General Alexis Alexander

## Alexis Alexander

I'd attack if I were you, General. If you wait, then I'll just have one more superweapon to fire at you.

### Voice actor

Jeannie Elias

*My greatest superweapon is my brain! Wouldn't you agree, General?*

## Introduction

**Alexis Alexander** is an American general in Command & Conquer Generals Zero Hour: Contra whose expertise is super weapons. Her super unit is the Saturn. Her main technologies are Ion Plasmas, Weather Altering, mobile buildings and Defense Turret Designs.

## History

As a logistics staffer in the Second Korean War, Alexander attracted the notice of her superiors with her ability to acquire almost anything. Alexander harnessed this ability further to win a scholarship, followed by a long and distinguished career in the Marines. During the earlier stages of the GLA conflict, Alexander developed a tiered system of defenses that did not allow a single strike on her supply columns. Alexander became known for her strong emphasis on resource acquisition and defense in the early stages of a conflict, going on the offensive only when she has overwhelming firepower that was untouchable by the enemy. It was even rumored that she is well versed into the occult arts (whether she is an occult artist or she learned these skills from her family remains a mystery), which explains the Saturn's presence.

She is also Algrin Ironhand's mentor as she was the only one approving his ideas of a fully cybernetized army as the "Army of the future" and helping him getting funds for his secret experiments, thus effectively starting the "Robotic Revolution" in the United States (see Ironhand's bio for more information).

However, Alexander is a more controversial general than most others due to her overconfident and secretive personality. First, she had to deal with numerous criticisms against the Ion Tower Project that caused the NASA to overspend the funds and "congest the satellite traffic". Then, she had to quell international anxiety and uproar over the SDI Project that was deemed to "topple the Balance of Power and form a hegemony". Afterwards, she had to settle a court case regarding her involvement in Ironhand's cybernetic army project, including ICC's lawsuits regarding her development of Saturn's AI as the research broke some human rights laws. Finally, she had to admit the existence of the Weather Manipulation Device, which she originally wanted kept classified before her efforts flopped. All of the issues she caused have brought constant criticism against the United States Army, whether it is domestically or internationally. Some higher-ups once thought of getting rid of her but due to her achievement of "resurrecting" the U.S. Military Muscle, she still stays in the Military.

The 52 year old General Alexander is stationed at Camp Franklin, Belfast, Maine, USA, with the Class Number 07121969-HB.

## Arsenal

### Infantry

* **Ranger** - Basic infantry, female variant.
* **Missile Defender** - Anti-armor infantry.
* **Pathfinder** - Sniper unit, stealthed when not moving.
* **Colonel Burton** - Hero unit, a versatile commando.

### Vehicles

* **Dozer** - Builds USA structures.
* **Heavy Dozer** - Armored construction vehicle, immune to environmental hazards, can self-repair.
* **Patriot Defense Core** - Unmanned vehicle that can deploy into an EMP Patriot.
* **Grendel Defense Core** - Unmanned vehicle that can deploy into a Grendel.
* **Ion Defense Core** - Unmanned vehicle that can deploy into an Ion Tower.
* **Hummer** - Light scout, has two seatings, passengers can fire from inside.
* **Sentry Droid** - Scout drone, stealthed when not moving.
* **Centurion** - Hover tank, armed with a pulse cannon, consumes power.
* **AMOS** - Light artillery.
* **Avenger** - Advanced anti-air vehicle.
* **Bobcat** - Stryker engineering vehicle, clears up toxins and radiation. Detects and detonates mines.
* **Saturn** - Super unit, walking fortress, self-repairs, can build basic structures and defenses.
* **Amphibious Transport** - Landing hovercraft.

### Aircraft

* **Chinook** - Cargo helicopter, gathers supplies.
* **Thor** - Helicopter gunship.
* **F-117 Night Hawk** - Stealth bomber.
* **Aurora Beta** - High speed bomber, carries a single high-explosive + EMP bomb, cannot be intercepted until payload is dropped.

