Now is clearly the optimal time to release this, a few days ahead of the stargoids. But I believe that based on previous Thargoid behaviour, the stargoids aren't coming to declare total war on humanity. People are gonna die, make no mistake of that, but it won't be because the Thargoids want to wipe us out.
The Second Thargoid War has been going on for five years now, and its been nearly six since the Thargoids returned. It's easy to lose track of what has happened in the face of the current situation, so this post is an attempt to consolidate my theories on why the Thargoids are here, based on their behaviour. We don't have formal communication...but we don't need it. Actions speak louder than words, and we have five years of data to work with.
There are two main categories of behaviours to look at: how the Thargoids act towards individuals, and how they act towards us as a species. Hyperdictions provide insight for the first, and the history of the Second Thargoid War provides the second. To summarize what I believe the following shows: the Thargoids are not here to kill us. But they will act in self-defence if pushed, of their territory, their technology, and themselves.
This will primarily focus on the Second Thargoid War, as it's what we have the most reliable data for. But I'd also like to open with this quote from the previous game, Frontier First Encounters. We cannot assume that the events of prior games are canon, but the circumstances behind this quote are also referenced in Elite: Dangerous, as a tourist beacon. Details may have changed, but there may be shared themes between the stories Frontier write. So here's part of the journal that Dr Innitui was assassinated over. It summarizes this entire post.
Hyperdiction behaviour
A wide range of Thargoid behaviour is displayed during hyperdictions, and can provide insight into Thargoid motivations. Hyperdictions have further significance in that they marked the return of the Thargoids in 3303, effectively being equivalent to "first contact" within the context of the Second Thargoid War. These behaviours are also easily documented and verified by independent commanders, making them excellent primary evidence. Much of this behaviour could later be seen outside of hyperdictions, but the hyperdictions are the primary example and also where the Thargoids go to the pilots, rather than the other way around, making them slightly more useful.
The first hyperdictions, as well as the bulk of them since, occur after a pilot had interacted with a Thargoid Sensor. This Sensor scans the ship, after which the pilot may be hyperdicted while travelling through regions of Thargoid territory such as the Pleiades Nebula. One or multiple Thargoid Interceptors will be present, and will deploy a shutdown wave to disable most of the ship's systems. A Thargoid will then approach and scan the vessel. Based on the cargo the human ship is carrying, one of the following behaviours will occur after the scan:
Based on the above, it can be inferred that the primary purpose of these hyperdictions is to scan the cargo of vessels travelling through Thargoid territory. This runs contrary to the somewhat commonly held theory that Thargoid behaviours are marked with unrelenting aggression. Instead, despite the Thargoid vessels having the human ship at a severe disadvantage, the act of scanning the cargo only enables them to spare ships. A more warlike race would be perfectly positioned to attack the disabled ship immediately, and then collect any cargo of interest from the wreckage; the Thargoids are demonstratably capable of this, but choose not to. Instead, scanning the cargo allows the Thargoids to give a grace period where cargo belonging to them can be returned and to spare uninvolved ships. Hostilities only occur if Thargoid cargo is not returned, in self-defence, or if the ship is carrying Guardian technology which can be used to develop weaponry effective against the Thargoids. And in the case of Meta-Alloys, hostilities will not even occur at all, despite the Thargoid's known opposition to humanity's occupation of the barnacles that produce them.
This behaviour has continued largely unchanged even as the Second Thargoid War was declared, and then repeatedly escalated. The major exception to this has occured recently in the vicinity of HIP 22460, which will be addressed later - but in short, even now normal hyperdiction behaviour continues to occur, so I do not believe the events of HIP 22460 have caused a significant shift in how the Thargoids view humanity as a whole.
In essence, it appears that while the Thargoids are not averse to attacking if necessary to protect themselves or retrieve their cargo, they also go out of their way to enable a peaceful resolution. Their only red-line appears to be the collection of Guardian technology, but given their history and recent events in HIP 22460, it could be said that there are valid reasons for this.
