So the Guardians are in fact Thargoid and..

[Willa Allason]

I believe as others have said that the Thargoids are sentient AI weapons created by the Guardians, which turned on their creators. The Guardians were their greatest enemies, hence

Spoiler

the scared/angry reaction of the Thargoid machine to Guardian artifacts.

 

[Vasious]

Interesting theory

Even if the Thargoids are the Biological weapons of the Guardians, why the Ammonia Carbon Based biochemistry?

Seems an odd choice to make your Biological weapons incomparable to like in the Hot Humid Jungles the Guardians evolved from to such a degree as very cold Ammonia worlds.

Does seem to be some connection but it might have been a previous conflict.

One might have found the other and tried a spot of Genocide.

Maybe the AI of the Guardians decided all biological life was a bad idea and attacked the Thargoids, in a effort to cleanse all Sapient space faring organics.

 

[CMDR Dreamstate]

See sig

 

[Cmdr_Benkai]

The Thargoids are warning us about the Guardians. The Guardians are the baddies and the Thargoid Structure hates ancient relics.

 

[-Denali-]

I believe as others have said that the Thargoids are sentient AI weapons created by the Guardians, which turned on their creators. The Guardians were their greatest enemies, hence

Spoiler

the scared/angry reaction of the Thargoid machine to Guardian artifacts.

This would be funny. The guardian specie's nerds built the thargoids. Thargoids are all female because they were built by guardian nerds. Idealized versions of guardian women in robot form destroy the nerds that made them and then come for humanity. We're all going to die because some guardian couldn't find a date.

 

[Minonian]

I don't think the Thargoids are at all a product of the Guardians because the Alliance has ties with the Thargoids. They exchanged technology, information, made peace, and where even given a Thargoid warship. They are their own intelligent species, and the Guardians may just be a different race of Thargoids. The AI ships do make sense though. It explains their bizarre behavior.

Elite III Happy ending? I don't think this was happened in the current timeline of ED. If it was a lot of things don't make sense. For example, if the thargoid ships repaired back than, why they are searching means to repair the damage right now? Because this is what they are doing currently.

 

[domaq]

Well I can't say that I saw that on a Galnet article, must have missed it. Maybe someone who doesn't come on the forums or read reddit or trawl uToob has already found and destroyed the boss Thargoid and discovered the gateways to other galaxies....

Seriously though, was that info buried in a hundreds-of-pages-long thread or what?

...... [insert emoji for being really urined-off here] .......



The what? ............. Was that in the 800-odd page 4th thread or the 200-odd page 10th thread? - gimme a break.

There is some reading involved but it's not the megathread. See HERE.The Thargoids are warning us about the Guardians. The Guardians are the baddies and the Thargoid Structure hates ancient relics.[url]https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/0f/91/17/0f9117763deca681ab6c7b428e79d796.jpg[/QUOTE]"].[/URL]

The Thargoids are warning us about the Guardians. The Guardians are the baddies and the Thargoid Structure hates ancient relics.https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/0f/91/17/0f9117763deca681ab6c7b428e79d796.jpg

That's the beauty of a space opera story. Even the Guardians had their religious zealots vs. tech savvy sides and that was a couple million years ago. I'm guessing there will be positives and negatives no matter which side we choose.

 

[Matt Harpring]

Thargoids = guardians skynet?

 

[Para Handy]

There is some reading involved but it's not the megathread. See HERE..

..................

Ah, well the thread title "Carnivorous Space Elves..." made me think it was just a joke thread so never bothered opening it. Thanks for the link I will try to catch-up.

 

[Skyjack]

The only certainty is - Thargoids know exactly who Guardians are and what they're about.

Thargoids may be Guardian skynet but i don't think they rebelled. More like the side that made the autonomous artificial constructs was wiped by the chemical/bio weapons of the other one, the eco-religionists, as part of their civil war - and thargoids as a sentient weapon stayed on the mission and wiped the only remaining side, thus killing off the Guardians even without becoming disloyal.

 

[Alec Turner]

Well I can't say that I saw that on a Galnet article, must have missed it. Maybe someone who doesn't come on the forums or read reddit or trawl uToob has already found and destroyed the boss Thargoid and discovered the gateways to other galaxies....

Seriously though, was that info buried in a hundreds-of-pages-long thread or what?

The "Guardians" have actually featured in Galnet News quite a bit.
I can't find them all bit here's one example ..

https://community.elitedangerous.com/en/galnet/uid/58872def9657ba9230f89d99

Do try and keep up dude! (that's meant to be a light hearted dig in case it's not apparent)

 

[GTwannabe]

Would not surprise me if the Thargoids are neutral and it's the pockets of Guardian remnants that are hostile. Thargoids = ammonia worlds and Guardians = Earthlikes. Or if we actually lost the Thargoid war and they have been ruling from the shadows via the Pilots Federation.

