So you want to know about the Formidine Rift? (Part 3)

[SteelyColt]

Has anyone connsidered the possibility that there is nothing to find? Well nothing physical anyway...

After 3 weeks in the black of the rift something hit me from from out of the darkness...an idea!

Maybe it was the startling discovery that all the Lavian Brandy had gone. Or that all that was between me and the infinite blackness of space in the middle of nowhere was a weakenening hull that had suffered more than once from being bounced off the backside of some godforsaken ice ball of a moon...but something occurred to me..an interesting thought crept up on me...maybe..just maybe, whatever is out here is not for us to find.

Afterall this isnt our story perse. It's Kahina/Salomé's story...whatever is to come is for them to discover and share with us.

Perhaps there is No self-aware AI, No Aliens, No mass genocide for us to stumble upon in Eafots or the rift.

What if all we can find is the journey and the story?

We are the story! By journeying out we are playing our part in this unfolding tale.

Some guy from way back once said "All the worlds a stage and all the men and women, merely players"

Well we are playing our part. Every moment we induldge ourselves into the fantasy of this mysterious epic and discuss it. Everytime we share our discoveries. Everytime we consider or think about what might be out there in the Rift.

If anyone ever asks me what I found in the Rift...I will tell them. I found the mystery...one that took me 16kly from home. One where I played my part by venturing halfway across the known galaxy and came back with a flurry of tales to share. A vast amount of exploration data to sell on and a love for exploration and fantasy that I didn't have beforehand.

I found more than any abandoned alien space station could have ever given me.

 

[ledg]

Has anyone considered why the phrase FOTSEA is repeated? Or why it's garbled and starts with an F ? (which is a stellar classification BTW)

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Has anyone connsidered the possibility that there is nothing to find? Well nothing physical anyway...

After 3 weeks in the black of the rift something hit me from from out of the darkness...an idea!

Maybe it was the startling discovery that all the Lavian Brandy had gone. Or that all that was between me and the infinite blackness of space in the middle of nowhere was a weakenening hull that had suffered more than once from being bounced off the backside of some godforsaken ice ball of a moon...but something occurred to me..an interesting thought crept up on me...maybe..just maybe, whatever is out here is not for us to find.

Afterall this isnt our story perse. It's Kahina/Salomé's story...whatever is to come is for them to discover and share with us.

Perhaps there is No self-aware AI, No Aliens, No mass genocide for us to stumble upon in Eafots or the rift.

What if all we can find is the journey and the story?

We are the story! By journeying out we are playing our part in this unfolding tale.

Some guy from way back once said "All the worlds a stage and all the men and women, merely players"

Well we are playing our part. Every moment we induldge ourselves into the fantasy of this mysterious epic and discuss it. Everytime we share our discoveries. Everytime we consider or think about what might be out there in the Rift.

If anyone ever asks me what I found in the Rift...I will tell them. I found the mystery...one that took me 16kly from home. One where I played my part by venturing halfway across the known galaxy and came back with a flurry of tales to share. A vast amount of exploration data to sell on and a love for exploration and fantasy that I didn't have beforehand.

I found more than any abandoned alien space station could have ever given me.

No, but rep++ for waxxing so poetic

 

[Jaiotu]

Has anyone connsidered the possibility that there is nothing to find? Well nothing physical anyway...

After 3 weeks in the black of the rift something hit me from from out of the darkness...an idea!

Maybe it was the startling discovery that all the Lavian Brandy had gone. Or that all that was between me and the infinite blackness of space in the middle of nowhere was a weakenening hull that had suffered more than once from being bounced off the backside of some godforsaken ice ball of a moon...but something occurred to me..an interesting thought crept up on me...maybe..just maybe, whatever is out here is not for us to find.

Afterall this isnt our story perse. It's Kahina/Salomé's story...whatever is to come is for them to discover and share with us.

Perhaps there is No self-aware AI, No Aliens, No mass genocide for us to stumble upon in Eafots or the rift.

What if all we can find is the journey and the story?

We are the story! By journeying out we are playing our part in this unfolding tale.

Some guy from way back once said "All the worlds a stage and all the men and women, merely players"

Well we are playing our part. Every moment we induldge ourselves into the fantasy of this mysterious epic and discuss it. Everytime we share our discoveries. Everytime we consider or think about what might be out there in the Rift.

If anyone ever asks me what I found in the Rift...I will tell them. I found the mystery...one that took me 16kly from home. One where I played my part by venturing halfway across the known galaxy and came back with a flurry of tales to share. A vast amount of exploration data to sell on and a love for exploration and fantasy that I didn't have beforehand.

I found more than any abandoned alien space station could have ever given me.

