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* ''X: Rebirth'' (2012); reboot of the series (not yet released)
 
Long before the events of the games, Earth built the first jump gate and launched it towards Alpha Centauri. However, in a midflight test, the Earth jump gate locked onto a random gate not built by humans - they had discovered the ''X-Universe'' [[Portal Network|gate system]]. All the planets discovered were totally [[Absent Aliens|absent of intelligent life]].<ref>due to the [[Precursors]] modifying the gate system to keep the Terrans isolated</ref> Earth built a fleet of self-replicating and self-evolving [[Terraform]]er ships to make the worlds habitable for humanity. About a hundred years later, after the mission was complete, Earth sent out a command for the Terraformers to self-destruct. Not long after, the Terraformers show up in force, and begin terraforming ''everything'' in sight. Nathan R.Gunne, a Terran commander, lured the Terraformers past Earth's jump gate into the X-Universe, then destroyed the jump gate behind him to isolate the Terraformers (now dubbed the Xenon) and to save Earth. Gunne crash lands his frigate on Sonra-4, an earth-like world, and begins restarting civilization with his crew. They name themselves the "Argon" after R. Gunne. [[Future Imperfect|Earth has become a fairytale legend]]. The Argon begin exploring the X-Universe, and discover the peaceful [[Fish People|Boron]], the [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens|Paranid]], the [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Split]], and the [[Proud Merchant Race|Teladi]]. They also rediscover the [[AIA.I. Is a Crapshoot|Xenon]]. The Terrans, completely isolated from the X-Universe, build a ship with the first Jump Drive, to try and reach Alpha Centauri. However, the Jump Drive locks onto the X-Universe and promptly breaks down, stranding the pilot (and protagonist) in the X-Universe and indebted to the Teladi, who helped repair his ship. The Earth pilot, Kyle Brennan, helped prevent the Xenon from blowing up a planet with their M0 Planet Killer in the first game, ''Beyond The Frontier''. A few decades later in ''The Threat'', the [[Horde of Alien Locusts|Kha'ak]] show up and their first act in the universe is to destroy everything in the sector President's End and nearly destroying the planet in Omicron Lyrae. After the Kha'ak planet killer is destroyed, a [[Precursor]] shows up and begins secretly aiding the Paranid in building a jump gate. The Paranid activate their jump gate in Heretic's End—which links to Earth, right as the Kha'ak are jumping into the sector to try and destroy the Paranid jump gate. The entire Terran Fleet, completely forgotten by the rest of the universe, streams out of the jump gate and [[Curb Stomp Battle|curb stomps the Kha'ak]]. The Terrans establish tentative relations with the other races, but try to remain isolated—hence the game being named ''Reunion''. ''Terran Conflict'' reunites the long lost {{spoiler|Aldrin}} colony with Earth, destroys the Kha'ak Hive Queen, and sees a [[Space Cold War|rise in tensions between the Argon and the Terrans]]. In ''Albion Prelude'', the cold war [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge|goes hot with the destruction]] of Earth's orbital defense station.
 
You can just play through the plot, content to stay in your puny little fighter and not straying much farther than your starting sector, or you can create a universe-spanning trading empire, all but controlling the economy and with enough military power to squash all who dare oppose you. You can also do things that you're not really meant to do, such as almost completely wiping out a race from the universe. It takes a hell of a lot of military resources, and it'll probably break the economy unless you supply it with that race's goods yourself, but nobody's actively ''stopping'' you from doing it. The only reason you can't destroy ''everything'' is because the game engine tries to keep the economy balanced and will slowly recreate destroyed stations if need be.
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* [[Abnormal Ammo]]: The Terran [[Wave Motion Gun|Point Singularity Projector]] shoots what are essentially black holes at enemy ships.
* [[Abusing the Kardashev Scale For Fun and Profit]]: The Outsiders in the backstory and Encyclopedia are full blown Type IVs, and the Ancients are borderline Type IVs. [[Dyson Sphere]] and Matroshka Brain civilizations are mentioned, and they fit into the borderline Type IIs. However, all the races the player actually interacts with are at best high-end Type Is.
