Ruminations on the Current Situation
30 Nov 2022ThatGuySalroka
Date of Log: 11/30/3308It finally happened. I've been warning the Federation for months about the damn space bees, and they didn't goddamn listen to me. The fact I am an Admiral in the Naval Auxiliary? Apparently that doesn't count for a damn thing if Hudson and Winters are happier crapping on each other and ignoring all the warning signs the Thargoids have been giving us for so long. Before HIP 22460, we were an annoyance to them at best. A quaint and sometimes dangerous species that usually kept to ourselves and away from their nebulas. Then we started gathering Guardian artifacts to study and engineer a super-weapon. Given the Thargoids' apparent fascination with Guardian tech, we caused multiple systems to glow like a lighthouse among the blackness of space.
I'm all for fighting them when they intrude on our territory, but what the hell did the superpowers expect? We basically flung the front door open and said "Come on in, you freaky alien bug monsters!" We repelled them. We fought them off. They fled. We could have developed a weapon to keep them away at that point, but no. Salvation had to push for more. I get it. I understand hating the space bees. What I don't get is why we would do it AGAIN. Sure as a jet cone will kill an inexperienced pilot, we gathered ANOTHER metric fuckload of Guardian stuff. Why? To further develop weapons against the bugs. Again... I get wanting to fight them when they show up in our neck of the woods... but this time the goal was to WIPE THEM OUT. When has that kind of goal EVER ended well?
So HIP 22460 happened. We deployed the Proteus Wave. For all of about three minutes, it looked like we had done it. Then the "dead" bugs not only came back to life... but angrier and stronger than ever. The "Thargoid Roar" afterward? We now know that was both a cry for assistance from the bugs in HIP 22460 AND a response from (what we assume is) their home region in Barnard's Loop Nebula. Seo Jin-Ae told us what they were saying: "We see them. We are coming." That's when I knew. That's when I realized it was time to start preparing to leave. That's when I founded the Xeno Refugee Coalition. The leaders of humanity and their complete stupidity has led to the Stargoids and the Maelstroms they leave when they enter our systems. The people of those systems will suffer, and my organization will be there to help them when the powers who claim to lead them have abandoned them.
Taranis, Hadad, Thor, Indra, Oya, Leigong, Cocijo, Raijin. These are the names of the doom they have brought upon us. From the far side of the bubble, I have bought my organization (and our supporters) precious time to prepare. To those out there who wish to flee the incoming maelstroms, come to HIP 71737. Join the Xeno Refugee Coalition. To those who cannot flee for themselves, we are sending help. We will be sending rescue vessels as we are able to do so, and saving as many refugees as we can. We have Fleet Carriers. We have equipment. We have stores full of food and supplies and tritium. Within the next few months, we will be planning and preparing to abandon the sinking ship of the Human-Occupied Bubble and moving to the systems out near Colonia. If the situation worsens faster than we anticipate, we will be moving this timetable up and leaving as soon as is necessary.
It will not be a permanent farewell, however. The Xeno Refugee Coalition will return to systems near or within the Bubble when possible to scout around any systems that may be untouched by the bugs, offer aid where it is needed, and likely bring more refugees from the continuing Second Thargoid War to the Colonia region. It will be a new light among the darkness for all of humanity. What began as an accidental tragedy when the jump-capable Jacques Station was lost and rediscovered by intrepid pilots... will now be a new beginning for all of mankind.
Mankind... with the arrival of the Stargoids, that word should have new meaning for all of us. We can't afford to be consumed by our petty differences anymore. Regardless of whose policies we support at the end of the day, should be united in our common interests. Namely: Survival. Our friends and families are now dying en masse thanks to inept morons kicking an interstellar beehive. We must band together for the preservation of our species and all its peoples, regardless of superpower or creed or home system. Perhaps its fate that I still support the Federation, which was born in the heart of old America on Earth. Like the folks during that war over 1,200 years ago, we will be fighting for our freedom. Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution... but from annihilation. We're fighting for our right to live, to exist. Groups like AXI and other combat-heavy groups of pilots will take the fight to our enemy and we salute them for their sacrifices. Groups such as mine will do our part by heading into hot zones, saving as many people as we can, ferrying them to safety, and coming back into those hellscapes to save even more. Should our combined efforts as a species win the war and drive off the Thargoids yet again? The entirety of mankind will rise and cry out in one united voice: "We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Go back to Barnard's Loop and stay there! This is our home, and you are not welcome here!"
After all of that, however... we must also learn a lesson from this. We need to stop poking that goddamn beehive. Yes, we should fight the bugs when they enter our systems. Yes, we should push them out. Yes, we must defend our interests. However, the galaxy is unimaginably vast. We have only mapped a miniscule fraction of it, and even with that we have found literally tens of thousands of inhabitable or easily terraformed worlds for our people to settle... all far from the nebulas we know the Thargoids call home, all with bountiful resources both on-world and from nearby untouched asteroid belts and planetary ring systems. We must avoid the space bees, not agitate them.
They want the Pleiades? I say let them have it. They want the Coalsack and California Nebulas? Get our people out of these places and resettle them somewhere safer. One single fleet carrier can ferry enough people and supplies to start a substantial colony of a few thousand on any given world... OR enough to build an orbital outpost. A few carriers? Well, they could build a large city or full-size station. We have literally thousands of carriers in the possession of independent pilots who would love to advance our effort to branch out into the larger galaxy. The Colonia Bridge Project showed us it can be done. Now it is up to us to actually do it. Let's win back our home... then leave the damn Thargoids to buzz around in their stupid nebulas. Attempting to wipe them out again would be literal insanity. We have tried and failed twice. Let's just move on and colonize somewhere else.
Fly safe, commanders. Please.
CMDR Tony Salroka