Galnet New Digest have kindly allowed us to host a transcript of their hour long Azimuth Saga video.

Introduction

Sometimes the news isn’t the best way to tell a story. Sometimes you need the benefit of hindsight to see the sweep of a narrative, and to understand causes and consequences. This is the complete story of the Azimuth Saga, a story that has affected us all.

This is a story about Thargoids, and about the single man who seems in retrospect to have shaped the narrative of two inter-species wars, the second of which was still, in September 3310 when this video was recorded, being waged around the Raijin and Cocijo Titans.

The story will move back and forth through time to explain what really happened. We will chart the discovery of the evidence that led to an understanding of the true timeline of human-Thargoid interaction.

Let’s start with what we knew, or thought we knew, in 3300, before the return of the Thargoids.

The First War

Around about 200 years ago, some time between the years 3100 and 3125, came the first reports of encounters with octagonal alien spaceships. Fast-moving and deadly, these ships were only intermittently encountered, often following a hyperspace mis-jump. Such encounters were normally fatal for solo pilots, so were hard to verify. Commander Peter Jameson, the first pilot to be awarded the Pilots’ Federation rank of “Elite”, is rumoured to be one of the few pilots to survive such an encounter.

In 3125, the encounters escalated into war. Thargoids, as the aliens came to be known, fought ferociously, using technology superior to that available to their human foe. For quarter of a century Thargoids and humans battled.

And then, very suddenly, in the year 3151, the Thargoids vanished. There were rumours that the Thargoids had been wiped out using some sort of biological weaponry, but officially there was nothing. No announcement, no explanation. The Thargoids were gone, and normal life resumed. It seemed plain that there had been an official cover-up, and that information had been suppressed.

That was until, in 3303, over 150 years after the Thargoids had vanished, when the Thargoids returned, a second encounter between the aliens and humanity, one that would go just as badly as the first. And this was not a coincidence.

Thargoids Return

It was not much more than a year after the invention of the Frame Shift Drive that disturbing evidence began to surface that the Thargoids might still be a presence in the Galaxy. It was not be a coincidence that this was around the time we started to colonise the Pleiades Nebula.

First, in 3301, Unknown Artefacts, strange biological sensors, began to appear. These were followed by Unknown Probes and, by the beginning of 3302 strange surface sites that came to be known as Barnacles were found. The Unknown Artefacts caused damage to ships and stations, and the barnacle sites yielded Meta-Alloys, a healing substance that repaired damaged stations. Soon, the barnacle sites were being plundered for this valuable commodity. We didn’t know at the time, but the Barnacle sites are biological mining rigs, seeded by the Thargoids, left for tens of thousands of years to ripen and then harvested. Humanity established itself as a space-faring species in between the Thargoids seeding nearby nebulas and their return to harvest the meta-alloys. The Thargoids probably bore us no animosity – they may have perceived us as a minor irritation, and were prepared to ignore us as long as we didn’t get in the way.

In January 3303, the first such Thargoid ship, what we now know as a Cyclops Interceptor, interdicted CMDR DP Sayre near the Pleiades. It hyperdicted his ship, scanned it, and, presumably finding him uninteresting, departed. In April that year, a federal convoy destroyed by Thargoids was discovered. That attack by Thargoids has a significance in that will become clear later. However, the Thargoids had clear rules of engagement: if you were carrying something they didn’t think you should be carrying, they turned red and waited for the cargo to be dropped. If you failed to drop the cargo, or if you approached them or started firing, then they would attack.

Despite this neutral approach from the Thargoids, humanity, led by Admiral Aden Tanner of the Federation, declared the Thargoids enemies and launched initiatives to curb Thargoid aggression in the Pleiades, by attacking them with newly-developed anti-Thargoid weaponry. The Thargoids responded with a series of attacks in the direction of humanity’s core systems, badly damaging well more than one hundred space stations. Humanity’s expansion into the Witch Head Nebula was met by hostile Thargoids.

A tri-superpower agency, Aegis, was established to research anti-Thargoid weaponry and to coordinate attack and defence capabilities. Admiral Tanner became part of this agency, which was lead by professor Alba Tesreau of the Achenar Research Council. A number of new weapons were introduced, and the agency earned a reputation for restrained competence – although it relied entirely on independent commanders to do all the fighting.

Despite several isolated flare-ups, humanity and the Thargoids learned to live side by side without any great animosity. The Thargoids were there, but if you didn’t trouble them, they would leave you alone. By the middle of 3306, it seemed that we might all be able to get along together, and there wouldn’t be any need for anyone more to get hurt.

