XCOM Trost

**XCOM Trost** was a heavily modded XCOM 2: War Of The Chosen campaign nearly fully recorded and documented. It focuses on an alternate-universe version of Trost and its characters in which a caste of San'Shyuum known as Elders took control of Trost and established a puppet organization known as ADVENT to police the populace's humans, of whom they take advantage of for genetic manipulation.

The story revolves around a company of SPARTANs working together with three Insurrectionist cells, the Reapers, the Skirmishers and the Templars, to eliminate ADVENT and the Elders and liberate Trost from their control.

The story synopsis revolves around a merger of the Trost setting with the average XCOM 2 campaign, in order for the events that transpire to make sense. XCOM Trost's missions and cutscenes can be viewed in relative order here.

It should be noted that the universe and tone of XCOM Trost sees a lighter tone and more of a somewhat cheesy classic action movie atmosphere, such as the use of swords, gunslinging and even magic.

A followup campaign, XCOM Trost II: The War For Bellaphron, is currently in development.

## Plot

During a galactic crisis, the UNSC *In Solemn Night* arrives at Trost to escape certain doom with a company of SPARTANs aboard. Despite this arrival, Trost is in the midst of a significant conflict in which even the SPARTANs cannot prevent. Despite their best attempts, Trost is conquered by a Covenant Remnant faction known as the Elders, who are vastly experienced with genetic manipulation and a strange energy known as Psionics. With Trost under their control, they form a puppet organization to police their human specimens known as ADVENT, and brainwash the population with suggestions that the Elders were arriving to Trost to offer technological trading when the UNSC pre-emptively attacked.

20 years later, the remaining Spartans, alongside 'Central', Doctor Tygan and Chief Engineer Lily Shen form up an organization known as XCOM with an intent to liberate the planet of the Elders, while UNSC support from the rest of the galaxy is yet to be found. With the help of an Insurrectionist 'Reaper', they locate an individual known only as the Commander, whose incredible tactical expertise is regarded as being almost legendary, to the point where the Commander is found being wired into ADVENT's network to use his tactical thinking to their advantage. Central manages to locate and rescue the Commander from their mental prison in an ADVENT facility, returning the Commander to their new ship, *The Avenger*.

After Doctor Tygan manages to remove several brain implants that kept the Commander in a vegetative state, the Commander returns to full consciousness, prepared to lead *The Avenger* and its crew on a quest to liberate Trost. The Commander sends out SPARTANs to make contact with two of the Insurrectionist cells, The Reapers, classic Insurrectionists who original fought the UNSC over 20 years ago for liberation of Trost, who are extremely capable infiltration agents and snipers, and Skirmishers, former ADVENT soldiers that have somehow managed to escape the control of the Elders and are dedicated to overthrowing the 'False Gods'. The largest issue is that these two Insurrectionist cells, as well as a third known as the Templars, who are capable of using Psionic energy for their own, are all busy at war with one another instead of ADVENT. Through the action of the Commander and his SPARTANs, however, a truce is made for the Skirmishers and Reapers to assist XCOM in their endeavors, especially upon the discovery of a strange creature known as a Chosen, who manages to kidnap the Skirmisher that XCOM made contact with.

After XCOM then makes contact with the Templars and rescues the previously captured Skirmisher, they perform numerous guerilla operations and counter-operations against ADVENT for a brutal wrestle for control of Trost, during this time XCOM agents are hounded by the Chosen, a triumvirate of elite, heavily genetically modified humans who, despite constant grievous wounding, return time and time again freshly restored thanks to the power of the Elders.

Throughout the campaign, XCOM slowly regains control of Trost, liberating chunks of continents one at a time, while performing infiltration operations with a focus on severing the Chosens' connections to the Elders before permanently killing them, and eventually culminating in the discovery of an 'Avatar', a human body remotely controlled by an Elder, as well as the discovery of a gateway to an unknown location, which rejects entry whenever the 'wrong signal' is given. After extensive study, XCOM manages to produce an Avatar of their own, remotely controlled by the Commander, the genetic code of which is accepted by the gateway which allows the Commander's Avatar entry into a strange, deep underwater facility which seems to house the Elders, and the Commander opens a means for several of his SPARTANs to join him in a final battle with the Elders.