Thargoid attacks prior and during the Second Thargoid War
While an understanding of how the Thargoids treat individuals in hyperdictions is useful for gaining insight of their motives, events did not stop with the hyperdictions. War was declared against the Thargoids regardless, leading to numerous escalations and hostilities. Examining the context and method of significant Thargoid attacks that have occured in the Second Thargoid War is also essential towards understanding how they view us as a species. Specifically, the major question to be answered is if their apparent behaviour in hyperdictions (where they are capable of killing, but will avoid it in most cases) also extends towards us as a warring species. Three main time periods with notable conflicts will be examined for this:
1) January - September 3303: The Return -> Declaration of War
The Thargoids returned in January 3303, hyperdicting pilots as described above. For the first five months, the number of ships destroyed by Thargoids was zero - again, despite their now clear ability to do so. What changed?
The first conflict came in May 3303, involving Federal military vessels. [https://community.elitedangerous.com/galnet/uid/591eba92943cd633575c5666]
At the time, both the Federation and Empire had been fighting to take control of the Pleiades for nearly a year, and Federal military convoys had also been covertly harvesting Thargoid technology from the region. As such, it seems likely that this attack occured based on typical hyperdiction behaviour - the Federal convoys were interdicted, scanned, and did not return the cargo. It is also worth noting the apparent five month grace period that the Federation had to respond to the Thargoid's return, and their obvious interest in the region. The Federation continued anyway. After those five months, perhaps the Thargoids decided to make their point more clearly.
The next significant conflict was the destruction of a Federal Farragut in September 3303. Details as to what this Farragut was doing in Thargoid territory are of course absent, but given previous events and that it was accompanied by a convoy, it is likely that this occured in the same way as the previous conflict. This led to the Federation declaring war on the Thargoids, and they were followed by the other two superpowers, resulting in Aegis becoming a military organisation.
Until this point, the only notable conflicts had involved Federal vessels. After the declaration of war, Imperial military vessels were also targeted, along with civilian vessels. The wreckage of these ships would often have Unknown Artifacts floating nearby - again, indicating that these attacks occured due to typical hyperdiction behaviour. While this GalNet rules out weapon fire as a cause, it could be speculated that Aegis's formation and sale of AX weaponry to the superpowers and independent pilots may have played a part in the Thargoid's focus widening from just the Federation.
In conclusion, hostilities in this time period appear to result from the Federation's gathering of Thargoid technology - consistent with hyperdiction behaviour. Pure aggression does not seem to be present, nor any reason to suggest why this aggression would be so targeted at just the Federation if it were so. As a result of this, war was declared on the Thargoids, and the gathering of Thargoid technology and Meta-Alloys continued, now under the collective watch of Aegis.
2) December 3303 and onwards: Station attacks
After the declaration of war, things naturally escalated. From this point onwards, much of the conflict in the Pleiades could simply be attributed to self-defence by the Thargoids: Aegis had launched a major expansion into the region, as well as launched multiple massacre operations against the Thargoids such as Operation Andronicus, aiming to kill as many Thargoids as possible within the Pleiades.
However, I don't think it's that simple. Whatever the cause of war, once it had started pure self-defence could have driven the Thargoids to go all-out in response, abandoning their previous behaviours in favour of counterparts to Operation Andronicus, opening fire on any human in sight. This did not occur.
Instead, the next major development in the war from the Thargoid end was the first station attacks, about a month after Andronicus. Given their portrayal, this might not sound so different to the above, but there are several key details that tend to get missed out.
Firstly, the Thargoids chose to disable the stations, rather than destroy. As a result, the death toll was remarkably low when compared with the population of the systems attacked. Despite the stations being helpless against the shutdown fields, the Thargoids chose to disable the main reactor rather than destroy the entire station - and then they left, apparently of their own accord. "One eyewitness said, “It’s like they wanted to cripple us rather than destroy us outright.” This mirrors the hyperdiction behaviour, where they choose to spare uninvolved ships even when helpless. Of course these encounters were not entirely benign either, which brings me onto the second point.
These first station attacks were exclusively against Aegis stations. Stations that were in Thargoid territory, full of stolen Thargoid technology, and being used to support acts like Operation Andronicus. The act of attacking these stations then also serves two other motives: to retrieve the technology, and to prevent further attacks on Thargoids. Again, if self-defence or even bloodlust were the Thargoids only motivations, they would have been better served to destroy these stations outright. They chose not to. It may be that the Thargoids believed that killing everyone on board would guarantee further escalation, whereas simply disabling the stations would send a stronger message - to show what they are capable of, and to demonstrate that they were willing to show restraint. Unfortunately, the message was not heeded, with these elements being disregarded by the powers.
