Fiction Even Though Thargoids Won't Be Showing Up In The Game Any Time Soon.....

[Commander Mick]

I just wanted to get something straight about them.

Recently they have been described as highly evolved, upright walking Insectoids.

In the past, I thought I had read that they were actually evolved Spiders. Which would make them Arachids and not insectoids.

Which left me a little confused.

Are they Or Star-Trek Enterprise's Xindi.....

Perhaps not them, count the lack of limbs.

Then I read in their description from the Official Elite Wiki that they're overall impression is similar to that of Preying Mantis and now I not sure if they're relation ship to spiders is even true and just a figment of my imagination.

Does that mean that they could be a lot like the Advanced Dungeon & Dragons and the related spin-off game world of Dark-Sun set on Anthas race of Mantis-Warriors known as Thri-Kreen....

Discussion....

 

[Andrew Sayers]

Nitpick:

Thargoids are in the initial release, but only as encounters, we'll be doing something far more with them in a future release.

 

[Commander Mick]

Oh, so they are in......

Sorry I got that wrong.....

Glad to see them return

 

[Yaffle]

I guess that as they won't be of earth origin then the terms "insect" "arthropod" or "arachnid" cease to have meaningful meaning!
The term "insectoid" probably would come from somebody seeing them in their rear-view mirror as they fled, rapidly shedding weight. Counting limbs and dealing with radial symmetry, genetic inheritance and clades would be low on the list of priorities in such circumstances.
"Some nasty thing in a carapace" could, in theory, incorporate tortoises and turtles. Maybe, just maybe, thargoids are actually relatives of the Great A'Tuin?

 

[JohnStabler]

I wasn't aware that there was an *official* elite wiki...

 

[Slawkenbergius]

I hope they're not too humanoid... That always bugs me in other games. Boom tish

 

[carlisle]

Yeah I was gonna say too, saying they're insectoids is just a human way of saying they kinda look like insects, it doesn't necessarily mean they're more related to insects than spiders, in reality they (probably) aren't related to either... they just kinda look like insects or spiders.

 

[drew]

I wasn't aware that there was an *official* elite wiki...

No. Alioth.net is the unofficial official Elite wiki.

Thargoid lore has been revised by Frontier to some degree, but they are insectoid, they're all girls and they are out there.

Two of the official Elite fiction works feature the Thargoids.

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[Darren Grey]

The Elite Audiobook Kickstarter campaign also involves some thoroughly unofficial Thargoid representation

 

[Commander Mick]

I guess that as they won't be of earth origin then the terms "insect" "arthropod" or "arachnid" cease to have meaningful meaning!
The term "insectoid" probably would come from somebody seeing them in their rear-view mirror as they fled, rapidly shedding weight. Counting limbs and dealing with radial symmetry, genetic inheritance and clades would be low on the list of priorities in such circumstances.
"Some nasty thing in a carapace" could, in theory, incorporate tortoises and turtles. Maybe, just maybe, thargoids are actually relatives of the Great A'Tuin?

I just Googled the word Insetoid and it does say anything creatures with the physical traits of a Insect or Arachnid. Which is surprising to me. Considering that I have known for some time that Spiders are not to be ever confused with Insects.

I don't really see how being of Non-Terrestrial origin would make our terminology for them any less meaning full. Since humans as race originated from or near earth. (Apparently) I think that's all that matters when referring to them.

Interesting theories non the less.

I wasn't aware that there was an *official* elite wiki...

I always though that had some air of Officiality.

I hope they're not too humanoid... That always bugs me in other games. Boom tish

I quite prefer them to be mainly humanoid aside from the number of arms.

No. Alioth.net is the unofficial official Elite wiki.

Thargoid lore has been revised by Frontier to some degree, but they are insectoid, they're all girls and they are out there.

Two of the official Elite fiction works feature the Thargoids.

Cheers,

Drew.

So, anything written about Thargoids there isn't to be taken seriously.

I would love to delve into the revised new lore on [Thargoids, but I guess to delve to deeply and at all would be to ruin the air of eldaritch mystery surrounding them, At least in my opinion.

Besides, I assumed after I read that you seemed to be in charge of what is cannon about them and after David Hugh's reply to me when I had also asked what's his take on the Thargoid race. He couldn't say anything at all yet. Top-Secret stuff. There're definitely will not be player-characters in the game he's been working on.

Regarding, the Thargoids all being female. One can only guess how they reproduce. If they do at all. I always went with what's been said in the Alioth.Net - Wiki.....

No notable reproductive organs have been found in specimens, leading scientists to theorise that there must be a separate phenotype of Thargoid that is responsible for the reproductive act.

So, I thought of them as something that was of neither sex and probably clones.

I do understand the Sexual-Dimorphism between males and females in the insect world and especially Bees'. Perhaps they too have male drones or kidnap human males for breeding....

So, are all the Oresrians males only?

There's not need to answer those last questions right away. I am looking forward to those works of Elite fiction where they will be featured.

 

[Cody]

There are some rather dubious items on that Wiki - even Thargoid-generated misinformation, perhaps?

 

[Nagual]

There are some rather dubious items on that Wiki - even Thargoid-generated misinformation, perhaps?