Going back three years, though, there were signs of something not quite right. Someone with military influence had initially tried to cover up the return of the Thargoids. After the conclusion of the first Thargoid war, listening posts had been established to monitor for any sign of the Thargoids’ resurgence. Survey vessels were also slowly scanning the region between the human-inhabited Bubble and the Pleiades. Some of these monitoring stations and survey vessels began detecting signs of Thargoid activity or of so-called Thargoid “imprint” sites – what we now know were the crashed remains of Titan-like hive ships.

They were systematically destroyed, their crews killed and the evidence destroyed by an organisation calling itself the Black Flight.

Unidentified ship, this is the Pandora. We are a registered survey vessel on an authorised research mission. Cease fire! Repeat we are a survey vessel. Halt your attack! They’re not responding, we have to get out of here! Attention all crew, abandon ship, abandon ship. Proceed to your assigned li…

This willingness to murder in order to conceal the reality that the Thargoids had returned suggested something more unsavoury than the superpowers’ desire to forget about the First Thargoid War. What superpower or other organisation could be behind such abhorrent actions?

The Mycoid Virus

Now we can start to fill in some gaps in the story of humanity’s encounters with Thargoids. Let’s start with the way the First Thargoid War came to such an abrupt end.

In October 3303, not long after the Thargoids had returned to the Pleiades, ten sites belonging to the Intergalactic Naval Research Arm, INRA, were discovered. These bases provide living evidence of a research program to find a way to defeat the Thargoids. It seems to have been pretty ruthless, involving vivisection of captured Thargoids.

Living Specimen 4/4

The specimen is highly resilient and seems to be able to withstand severe physical trauma, even to the point of losing limbs. I am reminded of pulling the legs off spiders as a child. Fortunately, testing on a nonhuman means no legal red tape to slow things down. Tomorrow we will begin experimenting with chemical and biological weapons. These creatures may be tough, but we will find their weakness.

INRA also tested weapons intended to destroy Thargoids. Logs recovered from Carmichael Point record an unsuccessful attempt to destroy a Thargoid hive ship, a predecessor to the ships we now call Titans.

Watching the Sky

Contact confirmed! Thargoids 1,000 light seconds from the site and closing. Ready all weapon systems and prepare to fire on my order. We’ve only got one shot at this and I don’t want to miss. Wait… wait. What is that? That’s not a regular Thargoid ship. It’s huge. Will someone scan that thing! And tell command we’ve got a mothership here. Get them the data as soon as possible. All right, all right, that’s close enough. Fire all batteries!
Test unsuccessful…targets suffered minimal damage…site lost…all operatives…lost…

They also experimented with Thargoid witch-space technology, a gruesomely unsuccessful attempt.

Reverse Engineered Almeida Landing

What I saw in there will stay with me for the rest of my life. The pilot looked like he’d been turned inside out.

Nonetheless, it is possible that Sirius’s Frame Shift Drive, the one we use today, is based on this Thargoid technology and on the experiments undertaken by INRA.

By chance, INRA stumbled upon a fungal infection that had a devastating effect on a captive Thargoid.

History Will Decide

Our latest tests were extremely successful. The mycoid can paralyse a Thargoid system – either physical or technological – in a matter of seconds. It is extremely effective. I confess: the knowledge that the mycoid causes the Thargoids physical pain brings me some measure of satisfaction. But when one has seen, first hand, the effect of their weapons – seen the destruction, the chaos, the bodies – can one be blamed for wanting them to suffer, as we have?

The Mycoid Virus was loaded up into a Cobra Mk III, to be piloted by CMDR John Jameson. Jameson was brave, but was misled by his INRA bosses, as the following log excerpts reveal.

Commanders Log: John Jameson

That was almost too easy. Threaded my way past their perimeter, masked my heat signature so I could get close to the superstructure.. I tell you… I’d never seen a hive ship up close before. I doubt many people have. It was amazing, kiddo. Beautiful, really. Makes you realise just how smart they are, how advanced. I admit it: I hesitated for a moment before I hit the button. I had to remind myself that it wasn’t them I was attacking, just their technology. That’s if this mycoid virus of theirs even works. Man, I watched the payload rocket into the belly of their ship and stuck around just long enough to make sure it hit home. Then I punched the throttle. Woah!

It was supposed to target their hyperdrives. That’s what they told me. Just the hyperdrives. So we’d be safe again. So we could live without fear. Well, it did a hell of a lot more than that. There were sensors on the payload so I could monitor the reaction and make sure it activated properly. I’m staring at the data now. The weapon is… lethal. They knew what it could do. They knew what it could do and they used it anyway. How many have we killed? Thousands? Millions? God forgive us.

