 The invasion of the bubble and the resultant war with the alien menace known as the Thargoids has been raging for three months Currently we have no idea how to halt the Thargoid advance in this video We discuss whether it's even possible to stop the invasion and take a look at what might come afterwards You know how this bit goes if you enjoy our videos Please do hit the thumbs up subscribe and ding that little bell so you don't miss any of our elite dangerous content And to directly support our work here at the pit you can also join our patreon community links to that and everything else are below Two months before the war started the first of the Stargoids was detected in deep space heading toward the bubble upon arrival that Stargoid now called Taranis deployed the first of the eight Maelstroms that have wrought so much chaos and destruction on the bubble as of this recording the Thargoid invasion has overrun and taken complete control of 796 systems the Defense Council of Humanity Overwatch website estimates that nearly eight billion humans from bubble systems have been killed or displaced by the Thargoid advance. I think it's fair to say that despite some victories Thus far the war has not been going well for humankind and as things stand the Maelstroms remain almost completely impenetrable There is light on the horizon however in the last week or so the in-game Galnet newsfeed has begun to report on the development of New equipment that will allow ships to pierce deeper into the caustic Maelstroms for longer The inevitable goal of all this has to be access to the very center of the Thargoids Cloud for it's here that the invasion stems from you can I think draw a conclusion then that by Accessing the center of the cloud there must be some larger goal and associated gameplay for the player base to achieve The question of what form that gameplay might take is anyone's guess But the end goal for accessing the cloud center must surely be the destruction the Expulsion or at the very least the subduing of whatever lies at its heart If we are not to halt and then ultimately push back against what is happening in the bubble currently Then we would be facing a war with our end that we couldn't possibly hope to win The Thargoids are of course in reality a non-player character force that in principle has access to limitless Resources and infinite time humans and in particular players of a nearly ten-year-old quite hard to play video game Are not in endless supply at the very least in the short to medium term They have limited attention spans and won't continue to fight a war in perpetuity that doesn't at some point afford them some quantifiable and meaningful progress The system that frontier is using is if left unchecked Capable of perpetrating a never-ending war of attrition against those easily distracted humans It will just carry on fighting us unless we can stop it somehow My point is in simple terms There has to be an end point to all this in order for the game to remain playable and fun Us humans need a victory condition we can achieve and it seems logical to me that surely that victory condition Has to be an end to the Maelstrom's ability to wage war on the bubble However, and here's the thrust of this essay if we do indeed Eventually pierce the center of the Maelstrom's kill expel or subdue whatever lies there Restoring the relative peace and normality to the bubble What then becomes of all the systems and gameplay that frontier will have developed at that point to support the war? It seems extremely unlikely to me that fdev would just bin all the work that they've done to support all this So what happens to it? Are the Maelstrom's then unkillable? Can we subdue and overwhelm them but not expel or destroy them? And are they therefore destined to become a permanent niggle on the edge of the bubble? Weeds at the bottom of the garden that have to be trimmed back every so often to stop them overrunning the lawn That would seem a less than ideal solution and it wouldn't in my mind at least give us as players of a game a Satisfactory victory condition it seems likely to me that the most equitable solution to the win the war but keep the gameplay problem would be an expulsion of the troublesome triphids from the bubble that results in their retreat to an area of space where the Invasion back-and-forth gameplay mechanic can be left to play out safely Regardless of the amount of longer term player engagement, but it can't go on to further expand and damage the bubble Whilst I remain convinced that the colonial bridge is vulnerable to Thargoid attack Colonial itself is too far away to act as an isolated out-of-town war venue Not so the Pleiades, Colesack or witch head sectors However, they have the added bonus of already having a significant Thargoid presence sitting alongside human-owned vulnerable assets It really depends what frontiers goals are with all of this But they have gone to significant lengths to open up Thargoid content to the more casual parts of the player base Kicking away a lot of the mystique and barriers to entry that elites PvE endgame has historically suffered from The question is once fdev have kicked away those barriers Will the gameplay that remains wherever in the galaxy it is be enough to keep a large enough portion of that Previously casual player base engaged with that aspect of the game if the stakes have been lowered i.e. the bubble isn't at risk and if the maelstroms can't be permanently Expelled or destroyed will the player base be tolerant of a permanent war on its doorstep That they have no choice than to be attentive to unless they suffer again an invasion this time perpetrated by apathy Frontiers long-term goal with elite is always going to be enrichment of the player experience That ultimately leads to a sustained and where possible increased level of player engagement Frontier are semi constantly quizzing the player base on their Thargoid war experience Testing how we feel about it and looking for valuable feedback as they continue to tweak the events playing out in the bubble The current war scenario is without a doubt currently at least achieving the sustained engagement They are looking for in the long term what the company does with the AI war beast They've created to maintain player engagement and continue to benefit from the development work It's taken will be fascinating to observe How do you see all this playing out can the maelstroms ever really be defeated? Will they perhaps relocate to protect their own survival or will they just dig in and ultimately become a permanent presence? Let us know in the comments below That's it for now. Thanks very much for watching. If you enjoyed this video consider subscribing to the channel and maybe take a look at one of our other videos linked on screen right now