So, here we are again. Me going off about something probably nobody wants to hear, and you... well, you'll only be reading this interested anyway.
What will this be about? You likely already guessed from the title, but I'd simply like to call for, you know, research. Actual research, not the kind that some AX pilots like to jokingly refer to, even if it might be funny. Something that might actually help with the war or preventing it, not like some people have been doing by attacking the occupying Thargoids around the Proteus Wave, or moving to the California nebula to slaughter them. They wouldn't listen to or be interested in this anyway.
I should get to the point. Instead of pursuing actions against either passive Thargoids or ones remaining confined to a location they never attempted expansion from - and in which we attempted genocide again - to cause more war... or to make it worse when it does return... simply put, we should actually do something to either further understand the Thargoids, the things they came to this war with, or how to better fend them off if they come back for a second (third?) round. Maybe even all three, while we have a clear moment to, which as not been used to this end at all.
The thing I'd like to focus this particular message, or call, on - in the knowledge of the Titan research program that Aegis started many months ago, even if they've yet to get anything solid or material out of it - is the spires. Why those?
Well, some of you might remember when our leading expert on Thargoids - according to media, anyway - Palin, asked for things, samples from the spires with which to determine their purpose. When he was done, he claimed they shared some genetic link with the Titans and were thus important to them in some way... a very superficial analysis. And that's where it stayed. No further investigation was performed on their functionality or purpose, just go ahead and poison them to get things to shut down.
Ignoring my personal views on that subject and that it's not very befitting of the so-called "Thargoid expert", I think it is time to change that. Neither are there any Thargoid invasion fleets currently present in the Bubble, nor would there be anything immediately stopping anybody from investigating the spires more deeply and in detail, seeing as they remain largely intact, as opposed to, well, what's left of the Titans. All we know about those towers is the above-mentioned and that they appear to be some form of sub-surface extraction or refining operation.
And I'm not even sure they were that important to the Titans themselves. On one hand, you have Taranis which spent a couple months with all those sites taken offline, without any particular effect on the Titan, and on the other the Thargoids seemed quite willing to simply drop their support to those operations when their position in the Bubble began to erode. Then they mysteriously began to retake those sites periodically, starting with Thor, yet without any obvious effect on the surrounding systems to make them harder to clear out or replacing lost ships in a spire's location. In other words, no reinforcement of Thargoid positions around a Titan in question. I'm not entirely convinced they are purely required to keep a Titan functional - even a single operation of that scale should really be enough, if at all needed given those ships are big enough to have those capabilities directly onboard - or that they were doing it to build up a reserve fleet for the attacks on Shinrarta and Sol, as I previously theorized.
I should probably be thankful to the person responsible for pulling me out of whichever Titan it was before it went up.
Hence, my thinking that they should really be looked into more. Of course, humans were more preoccupied with knocking the sites back out on a Thargoid recapture, than why they were suddenly trying to use them again, whether that was just to avert the worst-case scenario or due to being more focused on the pushback operations. Now, that shouldn't be a problem. Unless having to dig up some ground to see what goes on below the surface - or even simply sending probes through - is somehow an obstacle to researchers.
I believe this should primarily be done for understanding - be that of the internal functioning of the spires and why at best a temporary shutdown can seem to be achieved despite a, what was it called... whatever the substance to disrupt the spires is, claimed to be highly effective. Doesn't seem so effective to me... not when the Thargoids can just hit the on switch again after leaving it for a few weeks to months.
But yes. I would like for the focus to be on understanding here. Not how to destroy it, or to exploit it for our own technological progression, but just... figuring it out. Something we should've done more throughout this war. And I have my own, probably rather unpopular, thoughts regarding pulling the pieces apart just so we can get our hands on things we have no right to, nor are nearly technologically advanced enough to even hope to create a half-as-effective replica.
Do I expect anything necessarily conclusive to come out of it?
No. The spires being inactive might well prevent any proper insights into their functionality or purpose - and I got annoyed at a few people for daring to suggest we'd have to figure the Thargoids out even while they are actively attacking, because we wouldn't get much of a clue poking the vestiges of a past conflict... in this case, at least - yet as of right now, I haven't even so much as heard anybody looking at them. Besides tourism, that is. Neither Aegis nor anybody independent seem to have mounted any investigation or started the planning to do so, certainly not publicly. And you don't find out by not trying. These sites might just be one of the keys to understanding the deeper reasons, or purpose of, the invasion.
Even if most findings about their actual use are unclear or nonexistent, the spires are, at least on the surface, intact enough to serve as staging points for the Thargoids for any eventual return of theirs. Now I don't know if they will yet, I only suspect it. Aegis would probably tell me to keep it on the down low for now if I did know, to avoid any panic too soon after the Titan's incursion into Sol. But, if we did know more about their internal functioning, it would only make it easier to create more effective means of driving a resistance against invasion forces, whatever their purpose. Isn't that enough motivation already?
And if it's not, let me just put it this way - assuming we could find this out, and that this is what they'd be/are for, would you prefer knowing the Thargoids have been building forty-five Titan-like ships under our feet this whole time and that they are coming, or do you just want to have them all show up in your face one day and curse yourself for not looking at those spires while they were much easier to research?
All that to say, use this opportunity while it is here, to understand, instead of immediately diverting those resources back to bickering with each other, like I've seen happen over the last month and a half after Cocijo was defeated (while it definitely wasn't trying to just capture Sol, or it would have been much harder to fend it off). Or to go search more war that nobody really wants with the Thargoids. There is no better way to disrespect the lives lost - or affected - than to ignore this moment which they allowed us to achieve. And I don't mean "use it to spread human reach and influence through the galaxy unhindered", even if I know some will, especially those who think the Thargoids are nothing more than background hindrances to our 'greatness'.
- K [if you need my full name just look at the profile attached to this document]