IRNA, The Guardians, And You

[IndigoWyrd]

We seem to like to point the finger at INRA for stirring up trouble with the Thargoids, and by extension we like to try to implicate Aegis along with INRA.
But has anyone stopped to consider that the Guardians may be directly responsible for stirring things up, both long ago, and indirectly, in more modern times as well?

Recemtly discovered Guardian sites, scattered thorough Guardian Territory seem to have some similarities to the long-abandoned INRA sites. I don't think it would be a stretch to think the Guardians did not treat the Thargoids any better than INRA did. In fact, they could have very well been far worse. We do know, from records recently recovered, that the Guardians and the Thargoids were at war with each other. We also know the Guardians used some rather brutal tactics - bio-engineered combat beasts, biological warfare - hey, does that sound even a little familiar? How did we drive off the Thargoids again? Myciod infection wasn't it?

For all we know our Mycoid Infection could have been the equivalent of the flu, whereas the Guardians bioweapons might have been more along the lines of Smallpox or worse. We do know they possessed an extreme level of mastery when it came to bio-genetics. So would it be little wonder that the Thargoids might well have had good cause for both an extended absence as well as renewed fury when dealing with the Aegis facilities after the INRA infections?

Could it be that the Mycoid Infection brought back old memories of their conflict with the Guardians? And in turn, seeing what we were able to concoct during the initial conflict hasn't only further stirred them into a near-frenzy state, and their onslaught against our Aegis group and their research facilities isn't aimed to prevent us from reaching the Guardian's level of biological weaponry?

Add to that the fact that we still have no basis for communications with the Thargoids and know so little about them, and likewise they probably equally as little about us, that it may ultimately come down to a show of such force that we leave them no other option but to establish communications or face extinction. Even the Guardians, it seems, were unable to establish any kind of dialog with them - and the Thargoids showed little interest in communicating either - in fact, it seems they took some measure of offence at even trying to be understood by the Guardians.

And then, there is the matter of the Guardians' AI. We know a fair bit of their technology remains active, and their AI also came to realize its own precarious situation during the Guardians' last civil war - enough to seek out some alternative host for its own survival. And what better host might be out there, than perhaps the Alliance's own Sim Archive. We also know there is some connection between The Alliance, the Turners, and The Club - the clandestine organization behind INRA.

Could their be some influence of ancient Guardian AI at work here? Can we say with certainty that it is not absolutely impossible?

Just some thought-food. Eat hearty.

 

[SecretGnome]

It does seem like the very name Guardians is something humans have applied to them and in reality we see many instances of subliminal naming, for example the difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist is simply the side they fight on or the source of your news so I would say your theory is very much possible.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

I like certain aspects of your tinfoiling here Indigo, however, there are some plot holes... Thargoids and humans can and have communicated in the past and may still do so in the present. See the officially sanctioned novels for more info. Also Michael Brookes did say that it was deliberate that the thargoid instruments worked on human/federal communications protocols such as morse code. However your point about guardian bioweapons and human sourced mycoids possibly being the trigger for a preemptive strike on aegis labs by thargoids carries a lot of weight with me. I for one have speculated on thargoid ammonia based biology requiring cold temperatures to operate in, meaning that the mycoid that infected them must operate in similar climates, and others on this forum have pointed out that the attacks on aegis labs seem directed toward making those stations overheat whcih would most likely kill any thargoid targeted pathogens, in much the same way as we can overheat our ships to burn off caustic missile gunk.

Picking up on the alliance, from FFE the alliance became allies with the thargoids post mycoid antedote, and the alliences technology used to be near the top of the tree, even the alliance commissioned lakon chieftan is a very handy craft. So it wouldnt surprise me if they had the guardians AI in their archive like a genie in a bottle. If you look at the alliance california nebula research programmes with human experementaiton (in galnet) it shows the alliance has very little morals or conscience holding them back, so I wouldn't be surprised if they were tormenting the trapped guardian AI and working behind the scenes to subvertively guide humanity into and through a thargoid war under the guise of the club.

 

[seko]

I am waiting for the AI that were created by and who destroyed the Guarians to turn up. One reason they destroyed the Guardians, was they could't see any productivity/good in war like species

 

[Dodger]

As Ram Tah mentioned: "I believe they decided that the only way to preclude further violence – while giving their own burgeoning society the best possible chance of survival – was to destroy what remained of the Guardians’ civilisation".
Considering that thargoids did not pose a serious threat to constructs i hope we will see them some day.
Do the AI realy needs any human tech host? AI had millions of years to develope and build anything it needs.

