ADVENT: History
The Second Battle of Japan
"The Ethereals have escalated this conflict; there can be no more half-measures."
- Chancellor Saudia Vyandar
After-Action Report
Operation: Planewalker
Personnel
Twin 1 (Squad Overseer): Psion Dael Young
Status: Deceased
Kills: 0
Twin 2: Psion Allison Monder
Status: Deceased
Kills: 0
Twin 3: Psion Jona Mattis
Status: Deceased
Kills: 0
Twin 4: Scout Jamali Muhammad
Status: Deceased
Kills: 0
Twin 5: Engineer Gyeong Ki
Status: Deceased
Kills: 0
Twin 6: Infantry Maria Pena
Status: Deceased
Kills: 0
Twin 7: Infantry Yasu Ueda
Status: Deceased
Kills: 0
Twin 8: Gunner Sora Watanabe
Status: Deceased
Kills: 0
Twin 9: MEC Soldier Sanya Olga
Status: Destroyed
Kills: 0
Red 1 (Squad Overseer): Templar Carmelita Alba
Status: Active
Kills: 48
Red 2: Psion Said Tariq
Status: Active
Kills: 17
Red 3: Psion Fatima Tariq
Status: Wounded (Estimated 7 Days)
Kills: 68+ (Estimated due to telepathic interference)
Red 4: Infantry Sierra Morrow
Status: Active
Kills: 36
Red 5: Sniper Aarni Mäkinen
Status: Active
Kills: 89
Red 6: Infantry David Cannon
Status: Wounded (Estimated 8 Days)
Kills: 22
Red 7: Infantry Kiera Hines
Status: Deceased
Kills: 23
Red 8: Medic Antia Losa
Status: Active
Kills: 12
Red 9: MEC Soldier Kenta Abe
Status: Destroyed
Kills: 77
Sox 1(Squad Overseer): Psion Patricia Trask
Status: Active
Kills: Unknown Number of psionically induced deaths (200+?)
Sox 2: Psion Matthew Hawkins
Status: Active
Kills: 122
Sox 3: Gunner Anna Pavlova
Status: Wounded (Estimated 5 Days)
Kills: 43
Sox 4: Rocketeer Fakhr al Din
Status: Active
Kills: 50
Sox 5: Rocketeer Leonid Naum
Status: Wounded (Estimated 3 Days)
Kills: 32
Sox 6: Sniper Cassandra Rivera
Status: Wounded (Estimated 7 Days)
Kills: 102
Sox 7: Sniper Jim Cuban
Status: Active
Kills: 163
Sox 8: Rocketeer Bora Lee
Status: Deceased
Kills: 68
Sox 9: MEC Soldier Gloria Page
Status: Online
Kills: 144
Pilot 1: Jason Olgard – Call sign: "Big Sky"
Pilot 2: Patrick Nokia – Call sign: "Lightning Sky"
Pilot 3: Barney Kimon – Call sign: "Gray Sky"
Pilot 4: Riley Ignis – Call sign: "Burning Sky"
Artifacts Recovered:
Note: Numbers are subject to change as more corpses, artifacts and technology is recovered and negotiated over.
- 277x Assorted Alien Corpses (Exact counts to be determined)
- 4x Alien Transports (Intact)
- 2x Alien Transports (Damaged)
- 2x MELD Canisters
- 300+x Weapon Fragments (Numbers may change)
- 300+x Alien Alloys (Numbers may change)
Respected Elder Caelior,
As the foray into Japan continues, I believe that a sufficient summarization of our operation here is due. I do believe that it has proceeded exactly as I predicted, and the Battlemaster agrees with this assessment. ADVENT cannot prepare for every single contingency, and rather than relying on faulty intel and wasting valuable units determining the enemy composition, the method of utilizing simple Muton soldiers to probe their forces is an effective one indeed.
Our main operations consisted of four major cities, with minor skirmishes along the coasts and unimportant towns. There were of course, Tokyo, Osaka, Nakashibetsu, and Nagoya. Three of the four were executed with casualties within acceptable parameters, and an outlier that was also within the expected parameters. This was largely due to the outside factor of the psion Patricia Trask.
Osaka is firmly under our control, with ADVENT forces in full retreat. They were unprepared for asymmetrical combat afforded to us by the Floaters, and the XCOM team was sufficiently stopped with the utilization of the Gatekeeper to negate their telepath, with Sectopods to remove their larger MEC. Unfortunately, we could not confirm the deaths of both XCOM psions, as well as the soldier identified as Carmelita Alba, but you can be assured that they were driven back, even if the casualties were slightly higher than predicted.
