So why are we fighting again?

[Arkadi]

If you are asking me, I don't fight them ... yet.

I am on the explore, investigate and research train - becouse after scratching my head and biting my beautyful behind, I found the strength of Elite Dangerous goes right with that.

We have found the Thargoid Artefacts.

We have found the Barnacles.

We have found the Guradians Ruins.

We have found the Thargoid Structures.

Now the Thargoid Cyclops Ships have found us in the Pleiades.

And we have been finding the old INRA-Bases and an old Tharg Scout ship, infected with the dreaded myocide-stuff lately.
​

So: "When will we find the link between Guardians and Thargoids?" is what I ask myself.

If there will be war or any other form of interaction with this alien species, this will yet have to be seen, is my approach. Inbetween Aegis is looking that we are beeing prepared if it comes to the worst.

Story progresses slow. Exploration, research and discoverys are taking time. I am getting bored too any now and then.

Still, there we have our lovely space-flight game.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I suppose FDev could reveal that it turned out to be INRA who did most of this purely to escalate hostilities against the returning Thargoids but if they do that without having provided any clues to the nature of this deception it will be a very, very poor bit of storytelling.

There is a possible clue in terms of what the Thargoids *haven't* done.

They didn't attack any of the Aegis CGs.

They started off with an immense advantage in weapons and shielding - they could essentially destroy any human ship at will, or at least force it to retreat. Now, sure, weight of numbers they might not have been able to stop every supply ship to the Aegis CGs ... but they didn't even try.

Possible reasons:
1) They had no idea the CGs were happening or what their significance was, or they did not have the capability to reach the CG systems soon enough.
2) They are not actually hostile.
3) They are hostile, but more interested in having a fair duel than in conquest.

...there are undoubtedly more possible reasons, but I can't think of any reason the Thargoids wouldn't have attacked the Aegis CGs that involves them being an actual threat. They can still be *hostile*, just not the sort that requires dropping everything to deal with.


(Conversely, we know that the superpowers do not exactly have the interests of humanity as a whole at heart, to a greater or lesser level of openness, so a collaboration by all three of them is likely to be extremely shady.)

 

[Stealthie]

Yes actually that is exactly the point. Why are we getting weapons upgrades to fight the faction that we aren't meant to be fighting? Is someone at Frontier or INRA actively trying to start a war with ALL Thargoids? Should we be falling for it? What are the odds ALL humans will hold fire if the engineers keep throwing new AX weapons at us? Seems like a setup. And if it is, the least they could do would be to provide a motivation, even if it's a transparent lie.

That's how I see it too, I think.

If there was supposed to be some kind of moral dilemma afoot, I'd hope FDev would have given us tools to allow us to explore every potential outcome.

The problem with games is that, even when the story is ambiguous, the "tools" can give away the desired result.

Leave a painting on a table and a person won't have any idea what they're supposed to do with it.
Leave a painting on a table and then give somebody a hammer and a handful of nails and they're probably going to conclude that they're supposed to hang the picture on the wall.

The problem with video games is that if you want to provide people with options, or even if you just want to create blind-alleys for people to explore, you have to make the effort to create the content that allows them to do that.

If they'd given us Thargoids and, perhaps, scanners, translators, wake-scanners and a new surface-scanner as well as all the new weapons then it'd be much more of a dilemma.
You'd have people intent on embracing the pew-pew while others, perhaps, tried to figure out where they came from and try and deduce a reason why they're here.

As things stand, FDev have said "Here's the Thargoids and here's a bunch of weapons for fighting them".
What are people supposed to conclude from that?

 

[MVP_Bluntman]

So far we've had several releases giving us the opportunity to brawl with our old 6 legged enemigos. However we haven't really gotten a compelling reason to attack them. I mean sure, we have a few zapped bases and uncountable numbers of NHSSs filled with the debris of human ships. But this could just be an unfortunate series of misunderstandings. Don't get me wrong! I'm ready to bring the pew, but I've yet to see a compelling reason to do so. My home systems aren't being threatened. The bubble is largely untouched, and the aliens only fire if I provoke them, despite having killed at least a dozen of them single handed. They are a forgiving bunch, I'll say that much for them.

I guess what I'm saying is: what's my motivation here? Should we expect the real invasion fleet soon? Will all hades be breaking loose in bubble? Or is this game of footsies in the Pleiades "it"?

For an Arms Race it sure doesn't feel desperate...

