 This is Witchspace News for Friday the 17th of February 2023, I'm CMDR Buur. In Elite Dangerous News this week, human settlements in the witch head sector are being evacuated after Thargoid attack and an engineer goes missing. There's new hints at technology to keep us safer for longer in the maelstroms and Eftev wants your feedback on the war so far. If you like our videos be sure to subscribe and click that little bell to be certain you see all our Elite Dangerous content and community posts here on YouTube and if you want to directly support our work at the Burpit you'll find links to our Patreon and everything else below. Frontier took to the official forums again this week to gather further focused feedback from the player base on the current ongoing Thargoid war. In the post Senior Community manager Bruce Guerrido asks specifically if commanders were enjoying the Thargoid war were they motivated to engage in the war's associated gameplay are they optimistic or pessimistic about our chances of a win and overall what does everyone think of the direction of the narrative. This kind of focused feedback request is a recurring theme from Frontier with all things Elite Dangerous and it has seemingly yielded direct results. Two most recent examples being the new enhanced Xeno scanner and experimental weapons stabilizer very much responding to some immediate gripes surrounding Xeno combat in the Thargoid war. If you haven't yet given your thoughts on what is without a doubt the current poster child of narrative and events within Elite Dangerous good or bad you'll find a link in the video description to take you to this latest feedback thread specifically. To almost no one's great surprise it was announced on Galnet earlier this week that Aegis the former marginalised and largely berated Xenological Research and Defence Agency was being reformed and reactivated in a new and improved streamlined version of its former self. In reforging Aegis the galaxy is also taking the opportunity to embed a figurehead representative from each of the major superpowers and larger factions to oversee their respective contributions. From the Alliance, Empire and Federation come Deputy Prime Minister Angela Corcoran, Princess Ashling Duval and Congressman Tom Gillespie respectively. Independent specialists are also being invited to the party such as Professor Ishmael Palin, Citizen Ram Tarr and former key figure within Aegis Aydantana. As I mentioned at the top of this piece the fact that Aegis is now reformed following the disastrous events surrounding salvation's rise to prominence and the Proteus wave eruption in HIP 22460 isn't really a huge surprise as it has been hinted at a number of times on Galnet over the last few weeks. What was most intriguing about this piece as is often the case with Galnet is the paragraph right at the very end. In the closing lines of the article it's revealed that the first research project to slide across the desk of Aegis is a proposal by the Colonia region engineer Petra Ulmanova who apparently has a preliminary design for a method of extending the amount of time a ship can last in the highly caustic and corrosive environment of the Thargoid Maelstroms. Anywhere other than the outer edges of a Thargoid Maelstrom are extremely corrosive and as such it severely limits the amount of time a ship can spend in there. That coupled with the patrolling interceptors and caustic mines make it extremely challenging to snoop around or gather any of the new materials in the defensive clouds. Whilst we're still a long way yet from being able to resist or negate the pulse that emanates from the very centre of the clouds the ability to spend longer in that environment will undoubtedly make learning more about them easier and it has to bring us one step closer to finally piercing the veil and seeing just what is at the centre of our eight newest somewhat murdery neighbours gardens. As the weekly Thargsday tick rolled around yesterday the now familiar ebb and flow of the Thargoid War passed across the face of the bubble once again. As is always the case these days some formally largely peaceful human occupied systems either suffered a new Thargoid attack succumbed completely to the Thargoid advance or looked on nervously at their interstellar neighbours as the flaming front line grows ever nearer. There was a slightly odd but possibly significant wrinkle to that ebb and flow yesterday when a news piece arrived on Galnet stating that populated systems in the witch head sector had now been overrun with Thargoids. This is the kind of news story that we've seen before from the more distant bubble outposts what makes this one more unusual are the changes that were immediately readily apparent on the galaxy map and the actual consequences surrounding the invasion over and above just some non-human signal sources appearing in supercruise. In the galaxy and affected system maps you will now see the new Thargoid War iconography that indicates invaded systems and burning starports etc. Major starports and surface installations appear to have been directly targeted and are now either in the process of being evacuated or as is the case with Cinder Doc in Shenvi being completely abandoned. Cinder Doc you may remember was the home of the somewhat maligned and largely unappreciated Khloe Sadeesi. That entire large scale planetary post is now completely abandoned shrouded in green fog and covered in fresh Thargoid Goop. The whereabouts of Khloe Sadeesi who transmitted a garbled emergency message shortly before the port went dark is currently at least unknown. The limited digging around I've been able to do in the nebula since the update yesterday would seem to indicate that only major installations and starports are currently affected. The smaller surface ports and outposts that I've checked were all intact. There are at least two mega ships in the region and they have been attacked and just like Cinder Doc are foggy and goopy. Interestingly however they are landable still and are under emergency evacuation protocols where your ship is immediately taken below deck and there are now like the burning stations emergency evacuation missions available from there. If you decide to participate be aware however that there is not a conveniently parked rescue ship anywhere in the witchhead sector. If you're running evacuations you're coming all the way back to the bubble to drop off your escape pods some 930 light years. If you are operating in the region also be aware that there is no prison ship nearby. Anything that results in your incarceration will see you transported some significant distance from where you started. As best we can determine at this point the Thargoid actions in the witchhead nebula are not part of the system being used by Frontier to invade the bubble. There are no progress bars to be moved by player actions etc and whilst moving around the area I was hyperdicted a number of times not one of those hyperdictions resulted in immediately aggressive Thargoids they were all of the stop and search variety that we'd become used to before the maelstroms arrived. If I had to guess I'd say that what we're seeing in that region is hand placed and part of some larger plot movement that we are as yet at least unaware of rather than a further expansion of the larger war. Whatever the case we will of course keep an eye on it all and if that changes we'll let you know here. Can Aegis do any better second time around? Are you keen to push deeper into the Thargoid maelstroms and do you think humanity can be expelled from the witchhead sector entirely? 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.