Unknown Artefact (or artifact) Community Thread - The Canonn

[Sevenperry]

I have two tests to check, but will only seriously ask for test one as I have little right to ask for the other.

Will a UA bearer try this test for me please? Don't think it's been attempted.....looks over shoulder for Ratking....well even if it has, could someone retry it.......

Could a UA holder go to the nav panel whilst docked and see how many jumps it'd take to travel 50 LYs when set on quickest route.

I know this is a bit simple, but it's simple and not over thought, ok there's very little evidence for it being successful, but the search radius was 75 LYs for SS1 wasn't it? SS1 can't do that kind of mileage can it, to create such a search radius normally can it?

Oh if test doesn't prove surprising when docked, please try to jump 50LYs with FSD in open space and not in a wing, maybe towards a KGBFOAM type of star though.

If the test fails, well it's up to you if you wish to attempt test 2 and plough your ship into the nearest planet to the point where you initially stole the UA from. After all if the UA wants to be somewhere and maybe where you found it is a solid bet, easier than scouring the rest of the galaxy anyways. Test 2 is more hazardous and less fair to ask of you, so it's up to you if you try this illadvised but well meant test.

 

[WreckWren]

We know well about that.
Then what?
The only practical thing that we can do, is still to let it die near or inside a station, completing its full cycle.

PS: and remember that the SAP8 came later. The UA should have been solvable already before it. So the SAP8 and Hafnium and all of those, should be just an hint or something that came later. Don't forget it.

A lot of people are making a link to the Cerberus Plague. Are we ready to rule that out as being involved?

 

[knowles2]

Please! Again? ANYTHING?!

Three pronged structure MEANS that there is ONE structure coming out from its head, with three protuberances.
The UA has a structure that divides in three racks of four pods each.
We've already talked about it ages ago, and still running in circles?

That does not mean that the UA causes the plague. But the similarity has always been HUGE and evident. STOP.
And why did they have to specify this if not useful?



The Phages are not used to cure viruses.
The Phages are bacteria that cause plagues.
Then, to cure some viruses or plagues, we use a weak version of the same virus or phage, to make our body react to it, while it is not that dangerous as the original one in full strenght.
So, if the UA is linked to the Plagues, it's because it is spreading it, not cureing.
My opinion btw.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phage_therapy

 

[RedWizzard]

To me there are many many clues on Galnet linking the UA to the Cerberus plague, such as the plague being release by a phage like object, aka our little friend the UA looks almost exactly like a phage. Far more clues than say the Antares incident, which is setting up a story for something in the future but there no clues linking it directly to the UA.

I agree. But if it is related than we basically have two theories: the UA causes plagues and the UA cures plagues...

1. UA causes plagues. We've tried selling a UA, we've had one expire about 12km from an outpost, and we've had one destroyed in a station. None of those cases have resulted in a plague. That really only leaves letting it expire naturally either in the station or immediately outside. It's possible one of those is the right trigger, but it seems awfully specific (if it were one of these then I would have expected the one destroyed in the station to work as well). So I'm not hopeful. I also wonder if FD would risk this storyline given the potential for UAs to be used as weapons in powerplay (or even just generally), particularly with the cargo duplication bug still in existence. Imagine if an unscrupulous bunch duplicated 50 UAs and then set off plagues in every system for a particular faction. How would the players in that faction react?

2. UA cures plagues. Haven't really tested this AFAIK. But I don't think it makes sense either from a lore or gameplay point of view. If there is a CG going on and the UA instantly cures the plague then what happens to the CG? Presumably it would just end and players would get whatever rewards had been earned so far. I'd expect that to annoy a lot of those players. I guess they could make the UA complete the CG to the top tier, but even that would be pretty unsatisfying, and amount to handing out free credits for UAs, in which case why didn't they make them much more valuable in the first place? As for the lore, why would they be simply transported in secret, rather than being used by the Federation to cure their own infected systems? Why would these magic cure-alls exist at all? I'm sure explanations could be invented but I suspect they'd be rather unsatisfying explanations. All that said, it's probably worth testing.

 

[Vall]

I'll just add my *3* cents.

Well, since the probe emits system name (eg. location), spews dust that look like bacteria/virus/shiny stuff maybe it basically says "Yeah, I'm here and I infected/sterilised this system already, it's safe, come drop by and activate me later on so i can *do* stuff".

By the way, the structure of the sounds that come from it are really similar from the ACTUAL recording that was on the Voyager space probe (http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/sounds.html), see "Morse Code, Ships" (There's actually a similar ship horn there). Oh, and btw. Cricket sounds are there too. ;-) And a lot of sounds that seem to be similar to the ones on Voyager recording appear in the UA.

Oh, didn't Voyager probes dissapear from the game btw? (no bug?)

 

[Max Rockatansky]

totally different theory. no test though. but virus related.

Assuming that the UA is of Thargoid origin, and assuming they want to 'come back' in the future, wouldn't the Mycoid virus still be around and a danger to them (potentially)???
The UA could be their antidote that they try to spread to get rid of the mycoid virus in our parts of the galaxy ? (which would explain the spores coming out, but not necessarily the rarity of them)

 

[rizal72]

A lot of people are making a link to the Cerberus Plague. Are we ready to rule that out as being involved?