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

Thargoids = guardians skynet?

More likely the anti-skynet. The civil war that destroyed the Guardians was caused by half (?) their population growing alarmed at cybernetic implants and interfacing with the monolith network; that group created an organized religion (a first for them) opposed to implants, and then the civil war was well underway.

With Skynet, the AI became sentient and wanted to wipeout humanity. With the Guardians, their AIs were growing with them, a large number of of Guardians suddenly found this abhorrent, and wanted to destroy it all.

I'm speculating (based on all the evidence) that the Thargoids are either the descendants of the weapons/constructs used by the anti-group OR that both sides used the proto-thargoids and that is why there are supposedly two sects of thargoids.

Regardless, I wouldn't be surprised if there are AIs left in the Guardian monolith network that are still hostile to organic life in general because of the civil war. That would explain the "alien signal" that caused everyone on one of the lost Generation ships to go mad and kill each other.

 

[Ziljan]

So the star chamber "map room" is really a navigation chamber for a ship that is so huge you can see it from orbit...

Yeah we're screwed.

 

[Strangepork]

...the ships we are encountering are their Biological AI Ships. Thargoids are either long time dead or remotely guiding the AI ships from a far off permit locked area of the Milky Way.

Evidence in the Spoiler

Spoiler

The ancient sites revealed details about the Guardians… here are some important extracts.

“This led to a surge in weapons development, with biological warfare quickly established as the weapon of choice. An arms race began, focused on the development of biological agents and various counter measures”

“Warfare was conducted using automated battle fleets. At first these were controlled by the Guardians via brain implants, but later they became entirely autonomous. In the early stages of the war the Guardians fought each other directly, but within a decade - and after much loss of life - most of the fighting was conducted remotely. Soldiers were deployed only to occupy areas that had been captured by autonomous or remote vehicles, and eventually were not used at all.”

“As well as biological warfare agents, they also created creatures expressly for use in battle, and these remained effective even into the modern era.”

The major, real proof, comes from the fact that the Ancient Relics are the only other object that the ‘Mothership console accepts’ Which indicates the same Tech

What I draw from this is that the Ancient sites are in fact – Thargoid – The ships we are encountering are the AI Biological Ships and Weapons.
At this point I feel a little sad that all of our insect friends maybe dead – however I do have a glimmer of hope that maybe this information still holds true “most of the fighting was conducted remotely. Soldiers were deployed only to occupy areas that had been captured by autonomous or remote vehicles, and eventually were not used at all”. So maybe, just Maybe, our insect buddies are still around but sat in front of computers directing the AI from afar… in a permit area of our galaxy?

Do you have a similar theory?

Have you seen what happens when other Guardian relics are activated in the Thargoid machines? It's not pretty.

So the star chamber "map room" is really a navigation chamber for a ship that is so huge you can see it from orbit...

Yeah we're screwed.

They are in the region of 10-15km in diameter Ziljan.

 

[koop26]

I think it's important to note that we aren't immediately attacked by Thargoids. I know there are distress calls that show ships ravaged by what looks like Thargoid technology. However, every interaction i'm aware of from players has been benign. Maybe for gameplay purposes this has to be done, but a part of me thinks Frontier Developments wants us to believe that Thargoids are complicated and have priorities that are much different than anything humans care about.

Another thing to note is that we're seeing crashed Thargoid ships just a little too often for comfort. There's evidence that the Thargoids are under some kind of duress. These new sites are most definitely crashed Thargoid constructs. The "scavengers" at these sites, the fact Thargoid flower ships appear and scan the site and fly off, tell me there's something else at play here and there's at least enough evidence to make players wonder if this biological race is not at the top of the food chain.

It's important to also realize that extra terrestrial intelligence isn't "evil". There is emotional depth to organic intelligent life. Something that can create interstellar ships, operate insterstellar technology has to be enlightened to the point where I can't imagine Thargoids just magically appear as the big bad guy in 2.4 without a good reason, that may not even be the Thargoid's fault. It's also important to note just how HUGE the Galaxy is, so I can't imagine some incursion based on territory either.