Ha. That's what they want you to believe. Now wheres my tinfoil hat and suit?

 

[Slawkenbergius]

The 'all girls' thing doesn't really make much sense... The only biologically satisfactory interpretation I can come up with is that they once had both males and females, but the ladies developed a eugenics program to get rid of the blokes. That sounds fine to me.

Any of the asexual/hermaphrodite/protandric/totally-alien type systems would make 'girl' a misnomer. I don't mind misnomers, as long as it's a human colloquialism of the future, rather than bad science of the present.

 

[Yaffle]

I don't really see how being of Non-Terrestrial origin would make our terminology for them any less meaning full. Since humans as race originated from or near earth. (Apparently) I think that's all that matters when referring to them.

I had a pedantic biology hat on, apologies. You are, of course, correct - but how human you feel about being called (say) rats because it was the most populous mammal-like thing the thargons had on their homeworld?

For me it’s most likely convergent evolution, so other than looking a bit like an insect they are no more insects (probably less actually) than you or I. In antiquity bats were confused as being avian, marsupials were mistaken for being mammals, and whales for being fish. I guess thargons refer to humans as something equally taxonomically incorrect, drawing a parallel to whatever squishy four-limbed thing their home planet has.

...and a bit about bees, for the technically minded...
Most of the bees you see will be female. Drones, male bees, are formed from unfertilised eggs, and are all haploid (one set of chromosomes). Female bees come from fertilised eggs and are diploid (two sets of chromosomes). Most bees you see will be sterile females, who can lay eggs. Those eggs will be drones. More usually just the queen lays, having had a short but exhausting mating flight where she will mate with several drones from different hives. She can choose to lay fertilised or non-fertlised eggs. Once mated she’ll not see daylight again unless a beekeeper opens the hive or her daughters decide to swarm and take her with them. Mating is worse for the drones, their gonads explode and they die.
Now the mind bending part – a drone cannot have any sons, but can have hundreds of grandsons. That’s just the Apis melifera bits, there are hundreds of species of bee.

Moreover Brevipalpus phoenicis is all female. They don’t need males, and any males born become female. Yes, really. I recall from my degree there were other wholly female species, IIRC “The Selfish Gene” mentions them too.

Chickens though are my favourite. The right ovary (her right, not yours) is vestigial. If you remove her left ovary she will become a cockerel, and can actually produce viable sperm. Which I recall from a rather odd tutorial at Uni once “you are stuck on a desert island with two female chickens. How do you get them to make chicks rather than eggs?”

 

[Slawkenbergius]

Ah, okay. So females can be defined as 'egg' producers, and it's possible to lay eggs that only produce females... That seems like another reasonable explanation.

 

[Yaffle]

Ah, okay. So females can be defined as 'egg' producers, and it's possible to lay eggs that only produce females... That seems like another reasonable explanation.

Sort of - but it's about frames of reference. You and I think in terms of male and female because that's what our species, indeed most eukaryotic species are. It may be that all thargoids can produce offspring via budding, cloning, or mating and we lack the words and mental framework and language to describe it fully.

We're way off topic now, and heading into some philosophy/biology weirdness, but the question should really be the other way around. I don't have an answer for this, but here goes - "why do we have two sexes anyway? Sexless Prokaryotes (pretty much bacteria) outnumber us, predate us, and have more combined biomass than us, what advantage does it confer?"

Fascinating, huh?

 

[Andrew Sayers]

We're way off topic now, and heading into some philosophy/biology weirdness

Silly question from a non-biologist - could they be taking a page from the "Alien" playbook, getting new DNA into the population by assimilating other species? The phrase "all girls" gives me visions of a deadly game of galactic kiss chase turning into Night of the Living Impregnated.

 

[Yaffle]

Silly question from a non-biologist - could they be taking a page from the "Alien" playbook, getting new DNA into the population by assimilating other species? The phrase "all girls" gives me visions of a deadly game of galactic kiss chase turning into Night of the Living Impregnated.

It would be interesting to find out! I don't really worry about biological inconsistencies in science fiction as long as the author can make it all work. Zombie/vampire films, for example, don't work from any biological perspective, but the story carries you along so it doesn't matter.

Don't forget - there is no reason at all why Thargoids would have DNA. I'm sure they have some self-replicating molecule, but there's no reason it would be that one.

 

[Cosmos]

I think the best thing they can do with Thargoids is maintain their mystery. That doesn't mean they can't play a role but as we have seen from the pictures above how can they seriously be depicted with laughable representations of them that will never live up to their legend?

What do you think?

 

[Yaffle]

I think the best thing they can do with Thargoids is maintain their mystery. That doesn't mean they can't play a role but as we have seen from the pictures above how can they seriously be depicted with laughable representations of them that will never live up to their legend?

What do you think?

Yes.

Going back to the Alien reference above, the film was scary because you never saw the the thing. My poor terrified brain was filling in the gaps a man in a suit couldn't.
I can't remember who said it, but the key with storytelling is the mystery. The mystery is important, not the solution. The body in the cellar is dull once you know who it was and how it arrived there. Leave the thargoids as a bogeyman, a hobgoblin, something malevolent, mysterious and very much out there...