These attacks continued in this way for several more months, confined to Aegis stations in the Pleiades Nebula. In February 3304, these attacks began to be accompanied by the arrival of Thargoid Scouts. The Scouts displayed notably different behaviour in that they were hostile on sight. However, this did not mark a change in behaviour of all Thargoids, with hyperdictions and the method of station disabling remaining unchanged. Considering this along with the fact that Scouts were only deployed after months of war, I believe that the Scouts are single-purpose vessels, only being of use in warzones, to attack. As such, their behaviour when deployed was entirely predictable, but their selective deployment and the lack of this behaviour in other situations meant this did not indicate that the Thargoids were now displaying total hostility towards humans.
In the same way as in the pre-war period with the Federal convoys, once the Thargoids had spent several months determining that their message was not being heeded, they transmitted it more strongly. Aegis continued to operate in the Pleiades, harvesting technology and launching further attacks on the Thargoids, so the Thargoids stepped up their response. It is a notable exception, but the overall behaviour remained unchanged.
At the same time as the arrival of the Scouts, the attacks also stopped being restricted to just Aegis stations, also moving out of the Pleiades and into the bubble itself. This marked a notable change as defence of the Pleiades could no longer be considered a motive - however, there is evidence to suggest that these attacks were still intended to retrieve stolen Thargoid technology.
By this stage in the war, Thargoid technology was being more widely distributed throughout the bubble. Convoys of ships were being sent to stations that would later be targeted for Thargoid attack; these convoys appeared to be covertly transporting Thargoid technology. Furthermore, mysterious transmitters appeared outside stations at the same time as they were detected by the Thargoids, suggesting that a group of humans - possibly the same as the one sending the convoys - was deliberately highlighting these stations to the Thargoids, luring them away from the Pleiades in their pursuit of Thargoid technology. As usual, killcounts remained low as the station itself was only disabled. You can ignore the tinfoil if you like. The main point is that despite occuring in the bubble, with the presence of Scouts, these attacks do not appear to be part of an aggressive invasion. They were driven by the same principles as hyperdiction behaviour, namely the retrieval of Thargoid technology.
In conclusion, the primary motive behind the station attacks in general seems to be retrieval of Thargoid technology. In the Pleiades, Aegis labs hosted large amounts of it, known to be transmitting back to the Thargoids. They also hosted anti-Thargoid operations, providing another motive in self-defence. As for the bubble attacks, Thargoid technology again appeared to be a motive, and in all cases the Thargoids deliberately chose to minimize the death toll by disabling the station, rather than destroying.
Finally, allow me to make this entire section completely redundant, because the core of this was stated verbatim on GalNet when the Gnosis was attacked (again, after the placement of a transmitter): "The aliens were more interested in scooping up the meta-alloys than attacking us".
3) August 3308 and onwards: The Battle and Aftermath of HIP 22460
This is a bit of a timeskip. The above events continued on and off for the next few years without many major escalations. Aegis and others invaded more bits of Thargoid territory, the Thargoids counterattacked, the powers freaked out, nothing new here. On one hand, this could indicate that the Thargoids were reluctant to escalate further even as humanity lay claim to more and more barnacles, even destroying the ones in the Pleiades. On the other, it could indicate that Frontier was busy elsewhere with development issues (hi, Odyssey).
The next major escalation occured in HIP 22460. This is much more recent, so to summarize, Salvation's plan to lure and then destroy large numbers of Thargoids in the HIP 22460 system failed. The Proteus Wave was instead used to disable all human ships in the system, which made up the combined militaries of all three superpowers. The Thargoids then attacked, wiping them out.
Helpfully, GalNet has been much more useful in calling out the hypocrisy of naming this "the latest example of unrelenting hostility", especially coming from the person who declared war on the Thargoids. As noted above, the Thargoids tend to spare ships that are uninvolved - this does not apply to those that attack them, which is evidently the case when the combined militaries of three superpowers embark on a mission to detonate a Guardian-based superweapon in Thargoid territory. Since this event, Thargoids are universally hostile in the vicinity of HIP 22460. Like with the Scouts, this is not a universal change in behaviour. The connection to HIP 22460 indicates that this is a direct consequence of the attempted xenocide, and that the Thargoids are unwilling to take chances when demonstrating this message to us.
