The Genius of the Thargoid Narrative... an Insane Prediction

[Chaparral]

We've seen a tremendous focus on Thargoid content, and a fair number of forum posters have suggested the core game is missing a basic needed refresh.

From balancing to new ships to CQC to meaty exploration, etc. there seems to be that constant yearning driving all of us hangers on.

I have been a big fat whiner baby about how the devs are nerfing and degrading my guardian toys and making my invested time so much pet waste.

Then it hit me like a diamond bullet in the forehead.

What if the Thargoids are prepping for a war with the returning Guardian AI? (Major Content update to PP)

What if all of the scooped up humans are being tuned up to fly the interceptors and Hunters in the upcoming Guardian AI war? (New ships)

What if scouts were to be introduced to CQC as part of this training process?

What if those info gathering Thargoids (Orthrus and Scythe) are used by players for new exploration / information gathering gameplay that is part of the war effort? (Exploration)

It all makes sense now. Genius.

 

[TheRoninX]

Would be nice but I would not mine that hopium nugget.

 

[HalseySpartan2]

Lol that would be an entire new game and we aren't getting another expansion let alone a sequel to this. We haven't even had a new ship in over five years. The one thing I want, and I don't care if nothing got added after that, is to be able to land on planets with full atmospheres. Unfortunately not going to happen though. We have to be happy with what we have

 

[Sekrit Dokuments]

Here's whats gonna happen:

Zombified reskinned thargoid humans to try and boost player interest in the FPS side of the game.

 

[Kzak]

We've seen a tremendous focus on Thargoid content, and a fair number of forum posters have suggested the core game is missing a basic needed refresh.

From balancing to new ships to CQC to meaty exploration, etc. there seems to be that constant yearning driving all of us hangers on.

I have been a big fat whiner baby about how the devs are nerfing and degrading my guardian toys and making my invested time so much pet waste.

Then it hit me like a diamond bullet in the forehead.

What if the Thargoids are prepping for a war with the returning Guardian AI? (Major Content update to PP)

What if all of the scooped up humans are being tuned up to fly the interceptors and Hunters in the upcoming Guardian AI war? (New ships)

What if scouts were to be introduced to CQC as part of this training process?

What if those info gathering Thargoids (Orthrus and Scythe) are used by players for new exploration / information gathering gameplay that is part of the war effort? (Exploration)

It all makes sense now. Genius.

Yep, I've posted for some years that the Guardian AI could well be lurking out there, as an AI time doesn't mean much to it.

 

[metatheurgist]

A guardian AI vs Thargoid conflict is more bleeding obvious than genius. The rest of your list is a bit fantasy. Nothing's bringing CQC back. That was a shot at getting in the e-sport market. It failed, that body ain't getting any more medical attention. The only smart move in CQC is integrating it into the main game, but that was the smart move 8(?) years ago.

 

[Yuri John]

Zombified reskinned thargoid humans

The Cmdrs of ED in the future.

Sobber.... Space..... Sobber.... Ships.... Sobber.... New DLCs....

 

[CMDR Isabella_The_Fox]

Thinking about the Guardian AI gives me the heebie-jeebies though.
I mean, the G-AI exterminated the Guardians, because it calculated that they will never overcome their fighting nature of internal fights and all of that, so it tried to fulfill its task of removing threats to the Guardians. Like with most AIs, at some point it realized that they were a threat to themselves and removed its creators.

So when the Guardian AI comes back to life and analyzes us, humans... especially looking at the Federation and the Empire and their constant fighting, even though in proxy wars... it's possible that this AI will very much try to remove us, too. o_o'

 

[Kira Goto]

Thinking about the Guardian AI gives me the heebie-jeebies though.
I mean, the G-AI exterminated the Guardians, because it calculated that they will never overcome their fighting nature of internal fights and all of that, so it tried to fulfill its task of removing threats to the Guardians. Like with most AIs, at some point it realized that they were a threat to themselves and removed its creators.

So when the Guardian AI comes back to life and analyzes us, humans... especially looking at the Federation and the Empire and their constant fighting, even though in proxy wars... it's possible that this AI will very much try to remove us, too. o_o'

My thoughts exactly on why we had better hope the Constructs do not return. It will look even worse on us that we are fighting with the Thargoids.

And if Salvation is actively trying to attract them, god help us all. And I’m not religious.

 

[vanFace]

What the Thargoid war narrative is capable of delivering is a plausible end game: if they win and humanity is dead in the water, the Elite series comes to a natural end. I think this is the genius aspect of it: turning off the lights, but still having people leave the theater with a smile on their faces, because they had a good time.

 

[Vingtetun]

I think they're harvesting humans to test out THEIR version of a virus that will attempt to wipe out humankind in retaliation for the Mycoid thing we used on them back in the day.

We will start pushing them back then BLAMMO major outbreak spreading.

 

[DawnTreader777]

What the Thargoid war narrative is capable of delivering is a plausible end game: if they win and humanity is dead in the water, the Elite series comes to a natural end. I think this is the genius aspect of it: turning off the lights, but still having people leave the theater with a smile on their faces, because they had a good time.

