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

But the stars in constellations aren't all at the same distance from Earth, so you can't 'look back' at them - unless you're right at the edge of the galaxy, and even then you're not going to get an exact mirror image because you've changed the distances, so parallax is going to mess things up.

Well they ill change slightly but because Heart and Soul is within the Cassiopeia constellation as viewed from Earth and the Camelopardalis constellation is very close the change is not so great, the brightness will change though

Its more of a directional clue.

From Heart an Soul it may be we have to line up 3 points from each constellation, or find somewhere around that area that lines up Cassiopeia on top of Camelopardalis, possibly using the brightest stars from Heart and Soul that are visible but not the brightest stars visible from Earth.
 
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Well they ill change slightly but because Heart and Soul is within the Camelopardalis and Cassiopeia very close the change isnot so great, the brightness will change as well.

Its more of a directional clue.

From Heart an Soul it may be we have to line up 3 points from each constellation.

Rho Cas is further out than Heart & Soul, so that will be 'behind' you when you're looking back to Sol.
Alpha Cam is only ~500LY from H&S, so it'll be displaced a lot.
Either way, there's no place you can 'stand' and be looking at Cas and Cam from the front, but Per from behind.

Lining up 'unnamed' stars is easy, but the major stars in constellations are in the 'right' place, as is H&S - so that would require the REAL universe to have nicely lined up stars which humans have just happened to have grouped into relevant constellations so that when viewed from H&S they produce a meaningful pointer to the part of the galaxy behind the Rift. This, I would propose, is statistically unlikely.
 
p Cas and 6 Cas from Cassiopeia example.

And aCam from Camelopardalis.
Then you find a place where these align looking back at say Algol which is close to earth.

Because Algol is close to Earth it will be a good set point reference from H&S whereas the stars closer to H&S will move around in position a lot depending on where you are.around say EAFOTS
 
Rho Cas is further out than Heart & Soul, so that will be 'behind' you when you're looking back to Sol.
Alpha Cam is only ~500LY from H&S, so it'll be displaced a lot.
Either way, there's no place you can 'stand' and be looking at Cas and Cam from the front, but Per from behind.

Lining up 'unnamed' stars is easy, but the major stars in constellations are in the 'right' place, as is H&S - so that would require the REAL universe to have nicely lined up stars which humans have just happened to have grouped into relevant constellations so that when viewed from H&S they produce a meaningful pointer to the part of the galaxy behind the Rift. This, I would propose, is statistically unlikely.

Well I was thinking of looking from the start of the rift using a direct line from Sol through the centre of the Heart and Soul out to the Rift.

Then looking at different star combinations that align as per the clue then checking to.see if anything is noticeable visually looking back towards Algol/Sol
 
The more I fly around beyond the rift, the more that the area looking towards the bubble looks a bit off. Just seems darker and more oddly shaped than anywhere else.

Wasn't there a "look tot he clouds" clue at some stage? Can't seem to find it.


Z...
 
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The more I fly around beyond the rift, the more that the area looking towards the bubble looks a bit off. Just seems darker and more oddly shaped than anywhere else.

Wasn't there a "look tot he clouds" clue at some stage? Can't seem to find it.


Z...

It was 'Look to the skies', prior to the EAFOTS clue.
 
Do you think that is a reference to the constellations clue? Or are we supposed to be looking for something in laryicular in the skybox, like an unknown nebula?
 
Perhaps the Giraffe remembers the hero, because it has just passed him? It's a giraffe after all, not an elephant. :)

In other words outside the Perseus arm, but not much outside and in the Camelopardalis sector.

I like this image that shows the constellations, relative to the galactic plane.

In the plain we have Cassiopeia 110°-140°, Camelopardalis 140°-150° and Perseus 150°-160°.

Going a few degrees up or down changes the sectors. We probably don't have more than +-5° to work with, this far out, but the image makes it easy to see which constellation you are in.

Cool map :)

At the distance we work with (8K lyr) each degree is worth ~120 lyr.

That makes gal latitudes greater than +/-5 ° very unlikely as that would be more than +/- 600 lyr from the plane.
The EAFOTS clue gives us other boundaries for the longitude, as it's a cube seen not face on, but edge on. The range is 127 to 140 in gal long,
and -0.5° to +10° in gal lat. RR line is at 128°.

From a geometric PoV, the region where the three constellations are "close" to each other is a 5° circle, of which only a fourth is intersecting EAFOTS.
Now, this area is quite devoid of noticable deep space objects IRL. But it's quite small ~600 x 600 x 1000 lyr, i.e. investigable.

I cannot make any sense of cassiopeia riding the giraffe, and the giraffe remembering perseus. There might be a clue there, but it could be fluff.
 
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I don't know, using constellations wouldn't be much of a helpful clue. They are only visible from earth and only really suitable to point in the general direction of the Rift (of which we have had enough hints).

The hints to "Perseus" might as well hint at the Perseus Dark Region or "looking back at the Perseus arm" from whatever the Cassiopeia and Camelopardis hints may point at. In any case I'd be inclined to look for local references rather than the constellations as a whole if you get what I mean...

*sulks back to Colonia"

Edit: Forget it. Looked at Stelarium only now. Reeks of H&S.
 
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I have just scanned a planet with atmosphere and the screen went green with chevron lines lasted 2 secs.
I initially thought it was a computer issue but not sure now. Have now marked up F8 for the camera if it happens again.
Scanned the rest of the system and nothing else report back soon.
 
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I have just scanned a planet with atmosphere and the screen went green with chevron lines lasted 2 secs.
I initially thought it was a computer issue but not sure now. Have now marked up F8 for the camera if it happens again.
Scanned the rest of the system and nothing else report back soon.

You can't leave is hanging in suspense like that! [alien]
 
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I know it's in the bubble and station news feeds have likely been combed through, but is anything up with Gamma Cephei? Maybe the arrow formed by the stars from Cas, Cam, Per, were pointing not to Polaris but were symbolizing the direction of Earth's north pole. In the 34th century Gamma Cephei will be the north star.

I don't have access to home internet ATM so can't play the game and browsing forums on a phone is painstaking at best.
 
OK, I think it's time for me to head back to the bubble and plaster my name across a few thousand systems (hopefully), grind some ranks, finish up my triple elite, and head back. I figure I should be back in the rift area just after 2.2 properly drops...

Hopefully, my retinas well recover from staring at the skybox for so long...

z...
 

You no longer arrive randomly around the star somewhere, you arrive at the vector or angle between it and the system you just left so if you're traveling in a straight line the next star in route is most likely behind the star you just arrived at. So most of the time you have to fly around the star to align for the next jump, more realistic but more work and more time per jump. Our kylies/hour rates are going to be going down. Think I'll be kissing 3 kylies/hour goodbye.
 
The thing about constellations is that most of them only make sense looking out from Sol, they're just stars that happen to be in the same general direction. They may actually be hundreds or thousands of LY apart and completely unrelated when you're actually 'out there'. So as far as location markers go, they tend to be pretty lousy. Like all our other clues :D
 
from first page: "Several places Kahina visited in the bubble before disappearing line up with the 'RR' line"

What is the places and the sequence in which they were visited?
 
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