/lit/ - Literature

>The Uber Ethereal is discovered by XCOM when the Volunteer makes psychic contact with this being while interacting with the Ethereal Device for the first time. The Uber Ethereal possesses a stature similar to a regular Ethereal, has a more ornate helmet/headdress, and resides within the Temple Ship. The Uber Ethereal appears to be the head of the Ethereal collective; though it's unknown if it is the leader of all of the Ethereals or just the ones attacking Earth. The Uber Ethereal reveals that the Ethereal collective subjugated and uplifted the other alien species.

>You hear our voice, New One, now listen well… Long have we watched… and waited. So many promising subjects, so many failed efforts. And now, after untold trials, the New One emerges to face the rigors of our collective… An enduring physical form, paired with an equally adept mental capacity – the rarest of traits, finally within our grasp.

>The New One continues to surge… to prove that this was the worthy path, that we were justified in our efforts. This will bring about our redemption, and usher in our future…

>Behold the greatest failure… of the Ethereal Ones… We who failed to ascend as they thought we would. We who were cast out. We who were doomed to feed on the Gift of lesser beings… as we sought to uplift them… to prepare them… for what lies ahead.

>The hunt draws to a close. It was not a vain undertaking… but a necessity, as our physical form has grown… ineffective. Our search for a perfect specimen was driven by our own crippling limitation, and now, at long last...

>This is not your path! Not your purpose! You need our guidance to hone this power… without us, what are you?

>Since the Uber Ethereal's dialogue in the final mission hints that the Ethereals were failed experiments who were "cast out," "doomed to feed off the Gift of lesser beings," and who "failed to ascend as they thought we would," and since he outright states that the purpose of their myriad invasions against the other alien races they encountered was to find a species that combined an "enduring physical form" with "the Gift," it is highly probable that their final intent was to enlist humanity's aid in an upcoming struggle with an unknown enemy (potentially their creators). XCOM 2 suggests that the Ethereal's goal all along was to utilize humanity as hosts for their minds in order to combat an unknown psionic alien threat.

XCOM was pretty woke on acceleration. also Land may or may not have been accidentally contacted by them during the CCRU days. can neither confirm nor deny nasal/rectal probing (if not both). nobody said first contact would necessarily be enjoyable

>tfw the unknown psionic alien threat is actually Rousseau and not Cthulhu
>the horror

>the fundamental character of capitalism...is revealed in the tendency to make abstract categories live as though they were concrete. Categories become subjects, or rather, even persons, though we must here speak of person in the Latin sense, that is, of masks...“Capitalist” means a man transformed into a mask, into the person of capital: in him acts capital producing capital..the abstract, in capitalist society, functions concretely