The Inevitability of Escalation and Other Things
16 Dec 2017Scubadog
The core systems--or, at least, a growing portion--are descending into disarray. More all-hands-on-deck waves are going out across the 'verse, and I was just finishing up helping protect materials transports out in the Colonia bubble. They're anticipating evacuees from the core as confidence in any of t.he governments to protect people drops. That lack of confidence is not helped by the growing suspicion that we aren't getting the whole story. So now multiple stations have been attacked. Not destroyed, but simply attacked. This is curious all by itself. Of course, the end result is still a lot of lives lost. Completely innocent lives. And, by 'innocent', I mean most of those people never encountered a Thargoid ship, much less poked at it.Largely, it's not my concern. I embrace the solitude of deep space. That is one reason, after all, that I have chosen to make my living as an explorer. I came out to the Colonia bubble and I took the road less traveled to get here. I saw no one, not even the odd crashed probe or remains of a derelict ship, for weeks at a time. I wasn't sure what to expect out here in Colonia, but I've come to know it as a bit of the old wild west. And that's fine by me. I explore,
I sell my cartography, I do the odd transport of salvage mission to spice things up and I stay out of other people's business. I only loosely followed the 'Net, seeing only that it appeared that Thargoids had returned and were making a mockery of our tech. Our brightest minds were feverishly trying to figure out their tech in order to develop new weapons.
And, yet, something's been off.
I'm not one for conspiracy theories, although I think most people are pretty much bad when left to their own devices. So, I should expect no different from governments. I'm loathe to going all tinfoil hat on this, but what if the footage we've been shown of the initial and all subsequent encounters with the Thargoids isn't complete? Rumors are growing that we started this. The question that comes to my mind is: started it with what? Did we fire the first shot? Or was it something else, something much earlier? I left the core systems before the waves started flying about relics and odd outcrops being discovered that folk started mining. Was that what brought the Thargoids out in force? And what intelligent species arbitrarily begins setting up shop where a competing--and potentially dangerous--species is also known to be? I find it hard to believe that an advanced species couldn't find other places to move in. The Milky Way is big. The 'verse is bigger. We're two very small portions of this galaxy--you can't tell me the Thargoids had to pick our spot. And it's all the more sad if the more Neanderthal among us decided to piss on the corner right in front of the Thargoids just to make the point. But here we are now, skirmishes becoming more frequent, "vigilantes' going in search of Thargoids, looking for some payback or, just as dangerous, looking to make some credits collecting samples.
The other side of this coin is just as disturbing. The growing distrust of what we're being told has billowed into a full-fledged countermovement. I've seen more waves depicting humans who are actually cheering on the Thargoids, as if that is something noble or laudible. How intelligent is it to root for an alien species you don't know, hoping they will obliterate humans simply because you think "we poked the bear"? Are these fools so certain the Thargoids would distinguish them from other humans? Now I'm starting to see images of ships being emblazoned with "Xeno Hunter" and "Xeno Ally". What kind of madness is this? If it's not happening already, it's won't be long before we start seeing ships marked this way being specifically hunted down by the competing "gang". Humans against humans. If the Thargoids observe this happening, will they decide to just sit back and watch us kill ourselves?
Maybe that was their plan all along. Plant the seed. Test our capability via "conflicts of opportunity" and then see if we wouldn't do exactly what we're doing. Then all they have to do is come back in for the cleanup on aisle three.
Which brings me back to Colonia. We're all set to expand out here to take on the expected increase of immigrants who have decided to not mess with this altogether. Some may even have suffered loss but, rather than respond with vengeance, have decided they don't have the stomach for more bloodshed and simply want to find peace. I can't help but think, though, that the Thargoids are all too aware that we're out here. The big question is what is their endgame? If they simply want to plant their flag around Pleiades and nothing more, then things may eventually de-escalate into a cold war, of sorts. If their vision is bigger then they may keep plodding along until the entirety of the core is theirs. If their ultimate goal is the utter destruction of humanity, then it's only a matter of time before the core's fight becomes our fight. How quickly will this happen, if that's the intention? That depends on whether or not we've seen the whole Thargoid war machine.
But I just can't spend a lot of time dwelling on this. It will drive me crazy. For now, I've decide to answer the call out in Ogmar to help them build a new station. Not much doubt more people are coming. I'll do what I can here before the itch to head out into the black becomes overwhelming. The lack of the right modules out here makes rigging any of my fleet for a trip back to the core to aid more directly impractical. It would take me weeks to get back there. By that time our fate may have already been sealed.
I don't know. Maybe I'm being fatalistic, but perhaps it's time I thought about getting myself an Anaconda and rig it with as much as I can for total self-reliance and just disappear. But I still have time to decide that.
I hope.