Sorry just a quick brain wave on the issue of where Unknown Probes can be found outside of the convoys.
UAs - Hypothesis
If UAs are indeed a scouting/scanning party, as many of us have suggested, then their placement is important. The shell is a vast volume of space, but the range is *very* precise.
Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that they're searching for something that could move and which started out from Merope. Its speed was known, but the amount of time it travelled for, less so. Or vice versa. This would give you a region of space exactly in this shell shape - in which, if you had the means - you'd seed with scanners and listen for the lucky ones which said 'over here! over here!'.
So the placement of the artefacts around Merope was deliberate: what they were looking for was
in that shell and can only have been in that shell, because that's where it started. They broadcast their location because that was their job ('reporting from here'), and they then scanned our ships because
that's also their job - but
not exclusively
our ships. It's possible that our ships only served to confuse matters!
UPs - Hypothesis
So, why the probes? The probes are more precise - with more capabilities (and perhaps produce less noise, because they don't scan our ships!) - but they're perhaps not focused on locations in space, but locations on a
surface - because that's where what they were looking for has ended up. They're orbital surveyors.
The question is where would you deploy your more advanced probes? If you follow the same modus operandi as with the artefacts - then you'd deploy them where your lucky UAs which screamed 'over here! over here!' told you to.
So?
If correct - then unknown probes will found
in the shell. But perhaps not in deep space - Unknown Artefacts have that covered - but around one or more planets or moons that have been deemed as good targets for the probes to do their work.
Problems
It might only be
one planet or moon. But it's possible that either the UA offers a clue as to where; or perhaps more likely that the UP does.
Thoughts?