When the Elders are killed and ADVENT's true horrors exposed to the world, ADVENT is overthrown, the few remaining footsoldiers choosing to join the Skirmishers. However, before they are fully fought back, the Elders warn the Commander, "*Your victory here means the end of all others! It will follow you, as it followed us, you are not ready!*". Watching from the shore, a group of Templars note strange activity far out in the ocean where the Elders' facility was located, noting that the real war had only just begun.

## Characters

The following list is of all the characters that appeared in the campaign:

* John-A222
* Dyers-G042
* Lynnette-A043
* Anthony Mendez
* Augustus-G342
* Katheryn Jarvace
* Ivan Stanislav
* Sean Moorland
* Joseph Murdoc
* Andrew-G199
* Samuel Caster
* Seras-B202
* Brandon King
* Marc Bedragare
* Johnathan Andrews
* Roger Caspiner
* Athena McKnight
* Lucy Voltz
* Azubuike Enitan
* Jack-082
* Veronica Martins
* Anos Gulvinesh

## Trivia

* It is likely that the Commander is in fact Andrew Harmon, but since the Commander is supposed to be a self-insert character the Commander could be anyone, and thus is left up to the imagination of the viewer.
* Originally upon starting the campaign, SPARTANs were solely supported, but later Marines and Sangheili became supported. Despite the addition of Sangheili, however, nobody submitted a Sangheili character and none were seen throughout the entirety of the campaign.
	+ With the use of the Shen's Last Gift DLC, it was proposed that AI characters could be allowed who would remotely control the DLC's SPARKs, a new class that focused of tanking damage and countering robotic enemies, though this too went nowhere.
* The DLC used for the campaign include (though may not have been explicitly used):
	+ War Of The Chosen
	+ Shen's Last Gift
	+ Anarchy's Children
* A full list of the mods used before the end of the Campaign are as follows:
	+ [WOTC] All Armor For Heroes
	+ [Wotc] Halo Reach Weapons
	+ [WOTC] Halo: Elites
	+ [WOTC] Halo: Reach Magnum
	+ [WOTC] Invisible Parts For Hero Units
	+ [WotC] Mod Config Menu
	+ [WOTC] Resistance Operations: Use Character Pool
	+ Add Part Names
	+ All Soldiers Gain XP - WotC
	+ Commander's Choice [WOTC & Vanilla]
	+ Empty [WOTC] Deco Slots for XCOM Soldier (+Some other empty things)
	+ Evac All - WotC
	+ Full Character Customization From Start
	+ Halo 3 marines voices
	+ Halo 3 Sergeants voices
	+ Halo CE Voices
	+ Halo Reach Elite Voice Pack
	+ Halo Reach MJOLNIR Armor Variants (WotC)
	+ Larger Starting Squad
		- Note that 'Larger Starting Squad' mod was used specifically for the final operation to try and include as many characters in the grand finale as possible, it was never used or even considered for the rest of the campaign as it can be incredibly overpowered.
	+ Marine BDUs in War of the Chosen
	+ MGS Solid Snake Voice Pack
	+ Missing Packages Fix + Resource
	+ Mute Voice Pack
	+ Queek's Sangheili Voice Pack #1
	+ Queek's Sangheili Voice Pack #2
	+ Stop Wasting My Time - WotC
	+ Unrestricted Customization - Wotc
	+ WotC Additional Invisible parts for hero units
	+ WotC Customize Soldier Size
	+ WotC Limitless Armor Options 2
	+ WOTC Splinter Cell Sam Fisher Voice Pack - WTR
	+ X2WOTCCommunityHighlander
* The XCOM Trost campaign was played by, recorded by, edited and uploaded by DEWM with support from several people in the creation of their characters.