Elsewhere, however, station attacks have ceased entirely. With the downfall of both Aegis and Salvation, it may be that the Thargoids no longer have a reason to attack stations, without anyone filling them with Thargoid tech or gathering Guardian tech in the system. While the Thargoids continue to sporadically appear in the bubble, evidence suggests that these are not part of an attack. Conflict has broken out anyway in these systems, but context on GalNet suggests that this is because of human fleets being deployed to attack the Thargoids, rather than the Thargoids opening fire first - "It’s not an attack as much as a presence". The true meaning of this behaviour may only become apparent when the "stargoids" arrive, but I believe that these "attacks" are an attempt to discern if humanity still wants to continue the war after the demonstration in HIP 22460: where the Thargoids deliberately allowed humanity to assemble their best and most powerful weaponry, only to demonstrate how little of a threat it posed to them.
Conclusion
There's another GalNet article I haven't mentioned yet, regarding the Guardian logs. These come up a lot, but this entire post is actually just a long-winded attempt to compile supporting evidence for what has already been largely stated on GalNet. The Thargoids's motivations are known, and they're not here to kill us. In the words of Aegis's head of research, Professor Tesreau:
Maybe the stargoids are a sign that the Thargoids have had enough, and are no longer interested in restraint. But even after HIP 22460, that hasn't happened yet, and I think it's more likely that the actions of these entities will be consistent with prior Thargoid behaviour and motives.
I might try and streamline this post later on (or rewrite the entire thing when the stargoids arrive), but jeez, I just wanted to write this all down to save me typing it up again for the 70th time. Good luck if you made it this far.
TL;DR: Stop helping those invading Thargoid territory. And I wouldn't have had to make this post if GalNet was better at showing historical articles.
The Second Thargoid War has been going on for five years now, and its been nearly six since the Thargoids returned. It's easy to lose track of what has happened in the face of the current situation, so this post is an attempt to consolidate my theories on why the Thargoids are here, based on their behaviour. We don't have formal communication...but we don't need it. Actions speak louder than words, and we have five years of data to work with.
There are two main categories of behaviours to look at: how the Thargoids act towards individuals, and how they act towards us as a species. Hyperdictions provide insight for the first, and the history of the Second Thargoid War provides the second. To summarize what I believe the following shows: the Thargoids are not here to kill us. But they will act in self-defence if pushed, of their territory, their technology, and themselves.
This will primarily focus on the Second Thargoid War, as it's what we have the most reliable data for. But I'd also like to open with this quote from the previous game, Frontier First Encounters. We cannot assume that the events of prior games are canon, but the circumstances behind this quote are also referenced in Elite: Dangerous, as a tourist beacon. Details may have changed, but there may be shared themes between the stories Frontier write. So here's part of the journal that Dr Innitui was assassinated over. It summarizes this entire post.
But anyway, one war at a time.
Hyperdiction behaviour
A wide range of Thargoid behaviour is displayed during hyperdictions, and can provide insight into Thargoid motivations. Hyperdictions have further significance in that they marked the return of the Thargoids in 3303, effectively being equivalent to "first contact" within the context of the Second Thargoid War. These behaviours are also easily documented and verified by independent commanders, making them excellent primary evidence. Much of this behaviour could later be seen outside of hyperdictions, but the hyperdictions are the primary example and also where the Thargoids go to the pilots, rather than the other way around, making them slightly more useful.
The first hyperdictions, as well as the bulk of them since, occur after a pilot had interacted with a Thargoid Sensor. This Sensor scans the ship, after which the pilot may be hyperdicted while travelling through regions of Thargoid territory such as the Pleiades Nebula. One or multiple Thargoid Interceptors will be present, and will deploy a shutdown wave to disable most of the ship's systems. A Thargoid will then approach and scan the vessel. Based on the cargo the human ship is carrying, one of the following behaviours will occur after the scan:
- Meta-Alloys are present. If the Meta-Alloys are not jettisonned after a short time, the Thargoid will turn red and deploy Thargons, but will not become hostile. If they are jettisonned, the Thargoid will scoop them up and leave, after calling in more Thargoids for large quantities if necessary.