Tokyo does not need a lengthy recap, as you personally removed the ADVENT threat there. The city was the stronghold of the Japanese ADVENT Military presence, and its loss is having several detrimental effects on their military that we are already observing. Of course, there is the blow to morale at seeing such a prominent city destroyed. However, in more practical terms, this dealt a major blow to the coordinated Japanese ADVENT war machine, and has made their command decentralized and more prone to infiltration and delay. I expect this will not last long, as ADVENT establishes a new center of command in Japan.
The new alien that has been loaned to us by the ever-gracious Creator was highly instrumental in taking Nakashibetsu, where it was appearing for a short time that we might fail to capture that city as well. However, ADVENT had no answer to his unconventional psionic abilities, and once they were pushed back within the city, they were easily defeated by standard Andromedon forces.
ADVENT has temporarily managed to hold on to Nagoya, though that was simply a failure to predict the exact location of Patricia Trask, who psionically manipulated the standing Muton army within minutes of arriving, as well as telepathically enhancing the standing ADVENT forces and XCOM squads. Further action was withdrawn until the full threat could be established, and by the time we determined Patricia was no longer in the area, it was deemed counterproductive to waste more units in pursuit of capturing the city, and the attack force was redistributed to assist in skirmishes on the coast.
Concerning the air component of our attack, ADVENT continues to be inferior to our own spacecraft, and were easily pushed back in nearly all quarters. With that understood, they are attempting to make strides in utilizing their existing force. One particularly devastating unit against infantry and even transports is a plane capable of targeted projectile airstrikes, which hit with enough force to rupture elerium engines in our Transports.
Those units have been marked for review.
Their naval forces posed little threat to us, as the Andromedon Aquatic Forces took care of any danger they posed, and even the mere threat of unseen and submerged enemies was enough to prevent the naval units from assisting their ground forces. All but seven of the naval ships were destroyed, but they ultimately do not matter in this war, and this was accomplished with minimal casualties to the respective Andromedon Aquatic soldiers.
The latest intelligence indicates that ADVENT forces are surprisingly pulling off of the island entirely, in which case we might wish to step back and reevaluate our hold on the island, as ADVENT would not simply leave unless they had a plan or equivalent response. Humans are sentimental aliens, not practical, they would not abandon a country that has become important in the eyes of their citizens.
Respectfully, I request you keep this in mind when deciding our next moves.
Victory to the Collective.
- Allseer-2, Sargon of Caelior, Destroyer of the Immortals, Division of the Maelstrom
Internal memo sent to the XCOM Internal Council shortly after the Second Battle of Japan
Concerning the results of the latest attack, we clearly need to reevaluate our methods of deployment, utilization of psionics, and overall strategy when participating in combat. Upon review of recovered armor-cam footage of this battle, as well as previous ones, there are a few key areas to highlight. Japan was the culmination of ignoring flaws in our strategy, and we paid the price with the loss of an entire country. That is unacceptable and should not be allowed to happen, at least not on account of inferior tactics.
Utilization of Psions: While the powers and utilization of psions has evolved and grown, their roles have not. Since the beginning we have utilized them as we would any other soldier, giving them designations and often placing them in positions of command. Useful as this has been, the current method is insufficient and we cannot afford to keep losing psions. The loss of psions Young, Monder, and Mattis will be difficult to replace within a reasonable timeframe.
Psions are not ordinary soldiers, or even genetically modified ones, so they should not be treated as such. As we are careful about the deployment of our MEC soldiers (although there is room for improvement there), we need to be especially careful about the deployment of our psions. The Ethereals respect and recognize their power; hence why they have developed units specifically designed to counter certain psions.
We show our hand early, and the aliens have learned that. There are certain tells that they can recognize and adapt to. However, they cannot hold back forever. Thus, in certain cases, we cannot and should not deploy our psions until we have a reasonable amount of information on the enemy composition and leader.
This will prevent situations like Seattle and Osaka from happening again. However, there is of course very little stopping the aliens from reacting regardless, even if it is delayed, which highlights another area we need to emphasize: Mobility.
If a psion is no longer viable in a certain battlefield, they should be replaced with one who is, or moved back to utilize their abilities in a supportive manner. Otherwise, they could be deployed to a battlefield that is unprepared for them. This clearly requires fast insertions and deployments, ones which the current skyranger is ill-equipped for. [Note: Shen, we need to discuss this particular issue].
