History WMG / XCOM2

[[WMG: There will be a TakeThat somewhere regarding the Viper's EvilIsSexy reputation]]

* There's just no reason for the aliens to waste good HumanResources on food when they're working hard on the Avatar Project. Rather, the "meat" in ADVENT burgers is a genetically engineered and "vat-grown" meat substance, designed by the aliens for maximum flavor. All the best tastes humans generally agree on, combined with a few choice chemicals that directly stimulate the pleasure centers of the brain, making them psychologically addictive. It's just another means of controlling the human populace. Gene Therapy clinics to cure disease and increase health and longevity, clean and shiny city centers with unlimited power and high-tech luxury devices, [[EvilIsSexy sexy snake ladies,]] and the best food you've ever had and as much of it as you can eat.

* [[spoiler: It's ultimately revealed that the Avatars are super-soldier Human/Ethereal hybrids, letting the Ethereals cheat health problems, and creating an unstoppable brand of supersoldiers that would make The Volunteer look like a field-day rookie]].

* [[spoiler:Implied in the post-tutorial flashback snippets, the command center falling apart and a Muton barging in to rifle-butt the Commander in the head, knocking you out.]]

*** With the release of the Alien Rulers DLC, [[spoiler:she ends up pushing the limits of genetic engineering and creates extremely powerful versions of the Viper, Berserker, and Archon that serve as random boss encounters.]]

* Confirmed, in that there are "Dark Agendas" pushed by the Advent, often threatening XCOM by choking supplies, increasing enemies in missions, or [[spoiler: advancing the Avatar Project to destroy XCOM for good]]. However, rather than simply record these attrocities, XCOM either steals data in relation to the Agendas, or kidnaps ADVENT government officials overseeing the Agendas. [[spoiler: However, [[BrokenMasquerade exposing ADVENT's true agenda of]] [[HumanResources melting down humans to aid their genetics research]], [[TheWarSequence and thus making ALL of humanity rise up against ADVENT]], is the penultimate goal before the final mission, [[DoNotAdjustYourSet complete with using the ADVENT Tower to highjack a global broadcast, showing the gruesome footage to the world]].]]

* [[spoiler:Jossed, as the Avatar project is unrelated to controlling the populace.]]

* Jossed, considering the multi-lingual nature of XCOM still persists in XCOM 2 without any negative consequences, and it's more implied that XCOM fell [[spoiler: when the aliens kidnapped the Commander during the XCOM Base Assault, decapitating XCOM while also dealing irreparable troop losses]].

* [[spoiler: Confirmed, although the Gene Clinics are only part of the conspiracy. The records of those attending Gene Clinics lets ADVENT pick and round up [[HumanResources prime human subjects to be processed in the quest to advance the aliens genetics]], with the Avatar Project leading to a Human-Ethereal hybrids to both save the deteriorating Ethereals, and create unstoppable supersoldiers to purge what's left of XCOM]].

** Semi-confirmed. [[spoiler: After the last mission, a large cutscene plays, mostly the inverse of the opening scene, with XCOM and resistance people broadcasting about defeating ADVENT, caring for refugees, etc. There's one newscaster still loyal to ADVENT, awkwardly trying to brush off the ''global rebellion'' as minor insurrection and urging people to stay calm.]]

* [[spoiler: Jossed, at least at first glance: between exposing ADVENT's agenda to the world, and destroying the Avatar Project with the Elders, humanity is united as one front to push the ADVENT forces to the brink of total collapse. However, given the hints from the Elders that [[AlwaysABiggerFish they were fleeing an even worse force that annihilated their home planet]], and TheStinger at the ruins of the Alien Fortress, [[HereWeGoAgain humanity likely hasn't fought its last war against an alien menace...]]]]

** With the release of the Alien Rulers DLC, this is jossed. [[spoiler: She ends up pushing the limits of genetic engineering and creates the Viper King, Berserker Queen, and Archon King who end up getting loose and serving as random boss encounters.]]

* [[spoiler: Confirmed: During the final mission, XCOM storms the Ethereal fortress to bring an end to the Avatar Project and the alien leaders, while the rest of the world fights against Advent in one huge offensive. Central gives you glimpses of it via radio during the mission.]]

* Jossed. [[spoiler: The final mission takes place in the depths of Earth's ocean. However, you do also fight and destroy the Elders, and the Avatar super-soldiers they are using as hosts.]]

