THE FORMIDINE RIFT MYSTERY (Part 4)

Archon Valec · Apr 10, 2017

*** UPDATE REGARDING THE EVENTS OF 29.04.3303 ***

Drew has taken on board players desires to offer bounties for Salome to be taken alive. "If she is forced to a stop at gunpoint and surrender I think that is a valid outcome.. - Drew.

If Salomé is captured by hostile players, and they offer her a chance to surrender, she may be receptive to it. Her acceptance of surrender obviously depends on her captors being open to negotiating a bounty with those groups or individuals who have placed them. Her captors may simply decide to kill her there and then and be done with it. But at least there is now a middle-ground option on the table that gives roleplayers an avenue to make an impact in the end game narrative.

Edelgard von Rhein · Apr 10, 2017

Attempt to retrace the Formidine Rift Beta/Gamma Expeditions. Day 4.
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Owing to fatigue I have travelled only a couple of hundred LY today and may take a break for a couple of days now, depending on how well I recover. I have had my first significant finding, although it is of the kind that might be worth a POI in the Galactic Mapping Project, rather than a breakthrough in locating any signs of the Dynasty Expeditions: a system with three Ammonia Worlds: MYOIDEAU JI-K D8-4. Planets 5, 6 and 7 are all Ammonia Worlds, with 6 and 7 being in a binary configuration. Strangely, this system has tags from two different CMDRs but neither made the journey to these planets - only the star and the innermost three planets were tagged (planet 1 is a terraformable water world).

http://imgur.com/a/gRxCL

Needless to say, I don't think this is the 'it' we have been looking for in the Rift. It is certainly interesting but I think it is just a nice present resulting from the way this star system happened to evolve. None of the planets had city lights, signal sources or beacons. One feature on planet 7 resembles an impact crater but it is an isolated feature, so I would be wary of attributing it to orbital bombardment (planet 7 does not have active volcanism, so that explanation is ruled out).
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From here my route plotter can get me about 300LY farther on and I suspect from there it may be possible to plot another route but the star density is borderline for my jump range so I may well have to backtrack again. I would like to begin the journey home in time to compete in the Buckyball Racing Club event but it is only time-consuming to disentangle myself from the midst of the Rift - once within a few hundred LY of the Abandoned Settlements it is easy going. If I can keep going after reaching my next waypoint, then I shall do so, otherwise I will have to think about turning back. I am 2000LY from the Abandoned Settlements so I need to get another 1700LY or so away before getting near to where the Beta mission was lost, if my estimates are correct. If they struggled to find a route as well, though, then I could encounter their remains at any time...
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Good luck everyone and fly safe!

Han_Zen · Apr 10, 2017

lorrad said:
Starting to look like a foxhunt versus protestors with the flavour of American range wars cowboys versus shepherds.

I'm picturing a string of beacons along 'the path of souls'. Each one leading to the next(sound clues), but also giving firmware upgrades from the new data link scanner.
These upgrades will unlock COL 70 sector.

[Diplomacy] Carnegie · Apr 10, 2017

evaldo10 said:
I rwad about the river Lethe and it made me think of Lave

Weird. It made me think about Lethe

http://inara.cz/galaxy-starsystem/18238

Painted · Apr 10, 2017

About clue29c: "constellation aurgia who phaethon is based on faces the milky way above Orion towards Sirius the brightest star."I'm pretty sure the constellation clue is just a heads up to be near sirius if you want to be present when the curtain draws on the event. We all ready know it takes place in the bubble. credit to roommate brandon and all his astronomy knowledge.
CMDR Paintedx10

Saool · Apr 10, 2017

Speculation (but nothing new really)

The thing TOW and later Salomé discovered was that the war between INRA and the Thargoids never really stopped. But with the Mycoid attack, moved it to their turf and away from 'ours'. It's been going on for a while, but in a very cat and mouse, cold warish way. The Dynasty might have been an early warning tripwire. Why? Because INRA lost. And someone knows our cold, chitinous lady friends are out for blood. Warm blood.

Salomé won't save anyone. It's too late for that. What she will do, if she gets the chance, is tell you who is responsible when the defecation hits the turbine. 'They', who ever they are, want to silence her, just like they silenced TOW to maintain plausible deniability whilst they look to save there own asses.

roryclague · Apr 10, 2017

Salomé in game now!

EDIT: She was stilll in HIP 21484 when she appeared in my long-range scanners.

I will track her movements for those who aren't contacts with her. She seems to be moving towards Witch head nebula.

Baton · Apr 10, 2017

exgoaltender said:
*** UPDATE REGARDING THE EVENTS OF 29.04.3303 ***

Drew has taken on board players desires to offer bounties for Salome to be taken alive. . But at least there is now a middle-ground option on the table that gives roleplayers an avenue to make an impact in the end game narrative.

In my opinion the players in this game that love to blow stuff up are not roleplayers at all, they do not care about the story or the book, apart from being there as the killers, so I do not think there is any chance of this outcome. I remember the story of Otto Granger and how it went, there was no chance for anyone to talk to him, AFAIR he was shot on sight. It is an Open event, there will be always some hot gun there

Saool · Apr 10, 2017

roryclague said:
Salomé in game now!

EDIT: She was stilll in HIP 21484 when she appeared in my long-range scanners.

I will track her movements for those who aren't contacts with her. She seems to be moving towards Witch head nebula.

