Are the Titans really here for us? - Looking at the "war" in the ongoing Thargoid invasion [of the Bubble]
23 Feb 2024Kasumi Goto
Public document
Approved for publication by Aegis
Date published: February 23, 3310
Before I say anything else, allow me to preface this with something that I believe should be said - is this me making a case for the Thargoids?
Yes, but also no. I won't go into too much detail here, as this will (or should be) covered in this... analysis, I suppose, but I want to make it clear this is neither in favor of either side, nor against them. Both our species are responsible for the conflict getting as bad as it is now, and both hold responsibility in ensuring a de-escalation once it becomes possible. If it does - but that is a different subject of its own. One that I might or might not get to in this as well.
I should also mention that these are my personal interpretations of how this conflict has played out, and how the Thargoids have behaved in it, meaning that they could be wrong - but I want to present the viewpoint that, maybe, we are not their target, or at the very least not the primary one, as opposed to the repeated insistence on the belief that they're only here for us. Or, at the very least, it's strongly implied.
So, with that out of the way - in light, and especially because, of Aegis soon releasing the supposed anti-Titan weaponry in the form of Guardian nanite torpedoes, I want to ask one question, though it may not be simple or straightforward. Are the Titans invading the Bubble with the intent of destroying humanity?
I believe they're not. The reasons for that might be numerous and complicated, so I'll start somewhere simple.
The most straightforward factor playing into this is the fact that they are all located at the edge of the Bubble, instead of choosing to hit important locations such as the superpower capitals. Now, yes, you can make the point there that I don't necessarily know if they have an awareness of where systems important to us are located, but I can just as well reverse that, and say you have no real knowledge or basis to claim that they don't know where those are, and that they didn't simply choose to not strike there instead.
Along this notion, it appears logical [for me] to believe that if all the Titans wanted to do was cause the most amount of damage possible within the Bubble, they wouldn't have remained stationary at its edge for over a year now, instead of gradually moving inward, once a local defense pocket was overwhelmed. If the advance had taken place in such a manner, it (almost certainly) wouldn't have been a question of if they could do it, but when. It certainly isn't like we could.
Now, yes, Seo said that one of their goals was to destroy as much of the local infrastructure as possible when they arrived. And I'm not about to deny that. What has been happening at the edges of the Bubble is, inarguably, bad. Or terrible, if you'd like a more dramatic wording. But it could have been a lot worse.
Instead, the Thargoids have chosen to commit to an oddly human way of assaulting our space, which has almost certainly cost them more resources so far fighting over the same systems for a year, than it would have been to destroy many more (in the figurative sense of destroying) by not staying in the same corner(s) of the Bubble for that period of time. They even cared to occupy uninhabited space, despite the fact that it, really, doesn't have any particular value to neither them, nor us. With the exception of the spires, but more on those below. Doesn't it seem strange to you that it's more like they're building a buffer between us and the different nebula colonies, instead of committing to an aggressive assault with the sole purpose of killing as many humans as possible? All the while they're... not actually trying to drive us out of those same places.
Well, other than some systems in the Witch Head nebula, but I'd be hard-pressed to find reasons for that, and why it calmed down again so suddenly. Still, if they had actually cared to just throw us out of those nebula colonies, maybe placing a Titan or two over in each one of them, while outright destroying anything human-built beyond the point of recovery would have done a better job of it. Along with maybe an additional discouragement from ever returning there.
And looking at the situation in the Bubble again - it occurs to me that the Thargoids never once, not even a single time, attempted precision strikes, or even just diversion assaults, outside the confines of where the Titans arrived. And it's definitely in their capabilities to do so, since we can't stop them from appearing wherever they like at a moment's notice, and they would not need to know a specific system to strike so long as the general area was within the core of the Bubble. Yet they never did.
Nor did they ever damage any of the human infrastructure in those systems enough that it could no longer be repaired after successfully retaking a formerly (human) inhabited system(though the repair bill was probably quite expensive). Does that, and the above, strike you as behavior an invasion force with the singular aim of pure destruction would display?
Now, the spires. Palin's said they're indicative of some kind of long-term plan the Thargoids have for those spaces they've occupied. And that might be true, while giving a reason to occupy unpopulated space, but I'm asking myself why they deliberately only chose to place those sites in that same unpopulated space. Nothing would have prevented them from placing them right alongside human structures, yet, they chose not to, as if they were consciously avoiding to further interfere with human presence more than they already have.
What the reasons for that might be, I can only speculate - and I will, just not at this point here - but if the theory that they are used to replenish supplies on the Titans in some way is correct, that does indicate they are here to stay, but as I already mentioned, I don't necessarily believe this has to be exclusively for the purposes of invading the Bubble. Or anything to do with us, really.
I guess I should also not just skip over that matter of the abducted. Sure, no one's got any clue what they're planning for them, but even that... well, to be quite honest, I no longer believe that their purpose has anything to do with furthering the goals of the war. Or, maybe not directly. Yeah, I remember, or at least saw again, what Seo said. That they are somehow important to the "next step" in the war, but if they were going to just be soldiers or meat puppets that already exist in the form of Revenants and Banshees, which I've had the experience of getting shot by myself... going through all that effort to capture them, keep them alive and heal them, just seems like a whole lot of effort to throw them into a meat grinder. As I've alluded to in a letter dedicated to those people earlier this month.
And I think it just shows even more that they don't actually care about us that much, in the sense of trying to kill us all. They wouldn't need millions of captives that are cared for surprisingly well, for that. Why would a Scythe eject any and all escape pods that it had picked up if you kill it, as I've read they do, from accounts of people fighting back directly, if they didn't somehow value their lives in a way that seems to be beyond our understanding?
