Elite Dangerous: We are not alone

By Matt Trant –

Commander: Kingslayer2201 Captains log:

For a long time now, players of Frontiers space exploration/trading/flight simulator Elite: Dangerous have speculated about the existence of an alien race within the game. Given the enormity of the game, which boasts a 1:1 replica of our very own galaxy, The Milky Way, where it’s possible to visit every single star in the galaxy, trading, pirating and dogfighting to your heart’s content along the way, it’s reasonable to believe there’s something out there in that vast map other than us right?

Despite many hours and thousands of light years traveled, Elites commanders, including myself, have not been able to find any evidence of an alien race within the galaxy, except for a few vague hints from the developers, until now! January 6th started as a routine day for Commander DP Sayre A.K.A Robert Bettig. Mid way through a 36 jump trip from Kitstaya to Maia to have some engineering work done on his corvette, bounty hunters on his tail, suddenly, Betting experiences something which until now was thought to be impossible in Elite.

Moments into his Witch-space jump (Elites name for Hyperspace) betting received the warning message “Hyperspace conduit unstable” from his on board computer, Bettig Corvette begins to pitch and roll out of control. His hull begins to groan and strange noises creep in around him. Next thing he knows his shit drops out of Witch-space and crashes too and grinds to a violent halt in open space. “Uh, guys?” He says over his comms to his fellow commanders. “I just got pulled out of Witchspace.” Naturally, his friends weren’t believing a word he said as until recently it was only believed that you could be interdicted as slower supercruise speeds.

Seconds later the aforementioned Bounty hunter warps in, comes about and immediately opens fire. As Betting sites there helpless, under fire, systems offline and probably imagining if it’s possible things could get any worse, they do! As the shots from the bounty hunters anaconda ping off of Betting hull, an enormous ship resembling the shape of a flower drifts in overhead and begins to come about. As the ships comes into view it becomes clear that this is no normal ship, with an appearance more organic than mechanical. As this mysterious ship came about its petal-like wings begin to glow and a piercing sound fills the void of space “I was shaking so bad” said Bettig. “I thought I was getting microwaved—that this guy was just going to eat me for dinner,” Bettig confesses. “I had no control over my ship, all I could do was look around. At that point I just resigned myself to it.”

Soaked in the yellow light emitted from the “petals” of this mysterious ship, certain destruction seemingly inevitable, the light stops as suddenly as it started. The mysterious ship makes a portside turn, pulls away and jumps into the distance as quickly as it had appeared.

At the moment there’s still tons of questions surrounding this mysterious ship, which since has been getting spotting by other pilots in various parts of the galaxy, but the general consensus at the moment is many believe that the ship belongs to the Thargoids, an alien species from earlier Elite games. Known for their bloodlust and cruel violence many believe that the appearance of the Thargoid means we could now be on the brink of all-out war. So what does this mean for the many pilots of Elite: Dangerous? Well, for some players Elite can be seen as quite repetitive. With a lack of new content, with the exception of New Horizons which gave pilots the ability to land and drive a mars rover style vehicle on the planet’s service and little diversity between the thousands of systems and the task you can undertake, it’s understandable to see why some may say the game has become a little stale.

Now though, with the addition of an alien species, a whole new mystique has been added to the exploration of the galaxy not to mention the possible danger, seeing that no one really knows what these ships are or what they want. The idea of a galaxy wide war for the sake of humankind is an exciting prospect too as the current “war” in the milky way is seemingly more economy based than anything else. One thing’s for sure, this mystery sighting has brought some excitement and intrigue to game that I myself, as a long standing player, and others like me, had become a little disillusioned with and will hopefully see some old commanders logging back on and some new ones taking to the sky to join the adventure. There are exciting times ahead and I for one will gearing up and taking off once again to learn more about this mystery race. See you out on the final frontier fellow commanders and god speed.

Commander: Kingslayer2201 Logging off.

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