She moved. Three jumps out...

Archon Valec · Apr 10, 2017

Baton said:
In my opinion the players in this game that love to blow stuff up are not roleplayers at all, they do not care about the story or the book, apart from being there as the killers, so I do not think there is any chance of this outcome. I remember the story of Otto Granger and how it went, there was no chance for anyone to talk to him, AFAIR he was shot on sight. It is an Open event, there will be always some hot gun there

Not so much the griefers, but there had been interest expressed in the proposed "3rd option" by some groups. Most ntably various player groups alligned to the Empire. Capture and turn her over for interrogation for example. As stated, just opens up the options

To shoot or not to shoot - no longer the only question

KineticImpulser · Apr 10, 2017

roryclague said:
Salomé in game now!

EDIT: She was stilll in HIP 21484 when she appeared in my long-range scanners.

I will track her movements for those who aren't contacts with her. She seems to be moving towards Witch head nebula.

If one starts at Achenar and follows the path of souls from the end of the river back to the beginning, the Witch Head is pretty close.

EDIT: Pair that with Obsidian Ant's little featurette of an "odd" undiscovered system in the Beta near there.

yager652 · Apr 10, 2017

Can confirm on sighting. Spotted in Synuefe JZ-J b27-0

roryclague · Apr 10, 2017

I'm in the Rift right now, but if you are in-system with her keep us posted if you can! I realise it could be shrouded in CoR secrecy.

Edelgard von Rhein · Apr 10, 2017

KineticImpulser said:
If one starts at Achenar and follows the path of souls from the end of the river back to the beginning, the Witch Head is pretty close.

EDIT: Pair that with Obsidian Ant's little featurette of an "odd" undiscovered system in the Beta near there.

The exploration database is not something that is transferred over during Beta, so it is not necessarily undiscovered on the live server. That said, there might be a few undiscovered bodies around: when I visited the area recently, during the search for escape pods along the Col 70 Sector border that might have come from the Cobra reportedly destroyed there, I did get a couple of first discoveries.
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I suspect that since the Federation, Empire and Alliance all seem to have representation amongst Salomé's allies, that there might be multiple start locations, e.g. Sol, Lave and Achernar, or multiple destinations. Drew's EXO interview suggests multiple activities, so hopefully not everyone will need to be flying a PvP-capable ship, so long as you can at least run from an interdiction.

CookieJarviz · Apr 10, 2017

Salome has gone offline. According to people in system im the only one she talked to.

Me: "Commander, Whats going on? I thought you were dead but that does not seem to be the case."
Salome: "Rumours of my demise have always been greatly exaggerated"

Saool · Apr 10, 2017

CookieJarviz said:
Salome has gone offline. According to people in system im the only one she talked to.

Me: "Commander, Whats going on? I thought you were dead but that does not seem to be the case."
Salome: "Rumours of my demise have always been greatly exaggerated"

She asked someone to look after Tsu in a PM after they said they flew with the good guys (the Alliance).

There is a pattern here. She is going to bright HIP stars and to planets in those systems, after waiting to lead people.

I suspect there are 'the beacons' and I suspect there are more to come. Your latest one being HIP 21512 A 4 G

BuddyE · Apr 10, 2017

I was bounty-hunting in a Res at the edge of the bubble when she came on. Just landed and got my cash. Did not even refit... just took off. Took me 41 jumps to finally catch up to help, however i can. But when i arrived she was off again. So now i am sitting 40 jumps from the bubble for what? I really want to get involved in this event, but how if you are not part of one of these groups?

Oh well, need to make that journey back again tomorrow.

Saool · Apr 10, 2017

BuddyE said:
I was bounty-hunting in a Res at the edge of the bubble when she came on. Just landed and got my cash. Did not even refit... just took off. Took me 41 jumps to finally catch up to help, however i can. But when i arrived she was off again. So now i am sitting 40 jumps from the bubble for what? I really want to get involved in this event, but how if you are not part of one of these groups?

Oh well, need to make that journey back again tomorrow.

It's just luck. I don't think CoR or anyone else knows when it is going to happen. I was lucky. I was sat drinking tea in the deep gravity well at Ceres Tarn on HR 1185 A 4, with my armed exploration AspX sat in dock. So it was a rapid eight jumps for me to get down there. So I was likely first one on the scene. I was talking to Erimus and CoR had a wing scrambling to get there. So they had no prior knowledge.

But I think she is just leading people to specific locations. So far:

HIP 21484 3
HIP 21512 A 4 G

These are forming a line from the Bubble to Col 70.

As for what to do now? Do you have a scanner on your ship? No reason not to scan your way home. (For the record every one of my ships has an ADS on.)

BuddyE · Apr 10, 2017

Sadly i don't have a Surface-Scan on this. As i said, just took off from gaining rep at my tourism-sytem. Beside of the ADS and the fuel-scoop, this thing is a brick-tank with guns.

Not much i can make of this. And regarding this event... I don't even know what to bring. I engineered my Python to the edge for this. But what else? will i need a SRV, a frame-shift-interdicor (never even had one, how do these work?) or cargo? I guess on the 29th i will make a guess and just take off.

Saool · Apr 10, 2017

http://imgur.com/a/LvWUZ

From Commander ABish.

Edit: Seems I was not in Salome's instance this time. Which would explain why I never actually saw her once this time, and my comments and questions where lost in the aether.