 

[Gun Star]

I am waiting for the AI that were created by and who destroyed the Guarians to turn up. One reason they destroyed the Guardians, was they could't see any productivity/good in war like species

 

[IndigoWyrd]

As Ram Tah mentioned: "I believe they decided that the only way to preclude further violence – while giving their own burgeoning society the best possible chance of survival – was to destroy what remained of the Guardians’ civilisation".
Considering that thargoids did not pose a serious threat to constructs i hope we will see them some day.
Do the AI realy needs any human tech host? AI had millions of years to develope and build anything it needs.

Human hosts, probably not. Human laborers? Possibly.

As for the various novellas... never read any of them. Never knew they even existed. Still haven't read any of them, and that's not likely to change. Just not a genre I like to read. Give me a good horror story any time.

But on the matter of communications - I'll buy that it's entirely possible there does exist some manner of communications buried deep behind walls of military classification - but we, you and I, and the rest of the galaxy's independent pilots, do not have access to this.

 

[Thatchinho]

We seem to like to point the finger at INRA for stirring up trouble with the Thargoids, and by extension we like to try to implicate Aegis along with INRA.
But has anyone stopped to consider that the Guardians may be directly responsible for stirring things up, both long ago, and indirectly, in more modern times as well?

Recemtly discovered Guardian sites, scattered thorough Guardian Territory seem to have some similarities to the long-abandoned INRA sites. I don't think it would be a stretch to think the Guardians did not treat the Thargoids any better than INRA did. In fact, they could have very well been far worse. We do know, from records recently recovered, that the Guardians and the Thargoids were at war with each other. We also know the Guardians used some rather brutal tactics - bio-engineered combat beasts, biological warfare - hey, does that sound even a little familiar? How did we drive off the Thargoids again? Myciod infection wasn't it?

For all we know our Mycoid Infection could have been the equivalent of the flu, whereas the Guardians bioweapons might have been more along the lines of Smallpox or worse. We do know they possessed an extreme level of mastery when it came to bio-genetics. So would it be little wonder that the Thargoids might well have had good cause for both an extended absence as well as renewed fury when dealing with the Aegis facilities after the INRA infections?

Could it be that the Mycoid Infection brought back old memories of their conflict with the Guardians? And in turn, seeing what we were able to concoct during the initial conflict hasn't only further stirred them into a near-frenzy state, and their onslaught against our Aegis group and their research facilities isn't aimed to prevent us from reaching the Guardian's level of biological weaponry?

Add to that the fact that we still have no basis for communications with the Thargoids and know so little about them, and likewise they probably equally as little about us, that it may ultimately come down to a show of such force that we leave them no other option but to establish communications or face extinction. Even the Guardians, it seems, were unable to establish any kind of dialog with them - and the Thargoids showed little interest in communicating either - in fact, it seems they took some measure of offence at even trying to be understood by the Guardians.

And then, there is the matter of the Guardians' AI. We know a fair bit of their technology remains active, and their AI also came to realize its own precarious situation during the Guardians' last civil war - enough to seek out some alternative host for its own survival. And what better host might be out there, than perhaps the Alliance's own Sim Archive. We also know there is some connection between The Alliance, the Turners, and The Club - the clandestine organization behind INRA.

Could their be some influence of ancient Guardian AI at work here? Can we say with certainty that it is not absolutely impossible?

Just some thought-food. Eat hearty.

Just to throw some tinfoil onto the fire, Ram Tah is definitely wrong in some of his assertions about our current situation being a repetition of what happened with the Guardians. Is he lying? And if so, why?

Specifically he says the Thargoids made no efforts at communication with the Guardians and says that equals our experience.

In contrast, we have rumours that our first contact with Thargoids was with a delegation/deputation they'd sent which we attacked.

Plus rumours abound of secret Human-Thargoid communications, and collaborations.

Those are rumours, but what's fact is that the Thargoid Sensors broadcast in Morse. Whether that is to good intent or ill, it still represents a form of communication in what is effectively our language.


Anyway, on the Mycoid front I'd say that it's very possible that our use of a Biological weapon gave the Thargoids severe pause for thought, particularly given what happened with the Guardians.

Just on the attacks on AEGIS, I've mentioned it elsewhere, but a possible explanation for the nature of the attacks on the AEGIS bases (attack and damage but don't destroy, leaving a station with very high temperatures) might be that they are specifically trying to destroy any stocks of the Mycoid (via the high temperatures). That's just speculation at the moment of course, but with some reasoning behind it (at least in terms of the effects of temperature on the Mycoid.)

