"In the year 200X aliens invaded from another dimension. After a long and bloody war, a fragile peace was achieved. Now go, date cute alien immigrants, and get your Kirk on."
Created by Bromeliad
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Enemy Quest is a Romance/Science-Fiction Interactive Comic/Forum Quest in the same vein as Ruby Quest and its more recent Spiritual Successor Nan Quest. It follows the story of one Zack Nguyen as he's hired by a government agency to take place in a cultural exchange program with Earth's newest residents: the Visitors, a collection of four alien races from another dimension.
The Visitors first came to Earth when they opened a portal between their dimension and humanity's and started invading. Thankfully a truce was eventually signed and now an uneasy peace has settled between humanity and the Visitors, allowing immigrants from the Visitor's dimension to make their way to earth. This is where Zack and others like him come in. How are they supposed to learn about their new, alien neighbors?
Simple: interspecies dating!
Zack finds himself representing humanity as he gets romantic with four pretty alien ladies, each representing a species of Visitor.
Meet the objects of Zack's affection:
- GG: A red, four-armed, powerful woman from a proud warrior race.
- Polyphema: A cyclops who helps Zack understand a bit about the other races.
- Bika: A shy skut girl who uses a lot of emoticons. Likes to cook and play video games.
- Meg: A jet-black skinned hot shot with a thing for wargaming. Is the first Floater capable of romantic affection.
The comic has several moments of drama and humor, can get pretty NSFW at times, and the writing remains of the highest quality throughout the threads.
Beware of massive spoilers! You have been warned!
The Questden page can be found here and the first thread can be found here.
Enemy Quest contains examples of:
- Action Bomb: During the war the Skut would strap bombs to their backs and ambush human fireteams. Anyone who the blast didn't get was splashed with their acidic blood.
- Alien Invasion: The Visitors invaded earth from another dimension and started slaughtering humanity. Internal strife and growing sympathy for the humans led to a truce.
- Another Dimension: Where the Visitors originally came from. There they have their own planet: a world mostly covered in water with a single supercontinent à la Pangaea.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: The Visitors, save the Skut, are all Humanoid Aliens. However, a Visitor would never be mistaken for a human.
- Oculots: They have one eye and they can shoot fireballs from it. They have spines on their hips and shoulders. They have very long tongues and can live up to 800-900 years old.
- Warriors: Big, red, four-armed soldier creatures with fiery, orange eyes. They're ridiculously strong and tough and as a culture are extremely competitive.
- Skut: Speedy rodent-lizard hybrid critters with six eyes. Have acid for blood. An individual Skut is actually a singular personality and intellect spread over multiple bodies.
- Floaters: Half-cybernetic flying things. Instead of lower legs they have powerful jet boosters. They're all very cold and emotionless. Every Floater is a clone of another Floater.
- Bloody Murder: Much like the Xenomorphs of Alien fame, the Skut possess acidic blood. They used it to lethal effect during the war, as their status as the Visitor's suicide bombers meant that anyone their blasts didn't get would end up splashed with the stuff.
- Brand X: A fast-food chain called "Tesla's" is mentioned. They carry an item called "Bugzapper burgers", but apparently only sell them on the anniversary of the day when the truce with the Visitors was signed.
- Bullying the Dragon: On Zack's first date with GG, an eight foot tall Warrior woman, a drunk, angry redneck starts harassing her. The same thing happens again on Zack's first date with Polyphema, a woman who can shoot Eye Beams and make Your Head Asplode.
- Cyborg: The Floaters are an entire species of these. They all possess some form of rocket propelled flight, some have weaponry mounted on their bodies, and there is an array of various other augmentations for Floaters to be equipped with. As every Floater is a clone and created for a specific task, individual augmentations tend to vary.
- The Empath: Oculots are a form of this, living in a perpetual state of sonder, constantly aware that everyone around them has a life outside of theirs, complete with their own thoughts, feelings, and emotions. They combine this with a form of sightline based telepathy, allowing them to share thoughts, feelings, and even sensations with other Oculots. However, using their telepathic power on a non-Oculot has consequences for the non-Oculot. The killing Oculot suffers too, as they receive feedback from the dying non-Oculot in the form of "Last thoughts. Bits of memories, [...] And how it feels to die."
- Fantastic Racism: The Visitors invaded Earth and started slaughtering humanity, beginning a war that lasted for over twenty years. Even though a truce was signed, officially ending the war, Visitors on Earth still suffer segregation and open hostility from their human neighbors due to wartime atrocities.
- Fun with Acronyms: The Human Visitor Affairs Office, or HVAO (sometimes pronounced H-Vow). Their job is to keep the peace between humanity and the Visitors, and to study the Visitor's culture and mannerisms.
- Hive Mind: The Skut. An individual Skut's mind is formed from individual, blood-related Skut bodies, with the bodies acting as appendages and sensory organs for the mind. An individual body, separated from its group by long distances, becomes less intelligent and finds it difficult to focus.
- Humanoid Aliens: As mentioned above, most Visitor species have a basic humanoid shape with some differences. The Skut don't count because they look like short dog/rodent/lizard hybrid creatures with six eyes.
- Interspecies Romance: The focus of the story. Zack and other eligible humans were selected by the government to hold a cultural exchange with the Visitors, using dating as the setting.
- Le Parkour: Practiced by Zack and his friends. Zack introduces GG to it on his second date with her, and she proves to be a natural.
- Lightning Bruiser: The Warriors are this, being both incredibly strong and surprisingly swift and agile. Their durability is nothing to sneeze at either, as "During the war, they put on brass armor and charged through hails of bullets."
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: The Warriors live up to their name, being large, red skinned, four armed bruisers with a cultural focus on competitiveness. During the Visitor's war with humanity, Warriors were noted for putting on brass armor, charging through hails of bullets, and killing with their bare hands.
- Your Head Asplode: Oculots cause this when they use their telepathy on non-Oculots. They pay for it by getting feedback from the victim in the form of last thoughts, chunks of memories, and the sensation of death. Understandably, they don't like doing it.