* [[Abusive Precursors]] / [[Benevolent Precursors]] : The Ancients ''do'' have theoretically good goals, like doing something about that whole "Heat Death Of The Universe" ''thing'', and they consider the [[Portal Network]] they built and maintain a gift to the younger races. On the other hand, they've got a nasty habit of thinking about the younger races as one collective group, making them [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|frighteningly]] willing to toy with other species. Since their most direct method of manipulation involves switching gate pairs in the [[Portal Network]], this means that they do things like start interplanetary wars seemingly [[For the Lulz]], [[You Can't Go Home Again|separate colony ships from their home planets]], simply lock fleets in deep space with nowhere to go, or [[Inferred Holocaust|turn off the entire system of interstellar travel]]. On the gripping hand, that bit about shutting down the entire [[Portal Network]] also came in response to the [[AIA.I. Is a Crapshoot|Xenon terraformers, who have a bad habit of terraforming people out of existance]], [[Oh Crap|having control of a large portion of the galaxy]].
* [[The Aesthetics of Technology]]: Terran ships, despite being the most advanced ships, [http://i.imgur.com/SyPVb.jpg don't look much more advanced than the modern Space Shuttle] - just a lot more clean and streamlined. The Paranid, the second most advanced race, use [http://i.imgur.com/VG130.jpg very high-tech looking ships] with lots of curves and shiny hulls. The Teladi, who buy or reverse engineer all their technology from the other races and use lower tech weaponry, have [http://i.imgur.com/Z17s7.jpg cobbled-together ships], though they are usually just as effective as the other race's ships. The Pirates on the other hand, use scavenged and spot-repaired ships, with their capital ships cobbled together from the hulks of old transporter ships, and it shows when you look at their stats - almost all the Pirate ships have terrible stats compared to the original race's ships. Boron ships ''look'' like they ought to be superior to everything else, but really only excel as transports.
* [[AIA.I. Is a Crapshoot]]: The modern-day Xenon are descended from the Terraformers, originally built by the Terrans to terraform worlds. After a badly-written ''software update'' they begin to 'terraform' people, cities, and stations. Eventually they {{spoiler|gained true sentience}}. This is why you bug-check your changes before you implement them, people.
* [[Aliens Speaking English]]: All species speak a version of Japanese. [[Translation Convention]] makes them all speak in English (or whichever language your game is set to).
* [[The Alliance]]: The Commonwealth, which includes the 5 main races: The Argon, Boron, Teladi, Paranid, and Split. It functions more like a United Nations, though.
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** [[Attack Drone|Drone]] [[Spam Attack|Spam]] in X3. Beat the enemy by overloading your computer's processor.
* [[Boss in Mook Clothing]]: Pirates armed with Plasma Burst Generators, and Xenon fighters armed with Pulsed Beam Emitters. Then there is the dreaded Phased Shockwave Generator in X3:R, which is a Plasma Burst Generator with a 90 degree sphere of doom ahead of the firing ship. Thankfully nerfed to capital ship-only in X3:TC.
** M8 Bombers in ''Albion Prelude''. In ''Terran Conflict'', they were largely free kills because they spawned with hardly any missiles. Between the games, they [[Took a Level Inin Badass]], and are now capable of killing at least some ships before running out.
* [[But What About the Astronauts?]]: The Argon backstory consists of this.
* [[Casual Interstellar Travel]]: Space is pretty damn crowded with (damn annoying) civilian ships.
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** Teladi ships are [[Mighty Glacier]]s, slow but durable with respectable firepower. They have increased cargo space for greater [[Memetic Mutation|profitsss]].
** Terran and ATF ships trade some firepower (limited weapon selection and somewhat lower damage output) for [[Lightning Bruiser|speed and shielding]]. But they definitely aren't slouches on any leg of the armor triangle, which causes some to regard them as [[Game Breaker]]s.
** Finally, [[AIA.I. Is a Crapshoot|Xenon]] and [[Horde of Alien Locusts|Kha'ak]] ships are The Horde, being hive-minded races. They're subpar in most respects, but Xenon ships can be replicated quickly and cheaply with the [[Player Headquarters]], making them popular among late-game players. Kha'ak ships aren't much used, since they require unique weapons that need to be farmed.
* [[Fan Nickname]]: The "auto-pillock" is [[Artificial Stupidity]] in ship guidance. "Betty" is the ship's computer voice.
