Congrats on the top 10!! I managed to get in the top 10%, the highest I've ever had for a CG
FYI: In the (maybe not true) lore, the Thargoids we've been fighting all this time are the 'weak' and 'less warlike' ones, and have already made deals with some humans, after we used bioweapons on them... The ones they are running from they describe as much stronger and more warlike...
id love to see your source on that...
i cant even find confirmation that two species of goids exist in e:d. most people claim that has been retconned.
still, i know we have had dealings in past...
but we are wholesale robbing them blind and trying to nuke them every now and then (well, nuke or disease...).
until we stop, they will not.
they are within their rights though. i dont support these actions from humanity, i fiind this sort of wonton murder shameful.
Sure thing! It's most thoroughly explained in TD James Out of the Darkness: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Darkness-Elite-Dangerous-James/dp/1500950718 the plot heavily revolvs around Thargoid-human contact (it's set in 3275-ish I think, and features examples of many different types of interactions), and near the end...
The plot takes the protagonist to a massive space station in the clouds of the gas-giant in the Peregrina system which was built by the Oresrians (Thargoids) for a human scientist! They built the structure and he made a lab inside it and they guard it for him and gave him advanced biotech. The Oresrians told him all the stuff about the factions, and he tells the protagonists all about it. The scientist is working on a biotech thargoid-human drug to 'improve' humans to make them better at fighting the oncoming Klaxians (this plan fails, sort of, and those Thargoids are eventually killed, but it's heavily implied to be only one queen of many).
... and the same info is in Drew Wagar's novel Premonition https://www.amazon.co.uk/Elite-Dangerous-Premonition-Drew-Wagar-ebook/dp/B08KYM235Z. Drew has also confirmed on a live stream (which are on his Youtube channel if you want to watch), he talks about the non-disclosure secret plot info he and the other ED authors were given, he confirms that the Oresrians and Klaxians (Thargoid factions) were detailed in the secret info that he and TD James used in their books. The same info is summarised here on the wiki here: https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Thargoid if you don't want to wade through the books
"According to The Club, what humans consider to be a singular Thargoid species actually consists of two distinct "dynasties": the Oresrians and the Klaxians. How Oresrians and Klaxians differ biologically, if at all, is unknown."
"At some point, the Oresrian and Klaxian dynasties became embroiled in a civil war. Prior to 3303, the Klaxians gained the upper hand in this conflict and forced the Oresrians into a slow, continuous retreat across the galaxy, a retreat which will take them directly through human space. The Club has learned that the Oresrians planned to use human civilization as a "bullet shield" to occupy the Klaxians' attention while they escape deeper into space. This poses a potentially apocalyptic threat to humanity's survival."
Essentially the basic 'motivations' for the Thargoids outlined in both books, but mostly in Out of the Darkness, does match pretty accurately exactly what seems to be happening now:
Think about all those attacks on human stations that angered humans enough to get us to build anti-Thargoid weapons and arm thousands of pilots but ultimately didn't really actually impact humanity at all in any other way. The Thargoid probes that basically told us where to find Meta-Alloys so we'd invent better tech and want to fight over the space-gold mines. Those CZ's and odd attacks where the Thargoids seem to be using strange tactics that don't make sense, waiting for us to come fight them in little groups, especially given they seem strong enough to entirely destroy stations if they wanted to - CZ's where many of us have learned how to fight Thargoids pretty well... Think about how humans 'suddenly' developed FSD (very quickly), which in-game info says was derived from Thargoid drive technology by Sirius corp, the FSD is significantly better than humans' previous hyperdrive and puts us more closely on a level with Thargoids, it also allowed us to expand much more rapidly than ever and mount expeditions to the nearby Guardians ruins, where we found even more ways to fight Tharogids and info on how they operated when they met the Guardians (and how the Guardians beat them!)... etc... If you think about all this as "Thargoids (Oresrians) are teaching us how to kill and resist Thargoids (Klaxians)" ... well, that to me makes a lot of sense as to what's been happening and fits neatly into all the stuff from those official Fdev published novels too.
