So this is kinda not like me. I usally try to make suggestions, that kinda fit with the current Game Design, but I got carried away yesterday thinking about current Events ingame around Thargoids and a few Ideas and now I have to share them, just for funsies. I don't expect FDev to pick up even a single thing from this and do this more to get the idea out of my head so I can focus on other stuff. I apologize for the Wall of Text and unusal format, this is how my head sees the idea.
A normal day in Space
So here we are. Some Member of Distant Ganking slowly creeping around a Waypoint System of DW II, looking for another Victim. And then he spots a small innocent looking Asp Explorer.
A few moments later an Interdiction Ensues and the Pilot of the Asp has a flight response and tries to wiggle away from its hunters grasp, but nothing will escape his Vulture, that has cached countless ships in its history. The Victim seems to have a change of mind as it sees, that it will lose and submits.
Somewhere in the void an Asp Explorer and a Viper come tumbling out of SC, with the Viper already deploying hardpoints and being a bit confused at the empty radar. The Asp must be a low temperature build, so the Ganker starts turning around to get visuals on the Asp before it can slips away. Finally the Asp pops up and our Attacker starts firing at the Shield. But instead of popping like a bubble, the shields stay strong, which piques the interest of our unsuspecting Ganker and he gets closer to finally pick up the Signal of the Ship, to check the build. All the while continuing raining down Death on the Ship. There he gets the contact and tries to cycle through Subtargets: Packhound Missiles... Shield Booster... 010111001001 Wait Something is not right, thinks the Ganker to itself, before hearing: "Energy Surge Detected." That was the moment he knew, something was indeed very wrong. Bwwwwaam, a blueish net of energy washes over him and next thing he knows, he is a dead fish in the water. The Asp was still in view of the Viper and now turned around. The Ganker watched in Shock as a Barrage of Missiles rocked his tiny vessel and shredded it to pieces in one blow.
Slowly the Asp approached the remains of its "attacker". With dead Eyes the Pilot stared at the wreckage until he spots his target. Carefully he navigates through Debris until the small Escape Pod is consumed by his Scoop. Then he continues his path and makes another pickup of a small ball emitting a chattering not from his world. As the deed is done, the Asps charges its hyperdrive and vanishes with its spoils in the Darkness.
Another Place
Still not sure what just happend, the Ganker stares at his rebuy Screen. He finally got enough composure back take back the controls. He would just quickly buy back his ship and then make a rep. Suddenly the Rebuy Screen crashes and is instead replaced with a green light, thargoid sounds and then the following Message: "Will you submit to us and join our ranks or do you choose Death?" Two options appear from the green light: "Submit", "Death". As the second shock wears off the Commander decides to go with "Join". He is greated by a classic style menu, informing him, that: "By clicking on accept below, you agree to pretend nothing has happend and you will resume without informing anyone about anything unusual happening from this point forward. Failure to do so will be a break of TOS and will result in Termination of the Account. Accept. Decline"
The next moment the Commander finds himself back in his Viper, back in a bubble. In a port he never visited before "Marusek Co-operative" in HIP 48887. A message is in his inbox. He opens it and reads the following: "Welcome Commander. I am so glad you decided to accepted the generous offer of our Masters the Far Gods to server in their conquest as an Agent. The station you are currently in, is now you home and the only place to do outfitting, since you have been given access to special tools, please check them and make the best of them." As he finishes reading another Message pops up: "Your current Assignment is to grow the ranks of our Masters. Equip your ship with what you need, then go out there and collect us capable Pilots. The Pilots Federation Members, as well as any Elite Pilot is acceptable and has to be turned in here for your rewards. Failure to complete this mission or otherwise disappointing our Masters will result in your death. You will only get 1 warning."
With a bit of fear, but also excitement the new Agent opens up the Outfitting Screen and starts to go other each and every entry looking for these special tools. He is a bit surprised, but also disappointed, as now new weapons seem to be added to the rooster, but he now has access to each and every non-guardian weapon, if those usually reserved for PP rewards. In utility mount he only finds one noteworthy entry "Shutdown Field Negator. Makes the vessel immune to shutdown fields.". Then there is Core Modules, which feature such interesting things such as a Thargoid FSD, which would increase his jump range to a flat 500 LY regardless of size and weight of his ship or Thrusters, that just made him grin as we looked at the new speed and turnrates. But the most interesting find was in the optional Modules: "Shutdown Beacon. Fire to deploy a recollectable Beacon, that will fire a Shutdown Field after releasing the Fire Button." He decided to exchange his Viper for a nice Corvette and create a new Machine of Death capable for the Job. As the Agent waited for the transfer, he thought about, how to fulfill his new charge and then came to the conclusion, that the best new recruits would probably be the other members of Distant Ganking and they would love this chance.
A few weeks later
Fear and Mistrust is running Rampant among the independent Pilots. A few days ago reports of Attacks on Distant Worlds II started to pop up. Even Fleetcomm and Mobius didn't seem safe and even in Solo new NPC's seems to be flying around trying to get their hands on Explorers. While some talked about getting attacks none seemed to be keen on divulging any details, how they died or who attacked them. Finally a member of AXI, back in the Pleiades Sector managed to escape an attempt on his life made by an Krait, that deployed Technology, which clearly originated from the Thargoids. The Schrodinger's cat is out of the bag. Every Player or NPC could secretly be a Agent of the Thargoids and only a Xeno-Scan from up-close usually reveals the truth, but often to late. It doesn't help, that destruction by a Thargoid Agent and failure to Join their ranks, leads to a deletion of the save. AXI and everyone else is trying to plan a new defense Strategy against this new kind of threat all the while Thargoids seem to double their effort. The future is indeed looking grim for humanity.
