[Spoilers] How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love EXDEF

[Kanzler Sheev]

Alright so the Cleaners: Brainwashed Human Boogeymen that are the commandeered remains of what was once essentially the OG Xenonauts. To be honest, I really like the concept and it plays well into this fear the game tries to cultivate regarding the alien invasion, because even your fellow humans are suspect- a stark difference to X1.
But as much as I loved their story and origins, it just doesn’t make much sense to me. So the Cleaners have infiltrated world governments and are using this influence to further the Alien Agenda- except the Xenonauts are a government agency. We, as in the Xenonauts, get our funding primarily from our Member States. To me it seems when reading the fluff text surrounding the Cleaners, that they are everywhere and have taken over key government agencies to use as fronts for their operations.

How does that happen? How can vast stretches of government apparatuses go rouge without anyone noticing anything? I mean I suppose you could argue they just silenced those who did, but at that point, why stop there, why not just take over the governments of the world? If you have such freedom of movement why bother limiting yourself to the rotting carcass of EXDEF? In fact, with EXDEF being subverted, why did they allow the Xenonauts to be founded? Are the Xenonauts, just some schmucks from the UN who got together one day and thought, let’s Do EXDEF 2 Electric Boogaloo.

Now mind you, I like the Cleaners and the Lore, in principle, but it has to be cleaned up a lot to work in my opinion. When the Iceland base fell, how did the other Elements of EXDEF not notice? How did the Soviets & Americans not notice? Why do the cleaners not already control the entire world- what’s limiting them? Why did the Xenonauts form if there already was, ostensibly, an Earth Defence Force in place?

I propose a lore overhaul of the Cleaners. Yes keep EXDEF, but make it so that the Xenonauts were born out of their failure and turn the Cleaners from Men In Black to Global Terrorists. What do I mean by that? Well, it could be that after EXDEF fell, the Soviets & NATO Nuke Iceland to purge the Alien threat and the Xenonauts, a more independent and multilateral Fantasy-UN-ish global defence agency, is formed in response. Of course, EXDEF is not actually wiped out and the subverted remnants go into hiding with the help of their new alien overlords. I mean they could even keep their Iceland base, which the aliens could repair with Humans having to stay away due to radiation- there would be a certain irony to it. Like so, they could operate from the shadows the Aliens cast to influence world events, but still allow the Xenonauts enough breathing room to organically exist in the lore.

In general, if the Cleaners are to function properly, they need to be reevaluated and nerfed- at least in the lore. What do you think and how do you feel about them lore-wise?

Thanks for coming to my Ted-Talk

[Spotter]

Hmm ... Perhaps adding a very low % Breaks Free Control of Aliens chance for Cleaners would work? Of course, then the AI would have to decide whether they run away, or join your soldiers in the fight.
To counter that, the Aliens would have a better chance % of regaining control of the Cleaners when in Line-of-Sight.

Of course if not used, this would change the Lore a bit. To the point where we find out that Cleaners all have Neural Implants, keeping them under control.

That too, could be Researched by our Scientists, in the hope they find a way to Stun them remotely. Like an EMP LOS Gun? (Super Taser without wires.)

[Jaasrg]

I love my EXALT at home!

[TheDeadlyShoe]

you should probably add 'spoilers' to the thread title

Consider that cleaners are controlled with neural implants. This is a weakness in many ways; if the president of the USA has 1/3 of their brain replaced by implants, there's too much risk of someone noticing. The same applies to many other positions of power.

And the aliens do care a great deal about someone noticing. Clearly, their ability to get to earth has been very limited until recently; and if they lose the quantum beacon(s), it's game over for their invasion.

finally, the intelligence and black ops communities are famous for the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing. that is the problem with keeping everything secret. EXDEF would have been a victim of its own classification level: since very few people knew about it in the halls of power, it was relatively simple for the Cleaners to erase knowledge of its existence.

[robbie.price]

I like the "The very people we tasked to do this the first time fell victim to the invaders, we booted you up as a last minute bandaid. Oh and we spent all the money and gave all the good kit to the previous team, which is why you're so pathetically underfunded. goodluck".

Rather than the current you're underfunded because your true base got blown up in the tutorial mission, and you're working out of your secondary base.... but if you build a third base it will also be for no apparent reason the same quality as the 1960s style base without hot water or hot food *canonically from the introduction scene to the new place*.

[Neo in Wonderland]

You mean the Advent?

[Wolfensniper]

The official forum have zero lore discussions so here I am.

In my mindlore I'll take that Xenonauts is different from EXDEF because it's primarily UN funded, under some international Space Program, instead of a clendestine US-USSR cooperaiton. Which means that it's partly free from US/USSR intervene because although its funding/equipment/personnel came from NATO and PACT, they report directly to the UN Commite than the US/USSR officials.

Early lore (sadly deleted) also mentioned that Xenonauts was originally meant to be a group of scientists who were the members of EXDEF but have to rely on their own because US/USSR lost interest and pulled out funds, and managed to develop X-25 and convinced the global powers to form the new Xenonauts (because X-25 was the only aircraft that can detect and pursue UFO). However it might not be the case for the current lore.

I'm still not familiar with current lore but I'll reckon EXDEF went rogue unnoticed, so for the governments it just seems that the people who were working in the EXDEF silently retired to their country home after the US/USSR pulled out the funding of the project. And they were operating silently (with the help of rogue government agents) so they were always under the radar until Xenonauts had found the connection. From the government perspective the EXDEF and Xenonauts are like Project Bluebook and the UAP Investigation Commitee, yes their roles are similar, but they're not related at all and completely diffrenet organisations, and it has been decades since EXDEF was active so people assume the previous memebers are old men or dead.

The actual scale of the infiltration should also taken into consideration. Managed to manipulate the government agency with few proxies and agents are different from replacing the entire agency with alien collaborators. It's like a rouge element of CIA SAD + a rouge CIA Deputy chief that can use their position to collaborate with alien, is very much different from the whole CIA, including agents and the Chief, and the whole Chief of Staffs, are under the Cleaner's control. They can infiltrate government agencies and manipulate them, but they don't have enough power to control the whole government because it took too much effort/would have too much notice, so they're keeping a low profile. I'm pretty sure though that the Xenonaut base coordinate was sold by the rogue agents of the Cleaners.

Although I agree with you, there're several loopholes in the story, especially it's EA and most of the details are not completed yet and the pace are too quick from Cleaners to the whole multiple dimention thing. They should actually explore on the Cleaner role and have more related events to them, like how the Cleaners hinder the funding/development/operation of the Xenonaut and even managed to insert a spy inside the organisation, or how the Cleaners revealed themselves at the peak of the conflict and try to start civil wars within several countries. They should also explore more on this alternative Cold War setting, about how different regions based on their geopolitical needs would react to the alien threats or the incursion of Xenonauts into their territory.

[Ichthyic]

"How can vast stretches of government apparatuses go rouge without anyone noticing anything?"

Have you asked the Americans who voted for Trump?