 This is Witchbase news for Friday the 17th of March 2023, I'm CMDR Buur. In Elite Dangerous News this week, there's a huge revelation and a clue to what may lie in store for the galaxy as D2 resurfaces. Frontier rebalance progress in the war and have we been fighting the Thargoid War wrong all this time? As always if you enjoy our videos please do hit the like button as it helps our videos reach more people. If you haven't already be sure to subscribe and click the bell so you don't miss any of our Elite Dangerous content and if you'd like to help directly support our work here at the pit you can join our Patreon, links to that and everything else are below. As is the case most weeks Frontier began the week with a Discovery scanner post on the Elite Dangerous website that summarized what to expect from them and the game in the week ahead. The post this week headlined with some expected balance adjustments the company were making to the ongoing conflict with the Thargoids saying that further details would be available later in the week closer to the updates deployment on Thursday alongside the regular server refresh. True to their word on Wednesday afternoon the details were posted and here's what we learn from that. Previously unpopulated systems that are now under Thargoid control or in alert states will be easier to push back against. Furthermore when selecting targets the Thargoid advance will now de-prioritize expanding into unpopulated systems. For those planning the counter offensive against the troublesome insects advance that will likely mean that identifying which systems they're likely to target next will become somewhat easier to determine and also importantly if they are in an unpopulated system then ejecting them from that system will be easier going forward. Community manager Sally who posted the rebalanced details to Elite's official forums also finished the post by saying and I'm quoting directly here, additionally commanders you will be wise to keep your eyes wide for the latest news from Galnet tomorrow. We hear someone may be about to author us some important information end quote. In that text the words author us were highlighted in a different color which plays into our next article in today's news. Along with the server refresh on Thursday this week the new Galnet article that Sally mentioned in her post to the forums arrived and whilst Sally's post may have been somewhat cryptic the Galnet article was most definitely not. The article centers on a report from Aegis that analyzes the war's progress so far and comments on the tactics being used by humanity's defensive forces. Not to put too fine a point on it and the article doesn't, Aegis are recommending that alert systems are prioritized over the systems that have until now at least been the focus of the war effort. The article also makes particular note surrounding the importance of the author us Thargoid variant and its place in determining whether a system should be attacked or not. Since the war started the player base have predominantly focused their efforts on systems that are actively under attack by the Thargoids and have had some successes in pushing Thargoids from those systems. But whilst we puny humans might be able to eject Thargoids from a handful of systems each week the Thargoids are for example this week alone targeting 40 systems as potential new stomping grounds. If that rate of advance continues well the numbers don't stack up well in our favor. Alert systems are as the name implies systems that are alerted to but not yet subject to a Thargoid assault. The Thargoids can be prevented from attacking the system by players performing positive actions in the alert systems and importantly destroying the Thargoid authorist vessels that visit the systems picking up the Thargoid probes that have been deployed there. This is something that Elite Dangerous developer Darren Halil hinted quite specifically at on a frontier live stream a few weeks back saying quote shooting at where they're going to be and not where they are unquote would yield the results we're after. After yesterday's galnet piece it appears perhaps that the hint given still didn't gain enough traction within the community so Frontier have decided to ramp it up a notch essentially telling players specifically defend alert systems kill the authorist even increasing the payouts for handing in authorist based combat bonds. Whilst it may seem a simple solution to the equation it's our contention here at the pit that the issue may not be as easily solvable as that however. When choosing to engage in some playtime commanders are of course looking to get results for the input of their valuable time. If you travel to a conflict zone where Thargoids are attacking then you know 100% that you will see action and there will be Thargoids there and your time will therefore be well spent. Alert systems do not offer the same degree of certainty and importantly immediacy to their gameplay particularly when it comes to engaging the authorist. The presence of the authorist is not a guaranteed event in fact in order to find one commanders need to scan the systems navigation beacon or fire up the FSS scanner and search any number of unknown signal sources looking for an occurrence of a threat force signal source. If you can get to that source before it expires and then drop into it there's a chance that you will indeed spawn an authorist class vessel but it's not a guarantee. Rene and I have tried on a couple of occasions to track one down and film it and so far at least we haven't yet encountered one. All this stuff takes time to achieve and if your time is limited or quite rightly you want guaranteed gameplay of the flavour you're after then quite honestly an alert system is not the logical choice. Heading into already attacked space is guaranteed to yield the results you're after and I suspect it's this issue that may be at least part of the problem. Just trying to find an alert system in the first place in the maelstrom cluster you're interested in is a mini game all of its own. Here's a graphic demonstration of what I'm talking about. What you're seeing now is an image of the thorn maelstrom cluster as at the time of recording with all the map key icons switched on. The systems with grey crosses in them have abandoned star ports in them. Systems with big red icons in and orange flames draw your eye immediately those are systems with an ongoing invasion with ports under attack. As best I can determine from a search by eye of the cluster there are at least 5 systems here that are in alert status