- Thargoid technology is present. If it is not jettisonned after a short time, the Thargoid will attack. Otherwise, the Thargoid will scoop them up and leave.
- Guardian technology is present. The Thargoid will immediately attack.
- None of the above. The Thargoid will leave.
Based on the above, it can be inferred that the primary purpose of these hyperdictions is to scan the cargo of vessels travelling through Thargoid territory. This runs contrary to the somewhat commonly held theory that Thargoid behaviours are marked with unrelenting aggression. Instead, despite the Thargoid vessels having the human ship at a severe disadvantage, the act of scanning the cargo only enables them to spare ships. A more warlike race would be perfectly positioned to attack the disabled ship immediately, and then collect any cargo of interest from the wreckage; the Thargoids are demonstratably capable of this, but choose not to. Instead, scanning the cargo allows the Thargoids to give a grace period where cargo belonging to them can be returned and to spare uninvolved ships. Hostilities only occur if Thargoid cargo is not returned, in self-defence, or if the ship is carrying Guardian technology which can be used to develop weaponry effective against the Thargoids. And in the case of Meta-Alloys, hostilities will not even occur at all, despite the Thargoid's known opposition to humanity's occupation of the barnacles that produce them.
This behaviour has continued largely unchanged even as the Second Thargoid War was declared, and then repeatedly escalated. The major exception to this has occured recently in the vicinity of HIP 22460, which will be addressed later - but in short, even now normal hyperdiction behaviour continues to occur, so I do not believe the events of HIP 22460 have caused a significant shift in how the Thargoids view humanity as a whole.
In essence, it appears that while the Thargoids are not averse to attacking if necessary to protect themselves or retrieve their cargo, they also go out of their way to enable a peaceful resolution. Their only red-line appears to be the collection of Guardian technology, but given their history and recent events in HIP 22460, it could be said that there are valid reasons for this.
Thargoid attacks prior and during the Second Thargoid War
While an understanding of how the Thargoids treat individuals in hyperdictions is useful for gaining insight of their motives, events did not stop with the hyperdictions. War was declared against the Thargoids regardless, leading to numerous escalations and hostilities. Examining the context and method of significant Thargoid attacks that have occured in the Second Thargoid War is also essential towards understanding how they view us as a species. Specifically, the major question to be answered is if their apparent behaviour in hyperdictions (where they are capable of killing, but will avoid it in most cases) also extends towards us as a warring species. Three main time periods with notable conflicts will be examined for this:
1) January - September 3303: The Return -> Declaration of War
The Thargoids returned in January 3303, hyperdicting pilots as described above. For the first five months, the number of ships destroyed by Thargoids was zero - again, despite their now clear ability to do so. What changed?
The first conflict came in May 3303, involving Federal military vessels. [https://community.elitedangerous.com/galnet/uid/591eba92943cd633575c5666]
At the time, both the Federation and Empire had been fighting to take control of the Pleiades for nearly a year, and Federal military convoys had also been covertly harvesting Thargoid technology from the region. As such, it seems likely that this attack occured based on typical hyperdiction behaviour - the Federal convoys were interdicted, scanned, and did not return the cargo. It is also worth noting the apparent five month grace period that the Federation had to respond to the Thargoid's return, and their obvious interest in the region. The Federation continued anyway. After those five months, perhaps the Thargoids decided to make their point more clearly.
The next significant conflict was the destruction of a Federal Farragut in September 3303. Details as to what this Farragut was doing in Thargoid territory are of course absent, but given previous events and that it was accompanied by a convoy, it is likely that this occured in the same way as the previous conflict. This led to the Federation declaring war on the Thargoids, and they were followed by the other two superpowers, resulting in Aegis becoming a military organisation.
Until this point, the only notable conflicts had involved Federal vessels. After the declaration of war, Imperial military vessels were also targeted, along with civilian vessels. The wreckage of these ships would often have Unknown Artifacts floating nearby - again, indicating that these attacks occured due to typical hyperdiction behaviour. While this GalNet rules out weapon fire as a cause, it could be speculated that Aegis's formation and sale of AX weaponry to the superpowers and independent pilots may have played a part in the Thargoid's focus widening from just the Federation.