Edit - partially ninja'd by Jayridium!

 

[Thatchinho]

It does seem like the very name Guardians is something humans have applied to them and in reality we see many instances of subliminal naming, for example the difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist is simply the side they fight on or the source of your news so I would say your theory is very much possible.

Yep. In-game, 'Guardians' is just the name that Ram Tah gave them.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Yep. In-game, 'Guardians' is just the name that Ram Tah gave them.

Indeed - we don't know what they called themselves, or what any other race living at that time called them.
We also don't really know all that much about them. What we have decoded indicates they had artistic and religious dispositions, but we know little of their day-to-day beliefs, their social values, or their relations with any other species out there.

They could well have been "Space-(National Socialist Party members) [the familiar term for this historical organization, rooted in Germany and the primary focus of World War II is auto-censored here]", the "@sshats of the Galaxy", and the Thargoids might have done the rest of us a favor by wiping them out for all we know.

Of course, the reverse could also be true, and the Thargoids could be the @sshats of the galaxy. Or it could be us... but we generally don't like to admit to those sorts of things, so let's assume it's someone else.

 

[Thatchinho]

Indeed - we don't know what they called themselves, or what any other race living at that time called them.
We also don't really know all that much about them. What we have decoded indicates they had artistic and religious dispositions, but we know little of their day-to-day beliefs, their social values, or their relations with any other species out there.

They could well have been "Space-s", the "@sshats of the Galaxy", and the Thargoids might have done the rest of us a favor by wiping them out for all we know.

Of course, the reverse could also be true, and the Thargoids could be the @sshats of the galaxy. Or it could be us... but we generally don't like to admit to those sorts of things, so let's assume it's someone else.

Hmm, I dunno, I'd say there's a lot we know about them from the various logs (assuming the logs are correct, anyway), for example:

- Socially inclusive and co-operative
- Focussed towards individuals responsibilities and contributions to society
- Ecologically/Environmentally minded
- Predisposed towards organic solutions over non-organic ones
- They hunted and killed for food (possibly not for every meal, but certainly for specific occasions/circumstances, such as when hosting guests), and non-indigenous animals were a particular delicacy, with huge nature/game reserves kept on their planets, and a valuable trade in off-world species.

 

[Th3 0utKa5t]

They hunted and killed for food (possibly not for every meal, but certainly for specific occasions/circumstances, such as when hosting guests), and non-indigenous animals were a particular delicacy, with huge nature/game reserves kept on their planets, and a valuable trade in off-world species.

Who were they hosting as guests?
who were they trading with?
was this between themselves or other sentient space fairing species?

Also hasn't the a lot of the previous tharg war with us been redacted so that a lot of the stuff after the micoid was developed and used is no longer canon? the part about us making "friends" with them after and the part where we gave them the cure of the micoid among other things.

 

[CMDR Dreamstate]

Just to point out: the way Guardians developed AI and how they communicated electronically is practically the same as we have done it (Binary Code or quantum computing) - the old logs pointed at this (although it wasn't done well, but it did mention a universal language, which probably meant mathematics/binary), so it may be that the reason Thargoids understand morse to some extent could have been down to their communications with the Guardian's - the Thargoids would have had to adjust the way they understood our morse/binary/words, but it seems it wasn't beyond them to do it.

If that is the case, then the obvious conclusion one can draw is that the thargoids learned to communicate this way from someone else they could have conquered - another reason and hypothesis for the Dynasty Expeditions without previous knowledge of the Guardians.

The thargoids may have been around for millions of years before even the Guardian's showed up, so who knows how many cultures they have communicated with and wiped out in a similar fashion?

Side note: apparently Ram Tahs Bio mentions he has travelled as far as you can go in the galaxy - makes you wonder what he might know given he's an archaeologist/engineer.

 

[Jaggedmallard]

As Ram Tah mentioned: "I believe they decided that the only way to preclude further violence – while giving their own burgeoning society the best possible chance of survival – was to destroy what remained of the Guardians’ civilisation".
Considering that thargoids did not pose a serious threat to constructs i hope we will see them some day.
Do the AI realy needs any human tech host? AI had millions of years to develope and build anything it needs.

