 This is Witchspace news for Friday the 16th of December 2022 I'm CMDR Buur In a bumper seasonal edition of Elite Dangerous News this week David Braben and a host of developer guests appear on the end of year livestream special The Elite Dangerous official merch store relaunches There's rare paint jobs, in-game freebies and free arcs Up for grabs in Frontier's festive countdown event The community organises actions on multiple fronts to resist the Thargoid advance As the final three maelstroms arrive and much more If you enjoy our stuff please do hit the thumbs up Don't forget to subscribe and ring that little bell to see all our Elite Dangerous content You can also directly support our work by joining our Patreon Links to that and everything else are below The final three of the mysterious Stargoid unknown interstellar anomalies arrived in the bubble With the Thargsday server tick this week As was anticipated the galaxy crossing interlopers arrived in their targeted systems And once again immediately deployed a maelstrom caustic cloud around themselves Whilst simultaneously flooding neighbouring systems with Thargoid vessels With the last of the maelstroms now deployed We have a much clearer picture of the wars starting point Making planning as a community at least achievable now Across the eight deployed maelstroms there is currently a total of 208 systems That are completely under Thargoid control and devoid of human life 59 systems are currently undergoing invasions as the maelstroms attempt to expand their territory And a further 38 systems are in a state of Thargoid alert Meaning Thargoid scouts and reconnaissance assets are being detected in the system As a result of the community successes in week two of the invasion One system, HIP 23716 has been cleared of Thargoids and is now in a state of recovery And HIP 20485 has had its alert status stood down After players drove away the Thargoids recon efforts there There is no getting away from the monumental task that lies ahead of us however A huge swathe of the bubble is now under Thargoid influence in one form or another Or is sandwiched between or staring directly at a creeping wall of Thargoid systems That stretches roughly 353.55 light years across And is 224.22 light years from top to bottom Frontier have mentioned a couple of times now that this isn't just a blanket invasion and extermination effort however The Thargoids are after something specifically and have a goal they are trying to achieve What that goal is we have yet to determine But it's entirely possible that the topography of their expansion efforts from here As the war progresses may start to lend some clues as to what they're actually after and where we might find it As the community settles in and recovers from the shock of the Maelstrom's initial arrivals There is now a concerted effort across multiple fronts to start putting pressure on the Thargoid advance The bigger obvious candidates like the AXI, Operation Ida and the PDES are identifying targets With scores of independent commanders also rallying behind them But after the creation of at least one dedicated coordination discord that we reported on last week There are now coalitions of players and factions coordinating their own targets that are more personal to their own areas of space Coalitions representing the Empire, Federation, Alliance and Independence Have started posting their own target listings for players' actions And there are now further coalitions of player owned minor factions organising defence of their own borders What you can see on screen now is just a selection of the systems now being targeted by player groups And when you bear in mind all progress was set to zero on these systems just yesterday as I speak these words It's clear there is significant progress being made What's emerging is, I'd imagine, exactly what Frontier wanted to emerge A community wide effort to coordinate coalitions of players and factions to first stall And then begin to push back against an evolving, emergent and dynamic enemy What's happening in Elite Dangerous at the moment is extraordinary We're doing everything we can here to get the target listings out to the wider community But if you'd like to pick up this information direct from the source I've linked below to all the Discord servers handling this effort that we're currently aware of As the end of the year is rapidly approaching we wanted to highlight some of the community events from around the game Happening during the festive season Firstly, in case you haven't been subjected to it already then do check out the charity single Tharg Aid, Flee From Soul Created by commanders LCU No Fall Like One and Takoso And featuring a host of Elite Dangerous Community content creators who were held against their will And forced to sing by the devious duo The song was created to raise money for the Gaming Charity special effect And has so far raised over £2,200 You'll find a link to the video itself and to its Just Giving page linked below If you want to make a donation while your ears are bleeding The player group the East India Company that maintains a supply service all year round for the rare commodities used in the unlocking of engineers Sends word that until the 31st of December they'll be offering their usual services for free Normally they supply the materials they hold in EIC fleet carriers in exchange for Tritium But during their operation unselfish... event? All trades will be offered completely free of charge To avail yourself of the East India Company services you'll find a link to their Discord server in the description below this video And if you're finding all the talk of war and the encroaching aggression of the Thargoids just a little bit too much to handle And peaceful exploration is much more your thing Then here's a timely reminder that there are almost always expeditions leaving the bubble or colonia And heading into the relative