What do the Thargoids call themselves?

[Untilting]

I read on a wiki that the term "Thargoid" comes from an early blurry photo of an alien ship with "THARG" written on it - is this canon? They were presumably fans of the "2000 AD" comics back then, although have undoubtedly moved on to "Homes and Gardens" by now.

Do we have any idea what they call themselves? Or do we know how the Guardians referred to them?

This was originally leading to a joke about the term "Far God" arising from the first prophet trying to say "Thargoid" after heavy dentistry, but am now genuinely curious. It may also explain why they've never been on speaking terms with others, if the rest of the universe insists on naming their entire species by one custom number plate.

 

[Planewalker]

If i am not mistaken the names Oresrians and Klaxxians have come up. Can't find a source right now of course. x|
Edit found this: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...xians-how-it-likely-all-fits-together.379574/

 

[Felix DiCestria]

Bob, it's short for Kate.

 

[Cmdr John Lyn]

Seo Jin Ae describes their communications as a song in that it has tone, duration & intensity and conveys emotions, feelings and desires the hive is supposed to express or manifest. Perhaps hives can be programed by this song and a specific emotional/mental state is given out to specific groups to carry out specific instructions. Their name for us might be Human, but the meaning of that word might always be changing based upon how they perceive us as a whole at the time. But it's equally true they could have a phrase to describe us apart from similar entites like the Guardians. Something like "Iron users" and "Crystal users". The majority sentiment of their consensus maker(s) would decide how they would refer to us; foe, threat, useful species, alien etc.

That might give us insight about how they think, they might refer to themselves as a single entity. As Me or I or One or some variation thereof. But they would also be aware of the fact that this single state of mind is shared across many individual units of their species and does not reside in a single specific unit besides perhaps a "Queen". So they might loosely grasp our concept of We and Us or Group. Without knowing more about their species and their life cycle It's hard to tell as this feeling that they use to describe themselves could evolve over time and gain or lose meaning.

 

[Darth Ender]

lets pretend that since their tech is alive, that it all communicates telepathically with them. In such a case, it wouldn't make sense for them to have words. They can communicate the direct idea without having to abstract it with approximate words.

Since they kill all other races and dont interact peacefully with them, it also stands to reason that they have not had the need to develop language for external communication either.

So the song/etc is the human brain interpreting the ideas being directly communicated from brain to brain. Our brain is wired for language due to a lack of telepathy, so we can't perceive that information as it exists, and have to translate into something we can, like song or words, but there would be no language there. Just a soup of words created in our heads as we try to make sense of their telepathic thoughts.

Even if they had higher functioning castes and some sort of insect-like setup, they would all be telepathic and have no need for words and no desire to talk to outside races.

On one hand, i'd think the only way you could get the thargoid's attention in a non-combative way would be if you communicated with them telepathically. On the other hand, though, they're millions of years old, drive living ships and why would they care? We're a mosquito to them. sometimes annoying enough to squash and sometimes carrying diseases ...but ultimately we do not matter. Like many others, we'll pop up into the galaxy...and then die out and the thargoid will remain. Why get invested ?

 

[angusmadmac1]

Since they kill all other races and dont interact peacefully with them, it also stands to reason that they have not had the need to develop language for external communication either.

Hmmm kill all other species and no need to develop language ? I had to re read this as I thought you were talking about humans ..
Let's have a look at facts we fired the first shot did they attack nope
When we shot at them they retailated
We try genocide did they attack ?
No the retreated
We tried genocide again and now they are on the offensive and they are the bad guys .
We have the "history of the guardians " who were killed by their own AI saying we didn't do nuffin guv we are innocent bystanders ??? Which was decoded by humans ?? Of certain factions, you know the ones Thargoid bad that we're attacked first .
The issue has always been hairless apes and their xenophobic reactions

 

[Darth Ender]

Hmmm kill all other species and no need to develop language ? I had to re read this as I thought you were talking about humans ..
Let's have a look at facts we fired the first shot did they attack nope
When we shot at them they retailated
We try genocide did they attack ?
No the retreated
We tried genocide again and now they are on the offensive and they are the bad guys .
We have the "history of the guardians " who were killed by their own AI saying we didn't do nuffin guv we are innocent bystanders ??? Which was decoded by humans ?? Of certain factions, you know the ones Thargoid bad that we're attacked first .
The issue has always been hairless apes and their xenophobic reactions

it doesn't matter if they kill the other civilizations they meet via defense or in cold blood or indifference. The end result is the same. They have no interest in them except when they need to kill them. So no need to communicate via less efficient forms.

You dont survive for millions of years by being a pacifist. You got to the top of the food chain by being a better predator than all the rest. Guardians may have been killed by their own tools, but thargoids survived those tools and thargoids are here but those guardian AI are not.

What's more likely, that guardian AI failed to defeat the thargoid, killed their creators and then left no evidence of birthing their new race ...or that thargoids just came back and destroyed the guardian AI after they had wiped out the guardians? The guardian AI is dead - destroyed by the thargoid soon after that war, and the existence of the thargoid and no evidence of the guardian ai since the time of the guardian civil war is pretty strong evidence for that.

Thargoids may be waiting for some being to be able to communicate on their level in order to interact with them in some form other than death. Or they could just as easily not care because they dont need to care and have done just fine for millions of years not caring. Or fdev has retconned them as space animals ...not consciously intelligent at all in a way we would understand it. There's been no evidence to suggest that thargoids are anything more than mindless (alien) animals responding to stimuli. Though it would be great if that was shown to be untrue. Their current role in the game is pretty limited vs where it could be if they were closer to some of the books.

 

[angusmadmac1]

Yes the Fdev storyline seems to be fairly naive with the end story will be the victorious hairless apes overcoming the nasty smelly aliens even though apes are technologically inferior. The fact we were never really seen as a threat until now has never really been fully recognised.
The war has no real Intelligence on the Thargoid side with only reactions to what we do .
I prefer the idea that the AI looked at both sides and realised that the guardians were the biggest threat .

 

[XenoZera]

Yes the Fdev storyline seems to be fairly naive with the end story will be the victorious hairless apes overcoming the nasty smelly aliens even though apes are technologically inferior. The fact we were never really seen as a threat until now has never really been fully recognised.
The war has no real Intelligence on the Thargoid side with only reactions to what we do .
I prefer the idea that the AI looked at both sides and realised that the guardians were the biggest threat .

Fdev storyline is nowhere near complete yet, we cant even touch titans/barnacle matrix sites/permit locked thargoid/guardian systems.

The fact we were never a threat until salvation was fully recognized. If we were a threat from our fungal attack why would they have not returned in force until we used guardian tech? Seems like the guardians were scarier than we were.

Thargoids seem to not be trying to wipe us out or take over the entirety of the bubble, if they are they arent trying very hard.

The guardian AI attacked the thargoids and the guardians. It drove off the thargoids first. And i really doubt the AI was able to elimated Every guardian in existence, especially after groups were exiled well before the genocides.

When we shot at them they retailated

As far as I can tell its vague as whether or not humans shot first. If anyone can point to in-game evidence one way or another, that'd be swell.