Jameson was himself a victim of INRA. In order to cover up the mission, they arranged for his ship to crash into a remote planet. Jameson recorded a message for his young son, a message he knew his son would never hear.

I guess I should have known they wouldn’t want me coming back. The bugs are dangerous – no doubt about it – but er, well this is mass murder we’re talking about. You can understand why they’d want to keep it secret. I know some men wouldn’t want to admit they’d killed thousands of sentient beings. I guess… I guess the guys back at base think they’re doing me a favour by burying me out here in the black. Personally, I’d rather people knew what happened. Even if I didn’t come out of it looking too good.

I don’t have much time. There’s a big old planet in my viewport and it’s getting bigger by the second. People will talk about what I did, after I’m gone. The missions I flew, the things I accomplished. But there’s something I want you to remember. No matter what they say, whatever garlands they hang on my name, whatever they write on my tombstone.

You, you, were my greatest achievement. I love you son.

Discovery in the Coalsack

And now we can travel back even further in time, to forty years before the deployment of the Mycoid Virus.

In October 3306, Geological Survey 23B, an abandoned settlement, was discovered in the Musca Dark Region near the Coalsack Nebula. Logs discovered at the site dating from 3111 record the first detailed human encounter with Thargoids and the Barnacle sites. This encounter happened at a time when all that anyone else had seen of the Thargoids was an angry swarm of scouts following a witch-space interdiction.

It’s Friday the 20th of October, 3111. This is Professor Penelope Carver.
The Coalsack Nebula has turned out to have a lot more scientific value than I expected. We established a site on this planet on the 13th, after we detected some very odd signals, and the whole team is excited about what we found. That’s another reason I’m logging this – if this turns out to be a big discovery, I want our names attached! The things growing here are like nothing on record. Definitely organic life, but with crystalline or metallic elements, and chemistry that even O’Keefe can’t make sense of.

Expedition leader Penelope Carver and her team had been contracted by the Azimuth Biochemicals corporation to survey the area, but when Azimuth heard reports of alien activity in the Musca Dark Region PJ-P b6-1 system, and that advanced alien technology had been recovered from a crashed ship, it diverted its megaship Adamastor to recover the technology.

Hopefully this log will record – half of our equipment isn’t working properly right now. Everything’s changed since we found the crashed ship. For one thing, it’s… it’s alien. Definitely non-human technology. I should sound more excited, I know. Every scientist’s dream, isn’t it? But something about this just feels wrong.

he said the night was opening up like a giant mouth. I don’t know where Taylor’s got to, so I tried the comms beacon myself, and found a message saying the Adamastor has arrived in the system. That should be a relief, but actually it twists my gut. What are Azimuth going to do with the thing we found? What are they going to do with us?

The pickup did not go according to plan.

I think they’re all dead. I was out here with the stones when the Sidewinders arrived. I watched them come down like birds with broken wings, lights flickering on and off, just like the base has been for days. Then there were soldiers everywhere, with rifles and armoured suits. I think they loaded the cage onto one of the ships, which took off again, just about.

A conflict seems to have broken out in the settlement, possibly as a result of sleeper agents from the rival Pharmasapien organisation attempting to take control. Alien ships, attracted by the stolen technology, started swarming the Adamastor. The megaship departed early, abandoning many of its own crew and some of the survey team.

But its troubles were not yet over. The alien artefact, possibly a Thargoid Sensor, exerted a malign influence over the ship and its crew. Professor Carver, who attempted to escape the Adamastor but lost her life when the Sidewinder she was piloting crashed on a nearby planet, described how the megaship started malfunctioning.

Then the power fluctuations started. Sheng, O’Keefe and I knew what was coming. The cage they’ve constructed in the cargo hold isn’t going to be strong enough. Even the Adamastor’s hyperdrive keeps failing. They’re making emergency repairs to it now while we’re passing through some unexplored system, with half the ship in darkness. This sounds crazy but even though the nebula is three hundred light years behind us, it feels like it’s reaching out, trying to drag us back… swallow us whole.

With its hyperdrive broken beyond repair and its crew believed dead, the Adamastor completed its return to base in the Chukchan system on autopilot and at sublight speeds, arriving in October 3306 and providing the means of finding the Geological Survey base.

The knowledge of that first encounter, although it must have been known to those at the top of Azimuth, remained a closely guarded secret until the site was discovered, four years ago. The voyage of the Adamastor failed to deliver the details of Thargoid technology, but it whetted the appetite of those in charge at Azimuth. They were seeking out knowledge of technologies that could be used as weapons.