piece of the deep black offered throughout the rest of the Elite Dangerous Galaxy To find an expedition that suits your tastes then check out the F-DEV Community Calendar or the Expeditions page on EDSM Both of which you'll find linked below this video As the festive season marches forward Frontier launched its annual Elite Dangerous festive countdown event again this week And with it there are a number of in-game freebies and bonuses as well as some of the rarer ship paint jobs being made available Log into the game every day between now and Christmas and once you're sitting in a cockpit or standing on your space legs You'll receive an increasing amount of free arcs to spend on the Elite Dangerous store As the event continues to count down Chromed and gold paint jobs are periodically being released for sale across a range of vehicles So if you're looking for that extra level of bling then watch out for those And an in-game new seasonal event has launched the Tasks Commanders with delivering festive gifts If you check your in-game Galnet newsfeed then you'll find a story called Cause Toy Emporium Calls for Help Follow the clues in that new story and you can unlock a number of in-game items and rewards You'll need some jump range and 6 free cargo spaces in your ship to complete the task But I won't spoil any more of the event or rewards here If you want to see a full solution and reward list then I've linked to a reddit post below that will give you everything you need And as we were going to press following hints on last night's live stream more on that in a moment Frontier have completely revamped and relaunched their entire line of Elite Dangerous merch that had previously remained largely static for the last 8 years The new line of ED merch contains the new Odyssey Era branding and features graphics and logos from in-game factions, rare commodities and even images and branding and community memes from the Azimuth Saga Salvation Olives for example is a meme that sprang up in the community around the appearance of pro-salvation graffiti in the game featuring a rather unfortunately placed Azimuth logo As always, everything you need you'll find linked in the description below this video This week Frontier hosted the last of their Frameshift live live streams for the year and as you'd perhaps expect this week's was a festive season special Featuring a look back at the year just gone and a raft of special guests Along with the community management team the first guests onto the couch were Hannah and Ben from the Elite Dangerous writing team Hannah and Ben are semi-regulars on the Fdev live stream but if you've not seen them before then the between them they are responsible for just about every written word you may have seen on Galnet news stories or in CG's etc And they are also the creators of the game's many plot arcs including the Azimuth Saga and the current ongoing invasion by the Thargoids During the conversation hosted by CM's Arthur Tolmey and Paul Crowther the quartet again reiterated that what we're seeing in the game at the moment is just the beginning And the Thargoids are invading the bubble for a specific reason over and above the genocide of the human species Saying that their invasion has a purpose and that they have a specific objective that they're looking to achieve And it's us the players that have to figure that objective out They also underlined that this is a war and it's unlike anything we've faced in the game before And that the maelstroms almost specifically what is at the centre of each maelstrom is directing the invasion toward whatever goal the Thargoids have in mind Saying that whilst we can clearly save some systems as was the case last week we won't be able to save them all And we'll need to pick our targets carefully as we learn more about the war and its goals Later on in the stream the CM team was joined by more developers, semi-regulars in the shape of Dav, Derrin, Tom and Robin Who spoke about their highlights from the last year and also played a seasonally themed quiz It was following the dev's appearances that the CM's rolled out a special surprised guest In the form of a pre-recorded interview between CM's Sally Morgan Moore and the original co-creator of Elite and Frontier Developments Former CEO and now president and founder of the company since August David Braben Sally and David went through community and in-game events from the past year and also highlighted many of the community's content creators As well as player organizations like Canon Research and the Fuel Rats whilst also saying they were looking forward to the year ahead And everything that Elite has in store for us The stream rounds off with a review of some of the top stellar screenshots from the last year with a live vote for the community watching on Twitch to choose their favorite And finally at the very end of the stream there was a very special festive gift presented to the principal community manager for Elite Dangerous Arthur Tolmey I won't spoil what the gift was, you'll find the live stream linked below if you want to see and hear his reaction to it yourself But suffice to say it was a complete surprise to him and really is something very special indeed Overall a great stream from the team, it's always great to see Elite's developer regulars on FDev's live streams And in particular the visit from David Braben was a huge crowd pleaser and a fantastic way to top off the year and roll us into the year ahead Are you hauling vital supplies to the Thargoid front line? Are you heading into the deep black on an expedition? Or will you be buying a pair of Elite Dangerous socks for Christmas? Let us know in the comments below That's it for now, thanks very much for watching, we'll be back later this week with more videos Until then, 07 Commanders, follow the Greens on the way out and do keep clear of the toast rack We very much look forward to seeing you next time