Enemy: Unknown
2010
For the last sixty three years, men and women (many of them American in nationality) have claimed to have been abducted by alien lifeforms. Many claim to have been abused, or impregnated, or tested upon, or questioned. Most of the world chose to ignore these "crackpots", focusing instead upon the more mundane everyday events that plague us all. However, on the 63th anniversary of the Roswell incident, UFO sightings across the world skyrocket. Whilst this is at first believed to be caused by tabloid hype of the anniversary, after several legitimate video recordings are made of UFO's traveling across the sky soon intellectuals, officials and the legitimate press join the ranks of "the believers". One of the most popular headlines at this time is "We Are Not Alone". Whilst this has been claimed and theorised by many, it has never been proved.
2012
Credible reports of human abductions steadily filter into government files and the press. These abductions all follow a similar pattern - the victims inhabited rural areas with a low population density, and the UFO fled before any interception could be attempted. The governments of the world, worrying at what this might really mean, begin to bring their armed forces to a state of full combat readiness. Contact is attempted, but no results are forthcoming. As the abductions continue, military action is considered to defend the peoples of the world, but the UFO's are mostly invisible to radar. Japan strangely takes the lead and forms the 'Kiryu-Kai' - the first anti-alien combat force. They are equipped with the very latest Japanese military equipment, which is mostly made elsewhere, and are manned by the country's finest, but after five months the Japanese government chooses to disband the unit due to them not encountering a single UFO. At least, that was the official version.
The United Nations was the next to take action. On the 21st of December, 2012, the Security Council gathered in Geneva to decide upon a course of action. It is eventually decided by the representatives of the world's nations that the only way to combat the aliens is to present a united front. Together, they agree to form a covert, multi-national military-based unit to investigate the alien threat and gauge its depth. This organization is known as X-INV. They run operations for several months, and manage to gather a large amount of data, including the presence of human sympathizers to the alien menace.
2013
After X-INV submits its final report, the aliens are formally decreed to be hostile, and are recognized as such by the new Council of Funding Nations. X-INV becomes X-COM: the Extraterrestrial Combat Unit. X-COM is assembled from veterans of X-INV and the finest soldiers, pilots, engineers, scientists and intelligence operatives from across the world. Together with the very latest military equipment, it is hoped that this will be capable of defeating the alien menace.
