Correction: That particular issue with the currently sanctioned storyline has been pointed out (quite a few times, actually -- and by several members), but it was never addressed. Hence, it is *still* an issue... One which I'm firmly convinced by now it will never be addressed by the authors.
Point taken.
<1> Hmm... Sorry, I'm not convinced; "We'll assimilate you in order to learn about you (and bring us closer to perfection)" sounds too Borg-ish to me. It has (obviously) been done before...
Everything has been done before, there are only two or three types of narrative out there. The key is to make something old appear new, this is where details matter.
I'll just take a moment to clarify what I meant in terms of background:
1. I'm ignoring the whole galactic dominance thing, and if I'm honest, most of the rest of the current storyline idea for several reasons, which have already been pointed out. In my book, XVI is still a fairly small in terms of it's empire, the size being mostly constrained by...
2. XVI has a tech level only a century to two ahead of Humanity, with a certain percent going either way from area to area (say, only a century ahead of our electronics, but one and a half in nano-tech, as an example). This is a requirement if we want Phalanx to have any chance against them. for obvious reasons.
3. XVI is wholly restrained by the laws of physics, as such it's FTL capability is based on STL scouts with deflated wormholes, which are then expanded to traversable size at the destination. (more o this later) I assume that XVI does not posses the capabilities to actually manufacture the exotic matter required, but obtained it from some other source, likely left over from a previous civilization, but it's unimportant to us as this doesn't affect the Phalanx plot.
As to
<2> I'm not sure I follow you through; nobody said anything about colonising Earth. XVI's intent is, as far as the current story goes, to acquire more hosts and possibly 'strip-mine' the planet -- with the former being clearly the primary objective: More hosts. That's why I'm uncertain what you meant: Are you criticising this position? Offering an 'alternate story', perhaps? ...
Well, more hosts seemed to imply that it wanted to colonize...
But yeah, I'm proposing a different storyline. When you think about it, if XVI wants more hosts, then it can simply build up up a population artificially, with just DNA samples. If it wants a stream of new ideas, then it would make more sense to maintain whatever species it comes across as strictly monitored but independent, where it could cull the populations periodically to get a constant stream of new perspectives.
I won't be quoting the rest of your post. Whilst I'm still a bit confused about what you're trying to do here, I'll assume you are in fact proposing an alternate storyline (seems like a sensible assumption); unfortunately, I can already see some major issues developing in here as well -- mind you, their 'extent and severity' depend largely of how much of the current story you're keeping in the background. Short list of them below:
- Two things: First, no species gets to be dominant without first overcoming its competitors. Natural selection is a very natural, very real mechanism. In other words, XVI would not have gotten a (strong) hold on the entire Galaxy if it wouldn't have succeeded against the opposition (starting with its own creators). Hence, you cannot imply that XVI, being a 'cooperation-oriented' entity, has a poor grasp on the concept of competition; such claim would be invalid. -- assuming XVI's background story still stands (i.e. the 'hive-mind' is already number-one in the whole of Milky Way, when the game commences);
Point, however I was addressing it more from an matter of emphasis. XVI has done all this, it is capable of it, but such would be brief interludes in the otherwise long history of internal cooperation between parts of itself.
I know you make the point below that one does reconnaissance before one attacks one's enemy/competitor directly, but XVI had plenty of time to reccon Earth's capabilities, it would have quickly found out we were less advanced, at which point it could have easily wiped us out after acquiring a genetically and culturally diverse sample. Even if the main invasion force is en route during the game, it still leaves us with no victory option in the end, which is why I assume it's not a wholly berserker type entity.
- How would you justify a (rather sudden) interest in diplomacy, on behalf of XVI?
If we go with the above assumptions, XVI would still be powerful enough for us to be no threat long term (in the case of any sort of protracted conflict between itself and Earth's military), but given that we have only one thing it wants: genetic and cultural diversity (since all it's material needs are far more economically harvested from deep space bodies). At this point, it can still simply come and take what it wants, this is where the Phalanx victory condition comes in:
The reverse engineering of alien Alcubiere drives (and the re-purposing of the exotic matter within), gives Earth the ability to strike at the brand new wormhole node that's been towed into our stellar neighborhood (located well and far away from any system, wormholes require a lot of space free of any serious curves in space time, otherwise they explode quite dramatical according to what I've read). This places a very expensive investment in materiel on XVIs part in jeopardy. In the end, it would be a case of peace being mutually beneficent: if XVI keeps attacking, there's a serious rock that it's very expensive traversable wormhole will be atomized, but if that's done, then it still has sufficient in system presence to bomb Earth into prehistory.
I guess I'm making the argument that it's not worth XVI's time to squash us primitive apes right then. After all, it can keep tabs on us and in the meantime it keeps expanding, so by the time we're any real threat, it would have surpassed us anyways.
- 'Good old-fashioned radio waves' have a major disadvantage, story-wise. They can be easily detected, even with today's technology; radio waves are something *we* have a pretty good understanding of. It'll make identifying any XVI hosts dead-easy: if a person has the same electromagnetic profile as a mobile network relay, then he/she is surely infected !
Indeed. But it needn't be limited to radio-waves: human hosts, in the interests of Stealth could be designed to share information on contact, through short ranged electromagnetic and chemical means. It would make the nascent hive mind here slow in it's thoughts, but it would keep it hidden.
- NO!! One cannot ignore or downrate the necessity of having (*some* form of) FTL propulsion capability, in a story that involves Galactic exploration/conquest. There *must* be a very good reason why FTL drives seem to appear so often in works of science-fiction, regardless of media. Think about this very carefully: our Galaxy is huge, of almost incomprehensible size; the distances any space faring race would have to travel between neighboring stars are incredible; several generations could easily succeed aboard such a spacecraft -- from a human perspective. In order to be able to negotiate such distances within a more palatable, human-like timeframe, one is forced to resort to a plot device such as an FTL drive... Not to mention that, should XVI be lacking such means of locomotion, then the whole Galaxy-wide dominance would be out the door as well.
Granted, but I think between the STL warp drive, we've still cut down travel time to several months to the wormhole, and the womrholes can explain XVI's interstellar empire, which strikes me as a very good compromise between realism and the need to move the plot along.
That's about it for now, with more to come... Meanwhile , please continue to expand and refine your 'alternate story'. 
I apologise. It seems I'm not wearing my good manners tonight: WELCOME to the UFO:AI Forums !
Thank you.
