UAs, Barnacles & other mysteries Thread 7 - The Canonn

[CmdrZaratan]

So is it correct that the UP points to the nearest barnacle? So Merope 5C isn't really special? I'm at work right now and I'm not really able to check.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-5C-INVESTIGATION-(put-your-names-here)/page3

Unless I've missed something, that's only a theory. The UP points to Merope from systems with no barnacle, and in the Merope system it points to 5C regardless of where it's dropped (there's also at least one barnacle on 2A). I don't believe anyone has tried dropping one in another barnacle system yet to see what happens.

Misinformation is half way across the galaxy before the truth has made it out of bed.

 

[RedWizzard]

How about 36 cmdrs all meet at one of the poles and each take a 10 degree bearing from one another and drive to the other pole! Now that would be a search party.

I am joking slightly, but still that is the level of dedication and single-minded purposeness I've come to expect from Canonneers

I know you were only half serious, but I feel I need to point out (once again) that you guys are still underestimating the scale of planets. Merope 5c has a radius of about 1478 km and a circumference of 9286 km. That means that at maximum speed (120 kmh^-1) it'll take about 39 hours to travel from one pole to the other and at the equator the cmdrs would be over 250 km apart. So neither a thorough nor practical search plan. It's only going to be possible to thoroughly search by air.

 

[Bungalo]

So is it correct that the UP points to the nearest barnacle? So Merope 5C isn't really special? I'm at work right now and I'm not really able to check.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-5C-INVESTIGATION-(put-your-names-here)/page3

There is no confirmation that it points to the nearest barnacle. In fact quite the opposite (at least while in space) as it didn't point to 2a when closer to it then 5c but instead pointed the direction of 5c. Planet side tests were cut short so there is NOTHING definitive as far as it pointing anywhere in particular. We did not test it pointing directions, after the fact I attempted to tell (off memory) if it pointed toward a barnacle site. I did this by having a wingmate sit next to the barnacle and I attempted to point the direction the UP did. It seemed to point in the general direction of the barnacle. Let me stress, this is in NO WAY proof of it pointing toward the barnacle. It may have been pointing elsewhere as we were a fair distance away.

Keep in mind I had moved away and come back to the site after the fact. It is a VERY rough estimate that it pointed in that direction. It has not been confirmed nor do I, as the person who attempted to ascertain that, feel comfortable in saying it did point toward the nearest barnacle on the surface. Also, new barnacles have been found since then which may or may not have been closer to where I was. For reference my wingmate was at the first discovered barnacle on merope 5c.

 

[Wobblin-Gobblin]

Ok, thank you Cmdrs for your quick replies o7.

So I'll join the search on M5C this evening.

 

[Iridium Nova]

I'm going to retire my mapping project since we now have an automated one here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1I6sezk6EEBv76P1oFLJQnCk9r4TQwzwBIrIoYjM3kCY/edit?usp=sharing

Big thanks to Cmdr Volgrand for streamlining this system! We might actually make some real progress now.

 

[RedWizzard]

I distinctly remember reports of the capitol ship firing first.

While i havnt checked out the videos...i have read there is video evidence of this.

Mr Nicholas Powell seems to have rolled over for the federal regime. Has dr arc been compromised?

It fired at me first. But I was hanging around too close. Then again, I don't remember being warned about hanging around too close.

 

[Ecthelion]

Btw. when we found the UP we found it close to the gas giant in Ross 47 - the one with the outpost/little station at the A star - Volynov Hub or something, I think. And we actually found the right USS within 10 minutes of arriving there. Lucky I guess.

 

[RedWizzard]

I think the current theory is that FD created the Unknown Probes as a kind of hint that we should actually still be looking at Merope 5c and we kinda stopped after the first barnacles were found. So there's something new to find there - but what exactly we don't know.

As I understood it, the idea is that the UA's were not actually pointing at Merope, even though they seemed to be. This is because they are actually pointing away from it, we just think their front is their back. One theory has suggested that the UA's were produced by the Barnacles in Merope during a seeding event which occured possibly thousands of years ago. If this is true, the UA's could be traveling at sublight speed in all directions away from Merope, possibly to seed other planets with Barnacles. If you find a UA in space, it doesn't seem to be moving but you could argue that, since in space everything is always moving relative to something, when we drop out of frameshift near one we're moving along with it at sublight speed through the system (ie: the UA is our relative body), it's just that our speed relative to the UA isn't changing so it appears to be stationary.

