#xcom bradford

[korbensoi]

Xcom 2 Singing headcanons for the soul

Did you know I can't live without thinking about whether this or that character can carry a tune? Well now you know!

John 'Central' Bradford can carry one for sure. Not anything special, but he's certainly pleasing to listen to, especially when someone at the bar gets out a guitar and the Avenger gets some nice live music for the evening. He's certainly not the most enthusiastic about this whole ordeal, but get a few glasses of whiskey in him, sit back and enjoy the ride.

Now, Lily Shen! My baby! My precious daughter! Can't sing to save her life, but LOVES doing it nonetheless, and I am HERE for it!! She will hum a tune while working on the projects the Commander assigned to her, she'd chime in if soldiers at the bar are having an impromptu karaoke night, and, most importantly, she will enjoy every second of it. Nobody on the Avenger has permission to tell her to keep it down, and if someone is dumb enough to do so, the Commander will find the brave idiot and throw him out of the ship mid-flight. That is a threat and a promise.

And Tygan... Richard 'I will not talk more than absolutely necessary' Tygan... His lab is one of the most soundproof rooms on the entire Avenger, for... various reasons. It just never occurred to anyone, that their cold, no-nonsense chief scientist would use it to his advantage in specific ways. Commander, for one, expected to hear anything when she paid the lab a non-scheduled visit: metallic whine of a saw, flesh of some poor alien bastard ripping apart during the autopsy, hell, she even expected complete silence, interrupted only by a hum of the reactor in the center of the lab. Not a deep, rich, drop-dead gorgeous baritone echoing through the room. Like, some opera-tier shit right here, the fuck!

[ryunumber]

Does Bradford from Xcom have a Ryu number?

John Bradford has a Ryu Number of 3.

(explanation below)

There's a handful of names when inputted as soldier names in Enemy Unknown that change the soldier into an XCOM Hero that is very powerful (and therefore disables achievements). One of them is Sid Meier.

Meier can also be seen in a civilization leader context in Civilization IV; it's easiest to see (and hear) him as part of the base game's tutorial.

[ionjuno]

some old (and new) sketches of my commander

[ellikiins]

I TOLD YOU THE ALIENS ATTACKED. From March 2022, saved as "yeah." You can tell how done I was. Determined to draw and finish something, but alas... I do like this a lot more than the previous piece, I might finish it. But it has been over 2 years, so take it. (She has no shoes because her stilettos are too hard to run in. Maybe she should keep them? That's be badass.)

Because I love the drama, the premise of their relations were with no strings attached... but then someone gets attached, the other gets mad for breaking their promise... and then someone gets hurt... and the other comes to accept that they have also fallen in love, too. How romantic! I hope no one gets kidnapped and put in stasis for 20 years by the enemy and the world falls into chaos!

[etherealvoidechoes]

Here I am thinking about the logistics of food, other amenities, and general maintenance for the Avenger.

Wondering how many are fine with eating ADVENT food and those that want to burn it on site knowing that those “reclaimed proteins” will contain alien and human DNA. Bradford is strongly on the burn team as he recalls the alien food storages containing human DNA back in the day.

Wondering if some crew put together some hunts to grab some local wildlife for the Avenger and to trade. Have to be careful not to over hunt with how tentative the environment is in some areas.

Those crazy enough to eat Chryssalids and other aliens(throwing in more animal-like aliens and pulling from the OG games) like the Reapers. Many lessons are needed to kill and prepare those bugs properly so you don’t poison yourself.

Wondering how much space I can give to Memento(OC) for her mostly hydroponics based garden(and semi-lots of grow bags garden) so they have some home grown food they know hasn’t been tampered it. Hm I can even make it a disciplinary punishment that one has to work in her garden and helping Haven gardens. Heheheh

Who is manufacturing their clothes since I know several would want to keep their distance from ADVENT fashion.

Oh goodness, the written and digital chores list would be in constant chaos no matter what.

[msvblight]

Okay, might be a little fanfiction-brained of me but I think that in Xcom it would be so thematically fitting for Bradford to marry a Hybrid.

A way of showing him coming to terms with life after ADVENT. Setting aside his hatred of aliens to find love in the new world.

[asunder-aim]

That's why one must serve cunt

[image source]

JXT: When There’s No One To Serve But: The Cause

[rollforrandom]

I know the "Canon" is that XCOM failed in the first 1-2 months of the invasion, but does anyone else feel that's not -quite- the case? Hear me out:

The ADVENT mechs look very similar in design to the MEC trooper from EW, minus the actual person in it. This could just be standard mech design/reused assets, but it makes sense if the Elders found that humans had made something useful with MELD, they would take it for their own purposes.

