X-COM (Video Game)/Fanfic Recs

Proof that the remaining 10% is worth dying for here:

These are recommendations made by Tropers for X-COM Fan Fics, all of which have to be signed to stay on the page. Feel free to add a fanfic of your own to the list, but remember to use the template found here.

Do warn when a fanfic may head into homosexual or non-canon territory. Some people just don't like it, and as we all know, Shipping is Serious Business. You can also add to the current recommendations if you want. Refrain from posting Conversation in the Main Page though; that goes in the discussion page.

Campaigns, After Action Reports, and Lets Plays
GuavaMoment and Jade Star
 * Guava's UFO Defense at the LP Archive
 * Guava's Terror From The Deep at the LP Archive
 * Guava's Apocalypse (and Tynam's Interceptor) at the LP Archive
 * Jade's UFO: Aftermath at the LP Archive
 * Jade's UFO: Aftershock at the Something Awful forums (Finished, pending archival)
 * Recommended by Andy Waltfeld
 * The saga that inspired the X-COM page on TV Tropes...and the exhaustive coverage that drove Guava and Jade nuts. Note that these are listed in order by internal chronology; Guava actually played Apocalypse and Interceptor first, then Jade did Aftermath, then they started collaborating.
 * Ssfsx 17: This is an absolutely epic saga detailing the life and times of an X-COM soldier by the name of Otto Zander, with some interesting custom missions made specifically for the LP series.

Peptuck
 * Peptuck's UFO Defense at Stardestroyer.net
 * Recommended by Andy Waltfeld
 * From the website that brought you The Salvation War and the author that brought us Tiberium Wars, Forward, Renegade, and Harbinger comes another tale of indiscriminate use of firepower against a threat humanity has to mentally dissect in order to conquer. Currently Dead Fic, due to the author suffering a Heroic BSOD following a traumatizing defeat while assaulting a Muton base.

chiasaur11 and Alex Knight
 * chiasaur's UFO Defense at Giant in the Playground
 * Alex Knight's Terror From The Deep at Giant in the Playground
 * Recommended by Andy Waltfeld
 * Pilfering equal parts from Red vs. Blue and Warhammer 40000 to create a tongue-in-cheek hyper-Spartan mentality, these two somehow manage to survive X-COM's insane Red Shirt turnaround and turn that luck into ensemble comedy. Currently Dead Fic since Alex Knight's computer crashed halfway into TFTD.

MJ12 Commando
 * Lets Play UFO: Nutbustingly Hard and Nut Bustingly Hard 2, AKA TFTD
 * Recommended by Commissar Gaunt
 * A darkly hilarious and extremely awesome description of what really happened in AW's 1 and 2. Finished.

English Ivy
 * This very website's forums!
 * Recommended by Charlatan
 * Mad science, Korgmeister's highly ironic death, a hilarious one-off joke shunting Terror from the Deep to the wayside, and the adventures of Epsilon Squad, as well as an epic endgame.

General Fics
''Stories focused on the family and the friendly relationships of the cast. Plot-focused stories or light day-in-the-life stories. Pretty much anything that isn't focused on romance.''

X-COM Saga by Russ Brown.
 * Recommended by St Clair
 * Synopsis: The original classic from 1994, posted to UseNet one chapter at a time.

X-COM: Unknown Menace
 * Recommended by Flaser
 * Synopsis: This is EPIC, in the truest sense of the world. It covers the entire First Alien War (UFO Defense) from X-COM's beginning to the final battle at Cydonia (1998-2003). 36 chapters of brutal combat, political intrigue and conspiracy. André has managed to pack a lot into this story, bringing the game to life and giving us characters that you care about.
 * Comments: Worth noting that the writer's first language is not English, so this can make some parts difficult to read. Nonetheless, extremely well-done and properly thought-out, adding in political and conspiracy angles that the original game couldn't offer.
 * They Killed Fritz: It's worth noting that, although the original novel is complete, as is the intermediate short story 'Eulogy', the full sequel 'Abyssal' is currently Dead Fic, and will likely remain that way permanently - the most recent update, the eighth chapter, was posted in 2005. As such, it is likely that the third planned novel, 'Nemesis', will never even be begun.

Breeding Fear
 * Recommended by Andy Waltfeld
 * Pairings: Chrysalid/warm flesh, I guess
 * Synopsis: BioKraze takes a look inside the mind of everyone's favorite alien zombie maker.
 * Comments:

XSGCOM: Goa'uld Defence
 * Recommended by S J C, amitakartok, Krisnack
 * Pairings: None
 * Synopsis: SG-1/X-COM Crossover - As humanity fights two alien threats its defenders join forces to turn the tide
 * Comments: "suprisingly good" doesn't even scratch the surface. This fic is made of concentrated awesomeness mixed with a healthy dose of HSQ.'
 * Night: Feel-good asskickings abound. In other words...NOTHING LIKE X-COM.
 * Mandemo disagrees. It's excatly X-Com. It's just Jaffa suck compared to sectoids, etherial or crysalids... Still, X-Com spends most of it's time trying to figure alien tech out, as several situations at are very grim (Alien fighters fromInterceptor against UFO Defense equipment? Oh Crap). Still awesome!
 * Has now a page: XSGCOM

XSGCOM: Terra from the Deep
 * Recommended by S J C, amitakartok
 * Pairings: None
 * Synopsis: SG-1/X-COM Crossover - As old enemies fall by the wayside new ones appear to challenge the Tau'ri and their allies.
 * Comments: Night as above, so far.
 * Mandemo Pretty much same as previous, although too early to judge until series is concluded.

Shipping Fics
Stories focused on the romantic relationships between the cast.

None Yet.