The Hesperus and the Proteus

At least one of the people at the top of Azimuth Biochemicals was still alive, and keen to pick up where the company had left off, more than 150 years earlier. This individual, who called himself “Salvation”, and who did not reveal his connection to Azimuth, directed commanders to find a sister ship to the Adamastor, the Hesperus, which had also been on a mission to find alien technology. It had recently been found by a dredger clan, the Scriveners, and this had set off its emergency beacon, revealing its location. Like the Adamastor, the Hesperus had been sabotaged from within by sleeper agents from Pharmasapien, but a small group of scientists managed to escape on board an Anaconda, the Proteus. Rather than returning to civilisation, they decided to continue with their mission, eventually arriving at a planet in the Trapezium Sector that is unique in having the remains of two ancient civilisations: the Thargoids and the Guardians. These two civilisations fought a bitter war millions of years ago, and this planet has evidence of one battle from that war. That ancient conflict has meant that the Thargoids have a hatred for anything of Guardian origin, and that the Guardians, now believed to be extinct, had developed technology that could be used against the Thargoids.

Crucially for the scientists on board the Proteus, the Guardian ruins included a new form of energy source, the Guardian Relic, a triangular prism that glows blue. Much later, engineer Ram Tah reverse-engineered Guardian Relics to create many of the anti-xeno weapons we use today. But Dr Farrell and Lieutenant Kelemen in their makeshift laboratory beside the Anaconda Proteus were the first people ever to create a weapon from Guardian technology, all the way back in 3113. They did not survive – killed by a radiation surge, Kelemen, the last survivor’s final words are the imprecation that they never be found, and that the secret of this terrible weapon would remain undiscovered.

And now, in June 3307, we had helped Salvation find this terrible weapon.

The Alexandria and Hyford’s Cache

Aegis, the modern anti-Thargoid agency, hadn’t been idle while Salvation was hunting the Hesperus. Planning another round of research, it loaded up its megaship Alexandria with Guardian Relics in the Pleiades, planning to take them to Aegis Core in the Federation-controlled Sol system. When the Federation, citing security concerns, refused to grant the megaship permission to jump to Sol, the Alexandria diverted to a nearby system for unloading. But it never arrived. There was speculation that the ship had been attacked by Thargoids. The ship remained missing, so its fate remained undetermined.

After the Proteus was discovered, Aegis tried to fill its other megaship, the Archimedes, with Guardian Relics. But Taurus Mining Ventures, Salvation’s organisation, offered better terms to commanders, and Aegis failed again. The Archimedes remains out in the PMD2009 48 system to this day. Salvation had plans for all the Guardian relics he had collected, but he needed even more.

Meanwhile, in Colonia, a data cache that had remained locked since it was discovered in 3303 was about to unlock its secrets. At some point in late 3302 or early 3303, a Commander Hyford had fled the Pleiades, leaving a message about a private military outfit experimenting on human test subjects. The context was unclear, but it seemed likely that the military outfit was the Black Flight. The timer on the data cache expired on 26 August 3307, revealing just a short message, directing Commanders to a system 24,000 LY away, on the other side of the Bubble. This was Oaken Point, the first of two locations that tell the story of Project Seraph.

Project Seraph

Oaken Point is in the distant system of HIP 26176, which is galactic “south” of a band of permit locked regions that are believed to be under Thargoid control. Logs found there reveal that this was an experimental centre, probably active in 3302 and the early part of 3303, the time when it was gradually becoming clear that the Thargoids were making an unwelcome return.

Project Seraph, Log #1. Professor Thomas Dorne reporting.… Surgical enhancements are scheduled on candidates deemed most likely to survive the Thargoid systemic interface. There is a sense of excitement here at the facility. My team recognise that we are on the threshold or something truly remarkable. While our competitors chase rumours and run lab tests on curious probes, we are working towards the first human-piloted Thargoid vessel.

The aim of Project Seraph was to allow humans to fly a Thargoid ship. Just as Azimuth Biochemicals wanted to use alien technology to create powerful weapons, Project Seraph hoped to learn how the alien technology worked, then build a fleet of human-controlled Thargoid spaceships that would allow an effective counter-offensive against the aliens, with an ultimate aim to wipe them out forever – completing the work started by Commander Jameson and INRA 150 years earlier.

A captured Scout was the Thargoid part of the equation. The contents of Escape Pods provided a steady feed of human test subjects to complete the picture. Fitted with neural implants, these unwilling test subjects were connected to the Thargoid vessel’s control mechanism. Many died as the scientists learned how to defeat the Scout’s control-interface defence mechanisms.

