Just a "feet on the ground" message in an attempt to refocus on possibly more realistic ideas.
The UA is not at all special (burn him hes a witch!)
Apart from the few days spent on the pretty A/V of the object, it doesn't do anything new. Add a Toxic Canister (decay of ship, cloud graphics, fancy death) to a Nav Beacon (emits morse), and you have all the discernible properties of a UA. No extra coding within the game required. Expecting the UA to have secret unique coding that allows it to crack open to reveal a troupe of dancing girls, merge with a nearby crate of Albino Quechua Mammoth Meat to turn into an Elephantine Artefact, for it to make your ship sprout horns and fly through stars, or... or... anything new is preposterous on so many levels. There is no evidence or hint in game or out that is might do and from a commercial and coding PoV it is utterly bonkers. The UA will almost certainly use known functionality for its purpose. There is slight room for as yet unseen functionality to be involved, but it would have to be some very generic that would have long term use.
All I have is :
1. The UA has more Information that we have yet to decode in the AV (no special circumstances, just plain looking and listening) - The Maian thread shows a little promise, but IMHO linking it so directly with that specific encoding system seems a little arbitrary, I would rather consider it Maianish.
2. Its presence in the cargo hold of a ship, in the correct system may trigger a scripted NPC (e.g Pirates when you have high value cargo, or Mission variants, but lets hope it a Thargoid eh ?). Where that location might be is the eternal doozy. Some room for the tinfoil hat brigade to raid Galnet and Elite Lore for locations.
If you have other ideas based on existing functionality, lets hear them. However, I dont care if you think it is made out of paper-mache, or if you believe its favourite food is lasagne, you may be correct, but it really doesnt help.
Hunt, Examine, Test
Agree with most of this - out of rep, tho
Please remember as you read this post - this is my opinion, and I project it as such. I have no more authority on this than anyone - I'm just sharing my thoughts.
I do think there's a good chance of a specific location being important. But... I know, I know: where!? I wish I knew! But that Morse is more than just something interesting - it's a clue in and of itself I think.
I personally think the Mayan theory is, although nice, a complete dead end.
I also believe the purrs to be a dead end - there's nothing there - not a single test focused on the purrs has reliably produced the same result in all cases for all CMDRs under the same conditions. I skip all posts mentioning purrs now.
I think all attempts to partner the UA with any other type of cargo in free space or in a hold are also dead ends. And no justification I've read compels me to think otherwise.
I think triangulation is a dead end - they're found in convoys - who knows how far the convoy(s) are 'supposed' to have travelled by the time they spawn for you?
The 'let it expire' is a dead end - they have, on more than one occasion, and nothing has happened.
Also, all the fanciful ideas about plague carrying/cure neglects the morse, and therefore human, angle (unless a conspiracy theory involving CIEP or INRA or whatever is entertained - which I have not ruled out in my own head).
The hidden VID8 Morse thing - that's a dead end. Too nebulous, not corroborated by enough people.
SS1 was not carrying a UA. Simple as. It was an assassination job, possibly by the new Pres - possibly by the DW or whatever. Whomever is the culprit, I have a strong suspicion they are also the puppetmaster behind the Emperor's assassination. There's wheels within wheels in that story I think, and there might be a UA connection, but that's not what we're supposed to discover if there is.
The UA doesn't cause a misjump. It would have happened by now.
Pretty much every method of interaction at our disposal has been tried - in terms of what our ships can do - and nothing. So that's a dead end.
My own personal scepticism about the merits of listening to him aside - Kerrash reckons the feeling is that there are 'enough clues' out there already. Galnet and licensed fiction are our primary sources for this - so there must be something in these that links to the UA or, more likely, links to some other event or story that is linked to the UA.
After struggling with the narrative style a lot, I've started on reading 'And Here the Wheel' - because that's also been hinted at by Kerrash (damn you), and there's nothing else I can do at the moment. There are already some links between one or two Galnets and the contents of this book - suggesting a strong link to the events in that book and contemporary events in-game.
Like everything else it'll probably end up being a dead end(tm) - but will see.
Remember - if I've just rubbished your idea - it's just my opinion; and it certainly isn't personal. As far as I'm concerned, all of you are awesome(tm).