The ADVENT troopers use magnetic weapons, which while not fully Canon to EU/EW (the main one was the railgun for MEC troopers), are rather prominent in Long war, a mod that helped inspire aspects of XCOM 2 and whose development worked with/for the actual game studio when XCOM2 was developed. But why would ADVENT use a weapon like that if they have plasma? Cause XCOM already designed it. It was cheaper, designed for humans, by humans, and coopted by aliens

Bradford's forces are too well organized at the start of XCOM 2. They have a WHOL ALIEN SHIP, with a launchable drops hip? That's not something that just "goes missing" without repercussions. Especially if we get stomped into the dirt with no resistance in 2 months. This feels like an opportunity was taken while the world was still in turmoil, fighting was going on, and XCOM grabbed what it could while the aliens were suppressing major dissonance across the globe. Something that according to the elder, didn't happen. And we all know we can trust them /s

This is all just theory and hypothetical. But I am really into that rn, especially other theories like "The commander/player is actually the Ethereal from the Bureau" level of theory. Tell me if you agree/disagree/want to hear more rambling.

[biggestart]

Last year, I tried making an XCOM 2 screenshot Let's Play similar in nature to Guavamoment's old X-COM: UFO Defense Let's Play, but abandoned it quickly due to the difficulty involved, as well as the strain it put on my computer.

Nonetheless, I did manage to make a "Commandersona". Because of the way everyone in the game hypes up the importance of The Commander, I thought it would be cute and funny to make him an unassuming older guy. Plus it made it more fun to ship him with the haggard middle-aged XCOM 2 version of Bradford.

Maybe I'll try it again someday.

[korbensoi]

Okay, I need ship name suggestions lmao

Tygan x Commander IS too interesting of a dynamic to just put aside like that, but what do I call you guys?? At this point I can only think of something like Soygan based on their names, and I kinda want to also come up with something involving their rank too? Decisions, decisions...

What's more, I came to the conclusion that Commander x Bradford in xcom2 in my case is even better, if I view it as friendly/platonic. (mind you, it's only the sequel's thing, because they work perfectly in romantic way in the first game, don't get me wrong!) Thinking of them growing as characters side by side, finding out what they need romantically is the opposite of what they see in each other...

And the differences between these two ships! John "I fell in love with the idea of the Commander, and mistook dedication/caring for their wellbeing for love" Bradford vs Richard "I will always subtly have the back of this person I only met after the invasion, despite how many people feel wary of their alien features, and yet I somehow mistook genuine love for simple loyalty to the cause." Tygan.

My commander needs someone who will hold her close no matter how many limbs or other alien features she has, no matter how uncontrollable her psionic powers get or how uncannily close to Ethereal speech patterns her words sound. Tygan needs someone who doesn't think of him as nothing more than a spy, or a token scientist, someone who can see the broken man horrified by his past actions and give him hope, that not everything is lost. And Bradford... Bradford deserves to rediscover who HE is, and what he actually wants, aside from that image he daydreamed up. Maybe I'll gently nudge him into Volk's direction and watch, hehe. Volk would take great care of my boy.

[maeljade]

tagged by @scionshtola

Challenge: make a poll with five of your all time favorite characters, and then tag five people to do the same. See which character is everyone's favorite

I'll tag @wisismydumpstat, @wingedasarath, @zeloinator and @elizabethrobertajones

[ellikiins]

Old artwork I made July 15, 2022, saved under the file name “man, i suck at this”.

It was an experimental coloring, using photoshop and a Kamvus tablet. It isn’t awful, but it doesn’t really look like something I made. But I have yet to remake it, so here… look at it.

Every teen show has that school dance plotline, right? A novel idea that crossed my mind many, many years ago that I managed to adopt into XCOM no less. There is pressure to get more funding, so the Commander and Bradford attend the Meridian Ball in D.C., a prestigious event filled to the brim with Congress, Cabinet members, and Diplomats. Something that Diane grew up with, but Bradford, I imagine, is a lot more blue-collar and in over his head to rub elbows with such rich elite. But Diane would do anything to keep her operations running, and not above schmoozing to keep countries supporting the XCOM Project. Sure, the rest of the operation would speculate and tease about the top brass getting dressed up for an elaborate dinner date… but there’s nothing to hide if they aren’t romantically involved, right? Just dedicated coworkers only…. Right???

AND THEN THE ALIENS ATTACK!!!

If only I was good at making a comic or fanfic with the shenanigans I put my OCs through… 💀

[etherealvoidechoes]

Mobile post ~

Old sketches of Bradford with bonus off model Jynn in the middle. Have to edit them a fair bit before slapping them on the other blog.

[companionwolf]

F/O List

Romantic F/O(s)

John 'Central' Bradford (Firaxis!XCOM)

Platonic F/O(s)

Trunk Buddies (Glass Cannon Network's Get in the Trunk)

Magdalena

Jordan 'Jordie' Arseno

Roger Cumstone

Gavin Westover

Caesar Bridges

Laudomia Crew (LoadingReadyRun's ALIEN: Heat Death)

Harris Schafer

Clinton Barker

Roman Moritaka

Other

Kitchens (Unmadegaming's ALIEN RPG Dotverse)

[leam1983]

On "Hacknet" and the Art of Pastiche

Hacknet is an indie game like you don't really find, nowadays: it's not trying to ape a triple-A release style and is quite content to knowingly point and wink at UNIX network-discovery tools while slathering itself in surface-value Nerd Cred.