A-1’s vital signs were stable for forty-three seconds, at which point there was a major electrical surge through the central nervous system. Both witnesses observed the subject suffer a violent seizure which ultimately proved fatal. The Thargoid vessel appeared unaffected.

Eventually, the project found some success, with test subjects D-2 and H-8.

Subject D-2’s test used the recalibrated couplings. Her introduction to the Thargoid vessel proceeded smoothly, and as with A-7 the hull’s external frame responded visually. Dr Pierce and Dr Hamlin, witnessing, both reported D-2 as responsive. Seventy-six seconds into the test, the craft powered down once more. D-2 departed the craft with help but standing, the sight of which inspired applause from the team on the ground.

There has been considerable progress in our work. After an initially unremarkable series of tests, Subject H-8 successfully interfaced with the Thargoid vessel! Ninety-three seconds into the test, the craft moved approximately eighteen feet from its docking props and hovered in place. The flight was stable and accompanied by a gentle hum. I would describe the sound as subdued, as though the vessel had been brought to heel at last. The landing, twenty-eight seconds later, was abrupt but only superficial damage was sustained. H-8 is unconscious but stable under the care of the medical team.

Unfortunately for the project team, the alien spaceship appears to have run out of whatever fuel was powering it. Tests were suspended while the search commenced for a replacement Thargoid ship. This suspension of tests coincided with CMDR DP Sayre’s first encounter with a Thargoid Interceptor, which dates it as January 3303.

While Fort Asch was the experimental base for Project Seraph, the megaship Overlook and the surface site Fort Asch in HIP 22460 were where its military wing was based. This military organisation was, and possibly still is, the Black Flight, the organisation that had been trying to suppress information about the return of the Thargoids, and which had pursued Commander Hyford to Colonia. The organisation sponsoring Project Seraph and the Black Flight militia had been trying to keep the news of the Thargoids’ return secret.

And now we could understand why: Project Seraph was trying to reverse engineer Thargoid technology before anyone else could get hold of it. HIP 22460 contained the wreckage of two crashed Thargoid hive ships, and the project was hopeful it could lure Thargoid vessels to visit these sites and then capture them.

They had little success. An unarmed trade ship encountered a non-hostile Thargoid vessel, but was unable to take any action. Shortly afterwards, a Black Flight squadron was directed to investigate a Thargoid signal source.

Project Seraph, Log #42. Professor Kaley Orenn reporting. Less than an hour ago a Black Flight squadron was intercepted by Thargoids. Seven Black Flight ships were en route from Research Site Bronze to Fort Asch. They picked up an unrecognised signal source and were ordered to investigate. What little telemetry we have shows the ships were attacked soon after dropping from supercruise. At least three Thargoid vessels were involved. The skirmish, if what happened even qualifies as one, lasted less than two minutes. By the time reinforcements arrived there was nothing but debris left. The Thargoids had departed. There were no survivors.

This encounter perhaps demonstrated that these new Thargoid ships were far more powerful than Project Seraph had anticipated, and that capturing another vessel might not be easy. However, they would never find out. In what must have been April 3303, the project was abruptly halted following the destruction of a federal convoy that alerted the rest of humanity that the Thargoids had returned.

This will probably be the final log for Project Seraph. I don’t see much point in continuing after the withdrawal. I know, I know: the Witch gave the order. That attack on the Federal convoy is going to draw the superpower’s attention to the Pleiades. And the Thargoid presence is growing stronger each day. We can’t risk exposure so we’re pulling out and taking our research with us. I get it. It’s just frustrating.

The objective was to find a new Thargoid vessel. As though it were just a matter of time. I guess you could say they found us instead.… I’ll be at Azimuth headquarters for a full debrief within forty-eight hours.

The logs at Oaken Point revealed two key pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. The sponsor for Project Seraph was called The Witch, and the project was in some way associated with Azimuth, the organisation that had been trying to find alien weapon technology nearly 200 years earlier with the Adamastor and the Hesperus megaships.

There was another interesting piece of information. Test subject D-2, one of the two test subjects that had succeeded in briefly controlling the Thargoid ship and the only one who survived, had managed to escape by stowing away of Commander Hyford’s cargo vessel. This was why the Black Flight had chased that unlucky commander. But there was no evidence about the eventual fate of test subject D-2.

