Don't know if it could be related but, on a recent interview about 2.4 and Thargoids :
Braben is particularly intrigued by planets with significant quantities of methane and ammonia. He believes life could thrive there, thanks to the warming effect CO2.
“I’ve always been fascinated by carbon-ammonia chemistry because I think it should be just as possible to have life where you’ve got a temperature band that is roughly about 100 centigrade cooler. Between 70 and 100,” Braben told Newsweek.
“There are a lot of interesting things to look at with a planet that has methane or ammonia chemistry. It’s quite possible to heat that up using CO2. It’s very hard to go the other way. So trying to see how different lifeforms might conflict in the future is fascinating.
What I think:
[TINFOIL]
- barnacles are resource harvesters for the Thargoid
- flower ships gather the good stuff
- good stuff is used in alien bases to breed, grow and care for the new flower ships et al.
- UAs and/or UPs are an intermediate form of the flower ships
[/TINFOIL]