### Structures

* **Command Center** - Builds dozers, provides radar and commands all general's powers.
* **Ion Power Plant** - Provides power.
* **Barracks** - Trains USA infantry.
* **Supply Center** - Builds Chinooks and stores resources.
* **War Factory** - Builds USA vehicles.
* **Airfield** - Builds, rearms and repairs USA aircraft.
* **Strategy Center** - Technology building, provides battle plans. Unlocks important upgrades and units.
* **Supply Drop Zone** - Provides additional funds.
* **AIDE** - Anti-infantry defense.
* **EMP Patriot** - Anti-air & armor defense.
* **Ion Tower** - Long range defense.
* **Atlas** - Heavy artillery defense, which fires power bullets and can be garrisoned by four soldiers.
* **Cyclone** - Heavy anti-armor & air defense.
* **Tomahawk Storm** - Basic super weapon, bombards designated area with Tomahawk missiles.
* **Advanced Particle Cannon** - Tier 2 super weapon, standard particle cannon.
* **ICBM** -Tier 3 super weapon, bombards designated area with a ICBM.
* **Weather Manipulation Device** - Causes the battlefield to darken, strikes targeted positions with lightning storms, disables structures and vehicles.
* **SDI Cannon** - Intercepts ballistic super weapons and general's powers.

### Upgrades

* **Capture Buildings** - Allows rangers to capture natural and hostile structures.
* **Security Systems** - Individual upgrade, installs a defense turret on a Command Center or a Supply Center. Effective against infantry and light vehicles.
* **Uranium Plated Armor** - Increases Centurion and Saturn armor by 20%.
* **Drone Armor** - Increases drone durability by 25%.
* **Supply Lines** - Increases supply truck collecting efficiency, as well as money gained from oil derricks and supply drops.
* **Flash Bang Grenades** - Allows Rangers to clear garrisons.
* **Countermeasures** - Allows aircraft to evade missiles with 20% chance and become 20% more resistant to AA weapons.
* **EMP Rockets** - Gives EMP Patriot, Atlas, Missile Defender, Aurora Beta, Thor and Hummer EMP warheads.
* **Emitters** - Increases missile damage against infantries.
* **Solar Panels** - Reduced power consumption by 50%.
* **Advanced Energy Capacitors** - Increases Centurion firepower by 25% but also increases power consumption by 2pts.

### General's Powers

* Rank 1
	+ **Spy Drone** - Summons a stealth spy drone to watch over the designated area, detects stealth units.
	+ **Spy Satellite** - Reveals the selected location of enemy activity. Available by default.
	+ **Defenders Training -** All defense structures will be built as veterans.
		- +10% rate of fire.
		- +10% damage.
		- +10% health.
	+ **Centurion Tank** - Allows the player to build Centurion Tanks.
		- This unit however requires War Factory and Rank 2 to be built.
	+ **Emergency Repair Level 1** - Repairs vehicles and buildings in an area. Heals infantry.

* Rank 3
	+ **Dozer Drop -** Drops two Heavy Construction Dozers at the designated zone.
	+ **Defense Core Drop Level 1-3** - Deploys Defense Cores in the designated area.
		- Level 1: 1 Patriot Defense Core.
		- Level 2: 1 Patriot Defense Core & 1 Grendel Defense Core.
		- Level 3: 2 Patriot Defense Cores & 2 Grendel Defense Cores.
	+ **Carpet Bomb Level 1-3** - Allows the player to call in heavy bombers to carpet bomb an area.
		- Level 1: 1 B-52 bomber.
		- Level 2: 2 B-1 bombers.
		- Level 3: 3 B-3 stealth bombers.
	+ **Emergency Repair Level 2 & 3** - Repairs vehicles and buildings in an area. Heals infantry.
	+ **AA Laser Level 1-3** - Orbital laser system allows to track and shoot down enemy aircraft. The higher rank the player has, the more aircrafts can be shot down with a single strike. Armored aircraft take more than one shot to be destroyed.
		- Level 1: 3 aircraft.
		- Level 2: 6 aircraft.
		- Level 3: 9 aircraft.