 

[[VR] Goooost]

I guess what I'm saying is: what's my motivation here? Should we expect the real invasion fleet soon? Will all hades be breaking loose in bubble? Or is this game of footsies in the Pleiades "it"?

The hearts taste amazing paired with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.

 

[n34257]

(Conversely, we know that the superpowers do not exactly have the interests of humanity as a whole at heart, to a greater or lesser level of openness, so a collaboration by all three of them is likely to be extremely shady.)

My feeling is that they're after Thargoid tech - and they'll stab each other in the back as soon as it looks like there's something to be directly gained.

Also, nothing boosts the economy or poll numbers quite as effectively as a war.

 

[peteuplink]

TBH I couldn't care less about the Thargoids. I'm quite happy playing in the bubble and can't really be bothered sitting through the amount of jumps it would take to get there and get my butt kicked by overpowered NPC aliens.

Now, if the Thargoids in the game were a bit more like the ones in the original game, so that they could appear in any system and were difficult but could be destroyed with standard weapons with skill, then I'd be a bit more interested.

 

[ElectricZ]

Why are we fighting? Because narratives are supposed to have conflict. But for me, right now, the whole Thargoid plot is playing out like this:

Whether it's because Frontier is deliberately slow playing their hand to increase the tension, or we're waiting for an updates to the game engine to allow for the alien invasion to proceed (destroyed stations, systems under attack) it's a slow burn. A very slow burn. Especially in the second case, if we're waiting for an update to make full-on conflict possible it could be days, weeks or months before actual war breaks out.

I can't speak for anyone else but for me preparation for this war consists of checking the forums and message boards to see if a new update has come out, because that seems to be the trigger for alien activity. Though I'm more interested bugfixes at this point than anything Thargoid related. So far during the increasingly longer periods of time between the times I log in to actually play, there is zero noticeable change in the bubble to indicate there's even a threat.

Instead of standing in the way of that steamroller that never gets closer screaming "noooooo", I'm wandering off to get coffee and poking my head back in now and again to see if it's actually gotten any closer. I'll guess I'll decide if I want to let it roll over me when it gets here - assuming there's a compelling reason in-game to do so.

Seeing as how there are pictures of stations on fire and ships are taking off from red-lit docks with "EVACUATE" flashing on their holo screens, it's pretty clear which direction Frontier intends to take things. It's just a question of how long it will take to get there.

 

[shadragon]

Outside of Beta, I've not fired a shot at them. I haven't even bought AX weapons yet.

I am working on G5 Dirty Drives to get out of dodge quicker, however. "I may be an idiot, but I'm no fool."

 

[KellyR]

Because we're humans, and humans kill things. More often than not, for no logical reason other than the thing being killed exists.

Killing for the sake of it. Yeah, that's humans. Killing seems to be our most popular sport. Maybe that's why they attacked us in the first place in the first war.

From an RPing POV, it's kind of obtuse to continue to deny they're hostile.
They're alleged to have destroyed a heap of capital ships and killed thousands of people and now they're pulling ships out of frameshift and attacking them as well as hoovering up occupied escape pods.

I suppose FDev could reveal that it turned out to be INRA who did most of this purely to escalate hostilities against the returning Thargoids but if they do that without having provided any clues to the nature of this deception it will be a very, very poor bit of storytelling.

From a gameplay POV; honestly, I got nothing.

I had collected up a fair pile of Thargoid mat's and data, on the assumption that I'd need them to mod' weapons intended to fight the Thargoids, but I ended-up binning them all 'cos the Thargoids don't currently present any immediate danger to me and if that changes in future it'll be easy enough to acquire more of those doodads.

Alleged? So were there actual witnesses to these alleged attacks? Credible witnesses, not some military drone acting under orders? Sounds like agitation propaganda to me.

The only reason that exists is purely to experience some new gameplay in ED. There is yet no story based reason to attack them, the bubble at large hasn't even noticed we've made contact with a sentient alien race. It's kind of silly really because it's not even remotely realistic that humanity would just shrug at aliens and continue with business as usual.

The majority of players that choose to fight them is because ED is starved of interesting gameplay. For many fighting a raid boss Thargoid is like finally finding a pool of water in the middle of the dry desert that is ED's lack of gameplay variety. Meanwhile David Braben is happy to continue indulging in running ED primarily as a social experiment rather than as a video game.

