Like I said it wouldn't be straight up hey let's build a fuckin MEC no it would be awhile. One of the first things I would have to do is begin Organization of the Military. I would try and form Regiments or Battalions With the soldiers we have and not to mention the ones we will end up Recruiting during these Post war days. I would also have to form a Navy branch when XCOM develops space travel on a grander scale and the need arises for it. The air force branch will have to be tweaked and formed into squadrons and then deployed in equel number with a rotation where a single squadron is on active duty for a month and the the reserve squadron goes on active. So that we keep them rotated. I would also have to fix a Rank system that either is standard for all branches or make new ones for each branch. So a lot of work will have to be done for XCOMs armed forces to be up to snuff and for our forces power to be consolidated.
X-COM is like... absurdly tiny right now. Even if it was twice, or even three times as large as it is in the games, that's still like... Maybe two or three platoons, tops. You're gonna need a pretty big recruitment drive to get to regiment or battalion level manpower, and right now... The world is still in pieces.
I have to side with Druby on this one. XCOM has always benefited from using elite teams of veteran soldiers. Let the nations of the world deal with regiments, battalions, and massive troop formations. What use is a column of 100 tanks when an Elerium-fueled warplane with alien alloy-coated rounds can tear through an Abrams battalion in a day? Space travel is definitely necessary, and space is likely one of the areas Dr. Shen will be trying to push resources first. The aliens had a massive advantage in having total dominance of space, and it was sheer fortune that they didn't just casually bump asteroids into Earth's major cities until XCOM was left with nothing to fight for.
Rotation systems are always good, though, but I'd imagine it's a matter of pilots rather than a matter of hardware. We can probably build a couple squadrons of alien alloy-equipped interceptors. There was never really much "Midway" technology used in the original XCOM due to the abundance of Elerium, so designing interceptors and aerospace craft (I
think we can push rocket and jet technology to the aerospace level, or at least to the very edges of the atmosphere) from alien alloys and with appropriate tech could be immeasurably useful.
Well actually in game you can have 250 Soldiers at one time SK about two companies and half another one. I want to have at least one Battalion of a thousand by the end of the first turn and maybe in five turns have a full Regiment.
Will it be possible to retain sufficient funding to supply those troops and keep our military standards, though? Recruiting and vetting out 750 elite soldiers is tricky business, especially in a 3 month period (given we're working with 3mon turns.) 5 years to create a full regiment of elite soldiers, maybe, but that's pretty manpower intensive military-wise.
XCOM's always been about elite small units. We can change that doctrine, but we'll need to be careful in making sure that changes like that don't compromise us. For all we know the aliens have spies and infiltrators still dispersed in the population, and a huge recruitment drive over a year and a half could open us up to all sorts of problems with military moles. That'd be a military issue, mind (and political, because of the nations doing the military infiltration.) No way your grunts are going anywhere near my labs.
What... exactly would xenobiology really entail...? I don't see why it'd be necessary to teach them the ins and outs of like... Alien anatomy, or give them full on college level classes. If they're just going to be soldiers, then they just need to know where to shoot. You don't need to know how a human brain works to know shooting at it makes a man dead.
As a separate thing, I think you're cramming in too much in too little time. Basic training doesn't go super in-depth into how combat goes. It does touch on it, and I can't say how it works for militaries outside the American military, but all of the US armed forces have a separate school once they pass boot camp that teaches them the basics of whatever job they're going to be assigned to, which includes infantry training, and this is like about 2 months for the Marines.
Basic training is getting civilians to work in a military mindset. Learn terms, get into shape, and learn to follow orders. You're breaking someone who's possibly never done a hard day's work of labor in their life, and getting them to be willing to go out of their comfort zones.
A separate school is where most people go to get proper combat training.
Setting up a separate training facility for helping bring our new recruits (even if they
are veteran military) up to the XCOM standard is never a bad idea. It just needs to be somewhere with the appropriate technology and capabilities to effectively simulate how harsh combat can really be. The last thing we need is recruiting a bunch of people (even veteran soldiers) who freak out when Mutons start eating up .223 and laser rifle fire and asking for more. Which, admittedly, is terrifying to behold and understand, but it's something that needs to be instilled into troops beyond regular training.
To which...
I already have a basic training régime which would be a modified version of Marine Corps Boot Camp. With major focus on getting them to listen and shoot straight. Because I will not allow a person who misses a point blank range with a damn shotgun. Most of the difficulty with that would be housing. Where the hell do we send these poor bastards and then I got a perfect idea let's set there training base in the middle of either a desert or the North Pole. Make them sweat or freeze their balls off to earn the right to wear power armor. Which would keep them nice and regulated. So for 15 weeks they would train
Week 1: Would teach them basic military terms, Protocol, and would be the start of PT with a five mile run first thing in the morning and at the end of the day.
Week 2: Will focus on more PT but would also begin introduction to Xeno Biology and basic combat doctrine and tactics.
Week 3: Will begin training with XCOM weapons and learning the ends and out of the equipment.
