UAs, Barnacles and other mysteries Thread 8 - The Canonn

[Kerrec Snowmane]

We used the UP's to triangulate in space, giving us the Merope system.

We used the UP's to triangulate in Merope, giving us Merope 5c.

When we drop the probe on the surface of 5c, does it point in any particular direction? When you bump it, does it realign at all?

 

[SpocksOddSocks]

I'm searching for free floaters in the shell. Only near planets. I will focus mostly on moons similar to M5C, from now on (it's so hard to scoop in orbit around big planets).

I guess that means I agree with you.

Good luck with this. I mentioned a couple of days ago I'd been trying this, but since 2.1 I haven't been able to find a signal source in orbital cruise within the shell, despite finding numerous UAs there prior to 2.1. Though arguably, that might have been due to the reduced spawn rate.

 

[Ironhide Wrex]

While scanning the Pleiades and looking for UPs I've been proceeding similarly to how we looked for them in Ross 47, except dropping into every signal source just in case. So far I've had no luck. I could start searching planets more thoroughly, but that would make the process much slower.

Do you think the extra effort worth it? I realize no one will really know, but I'm looking for other's feelings on the subject.

 

[Dommarraa]

I think we need to take a step back. Here's what I think :

1. More information in sounds.
I don't believe there is more information in music/sounds that are relevant to the alien mystery. Let's assume we got all there is and work with it - since no one has interpreted the existing data properly.
2. UP image points to another star system.
The lines on the image clearly indicate that we are dealing with a sphere, or spheroid. Ergo we need to be searching for the answer near a celestial body, not overlaying the image on galactic map.
3. We have searched Merope 5C thoroughly.
No we didn't. There is an overwhelming amount of surface area and without a system to catalog the features and divide the planet into smaller regions it is impossible to say we've checked it all. I strongly believe that even with the effort of hundreds of well organized CMDRs we won't find nothing. We need the coordinates.

Thus my conclusion :

We need to produce sets of planetary coordinates from the data we have and check all the permutations.

What do you think?

P.S I think barnacles are Thargoid mining sites.

Sorry, I disagree with that entirely:
There is no data in the main image. It is either a) in a deactivated state, and will have different results when used correctly, or b) is a key as to how to interpret other data that may be in the recordings already, or may be elsewhere as yet undiscovered. We may not yet have clear enough recordings to see the other data, thats why I am looking for Wild UP.

I refute (and I use the word refute in full knowledge of its meaning) the claim that the image is somehow pointing somewhere, because those lines are just too damned close to being evenly distributed. I am sure you can measure a slight difference from the obvious 45 and 30 degree segments, but come on people, its been translated from its original design at least twice. I also believe that if it WAS supposed to point at something using angles, then would have configured the locations to be more obviously NOT on evenly distributed angles. e.g If you are coming up with a puzzle, and your mystic A-B compass ends up pointing straight up, you move A or B so that it doesn't point straight up making people ignore it. So when they are so close to simple angles as they are here, DO ignore it, it ISNT DATA.

You are not going to get anything from what we already have on its own, no matter how much tin foil is fittered away or how many versions of the thread you go through reciting more and more ridiculous unsubstantiaded theorems. We need better recordings (I dont know how), different recordings (the possibilites are endless, I leave that to the UP Carriers) and maybe different software

[/RANTOFF] oh, didn't realize I had started ranting

 

[Colonel Kenney]

i have mentioned this before but for consideration;

If the barnacles are engineered from real earth barnacles then they have 3 stages;

Barnacles have two distinct larval stages, the nauplius and the cyprid, before developing into a mature adult.

Nauplius larva of a barnacle with fronto-lateral horns
A fertilised egg hatches into a nauplius: a one-eyed larva comprising a head and a telson, without a thorax or abdomen. This undergoes six months of growth, passing through five instars, before transforming into the cyprid stage. Nauplii are typically initially brooded by the parent, and released after the first moult as larvae that swim freely using setae.

