Unfortunately, that wouldn't make for a very good story. For one thing it's not very plausible that the situation would be such. An "unexplainable series of covert attacks" isn't even trying to pretend to be anything other than handwaving for the sake of the purpose.
Huh? As i play the game (starting out), the alien's main approach tends to be covert. They come and go from who knows where. They run away from my planes, avoiding confrontation when possible. It's quite reasonable that the aliens would be first noticed as "unexplainable series of covert attacks," as the humans try in vain to find a terrestrial explanation for terror sites-- after the aliens are gone.
Plus nobody would believe that warring nations would join forces out of the blue like that.
Sure that's my belief too, warring or not. But we are already asked to believe that all the nations of the world have already consolidated themselves into 8 super-nations. If i accept that, it's not much harder to believe that these 8 super-nations would join together to form PHALANX in the face of an extraterrestrial threat.
I don't really see that 20,000 casualties makes a great difference in the plausibility of international cooperation.
For another thing, having the nations of Earth at war is detrimental to the ovedrall gameplay background.
You misunderstand, I didn't say they were at way, but at the
brink of war-- under the reasonable assumption that the terror sites were the result of secret weapons testing by some other terrestrial nation. Naturally the humans have to be more or less unified at the beginning for the game mechanics.
Next, you say you dislike the idea of tha aliens waging a full-scale war, but your little scenario does not offer an alternative. You haven't said anything about the aliens WANT, why they want it and why thay go about it in a progressively more aggressive manner. This is a very, very important plot element, and it isn't easy to come up with a good one. I think we have succeeded fairly well with what we have now.
I presume that conflict with the aliens (as the game progresses) becomes less covert and more aggressive, in part due to PHALAX's ability to seriously hinder the aliens. I don't see how (assuming the current backstory) that the aliens
can do anything in a "a progressively more aggressive manner." You've already staged bigger battles that the player will be part of.
As for the Aliens' purpose, i read somewhere that they are studying humans in order to bring our species into their collective mind. If that's the official story, i like that part. Its decently original, and meshes with gameplay. I don't see how it could motivate them to slaughter 20,000 civvies. They mostly need random samples. And of course to protect themselves while taking samples, and to try to make sure they leave no witnesses. They might be running other tests and experiments.
But in general they want (most of) humanity
alive when they take over our minds. At first they relied on their stealth ships and superior technology, and presumed we were too inferior and disorganized to offer real resistance. But as PHALAX begin to interfere with their plans they need to increase the fire-power and the body-count in order to continue their study of humanity.
> I'm not claiming that this is a perfect and fully formed alternative. I'm just trying to point out that there are story options that mesh much better with gameplay, by providing some examples and ideas.