Is this "definitely" what's happening? probably not But I personally don't think Fdev have 'abandoned' anything. I suspect it's been modified and extended but I think the basics are the same as they always were.
Although in-game there has always been hints at other non-human intelligences. The Mars artefact dates back to Frontier: Elite 2 (iirc) and was found on Mars prior to terraforming, some suggest (here on the forums) it might be Guardian.
Their ruins are far from human space for ships using hyperdrives prior to FSD which only reached mainstream use around 3300.
I'm hoping this "communication" megaship may well get some of this info confirmed or denied in-game finally
Sure thing! It's most thoroughly explained in TD James Out of the Darkness: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Out-Darkness-Elite-Dangerous-James/dp/1500950718 the plot heavily revolvs around Thargoid-human contact (it's set in 3275-ish I think, and features examples of many different types of interactions), and near the end...
The plot takes the protagonist to a massive space station in the clouds of the gas-giant in the Peregrina system which was built by the Oresrians (Thargoids) for a human scientist! They built the structure and he made a lab inside it and they guard it for him and gave him advanced biotech. The Oresrians told him all the stuff about the factions, and he tells the protagonists all about it. The scientist is working on a biotech thargoid-human drug to 'improve' humans to make them better at fighting the oncoming Klaxians (this plan fails, sort of, and those Thargoids are eventually killed, but it's heavily implied to be only one queen of many).
... and the same info is in Drew Wagar's novel Premonition https://www.amazon.co.uk/Elite-Dangerous-Premonition-Drew-Wagar-ebook/dp/B08KYM235Z. Drew has also confirmed on a live stream (which are on his Youtube channel if you want to watch), he talks about the non-disclosure secret plot info he and the other ED authors were given, he confirms that the Oresrians and Klaxians (Thargoid factions) were detailed in the secret info that he and TD James used in their books. The same info is summarised here on the wiki here: https://elite-dangerous.fandom.com/wiki/Thargoid if you don't want to wade through the books
Essentially the basic 'motivations' for the Thargoids outlined in both books, but mostly in Out of the Darkness, does match pretty accurately exactly what seems to be happening now:
Think about all those attacks on human stations that angered humans enough to get us to build anti-Thargoid weapons and arm thousands of pilots but ultimately didn't really actually impact humanity at all in any other way. The Thargoid probes that basically told us where to find Meta-Alloys so we'd invent better tech and want to fight over the space-gold mines. Those CZ's and odd attacks where the Thargoids seem to be using strange tactics that don't make sense, waiting for us to come fight them in little groups, especially given they seem strong enough to entirely destroy stations if they wanted to - CZ's where many of us have learned how to fight Thargoids pretty well... Think about how humans 'suddenly' developed FSD (very quickly), which in-game info says was derived from Thargoid drive technology by Sirius corp, the FSD is significantly better than humans' previous hyperdrive and puts us more closely on a level with Thargoids, it also allowed us to expand much more rapidly than ever and mount expeditions to the nearby Guardians ruins, where we found even more ways to fight Tharogids and info on how they operated when they met the Guardians (and how the Guardians beat them!)... etc... If you think about all this as "Thargoids (Oresrians) are teaching us how to kill and resist Thargoids (Klaxians)" ... well, that to me makes a lot of sense as to what's been happening and fits neatly into all the stuff from those official Fdev published novels too.
Is this "definitely" what's happening? probably not But I personally don't think Fdev have 'abandoned' anything. I suspect it's been modified and extended but I think the basics are the same as they always were.
i am aware of the books...
im just not sure they are included in the lore that fdev considered cannon for the game.... they have abandoned quite a bit of it, and there has been conflict over it already...
so confirmation that these stories are actually cannon and the game world is based on the same lore as them would be the stumbling point ive encountered.
im a huge fan of a peaceful goid interaction, believe me. they have tech i want. im just not sure the game includes enough of the relevant lore for it to be.
Can you show your sources for that? I'd love to see anything at all other than people speculating and quoting each-other like a game of Telephone .