Maybe they could be planning to use the captured humans as saboteurs, pathogen carriers or... whatever you can come up with, but maybe the alternative of there not being a nefarious purpose to the action should be considered, as upsetting as these abductions are (and, for the record, I definitely do not condone them in any way). If they were actually trying to preserve those lives for a good reason, that we are not aware of... we might be making things worse.
So what am I really trying to get at here? Quite simply, that our lack of understanding - and maybe a touch of too much self-importance - leads us to think the Thargoids are exclusively here to cause a mess. And maybe they are in part, because, quite honestly, they do have a good reason to after that ridiculous nonsense surrounding the Proteus Wave. And the weapon itself, of course.
But is that lack of understanding the fault of humanity?
No. Not entirely. Yes, we haven't made any attempts to communicate directly or in non-primitive ways with the Thargoids, and maybe some people have been outright trying to prevent that, if I read the history right, but the Thargoids have their own role to play in it as well. If they have some greater purpose at play than just giving us a slap on the wrist, something that requires them to set up a defensive perimeter at the edge of our space, maybe there is a better way to convey that than rampaging through the edges of the Bubble for it. I'm hoping the abducted will end up playing into that rather than end up as tools of war.
However - said lack of understanding is also partly a reason why I am writing this down. I was already planning to, maybe, but the fact that we are right on the verge of going after the Titans themselves just gave me another, and better, reason to write it down. I'm, simply, concerned that we have been missing the bigger picture entirely about why they are actually here, because of our assumption that it's just about us. If we end up upsetting the Thargoids even more, even if that weapon causes them to retreat instead of retaliate further, they might not be willing to lend us any support or, you know, talk, if we ever happened to need it.
What might that bigger picture be, or the thing that we could use the support of the Thargoids against? I'm... not sure. But I feel like it is in some way going to be related to the man who proclaimed himself to be our "Salvation", then instead escalated the war beyond any reason, and now seems to reside in something called "Nemesis". I'm hoping to learn more of that soon, once I can fly a ship again, and visit some of the Guardian ruins.
But to come back to the matter of the abducted, and it is one of the two main reasons I don't like the idea of us attempting to outright destroy the Titans - if their original plan was to not use them for the war effort directly, what if damaging the Titan has an adverse effect on those captives and forces the Thargoids to do something more drastic to them? What if that is the trigger for them to be used directly against us, instead of whatever plan they may have originally had for any captured humans?
The other reason, as I've alluded to above, is that we might not want to be so eager to end a "war" that, while by no means 'positive' - for lack of a better term - has really not seemed to be what it was made out at all. And the Thargoids aren't helping it by keeping us out of the loop, if something worse is coming, to where they consider this expense of resources, to hold pockets of space at the edge of our territory by force, worth it.
I really do believe we should have made more efforts to try learning of what the actual goal of this invasion is, rather than to just assume it was a retaliation for a second attempt at extermination through the Proteus Wave. I understand that most resources provided to Aegis would have been dedicated to the defense effort, but it should still have been tried.
And if, for any reason, all of this turns out to be completely wrong, and the Thargoids were just buying themselves time to fully prepare for an all-out assault on the Bubble... I just want people to remain vigilant even after the Titans are gone, whether it is by them retreating or getting destroyed (not that I think we will be able to destroy them). They might not stay gone forever, and if they ever figure out a permanent counter to Guardian technology... we won't stand much of a chance against them with just our own. But it is my hope that they don't actually intend to be our enemies, we've only made them so.
On the closing notes - yes, I'm very aware that my own ideals of making peace with the Thargoids might be making me biased, and you might have a point in saying that, but I've tried to keep it balanced between both sides here, because both are at fault. I'm also equally aware some people will distrust anything I say that seems even remotely positive toward the Thargoids because I have them in my head, but any of them who might be reading this is not who I am 'targeting'. It is the people that don't just discard any of my views categorically because I might have even the slightest association to the Thargoids, despite trying to prove that I am neither controlled by them nor humanity, and make up my own views.
And if I haven't changed your opinions in any way, hopefully I have at least given you something to think about by writing this. I know that the course of events is all but locked in at this point, and the Titans will be attacked, but I wanted to get this out there regardless of that, if only to encourage viewing things from an alternative standpoint. I'm putting aside my doubts about how well the weapon is going to work for this, too, but I hope that it will, instead of only angering the Thargoids even further. Yet we should be prepared for the eventuality of it not working outright... or not having the effect that we intend it to.
And in case this is just what it takes to make the Thargoids cooperate or get it into their heads that they should try talking to us instead of choosing brute force as the response to our repeated use of it, then I'll just have to take it. Even if I really hate the idea that the only way to get us to talk to each other is both sides finding better and better ways to bash each other's heads in, until one or both of them decide to stop and change their approach.
If we haven't already changed the Thargoids' minds, to that violence is the only language we will understand. We've certainly given them many reasons to.
- Kasumi (formerly Kira) Goto
"Once just a simple person, now turned into a hybrid against my own desires, stuck between two quarrelling sides of a conflict, and neither looks better than the other. What a fun task it is to try being the mediator(s) of that, while they just want to shoot each other. But all I want is for both our species to come out of this better."
PS - Technically, my name is actually still Kira but I really prefer Kasumi now... so if you ever meet me in public (and you are going to recognize me, probably), do call me that. Or I'll remind you. Politely, of course. And I do mean actually politely, not the sarcastic kind.
Anyway... hopefully I've made my point well here. I tend to get a bit scatterbrained writing things like this up.