Did Enemy Unknown/Enemy Within happen?

[Saryn]

After playing vanilla XCOM 2 twice and just stating WOTC and SLG, I wondered if Enemy Unknown/Enemy Within actually happen because Dr. Tygan explained that the commander was going through some sort of tactical game simulation and there was footage of EU/EW gameplay. The aliens did take over earth and during the TLP Central does explain that he made it out of the XCOM HQ after it's failed defence against the aliens. I am very confused about it, Did EU/EW happen or not?

[talemore]

Originally posted by lPaladinl:

Maybe XCOM 2 is all just a simulation and never actually happened.

I'm sure it was said in xcom2 that xcom:Eu/ew was a tactical combat simulation used by the aliens and when you disconnected the commander advent stopped learning how to defeat xcom.

[lPaladinl]

Originally posted by talemore:

I'm sure it was said in xcom2 that xcom:Eu/ew was a tactical combat simulation used by the aliens and when you disconnected the commander advent stopped learning how to defeat xcom.

But what if that was still part of the simulation, and XCOM 2 is just a simulation of a simulation?

[Tenebris]

Originally posted by lPaladinl:

Originally posted by talemore:

I'm sure it was said in xcom2 that xcom:Eu/ew was a tactical combat simulation used by the aliens and when you disconnected the commander advent stopped learning how to defeat xcom.

But what if that was still part of the simulation, and XCOM 2 is just a simulation of a simulation?

I'm 14 and this is deep

/s if that's not obvious

[kingarthur772]

Yep it happend but humanity lost. The Humans couldn´t do anything against the PSI-Things the Aliens used. So Bradford explains in the Files, that we had known what´s comming, but we were to far Military to hold off the Alien-Attack on Earth.

Especialy the secret XCom Headquaters were destroyed from in not outside (remember the PSI-Attacks from the Aliens). All military forces surrenderd after that and many of the were transformed into the first ADVENT-Troops. Most Civilians got into the new Citys under ADVENT-Control.

All others (Military / Civilians) which were running into the Woods formed the remaining human resistance. First on their own, then in small groups, then in Cells. But Bradford tried to form them in a world wide resistance, but couldn´t get it without a big support. So he have to work which he has already and get more.

In the Book, which tells the Story between XCom EU / EW and XCom 2 / XCom 2 WotC / XCom 2 WotC with TLC-Pack, Bradford come back to help a Resistance Group and formed a first Resitance Group under his Command. But most importand he met Dr. Vahlen again, which have an secret Laboratory (her known second Lab) on an Island which were not under Alien Control for normal Researches / special Researches which helped Bradford and the Resistance for a while (if I remember it correctly).

And the Transport-Craft from Dr. Vahlen is an medium old U-Boat which is a much smaller Variant from the Avanger. After that one Meeting with Dr. Vahlen again the contact between Dr. Vahlen and Bradford got lost permanently. Because the secret Lab was detected from an ADVENT or Alien-Patrol, which makes a destruction of that Lab necessary.

After that Bradford got a little more influence to the restisatnce Groups he knows already and they begunn sometime later previous Investigation-Operations in Citys and so on to get the Commander back as well as get materials for the Buildup for the Avanger and much more under Bradfords lead.

That´s the Story in Short from the Book, the Data-Archive and the TLC-Operations.

[T.K.]

Simply: Yes, they happened, but not in the way we want.

Canon wise, as linked in an article below, the events as normal started with how the games did. But we lost in about 3 months, without laser weapons (likely with marathon being the more realistic time scale, or as others theorize (and willl be brought up again later) XCOM focused on Psi). But the end result was we were woefully overwelmed, and worst of all, before we even really lost, countries were already backing out of the council, leaving of with less support (likely another reason lasers weren't created on time). The equivalent is if you wanted to play this canon would be playing Impossible with Ironman difficulty, as your FIRST time ever playing the game with no guides or walkthroughs (I haven't beat the game Iron man on Commander yet, even with following a step by step guide). And even ignoring that it has to be the first time, just over 1% of players have EVER completed iron man PERIOD, on any difficulty.