Thank you for reading
Aftermath
A normal day in Space
So here we are. Some Member of Distant Ganking slowly creeping around a Waypoint System of DW II, looking for another Victim. And then he spots a small innocent looking Asp Explorer.
A few moments later an Interdiction Ensues and the Pilot of the Asp has a flight response and tries to wiggle away from its hunters grasp, but nothing will escape his Vulture, that has cached countless ships in its history. The Victim seems to have a change of mind as it sees, that it will lose and submits.
Somewhere in the void an Asp Explorer and a Viper come tumbling out of SC, with the Viper already deploying hardpoints and being a bit confused at the empty radar. The Asp must be a low temperature build, so the Ganker starts turning around to get visuals on the Asp before it can slips away. Finally the Asp pops up and our Attacker starts firing at the Shield. But instead of popping like a bubble, the shields stay strong, which piques the interest of our unsuspecting Ganker and he gets closer to finally pick up the Signal of the Ship, to check the build. All the while continuing raining down Death on the Ship. There he gets the contact and tries to cycle through Subtargets: Packhound Missiles... Shield Booster... 010111001001 Wait Something is not right, thinks the Ganker to itself, before hearing: "Energy Surge Detected." That was the moment he knew, something was indeed very wrong. Bwwwwaam, a blueish net of energy washes over him and next thing he knows, he is a dead fish in the water. The Asp was still in view of the Viper and now turned around. The Ganker watched in Shock as a Barrage of Missiles rocked his tiny vessel and shredded it to pieces in one blow.
Slowly the Asp approached the remains of its "attacker". With dead Eyes the Pilot stared at the wreckage until he spots his target. Carefully he navigates through Debris until the small Escape Pod is consumed by his Scoop. Then he continues his path and makes another pickup of a small ball emitting a chattering not from his world. As the deed is done, the Asps charges its hyperdrive and vanishes with its spoils in the Darkness.
Another Place
Still not sure what just happend, the Ganker stares at his rebuy Screen. He finally got enough composure back take back the controls. He would just quickly buy back his ship and then make a rep. Suddenly the Rebuy Screen crashes and is instead replaced with a green light, thargoid sounds and then the following Message: "Will you submit to us and join our ranks or do you choose Death?" Two options appear from the green light: "Submit", "Death". As the second shock wears off the Commander decides to go with "Join". He is greated by a classic style menu, informing him, that: "By clicking on accept below, you agree to pretend nothing has happend and you will resume without informing anyone about anything unusual happening from this point forward. Failure to do so will be a break of TOS and will result in Termination of the Account. Accept. Decline"
The next moment the Commander finds himself back in his Viper, back in a bubble. In a port he never visited before "Marusek Co-operative" in HIP 48887. A message is in his inbox. He opens it and reads the following: "Welcome Commander. I am so glad you decided to accepted the generous offer of our Masters the Far Gods to server in their conquest as an Agent. The station you are currently in, is now you home and the only place to do outfitting, since you have been given access to special tools, please check them and make the best of them." As he finishes reading another Message pops up: "Your current Assignment is to grow the ranks of our Masters. Equip your ship with what you need, then go out there and collect us capable Pilots. The Pilots Federation Members, as well as any Elite Pilot is acceptable and has to be turned in here for your rewards. Failure to complete this mission or otherwise disappointing our Masters will result in your death. You will only get 1 warning."
With a bit of fear, but also excitement the new Agent opens up the Outfitting Screen and starts to go other each and every entry looking for these special tools. He is a bit surprised, but also disappointed, as now new weapons seem to be added to the rooster, but he now has access to each and every non-guardian weapon, if those usually reserved for PP rewards. In utility mount he only finds one noteworthy entry "Shutdown Field Negator. Makes the vessel immune to shutdown fields.". Then there is Core Modules, which feature such interesting things such as a Thargoid FSD, which would increase his jump range to a flat 500 LY regardless of size and weight of his ship or Thrusters, that just made him grin as we looked at the new speed and turnrates. But the most interesting find was in the optional Modules: "Shutdown Beacon. Fire to deploy a recollectable Beacon, that will fire a Shutdown Field after releasing the Fire Button." He decided to exchange his Viper for a nice Corvette and create a new Machine of Death capable for the Job. As the Agent waited for the transfer, he thought about, how to fulfill his new charge and then came to the conclusion, that the best new recruits would probably be the other members of Distant Ganking and they would love this chance.
A few weeks later
Fear and Mistrust is running Rampant among the independent Pilots. A few days ago reports of Attacks on Distant Worlds II started to pop up. Even Fleetcomm and Mobius didn't seem safe and even in Solo new NPC's seems to be flying around trying to get their hands on Explorers. While some talked about getting attacks none seemed to be keen on divulging any details, how they died or who attacked them. Finally a member of AXI, back in the Pleiades Sector managed to escape an attempt on his life made by an Krait, that deployed Technology, which clearly originated from the Thargoids. The Schrodinger's cat is out of the bag. Every Player or NPC could secretly be a Agent of the Thargoids and only a Xeno-Scan from up-close usually reveals the truth, but often to late. It doesn't help, that destruction by a Thargoid Agent and failure to Join their ranks, leads to a deletion of the save. AXI and everyone else is trying to plan a new defense Strategy against this new kind of threat all the while Thargoids seem to double their effort. The future is indeed looking grim for humanity.
Thank you for reading
Aftermath
After a few more weeks with the bubble now thoroughly burning as so many Defenders lost their lives and saves, FDev finished up this storyline. Everyone, who lost their ship gets a backup restored + awarded all the additional progress they made from follow up saves. Agents are released in a similar manner(killed off by their overlords as no longer needed currently and released from their "NDA"), although they all are now a few million credits richer as the generous payout(like 10 Mil for NPC, 50 Mil for Player) for fulfilling their missions carries also over to the loaded backup save.