Week 4: Will be where they will be introduced to Power Armor and learn how it works. PT as normal and continued weapons practice and classroom learning.
Week 5: Will be where recruits divided up into squads and will be subjected to combat drills where they will compete against each other.
Week 6: Is introduction to advance Xeno Biology. Everything else continues
Week 7-12: Will be the same as the pervious week.
Week 13: Will be the Marksmen ship test where all recruits are to prove they can hit the target proficiently. If they can't hit they wash out.
Week 14: Will be one long combat drill where each squad will be dropped some where out in the area and given a objective which will pit them against their fellow recruits. Depending on performance will determine if they pass.
Week 15: Graduation week
Wait, so you're planning to recruit people that are completely green and try to train them from the ground-up? Why? We have the entire world's best and brightest at our fingertips to draw from. The only reason that squaddies and recruits panicked in XCOM was because they had gone from fighting humans to monsters like
Mutons that more-or-less laughed off anything in the sub-.50 range. Laughing said fire off while returning fire with weapons that could slag uparmored Humvees in a couple shots. Even hardened veterans can still get shaken up when your weapons are peashooters to an enemy with superior firepower and numbers.
Why would we want to saddle ourselves with boots when we can draw on Force Recon, Rangers, VDV, Spetsnaz, and countless other elite forces for our soldiers? Training them in the intricacies of fighting aliens ("Shoot here for maximum damage") really shouldn't take 15 weeks compared to teaching somebody completely combat-illiterate to be able to survive.
Trying to convince the world the X-COM is still needed and should be expanded. Focus efforts on trying to help rebuild places that were damaged in the war, and draw not only people, but world governments onto our side. We have a slight advantage at the start, since X-COM are basically world heroes, but all the aliens need to do is nothing at all for the world to eventually decide to disband X-COM. We need to stay relevant, and continue to find a use for ourselves.
It's more than just propaganda to show that X-COM saved the world. People know we did already. Combat footage and stuff might be nice for a short term popularity boost or something, but in the long term, the world is going to be asking if they really need to keep X-COM around. X-COM is funded by nations all over the world. If they decide they don't need us anymore, they'll cut funding and use that money for other things. I mean, if the aliens are gone and don't seem like they'll come back, do we really need an organization dedicated to fending off alien threats? How we adapt to a world that honestly might not really need us anymore is going to determine whether X-COM sticks around or not, because everyone is going to be wanting to spend their money on rebuilding rather than funding us.
Well, I can agree on this, at least!
XCOM is in a precarious situation of being a wartime institution in a wartime lull. This isn't quite armistice as much as a temporary breathing room. We need to not only rebuild the planet, but rebuild it in such a way that XCOM can take the aliens head-on when they come back for round two with more weapons, more troops, and revised strategies geared towards dealing with human weapons and tactics. They know we like to reverse-engineer things. They know we have weapons that can hurt them now, and can actually engage them directly.
Combat footage (where we win without losses using our high-tech elite teams) is always a plus, especially when it comes to turning public opinion in our favor. A major feather in our cap will be assisting in returning Argentina to the fold now that the aliens are defeated and the Argentinian government is (most likely) in a state of near total chaos. Stabilizing the situation in France will also be of use to us, showing we support Funding Nations as well. Politically that'd be your ball to handle, but Dr. Shen would be willing to lend assistance in engineering and repair projects to help get basic running water and electricity going in the region.
actually we could help rebuilding efforts by using alien alloys since we can reproduce those ourselves and use then to make stronger structures. We can also make our soldiers into a form of Mercenaries to sell to the council for use in clandestine operations. We can also build and sell Laser Weaponry to civilians and the Military and armor.
The problem there is, it's a question of how much alien metals we can make and at what cost. There's a reason we build buildings out of like... plaster rather than reinforced steel. It's cheaper, and we're building houses, not bunkers. They don't need to be that strong.
Also, clandestine mercenaries is... a possibility, but it's not exactly something you'd want to do or have public while trying to keep up a public image of being heroes.
There also comes a question of who these operations are against. We're funded by the whole world. We can't take jobs against someone if they're funding us, unless you want to lose that funding.
Think of it like this after the damage the aliens have done and the country's that left the project their is some who might want a Régime change. Not to mention that there is still some Alien forces left to mopped up.
... Why are we going straight into Mustache Twirling Villain Territory?
We're XCOM. We're the finest of humanity's best and brightest. The elite. Why would we ever want to tarnish ourselves or our skills
or our reputation by acting like a bunch of Cartel hitmen?
If we're going to be seen, let's be seen at the head of a UN Security Council effort to dissolve the Argentinian government (if it even remains after the people violently beheaded their traitorous leadership) and institute a new democratic authority there. Cooperate with the South American nations, ensure there's political harmony there and in France, and keep our soldiers in reserve otherwise. Why risk the lives of First Alien War veterans fighting schmucks in the middle of some run-down South American slumhole?
Besides. There's ruins on Cydonia to poke. I want to see just why the aliens put their base of operations
there instead of anywhere else.