Cyprid
The cyprid larva is the last larval stage before adulthood. It is not a feeding stage; its role is to find a suitable place to settle, since the adults are sessile. The cyprid stage lasts from days to weeks. It explores potential surfaces with modified antennules; once it has found a potentially suitable spot, it attaches head-first using its antennules, and a secreted glycoproteinous substance. Larvae assess surfaces based upon their surface texture, chemistry, relative wettability, colour, and the presence/absence and composition of a surface biofilm; swarming species are also more likely to attach near other barnacles. As the larva exhausts its finite energy reserves, it becomes less selective in the sites it selects. It cements itself permanently to the substrate with another proteinacous compound, and then undergoes metamorphosis into a juvenile barnacle.

So we have seen these guy appear out of order; The Barnacle the last stage, feeding and excreting meta alloys and other mined materials, UA is first stage looking for the right area (nebulae?), UP is the second stage looking for the best spot to land.

Which MAY mean we need to look away from Merope, as Merope is the destination, not the origin?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnacle

I agree.. it is looking for something. Whoever engineered them made them for a purpose marked them with their origin. It is true barnacles need to spread. If they came from the loop and went to the Pleiades and now are coming into human territory maybe they've not found anything yet. Maybe they have only just begun to his human territory and that is why the military / sirius corp has been out acquiring them.

Though it does make sense to look at other nebula I think many have already.

 

[MyklAtrum]

I tend to agree with you.
Two things. I'm not sure that the plot was planned to sufficient detail to take all this into account, and we know that our actions have influenced the plot and how they introduce the mysteries into the game.
Not much help, I know.

Hah. Well yes, I like to hope that even with our deviations, they have the overall plot thought out. One key point of storytelling is knowing your end game or main plot. Without it, your story can easily fall apart. Im hoping we are just side stories along the way that give flavor and minor hiccups, but do not interrupt the main plot so much to change it.

 

[Tomtom]

While this is a perfectly valid point, why do it in stages? Why point to the Merope system and then 5C? If 5C was to be a reference point, then it seems that it would be an in-system reference point. Otherwise, you could just as easily use the star as a galactic reference point and it would make more sense. The two stages seem to be a narrowing of the search to me. But again, I could be wrong.

This mirrors something I've been wondering about for a while now; after all, these devices don't have to be limited to a single function (in fact we've already seen two different behaviours from the UA) so it could very well be that their secondary (or tertiary, or whatever) function is as a kind of "signpost" in space.

I tried following the thought logically: firstly the UA point us to Merope, so we fly there. If the devices are signposts, it stands to reason that the next pointer (the UP) would have been placed near the arrival point so we wouldn't be lost flying around looking for them. But that's where my theory failed - there do not appear to be any UP near Merope main star, I did spend some time searching myself, and considering the traffic in that system surely they would have been found by now.

So, I put that theory on the back burner.

Except... a thought occurred to me today.

If these things are related to The Missing, they probably have no knowledge of our super new Frame Shift Drives, which are still very new in the year 3302.

Using older technology - i.e. FE2/FFE era - the hyperspace drive would drop us out some distance from the main star, so maybe that's where they'd have placed a UP shell? So, the question is: in FE2/FFE, how far from Merope do you drop out when you hyperspace there? Because that may be a reasonable place to look.

 

[Matt]

the chemical structure is highly indiciative on both of petroleum / and other hydrogen/carbon type petrochemical strucutres, ie biofuels and the like

How did you get their chemical structure? Or is this just conjecture based on visuals?

 

[CookieJarviz]

I think we need to take a step back. Here's what I think :

1. More information in sounds.
I don't believe there is more information in music/sounds that are relevant to the alien mystery. Let's assume we got all there is and work with it - since no one has interpreted the existing data properly.
2. UP image points to another star system.
The lines on the image clearly indicate that we are dealing with a sphere, or spheroid. Ergo we need to be searching for the answer near a celestial body, not overlaying the image on galactic map.
3. We have searched Merope 5C thoroughly.
No we didn't. There is an overwhelming amount of surface area and without a system to catalog the features and divide the planet into smaller regions it is impossible to say we've checked it all. I strongly believe that even with the effort of hundreds of well organized CMDRs we won't find nothing. We need the coordinates.

Thus my conclusion :

We need to produce sets of planetary coordinates from the data we have and check all the permutations.

What do you think?

P.S I think barnacles are Thargoid mining sites.

Its a sphere yes but its also a ring. Decoder Ring.