You must not know humans. If people today found out that there were aliens, a lot of the Christians would question their faith, but most people would be "Wow!!! That's fascinating. Now, about that merger we were talking about." or "I hope their friendly. Oh! there goes the oven timer." People would have a first reaction, of course, but then they would go back to business as usual unless there was a clear and imminent threat.

Yes actually that is exactly the point. Why are we getting weapons upgrades to fight the faction that we aren't meant to be fighting? Is someone at Frontier or INRA actively trying to start a war with ALL Thargoids? Should we be falling for it? What are the odds ALL humans will hold fire if the engineers keep throwing new AX weapons at us? Seems like a setup. And if it is, the least they could do would be to provide a motivation, even if it's a transparent lie.

Maybe there is another Thargoid faction that are militant and Xenophobic. If so, then they are the ones we need to be preparing for hostilities with. The ones in the flower ships seem peaceful unless you get too close or show yourself to be a threat. Wolves and bears are the same for the most part. You come upon a wolf in the wild and manage to sneak up too close, he's going to bare his teeth and be hostile. It's not that he doesn't like you. He doesn't know what your intentions are and holding out a hand means nothing to him. For all he knows, that hand might grab him. But if you make sure that he knows you're there before you get too close and don't present a threat, he will stay away from you and avoid you if all possible. If it's not possible, then get ready to be bitten cause he will do it to protect himself.

 

[Bomba Luigi]

Rumor is they talk trash about your mother behind your back, you better fight!

 

[Ziljan]

Seeing as how there are pictures of stations on fire and ships are taking off from red-lit docks with "EVACUATE" flashing on their holo screens, it's pretty clear which direction Frontier intends to take things. It's just a question of how long it will take to get there.

This is news to me. Which station is red lit with evacuate holos exactly?

 

[wstephenson]

This is news to me. Which station is red lit with evacuate holos exactly?

It's in the trailer shown at FX17.

 

[Ziljan]

It's in the trailer shown at FX17.

Ahhh, must have blinked

 

[ElectricZ]

This is news to me. Which station is red lit with evacuate holos exactly?

Some screen caps https://imgur.com/gallery/GmypL#0ogQkBz (not mine)

Spoiler

So war, or at least direct attacks on stations, seem to already be in the cards.

But then again, pin gameplay hopes on trailers at your own peril, right?

Spoiler

 

[EUS]

Because:

 

[rrobes]

I agree w/ Ziljan, until they start bubbling over, I'm going about my business. However, I have the components ready (except for the pulse neutralizer, will look soon).

If they start affecting orbitals and outposts and/or actually interdicting as NPC's do, then it's a different level.

For now, watchful waiting.

 

[Peregrine Vee]

There might be some hidden plot that we don't see yet, but right now I think we're well within the realm of self defense. Peace would be nice, but it's not looking too good right now. They started this and look to be continuing it. I didn't pull them out of hyperspace and fry their ship systems. I didn't dump a bunch of booby trapped toxic crap all over their back yard. I didn't start blowing them away when they tried to figure out what all the crap I dumped on them was. I didn't start slaughtering ships left and right because I felt like it. I know some people will say "Oh, some of us shot at them first!" but come on, that's like the natives throwing rocks at the passing helicoptor gunship after it knocked down their stuff, so now it's totally ok for the gunship to light up the entire village. And I know some people are like "Well, we didn't -see- them kill those ships so maybe they're somehow innocent!" but you can only walk into a room full of murdered people and accept the guy in the blood spattered hockey mask's excuse that they were all totally stabbed before he got there so many times.

This is not to say that humanity is a shining beacon of goodness and hope, or that we haven't been slaughtering ourselves left and right, or that there aren't large numbers of powerful people who are looking to abuse this in their favor in any way they can. Everything I see on INRA and The Club looks incredibly shady. But they kinda come in second to the wave of alien death machines currently laying waste to whatever and whoever they feel like out in the Pleiades. It's nice they haven't hit everywhere yet, but that doesn't mean we can not care and assume this problem will just fix itself. If we get it together we can get some tools to defend ourselves going, but if we just sit around complacent AEGIS will end up like this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNXGktfGm1Q) and we'll all be screwed.

 

[Riverside]

Just remember if you don't use it it won't get developed further

 

[5 Puppis]

"I'm from Buenos Aires, and I say kill em all!"

But really, I've not killed one. They seem to be just chilling in their front yard (the Pleiades) till people started getting all up in their business. I scan it, it scans me, we're all cool with each other. I did get murdered once, but I had accidentally boosted into it's eye so that was mostly my fault.