Sorry, if this game closes up anytime soon I won't be walking out with a smile on my face. I have a lot of my personal time and money invested in the game. I would prefer they make a new version where they import our data into it so that we still have all our stuff. I know that is wishful thinking, but hey, each to their own dream.

 

[Northpin]

Sorry, if this game closes up anytime soon I won't be walking out with a smile on my face. I have a lot of my personal time and money invested in the game. I would prefer they make a new version where they import our data into it so that we still have all our stuff. I know that is wishful thinking, but hey, each to their own dream.

It won't run forever.

My own prediction is there are quite some chances for the current thargoid war to end in a disaster for humanity, thus ending the Elite Dangerous Story Arc (and the game), by the time we get the10th ED anniversary (December, next year).

Sure, my predictions are known to fail spectacularly - but still...

Edit: and yea, as @vanFace nicely put it, i will leave the theater with a smile on my face and a bunch of memories collected in more than 8000h spread over 3 accounts.

 

[Rat Catcher]

Sorry, if this game closes up anytime soon I won't be walking out with a smile on my face.

The game is just like that exciting roller-coaster ride, seems to go on forever, but does come to an end.
whether one enjoys the journey and end it going "that was great!", or slinks away cursing it, is, indeed, personal perspective.

I have a lot of my personal time and money invested in the game.

Indeed, thousands of hours played seems normal for many players here...
Money spent? The game is cheap, regardless of what has been spent, when play hours are huge, much cheaper than many other pastimes...

I would prefer they make a new version where they import our data into it so that we still have all our stuff. I know that is wishful thinking, but hey, each to their own dream.

Wishful thinking, I believe, too few players active, coupled with the continual (apparent) reduction of dev time and budget on this game, it would be a miracle if Frontier risked more millions on creating a follow-up, and would it be lacklustre if they did?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

What the Thargoid war narrative is capable of delivering is a plausible end game: if they win and humanity is dead in the water, the Elite series comes to a natural end. I think this is the genius aspect of it: turning off the lights, but still having people leave the theater with a smile on their faces, because they had a good time.

Using "Thargoids wipe out the bubble" (or something similarly apocalyptic) as a way to end the game when player numbers drop below the sustainable line, but give a sequel hook so that in ten years time people will be asking them "so when's Elite V coming?" and in twenty years time they can release it I think makes sense.

I think we're quite some time away from that point, though.

 

[vanFace]

I think we're quite some time away from that point, though.

Yeah, I don't think that lights-out is in a year or so, because it wouldn't make sense to invest in coding all these new assets and then giving the players no time to experience them. The time-line might more be about 5 years, and even then it wouldn't mean hard server shut-down, but "just" official end of development.

As for Elite V, I don't think this will be a thing. The next evolutionary step is the everything-sim, kind of what SC tried (but so far failed) to achieve.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

As for Elite V, I don't think this will be a thing. The next evolutionary step is the everything-sim, kind of what SC tried (but so far failed) to achieve.

Everything-sims aren't possible: SC has spent considerably more money than actual interplanetary space missions to get nowhere near implementing one, and has had to use a highly unconventional funding model to do that. Doing a small number of things well is always going to give a more popular game than doing lots of things badly, and ED already gets - "mile-wide inch-deep" - plenty of criticism from the "not tightly focused enough" side.

Comparing the two, up to 2022: ED has spent roughly £60M on development + operations to attract >4 million paid accounts (and a bit over £100M in income); SC has spent over $500M on development to attract <2 million paid accounts. Now, sure, SC players are willling to spend way more on average than ED players, or their entire project would have collapsed years ago, but it's not a good sign for anyone else seriously planning an everything-sim.

 

[BDelacroix]

We've seen a tremendous focus on Thargoid content, and a fair number of forum posters have suggested the core game is missing a basic needed refresh.

From balancing to new ships to CQC to meaty exploration, etc. there seems to be that constant yearning driving all of us hangers on.

I have been a big fat whiner baby about how the devs are nerfing and degrading my guardian toys and making my invested time so much pet waste.

Then it hit me like a diamond bullet in the forehead.

What if the Thargoids are prepping for a war with the returning Guardian AI? (Major Content update to PP)

What if all of the scooped up humans are being tuned up to fly the interceptors and Hunters in the upcoming Guardian AI war? (New ships)

What if scouts were to be introduced to CQC as part of this training process?

What if those info gathering Thargoids (Orthrus and Scythe) are used by players for new exploration / information gathering gameplay that is part of the war effort? (Exploration)

It all makes sense now. Genius.

Sounds like hopium to me.

 

[BDelacroix]

I think they're harvesting humans to test out THEIR version of a virus that will attempt to wipe out humankind in retaliation for the Mycoid thing we used on them back in the day.

We will start pushing them back then BLAMMO major outbreak spreading.

Nah, you'd just have to skin sample the sick to cure it.

 

[BDelacroix]

My thoughts exactly on why we had better hope the Constructs do not return. It will look even worse on us that we are fighting with the Thargoids.

And if Salvation is actively trying to attract them, god help us all. And I’m not religious.

We'd just skin sample the constructs. Job done.