Unidentified Spacecraft "S6: 7".

[Goose4291]

Looking at this I've narrowed it down to four possibilities in my head.


(i) Thargoid Infiltrator: Built on the blueprints of a Diamondback the UA Scanned. Based on the assumptions the scans the UA's were doing has been sent back to their base, and the UAs are Thargoid in origin as they are organic.


(ii) Non-thargoid alien race infiltrator: Based on the idea that they've confirmed there is more out there than the bugs, and Drew Wager's lore is considered canon (I'm going to reread his Oolite trilogy in preparation for this)


(iii) INRA recce team: INRA were the anti-Thargoid XCOM type group in the lore, its possible they are back and now keeping an eye on the situation. They could have been responsible for the attempted theft of professor Palins research a few months back.


(iv) The Dark Wheel: As above, however as the lore dictates they do make it their business to seek the truth behind the plethora of myths and romantic stories that filtered back from all corners of the Universe.

Depressing thought. S6: 7 could refer to

Elite Dangerous: Season 6, 7th month.

 

[_Dastardly_]

If our first encounter with aliens is going to be them in modified versions of our ships, all I can say is I will be disappointed and so will a lot of others.

Unless they'll have alien ships right around the corner then there's going to be some burning.

No one wants to be interacting with aliens who are in copied/modified human ships for the rest of this year and beyond.

I'm really hoping these suspicious ships belong to a secret human organisation not aliens, INRA comes to mind. Personally, I think this seems more of a plausible explanation.

This!

I was coming on here to post this exact thing. If aliens have been 'copying our technology to use against us' that would be the biggest cop-out since meatloaf sang 'Sex and Dums and Rock and Roll'. Alien ships have to be alien, completely different to what we have (and not just bright green or something either.)

I wouldnt mind if they were perfect reflective spheres or the original barnacles from 1984 elite. But copies of our ships that 'cheat' so they are better than us? No thanks.

 

[crushdepth]

Probably testing of the new military drive systems.

I'm not sure military would want to show their hand, if they had things like this. The behaviour is like something unfamiliar with us.

The ship names though..."that sounds like the thinking of a machine to me".

Can't help but think something outside has grabbed our ship designs or at least descriptions, thanks to the UA transmissions. Maybe using them as a disguise.

 

[Frank]

I reckon it's "Swamp Gas". But of course it could be "Mississippi Mud" or "Sex on the Beach" or "Tequila Sunrise" or any other number of cocktails.

 

[Jyve]

Don't mind if the first ships are clones of ours if it means there's a mission to get an Alien Tech Cobra Mk III that I can use my existing skins on.
"sure, paint it up, attach the new burst laser, just whatever you do, don't go inside the ship, you'd not be safe. It's ok, just plug in the laser outside, I'll figure out the wiring inside, really, don't go inside".

 

[DaveHSchiff]

My thoughts:

1. Scanning our ships - so they'll know our weak points
2. Problems with Space Stations - and how to solve the problems? With "Meta Alloys" ( which nobody actually knows the side effects ) - oh! how convenient...
3. Appearing in ships that looks like ours - maybe to not attract attention

That's a lot to happen... and for those ppl that did shot on the barnacles... just watch your backs...

 

[mossfoot]

Someone needs to do a cargo scan one one of these ships if they return

 

[jpaulwilson1982]

I'm betting either a new faction with pimped out ships, or AI imitating human tech (only better). For it to be Thargoids would just be silly. Why would they want to use ships that are by their own technological standards weaker, or obsolete? Its like trading an assault rifle for a musket. Personally I'm hoping for and betting on AI. The UAs and Barnacles look like a combination of technology and biology.

 

[Cynaqq]

This!

I was coming on here to post this exact thing. If aliens have been 'copying our technology to use against us' that would be the biggest cop-out since meatloaf sang 'Sex and Dums and Rock and Roll'. Alien ships have to be alien, completely different to what we have (and not just bright green or something either.)

