July 4th, 2040
Today is Independence Day, at least for the Americans amongst the X-Com staff. We celebrated in the traditional manner - fireworks, hot dogs, hamburgers . . . oh, and sending another Alien sub straight to Hell while it was poking around the South Pacific.
Oh, and the science team has finished studying the live Calcinite we brought back from the mission on board the Hugo Chavez.
It's not a particularly enlightening report, though.
◊ Perhaps an autopsy will be of more value.
July 5th, 2040
Well, the report is in on the Calcinite autopsy.
◊ The only thing the scientists were able to gain from it were clues on as to the function of the strange bladed weapons carried by certain Aliens.
Interesting, but I fail to see how they'll be of any use to us.
July 15th, 2040
If these Vibro Blades
◊ the Eeks carry are so damn effective, why don't they use them?
Another inscrutable mystery of our foes. Still, one more weapon in our arsenal. Perhaps we should experiment with them on our next colony assault - one I plan to execute at the end of next month.
July 24, 2040
Another small sub, another kill for Barracuda-Three.
You'd think they'd stop sending these after a while. Really, you would.
July 31, 2040
The latest funding report is in.
◊ Everyone except the Neo-Japanese are happy with our activities, but then again what do you expect from a bunch of traitors?
August 5, 2040
We've got the information on how the Alien Sonic Cannon
◊ works, and how to manufacture clips
◊ for it. Time, I think, to put it into service.
August 6, 2040
If we see one of these around, we know that Echo's out to do some mining
◊. They're heavily armed and armored, to discourage piracy.
That's not going to stop us, though. Echo's pillaging material that's rightfully ours, and we'll take it from them - by physical force, if necessary.
August 11, 2040
This worries me greatly. I can but hope that the Aquanauts there are prepared to repel an attack.
I may transfer some of our more experienced troops to Redback Base, to head up the defense of that facility.
August 16, 2040
This is a Thermal Shok Launcher
◊, and this is its ammo
◊. It will be replacing the Thermal Tazer as the standard-issue capture equipment for X-Com aquanauts.
August 17, 2040
In the process of their interrogations, the science team here at Augustica Base has developed a theory
◊ as to the origin and purpose of this new breed of Echo.
It is one that has been suspected by some time - that some of these "new" aliens are, in fact, the ancient ancestors of races encountered during the First Alien War, while others are branches of terrestrial evolution thought dead by mankind, yet repurposed by Echo to serve as soldiers in a mighty army.
It seems that Echo also has a network of devices strewn across the seabed - nodes in what has been termed a "Molecular Control Network". Each one of these, when activated, has the potential to increase the strength of their Molecular Control abilities by several orders of magnitude; if all of them should be activated, then mankind will surely fall.
We will have to keep a careful eye out for activity that may indicate the presence of one of these so-called "Synomium Devices" - each one we can destroy will significantly hamper Echo's planned takeover.
August 24, 2040
We've left that Antarctic colony alone long enough that Echo should be complacent by now.
Time to go kick that particular anthill over, I think.