UAs were initially found in systems close to Merope. A few months later they were no longer found there, but instead were found in the current shell. That suggests faster than light travel.

There's no way to tell if a UA is pointing at Merope or away from Merope. If you want to be pedantic about it you should say that the UA aligns itself along an axis that passes through Merope. The distinction is irrelevant anyway; either way it's Merope that is significant.

 

[RedWizzard]

Before we throw a massive effort at the whole planet - has the triangle delimited by the 3 discovered barnacles been explored? (Apologies if this was discussed before, the threads are intimidatingly huge )

Which triangle? If you put 3 points on a sphere they define 4 triangles.

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So is it correct that the UP points to the nearest barnacle? So Merope 5C isn't really special? I'm at work right now and I'm not really able to check.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...-5C-INVESTIGATION-(put-your-names-here)/page3

The UP was pointing at Merope as soon as it was found. I'd be surprised if Merope 5c was the closest barnacle planet to Ross 47.

 

[dynamicbob]

the shell / bubble around merope still hasnt changed with 2.1.... so will it change with 2.2 we may ask

 

[CmdrZaratan]

The UP was pointing at Merope as soon as it was found. I'd be surprised if Merope 5c was the closest barnacle planet to Ross 47.

We can eliminate the barnacle finder theory by dropping a UP in Pleione. If it points to Merope, then it's not a barnacle finder. If it points to Pleione 11A then it's a barnacle finder.

It's possible that it would point to Merope by default in a system with no barnacles as that's what UA's do, and it's clearly related to a UA. No reason to believe that it could detect barnacles at interstellar range.

 

[Popov Le Magnifique]

I don't know, but I can't help thinking back to The Silent Song Of The Spheres

Edit:

This could be relevant. The 'Harmony of the Spheres' has a connection to the Pleiades, where each of the seven sisters relates to a string of Herme's lyre. The Harmony of the Spheres is said to be source of all creation - the foundation of cosmic order and time.

I'm wary of this line of thinking, but it seems to fit the Comms chatter:

• "Come with me, brothers and sisters. The artefacts are the key to salvation."
• "Listen to their song. Feel it. Absorb it. We will transcend this crude flesh and become one with the universe."
• "There are no aliens! The artefacts were bequeathed to us by a higher power so we could transcend this mundane existence."

I am beginning to wonder if the UA mystery has stronger links to Halsey and her Architects of Creation...?

This is REALLY interesting. Unfortunately, I've just come back from work and I'm exhausted, but I will definitely check your theory out when I emerge. Oh and Halsey's Architects of Creation could be Nebulae, where stars are born and die, hence why Barnacles can be found there. What are the general types of stars that are found in a nebula? Really hot stars or relatively cold? I don't know, I'm probably talking nonsense here.

 

[Iridium Nova]

UAs were initially found in systems close to Merope. A few months later they were no longer found there, but instead were found in the current shell. That suggests faster than light travel.

There's no way to tell if a UA is pointing at Merope or away from Merope. If you want to be pedantic about it you should say that the UA aligns itself along an axis that passes through Merope. The distinction is irrelevant anyway; either way it's Merope that is significant.

Hmm. I wonder why they would make a big jump like that and then just stop? Maybe they only have one ftl jump in them to get started and then have to travel the rest of the way in sublight? It may not be relevant but I tend to question everything - you never know when it'll lead to a breakthrough.

 

[ilo]

the shell / bubble around merope still hasnt changed with 2.1.... so will it change with 2.2 we may ask

Is it true? has anyone actively looked for UAs outside of the shell? just because they still spawn in the shell doesn't mean it has not changed. It could have been expanded

 

[dynamicbob]

also time for the federation to builda small science or military or combination science/military outpost in merope now that their capital ship is there

 

[RedWizzard]

We can eliminate the barnacle finder theory by dropping a UP in Pleione. If it points to Merope, then it's not a barnacle finder. If it points to Pleione 11A then it's a barnacle finder.

It's possible that it would point to Merope by default in a system with no barnacles as that's what UA's do, and it's clearly related to a UA. No reason to believe that it could detect barnacles at interstellar range.