Cornsar and Tri-Hammer

Salvation finally had the details of the Guardian-powered weapon created by the crew of the Azimuth Anaconda Proteus. By September 3307 he was ready to try out the technology. Showing little regard for human life, he covertly seeded the inhabited independent system of Cornsar with Guardian technology fragments to encourage the Thargoids to invade. Meanwhile, he secretly asked his supporters to supply the technology to build a far larger version of the Proteus weapon. This version would be able to clear an entire system of Thargoids.

And it worked. The Thargoid invasion fleet was partially disabled, with hundreds of vessels destroyed and the remainder forced to flee. Those who helped were granted access to the secret system Mbooni, where Azimuth’s small-scale ship-mounted anti-xeno weapons could be fitted.

Federal Admiral Aden Tanner, who was also now the de facto head of Aegis, had deep suspicions about Salvation’s demonstration of his super-weapon. He correctly guessed that the Thargoids were being deliberately provoked to attack to allow the weapon testing, but he had no evidence. He took his megaship, the Musashi, to Hind Mine in T Tauri with the intention of searching for incriminating evidence. Commanders supporting Salvation overwhelmed this attempt to get at the truth. Defeated, Tanner was incarcerated on charges of mutiny and unlawful military action. The Musashi was confiscated by Salvation’s faction, Taurus Mining Ventures.

Salvation appealed for more materials to build more super-weapons. He needed seemingly unlimited quantities of Guardian Relics to power these devices. His next trials were in the three Pleiades systems of Delphi, Maia and Merope, the so-called Operation Tri-Hammer. Once again, it was a resounding success, with Thargoids almost eliminated.

With Aegis failing and Salvation seen as the only hop to repel the Thargoids, military personnel from the Federation, Empire and Alliance left their posts to fight for Salvation. In an effort to stem this exodus, the three superpowers announced their support for Salvation.

Despite this support, Salvation’s experiments seemed to be increasing the Thargoid presence more generally, and particularly in the Coalsack, Pleiades and Witch Head Nebulas.

Aegis was formally shut down in January and February 3308, with its scientific resources were split between the Holloway Bioscience Institute, the Imperial Science Academy and Olympus Village University. Salvation was now the only show in town, and humanity’s only hope for eliminating the Thargoids.

But some unwelcome revelations were about to surface, starting with the discovery of the wreck of the Aegis megaship Alexandria.

What the Alexandria Revealed

In March 3308, ten months after it had disappeared while transporting Guardian Relics, the wreckage of the Alexandria was eventually located, in the rings of a gas giant in Wregoe TC-X b29-0.

Captain Morales’s logs discovered at the site revealed that the megaship had been sabotaged and then pirated by ships that claimed to be there to rescue the crew.

Morales. Where? Port side? Meet me in docking bay one. Vernier says a bunch of heavy freighters just dropped out of hyperspace nearby. Given that we’re not broadcasting a signal, they’re either the luckiest search party in the galaxy or they knew exactly where to look.

We’re on the engineering deck of the Alexandria. About… three hundred of us, roughly. We’re all that’s left. The unidentified ships hailed us. Claimed a problem with our FSD was detected just before the failed hyperspace jump. Someone called ‘The Witch’ had arranged the rescue operation and spent a month tracking us down.

The so-called rescuers killed many of the crew of the Alexandria by ejecting them into space before Captain Morales realised what was happening.

It must be the Guardian artefacts they’re after. They’re the only items on board valuable enough to kill for. No, slaughter for. So many of my crew…

Morales managed to secure the engineering desk, and in the process took a prisoner.

The captive didn’t give us much. Just a name, age, rank… nothing about the organisation that hired him. We roughed him up a bit but he still wouldn’t spill. The only interesting thing he said was after I warned him that the amount of Guardian tech his friends were stealing would probably attract Thargoids. The guy smiled and said ‘That was the point all along.’ Anyway, we’ve left him tied up.

The pirates left the remaining crew of the Alexandria to die. Morales attempted unsuccessfully to jury rig the ship for a hyperspace jump to safety. He died with what was left of his crew in the aftermath.

You have to be kidding me. Come on! Just give us a break for once, you no-good stupid piece of sh-

If the Witch was the same person mentioned in the five year old logs from Project Seraph, and given that Project Seraph was associated with Azimuth, Captain Morales’s logs indicated that the 200-year-old Azimuth Biochemicals must still be active in the present day.

Meanwhile, Salvation, demanding more and more Guardian Relics from his supporters, secretly seeded the HIP 12314, Dan, and Nauni systems with Guardian technology to incite Thargoid attacks. When the Alliance, Federation and Empire, who had no idea the attacks were being engineered by Salvation, appealed for his help, he was able once again to test his super-weapon technology, driving the Thargoids out and further cementing the superpowers’ dependence on him as the only defence against Thargoids.

