Thirst for War
11 Dec 2024Kasumi Goto
"War. It is supposed to be a brutal, bloody exchange which no species willingly engages in unless there is no other way to resolve their differences. And yet, some of us now find themselves craving more of it."
Entry date : Dec. 11, 3310
Great job, humans. You've done the "impossible" again and the Titan is expected to become exposed to attacks within the day. We should all be happy.
Yet I'm not. And I can tell you exactly why - it's because of what I've been seeing and listening to the last few days. For every one person that is actually trying to legitimately remove the Thargoids to save human lives, there is another five so eager and ready to "bash the Titan".
Bash the Titan.
It really says everything that's wrong with it, because that is the kind of nonsense only a bloodthirsty moron would say. They're not there to defend human space, preserve the lives of the civilians caught in the crossfire of the conflict, defend Earth, or actually even end the war. Their only goal is to kill more Thargoids and the biggest of them, not a care for the results or the consequences. And I should not need to tell you why there is a million things wrong with that.
Then there's the whole ridiculous outrage. "How DARE the Thargoids invade our home!" I can tell you why. Because ... "Now I'm angry, I must go 'do my part' and kill them!" And then you seriously fucking wonder why they keep hitting back on our heads harder? First it started by us killing them for no reason where they set up colonies or mineral extractors, then we got upset they had problems with that and began to shout those above things. It was only a few gullible idiots buying into the superpower propaganda at first, and then some that simply came to defend the civilians which those same superpowers and their idiot politicians brought in to steal from the Thargoids, only to act surprised when they said "This isn't ok".
Of course, things got worse over the years and now we are here. Another Titan supposed to become vulnerable to attack soon, and it's just full of almost rabid pilots looking to "Kill the bugs", "Eradicate every single one of them", "Shred them", you name it. I already saw it at Taranis, just dozens of human ships swarming all over the Titan out for blood, in primal chaos, like a shark frenzied by sensing wounded prey. And it is going to repeat itself here. Because obviously, this is how you treat another intelligent species capable of thinking for itself. When you look at it from the side, almost everything that we have accused the Thargoids of, being animalistic, only following instinctual or emotional responses, you name it - you can literally observe all that in humanity in what they call "defense".
It is like just being in the mere presence of Thargoids somehow overrules the majority of people's higher brain functions and they just start seeing red. Have they... have you all forgotten how this started? And what happened with the Proteus Wave? Obviously the Thargoids aren't stupid, and don't even appear to have dedicated everything they could have to this. Which both means they're doing something else, and could be waiting to do more to Sol and surrounding systems even if the Titan is susceptible to attack. Because they are willing to let it be destroyed, but I've gone over that already, and it's not what this is about.
What it is, is bloodlust. I've seen it a lot throughout this war, from people just turning into irrational beings that wish nothing more than complete destruction on the Thargoids. Defending your home is fine, but to turn into a warmongering moron overnight because they are responding to us being violent to them over and over and over for no good reason? That's not.
Let me ask you this question. Do you think it saves billions of lives if you begin massacring Thargoids in the hundreds or thousands anywhere, everywhere?
No. It doesn't. You're only putting billions more in danger if you "go after them in their homes", like I've seen so many fucking pilots proclaim they would do as soon as the Titan is destroyed. And do you know what happened the last time humans "went after them in their homes"? Yeah, that's right. It brought eight Titans to the Bubble and killed or displaced an untold number of people, on top of those kidnapped. Now one of them is sitting in Sol.
And it hasn't told any of those bloodthirsty warmongers anything. Because they're still spouting their shitty slogans about "Glory to mankind", "The stars belong to humanity"... whatever other nonsense they come up with. But, as I recently saw in someone else's thoughts about this madness, what is glorious about burning homes and stations, millions of shipwrecks littering space, billions of displaced or dead and many millions of abducted?
The stars don't belong to us either. Nor do they to the Thargoids. They are nobody's birthright, and to claim so just speaks of hubris to the most extreme. But if that weren't the case... we wouldn't be deliberately pissing off a species that's been spacefaring for millions of years. If you disagree, go shout at a star that you own it. The silence is your answer.
I know where those slogans come from. AXI. And what I have to say about them is - they are one of the biggest parts of the problem. Sure, they say they are acting in humanity's defense, and there is some objective truth to that as much as that some there genuinely hold that desire, but for the most part, they were created to hunt Thargoids. And there is really no need to elaborate the level of fucked up that making a sport out of hunting another sapient species' members for "fun" is, down to the level of proning specific flight styles against Thargoids and ridiculing those who say it is not the only way. That is hardly better than hunting Earth animals in danger of extinction "because it's fun". And they'd certainly be on the forefront of any misguided attacks against Thargoid space for that reason. As I would expect them to begin spouting bullshit about being a "traitor to humanity" for daring to suggest less human lives would be endangered by not pursuing the Thargoids on a nonsensical and doomed crusade into whatever they call home. And I know some of them will be reading this.
But everything is happening in and around Sol right now. And still almost nobody seems to care about anything other than killing Thargoids. Or it's just the most braindead idiots with the loudest voices who have to keep shouting that bullshit across open comm channels, like the Thargoids can't tap into and listen to those as well. Especially now that, if they didn't have it before already, Seo's brain would have given them a clear knowledge of at least one human language.