To summarize the list of tasks we need to do to remedy this, it is currently as follows:
- Deploy psions in addition to regular squads, not as part of them.
- Develop a more mobile skyranger, or one exclusively devoted to psions.
- Withhold psion deployment until enemy composition can be reasonably established.
- If a psion is no longer useful or otherwise negated, they will be redeployed to an appropriate setting
- Increase our draw from the PRIEST Program to replenish our psion numbers
Ethereal Neutralization: The handling of Caelior was horrendous, to put it lightly. The team sent was poorly equipped to handle an Ethereal with his specific skill set, and they paid the price with their lives. It is evident that we cannot simply throw random squads of soldiers at various Ethereals and hope they are victorious. Effective immediately that kind of response is banned.
The Ethereals are powerful, but they are not completely invincible, and there are few enough to warrant specific strike teams for Ethereals. Thanks to Aegis we have a complete list of Ethereals in the Collective, as well as a general overview of their strengths and weaknesses. It is time to put that information to more practical purposes beyond reference.
That being said, while these teams will have a strict composition, it is not necessarily restricted to certain soldiers with the exception of highly dangerous Ethereals such as the Battlemaster. However, the specifications of these teams must be strict and detailed, down to required soldier specializations, psionic specializations, weapons, genetic modification, and other equipment.
To illustrate this, a squad specifically devoted to dealing with Caelior might look like this.
- One telepathic psion
- Two defense psions
- Five snipers
- Must all utilize pulse weaponry, or similar energy weapon
- Combat must be waged at long range
- Genetic modification required: Enhanced Vision (Snipers)
While slightly simplistic, this takes advantage of Caelior's major weaknesses, which is that he is vulnerable to beam weaponry, and that he needs a line-of-sight to fully deal with opposing forces with any accuracy. This of course could be modified, and it will be developed alongside Aegis who has agreed that such measures are needed.
As of right now XCOM has engaged with three Ethereals. The one we killed took the entirety of XCOM, all of our psions, and cost one-third of our forces to kill. These are even more dangerous and are the main force behind this war. And you know thanks to Aegis that Caelior and the Battlemaster are far from the most dangerous Ethereals who have yet to face us.
We should also consider applying this kind of threat response to alien units and command figures that can have a similar impact on the direction of a battle, such as Sectopods, Gatekeepers, and more aliens like the one that attacked Nakashibetsu. XCOM has been utilized so far in this war like an elite infantry unit when we should be used as surgical alien specialists to take out the worst the aliens can throw at us.
We have not fulfilled this role so far. That is what we will be now.
- The Commander
ADVENT Military After-Action Report 0877
Operation: Tokyo Drift
Author: Commander Laura Christiaens
Recipients: Chancellor Saudia Vyandar, Chief of Lancer Operations Helion Weekes, Chief of ADVENT Engineering and Development Feng Mercado, Chief Diplomat Firdaus Hassan, Director of ADVENT Intelligence Elizabeth Falka
Concerning the second attempt of the defense of Japan, I believe that we should, instead of focusing on the losses, focus on why we lost this battle. We have sustained heavy casualties as a result, and we simply have no response for the Ethereal Caelior, nor this alien Warlock that attacked Nakashibetsu.
Because of this, I recommend that we immediately pull out of Japan completely, as we will accomplish nothing but losing more soldiers and units unnecessarily. Until we have a sufficient response to these kind of psionic aliens, there is no point in throwing soldiers at them for the sake of fighting to a country we will lose anyway. Instead we should station them along the borders of South Korea, and begin fortifying for an attack there.
This will have a noticeable impact on alien strategy going forward, which we need to prepare for. With Japan, they have a reasonable area of land from which they can launch attacks at Asia, and potentially Russia if they wished to go that route. The largest risk is posed to South Korea and China, and concerning ADVENT specifically, Taiwan would likely be targeted.
The aliens have additional options now, and we need to take that into account. If we are lucky, they will attack China. If not, they will attack us again. With that said, another attack will likely not be immediate as they will no doubt want to establish control over Japan. However, that is clearly not something we can rely on.
I do not want to suggest we abandon Japan altogether, that is a blunder we cannot afford. Yet open warfare will not be effective. Our operations in Japan should be transitioned to special forces, intelligence, and guerrilla combat to continuously sabotage their operation in the country. This is unlikely to warrant the direct attention of an Ethereal, and ultimately keep more of our soldiers alive.