* [[Fantastic Drug]]: Spaceweed is a Teladi plant that is smoked or ingested and amounts to marijuana <small>[[Recycled in Space|IN SPACE!]]</small> Space fuel, on the other hand, is a street name or euphemism for Argon whiskey. Both are illegal in the Commonwealth,<ref>spaceweed is legal in Teladi space, however</ref> and both are highly prized by players for use as trade goods to pacify the [[Space Pirate]] population.
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** Subverted by ''Albion Prelude''. The Argon open the war with the 30th-century equivalent of [[War On Terror|9/11]], and the Paranid join up with the Terrans.
* [[Gratuitous Japanese]]: The Argon and Terrans, as Japanese apparently became the primary language of Earth before the series' start according to fluff. The {{spoiler|Aldrin colony}} representatives you meet in the plot sometimes speak phrases in Japanese.
* [[Great Offscreen War]]: The backstory includes the [[Robot War|Terraformer War]] in the 2140s AD (some of which is shown in the ''Terran Conflict'' opening cinematic), during which [[AIA.I. Is a Crapshoot|insane terraforming robots]] wiped out all of Earth's extrasolar colonies and nearly destroyed Earth, too. A Terran warfleet managed to lure them through a jumpgate, which was then destroyed behind them; this fleet became the Argon race. About 200 years later, we had the [http://x3wiki.com/index.php/Xenon_Conflict First Xenon Conflict], where the terraformers reappeared, followed by the [http://x3wiki.com/index.php/Boron_Campaign Boron Campaign], a more conventional interstellar war between the various superpowers.
* [[Grey and Gray Morality]]: ''Albion Prelude'''s war. The [[Designated Villain|Terrans]] are paranoid jerkasses that give a big middle finger to the other races, while the [[Designated Hero|Argon]] use weapons of mass destruction and effectively commit genocide every time they destroy a Terran station.
* [[Guide Dang It]]: The manual and "flight school" tutorials are nearly useless for anything but the most basic gameplay.
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** Also potentially subverted: there is a ten-second delay while the jumpdrive charges, not including the time it takes you to pick a destination. That's ten-plus seconds for the enemy to kill you anyway. And then there's the potential for [[Tele Frag]] as you exit a gate at the end of the jump.
** The Unfocused Jumpdrive plays it straight ''and'' subverts it simultaneously. On the one hand, the UFJD is faster to bug out ([[Blind Jump|no need to pick a destination]]). On the other hand, when you "return to the known universe", you'll be right back in the same position you left from, and any enemies will still be in the sector. Though it does give you an opportunity to recharge your shields.
* [[Inferred Holocaust]]: After the events of ''X3: Albion Prelude''. The [[Precursors]] shut down the entire [[Portal Network]] to contain the [[AIA.I. Is a Crapshoot|incredibly aggressive Xenon terraformer AI]]. Doing so on a small scale in the past has actually been a good solution to bad problems, but this means not only will the [[Five Races|younger species]] be incapable of traveling or communicating with each other or their own colony planets, they won't even know where the other sectors ''actually are'' to ''try'' and contact each other for years. Many sectors have nothing but manned manufacturing plants, most of which aren't self-sustaining, and even many planetary sectors rely heavily on trade.
** The shutdown is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, you have the above. On the other hand, it also had the byproduct of stopping the Argon/Terran war in its tracks, which at this rate was going to end in one of the two sides being completely wiped out. Speaking of which, the faction that comes off best would be the Terrans. A, over two thirds of their sectors are in the Solar System, and they've got non-jumpgate technology for intrasystem travel. B, they ''do'' know where their other main sector is in space, and can reach it using jumpdrives. As for the other factions, [[Planetville|planets are not villages]]. Aldrin survived 800 years with no contact with the outside world whatsoever, and it's just an airless rock. The [[One Product Planet|One Product Sectors]] are screwed, but the ones with inhabited planets should be all right.
* [[Infinite Stock for Sale]]: Averted. All stations have a limit to how much of a given ware they can stock. For instance, a station may be able to stock tens of thousands of units of energy cells, but only sixteen particle accelerator cannons.
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"It was a plague so dangerous, a threat so grave, that it spread throughout the infinity of space and eternity of time almost effortlessly to infest the stars. It spread its pestilence to civilizations unknown, devastated the galaxy as if it was just an ordinary body made of flesh and bone falling prey to a mindless virus.
