After hearing about the release of Elite Dangerous 2.4, I've been getting heavily interested into Elite Dangerous, and seeing more and more of what these 'Thargoids' are have me highly curious regarding their backstory, and -- in the case of the game -- the lore behind them, as well as a few questions behind the game's plot line, too.
For starters, just what are the Thargoids and what is their technology like?
For another, if the Thargoids are such a massive threat (and as far as I can tell, the game takes place AFTER the events of the older games; correct me on that if I,m wrong), why don't we have the technology that was used to defeat them in the past? I mean, just a few things stand out to me that I just really would like to get clarification on.
Hmm...That actually kinda fills in a few questions I had regarding their technology...Though it still begs the question: If they were the enemy before, what happened to the tech and such we had before? I mean, 50 years is a long time, but I just find it silly there's no real data on them from the past, you know?...Call me picky.
*Cracks Knuckles*
What we know (probably):
Thargoids are Ammonia-based life-forms that are bio-mechanical to some degree (probably). They are insectoid, larger than a human, have a hive-mind and posses technology better than ours.
"why don't we have the technology that was used to defeat them in the past?"
In 3150, a joint-power science initiative, INRA, developed (accidentally at first) a Bio-weapon called Mycoid, which is a fungal virus, it was tested on some Thargoids and their ships and INRA discovered it ate away vital polymers, and also did the same to the Thargoids - this is why we suspect they might be bio-mechanical (possibly). The virus was used on the Thargoids, and they withdraw from human space and vanished - until now.
There has been no official contact with Thargoids at all since 3150, but it's extremely likely that there was some contact at various points, but we have zero confirmation of that.
You can find out a lot about it by visiting the INRA bases that are being discovered, listed on this thread:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/383412-INRA-Base-Discoveries and there's bits of it here in this old Galnet article:
https://community.elitedangerous.com/en/galnet/12-AUG-3302 It's also worth vising the Sarasvati, or reading the logs here:
https://canonn.science/codex/gcs-sarasvati/
There's a LOT of theories and idea about Thargoids. The truth is, they are largely unknown, and what used to be known in previous games is not all accurate - Fdev have a policy of "being informed by past games, but not bound to them", so, some of the things that we know from previous games we discover are still the same in ED, and other things are either gone completely or dramatically changed, so rule of thumb is - once it appears in the game now, that's how it is, everything outside the game is interesting, but take it with a pinch of salt
" If they were the enemy before, what happened to the tech and such we had before? I mean, 50 years is a long time, but I just find it silly there's no real data on them from the past, you know?...Call me picky."
You're right. It's odd. However there may be an explanation. In Drew Wagar's Premonition (which is one of the official ED books, it's good, give it a go), we meet a group who are sort of the Illuminati/bilderberg of ED. A shadowy group of incredibly powerful people that apparently shape the course of human history and have done for generations. They claim to have suppressed knowledge of many things from the past, including Thargoids, for some reason that IMHO doesn't really make sense - but, remember we really only see the "public broadcasts" via Galnet for most things, and they'll always be slanted - they're not fact, they're like newspapers today, just opinion and spin - so it's entirely possible that the major powers knew about Thargoids and were just acting a bit dumb for some politics reasons.
What I will say about the books is that although they're technically Lore -
everything outside the game is interesting, but take it with a pinch of salt Drew suggesting as much too!
As to why we're not just using the Mycoid again - I think it's very likely that the Thargoids have developed a resistance to it, either re-engineered themselves, or bread a new generation that's immune, something like that.
Hope this helps some!