one of them is on screen right now. To see the others you need to scroll the camera around and look for a system coloured yellow in a sea of green orange and grey dots. There is no icon for alert systems highlighting them and yet they are apparently key to stopping the thargoid advance. If you assume for the moment that the thorn cluster is of particular value to you and where you wish to focus your personal efforts then again as at the time of recording clicking on any of the filter options that show the systems by status that are close to their victory threshold select no alert systems in the thorn cluster. It remains to be seen if the player base will now change tactics following the aegis directive if they do I hope the author has the good graces to show up more often as well for a scrap. Commanders logged into Elite Dangerous Odyssey yesterday to find a message from Aidan Tanner of the aegis Xenological Research and Defense Agency requesting urgent assistance in locating the whereabouts of Sojin A. Ms. Jin A you may recall is otherwise known as the artist formerly known as Subject D2 who having received the unwanted attentions of the comic book styled mad scientist at salvation's azimuth biotech can now at the very least hear the thargoids on some level and even demonstrated the ability to determine what they might be up to. D2 was under the protection of Elite's resident intelligentsia that being Professor Palin, Professor Albertesro and citizen Ram Tarr. She recently left their facilities however stating that she had a mission of her own to pursue and she's been missing ever since. Before we go on the rest of this item contains some serious spoilers for new story details that dropped into the game so if you don't want that spoiled and want to get through this next bit of plot yourself stop watching now and come back to us later for the discussion about the implications of what we just learned. Still here? Here we go then. The message from Aiden Tana stated that D2 had been traced to the gyra yanker star system and that she was likely in danger. The legitimately actually evil mega corps that Sojin A had escaped from azimuth biotech had a lot invested in Ms. Jin A and it doesn't take a genius to work out who she might be in danger from. Scanning the offending star system reveals a comms beacon anyone that has chased down one of Elite's plot threads before won't be terribly stunned by this revelation and it's a tried and trusted way for frontier to quickly and efficiently deliver the next fragment of plot whilst keeping you flying a spaceship. The comms beacon contains a fully voice acted conversation between Tana and Jin A which is absolutely worth hoovering up if you're into this stuff and the revelations therein are corkers. Through the three part conversation it becomes clear that Sojin A believes that Salvation had a backup plan literally and figuratively. Ms. Jin A appears to have gathered data fragments from former azimuth owned assets that indicate that Salvation was developing technology that would allow him to upload his consciousness in the event of his death. What's more the device that Salvation may have developed is derived from Guardian technology. I'll let that sink in for a moment while you wrap some more tin foil around your head. Salvation may now at this moment be a ghost in the machine. His consciousness was uploaded to a Guardian based storage device. But there's more cast your mind back no pun intended to the cutscene that heralded the explosion of Salvation's Proteus wave device in HIP 22460 last year. In that cutscene Salvation can be seen sitting on the bridge of a capital class vessel addressing all of humankind about the impending Proteus detonation. Shortly afterwards the Proteus wave spreads out across the system without delivering the expected results. The Thargoids react badly and the command ship responsible for the weapons firing called the Bright Sentinel is destroyed in the resulting counterattack. We noted at the time that the name on the screen to Salvation's right was not Bright Sentinel but was in fact Nemesis. When this was queried all Frontier would say is that everything is for a reason. Sojin A reveals as part of the recovered logs yesterday that Salvation's consciousness back up storage technology is codenamed Nemesis. The conversation between Tana and D2 is interrupted when the forces attempting to track her down appear and she flees the scene. If you continue to follow the trail then eventually it appears that they do corner her but it's here that the chase appears to take an ominous and important twist. The breadcrumb trail ends at a debris field floating in space. There's a scannable data point in the middle of the debris field that appears to have recorded the unfortunate pilot's last moments. The text is just one line of extremely garbled and corrupted characters but it seems to imply that the pilot is at the very least astounded by what is waiting for them right before they are presumably killed. There's nothing to imply that the scrambled message has come from D2 and so it seems logical that she has yet again escaped capture and in doing so has destroyed at least one of her pursuers apparently quite suddenly. What specifically happened to create the debris field is of course open to interpretation and speculation but we do know this. D2 can hear the Thargoids. D2 can on some level understand the Thargoids. It's my personal feeling that over and above all that D2 is learning to communicate with the Thargoids and yesterday in a moment of extreme personal peril she either accidentally or deliberately reached out to them with a cry for help and they responded, surprising her attackers. The system that this latest breadcrumb trail finishes in is almost directly smack bang in the middle of the focal point of the eight maelstroms that are currently pushing into human space. It is for example less than 160 light years from the Tarranis maelstrom. That's a blink of the eye for a Thargoid force to travel. I've touched on a lot of this before on this channel and you'll find a video about that linked on screen right now. It's becoming very clear that D2 has been left with a residual affinity for the Thargoids and it seems logical to me that having established that affinity Fdev would do something useful with it. How have you fared when tracking down the Orthros in alert systems? Will you be spending more time in alert systems after the recommendations from Aegis and do you think Subject D2 is really communing with the Thargoids? 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.