** Jossed, [[spoiler: the tutorial involves rescuing [[PlayerCharacter you]] from a gene clinic]]; the Avenger has been recovered and fixed some time before that.

* Fifth class is confirmed as the [[spoiler: Psi Operative]]. Video and overview of their skill tree [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjE_JSqLt0Y here]].

** [[spoiler: Seemingly Jossed - while allegedly part of ADVENT, it's ultimately clear that the Informant is really TheMole, and any proof that he would be a double agent is jossed when [[HeroicSacrifice he breaks into the Unity Tower to broadcast information to shut down the ADVENT, shortly before ADVENT guards burst into gun him down]]]].

** [[spoiler: Since TheStinger seems to take place under the ocean, we may actually have Terror In The Deep as the next sequel/expansion.]]

[[WMG: The Speaker [[spoiler: was indeed killed during the start of the riots.]] ]]
[[spoiler: The aliens just have multiple Speakers, and they trotted a new one out to try and regain control/harass X-Com.]]
* Alternately, [[spoiler: the Angelis Ethereal was simply replicating the Speaker's voice with their psionic communication since the turn before the Speaker starts goading XCOM, the Ethereal ends their speech by commenting to herself about how the Commander was unwilling to listen to her words or voice, ending it in a way as if musing that [[ManipulativeBastard a voice that's usually viewed with trust and respect by humanity]] would allow her to convey her message. Unfortunately, she didn't consider that the voice she picked wasn't so popular with humanity anymore and was never trusted by XCOM to begin with.]]

[[WMG: Alternatively, The Speaker [[spoiler: survived.]] ]]
[[spoiler: Remember how Thin Men could use poison spit? The Speaker might have used this ability while he was being mobbed. This, unfortunately, means that whoever attacked him suffered agonizing deaths by poison.]]

[[WMG: The Avatar [[spoiler:controlled by the Commander in the last level was originally Annette Durand]]]]
* She is/was a ''very'' powerful psionic, able to create a shockwave without any psi training, and the aliens were ready to blow up a dam over her while EXALT was willing to fight their allies for her so she had to be quite powerful [[spoiler: and the Commander's Avatar is able to curb stomp three Avatars]].

[[WMG: Alternatively, [[spoiler: the Commander of the XCOM 2 timeline was Annette Durand (or another soldier selected to be The Volunteer) in Enemy Unknown/Within]]]]
* Again, counting [[spoiler: Annette]] as being the most powerful psionic being in the world (to the point that [[spoiler: the aliens used her as a conduit to en-masse mind control the personnel of XCOM's base long enough to begin their assault]]), being able to [[spoiler: survive being a WetwareCPU in the alien's Psionic Network and then winning a BeamOWar against multiple Ethereals]] is easily within her grasp. As for what she's doing [[spoiler: coming from Enemy Unknown?]] Well, it's been confirmed by WordOfGod that [[spoiler: The Volunteer, be it Annette or another XCOM member, managed to survive to cancel the black hole caused by the Uber Ethereal's ship, with the implication they went somewhere else instead of dying. In this case, Annette/The Volunteer gets blasted to the past of XCOM 2, and tries to invoke a StableTimeLoop by becoming the Commander of XCOM - only to get overwhelmed by the aliens when the Commander of the Enemy Unknown/Within timeline held their ground, thus leading to their defeat and enslavement by the aliens]].

** Close. In the Alien Rulers DLC,[[spoiler: she creates three units that are empowered versions of the viper, berserker, and archon enemies. These empowered aliens end up getting loose and serve as random boss encounters.]]

** Vahlen is not found out and continues working with the aliens, who fast-track the Avatar project after their key strategic asset is removed. Vahlen, a trustworthy asset, is put in charge of it, and she keeps leaking details about Avatar to the Informant- things like where their next facility will be built- but doesn't have full access to the data, which is why you need to find the location of [[spoiler: The Blacksite, the Forge, and the Psionic Gate]] via hacking into various things.

* Jossed: [[spoiler: As of Alien Hunters, we find out that Vahlen has been conducting genetic experiments in a hidden lab with three alien subjects so dangerous [[EvenEvilHasStandards that the Etherals]] had them frozen to prevent them from running amok.]]