In conclusion, hostilities in this time period appear to result from the Federation's gathering of Thargoid technology - consistent with hyperdiction behaviour. Pure aggression does not seem to be present, nor any reason to suggest why this aggression would be so targeted at just the Federation if it were so. As a result of this, war was declared on the Thargoids, and the gathering of Thargoid technology and Meta-Alloys continued, now under the collective watch of Aegis.
2) December 3303 and onwards: Station attacks
After the declaration of war, things naturally escalated. From this point onwards, much of the conflict in the Pleiades could simply be attributed to self-defence by the Thargoids: Aegis had launched a major expansion into the region, as well as launched multiple massacre operations against the Thargoids such as Operation Andronicus, aiming to kill as many Thargoids as possible within the Pleiades.
However, I don't think it's that simple. Whatever the cause of war, once it had started pure self-defence could have driven the Thargoids to go all-out in response, abandoning their previous behaviours in favour of counterparts to Operation Andronicus, opening fire on any human in sight. This did not occur.
Instead, the next major development in the war from the Thargoid end was the first station attacks, about a month after Andronicus. Given their portrayal, this might not sound so different to the above, but there are several key details that tend to get missed out.
Firstly, the Thargoids chose to disable the stations, rather than destroy. As a result, the death toll was remarkably low when compared with the population of the systems attacked. Despite the stations being helpless against the shutdown fields, the Thargoids chose to disable the main reactor rather than destroy the entire station - and then they left, apparently of their own accord. "One eyewitness said, “It’s like they wanted to cripple us rather than destroy us outright.” This mirrors the hyperdiction behaviour, where they choose to spare uninvolved ships even when helpless. Of course these encounters were not entirely benign either, which brings me onto the second point.
These first station attacks were exclusively against Aegis stations. Stations that were in Thargoid territory, full of stolen Thargoid technology, and being used to support acts like Operation Andronicus. The act of attacking these stations then also serves two other motives: to retrieve the technology, and to prevent further attacks on Thargoids. Again, if self-defence or even bloodlust were the Thargoids only motivations, they would have been better served to destroy these stations outright. They chose not to. It may be that the Thargoids believed that killing everyone on board would guarantee further escalation, whereas simply disabling the stations would send a stronger message - to show what they are capable of, and to demonstrate that they were willing to show restraint. Unfortunately, the message was not heeded, with these elements being disregarded by the powers.
These attacks continued in this way for several more months, confined to Aegis stations in the Pleiades Nebula. In February 3304, these attacks began to be accompanied by the arrival of Thargoid Scouts. The Scouts displayed notably different behaviour in that they were hostile on sight. However, this did not mark a change in behaviour of all Thargoids, with hyperdictions and the method of station disabling remaining unchanged. Considering this along with the fact that Scouts were only deployed after months of war, I believe that the Scouts are single-purpose vessels, only being of use in warzones, to attack. As such, their behaviour when deployed was entirely predictable, but their selective deployment and the lack of this behaviour in other situations meant this did not indicate that the Thargoids were now displaying total hostility towards humans.
In the same way as in the pre-war period with the Federal convoys, once the Thargoids had spent several months determining that their message was not being heeded, they transmitted it more strongly. Aegis continued to operate in the Pleiades, harvesting technology and launching further attacks on the Thargoids, so the Thargoids stepped up their response. It is a notable exception, but the overall behaviour remained unchanged.
At the same time as the arrival of the Scouts, the attacks also stopped being restricted to just Aegis stations, also moving out of the Pleiades and into the bubble itself. This marked a notable change as defence of the Pleiades could no longer be considered a motive - however, there is evidence to suggest that these attacks were still intended to retrieve stolen Thargoid technology.
By this stage in the war, Thargoid technology was being more widely distributed throughout the bubble. Convoys of ships were being sent to stations that would later be targeted for Thargoid attack; these convoys appeared to be covertly transporting Thargoid technology. Furthermore, mysterious transmitters appeared outside stations at the same time as they were detected by the Thargoids, suggesting that a group of humans - possibly the same as the one sending the convoys - was deliberately highlighting these stations to the Thargoids, luring them away from the Pleiades in their pursuit of Thargoid technology. As usual, killcounts remained low as the station itself was only disabled. You can ignore the tinfoil if you like. The main point is that despite occuring in the bubble, with the presence of Scouts, these attacks do not appear to be part of an aggressive invasion. They were driven by the same principles as hyperdiction behaviour, namely the retrieval of Thargoid technology.