So, theyre canon as long as you played the hardest possible version of it

https://www.ign.com/articles/2015/06/11/xcom-2s-bleak-future-why-impossible-iron-man-mode-is-canon-ign-first

Now, there are definite refrences to the things that could have taken place:

>Tygan mentions that Vahlen did interrogate and capture aliens

>The Spider suit is found in old abandoned plans, likely in the concept stage still

>Van Doorn is alive (though Bradford calls him a clown and doesn't recruit him)

>Our Mec Troopers likely were the foundation for Advents MECs

>The Advent Troopers are clearly genetically modiefed, like Vahlen's Meld Experiments

>The SPARKS themselves were likely based off of early theory ideas of the MECs, but without Meld, could not integrate the human elements

>Geist (Templar leader) is said to be the escaped and survivng test subject of Vahlen's psionix experiments before the base was raided. Could explain why he is comparatively quick to join forces with you

>Mutons, Thin men/Vipers, Sectoids, Floaters, Chryssalids, and Beserkers have comparrisons drawn to their earlier renditions. Oddly, the Gatekeeper (which was likely the successor to the cyber disk) and the Codex (succesor of the outsider) aren't seemingly recognized by the others (potentially due to their drastically new looks). Mutons and Chryssalids usually don't appear in the early months too often, so for them to be easily recognized implies that the aliens didn't send out the scouting parties they did in game, instead attacking in force. Mechtoids aren't reborn or reused, as with the above logic, the sectopods already dominate the field.

And there's many other refrences to plans from notes and just idle chatter that implies that the simulations at least had a basis in truth. The simulations you're forced into are as accurate as can be, while giving you a chance of success. Which would fully test your skill and give them the results they needed.

Our canon adventures were breif. Its how that first impossible difficulty wnet. Remember how OG Shen said that if the aliens wanted to, they could easily over power XCOM? That's what happened. But we somehow impressed the aliens, they saw our skill despite our defeat. And they build a simulation close to the truth, in order to fool us, in order to study us and use us. So, canon real world, none of it really happened. But in the canon, EVERY game you played of EU and EW is part of your expierences and part of what trained you. EXALT was added later, and could potentially be the aliens testing your skills against human rebellion factions. We never fought a rebel leader... So maybe that was Central, who always escaped at the end.

[Cpt. Kid]

Yeah I talked about this earlier awhile back in another post and others were talking about this. I didnt play Enemy Within where the aliens land at the base?

Im pretty sure aliens either won the war or infiltrated earth and turned X-Com into the terrorist group with Advent as the coalition forces and X-Com as OPFOR.

Enemy Within do the aliens take over Central (X-Com base)?

[hammerstar]

Originally posted by Cpt. Kid:

Yeah I talked about this earlier awhile back in another post and others were talking about this. I didnt play Enemy Within where the aliens land at the base?

Im pretty sure aliens either won the war or infiltrated earth and turned X-Com into the terrorist group with Advent as the coalition forces and X-Com as OPFOR.

Enemy Within do the aliens take over Central (X-Com base)?

Well, there is a base defense mission about halfway through the story, where the aliens attack XCOM directly, and failing that mission immediately ends the game, as in you have to load an earlier save to try again.

So it makes sense that in XCOM 2's canon, that's where XCOM 1's story ended, because the commander was captured and XCOM was broken.

[emc]

Originally posted by Rockfire ✘:

basically everything in eu/ew is canon up until the first month or two. After that everything goes horribly wrong, xcom gets disavowed and the governments of earth submit to the elders, the commander becomes a cpu for the aliens. bradford spends the next 20 years rebuilding xcom until finding the commander at the beginning of xcom 2

i hope for xcom 3 we get to revisit this 20 period where we build xcom from the ground up.

[lPaladinl]

Originally posted by emc:

Originally posted by Rockfire ✘:

basically everything in eu/ew is canon up until the first month or two. After that everything goes horribly wrong, xcom gets disavowed and the governments of earth submit to the elders, the commander becomes a cpu for the aliens. bradford spends the next 20 years rebuilding xcom until finding the commander at the beginning of xcom 2

i hope for xcom 3 we get to revisit this 20 period where we build xcom from the ground up.

That sounds really boring to me honestly, given that the new challenge missions have Central explaining those 20 years in enough detail already.