* Rank 5
	+ **EMP Bomb** - Summons a B-1 Lancer to drop an EMP bomb onto the target area. Disables enemy vehicles and structures.
	+ **Defense Core Drop** - Deploys Defense Cores in the designated area.
		- 2 Patriot Defense Cores, 2 Grendel Defense Cores & 1 Ion Defense Core.
	+ **High Explosive Bomb** - Summons a B-52 Stratofortress to drop a fuel air bomb at the target area.

## Strengths and Advantages

* Her Power Plants are cheap and easy to build (costs $500 and give 5pts of power).

* She has a lot of base defenses and can also be built via drone cores.
* Her Centurions are powerful Hover MBT units and can improve their strength further by upgrades.
* Her Aurora bombers can be upgraded to carry an EMP effect to disable enemy's vehicles and structures.
* The Saturn is an excellent anti-everything super unit who can also build and repair structures.

* She has a total of 4 Super Weapons which can be described as below:
	+ She can use the Tomahawk Storm to take out large groups of enemy units.
	+ She can use the Particle Cannon to take out enemy's with precision.
	+ She can use the ICBM to take out crowded buildings and units.
	+ She can use the WMD to take out enemy's power.

## Weaknesses and Disadvantages

* If her base is low on power, it could mean defeat if not recovered quickly.
* One of the most power hungry factions in *Contra*.

## General's Challenge

General Alexander's Challenge uses the same maps as the original *Zero Hour* challenge, albeit with not a few, but numerous twists. The biggest difficulty of this challenge is attempting to recover from the various setbacks caused by Alexander's weapon strikes.

The challenger fights General Alexander in a Mediterranean-like map, her base is heavily defended from all sides against both land and air assaults, with numerous powerful defenses situated on high grounds, the only entrance to her base is a narrow bridge which ends at a narrow passage leading into her base flanked by high grounds with EMP Patriots and Tech Artillery Platforms.

The water level of this map is dynamic, after 8 minutes, the water level will lower and reveal two land bridges, one leads towards the small peninsula located on the south eastern corner of the map where the first particle cannon is found. Another leads toward Alexander's main base where a small shallow bay guarded by several EMP Patriots, an Altas and a Cyclone is found. Assaulting from this direction allows the player to attack Alexander's key structures, such as her Strategy Center, Command Center and one of her SDI Cannons.

True to her title, General Alexander is very dependent of her super weapons, of which, she has five:

* The first one is the Particle Cannon located on the south eastern corner, it’s the first one that will be activated, right after the two Thor Gunships have discovered your base. This is also the only superweapon that will activate on Easy difficulty.
* The second one is the Tomahawk Storm. It’s located just north of her airfield, on an elevated area. It will become active after the first Particle Cannon has fired once.
* The third superweapon is a second Particle Cannon, it will activate after the Tomahawk Storm has fired for the first time. But only on Hard difficulty, if not, then the Particle Cannon will remain offline for the rest of the battle.
* The fourth superweapon is the Weather Manipulation Device, it will become active after the Tomahawk Storm/2nd Particle Cannon has fired. This is likely the most irritating super weapon of all as it has the largest are of effect and can easily shut down half of your base, leaving it vulnerable to attacks.
* The fifth and final superweapon is the ICBM silo, it will also become active after Alexander has lost a superweapon.

General Alexander also has multiple offensive general’s powers at her disposal:

* **Carpet Bombing**: she’ll use this power to target the south west corner of your base. Keep your air units away from this area as the bombers drop EMP bombs which can disable aircraft and cause them to fall out of the sky.
* **High Explosive Bomb**: she’ll use this power to target the center of your base.
* **Zone Capture**: she’ll spawn defensive structures along the north shore of your base, but will only use this power if she’s loosing.