In conclusion, the primary motive behind the station attacks in general seems to be retrieval of Thargoid technology. In the Pleiades, Aegis labs hosted large amounts of it, known to be transmitting back to the Thargoids. They also hosted anti-Thargoid operations, providing another motive in self-defence. As for the bubble attacks, Thargoid technology again appeared to be a motive, and in all cases the Thargoids deliberately chose to minimize the death toll by disabling the station, rather than destroying.
Finally, allow me to make this entire section completely redundant, because the core of this was stated verbatim on GalNet when the Gnosis was attacked (again, after the placement of a transmitter): "The aliens were more interested in scooping up the meta-alloys than attacking us".
3) August 3308 and onwards: The Battle and Aftermath of HIP 22460
This is a bit of a timeskip. The above events continued on and off for the next few years without many major escalations. Aegis and others invaded more bits of Thargoid territory, the Thargoids counterattacked, the powers freaked out, nothing new here. On one hand, this could indicate that the Thargoids were reluctant to escalate further even as humanity lay claim to more and more barnacles, even destroying the ones in the Pleiades. On the other, it could indicate that Frontier was busy elsewhere with development issues (hi, Odyssey).
The next major escalation occured in HIP 22460. This is much more recent, so to summarize, Salvation's plan to lure and then destroy large numbers of Thargoids in the HIP 22460 system failed. The Proteus Wave was instead used to disable all human ships in the system, which made up the combined militaries of all three superpowers. The Thargoids then attacked, wiping them out.
Helpfully, GalNet has been much more useful in calling out the hypocrisy of naming this "the latest example of unrelenting hostility", especially coming from the person who declared war on the Thargoids. As noted above, the Thargoids tend to spare ships that are uninvolved - this does not apply to those that attack them, which is evidently the case when the combined militaries of three superpowers embark on a mission to detonate a Guardian-based superweapon in Thargoid territory. Since this event, Thargoids are universally hostile in the vicinity of HIP 22460. Like with the Scouts, this is not a universal change in behaviour. The connection to HIP 22460 indicates that this is a direct consequence of the attempted xenocide, and that the Thargoids are unwilling to take chances when demonstrating this message to us.
Elsewhere, however, station attacks have ceased entirely. With the downfall of both Aegis and Salvation, it may be that the Thargoids no longer have a reason to attack stations, without anyone filling them with Thargoid tech or gathering Guardian tech in the system. While the Thargoids continue to sporadically appear in the bubble, evidence suggests that these are not part of an attack. Conflict has broken out anyway in these systems, but context on GalNet suggests that this is because of human fleets being deployed to attack the Thargoids, rather than the Thargoids opening fire first - "It’s not an attack as much as a presence". The true meaning of this behaviour may only become apparent when the "stargoids" arrive, but I believe that these "attacks" are an attempt to discern if humanity still wants to continue the war after the demonstration in HIP 22460: where the Thargoids deliberately allowed humanity to assemble their best and most powerful weaponry, only to demonstrate how little of a threat it posed to them.
Conclusion
There's another GalNet article I haven't mentioned yet, regarding the Guardian logs. These come up a lot, but this entire post is actually just a long-winded attempt to compile supporting evidence for what has already been largely stated on GalNet. The Thargoids's motivations are known, and they're not here to kill us. In the words of Aegis's head of research, Professor Tesreau:
Despite the lack of formal communication, we figured out what the Thargoids wanted. And the powers ignored it. Only months later, Aegis and the powers invaded Witch Head, and it didn't stop there. That is why the Thargoids are here, humanity's unrelenting greed for Thargoid technology and territory.
Maybe the stargoids are a sign that the Thargoids have had enough, and are no longer interested in restraint. But even after HIP 22460, that hasn't happened yet, and I think it's more likely that the actions of these entities will be consistent with prior Thargoid behaviour and motives.
I might try and streamline this post later on (or rewrite the entire thing when the stargoids arrive), but jeez, I just wanted to write this all down to save me typing it up again for the 70th time. Good luck if you made it this far.
TL;DR: Stop helping those invading Thargoid territory. And I wouldn't have had to make this post if GalNet was better at showing historical articles.