The info I posted above is all from Fdev directly, either via the collab with authors and the NDA narrative details given to them, or from in-game sources. The official novels were written in collaboration with Fdev and the info about factional Thargoids is from Fdev's narrative team directly, therefore it's surely 'official cannon' until proven otherwise, no?
Have Fdev's plans changed with regards to Tharogids? Possibly!
Is the narrative team now made up the same people with the same vision as all those years ago? Unlikely!
Does that mean that all old plans have been 'abandoned' entirely in favour of something totally different? Maybe, but maybe not!
While it's really fun speculating, I'm really hoping the result from this 'communication with Thargoids' narrative is that we're going to learn some answers about this. It would be amazing if the magaship does make contact and that confirms or eliminates at least some of this discussion literally anything that could happen will be great!
I hope the megaship won't suffer some unforeseen accident and get blown up with some inconclusive info drifting around that it might have been Thargoids or might have been humans using Thargoid weapons to fake an attack, or just vanish entirely...
1) All the official novels were thoroughly reviewed by Frontier, with changes required, to ensure that they were compatible with what is actually going on.
2) As optional (and nowadays somewhat forgotten) content, if we actually need to know information from them to understand the plot, Frontier have to release that through in-game sources.
The information we have about the two Thargoid groupings is entirely from out-of-game sources and largely based on statements from people who aren't necessarily themselves entirely trustworthy. Meanwhile, the "use humanity as a shield" plan is very hard if taken at face value to reconcile with anything we've seen in game about Thargoid presence, capability, or actions (especially with the new Stargoids, but it was looking dubious for years before).
A lot of direction changes are possible from what might have been planned in 2012 without directly contradicting any previous in-game content and without doing that much beyond "maybe character A was mistaken about that / deliberately lying to further their own agenda" to even a lot of the out-of-game content. The "two groups" thing can still be canonical without any of the currently presumed implications of that being right.
That's a bunch of really great points Ian - especially relating to the information being given out by untrustworthy sources, that's something that's often overlooked in these discussions and you're totally right!
2) As optional (and nowadays somewhat forgotten) content, if we actually need to know information from them to understand the plot, Frontier have to release that through in-game sources.
whether or not there is any other Thargoid factions
I do think there is something after the Thargoids.
even if they have no desire to communicate or can't communicate, it might be in our best interest to try
but we do have to stop stealing from them. that is #1 in my book.
till this happens we are the villain. no alien has reason to like or trust humanity.
desire to wipe us out 100% with extra DHT RAID for Humans.....is probably the only type of concern they currently have for us.
whether or not there is any other Thargoid factions
I do think there is something after the Thargoids.
even if they have no desire to communicate or can't communicate, it might be in our best interest to try
but we do have to stop stealing from them. that is #1 in my book.
till this happens we are the villain. no alien has reason to like or trust humanity.
desire to wipe us out 100% with extra DHT RAID for Humans.....is probably the only type of concern they currently have for us.
It's a good point, and the exact same thing happened to the Guardians, this is directly taken from the codex:
"Logs recovered from Guardian sites indicate that the Thargoids were the aggressor in this conflict. Having seeded Guardian space with biomechanical constructs used for resource extraction long before the emergence of the Guardians' civilisation, the Thargoids apparently believed they were entitled to uncontested dominion of the territory. The Guardians attempted to communicate with the Thargoids and reach a compromise, but without success."
Edit: Possibly though (again, suggested by the novels and supported by in-game INRA lore) that much like the Guardians did, we 'beat' the Thargoids, or some of them, and now more/others/they are back, that is supported by logs from the GCS Sarasvati:
"it was literally under our noses the entire time, the Thargoids didn’t leave. Not all of them, at least. If we had more time we might’ve been able to run a more detailed analysis but the data we have right now already paints a pretty grim picture as is: the Thargoids are sowing the seeds for their return. We couldn’t detect them before because the traces were so miniscule, but it’s clear that these new self-repairing alloys that are starting to pop up in labs everywhere share an alarming amount of physical characteristics with Thargoid bio-alloys pulled from their ships during the war."
I managed to get in the top 10%, the highest I've ever had for a CG