Personally I'm siding with others who are laying claim to what I think is likely the underlying evil and that's the Monolith Network. A.I. is such a hot topic in today's world, and I think Frontier could probably tell a story about another civilizations A.I. destroying that civlization and hunting down the surviving organic "bioweapons" who are simply trying to survive and build a civilization for themselves. I'm all about the conspiracy theory that certain human superpowers like the federation and empire have somehow activated the monolith network, or the monolith network has somehow infiltrated the upper echelons of human society over time.

I was in the Thargoids are victims of something more dangerous camp 6 months ago, and nothing has changed my mind today. No matter how imposing they are, and regardless if we are going to be fighting them in the next patch. The fact that the Thargoids are a 2.4 patch not a 3.0 release tells me that they are actually the precurser to something else, if I'm reading the tea leaves. I bet just like Frontier has been leading players along a journey to their discovery, they will lead cannon and other researchers on another mystery into much deeper origins of 2.4's Thargoid conflict. Just my two cents with my tinfoil cap.

 

[A1NuR]

I think it's important to note that we aren't immediately attacked by Thargoids. I know there are distress calls that show ships ravaged by what looks like Thargoid technology. However, every interaction i'm aware of from players has been benign. Maybe for gameplay purposes this has to be done, but a part of me thinks Frontier Developments wants us to believe that Thargoids are complicated and have priorities that are much different than anything humans care about.

Another thing to note is that we're seeing crashed Thargoid ships just a little too often for comfort. There's evidence that the Thargoids are under some kind of duress. These new sites are most definitely crashed Thargoid constructs. The "scavengers" at these sites, the fact Thargoid flower ships appear and scan the site and fly off, tell me there's something else at play here and there's at least enough evidence to make players wonder if this biological race is not at the top of the food chain.

It's important to also realize that extra terrestrial intelligence isn't "evil". There is emotional depth to organic intelligent life. Something that can create interstellar ships, operate insterstellar technology has to be enlightened to the point where I can't imagine Thargoids just magically appear as the big bad guy in 2.4 without a good reason, that may not even be the Thargoid's fault. It's also important to note just how HUGE the Galaxy is, so I can't imagine some incursion based on territory either.

Personally I'm siding with others who are laying claim to what I think is likely the underlying evil and that's the Monolith Network. A.I. is such a hot topic in today's world, and I think Frontier could probably tell a story about another civilizations A.I. destroying that civlization and hunting down the surviving organic "bioweapons" who are simply trying to survive and build a civilization for themselves. I'm all about the conspiracy theory that certain human superpowers like the federation and empire have somehow activated the monolith network, or the monolith network has somehow infiltrated the upper echelons of human society over time.

I was in the Thargoids are victims of something more dangerous camp 6 months ago, and nothing has changed my mind today. No matter how imposing they are, and regardless if we are going to be fighting them in the next patch. The fact that the Thargoids are a 2.4 patch not a 3.0 release tells me that they are actually the precurser to something else, if I'm reading the tea leaves. I bet just like Frontier has been leading players along a journey to their discovery, they will lead cannon and other researchers on another mystery into much deeper origins of 2.4's Thargoid conflict. Just my two cents with my tinfoil cap.

After closely thinking about the lore I came up to the same conclusion as the poster above. Thargoids are not the main enemy in the galaxy but rather the humans are, controled by hidden force(s), which we can not even imagine in this phase of the game. Humans are pushed in the direction of conflict and galaxy wide war. Everything we know about the lore is from the different partial discovered logs, which aren´t exact and which contain only the information from one point of view. Remember the recent history, the humans attacked a Thargoid vessel as part of an assumption that the Thargoids attacked the human ships. As evidence we have different organic weapon traces on the attacked ships. BUT could it be in fact that the old Guardian AI which is activated for Milenia and which activated the old Guardian hidden organic weapons to attack those human ships, to fire up a galaxy wide conflict with Humans and Thargoids, for the humans have successfully pushed the Thargoids back once, so we can do it again. And in the aftermath of that process the AI will activate the dormant mechanical fleet to enslave all the biological life in the galaxy. Since the Thargoids are a very old Race and technologicly very advanced and organic based they are the worst enemy for a mechanical race since the only weapon that can destroy such an enemy would be a biological based weapon, which only a organic based race can create. Thats what the AI needs the humans for. Think about it, maybe this theory could prove right in a year or two.
Everything is pointing in that direction that the main enemy of the entire story is an A.I.

 

[Stealthie]

Do you have a similar theory?

The Guardians were "David" and the Thargoids were their pets.

 

[Cmdr Lucca1985]

Thargoids are the Alliance, we haven't met a modern Thargoid.

 

[CapuchinSeven]

Please note to those saying things about what we knew about Thargoids in the past, I believe it's been stated that a lot of stuff from past games has been retconned.