of individual pieces