Light the blue touch paper and retire...

[insanephoton]

So let's get a few things straight, I'm not onboard with the whole anti-xeno anti-thargoid thing, I don't trust Salvation and I don't like the plan. Now what you're asking is why did I help?

That's a good question. I've spoken out against the anti-thargoid stuff in the past and my feelings haven't really changed. My belief is that humanity has been too quick to resort to violence and that the current conflict has no end game. We know little about the Thargoids, where are they from? How many of them are there? What do they want? Can we communicate? We simply do not know. Sure some of you will quote Ram Tah on the futility of communication based on his interpretations of the Guardian artifacts, let's just say he isn't an uninterested party, he has his motivations that aren't necessarily in humanity's best interest.

The thing is I can't stop the anti-xeno stuff, misguided as I think it is. AEGIS seems caught up in the institutional inertia that comes from being a bureaucratic governmental organisation and it's few public actions seem ill thought out and maybe having agendas other than their stated aims. Salvation is a mystery, we do not know anything about the entity. 'He' may not even be human, we do not know his motives or where his information is from. Perhaps he does have a system superior to Eagle Eye or maybe he had means of initiating the attack on the Cornsar stations.

In realising that I can't stop Salvation's plan, too many commanders blinded by xenophobia or greed, I took my Cutter 'Fate' to the Taurus Mining Corp megaship 'Heart of Taurus' and delivered a full load of 704 tonnes of 'basic medicine' to each of the two rescue ships and bugged out to a nearby system. I accept my portion of guilt in whatever consequences there are from Salvation's plan. I do so with a heavy heart because I fear humanity has made a grave mistake. So far the conflict has been limited, almost as if the Thargoids are treating us with kid gloves. There is the distinct possibility that Salvation's actions will escalate the situation. If that is the case, then the Thargoids may become less forgiving in their interactions. Therefore having access to appropriate arms for self protection may become a necessity. I hope my fears are unfounded. I shall await the fireworks with interest and trepidation.

 

[insanephoton]

For those still confused by my motives, I want the new anti xeno weapon, even though I have no plans to use it. I hope I won't need it, but I fear that I might. I would rather have something and not need it than not have it and need it. I know that it has been suggested that it will eventually be available at the tech brokers, but at what cost. For how long will we still be able to safely plunder Guardian artifacts? I do not know. While I admire those commanders that destroyed shipments, I have to accept that many more were delivered for whatever motive. Perhaps Salvation is nothing more than a snake oil salesman and we witness a damp squib or maybe the unintended consequences will be far worse than anyone considered. My motives are neither pure nor noble, just hedging my bets in aid of self preservation. I do not agree with Salvation's plan (what little of it he explained), but I see no way of stopping it so I may as well try and gain some benefit from it.

I am not a good person, I have done questionable things, many which I am not proud of. I aided both sides in the Lugh conflict. I have supplied countless contraband items including arms and narcotics to many systems. I have slaughtered settlements just for a pay out and maybe some mats for upgrading my gear. I even ran slaves a couple of times. Sure I can try to justify it by saying I was taking them from slavery in a remote extraction colony to be imperial slaves for the Emperor, arguably it might have improved their life prospects except for those that got taken by pirates or the other time when I was just the middleman in a transaction (Some rich idiot too idle to check the commodity markets posted on a mission board). Essentially I'm an opportunist, a cynic and a lazy (insert expletive). I'm morally grey, generally looking out for myself first and foremost. I'm mostly lawful, and pay off my fines and bounties, not because I'm good at heart, more that it's easier to do business when you don't have to worry about some trigger happy punk shooting at you for a 200cr traffic violation.

I wouldn't say I was particularly evil either. Sure I've killed lot's of people, but many of them weren't good people or at least no better than me. Apart from the two incidents I mentioned I don't trade slaves, ok there is another exception but that was helping the Underground Railroad (not sure what happened to them, I lost touch when I got the exploration bug). I don't accept massacre civilian ships missions. I was even one of the few that transported meds to Bast during the Cerberus outbreak. Maybe that's what really turned me into a cynic. We risked our necks and supplied meds at no profit ( heck we were delivering at a loss) to save the galaxy and the rest of the galaxy barely acknowledged that there had been a threat. If we hadn't stopped the Cerberus at Bast we could have lost the galaxy in a matter of months, the spread from system to system was exponential and at that time there was only the bubble. It's someone else's turn to play the hero.

It colours my view on the Thargoid 'threat'. Even at their most active period of station attacks it was estimated that it would take over 20 years for them to disable every major station in the bubble, and that would still have left us with outposts and ground stations and even Colonia. This was also before Operation Ida was organised and it was assumed that it would take years to fix a single station. For the most part, if you don't bother them, they don't bother you. Outside of the Witch Head Nebula and the Pleiades Nebula you almost certainly won't get hyperdicted and even then it is unusual especially if you don't pick up any of their stuff. Maybe AXI is holding the line, but that is all they can do. Even that is doubtful, they were unable to protect Cornsar despite being given advanced warning by Salvation