Yeah. I think it may be the Lavian Brandy thing

 

[FuriousMeow]

Has anyone considered why the phrase FOTSEA is repeated? Or why it's garbled and starts with an F ? (which is a stellar classification BTW)

Or, EAFOTS which is a huge star system near Heart and Soul that was discovered a dozen pages back.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Or, EAFOTS which is a huge star system near Heart and Soul that was discovered a dozen pages back.

Yeah, but I feel that particular clue is insulting my intelligence

 

[FuriousMeow]

Sometimes things are exactly what they appear to be and nothing more.

I do think the EAFOTS on repeat from a ship named My heart and soul is a clue that there are clues to be found in EAFOTS systems in/around the H&S Nebulas. After all, Drew did say Nebulas are great places to hide things.

 

[Atrox Lux]

I doubt it simply because the "black" changes. As in gas and dust clouds that constitute the non-absolute black that allows imaging software to brighten and show it would be changing elements. So assuming E : D is simulating it, I know it isn't moving or changing as far as the calculations go for the game, then there wouldn't be a way to hide clues in system wide background dust and elements. It's a very dynamic part of space, kind of like how sand gets blown about by wind so do the universe's dust clouds get blown about by stellar winds and changed abou by gravity and other forces like dark matter/dark energy.

Edit: It would also go against Drew stating that we don't need external applications. I think that probably includes imaging software to brighten up screenshots to discover something.

It's not about hiding stuff in the dust, it's about the stuff, tonally, being so similar to the dust that it is easily missed.

You could do thus, without software, simply by turning up the brightness and contrast on your TV or monitor. I can't guarantee you'll still have working retinas by the end of the week, but it'll still work

 

[Jorki Rasalas]

"4, 3, 2, 1, engage". They are not words anymore, mere noise. It's been more than 6 months since you decided to chase yet another legend, another fable. Naturally, you don't expect to find anything. If you have learnt one thing in your travels, is to never have high hopes, cuts back on the disappointment you see.

You stretch your muscles while Witch Space surrounds you. Witch space...You can vaguely remember when it used to be a magnificent mix of awe and fear. You used to look outside your cockpit trying to discern a pattern, a shape, a sign...nothing. If anything is hidding there, it's doing it very well. You have stopped looking. Nowadays, you prefer to pour yourself a beverage, read a news article or skim through your notes, not once looking outside. You pull up your notes once more. "Formidine Rift", "Cover up", "Salome" and a plethora of 5 and 6 thousand year old myths from Earth. How can they be connected, you think yet again. How is everything relevant? Think!

Having followed so many leads and coming to dead ends, you are starting to feel like Sisyphus or Tantalus. Oh yes, chasing this mystery forced you to learn a fair share of ancient mythology. Gods, monsters, heroes, kings and queens were your company in the void. Time well spent, you think to yourself, even if you don't find anything out here. You check your inbox and smile. A message from CMDR Jorki Rasalas, a fellow Rifter, titled "Check this out" pops up. It's a hand drawn image of a stickman with the quote "Who's your daddy now?!" beneath it. You laugh before replying "You are...".

It's been a few minutes since you exited Witch Space but you didn't even notice. Normally the bright light from the target star would remind you that you have arrived. Not this time. Did you jump to a black hole or neutron star system without knowing it? You remember distinctivly targeting a K type star. You grab the flight stick and start turning your ship around to check behind you. Nothing...But wait, where are the Heart and Soul nebulae? They should be directly behind you, but they are nowhere to be seen. Your whole body clenches. Could you be in...no way. You have heard stories but never believed them. You are refusing to believe it even now. You pull up the galaxy map but your position isn't marked. You pull up your logs...last known position 9256 LY from Sol, inside the Formidine Rift. "Weapons Offline", "Shields Offline", "Thrusters Offline" , your blood freezes. You look outside the cockpit but all you see is your reflection. Complete darkness. You scramble to the right side of your cockpit to initiate a repair and reboot sequence, when everything shuts down. You are left alone with only the sound of your breathing, your gods, your heroes, your monsters...
With all the lights off in the cockpit you are able to notice something approaching in the distance. As curious as you may say you are, you don't want to find out what it is. Once again you try to reboot the systems. Fear has made your hands numb. You end up punching the console. "Diagnostic Repair Sequence Initiated","Systems Online". You fight yourself to not look outside as you bring up the Galaxy map. Whatever it is, it's huge and it's coming towards you. You select a system close to the one you previously were. Course plotting failed. You try another system, failed again. In a last ditch effort you turn to your Navigation panel. Only one option...Polaris, "4, 3, 2, 1, engage".

Did you think I was saying the stickman asterism was the answer to the mystery of the Rift? Sorry if I gave you that impression. IF I had solved the mystery, then my post would have been in extra large font & bold!, with balloons and partypoppers!!
And if the Rift mystery was merely a stickman asterism then I (together with many) would have been extremely disappointed.