* Alternatively, s/he's been quietly altered by Magnus of the Thousand Sons, having used his last bit of sorcery to affect the point where humanity first learned to [[AbsoluteXenophobe hate the alien]], making it so that the human most altered by the Ethereals (merging with the psionic network) survived and showed that s/he was still human in all the important ways. He did this to find [[RedemptionQuest some modicum of internal forgiveness]] by altering history just enough to be accepting of psykers (the Psi Lab actually creating them on relative command) and genetic alterations (the [[spoiler:Commander's Avatar]])-thus, starving the Chaos Gods of trillions of worshipers [[ThenLetMeBeEvil drove to their side]] and leading to a less grimdark future. Of course, [[MagnificentBastard Tzeentch]] knew about this, but decided to let it happen-a humanity more accepting of psykers and change [[XanatosSpeedChess means more fruitful ground for his own cult]]...

A combination of theories posited so far - Somewhere in time and space, an unknown "evil" race dominates not only their universe, but also spill out into alternative dimensions, where they encounter pre-XCOM 1 Ethereals. Some of the members of this "evil" race try to encourage the Ethereals [[spoiler: to ascend]] by sharing their superior technology with them, while others bear a grudge against the Ethereals (for reasons that will be made clear shortly) and try to eliminate the Ethereals [[spoiler: with a degenerative virus]] instead. The Ethereals' [[spoiler: degenerating bodies makes them desperate and they ultimately]] search for dimensions not dominated by the "evil" race. In at least two of these alternative dimensions, they find the freedom [[spoiler: to experiment on lesser races in an effort to save themselves and ultimately ascend]]. However, in every single one of these dimensions, humans adapt and adopt the Ethereal's borrowed technology and use it to defeat the Ethereals. [[spoiler: What's more, the humans evolve beyond the capabilities and technology possessed by the Ethereals, and eventually conquer them and go on to dominate the universe. The humans ultimately spill out into alternative dimensions, where they find Ethereals that have never encountered humans before and have no degenerative virus. The humans are the "evil" race that create their own worst enemy. This would actually go some way towards explaining the Ethereals' words at the end of XCOM 2, where they claim that the humans are the original aggressors]]

[[spoiler: The humans-into-orange-vial process seen in XCOM 2's black site may have already been undertaken on the Outsiders seen in The Bureau by the time XCOM 1 began.]] The Outsider Shard may be a technologically re-worked version of the orange vial seen in XCOM 2.

[[spoiler: At several points during the game, we see an Ethereal silhouette doing hand waves in the camera's direction - when the Commander flatlines as the brain chip is being removed, and when the connection to the Avatar is established. My theory is that there is an Ethereal alongside the Commander's own mind within his brain. Initially, it was placed there to keep him under control, but it realized that Mankind had better chances of defeating the great menace that its own people. So it decided to help the Commander by keeping him alive and helping the connection with the Avatar. This explains why the other Ethereals call the Commander a 'betrayer' in the final cutscene - also it could just be them being hypocrites since they forced the Commander to work for them in the past.]]
* [[spoiler: Building off of this, the renegade Ethereal in question may be [[XCOMTheBureau Asaru]], considering the bright blue psionic aura the Commander's Avatar has in the final mission]].

Ok, this is going to take some time to explain: After the original XCOM (as in UFO Defense), XCOM was disbanded as a military organization, and forced to become PrivateMilitaryContractors for [[CorruptCorporateExecutive F. Denman Williams]] during XCOM: Terror From The Deep. Considering TheStinger teases [[spoiler: a possible set-up for Terror From The Deep, with psionic energy bubbling up from the remains of the Avatar Project base]], it's possible that the post-ADVENT world would have the nations of the world reestablished by EXALT, and with F. Denman Williams or his counterpart serving the Councilman's role as a go-between for the privatized XCOM and their EXALT paymasters, [[TeethClenchedTeamwork with the two working together (barely) to fight against]] [[spoiler: whatever force destroyed the home planet of the Ethereals.]]

[[WMG:In the end the aliens lost because that did not understand [[spoiler: Intoxication]] ]]
Over the course of the final mission the [[spoiler: etherials or elders which ever you want to call them]] repeatedly appeal to the commander to stop the war [[spoiler: because of all the years he spent "with" them presumably in the alien psy network before he was saved.]] They expected it to work, legitimately and without irony, which is why they tried talking so many times. The reason it didn't however wasn't human ingenuity or the will to survive, it was [[spoiler: how the human body reacts to intoxication of any kind, drugs, alcohol, anything that alters the state of mind to a certain degree.]] See thanks to human physiology [[spoiler: memory formation can be effected by an altered state of mind, for example being blackout drunk or so fucking high you don't remember anything you did while under the influence until the next time your in the same state. The actual name for it Alcoholic Memory Syndrome, posits that because a person is under the influence the way there memories are recorded is slightly altered from normal making it very difficult if not impossible to remember when sober but when next intoxicated to roughly the same level those memories become accessible again because your mind is functioning the same way. The result of this is that the commander experienced a roughly decade long blackout because of the high he was experiencing off all that psonic energy flowing through his body.]] He legitimately couldn't remember [[spoiler: the entire decade he'd spent in the network as a result.]]

