Well crapola! Thank you both for your help, time to restart.

I didn't initiate the first attack, but after I destroyed the few that attacked, I went looking for nearby bases and did aggro one (and destroyed it), however I'm getting attacked by other spawns as well. I realize I'm getting old, but I swear I checked 'peaceful' and then set my map options on the ...

I searched and came up fruitless... has pollution been changed to aggro aliens in peaceful?