At a surface level, this is UNIX Porn as a video game. It's hours spent typing approximations and oversimplifications of actual commands, for the sake of giving form and texture to a somewhat more grounded take on the Hollywood Hacker.

Where the game loses me, however, is in its ancillary material. You'll find schematics for alien dildos as commissioned by a not-at-all-aroused Commander Bradford, from XCOM lore, and also spot the Narrator's poem from Fight Club, pasted amongst a slapdash selection of Slashdot News posts. It's never concerned with building a world, so much as it's concerned with grinning stupidly at you and saying "Geddit? That's Hacker Humour, and that makes it funny."

I'm just left rolling my eyes. Great, another functional human being who can quote one tiny buzzworthy quote from a Pahlaniuk novel - should I be in awe of the fact that the dev and I have roughly the same literary taste?

The hackers I know don't post messages in hex, they email one another in plain text like the Boomers they are. Like the rest of us do.

[modded-xcom2-aar]

The Tutorial: Part 1

Dan's Notes: Due to the more cinematic, cutscene-heavy nature of the opening tutorial mission, the whole of it has been depicted in video form. This will not be the case with most missions. It should also be noted that the tutorial is skippable, as are the DLC missions, but for the sake of storytelling, I have enabled them. In addition, this update will be a fair bit longer than most updates will so I can get all the tutorial stuff out of the way.

Operation Gatecrasher After Action Report

After 20 years of struggling and acting underground, XCOM was finally able to perform Operation Gatecrasher, a combined effort by XCOM and the Reapers to locate and rescue Commander , the original operating commander of XCOM. Due to the high-priority nature of this mission, XCOM was forced to execute the mission through unusual and unconventional means.

Operating in this mission were rookie-level soldiers Jane Kelly, Peter Osei, Ana Ramirez, Reaper soldier Elena "Outrider" Dragunova, and Central Command Officer Bradford. Osei and Ramirez were killed in action while the surviving rookie, Kelly, was promoted to a Squaddie-class Ranger. In accordance to XCOM's agreement, Dragunova fled the scene before the deployment of XCOM's forces, rejoining with the nearest group of Reapers.

Thanks to the distraction created by Bradford and Kelly, as well as the efforts of Dragunova, city center forces were minimal during the rescue operation, limited to a handful of troops and a group of reinforcements.

Tutorial Geoscape, Part 1

Dan's Notes: During the recording, this cutscene stuttered, causing audio lag and making it a pain to watch. I have taken this footage from a compilation of cutscenes from the vanilla game. Credit to LFP Gaming for creating the original video, XCOM 2 All Cinematics / Cutscenes / Movie. All other cutscenes posted in this update were taken from my personal recording, and any future instances of outscourcing cutscenes will be noted.

Excerpt from Central Officer Bradford's Journal:

While I was acting undercover, I noticed a lot of commotion about it being the 20th anniversary of the "formation of the ADVENT Coalition". That's a load of bull. Just about any world leader that didn't willingly turn on humanity was being manipulated into doing so, usually with psionic mind control. 20 years, huh? You know, they say you get older your perception of time starts to speed up, but I remember every agonizing moment that led up to this point. Years of travelling and scraping by, slowly finding any other wandering survivors, hearing word of resistance groups until ultimately forming my own and branding it with those four letters I held onto to remember what once was. Osei and Ramirez might have just seemed like just another dissident to the ADVENT troops that slaughtered them, but I'll always remember their parts in reassembling XCOM.

One shower and a set of fresh clothes later, the Commander was ready to go to the science labs.

Dan's notes: The Commander is never given a canonical name, gender, speaking lines, or appearance. The Commander is effectively you, the person playing the video game. I think it's fun for players to create some kind of commandersona, so I have decided to create one. The core idea was to make someone comically unassuming for their elevated status within the fiction. One thing to note is that there isn't really any way to make a fat character in this game, and I'm pretty sure it would be a pain for a modder to pull off without serious clipping issues. As such, I decided to make the Commander fat.

Excerpt from Commander Stumpe's Journal:

Gosh, it's all so darn confusing. It felt like I had been on the longest war of my career, but then one day I find myself getting pulled out of a spacesuit and I'm told the whole thing ended 20 years ago. Jeez, I really hope maybe I can turn things around this time.

At the behest of Chief Science Officer Tygan, Commander ordered the Science team

Excerpt from Commander Stumpe's journal:

Dunno why he called himself a Chief Science Officer when it was really just him and any guy he trusted enough to handle equipment. Odd fellow, that guy. Wonder what happened to Vahlen.

Having survived Operation Gatecrasher, Jane Kelly was promoted from Rookie to Squaddie. Kelly had decided to specialize as a Ranger.

Dan's notes: Although they served as scout units in the vanilla game, their real specialties are their shotguns, which have a higher crit rate than other weapons, and goes up the more up close and personal the Ranger gets. Reapers and Templars outdo them on both stealth and melee terms.

Shortly afterwards, Commander Stumpe was invited by Central Officer Bradford to come to the research labs.

END OF PART 1