"And in a sense it was really a virus, a virus created by humankind. One made with the best of intentions, but a virus nevertheless.
"[[Grey Goo|Von Neumann probes]], self-replicating machines, Terraformers, Xenon, even the Enemy of God. But at its core, it was really only one thing.
"[[AIA.I. Is a Crapshoot|Artificial general intelligence]], or AGI. Mechanical minds capable of making themselves even more intelligent, and then again, and again. Recursively forever. The greatest threat to biological life that ever existed throughout the whole universe. The Terraformers were cast out of the solar system by sheer luck, just barely, with billions upon billions dead in their wake. The Earth Jumpgate was dismantled, legislation was put in place never to allow AGI to be created again, ever.
"Humankind never forgot the lesson of AGI, never ventured to try out this concept once more, not in a thousand years, but then it was discovered that species from outside the solar system thought differently. The plague of AGI was being released on the universe once more. Again perhaps with the best of intentions and again however, with the deadliest of results. The government of Earth had to intervene, even if it meant [[Space Cold War|cold war]], even if it meant a cold war between brothers, and intervene Earth did.
"This escalating conflict would be given a name by historians. [[Title Drop|Terran Conflict]]." }}
* [[Orange-Blue Contrast]]: The cover for ''X3: Reunion''.
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** Yaki: [[Yakuza]] <small>[[Recycled in Space|IN SPACE!]]</small>
*** [[Bilingual Bonus]]: The faction name actually means "many yakuza" in Japanese.
** Xenon: [[AIA.I. Is a Crapshoot|Insane robots]]
** Kha'ak: Trying to kill anything that isn't Kha'ak?<ref>Nobody's ever managed to talk to them. Or if they did, they didn't live to tell about it. All we know is that they seem to be a hive mind and that they have an affinity for nividium.</ref>
* [[Planet Terra]]: In ''X3'', humans from the Sol System are referred to as "Terrans", but the planet is still called Earth.
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* [[Police Are Useless]]: They and the Border Control ships seem to exist mainly to attack the player after friendly fire incidents, or when the player keeps a ship he's supposed to return as part of a mission.
* [[Private Military Contractors]]: The Split Strong Arms. All the corporations maintain warships, but the Strong Arms are the only ones for whom they're not just for protecting their own supply chains.
* [[Privateer]]: The governments of the Commonwealth offer "police licenses", which act like letters of marque. You're paid a preset bounty for destroying [[Space Pirate|space pirates]], [[AIA.I. Is a Crapshoot|Xenon]], and [[Horde of Alien Locusts|Kha'ak]], and destroying neutrals or allies costs you the license.
* [[Product Placement]]: Nividium; aside from being extremely valuable, it's also a considerable plot point for X2 and X3.
** This gets brought up a lot, and Egosoft has always said no. Cynics just say they're trying not to alienate ATI fans.
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* [[Time Dilation]]: Every ship can mount a "Singularity Engine Time Accelerator" which can speed up the flow of time up to 10x, depending on the game settings. Activating the device at high settings is heavy on the CPU and tends to cause [[Artificial Stupidity]].
** In in-game lore, malfunctioning SETA drives can supposedly crank up the effect to several ''thousand'' times normal speed: back in the days of X2 and X3 when stations had bulletin boards that featured news articles, one story covered a pilot who lost a ''year's'' worth of time when his SETA device went haywire and took several hours for him to shut down.
* [[Took a Level Inin Badass]]: Each race's military in ''Albion Prelude''. In previous games, they'd sort of ignore the player unless he got very close to them. In ''Albion'', they'll jump around the universe to respond to threats to their space. If you jump into a Split system and start blasting civilian ships and the stations, they'll send ships to kill you. The more damage you cause, the more likely they'll send something big to kill you, like a destroyer, or in the Terrans' case, the ATF Valhalla or USC Kyoto.
* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: Ships generally take the shortest route to their destination. Even if said route lies directly through a Xenon sector and they don't have a jumpdrive to hop over it with.
* [[Tractor Beam]]: In ''X3: Reunion'' and later games, tractor beams are a player-usable weapon, used mainly for towing ships and moving stations around. In a symptom of those games' [[Artistic License Economics|broken economy]], the factories that create them sometimes disappear before the player can buy one, forcing one to build a factory for an item the player only ever needs one of.
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