 

[Han_Zen]

Good luck with this. I mentioned a couple of days ago I'd been trying this, but since 2.1 I haven't been able to find a signal source in orbital cruise within the shell, despite finding numerous UAs there prior to 2.1. Though arguably, that might have been due to the reduced spawn rate.

I have found several USSs in orbit. No UA or UP though.

 

[ilo]

Its a sphere yes but its also a ring. Decoder Ring.

you think.

IT IS unknown yet.

 

[MyklAtrum]

This mirrors something I've been wondering about for a while now; after all, these devices don't have to be limited to a single function (in fact we've already seen two different behaviours from the UA) so it could very well be that their secondary (or tertiary, or whatever) function is as a kind of "signpost" in space.

I tried following the thought logically: firstly the UA point us to Merope, so we fly there. If the devices are signposts, it stands to reason that the next pointer (the UP) would have been placed near the arrival point so we wouldn't be lost flying around looking for them. But that's where my theory failed - there do not appear to be any UP near Merope main star, I did spend some time searching myself, and considering the traffic in that system surely they would have been found by now.

So, I put that theory on the back burner.

Except... a thought occurred to me today.

If these things are related to The Missing, they probably have no knowledge of our super new Frame Shift Drives, which are still very new in the year 3302.

Using older technology - i.e. FE2/FFE era - the hyperspace drive would drop us out some distance from the main star, so maybe that's where they'd have placed a UP shell? So, the question is: in FE2/FFE, how far from Merope do you drop out when you hyperspace there? Because that may be a reasonable place to look.

Hm. I never thought about it like that. Im not sure what the distance was. This might be a good lead to follow. Anyone else have the answer to this?

 

[mach10]

While this is a perfectly valid point, why do it in stages? Why point to the Merope system and then 5C? If 5C was to be a reference point, then it seems that it would be an in-system reference point. Otherwise, you could just as easily use the star as a galactic reference point and it would make more sense. The two stages seem to be a narrowing of the search to me. But again, I could be wrong.

MB said that the pointing for the UPs and UAs was deliberate, but for difference reasons.

 

[nikos]

Just catching up, and oh boy things move fast here XD

Anyway, looking at the sequence of 66 high/low and going to numbers,
l = high, - = Low

--l -ll --l --l --l l-l --l l-l l-- l-l l-l -l- l-- ll- -l- -ll --l l-- l-l --l l-l --l 1 3 1 1 1 5 1 5 4 5 5 2 4 6 2 3 1 4 5 1 5 1

Contrary to the "picture" in the audio, there is also |-| and ||-, which are not present in it.
Also, there are no --- nor ||| which is a feature similar to the first UA transmissions IIRC.

Before I go : I Wonder if the picture hidden in the audio is something similar to the circle frame from
the golden record as in : if decoded properly as per instructions, the first image is this.

Hi, this is interesting, can I ask what is the source for these high/low marks? Did you extract them from a recording, or is there a transcription somewhere? And have they been confirmed to be invariable across recordings?

 

[MyklAtrum]

MB said that the pointing for the UPs and UAs was deliberate, but for difference reasons.

He said their purpose was different. Pointing is not their only purpose. UAs scan ships. UPs send out a signal. The pointing may be for a similar reason but related to each's purpose.

Edit: reading that again. Its a similar statement. But deliberate pointing still stands out.

 

[Matt]

Hm. I never thought about it like that. Im not sure what the distance was. This might be a good lead to follow. Anyone else have the answer to this?

Can't remember for sure but it was usually 9aus for a system like sol.or Barnard's star. It could be higher for larger binary systems.

Not sure on the Ls conversion for AUs (astronomical units - I think earth to sun is one au?)