I was one of the first to ask those kind of destructive tests, back in the days, but I've always understood the reticence of the UA bearers.
For me the Plague is still the best lead we have.

The Heike tea didn't change anything: it is just a cure not the cause. And if I would be FD, I'd add a cure at some point, just to avoid the Plague to spread all over the Universe, while we were still finding a solution...

 

[RedWizzard]

Are ALL of the devs' hints communications gathered in one thread somewhere?
I.e. I need the dialogue around the statement "have you listened to them".

It should be linked from the wiki.

 

[Dommarraa]

3. UAs cause the plague, but we only get access to them after they have done their job. Circumstantially seems to fit with UA spawn rates, but not in an exact manner. Is a story thing, and doesnt give us anything to do/test with the UA

 

[Rauminen]

What test are you thinking of doing with those SAP 8's as Nilreb can get them for you if he's willing to?



Yes it failed and was abandoned due to the descovery of that mechanic that had the chance for an NPC to spawn and chase you till death for your cargo.



Redwizzard said a few pages back that when he showed the UA it duplicated and more than 5 UA's spawned so.....yeah.

1.) I want to reproduce the 8 / 12 SAP 8 tests from before, so we have a few more recordings, preferably recorded from different distances - hoping for at least 3 commanders present.
The point is to see if we can consistently reproduce the "clarification" effect.

As a side note, I will be using collectors and intend to keep all of them safe, to increase the time we can have them out in space, and repeat the test. I know that there's an issue sometimes when collectors die upon delivery with multiple commanders present - but they DO deliver the cargo, and I couldn't care less about limpets' lifetime in this situation.

2) Well, if there is interest in repeating the test, we can go to an unpopulated/anarchy system to avoid bounties when swatting the NPCs - but I doubt the "magic hero security service NPC" would spawn there anyway. Not that I'm concerned about bounties really. What I would like to see is if the non-duplicated UAs interact with each other in any way outside the ship, if we have 3 (or more) in an instance.
We could of course try having them in a single ship's hold, since we're all there.

3) Yeah, emphasis on non-duplicated. I'm not sure how that bug worked - I did see a video of it, and to me it looked like it could have been an intentional feature.... did we get confirmation that it was a bug, did it get fixed? (I faintly remember reading cargo duplication fixes in one of the patch notes, but that time I didn't know about this thread, or what it was... can someone confirm?)

I was also wondering about combining more of the same things together, hence the request for Hafnium. The reason is that the UA has 12 "ports" - maybe ejecting/holding just a few of these containers is not enough.

 

[Zalifer]

Totally off the current thread. Is there any possibility that these things are tharglet pods? Some sort of group cocoon style thing, where larval tharglets metamorph into fully grown thargoids?

 

[RedWizzard]

totally different theory. no test though. but virus related.

Assuming that the UA is of Thargoid origin, and assuming they want to 'come back' in the future, wouldn't the Mycoid virus still be around and a danger to them (potentially)???
The UA could be their antidote that they try to spread to get rid of the mycoid virus in our parts of the galaxy ? (which would explain the spores coming out, but not necessarily the rarity of them)

That's a pretty good theory, though it doesn't really explain the morse. But the main problem is that I can't see any way to test it, and it doesn't lead to anything, so it's pretty unsatisfying. It amounts to simple foreshadowing, and FD have repeatedly said there is more to the UA than we've figured out.

 

[clavain]

I agree. But if it is related than we basically have two theories: the UA causes plagues and the UA cures plagues...

1. UA causes plagues. We've tried selling a UA, we've had one expire about 12km from an outpost, and we've had one destroyed in a station. None of those cases have resulted in a plague. That really only leaves letting it expire naturally either in the station or immediately outside. It's possible one of those is the right trigger, but it seems awfully specific (if it were one of these then I would have expected the one destroyed in the station to work as well). So I'm not hopeful. I also wonder if FD would risk this storyline given the potential for UAs to be used as weapons in powerplay (or even just generally), particularly with the cargo duplication bug still in existence. Imagine if an unscrupulous bunch duplicated 50 UAs and then set off plagues in every system for a particular faction. How would the players in that faction react?

2. UA cures plagues. Haven't really tested this AFAIK. But I don't think it makes sense either from a lore or gameplay point of view. If there is a CG going on and the UA instantly cures the plague then what happens to the CG? Presumably it would just end and players would get whatever rewards had been earned so far. I'd expect that to annoy a lot of those players. I guess they could make the UA complete the CG to the top tier, but even that would be pretty unsatisfying, and amount to handing out free credits for UAs, in which case why didn't they make them much more valuable in the first place? As for the lore, why would they be simply transported in secret, rather than being used by the Federation to cure their own infected systems? Why would these magic cure-alls exist at all? I'm sure explanations could be invented but I suspect they'd be rather unsatisfying explanations. All that said, it's probably worth testing.