I wouldnt mind if they were perfect reflective spheres or the original barnacles from 1984 elite. But copies of our ships that 'cheat' so they are better than us? No thanks.

I love how little credit some people give FD in their effort for the game. The details which go to every single thing in this game is pretty high in game making standards so 'if' they use copied human ship models for the introduction of alien content until the real things are up to par is just a preliminary test not to delay content for much longer. Also, they said the first encounter would determine the rest of our interactions with the aliens so if they had just popped up in their original ships, most people would empty clips first and ask questions later. This way, it's a richer way to introduce content, which honestly is a little bit cliche as far as space SciFi tropes go. It's not hard to model strange but cool looking non human space ships. Every designer has been there done that.

The hard part is to create an alien plot familiar enough to attract people, unique enough to keep their attention. In other words, you have to make something human enough not to alienate but alien enough not to humanize.

Human ship replicas, probably AI controlled are cliche but creepy and different enough to build suspense. It also has strong basis in the game lore due to the problems humans had with AI previously. This has, no matter what anyone says, has so much more going on than open laziness to model alien ships. It has incredible potential for dynamic story lines, open ended paths, which is a must have for this game since the developers want player inclinations to shape up the story as much as possible.

 

[_Dastardly_]

I love how little credit some people give FD in their effort for the game. The details which go to every single thing in this game is pretty high in game making standards so 'if' they use copied human ship models for the introduction of alien content until the real things are up to par is just a preliminary test not to delay content for much longer. Also, they said the first encounter would determine the rest of our interactions with the aliens so if they had just popped up in their original ships, most people would empty clips first and ask questions later. This way, it's a richer way to introduce content, which honestly is a little bit cliche as far as space SciFi tropes go. It's not hard to model strange but cool looking non human space ships. Every designer has been there done that.

The hard part is to create an alien plot familiar enough to attract people, unique enough to keep their attention. In other words, you have to make something human enough not to alienate but alien enough not to humanize.

Human ship replicas, probably AI controlled are cliche but creepy and different enough to build suspense. It also has strong basis in the game lore due to the problems humans had with AI previously. This has, no matter what anyone says, has so much more going on than open laziness to model alien ships. It has incredible potential for dynamic story lines, open ended paths, which is a must have for this game since the developers want player inclinations to shape up the story as much as possible.

The thing is we already have AI ships that 'cheat' that we have no emotional relationship with, we know they are just things that are there for us to shoot at, anything that does not have CMDR as a name might as well be a cardboard target. If they are more of the same then they are just going to be more things to shoot at. If they are radically different from what we have then they will seem more alien.

 

[Zenturi]

I was flying out of Obsidian orbital a few days ago, and court a glimpse of a black object!! I thought at first I had pilots fatigue and that i was seeing thing, so I spun the ship around and started to record some footage. The Black object reappeared for a second time and disappeared into the shadow of the planet. I could not target this object at all and after it disappearing i could not relocate the object. I have to say, at the time i thought this was very strange, but it all seemed inconclusive, was this object a ship or a sensor glitch, I don't know......

https://youtu.be/--mLpP4RII8

 

[Cynaqq]

The thing is we already have AI ships that 'cheat' that we have no emotional relationship with, we know they are just things that are there for us to shoot at, anything that does not have CMDR as a name might as well be a cardboard target. If they are more of the same then they are just going to be more things to shoot at. If they are radically different from what we have then they will seem more alien.

I'm saying AI controlled in the sense of in game lore. Of course you are right in the case taht they just copy and paste existing ships completely, with their backend and ask us to pretend these are alien replicas.

It changes things completely though, if an Asp explorer you encounter in a signal source calmly scans you and suddenly goes 'poof' and jumps out without prior acceleration upon you deploying hard points. It's possible to use the same 3d objects but code very different behavior in their backend to make things interesting, which is really much harder to get right compared to using different models and sounds but the same backend for controlling AI with different, if any text messages for communication.