With the suggested course of action declared, I now want to focus on the highlighted weaknesses of our military, and make suggestions to prepare so this does not happen again. We clearly cannot afford to lose more countries in such a manner.
Immediate Expansion, Development, and Modernization of the ADVENT Air force: Our air force is severely outmatched by the alien UFOs, and even the Ravens that XCOM provided the schematics for are insufficient against alien aircraft. They are simply too unprotected and vulnerable, especially against plasma weaponry.
Entire wings are completely rendered obsolete if the aliens even deploy a fraction of their UFOs to combat us, and that means there can be no air support on the ground. One unit that did prove incredibly useful was the A-10 aircraft, however it was rendered useless when the aliens decided to send their own aircraft.
We believe XCOM is developing their own answer to this, but we can no longer afford to wait until they have breakthroughs. We have the technology and knowledge to develop equally durable aircraft, which might not be spaceworthy, but that is not a concern at the moment. We need fighters that can survive a reasonable amount of time and hold their own against alien crafts.
This is not taking into account our air-to-ground fighters and bombers, which are also in need of a sufficient durability increase. While combating UFOs is not their primary goal, they need to be able to survive plasma hits and they are currently unable to do so. Our air-to-ground weaponry has proven extremely effective against alien ground forces, and we need to take advantage of that here.
Anti-Aircraft/Anti-Floater Fortifications and Established Defenses: We have a lack of sufficiently heavy firepower at our disposal within our defensive fortifications. The turrets developed are an excellent start, but we need to take a more extreme approach to defending our positions if we ever hope to resist continuous alien attacks.
There are several solutions that exist, though are somewhat expensive. However, I highly doubt that is a major concern when entire countries are at stake. There are several schools of thought, regarding implementation of such defensive fortifications. One potential area is distributed AA weaponry, unprotected, but widely available and minimally defended or manned. It is practical and cheap, but the effectiveness is questionable.
The other method is a much more concentrated fortification. These are commonly referred to as "Flak Towers" and are essentially buildings that are either heavily renovated or built from scratch that are equipped with entire rows of AA weaponry which is generally well-protected. Now, the clear issue might be that there are cases where AA weaponry is unneeded or useless.
I would counter that by saying that Floaters would be utterly wiped out by such a fortification, but in the case where that would not be relevant, these Flak Towers would be instead equipped with anti-infantry weaponry which can be deployed on all levels of these Flak Towers, not just the top level. I would also take this opportunity to upgrade or improve our weaponry with laser variants or turrets, which might be more useful in killing smaller threats like Floaters.
Aside from our AA weaponry, I do not believe it is yet necessary to completely upgrade our stock of anti-infantry weapons, manned or otherwise. Tests performed show that they are capable of piercing alien armor after sustained volleys, and while future iterations should be improved with Gaussian tech, the older variants are not completely obsolete.
If we implement these kind of towers, I believe this will not only provide much needed anti-air support from the ground, but also improve our chances of holding positions on the ground itself.
Psionic Response and Deployment Needs to Commence Immediately: While I am certain that the PRIEST Program is of primary importance, the priority needs to be bumped up to the highest levels. Psions have shown they alone can change the tide of a battle, and we, quite frankly, need them now. The Warlock alien that attacked was one we had never seen before.
The abilities it demonstrated were unlike anything even XCOM has done, and it is very possible that there are more like it. This is no longer a matter of harnessing a power for ADVENT, it is about survival. The PRIEST Program may be our only defense against the worst of psionics currently, and the longer we are without protection, the more likely we are simply doomed.
However, we also need to immediately begin developing methods on the negation of psionic influences. In the event that we are unable to field psions of our own, we must have some kind of way to protect our own soldiers from psionic powers using technology. It is clearly possible, as the aliens have Mutons that are capable of resisting telepathy, and we need to develop similar means, otherwise our most powerful soldiers are useless if they can be turned against us.
Telepathy is arguably the greatest psionic power available, and if we can negate that, then defeating the Ethereals becomes much easier. With that said, we need to also begin developing means of reliably taking down extremely powerful Ethereals. Our technology is useless if it can be crushed with a wave of a hand.
Research into missile, energy, or chemical weaponry should also begin, solely for the purpose of Ethereal assassination. We can assume they are likely vulnerable to at least some of the weaknesses we possess. Radiation, for example, is likely to affect them. While I know you have concerns about utilizing nanotechnology, it might be one of the other methods to reliably killing Ethereals. I respectfully request that the possibility be explored before passing judgement.