(Major plot spoilers and rambling text ahead, ye who enter here. Also ye should know this is a basically a crosspost of mine from r/Starfield.)

I’m just looking for a little digital roundtable discussion here, not upvotes. What are your thoughts on the lack of answers and intelligent life in the main quest?

After playing Starfield for a couple days, my friend asked me what the story was about. My answer was something like:

“It’s the future and humanity has found plenty of alien animals on other planets, but still hasn’t found intelligent life. Then you start discovering this alien tech that gives you superpowers and I think eventually it leads you to them." I was so excited the Starborn were this alien race.

I’m sure the rest of the playerbase felt that way, too. Why wouldn’t you? Almost everyone else in Constellation thinks the same thing. Obviously some kind of alien made them, right? They exist or existed in the past. Who are they? If it’s humans in the future just say it’s humans in the future.

Especially in a Bethesda game, you kinda expect them to go the aliens route. Am I somehow in the minority here? I understand Bethesda wanted the story to be more grounded. I’m not sure why.

Was anyone complaining about previous games not being "grounded" enough? Of course not. People love Bethesda games like Skyrim and Fallout because they’re AREN’T grounded. Imagine Skyrim without the supernatural. Fallout without the paranormal. What do you have? A realistic medieval-sim and a realistic apocalypse-sim. Without a doubt, they would be much more boring.

So why not include intelligent aliens in the main story of Starfield? Realism? Here's a glimpse into what I thought was going on based on hundreds of hours of previous Bethesda titles.

The alien creatures in Starfield are terrifyingly grotesque. We’ve all seen that. Literally everything I’ve found is straight out of my worst nightmare. I’m finding Artifacts and Constellation is buzzing about possibly discovering intelligent alien life.

One day, I'm exploring New Jemmison and see this badass NPC (The Hunter) leaning against the wall at the Viewport Bar. I spoke to him in the hope he’d give me some kind of Bounty Hunter questline. Why’s his spacesuit so fancy? Why’s he wearing it at all when the air is perfectly breathable? And why does it completely hide his appearance?

All of the sudden, I had this chilling realization that I’m talking to a fucking alien. And in this grounded universe of Starfield that's a really scary prospect.

If it’s anything like the other aliens I've seen, what kind of nightmare is hiding underneath that mask with a voice-modulator? The reality of something as horrifying as that being able to speak, hide in plain-sight, and stalk us in a safe city like New Jemmison was absolutely shocking. Shocking. Caught with my pants down chatting up an alien at a martini bar. It was the most memorable moment for me.

And it was a uniquely Bethesda moment for me.

But, of course, I was wrong. Instead of discovering intelligent aliens, there was a scooby-doo-esque villain reveal of Barrett and Matteo’s religion professor saying even they don't really know what's going on.

EDIT: Just wanted to say thank you so much to everyone that's commenting! I was really happy and surprised this got so much interaction. Starfield is amazing and it's really fun discussing this stuff with such passionate members of the community. You guys are awesome.