An Alternative Viewpoint
12 May 2024Kasumi Goto
OOC - this 'article' is separate from the ongoing storyline (which I have yet to continue posting, thanks, brain), I was just feeling more motivated to write this down. So, here you go. This, in my 'timeline idea' also takes place after the ongoing RP which I am doing with Haraldsen on the inara forums.
Public message [text, readout available]
Date: May 12, 3310
Upload location - [Deep space, undetermined]
Yes, it is me again. Your neighborhood Thargoid hybrid that is probably not even seen as human by half of humanity, and the other half probably doesn't want anything to do with her. So you're going to expect me to go off about some Thargoid-related thing again, and you'd be right. I will.
I want you to think. Look at the way the attacks on the Titans have gone and ask yourself, "Why are they not reacting?".
Now, I don't have any precise answers, no. I don't think anyone does, but neither me nor Seo do. The connection we have to them is not some magic crystal ball that tells you everything about your enemy... those only exist in stories, and I haven't had any contact with her since you - Aegis, humanity - have decided our best course of action was to just throw all caution to the wind and start attacking the Titans directly, no other efforts allowed to exist on the side. Except rescues, for what that's worth when there are still people consigned to death for a war they did not start, or ask to be involved in.
But, I digress. And I don't want to make this about my issues with humanity... not entirely... or nobody'll bother listening to me. I can't tell you what the Thargoids are thinking because that connection only provides brief glimpses of overall direction, if that, and in my case not even... most of the time. Only whatever Thargoids are doing locally, which isn't too useful. And I have to be nearby for that.
"But if you don't have an answer, why are you even bothering trying to say anything?"
Because I want to provide an alternative viewpoint, one I'd have even if my DNA hadn't been turned upside down, and half-mechanical. And if I stopped to answer everyone questioning me like that, I'd just lose track of what I actually wanted to say.
That alternative viewpoint being - at the very least, something other than "The Thargoids are hopelessly incompetent and unprepared for an assault even against a technologically inferior opponent". Because, I'm sure, even now that would just be the first conclusion most jump to, and it's almost certainly what the people that caused this war want everyone to believe.
To define the point more precisely, which I've partially done in another publication already... assuming that it made it to the public unaltered, it's because of the fact that for an invasion force, the Titans are remarkably held back. And stop getting ready to argue and divert the point to "how they are clearly invading", blah blah blah, because I am not arguing against that. And annoying me with such diverting nonsense will just get you a very impolite gesture to the face. So...
I want you to consider - what is this war actually supposed to be? For a year and a half... more or less, now, the Thargoids just sat at the edge of the Bubble, barely making any advances, taking many, in some cases even extreme, losses fighting over the same systems over, over and over. And now the Titans are getting attacked, and destroyed, successfully... they are still just sitting there. Oya's 'response' barely even qualifies... it was basically just a panic "attack" with no real rhyme or reason to it*.
Initially, I would have believed they were here for Nemesis or something about it, if they are even aware it exists, or maybe Seo. It would even have been a logical assumption that it was simple retaliation for the Proteus Wave, and maybe that still applies even now. But, at the same time... I'm no longer sure about any of that.
Why... just look at the signs. Which even half-competent military force would just... sit there and wait for their capital ships to be destroyed, one by one, over the course of several months? At the very least, after Leigong, they would have realized it is not a fluke, and... still, the other five are just staying in their same positions without doing anything obvious to make it harder to defeat them. Instead of grouping together, and making it almost impossible to dig them out, none of them have changed position. None of them have made any motion toward retreating, either.
So, what am I thinking?
It's a sign.
Humans often seem to think they are the center of the universe, galaxy, or, whatever. Like everything revolves around us. Maybe Thargoids think the same, but I do not think that is the case. So, you could say, they came to make us learn that we are not as important as we think...
But that would be wrong too, in my view of things... at least. What I think they are actually here for, is just for a simple lesson.
Violence causes violence.
Or maybe it was a test, to see if we had learned anything, at all. In either case... we have very distinctly shown that we have not learned, and as soon as a brutally violent solution became available, we immediately threw everything else aside and went right for it, not even any hesitation. A willingness to sacrifice our own just so we could "free the Bubble of the Thargoid menace"... which we created ourselves, no less. A perpetual cycle of violence, death and destruction, and we've only further reinforced it through our actions. No attempts at communication made, while the Thargoids may just have been looking to demonstrate the results of our own aggression, in the only language that we have shown to understand.
Maybe, the next time a problem like this presents itself, think about a different solution to hitting it with a hammer repeatedly until it goes away. It will only return worse.
I don't know how much of this text will make it through unfiltered. There are people who would try to obscure it, twist its meaning, anything that would oppose their "agenda". And this war with the Thargoids, it is just a part of it, because they only benefit from the violence and means of control which it creates. If there were any truth to my message, or any communication was made with Thargoids, it would immediately be hidden from view and be almost impossible to find, that it ever was made, or occurred. And if they are reading this... I want you to know, I am very aware that you exist. And your day will come.
I am also aware we do not yet know how Hadad will, or might, respond to the loss of its control sphere, but it has been under pressure for at least two weeks already. Do you not think it should have made attempts to avoid its destruction already, instead of waiting for almost the last possible moment to do anything? Its Thargoids have not even made any breakout attempts instead of following arbitrary rules of a conflict as if it were waged by a human adversary, not one that can show up at any point, at any time, wherever they like.
*The Titan also did not attempt to re-invade the human populated systems which had only just been retaken, despite the fact that repair work would just have started, and made them extremely easy targets as a result. Most of the targets of its panic strike were uninhabited, and the three populated ones had been unaffected by the war for months at that point, already. As if, despite a desperation measure to try allowing its survival to continue, it avoided striking exposed systems with human populations inside them.