Which might bring us back to the idea that they are looking at it because it is about to go pop.
UAs, Barnacles & More Thread 6 - The Canonn
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Which might bring us back to the idea that they are looking at it because it is about to go pop.
Sorry if this theory has been brought up, or even debunked already, but...
What if the UA shell was originally designed to contain the Barnacles within the Merope system? Maybe the Barnacles are some sort of biotech or nanotech infection, which was detected by aliens (or someone else), some time in the past, who then acted to halt its spread by constructing the UA shell.
If that's correct then it makes sense that the efficacy of the "containment field" has now been degraded by human Commanders suddenly removing large numbers of UAs from the Shell.
Now that the Shell has been degraded so much, the Barnacles are spreading rapidly out from Merope, first to other systems in the Pleiades, and now spreading to other nebulae...
In this theory the reason the UAs don't re-align to point at other infection zones, is that their designers never expected UAs to ever be interfered with out in deep space, and so never accounted for unintended sabotage of the containment mechanism.
Hopefully "They" will notice and return to fix / make more containment shells, before the Galaxy is overrun with Barnacles!
That's a reasonable theory but I think the numbers count against it. There are something like 40,000 systems in the shell (3.8 million cubic Ly with 1 system per 100 cubic Ly). There seem to be unlimited numbers of UAs available per system, but for the sake of argument let's say there are only 10. That makes 400,000 UAs in the shell. I doubt we've removed more than a few percent of them.
full of shame I have to say during the last two weeks I've seen around 150 of them dying or vanishing
I havent killed them!!! either the police or drunk pirates incapable of scoop them, both at the same time.
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That could be but we were told that the puzzle is solvable. Does that mean that we simply have to sit and wait for input from the devs to trigger a nova? I am swaying more to no on this one. But it could be I guess.
I have also had a thought that maybe what we are looking for cannot be found by our scanners and instead by eye. The system is interesting because Merope and Maia have both been known to give AI Relics in the USSs. Could AI have something to do with this? And is there an celestial object floating around that cannot be seen by our scanners? I know there are some commanders out there who are experienced in finding objects without an Advanced Scanner. We should probably test this theory out.
Another side note:
I have found USSs twice now that have a crashed ship with a fleet of rescuers in the area picking up the pods. One of the items floating there is an illegal salvage, Encrypted Data. Is this something useful and is anyone asking for this stuff in missions or engineers? If you listen to the chatter of the rescuers they say the ship blew up from inside and what a disaster it was. Sounds like a UA busting the ship apart.
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Thanks again Michael. The capital ship drive rumor has been circulating the forum for more that a year.
Are you planning to announce a guide for what is now considered canon and what is not?
Drew has been so kind to let us know that the primary ending of FFE has been recently been deemed 'non-canon'. This was not unexpected, but it would be nice to know more details.
Particularly on the following sources:
- FE2 Gazetteer.
- Stories Of Life On The Frontier
- Further Stories Of Life On The Frontier
- FFE Journal articles, predating the Thargoid missions
I assume all the official ED books are safe.
I don't like the idea of a definitive set of immutable canon facts. History in real life is uncertain. I can't point to any book on WW2 and say "that's canon; everything in that book is guaranteed factually correct". The same should apply in ED. We know the stories of Elite, FE2/FFE, and various other published works, but we shouldn't be able to assume they are 100% correct. People actually living in the ED universe wouldn't know for certain if those stories are true or not. I know it's frustrating but it's the way the world works.
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I found two of these. one with an anaconda and another one with a diamondback. In both cases I drop the UA and the police scooped it. I followed both through High Wakes to see what happen or where they go:
- Diamondback: modules degrading, did one high wake and some SC travelling. Stopped at a station where I low waked and lost it, it did not appear.
- Anaconda (in this case I dropped 2 UAs): followed for 7 high wake jumps, modules degrading slowly, at some point in SC after the last jump drives got nuked, the conda stopped moving. Waited there for 20 minutes I finally interdicted it trying to get the UAs back. The cargo hatch was broken before the Anaconda released them. I didnt want to kill it so I just flew away from there.
In both cases the AI had a relic recovered from the wreckage.
If a ship is carrying a UA it is most likely that the cargo hatch will break and cargo will be dropped than exploding. In order to explode the hatch must be fully damaged (so no more cargo is dropped) OR: something else must make the UAs explode (if this is the case).
I don't think it is because of the UAs, but.. who knows.
2 cents
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Is it possible that you hit 'silent running' without noticing? Any 'under attack' warning from your AI?
I've seen something similar in Imperial space as well. I've been in the Brestla system and found this static Convoy signal source. There were at least a dozen ships in this instance, all in a hurry to get out.
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Calm down. Plenty of people accepted that UAs and UPs were different. Personally I thought it was obvious: as soon as a UA was not marked as illegal in a system where UPs were forbidden it was clear that they were different.
