So I've read a little bit of this and I wanted to give my thoughts, and it could possibly offer a little help to anyone who's wanting to go searching. If I'm saying something that's already been discussed or disproven then feel free to let me know, I don't have the hours it would take to read every post in the 6 incredibly long threads. It seems like the barnacles are likely to be in or around the california nebula and the orion nebula, or barnard's loop, or any of the nebulae in that area. If you look at the symbol on the barnacle it seems to be the pleiades viewed from an area roughly between the orion and california nebulas. If you look at them they're arranged in a triangular pattern with a large area of stars in the center of the triangle. The reason why I think it could be barnard's loop or any of the nebulae in that area instead of the witch head nebula is how distinct the whole barnard's loop nebula cluster looks, and how it can look very different from different angles. I think the first place that should be searched is the california nebula, it's much smaller and has less stars, and it's only a single nebula. Also I have read about someone already investigating and not finding anything, however given the size of planets, unless there's a giant sweep of the entire planet the odds that something could be missed is pretty high. The fact that the first barnacle was found on merope 5c was down to pure chance in my opinion, and someone stumbling across another one in a completely different nebula isn't likely to happen again, at least not within a short amount of time. I know barnacles only spawn on certain planets in certain places on those planets but that's still a ridiculously large area for any one person or group of two or three to find anything as small as a barnacle in. I have done some exploring in the orion nebula and the surrounding areas and that would pose the biggest challenge to any search. I think to find anything in a short amount of time, there needs to be a large group sweeping planets where barnacles are likely to be. It would also have to be done with somewhere between 20-40 commanders to have a decent chance of finding anything. Now convincing that many players to do that is hard, but not impossible. Look at the distant worlds expedition, that was an even more time consuming and even more impossible task that was done. If we want to find anything, we'll need a fleet of good ships, a list of potential planets to search, where to search on them, and most of all a time when everyone can gather and do such a large search. From what I've seen the majority of the playerbase is in the uk so it would probably have to be based around uk time. If anyone organizes a search party like that I'll gladly come along. Also if anything like that has been organized or is currently being organized, I haven't seen anything on it. So to summarize all that, the california and orion nebulae are the most likely candidates for barnacles, the california nebula would be easier to search although would still be difficult, and it would take a large search party and a pretty good chunk of time to find anything. So I leave it to you guys to figure it out, although I'm also trying to investigate when I can. If I find anything worth noting I will post it here. I hope that helps shed some light on this issue.