Besides her superweapons and general’s powers. Alexander will send various units to attack your base.

* **Aurora Beta bombers**: they will always approach from the north east, and will bomb the first target they come into contact to, even if it’s a mere infantry or scaffolding . So the damage they inflict can be easily negated.
* **Centurion tanks**: they will attack in small groups from the north shore or the east shore, they have impressive firepower but below average durability, a group of AT infantry or helicopters are the most suited to take on these tanks.
* **Infantries**: rangers and missile defenders will come down from the only land access of your base to attack, accompanied by AMOS artillery vehicles, these are the least dangerous of all of General Alexander’s attacks and can be dispatched easily.
* **Chinooks**: Alexander will send in Chinooks loaded with infantries into your base, the Chinook will usually land at the south eastern corner of your base, or along the northern shores right next to the oil derrick. It’s advised to build an AA defense or position an AA/AP vehicle near the landing area. When the infantries unload, they’re all positioned on the exact same spot, with luck, the AA unit will kill all of them simultaneously where they stand.
* **Thors**: small groups of them will be sent to attack your base, they usually approach from the north east but sometimes they’ll approach directly from the north. Despite being more durable than the Comanches, they’ll still fall easily to AA fire.

The easiest way to reduce the frequency of these attacks, however, is to save your general’s promotion points until you reach Rank 3 and invest them all in offensive powers (such as artillery barrage) and then target Alexander’s supply center, although it’s protected by a shield generator, a level three offensive power is usually enough to penetrate the shield and destroy the facility. This will leave Alexander on a very tight budget. As her only other source of supplies is a Supply Drop Zone.

Alexander's base is literally untouchable for generals who mainly rely on ballistic based super weapons and general’s powers, thanks to the two SDI cannons positioned in the base. While the SDI cannons cannot shoot down all the artillery shells in a level 3 barrage, only a handful of shells will actually land and the damage they will deal is negligible. Any airborne assaults that managed to make it to her base in one piece will also produce no effect as the bombs will be zapped out of the air by the SDI cannons the moment they leave the bombs.

Direct assault on her base is a strategy that will only result in severe casualties. Alexander’s base is surrounded by powerful defenses. Since 009 FINAL Patch 2, there are two points of access to her main base: a narrow bridge at the south which forms a perfect chokepoint and a larger, less defended entry at the west that is only accessible every 8 minutes when the water level lowers. Her super unit, Saturn, is also positioned in the middle of her base, and will use its lightning beacon to fry any intruders to a crisp. However, Saturn will never go on the offence, and only remains to guard her base and rebuild lost structures.

In order for the player to destroy the SDI cannons, the strategy they should generally employ involves capturing the Particle Uplink Cannon located on the south east corner of the map. This Particle Cannon is very poorly guarded, it’s only protected by several defenses and a few Avengers. And since the “sell” function was removed from Contra, Alexander will have no method to deny you of this superweapon but to try and destroy it. So it’s highly important to protect the Particle Uplink Cannon properly until it can fire, one burst is all it takes to destroy a SDI cannon and leave half of her base open for weapon strikes. Despite constantly reminding you the importance of keeping buildings apart to minimize weapon strike damage, Alexander is incapable of doing so as her base has fairly limited space which means many of her structures are cluttered together, meaning that one well placed super weapon strike can potentially take out multiple super weapons of hers.

An important note to take is that Alexander's A.I. is aware of the positions of your stealth units, she will launch strikes against them if a sufficient amount of stealth units is gathered at a certain location.

## Trivia

* Actress Karina Thomas provided the images for General Alexander; her voice actress is Jeannie Elias.
* The weapon shown in her picture is a Beretta 93R model with a flash suppressor.
* In vanilla *Zero Hour*, Alexander's faction is colored purple in her challenge, in *Contra*, her faction is colored gold instead.

## See also (cut content)

* **Antares** - Mobile Shield Generator. Can temporarily create a shield no missile or projectile can penetrate.
* **Grendel** - Anti-armor defense.