* If this is the case, then what are the [[spoiler: weird purplish tendrils crawling out of the wreckage of the ethereal underwater base?]]
** [[spoiler: weird purplish tendrils of energy that look a lot like weird purplish psionic energy coming out of the pile of Ethereal bodies?]]

[[WMG: The greater threat is [[spoiler: the Kaiju from Film/PacificRim]] ]]
[[spoiler: The glowing trench shown at the end is the portal they come through. The Jaegers are scaled up MECs using a mixture of sectopod tech and the Avatar control system. And XCOM and the Jaeger program are both [[MultinationalTeam multinational organizations]] that have to deal with [[CosmopolitanCouncil councils made up of the world governments]] who keep [[ObstructiveBureaucrat cutting their funding.]]]]
[[WMG:Not all Advent Troopers are Vat Grown]]

The ethereals are certainly conniving, ruthless bastards. That much is pure to be seen from the destruction/enslavement of several other failed host species. However, humans were given rather preferential treatment because of their genetic predisposition for handling psionic energy. [[spoiler: That same energy that has caused the near-extinction and wasting degeneration of the ethereals, which is what the avatar project had hoped to combat.]] Unfettered though they are, I don't think the ethereals would be as ungrateful for having found what they were looking for in humanity as to purge them from existence.

Hypothetical situation: XCOM and the resistance is quashed, the Avatar Project is completed, said avatars are now "rolled out" [[spoiler: to the five or so ethereals that are left, who exert themselves as the dominant powers.]] As their rule [[spoiler: and survival]] is all but assured, I see no reason why the ethereals and ADVENT wouldn't just leave the contented, docile population of the city centers alone. ADVENT clearly has enough troops to keep the peace within the centers, the media is firmly under their control, hardly anything happens without their knowing within those centers, and the average person is genuinely happy and healthy. There's little reason to worry about what will happen if the grip on the reins is loosened a bit. While it may not be a particularly ideal future for humankind, it is a future, and I don't think it's nearly as dark or apocalyptic as the bad ending of [=UFO=] Defense

Most likely, Meld was a fictional resource that existed only [[spoiler:within the tactical simulations that the Commander was running for ADVENT]], to:

The Ethereals saw in us something far greater then any other species they encountered had presented [[spoiler:the chance at extending their dwindling lives. The Ethereals, for all of their power and technology, had reached the absolute limit of what they could do to preserve their bodies. More and more of them failed leaving the inhabitants as bound wraiths, kept existent by the psionic power they wielded but also trapped by it, left unable to rule from beyond the mortal coil. Humanity had just the right mix to be re-engineered into the perfect shells for them to inhabit, with all the physical potential of humanity and psionic might of the Ethereals.]]

[[spoiler: Five alien food rations says the commander was the fourth Chosen.]]

** The Hunter: He seems to be the earliest attempt, geared towards forging a combat-oriented Avatar using an adult Human male, [[spoiler:according to the comic and books he was a Reaper, which makes sense]], but his psionic genes were grafted on past maturity, so his psionics are low and only amplified his aiming skill.

In order to truly gauge The Commander's tactical and strategic abilities, ADVENT put them through the NintendoHard early games. Since there is the implication of something deep in the ocean that the Ethereals are preparing to fight, ''Terror From The Deep'' is used to prepare for such a scenario. Also, the [[spoiler: Avatars]] bear a suspicious resemblance to the personal armour from ''UFO Defence'', right down to the AnimeHair.

[[WMG: The [[spoiler: Etherals]] could have saved themselves long before earth if not for [[spoiler: greed and pride]]

[[spoiler: The Etherals were masters of genetic manipulation, and likely [[GoneHorriblyRight enhanced their psionic oowers to such a chronically wasting extreme]]. Regardless of origins they could have voluntarily {{Nerf}}ed themselves. But that would have required no longer mind controlling multiple entire civilizations. They literally let themselves become a DyingRace rather than even a temporary reduction of power.]]