At the present pace, there'd be more Terraformed and newly Populated Systems than the Thargoids visit and damage a little bit.
Plus, there's no exodus, the Population of all affected Systems have been absolutely unchanged, down to the individual digit.
And since neither Pilots Federation, SuperPowers, Powers or local Factions seem to have any interest in engaging the Thargoids in a coordinated manner... who cares? They don't, why should CMDRs?
Heck, last time I've been in the bubble a while ago, there were wedding barges and cruise Ships in Thargoid-attack Systems lol
Factions were happily doing their thing, fighting useless Civil Wars or holding Elections over virtually nothing.
Point is :
- due to being a fully Scripted and Game-Master managed Game instead of a Sandbox, the whole thing is rigged and scripted anyway
- Thargoids ended up being "just reskinned NPCs in Alien Conflict Zones", colorful but oldschool Arcade Boss Fights
- doing the Shoot-em-up Arcade runs requires entirely custom-built Ships, custom Engineering and for the most part the use of grind-walled Special Equipment (Guardian stuff)
- not doing anything is just as relevant as hitting it non-stop, day after day. It's Arcade. Inconsequential. Doesn't even pay anything, compared to most other income sources.
So if that little side-story interests you - go for it.
But if it doesn't (I'm in that boat for example), not doing anything won't change a thing.
Even during the worst times in the Pleiades, I could happily fly some unshielded Ship to see Palin's weird smile and not even sweat it.
Whatever that is - it sure as hell isn't an "Invasion".
If it was :
- Pleiades would be entirely depopulated with no Assets nor Population remaining
- merely approaching it within 50LY would be extremely risky
- reaching and entering Maia? Would require a strike force of multiple Wings, augmented by a whole Fleet of NPC Ships and CapShips. Even their station time would be limited, so you'd better hurry.
- humans would be engaging in huge military campaigns in affected Systems, while defending still-populated Attack Targets. Think many thousands of Ships in each location.
- Thargoids would proceed on their own, using their own Sandbox AI, conquer & process own resources for upkeep & expansion, with a progression based purely on the Sandbox Tug of War not even FDev could fully predict
Well, we have nothing like that. Instead, we're on the Smartphone/Casual Game level of depth and complexity, relying on 8bit-era Scripts and manual injects.
Hence : no action required, a purely recreational and optional activity just like Exploration or Trading. Tourist Attraction in our fixed, static Themepark-style Arcade Galaxy for the Statists aka CMDRs.
Just do whatever you like, be that Anti-Xeno shoot-em-up or anything else. It's not like it'd matter to the Galaxy *shrugs*