I don't like the idea of a definitive set of immutable canon facts. History in real life is uncertain. I can't point to any book on WW2 and say "that's canon; everything in that book is guaranteed factually correct". The same should apply in E
I agree with this 100%. My question is more directed to the general existence of these stories. More like: Would people living in the ED universe have access to these stories? Do the stories exist?
The level of truth in those articles would be open for interpretation, like your book from WW2. The question is: Are there any books and which are they?
Of course it hasn't been taken "everywhere", but it REALLY HAS been taken everywhere that had even the slightest hint that it might be related, and many totally dumb-donkey/tin-foil places too.
Polaris, Regor, All the Old World Systems, All the Available Permit Locked systems, All Nebular within about 5 Kylie, and many many other places, even Sag A*
Sorry, but I must have missed the actual experiment you wanted to try, I might be able to confirm or deny that it has been done.
To give you some reason for no list of experiments:
CMDR Tom writes "UA taken to California Nebula. Nothing interesting Observed"
Perfectly reasonable you might think until 2 days later when something else becomes relevant and CMDR Harry then does not know:
What system in Cal ?
Was it dropped from cargo ?
Where was it dropped ?
Did it point to Merope ?
What was the Morse ?
What ship was used ?
Was it armed ?
Did it still decay ?
What other cargo was in the hold ?
Did you try overheating ?
Did you try crashing into a planet ?
Did you check to see if any Dark Systems appeared on the Nav Panel ?
All these questions and many more have been asked about even the most simple experiment
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I flew around Witch head nebula searching for Barnacles for a couple of days, but found none. I could have searched in the wrong place or something, but now I'm moving on, going to Barnard's loop and the nebulae nearby. I personally believe that if the barnacles are coming from there we should be able to find larger ones, more mature perhaps in that area.
well, a couple of days means pretty much nothing when searching for barnacles, but the effort is appreciated
Ok so MB has said that there is no way to access the permit locked areas.
We also know that the ua's don't appear to interact with barnacles.
One theory I am working on is the Greek mythology story of Merope
All around merope are the stars of the seven sisters
Also pleione is Meropes mother Atlas her father.
Pleione is another interesting place as some UAs have been found here.
I am currently mapping the Taurus constellation to find the brightest stars in this area.
I know else are missing something that is going to blow this wide open.
I don't think they will ope. Permit areas until we have uncovered the mystery.
Has anyone else been checking this theory.
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Well... only a hundred times during the past 6 threads
Anyway your effort is very much appreciated, as nothing can be ruled out, seen how much space there is to check.
BTW, the mythology side of the Seven Sisters has been widely discussed in the past.
I still remember, one year ago, being myself one of the strongest supporters of the seven markings on the UA's head possible correlation with the Seven Sisters. I even tried to associate each marking to each star, according to mass or size.
But that was soooo long ago.
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Well... only a hundred times during the past 6 threads
Anyway your effort is very much appreciated, as nothing can be ruled out, seen how much space there is to check.
BTW, the mythology side of the Seven Sisters has been widely discussed in the past.
Another thing that is odd,
When I have found a convoy carrying a UA.
When they high wake they 9/10 high wake to one of the 7 sisters.
They never seem to actually go anywhere with it though.
Maybe this is a clue that we are looking for something else here.
My head hurts....
The trouble is, that no matter how scientific the approach is - the gods of ED change the rules between patches.
UA behaviour has changed a number of times.
What tested negative before, might test positive after a patch and vice versa.
That's why there's always a significant Canonn effort to retest at least the positives after each patch.
Unfortunately, the list of negatives is extremely long and would be difficult to track.
When did you find a Convoy carrying an UA? It even seems you found more than one:
can you be more precise on location and some details?
If I remember well, from the Timocani times, when UA could only be found in convoys, they are very rare even now.
Someone spotted them a couple times recently (System HIP 15609, perhaps that "someone" is you, then sorry), but not that many.
Thanks.
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somewhere in alien space some sentients are discussing now if our Greek mythology is still canon for their lore. how in hell do they got the knowledge of our ancient cultures to actually plot a drama on top of a family of gods? think that names of stars are because they were visible or not from earth thousands of years ago. Any resemblance with the stars that aliens might had is pure coincidence. one point less for the alien theory :?
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As I've already said, the matter was already WIDELY discussed in the past, and when I say WIDELY, I mean it, included what you are pointing now, with dozens of pros and cons. No need to call our mythology, the hot blue stars in the Pleiades, are close and related to each other, no matter from where you are looking at them. No matter the stories you build on them. And no matter the race of who is watching them, alien or human. Seen that we do not know nothing about who made the UAs, and why... that said, it's like any other theory on the table to discuss and have fun with.
Cheers.
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Exactly like the marking on the Barnacles, could depict some celestial body (Nebulas, galaxies...) that could be meaningful for whoever built them, it could be the same for any marking on the UA, included the seven markings on its head.
They could be seven "things" that are very meaningful for whoever built them: 7 Planets, 7 Systems, 7 Stars, 7 of their Gods/Entities, 7 kinds of Biscuits...
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