That's a good test to do when we have another UP.

If the UP is pointing to the nearest barnacle then why did it point to Merope 5c and not Merope 2a?

Defaulting to Merope is plausible but would be hard to justify. I'll be pretty dissatisfied if that turns out to be the behaviour. Personally I think it's pointing at 5c specifically; whether that's related to the barnacles there or not, I'm undecided.

 

[damajoo]

Merope 5c has a radius of 1478km. If my math skills have not deserted me, this means a diameter of 2956 km, so a pole-to-pole route would be 2956 * Pi/2 km or about 4643 km long. The top speed of an SRV is about 35 m/s, so this would take about 1.5 days of round-the-clock driving time if we can keep top speed all the time. If we hit rough terrain (and Merope 5C has a lot of that), the speed will be lower. My gut guess is that the average speed is maybe a third of the top speed, so we are talking about 4.5 days. However, there is one show-stopper: At the equator, you would have a distance of 2956 km * PI / 36 = 258 km between SRVs, so we would miss stuff.

My estimate is that the scanner has a range of maybe 1 km. To ensure that we really cover everything, we need to place the SRVs 1 km apart at the equator, and then all drive to the pole, return to the equator, and repeat the procedure for the second half. We only need about 9300 commanders for this.

Piece of cake.

Thank you for the math and showing up the real dimensions of what a search would be like

So essentialy, for the moment, finding "something" would be just a coincidence.

What i think:

We do not have the "tools" yet to discover, what makes UA's point at Merope and UP's point at Merope 5C. The directions we got, got more precise with the UP's, but look at the scale. From a game designer perspective, it is hard to believe, that developers really expect a community to accomplish a task like that. Not only because of dimension, but also in terms of organisation. Just think again about the dimensions of Udo's math on the scale.

Which brings me to the following :

The whole "UA/UP Thing" evolved.

"Directional/Positional" Informations got more detailed by time. We are lacking the next step of detailing the information aka a narrowed down search area on the surface.
(What if, whatever we are supposed to find, is not even there, yet ? Just think about searching for something, that is not there, just because we did not advance in the "UA/UP-Storyline", yet )

However, i will continue to search the surface. You never know ... and i'm maybe completely wrong with my thinking .

o7

 

[Han_Zen]

I've made a few observations of the UP. Mainly from the surface video:
https://youtu.be/D2uiUuVWLZU

Important to notice, is that the UP has variation in the time between Honks.
In the video above, Honks come at 2:34, 5:03, 8:08 and 9:42.
Time between Honks are: 2m29s, 3m5s and 1m34s.

The UA does also have variable time between Honks, when it does the ship plot (way less variation). This is because the message has multiple 'lines'.
When Morseing body names, the interval is constant. Message has a single line.

This means that UP honk intervals are either completely random or that there is a repeating set of intervals, like the ship plot message.

If the sequence repeats, it may point to a long message. If it's random, it may suggest a less mechanized than the UA.


The Honk it self, is more complex than the UA Honk. If someone with musical knowledge took a look at the notes, it would be nice.


Colours.

Our colours?

Spoiler

Their colours?

Spoiler

 

[Han_Zen]

That's a good test to do when we have another UP.

If the UP is pointing to the nearest barnacle then why did it point to Merope 5c and not Merope 2a?

Defaulting to Merope is plausible but would be hard to justify. I'll be pretty dissatisfied if that turns out to be the behaviour. Personally I think it's pointing at 5c specifically; whether that's related to the barnacles there or not, I'm undecided.

It's pointing at the center of 5c. No doubt about that. If yo want it to point to a barnacle, you better drop the UP directly above it.

 

[RedWizzard]

Hmm. I wonder why they would make a big jump like that and then just stop? Maybe they only have one ftl jump in them to get started and then have to travel the rest of the way in sublight? It may not be relevant but I tend to question everything - you never know when it'll lead to a breakthrough.

I think a lot of us were expecting the shell to expand with 2.1. That it didn't fits the theory that perhaps they are intended to mark a perimeter around Merope (i.e. they're a warning or signpost mechanism). It's plausible that they were looking for something around the Pleiades (explains scanning and floaters in nearby systems), found it, and then established the current shell as a border.