 

[Blaze Wolfbane]

Hi Guys,

First time posting here, and I may not be 100% up to speed on all the goings on with regards to Galnet or Elite lore, however, I would like to give some input.

S6: 7, the ship was referred to as unidentified as a result of this 'unknown configuration'. The ship is faster than what we are familiar with, and why has no one else mentioned the obvious here, scanning a station from 10km..now, I'm not running a high tear ship as of yet, but im willing to bet even an A Rating scanner does not have a 10km range??

Based on what Frontier are already promising are in the works at the moment, I doubt these ships are alien, entirely. The meta-alloy storyline is the perfect opportunity to introduce new technology, Frontier have already talked about the crafting and loot system, meta-alloy is an alien material that we as humans will use to build new technologies, longer range scanners, more powerful engines etc.

To me, the scenario reads thus;

An organisation or government has used meta-alloys to enhance (or craft) systems on board DBX ships, and have been testing them in open space resulting in sightings (think F117 Nighthawk stealth fighter sightings), they will eventually come forward and state that meta-alloys can be used to craft enhanced systems on player ships, therefore introducing the looting and crafting system to players.

We know that the meta-alloy is alien in origin, we also know that it can be used to protect complex systems from the damaging effect of the UA's (see article referring to station using the material to solve system outages recently), which means that crafting will be necessary to protect our systems when we ultimately encounter this alien in ernest, im thinking things like enhanced armour or perhaps FSD shielding to prevent mid warp interdiction (if we are indeed talking Thargoids).

Those are my thoughts, and as such i am pumped for what these guys have in store for us.

CMDR Wolfbane out.

 

[Sergio Smegolia]

It is most likely Quagaars!

It's a garbage pod. It's a smegging GARBAGE POD!"

OT, new form of inter-planetary drive thanks to the wreck of the Antares gets my vote.

 

[Deleted member 38366]

I was flying out of Obsidian orbital a few days ago, and court a glimpse of a black object!! I thought at first I had pilots fatigue and that i was seeing thing, so I spun the ship around and started to record some footage. The Black object reappeared for a second time and disappeared into the shadow of the planet. I could not target this object at all and after it disappearing i could not relocate the object. I have to say, at the time i thought this was very strange, but it all seemed inconclusive, was this object a ship or a sensor glitch, I don't know......

https://youtu.be/--mLpP4RII8

That seems to be the glitched specular highlight (or something related).
Seen it often in many places, including Ring Belts during Mining.

Typically, it's quite persistent at certain angles, however. A small'ish black square that changes shape a little depending on the angle it appears.
Numerous Bug Reports went out over it.

 

[Draco25240]

Thargoids? In souped-up human ships? Oh god, I'm suddenly started to get very frightened here in my little unshielded, weaponless iEagle, 45k ly from civilization...

 

[Blaze Wolfbane]

https://community.elitedangerous.com/galnet/uid/56a62e029657bae044730a8a

I have only just read this, but I would wager that "A cascade failure in the hyperdrives internal CONTAINMENT system" could quite possibly be the result of damage sustained by alien technology.

 

[Starwolfe]

If our first encounter with aliens is going to be them in modified versions of our ships, all I can say is I will be disappointed and so will a lot of others.

Unless they'll have alien ships right around the corner then there's going to be some burning.

No one wants to be interacting with aliens who are in copied/modified human ships for the rest of this year and beyond.

I'm really hoping these suspicious ships belong to a secret human organisation not aliens, INRA comes to mind. Personally, I think this seems more of a plausible explanation.

I agree wholeheartedly.

If I want to see aliens - its gotta be something alien.

It would be so much better if it was something like the INRA instead.

 

[Henri]

Ha, if FD went through all this work with the UA mystery just to avoid the work of creating custom alien ships, I think they would deserve some kind of award for the greatest troll of all time.

rofl rofl rofl! please stop! you are killing me!

 

[Xijadeku]

If that ship belong to Human organization maybe was modified be Engines to be to fast. Remember the will change ships in some way, and getting DBX whit hi-speed be sacrificing some other think is possible.