It’s at this point that Salvation announced that he is ready to build the next generation of super-weapon, one that will wipe the Thargoids out completely, not from a single system but from the entire Galaxy.

The Witch

A second unwelcome discovery for Salvation came st the end of May 3308. Assisted by the escaped Project Seraph Test Subject D-2, Professor Alba Tesreau, the deposed leader of the disbanded Aegis, discovered the location of a previously unknown INRA base in the DG Canum Venaticorum system.

We have already heard how INRA created a biological weapon, the Mycoid Virus, to end the first Thargoid War in 3151, 150 years ago. This new site, Iraxon Lane, filled in more detail about the project, and for the first time linked Azimuth Biochemicals to the project. The voice logs are recorded by a Caleb Wycherley.

This is Caleb Wycherley, vice—president of research at Azimuth Biochemicals. l have been assigned oversight of our work with INRA over the next few months.

The live Thargoid test was fascinating, to say the least. The new scar across my face is evidence of that. I arrived shortly before the test was scheduled to take place. As the fungal compound. now termed mycoid, was prepared, the Thargoid specimen broke out of its holding cell, the last in a series of escape attempts. There were multiple fatalities, and I am fortunate not to be counted among them. Medical treatment was a success, though my left eye will need further surgical attention. The creature was savage and difficult to subdue. One wonders how these mindless things developed the impressive technology they use. Despite my injury, I was ready to return for the introduction of the mycoid compound. The results were exactly as hoped, resulting in the Thargoid‘s demise. Some INRA personnel have requested transfers away from the project, citing the ethical concerns of living test subjects. These people clearly lack the will to protect humanity by any means necessary.

I’ve reviewed the classified documentation related to the mycoid weapon’s payload.

The plan is to send a long range vessel towards the Thargoid mothership that recently attacked Carmichael Point. Not many pilots possess the courage or the skill to complete such a mission.

It seems INRA leaders anticipate the mycoid virus will inflict significant damage to not only the mothership but also its occupants. The payload has been specifically designed to do so.

Wycherley reveals in the logs that he has been given the nickname “The Witch” by his staff. This means he, a senior figure in Azimuth Biochemicals, could be linked to the cruel experimentation of Project Seraph and the piracy and murder of the Aegis megaship Alexandria. In the final log from Iraxon Lane, there’s a very strong hint that Caleb Wycherly, The Witch, was still alive in 3308, and that he might be using a different pseudonym.

The mycoid weapon has been successfully delivered by a CMDR John Jameson. The brave pilot did not return home. A shame; I would have liked to shake the hand of a man who has contributed so profoundly to the end of the Thargoid war. Reports suggest that the remaining Thargoid forces are in full retreat from human space. Some INRA personnel are convinced this is a decisive victory from which the Thargoids will not recover, but I disagree. It is likely they will resurface in time, too impudent to accept human dominance. We must prepare for that eventuality.

Only Azimuth, under my direction, will be capable of the necessary action to wipe the Thargoid race out forever. If I must be humanity’s salvation, then so be it.

This is the first direct evidence that The Witch and Salvation may be the same person. Wycherley has explained that he is using Progenitor Cells to prolong his life, making it plausible that a 200-year-old man could be directing a program to build a super-weapon to entirely wipe an entire alien species off the face of the Galaxy.

Confronted with this evidence, Salvation decides to own it. He acknowledges his identity and that Taurus Mining Ventures was formed out of the research division of Azimuth Biochemicals, and he defiantly renames it to Azimuth Biotech.

It is clear that Salvation, the Witch, has a passionate hatred for the Thargoids, and has dedicated his long life to eliminating them. It is equally clear that his methods have been utilitatian, and that he had no hesitation in sacrificing hundreds of thousands of humans to achieve his goal. Despite this, the superpowers, presumably feeling they had no other option, continued to back Salvation as he made preparations to unleash his genocidal weapon, the Proteus Wave, in the former Black Flight stronghold, HIP 22460.

The Proteus Weapon Fires

Big projects take time to complete. All through July 3308 and into August, commanders were bringing in Guardian Relics, which Salvation had ferried down to the Thargoid Imprint site, the crashed Thargoid hive ship, below his flagship, the Bright Sentinel. Throughout July and August, Federal, imperial, Alliance and independent forces fought off the inevitable Thargoid invasion that comes with such a concentration of their hated Guardian technology.

The Thargoid-worshiping Far God Cult and Operation Wych Hunt both did what they could to halt the preparations, but the level of support Salvation was receiving made the initiative unstoppable.

