I Knew this Was Coming- a Letter to Eleanor Bresa
11 Feb 2022Lily Flemmon
Hey, Eleanor...I just got back from Nauni. Had to see for myself if what I'd heard was true, if Thargoids hit the bubble.
It's true. I know in my very first log, I talked about not being able to stomach doing rescues in burning stations, but yesterday I did exactly that. Only managed to do a few runs with the Intrepid, since I wasn't exactly well-equipped for it. But hey, I could stomach it.
Out of some stroke of juvenile dumb luck, I managed to perform a manual drop from supercruise about 30km from a Thargoid conflict zone, and approach to get just within my A-rated sensor range. I performed a couple xeno scans, and didn't realize a Scout had targeted me until it was almost too late. I boosted away and deployed a heatsink, but apparently that doesn't break the target lock of a caustic missile, and I got hit. I kept fleeing, and low-waked out as soon as I could. Caustic missiles are no joke. Panicked, I performed a hard drop, just barely at a safe speed, on the nearest fleet carrier, and by the time I hailed them for docking, my hull was at 14 percent. I boosted toward my landing pad, and as I decelerated as I approached, I started preparing a repair limpet, and it managed to hold my hull at 7 percent just long enough for me to dock. Automated deck systems decontaminated my hull, and I ordered a repair. Shit, it's been a long damn time since I did something that stupid. But hey, I'm still in one piece and so is the Intrepid.
I've looked through my old logs to see if there's anything that could be of solace, now that I'm back home. And I found my letter to Colonia. I read it again, and this time, it... it hit differently.
serve as a loud and undeniable reminder that humanity needs to cooperate and remember to give aid to its weakest in order to survive. We are broken, and we will soon be dying, and I implore all of you to do what you can to save us, not from Thargoids, but from ourselves.
We all need to remember, now more than ever, that the vastness of space is not the final frontier. The final frontier for all of us... is home.
-Lily
I... I knew this was coming, in a sense. I didn't think the Thargoids would be part of it, but it's undeniable that the provocations of Salvation, the corruption and dissolution of Aegis, Sirius Corporation's partnership with the Alliance, the newly discovered corruption in the Imperial Senate, and the fact that the Thargoids' first attacks in the Bubble are particularly vicious and in Federation space, with Federal AX forces valiantly defending them... all of these things lined up perfectly with Hudson's campaign to extend his presidential term, and all of them are beneficial to that campaign. If there were such a thing as treason against mankind, this campaign would be exactly that.
But also, it's clear this isn't about Thargoids. This is about Hudson's lust for power via corporate control. He wants to be the center of attention of the entire galaxy and he doesn't realize that it's an impossible goal. He'll do anything to reach it, and that includes killing billions of people through negligence.
If there's any solace though, it's that the majority of the Federation's population lives on planets with high-oxygen atmospheres, and the Thargoids would really have to switch up their ship designs to even land a Scout on an earth-like planet, and then they'd have to find a way for their weapons to work in an earth-like atmosphere. When it comes to technology, though, it's clear that Thargoids don't adapt very quickly. So, say the Goids manage to wipe out every starport ion the Federation, well there goes that infrastructure and government structure and corporate dominance. But most of the population lives on lush planets with terraforming and environmental manipulation systems, and that majority is almost all of the Federation's infamous poverty. As long as the Alliance and Empire can hold off the Thargoids, this isn't an extinction scenario in the slightest.
Is what I just said horrible? Kinda, yeah. Okay, more than kinda. But hey, humans have the same attack-to-survive instinct that the Goids do, except people with little power or voice tend to quickly learn to overcome that, forming cultured communities. And the largest and most influential of those communities born of hardship is Colonia.
So... I guess I'm gonna repeat the plea of my initial letter. Eleanor, you have quite some influence in your part of space, and I just want to say...
People of Colonia, it's time to embark on your journey to the final frontier. It's time to come home. We need you.
-Commander Lily
Reply from Eleanor Bresa:
Hey, thanks for your letter. I'm glad you're safe and in one piece, and I'll do what I can to spread your message, although I'm not sure how people here will take it.
By the way, my computer recognized a blind-copy addressee in the metadata, and if you don't mind me asking, who else did you send this to?
Blind copy...?
Shit! someone intercepted it! And I have no idea who...