What are your thoughts on Vanduul NPCs in the Persistent Universe?

Watch out for them, probably.

Do not interact. I guess it's sort of a two-pronged question of whether that's NPCs as far as hostile forces that you could potentially come across, or NPCs as like, hey, there's a Vanduul shopkeeper named Jerry.

That's exactly where I was going. Is there a Vanduul Jerry along with a Banu Jerry?

As it stands now, the hope is that as you start getting closer to the systems that are near the Vanduul border, you're going to have to start dealing with them as a possible raiding force. We've alluded in the past that there are certain Banu that have managed to establish trade relations with Vanduul. And sort of hinted that there's a possibility that maybe a human could try and pull it off, but as it stands now, no one's ever done it. So good luck. Make sure you wear your armor.

Yeah, and with the Vanduul having clans and stuff, when we start getting to those border systems, I think you'll start seeing the differences start emerging between the different groups of Vanduul you encounter, and that might take the form of actually having recognizable... We don't want them to be a unified, just faceless force that attacks you and all that kind of stuff. So there will be plans to develop it. But as far as dealing with them while the act of war is going on, I think that's going to be a tricky proposition for anyone in the UEE to accomplish.

Well, and also coming back to what Will was saying earlier, there is that thing, too, of, if, say, for example, we publish a thing next week that's like, oh, hey, so-and-so found Jerry the Vanduul and he's super friendly and stuff like that. That's not that satisfying from a player standpoint. Wanting to save the development of where the future goes from here in the universe until players can actually start to theoretically be able to affect that change is much more dynamic and interesting.