Three actually - the UA is blamed for causing the plague, by unknown parties, to create fear of aliens for an unknown purpose. Even though it has nothing to do with the plague itself. In fact, with this theory, the UA could be a complete straw-alien, created from scratch by a human organization, as a fake, to deliberately create such fear.

 

[RedWizzard]

3. UAs cause the plague, but we only get access to them after they have done their job. Circumstantially seems to fit with UA spawn rates, but not in an exact manner. Is a story thing, and doesnt give us anything to do/test with the UA

Yes, possible but unsatisfying. I'd also expect the UAs to found in or near plague systems in this case and that hasn't really been the case.

 

[Rauminen]

Totally off the current thread. Is there any possibility that these things are tharglet pods? Some sort of group cocoon style thing, where larval tharglets metamorph into fully grown thargoids?

Yeah, it's possible. How do we "crack it" is the question

 

[knowles2]

I agree. But if it is related than we basically have two theories: the UA causes plagues and the UA cures plagues...

1. UA causes plagues. We've tried selling a UA, we've had one expire about 12km from an outpost, and we've had one destroyed in a station. None of those cases have resulted in a plague. That really only leaves letting it expire naturally either in the station or immediately outside. It's possible one of those is the right trigger, but it seems awfully specific (if it were one of these then I would have expected the one destroyed in the station to work as well). So I'm not hopeful. I also wonder if FD would risk this storyline given the potential for UAs to be used as weapons in powerplay (or even just generally), particularly with the cargo duplication bug still in existence. Imagine if an unscrupulous bunch duplicated 50 UAs and then set off plagues in every system for a particular faction. How would the players in that faction react?

2. UA cures plagues. Haven't really tested this AFAIK. But I don't think it makes sense either from a lore or gameplay point of view. If there is a CG going on and the UA instantly cures the plague then what happens to the CG? Presumably it would just end and players would get whatever rewards had been earned so far. I'd expect that to annoy a lot of those players. I guess they could make the UA complete the CG to the top tier, but even that would be pretty unsatisfying, and amount to handing out free credits for UAs, in which case why didn't they make them much more valuable in the first place? As for the lore, why would they be simply transported in secret, rather than being used by the Federation to cure their own infected systems? Why would these magic cure-alls exist at all? I'm sure explanations could be invented but I suspect they'd be rather unsatisfying explanations. All that said, it's probably worth testing.

May be that why they are so damn rare we been searching for months an probably only found what 20 or less UAs. At the rate they produce we would need at least a year to get 50. An I think Frontier can control the spawn rate as well.


Federation government is anything but a heart of gold. They bomb their own people from orbit. I wouldn't put it past them to let a plague ravage a system just for politics.

 

[Max Rockatansky]

That's a pretty good theory, though it doesn't really explain the morse. But the main problem is that I can't see any way to test it, and it doesn't lead to anything, so it's pretty unsatisfying. It amounts to simple foreshadowing, and FD have repeatedly said there is more to the UA than we've figured out.

i was hoping somebody may have an idea based of of it. e.g. if we would know a old, abandonned thargoid stronghold, the UA could cure Thargoids in stasis or such. but I am not knowledgable enough about the lore to suggest a test :-(

 

[bitstorm]

I was one of the first to ask those kind of destructive tests, back in the days, but I've always understood the reticence of the UA bearers.

Well this was the exact reason for the Biscuit Barrel.

A group activity to pull in a UA specifically to test destructive theories to be agreed upon by group consensus.

The point being instead of one person devoting 150 real life hours to searching resulting in "my precious" and (completely understandably) no destructive tests...

Instead everyone contributes just a few hours each, the result being no "massive investment" for any individual, everyone has contributed a minimal amount (a few hours) and as a result the impact of a destructive test becomes shared and therefore much less, ie The Biscuit Barrel removes the imbalance preventing destructive testing.

Thus enabling the Canonn to perform types of tests which were, hitherto, not possible!

The Canonn - making the impossible possible!

 

[RedWizzard]

Three actually - the UA is blamed for causing the plague, by unknown parties, to create fear of aliens for an unknown purpose. Even though it has nothing to do with the plague itself. In fact, with this theory, the UA could be a complete straw-alien, created from scratch by a human organization, as a fake, to deliberately create such fear.

Yes, also possible. But again I think untestable and unsatisfying. I'll be really disappointed if the UA turns out to be a MacGuffin with no actual in-game effect.

 

[clavain]

That's a pretty good theory, though it doesn't really explain the morse. But the main problem is that I can't see any way to test it, and it doesn't lead to anything, so it's pretty unsatisfying. It amounts to simple foreshadowing, and FD have repeatedly said there is more to the UA than we've figured out.

It is also possible that on the "peace" track of FFE, according to the lore in the journals, the mycoid virus INRA plot was foiled and the Thargoids were never infected, and made peace with humanity, to the extent of setting up trading posts at each of the three major faction's capitols, and a diplomatic post on Quy/Quiness. We have to remember there were two possible outcomes in FFE around the mycoid virus, and we don't know which FD is running with in ED - yet.