Eventually everything was ready. On the 8th of August, Salvation, Dr Caleb Wycherley, explained that the tuned energy pulse from the Proteus Wave weapon would cause catastrophic failure of all Thargoid vessels in the system, and drive the remainder far away from the core systems, effectively eliminating them as a threat to humanity.

The time of our Victory is almost here. My journey has been long. Too long, I think.

Every single credit was worthwhile, though. The investments have allowed me to witness this moment. To be our salvation.

The Thargoids are an ancient race, too blind to realise their time has passed. l have given my life to ensuring the crown is finally snatched away from them. We are now the dominant civilization in the galaxy.

My name, will be remembered alongside the very greatest champions of humanity. I believe, I have earned that much.

The firing of the Proteus Wave, early on Tuesday 9th August 3308, initially seemed to go to plan. The Guardian Relics, hooked up to the transmitter in the crashed Thargoid mothership, emitted an intense blue energy pulse, shutting down Thargoid vessels. The holofac stations broadcast the event live, and announced victory and an end to the war for ever.

But then something strange happened. It remains unclear exactly what it was or how it worked. But it seems likely that the Thargoid technology adapted itself almost instantly to the Guardian technology that had been fired into it. Less than a minute later, a bigger, and far more destructive pulse, Thargoid-green this time, reanimated the disabled Thargoid ships and in turn temporarily shut down human ships, including the megaships. Within seconds the vast majority of Salvation’s fleet, the superpower megaships and smaller ships in the system had been destroyed. The Thargoids had not only survived the attempt to wipe them out, it had also made them stronger. They could now quickly disable weapons and modules based on Guardian technology, and they were angry.

Test subject D-2, whose real name is Seo Jin-Ae, and who retains a telepathic connection to the Thargoid hive mind, understood that the Thargoids in HIP 22460 had broadcast a cry for help, and that from somewhere far away in the Col 70 Sector, a response was sent. “We hear you. We are coming”.

The Coming of the Stargoids

Salvation, the one man behind at least 150 years of attempts to eliminate the Thargoids, is believed to have been killed in the second blast after the Proteus Wave fired. There are rumours that his consciousness may have been preserved in some digital form, possibly in a Guardian computer network.

With Azimuth disgraced, Aegis was eventually re-formed, headed by the rehabilitated Aden Tanner and Professor Alba Tesreau, to face the new threat from the Thargoids. Because, not long after the distress call from the Thargoids in HIP 22460, eight points of light were seen, far off but travelling unbelievably fast through normal space.

Through September and October, these strange spiral flares raced from system to system, closing in on human-inhabited systems. We couldn’t be sure, but it seemed likely they were Thargoid vessels. In November, a megaship full of peace-loving space hippies set off to greet the first of these so-called “Stargoids”, codenamed Taranis. Their wrecked ship was found on 25th November. Taranis hadn’t even paused in its passage through the system, but the Kingfisher peace ship was utterly eliminated.

And on the 29th November 3308, Taranis arrived, unleashing the first Thargoid invasion fleet. This was the first of the eight Thargoid Titans we have spent the past two years fighting. Far from eliminating the Thargoid threat, Salvation and Azimuth had brought the Thargoids to visit. The invasion fleet quickly took control of hundreds of systems, capturing those who tried to escape. The purpose of the invasion is not entirely clear – it may be to defend Thargoid assets by building a wall around the human Bubble. It may be to exact revenge for Salvation’s actions. Or there may be some other as-yet-unidentified motive.

The Way Forward

The story of the Thargoids is not over. We are still fighting the Second War against them. We seem to be gaining the upper hand. Is it too much to hope that the war might be over by Christmas?

The course of the first and second Thargoid wars can now be seen to have been heavily influenced by Salvation’s passionate hatred of Thargoids. Now that he is dead, can we learn to coexist with the Thargoids without the need to be constantly attacking each other?

Perhaps the Thargoids will fade into the background when the last Titan is destroyed. Perhaps they will come back with another wave of invasions. Perhaps one day we will get to see the system the Thargoids are believed to have come from.

There are many unanswered questions. Why are the Thargoids so keen to capture humans? Are the rescued captives, once extracted from their life support pods, safe to return to their former lives, or are they sleeper agents for the Thargoids?

What will become of Seo Jin-Ae, the former test subject D-2, and her ability to communicate with Thargoids? Is Salvation really dead, or is his consciousness, as some conspiracy theorists believe, preserved so he can cause more trouble in the future?

The story of our contact with Thargoids over the past 200 years has been dramatic. We can only speculate what the future may hold.