I wouldn't be surprised if they've transcended their form from back then. As a burgeoning intelligence they would have been at risk from a 'Guardian' civil war but after a long time undisturbed its quite likely they've advanced to a point where humanity is so far beneath them that they'd see no reason to even interact with humanity.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Hmm, I dunno, I'd say there's a lot we know about them from the various logs (assuming the logs are correct, anyway), for example:

- Socially inclusive and co-operative + With Other Black-haired, Red-eyed, evenly serrated-forearmed countrymen
- Focussed towards individuals responsibilities and contributions to society + That may also be an apt description of the National Socialist Party
- Ecologically/Environmentally minded + So "Green" National Socialist Party Members. We have our own share of "eco-terrorists" these days too.
- Predisposed towards organic solutions over non-organic ones + aka Biological (germ) Warfare. There was a British officer who suggested doing the same as a means of dealing with the indigenous peoples of North America as well.
- They hunted and killed for food (possibly not for every meal, but certainly for specific occasions/circumstances, such as when hosting guests), and non-indigenous animals were a particular delicacy, with huge nature/game reserves kept on their planets, and a valuable trade in off-world species. + Perhaps Thargoid Eggs were a delicacy, like beluga caviar? Someone eating your children, or unborn, you might not look well on either.

There are some things we know - but far more that we don't. And this is just some theorizing. I'd not quite put it to the tinfoil-level yet, but definitely in the More Questions Than Answers file.

 

[Dodger]

I wouldn't be surprised if they've transcended their form from back then. As a burgeoning intelligence they would have been at risk from a 'Guardian' civil war but after a long time undisturbed its quite likely they've advanced to a point where humanity is so far beneath them that they'd see no reason to even interact with humanity.

May be they even tamed or mind controlled some of thargoids. I was wondering who are supposed to use those Unknown devices.. Scavengers do not open the door to inner rooms by themselves. Interceptors doesnt fit with size )) Those pictograms and binary code on a spectrogram with Merope and Col 70 permit locked sistem.... Who did it? Now in game i dont see any links that thargoids are insectoids with heads and legs. Its just living ships. They arent new types because millions years aged guardian obelisks demand tussues of cyclops, basilisks etc...

 

[Thatchinho]

There are some things we know - but far more that we don't. And this is just some theorizing. I'd not quite put it to the tinfoil-level yet, but definitely in the More Questions Than Answers file.

Yes, indeed! And that's an excellent set of counterpoints to the points in the bullet list, if you don't mind me saying so. Have a bunch of virtual +rep on top of the real rep!

 

[Thatchinho]

Who were they hosting as guests?
who were they trading with?
was this between themselves or other sentient space fairing species?

Also hasn't the a lot of the previous tharg war with us been redacted so that a lot of the stuff after the micoid was developed and used is no longer canon? the part about us making "friends" with them after and the part where we gave them the cure of the micoid among other things.

Just amongst themselves - I can't say that for certain, obviously, but I've not seen anything in all the lore we've got so far to indicate otherwise.

On the redaction - it's hard to say. IIRC there was two major story outcomes from FFE, so none of them were canon anyway. Some of it may have happened but AFAIK we're we're still in the state where effectively we just don't know. There's stuff from the books that ties in with this, but I'm putting that under the rumours bit for these purposes. (Slightly contrary to that, the rumour that we attacked a Thargoid delegation, is in game, but is in game as a rumour.)

 

[Vasious]

I am waiting for the AI that were created by and who destroyed the Guarians to turn up. One reason they destroyed the Guardians, was they could't see any productivity/good in war like species

In context of their own burgeoning society

The Guardians had had two civil wars trying to keep the AI suppressed and controlled, so it would be reasonable to assume the Guardians would always be prone to violence as a means of suppressing and controlling theri AI constructs.

But a AI Civilization Millions of years old and well established, Humanity would prove no threat, even if we have banned our own AI.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Just amongst themselves - I can't say that for certain, obviously, but I've not seen anything in all the lore we've got so far to indicate otherwise.

On the redaction - it's hard to say. IIRC there was two major story outcomes from FFE, so none of them were canon anyway. Some of it may have happened but AFAIK we're we're still in the state where effectively we just don't know. There's stuff from the books that ties in with this, but I'm putting that under the rumours bit for these purposes. (Slightly contrary to that, the rumour that we attacked a Thargoid delegation, is in game, but is in game as a rumour.)

I know nothing of the books - I don't much like reading sci-fi.. I'm a horror junkie when it comes to reading.

Gotta +Rep for that avatar though.. with my bad vision it looks like... well.. let's just say there are many websites dedicated to what it looks like and it makes me chuckle a little.