No, I was still trying to find the solution to the clues in the old lady's words from Reclamation. I think I did that ( together with the etymology of Kahina clue) & that led me to the asterism. I suspect the asterism was the original in-game clue that we were supposed to find & then follow the two pointer stars to the next in-game clue. I suspect both Drew & FD were surprised when we had so much difficulty with the old girl's cryptic phrases, so we got other clues added on (core of the problem etc) that bypassed that initial clue. Now we have a ship in the Tionisla graveyard shouting OTSEAFOTSEAFOTS at us, so I think we are not solving things as fast as expected, & are maybe holding up the storyline in some respect. Salome's CoR Rift patrol areas were set up months ago, but we haven't as yet seen any sign of what they might be guarding against. I think that threat will be triggered when we finally find the Rift mystery, & I think it is not in EAFOTS, but in GRAEH since the mythology links for that just tie in so nicely with the meaning of Formidine. I think GRAEH is in the middle of the Rift, which ties in with the old girl's words to plot a course across the Rift but nobody has returned from the other side. I think someone suggested yesterday that INRA may historically have pushed that threat back to Bovomit (permit locked) on the other side of the Rift, which seems a nice logical fit against the clues; what I suspect we'll find in GRAEH are the results of that push, so potentially scenes of horrific INRA actions.
But I could be wrong on all of this; hopefully Drew's next book will enlighten us on how the storyline & clues should all have tied together!

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Sometimes things are exactly what they appear to be and nothing more.

I do think the EAFOTS on repeat from a ship named My heart and soul is a clue that there are clues to be found in EAFOTS systems in/around the H&S Nebulas. After all, Drew did say Nebulas are great places to hide things.

I just find it amusing that 'Watch your six' is analyzed to death, but OTSEAF -> EAFOTS is accepted without a second thought

 

[FuriousMeow]

It's not about hiding stuff in the dust, it's about the stuff, tonally, being so similar to the dust that it is easily missed.

You could do thus, without software, simply by turning up the brightness and contrast on your TV or monitor. I can't guarantee you'll still have working retinas by the end of the week, but it'll still work

Not hiding stuff, I simply meant that these wouldn't be static items and would be useless for navigation as they would change location/size/appearance over the course of years, let alone decades. It would be like using some stars as navigation points for a boat on the ocean on Earth but those stars vary location in the sky depending on season due to the motion of the Earth through the Solar System, except now we're talking about galaxy sized items moving over several decades through the Universe.

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I just find it amusing that 'Watch your six' is analyzed to death, but OTSEAF -> EAFOTS is accepted without a second thought

I accept Watch your 6 as it is exactly - especially with the way it is presented, which is why I'm saying what I'm saying. Sometimes things are exactly what they state. However, many people are trying to find alternate meanings to the EAFOTS on repeat just as they are trying to associate Watch your 6 with something more coded.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

I accept Watch your 6 as it is exactly - especially with the way it is presented, which is why I'm saying what I'm saying. Sometimes things are exactly what they state. However, many people are trying to find alternate meanings to the EAFOTS on repeat just as they are trying to associate Watch your 6 with something more coded.

Consistency is good
But you have to admit, surely, that compared to the oblique and subtle information we'd previously been fed, 'EAFOTS' is like switching from a whisper to a scream. Hence my own cynicism.

 

[FuriousMeow]

Consistency is good
But you have to admit, surely, that compared to the oblique and subtle information we'd previously been fed, 'EAFOTS' is like switching from a whisper to a scream. Hence my own cynicism.

The reason for EAFOTS being the actual message from the repeating character is like those other pattern recognition algorithms.. 9314... 3149... 1493... it is a repeating pattern so it would make sense that ...OTSEAFOTSEAF... in repeating fashion is just that: EAFOTSEAFOTSEAFOTSEAFOTS since it is repeating as was stated, that means there is no beginning or end simply what was provided to show it was repeating.

Is this a scream of direction or misdirection?

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

The reason for EAFOTS being the actual message from the repeating character is like those other pattern recognition algorithms.. 9314... 3149... 1493... it is a repeating pattern so it would make sense that ...OTSEAFOTSEAF... in repeating fashion is just that: EAFOTSEAFOTSEAFOTSEAFOTS since it is repeating as was stated, that means there is no beginning or end simply what was provided to show it was repeating.

Is this a scream of direction or misdirection?

Or is it both?
There's no reason why the 'real' message couldn't be masked by the EAFOTS misdirection.

Either way, it doesn't help to shut down discussions of alternatives, which was my main reason for commenting in the first place.

 

[FuriousMeow]

Or is it both?
There's no reason why the 'real' message couldn't be masked by the EAFOTS misdirection.

Either way, it doesn't help to shut down discussions of alternatives, which was my main reason for commenting in the first place.

