Thargoids. If you're a regular Elite Dangerous player, you know the name—they're the enigmatic insectoid Big Bad Guys of the Elite universe that series co-creator David Braben has been teasing us with for a few years now. As far back as early 2015, Braben has been answering our repeated questions of "Where are the Thargoids?!" with the same quiet refrain: "They are coming."

Folks, they're here. And they do not like us.

We don’t go to the Pleiades

2014's Elite Dangerous has its share of mysteries, and biggest among them are the Thargoids, who appear to focus their activities around the Pleiades Cluster. First encountered in 1984's Elite in their massively powerful and difficult-to-kill octagonal spacecraft, the series' lore says that humans were only able to defeat the technologically superior aliens via a biological weapon called the mycoid virus. But then, after a century of silence, the Thargoids crept back onto the stage. Almost a year ago, reports began to surface from players who had been ripped out of hyperspace by unknown enormous spacecraft that appeared impervious to all conventional attacks. A few months ago players learned that the unknown craft were indeed the Thargoids we'd been anticipating for so long and that the game's 2.4 update would focus on their return from wherever they'd gone.

While at first the encounters were scary but peaceful, the 2.4 update changed things. Players were invited to join community goals to develop new weapons and defenses against the threat, and the Thargoids began fighting back when fired upon. Players researched and built more advanced toys to even the odds (with Elite publisher Frontier Developments tweaking those odds a bit as things unfolded), but things appeared to be contained. As indicated in the lore, the Thargoids stuck to the space around the Pleiades Cluster. Players were generally safe as long as they didn't go there.

And then things escalated.

Game over, man

Posts began flooding the game's subreddit and official forums saying that human space stations were coming under attack. Stations in Elite Dangerous are enormous and invulnerable to human weapons (programmatically so), and when a player attacks one, they're chopped into hamburger by the station's automatic overpowering response. But the Thargoids have weapons humans don't—and they've begun using them.

At least three stations (all affiliated with the primary anti-Thargoid in-game faction, the Aegis) in the area surrounding the Pleiades have come under attack: The Oracle in Pleiades Sector IR-W d1-55, Titan's Daughter at Taygeta, and Linman Legacy in HIP 16753. In all cases, there are now "rescue ships" parked close to each station, and players have the opportunity to attempt to land at the damaged stations and help evacuate the stations' populations to the rescue ships.

The visuals and sound design of the new content is absolutely top notch—par for the course for Frontier. As seen in the video above, the stations all bear distinctively Thargoid-ish attack marks, including odd spore-like growths on their reactor cores. The usual calm interaction with traffic control has been replaced with a breathless emergency message, and players need to fit heat sinks to their ships to avoid taking heat damage in the burning docking bays. Once you've snagged up as many passengers as possible (you'll need to outfit your ship with economy-class cabins), players can whisk them away to the waiting rescue ship, then head back and grab some more.

Of course, as serious as this all is, it wouldn't be Elite without player shenanigans. According to numerous posts and tweets, players attempting to participate in the rescue missions in open multiplayer are having to deal with not just the environmental hazards of the damaged stations but also with other players attacking them—either because they're role-playing as Thargoid sympathizers or, more likely, just for the lulz. In fact, Frontier has apparently anticipated exactly these shenanigans and is selling both "xeno hunter" and "xeno ally" nameplates for players to display on their ships in-game.

What fresh hell...

We're still early in the 2.4 rollout, and this set of station attacks is likely still prologue for what Frontier promises will be a wild set of content updates throughout 2018—collectively referred to as "Beyond." The "Beyond" content includes not just more Thargoid attacks but a large number of improvements and tweaks to in-game systems. Frontier is putting time into addressing shortfalls in the game's core components, like how crimes are(n't) handled, the (lack of) in-game trading tools, and the (random) grind of engineering upgrades.

And while all those changes sound like welcome fixes, high-concept in-game events like the Thargoid rollout are where the flash and excitement are. Describing new trade tools to a prospective Elite player isn't going to get them to plop down money for the game; but sweet-ass alien attacks with burning stations and rescue missions? Yeah, that'll do it.

We reached out to Frontier about the unfolding galactic war, but a company spokesperson informed Ars that they are not commenting on events in progress. I'm pretty sure I could hear maniacal laughter in the response.

Stay safe out there, commanders, for the void is dark and full of... insects or something.

Updated: This article originally stated that commanders who performed rescue operations at all three stations could get access to the "Rescue" ship decal pictured above, but this is not the case. The decal was instead only offered as a reward for activities during the 2.4 beta. Ars regrets the error.