Epilogue 1: The Golden Apocalypse AKA the Series that never was.

We managed to cram in the epic assault on the moonbase just one week before I got the news of a new job over a hundred miles away.  This effectively killed the UFO campaign stone dead, which in one way was a good thing, as towards the end of Series 2, enthusiasm was beginning to flag a little (due, I think to a UFO overdose thanks to the X-Files, Dark Skies and the cultural hoo-har over Roswell)

However it was a shame because the epic story arc was only  partly complete.  Since the whole course of the campaign pivoted on whether or not the players were able to destroy the stargate on the moon, I had several ideas on how the year 2002 would shape up....

IF THE PLAYERS SUCCEEDED IN DESTROYING THE STARGATE IN SERIES 2

The Grey base on the moon was, in fact, protecting Earth from a lot of Golden Android attacks launched from a base somewhere in the solar system.  Once it was destroyed, GA attacks would increase tenfold, and the primary focus of XCom military activity would be in dealing with Android attacks.  The androids would focus on believed Grey facilities on Earth, so XCom would have two problems, stop the Androids, then work out what it was exactly they were attacking and capture the Grey facility.

Meanwhile, Russia would continue its expansion.  The shock news would be a coup overthrowing Prime Minister Groschenko, and the replacement regime would be hostile to XCom (not because they were alien controlled, but simply because they wanted to focus all their resources on powermongering: rather than save the Earth, they just wanted to save Russia.)  And the US and Russia would be on course for a clash reminiscent of the old Cold War.  At the flashpoint of the conflict, XCom would find itself thrust into the action between the Eagle and the Bear.

XCom would be called on to help the English Resistance, when Featherton-Smythe is captured and together they would find out how the Greys had managed to subvert Britain into the alien puppet state it had become, and hopefully even liberate it for humanity.

Astrodyne would go underground, it's offices and factories closed down and its leaders disappearing from sight.  After a while, Astrodyne combat teams would start turning up at UFO incidents and engaging XCom forces in a tussle over alien technology.

Finally, XCom would be able to trace the Golden Androids' base to Mars (Cydonia, anyone?) and possibly launch an assault.  If successful, they would capture a whole load of advanced tech an construction facilities, enough to build a small space navy, possibly just enough to fight off the impending Grey and Gold fleets.

From there, if the players were still interested, Series 4 would be the war in space between XCom and the alien fleets.  I hadn't made any definite plans this far ahead, but I had decided that the only way that XCom would be able to win was by allying with the Slug fifth column thus subverting a good part of the Grey fleet.  However the precise details of how this part of the campaign would progress depended almost entirely on how the players wanted to play it.

If, on the other hand, XCom didn't do well in Series 3, the last episode would be the arrival of the Golden Fleet, The "Enemies of the Helix "themselves.  XCom would be faced with some stark choices, possibly giving them the option of fighting the Androids toe to toe on Earth (and probably losing), or perhaps stealing a Grey Battleship hidden somewhere on the Moon and evacuating at least part of the human race before the Golden Androids wiped them out.

IF THE PLAYERS FAILED TO DESTROY THE STARGATE IN SERIES 2

In this case, the series would probably have been called "The Grey Apocalypse".  The last episode of Series 2 would end with the Grey fleet defolding in Lunar orbit.  At the start of Series 3, the XCom Assault force would arrive back on Earth just after the first wave of the assault hit.  Large parts of the Earth would become Alien Occupied Territory, and XCom bases would be obliterated.  XCom would be reduced to operating from hidden camps, and the mobile XCom Defender.  Astrodyne would come out of the woodwork and be willing to form an uneasy alliance with XCom.  The combined Earth forces would need to develop new weapons and tactics for use against the entrenched enemy, and again, contacts with the fifth column would be vital (it's a shame Greer pissed them off so much in Series 1)

One player in the group stated categorically that he would not like to play out this second version of events, but in the end, XCom managed to destroy the moonbase quite thoroughly, and the whole campaign ended at this point anyway.  However given the ideas for the future of the campaign that I had, you can see why I'm smarting at not being able to tie up all my loose ends.