4Game

As the Community Goals for the Battle of HIP 22460 raps up, and the crescendo of this event rapidly approaches along with Update 13, I think it'd be fun to speculate on the coming consequences of our actions for our support to Caleb Wycherly. These scenarios are just my personal speculations, and I in no way am certain all, or any, of these will come true.

I'll start :o)

• The date of the firing of the Proteus Wave, or "Thargsday", will likely be Thursday, August 7th, 3308. The week leading up will consist of the final preparations and charging of the weapon, in the meantime, AX squadrons and pilots will be urged to defend Bright Sentinel and other Azimuth Biotech assets within HIP 22460.

• The Proteus Wave will utterly fail Salvation's promises of eradicating the Thargoids, or even pushing them out of the system, and will more than likely achieve the exact opposite. I imagine there are two scenarios for this:
  A – The Proteus Wave fires, and the Thargoids, with knowledge of the Proteus Wave and adapting to it's effects thanks to the previous test firings throughout the past year, will duck into witch space for a brief moment, before popping back into the system enraged.
  B – The Proteus Wave misfires, as grafting Guardian technology onto Thargoid architecture generally results in horrific results, and obliterates the surface site on Planet 10 B, also enraging the Thargoids.

• Thargoid reinforcements drop into HIP 22460 en masse, overwhelming the joint Federal-Imperial-Alliance forces and AX squadrons. All or nearly all megaships and capital ships in system, including Bright Sentinel, are destroyed. AX forces are completely routed from HIP 22460 and directed to retreat to Pleiades Sector CW-U B3-2.

• Likely introduction of the Thargoid hive ship, potentially multiple, that will act as system bosses for systems experiencing major incursions, being a in-game hybrid of installations and capital ships as seen in high intensity combat zone

• Human-Thargoid war escalates drastically, actually becoming a war, as the Thargoids will deem us as an existential threat for attempting a second genocide of their species. The nebular colonies, such as the Pleiades and Coalsack nebula, will be overrun by Thargoid forces, prompting a potential retreat back to the Bubble as stations burn or are outright destroyed in systems like Maia, Merope, and Delphi. Numerous systems within the Bubble will likely be targeted as well.

• Superpower support for Salvation and Azimuth Biotech evaporates near instantly, with the public condemning him and Azimuth as galactic pariahs for their role in escalating the war, along with their crimes against humanity catching up to them. Salvation becomes a wanted man, and Operation Wych Hunt becomes a superpower-sanctioned hunt to capture Caleb Wycherly and militarily dismantle Azimuth for good.

• AEGIS is reinstated and given full military support by the superpowers and, after much restructuring, takes an active role in the conflict as their warnings against Salvation are vindicated.

• Potential on-foot Thargoid content for Odyssey, with surface settlements destroyed by Thargoid weaponry and infested by Thargoid soldiers.

I know a lot of people are jaded over the Gnosis incident years ago, but I have an optimistic feeling regarding the current in-game events, and if we could keep comments like "galnet article" or "servers shut down" to a minimum that would be nice 🙂