Still, this is beside the point. You would think people are tired of this war and wouldn't be so eager to just keep killing, but apparently half our society is composed of people whose brains are so broken the only thing that triggers any kind of response in them is to kill something. And they've been trained to go for Thargoids by the propaganda machine. I would suggest them to take after those who are actually responsible for causing this war, but maybe keeping them in their corner with Thargoid space... that would just come back to our space in some way at some point, anyway. I'm sure all the politicians who couldn't keep waiting to start squabbling over frozen rocks even with the last Titan still intact have great use for them as a mercenary force.
I'm just tired. What kind of insane world is this where an obscenely destructive war is kept going deliberately for the profit of rich corporate morons, and those types of people who kill for joy are allowed to roam free instead of ending up locked inside a padded cell? But apparently, because they're killing Thargoids and not humans, it's fine. Or maybe I'm just viewing it too negatively because this ridiculous madness is giving me headaches already even before the Titan is getting shot, but there is no sane world where anybody, let alone this many people, should outright crave to keep a war going. I guess that is another thing we have to thank the propaganda machine for.
There is one other very important thing which I thought of while I... I guess I just had to write this down and get it off my mind somewhere. But -
How many people are you going to kill with the Titan this time?
You know it hasn't just been sitting idle or come here simply to destroy human toys. All those systems they invaded, and the ones they captured, they've certainly been taking captives from them and intercepted evacuation transports. And all of us know they've been taking captives and holding them on Titans physically unharmed, for no known reason. Maybe there is something that we know the Thargoids want, and this could be the reason for the Titan's presence, but that doesn't change the fact. It might already be holding millions of people captive on it, and I've seen literally nobody talking about it. If you're one of the people who does care for the people caught in this, consider that for a moment before you blindly and heroically charge to the Titan to bring it down.
Because those are also lives you're going to be putting at risk, which the Thargoids might only bother to evacuate themselves partially, if at all - a case where they would be lost to humans regardless of what is done - and unlike previous Titans where Aegis simply wrote off the remaining captives on them, this one will not have most of them rescued already. Earth itself will be fine if it does not have the Titan's debris rain down on it, but those people won't be, and I can assure you the bloodthirsty war chasers and those caught up in their swing too much are going to forget the captives on the Titan. As they would then drag them on a crusade of revenge only set to cause an even bigger Thargoid reprisal. I don't need to say why that should be avoided. If you don't want another Sol, stop doing things that would cause another Sol.
... but apparently that's too difficult to understand and it's easier to just get upset at the aliens and then begin shooting them without ever asking why they do what they do. You don't break the cycle by becoming part of the cycle. And most humans are too eager to continue this war when there is no good reason to.
All this just serves to remind me why I stopped supporting Aegis and largely abandoned anything but observing this war from the sidelines when they decided their best move was to yet again follow the short-term gains of removing Thargoids from the Bubble without doing anything to address the root cause or find some way to stop their assaults that doesn't involve just taking a hammer to the problem and hoping it goes away.
Which it won't. Way back before you all started throwing torpedoes around, I tried to make people realize that there was another purpose to the Titans' presence than just giving us a hit on the head to make us behave (not very successfully, evidently, because why would humans learn of their mistakes)... and that there would be consequences to attacking them. And who listened? Now that those [consequences] are here, maybe you'll want to reconsider. The Thargoids won't just leave because their last Titan was destroyed, and I already told Alba that Aegis should begin focusing on actual research again, not merely serving as a blunt tool of war.
This might all appear a bit rambly, but... I just want to be done with this. And don't make me go back to my previous ways. There is only so much hammering and ignorance from humans someone like me can take.
Notes from the writer
If you made it here, thanks for reading. Originally I thought my last piece about the whole 'Titan in Sol' events would be the last one I'd write on it before this Thursday (and, judging by all hints, the usual boom party starting), but then I read Rawnu's last entry and thought to myself, maybe this is also something my character would have some words on too. Not very refrained or positive ones, as you might guess. Of course, this still remains just roleplay stuff, in case anybody wants me to clarify it.
And on that note of "Titan in Sol"... I'm not particularly convinced of its qualities. Sure, there were some 16 systems to be cleared and Frontier pushed the difficulty sliders to the right some but it just turned into another week of cleanup with zero risks again, except with slightly known system names attached, because there's no point in setting a one week timer on things if there is no actual risk of losing those things in a week. Nor was this much of a fight or actually pushing the invasion force back because "Player Agency" once again stomped the potential of anything more long-winded or interesting - on an individual scale, since this has been on for two years - into the ground immediately. And so did the supposed final stand of the Titan instead turn into yet another Thargoid stomping contest.
I certainly don't have any high expectations for this Thursday except another boring round of Titan bombing I won't participate in. Nor has there yet been a peep of the supposed "lore" behind the Titan's placing itself in Sol that Frontier were adamant about. Certainly can't find a damn thing in game and GalNet is dead silent as usual, because (almost) all the writers were fired.
Here's also a slightly alternate version of the banner which I made. Also, if the planet silhouette in front of the Titan - yes, it's Earth - needs to be made more visible, let me know about it and I'll maybe make some improvements later today. I am still learning this picture editing business.