Of course we can't shut down all avenues, but we can narrow some down - I'm going on the Galnet post which is:

'transmitting a repeating sequence of curious characters. This continued for a few minutes until a power failure silenced it. The message read "OTSEAFOTSEAF"'

Several minutes of repeating OTSEAFOTSEAF means it was OTSEAFOTSEAFOTSEAFOTSEAFOTSEAFOTSEAFOTSEAFOTSEAFOTSEAFOTSEAFOTSEAFOTSEAFOTSEAFOTSEAF and etc, but did it begin with O? Is it SEAFOT? Are we looking for a planet with a SEA Far Out There?

It can go a million different ways, but why is this THE clue? It could have been found before without this, so why is this a necessity to getting closer?

 

[ledg]

The reason for EAFOTS being the actual message from the repeating character is like those other pattern recognition algorithms.. 9314... 3149... 1493... it is a repeating pattern so it would make sense that ...OTSEAFOTSEAF... in repeating fashion is just that: EAFOTSEAFOTSEAFOTSEAFOTS since it is repeating as was stated, that means there is no beginning or end simply what was provided to show it was repeating.

Is this a scream of direction or misdirection?

I don't think you can assume endless repetition. The mnemonic is repeated once and is in quotes in the original message. "OTSEAFOTSEAF" I don't think this is accidental. That huge sector has to be pared down. Perhaps the repetition represents a superimposition of the two nebulae, perhaps on a line from another specific point.

 

[FuriousMeow]

I don't think you can assume endless repetition. The mnemonic is repeated once and is in quotes in the original message. "OTSEAFOTSEAF" I don't think this is accidental. That huge sector has to be pared down. Perhaps the repetition represents a superimposition of the two nebulae, perhaps on a line from another specific point.

Except it is.

transmitting a repeating sequence of curious characters. This continued for a few minutes until a power failure silenced it. The message read "OTSEAFOTSEAF"

That was simply the starting point of the transmission picked up mid-transmission.

 

[FuriousMeow]

What is apparent is that we are looking for something quite evident. Not a planet, not a star, not even a solar system, but something that has many pieces or something very big.

 

[Zeeman]

Excellent find! Is it usual to see that listing that far from the bubble?!?

Is that one of the things we have been searching for?

Also...

Something has been bugging me. That quote that is under my sig, by Drew. It was made in reference to someone who said they went on trucking after jumping into a system and dropped out of supercruise to look through the rift to see if anything stood out. Drew's reply insinuated that some bits would. Add in the "it depends who goes looking it" bit and my brain started whirring. they could smell the wood burning from miles away!

Anyhoo, what I always considered the "black" of space, isn't.

This first pic is what we usually see flying about.
[url]http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff460/pixiegonebad1/HighResScreenShot_2016-08-11_14-19-22%20sml.jpg[/URL]

In this pic I upped the brightness and contrast. Black isn't black! Someone could have pics on their hard drive of the black space of The Rift and in those pics could be what we are looking for.
Has anyone else tried filtering their pics for this background detail?
I'm talking about the pure black of space after dropping from supercruise. It may have what we are after!

[url]http://i1236.photobucket.com/albums/ff460/pixiegonebad1/HighResScreenShot_2016-08-11_14-19-22%20alt%20sml.jpg[/URL]

I'm an ISF calibrator, and I think you're on to something - most people don't touch their contrast/brightness settings, and by default, they are usually set up very badly (too much contrast, not enough brightness) to make whites very bright, and black... Well, black. Except, this will cause you to lose details in the whites and greys that are not totally black, and the greys that ar enot totally white, and the result is, as you posted, missing details (this happens for games, movies, TV shows etc).

Probably worth it for most people to find a pluge, and Google how to use it to set up your screen. It will take about 5 minutes, including learning how to do it (if you're not paying attention whilst you do it, even faster if you focus), and will be of benefit to the user in just about every way.

Setting colours would be the next step, but very few people have the equipment required to do it, the contrast/brightness can be done easily though with no equipment.

A good greyscale chart is handy too, for, though find one with 256 steps, if you can.

Z...

 

[SpocksOddSocks]

Consistency is good
But you have to admit, surely, that compared to the oblique and subtle information we'd previously been fed, 'EAFOTS' is like switching from a whisper to a scream. Hence my own cynicism.

But previous clues have really been as direct, but less specific. Many of the complications that have come about have been of our own making. Also many things we have taken as subtle clues might not even be clues but simply cryptic or descriptive language being used for no other reasons but effect/drama.

Eafots is still a large region of space and even surrounds the heart nebula/heart sector in it's entirety. It still doesn't conclusively tell us the secret of the rift or what we might find.

Also, I would like to point out that I also occasionally try the think of other meanings of the message, and if anything else were to come to mind that I felt fit with the puzzle I would definitely share or act on it. However, as things stand, the idea the message trying to direct our attention to EAFOTS fits too well to ignore.