 

[DialBforBiscuit]

I refute (and I use the word refute in full knowledge of its meaning) the claim that the image is somehow pointing somewhere, because those lines are just too damned close to being evenly distributed. I am sure you can measure a slight difference from the obvious 45 and 30 degree segments, but come on people, its been translated from its original design at least twice. I also believe that if it WAS supposed to point at something using angles, then would have configured the locations to be more obviously NOT on evenly distributed angles. e.g If you are coming up with a puzzle, and your mystic A-B compass ends up pointing straight up, you move A or B so that it doesn't point straight up making people ignore it. So when they are so close to simple angles as they are here, DO ignore it, it ISNT DATA.
[/RANTOFF] oh, didn't realize I had started ranting

This is super important with treating anything like a pointer, or a map. There's no reference on the image and because its a circle with a radial line you can scale and rotate (either your view of the image) to fit 99.9% of everything. To use anything for directional bearing you need both reference and scale. Sure the UP points to Merope 5c, but without a scale I can en-large the image and rotate it to point at everything in the galaxy. There's no evidence or intellectual reason to use the image as a map.

The 'answer' we are looking for is going to be extremely objective so anyone would get the same answer through the same process. Just like the ship graphs. The UA started out with morse names to get us used to listening to morse, then stepped it up later forcing us to apply a method. This image is probably very similar. A form of communication we need to understand to better grasp something that will happen soon.

 

[MyklAtrum]

Can't remember for sure but it was usually 9aus for a system like sol.or Barnard's star. It could be higher for larger binary systems.

Not sure on the Ls conversion for AUs (astronomical units - I think earth to sun is one au?)

So then pretty far out of the system? Depending on the systems size?

 

[SpocksOddSocks]

I have found several USSs in orbit. No UA or UP though.

Well, it's good to know something's spawning at least . I still think this has a good possibility of being the answer to the free floating UPs, but as I'm now on my way to Jacques with 246 tonnes of Osmium and 42 structural regulators, and my second account has set up base in G-46 4 just in case, I don't see myself being able to help with the tests any time soon.

 

[Bungalo]

I have performed another recording of the UP idle sound. This experiment was suggested by Bungalo of The Canonn. It is performed in an attempt to find out whether the idle sound is random or not. The experiment consists of listening to the sound of the UP at the same location twice back to back. This is to see whether the idle sound is the same for each time a UP is jettisoned when all obvious variables are the same. Another experiment was done after that that involved honking the UP and then listening to it. This was done directly after the first two jettisons. Each time the UP was jettisoned I recorded around 3 minutes in classified camera. Hopefully this is enough to see any similarities in the audio, or the lack thereof. The experiments were done in a random system roughly 2k Ly outside the bubble, as I really want to do some exploring but my duties in the Children of Raxxla and having a probe bind me to the bubble.

The three different recordings are thus done back to back and are recorded into the same file. I have edited my previous post and made it a summary of all my data. You can find the link to that post in my signature.

To expound a bit on my theory:

I believe the UP may use the wail/howls to denote proximity or similarity to what it is probing for.

The idea came to me listening to Vent's first recording and having no howls/wails occur after 6ish minutes. Theoretically the howls may occur closer together or more often the closer the UP is to its target.

This should be simple enough to test, Vent has been kind enough go repeat the test while exploring (I believe the post is up here). Once again, no wails/howls. If we can find a correlation between howls/wails frequency and certain celestial objects or systems we may be able to use the UP to lead us in the direction it wants to go. Simple enough to test just needs people watching/listening for it.

The audio may be dynamic as I doubt there is a set interval between wails/howls. In general there should be more howls per minute if the UP is close to what its searching or what it's search criteria are. The howls per minute may increase based on system or location in the system.

For instance, in merope the UP does howl however when Vent took it a long ways away from the star/system proper it didn't howl. The UP may need to be closer to celestial objects or it won't howl. Likewise if the system it is in is sufficently far enough away from its search location it may not howl.

Now for the second half of this block of text:

Experiments:

Test sequence 1: Repetition of experiment in merope. Go 1k, 10k, and 100k Ls from Merope star (in a line) and drop the UP, record, scoop, and repeat the test at each location.
Theorized outcome: decreasing howls per minute as distance from the primary increases

Test sequence 2: use the same sequence as described in sequence 1 but in a system in the UA shell.
Theorized outcome: Decreased howls per minute as distancing from the primary increases. Over all less howls per minute in each location when compared to merope.


These tests are simple and safe enough to do, their results would help show if the howls/wails change is a fluke or if it may carry meaning. I would suggest using howls per minute to quantify the results as the interval between howls has not been set. I believe the interval and how it varies is important but it's relevance and patterns in it are better established if he experiments bear fruit.