Intergalactic Summit

Taskforce lost, presumed eaten by Rogue Drones.

If it turns out that this is somehow connected with Synthia's scheme to enlighten the Rogue Drones by sending them religious study materials, then I think I will need a lie down in a darkened room to recover.

True, but, they don't seem to act with any rhyme or reason on the larger scale. It's less like we're facing a single entity than like we have colonies of very large ants scattered here and there (and a whole lot in the "drone regions") that sometimes eat ships.

They do talk, though. I ... don't know how I know that; I don't remember them talking to me. It's one of those "facts" I'm pretty sure of, though. For some reason.

They are no more of a threat to humanity than any naturally-evolved species. Only one that lives in the environment of space.

Calling them the "ultimate threat" to our cluster or the known universe is an insane level of alarmism.

If CONCORD sent a team into the jungle to study the animals in their habitat there and they succumed to natural predation would you claim the birds and apes were the "ultimate threat to the universe?"

Wait she was trying to communicate with them?

Merely communicate with them ? No.

Synthia wants to Reclaim them.

Because, as the Apocryphon says: All are welcome in Gods Kingdom.

They don't need to. Almost all of humanity's historical existential threats have been more or less enigmatic to us, or visibly without large scale impetus besides an extremely aggressive sense of self-preservation. That's all it takes. Purpose is a distinctly human phenomenon. I would argue it's in fact what makes us human.

Their potential capabilities put them into an entirely different category when it comes to threat assessment compared to nonsentient species.

Now let me clarify a few things, because there is some truth behind your skepticism,

Firstly, if I'm being honest here, the greatest existential threat to humanity is humanity, based solely off of current capability and history. But we understand humans pretty well, other people may be hell but they're also a mostly known entity. Rogue Drones? Drifters? Sleepers? Who knows what else is out there? These are all unknown quantities. Their capabilities, nature, and sentiments are simply not comparable to nonsentients and in some ways, in the long run, not comparable to us either. They're a dangerous unknown with no theoretical limit to their destructive potential. That, to me, makes them likely candidates for being the largest threats in the long run. The problem is that, for one, we have no way of measuring when exactly they may pose that degree of threat (because it's certainly not right now, which is what you have right: there are much greater threats than the Rogue Drones in the short term). How exactly can we even approach predicting their rate of growth or the derivative of their rate of growth, without essentially just reacting to developments as they happen? We really don't know what the hell they have been doing and, as a result of the very nature of their emergence as a threat, we have a history of underestimating what they're technically capable of becoming. So I can certainly consider them to be very dangerous in the long run, and the enigma around them and the lack of theoretical limit to their development makes me want to place them at the top compared to more known quantities. I wouldn't call these considerations 'alarmism' because there's no sense of immediacy even from people supposedly overreacting to their potential threat: I doubt anyone here thinks the Rogue Drones are as immediate a threat as even the Drifters, who are also more of a long term threat.

Sorry for the rant, I'm having a hard time expressing the nuance I think is necessary when considering an enemy like Rogue Drones or Drifters. That being, to summarize, we know the threat is high, the capability is high, the adaptability is high. We know that they lack the theoretical ceiling on their development that primitive species have, so that comparison is very much lacking in the long run (though perhaps accurate in the very short run, in that no alarmism is currently warranted, but again, it isn't a comparison that suits the Rogue Drones because they were a freak accident of intelligent human design that grew to exceed our ability to control it, unlike animals which are a known quantity, have always existed alongside us somewhat symbiotically, and do not 'build' the way that Rogue Drones build).

I am much more worried about capsuleers than drones. All of the new threats I have seen as my time as a capsuleer very quickly get adapted to and we thrive much as we always have done. Still so long as Concord is in the business of rewarding us, or the threat leaves something worthwhile behind in it's wreckage I am game for shooting them.

Hopefully CONCORD Taskforce Unicorn can complete the mission.