THE FORMIDINE RIFT MYSTERY (Part 4)

[jojon]

Or: Say it out aloud "and they thought the THARGOIDS were trouble" - so, what's more trouble than the big Ts?
Escaped AIs of human origin? Guardian AIs? Klaxians? Some other species, organic or chimeric or machine-life substrates?

Repeatedly trying to second guess yourself, as you retrace the steps you yourself were hiding as best you could, between consecutive memory wipes?


Even though I'd bet a... a cinnamon bun, say, that the real reason the Teorge listening posts unlocked prior to their related event, was simply to avoid somebody at FDev having to work on the weekend, it is hard to not feel that unless there was something more to the run to Tionisla (other than some diva's soapbox moment opportunity), the whole event became rather pointless, the instant they were independently discovered the day before.

Some details would certainly be nice, Becky -- Ok, so somebody has indeed been pulling strings from the shadows, and may thereby, for all their somewhat less than perfectly ethical skulduggery, have prepared and saved us all... But who? -Did you recover that much?

Maybe Raan and friends did pick up some additional material at the ship graveyard, and are rifling through it as we speak... although, if clones are a thing, maybe such material is on a memory tape recording, that is only compatible with the wetware of a clone of Rebecca's line, sharing some vital fundamental neural pathways... (EDIT: Why make a big hullaballo approach to the Cobra? Maybe for the attention, when broadcasting the conspiracy revelation, sure; But maybe even more because it was being watched (EDIT2: ...ruling out stealth). Maybe they brought something with them from 46 Eridani, which would help corroborating the listening post data.)


As for an escape-to-new-worlds-contingency plan: Even given the size of the Milky Way; With the tech in the game universe, one can't help imagining there couldn't possibly be any hiding from any large enemy force that is determined to hunt you down and eradicate you, unless you bunker down where you go, rather than set up terraforming shop... :7

 

[Harley Quinn]

As for an escape-to-new-worlds-contingency plan: Even given the size of the Milky Way; With the tech in the game universe, one can't help imagining there couldn't possibly be any hiding from any large enemy force that is determined to hunt you down and eradicate you, unless you bunker down where you go, rather than set up terraforming shop... :7

Still a needle amongst a thousand needles hidden in a haystack in a field of haystack in a country of fields. And in the case of the rift and gap with a moat and bridge to defend as well. Don't think we have even done 1% yet so it at least gets you decades to reverse engineer alien tech to build a proper defence.

 

[Toffmeister]

Repeatedly trying to second guess yourself, as you retrace the steps you yourself were hiding as best you could, between consecutive memory wipes?


Even though I'd bet a... a cinnamon bun, say, that the real reason the Teorge listening posts unlocked prior to their related event, was simply to avoid somebody at FDev having to work on the weekend, it is hard to not feel that unless there was something more to the run to Tionisla (other than some diva's soapbox moment opportunity), the whole event became rather pointless, the instant they were independently discovered the day before.

Some details would certainly be nice, Becky -- Ok, so somebody has indeed been pulling strings from the shadows, and may thereby, for all their somewhat less than perfectly ethical skulduggery, have prepared and saved us all... But who? -Did you recover that much?

Maybe Raan and friends did pick up some additional material at the ship graveyard, and are rifling through it as we speak... although, if clones are a thing, maybe such material is on a memory tape recording, that is only compatible with the wetware of a clone of Rebecca's line, sharing some vital fundamental neural pathways...
. :7

If I condense that a bit I get "We've all the clues we are going to get for now, and the 29th was just a heads up as regards a plotline for newer players."

I feel the same way.

There is more to come, we've had the cut-scene of the mangled feds (Maia), so now we need the pirates in the cave/tunnel scenario to show its head.

(They thought the instancing problem on the 29th was bad? Now try and cram 3000 players into that tunnel when its location becomes common knowledge )

 

[jojon]

...
(They thought the instancing problem on the 29th was bad? Now try and cram 3000 players into that tunnel when its location becomes common knowledge )

Maybe it's a clown tunnel, that can accomodate an arbitrary number of cars...

It may be reasonable to expect that no heftier switch will be thrown until the PS4 players can join us. :7

 

[sfx]

Guessing there was a ship waiting for each on their respective platforms...

Like there was a Salome on each respective platform?? I'm not buying it.

- - - Updated - - -

From what DrewW said they were trying to get TOW Cobra to instance so it could broadcast a message about the Teorge logs, but couldn't do it

Couldn't get a "Cobra to instance so it could broadcast a message"?? If a Cobra is in any instance, it can broadcast. So again, I'm not buying it.

 

[Tanksy]

Although, thinking about it, the conspirators were trying to remove evidence of it... but the settlements were left in tact... hadn't considered this before, but they were trying to destroy the ships - why leave the surface bases...?

I had some thoughts on this further back in the thread -- I considered that maybe it was part of a future recovery effort; Where someone has come accross the logs (Or, perhaps, Rebecca purposefully tracked down the last known locations of the ships, and found the logs) and stored them on these nearby temporary bases. Either for storage of the ships logs in specific, for specific people to later dispose of or the finder to study away from where they were found, but not so far away that it would be a long trip to go back to the origin point. Considering that the logs are all talking about events on the ship, I highly doubt the settlements were a creation of the fleet itself, rather a third party who saw interest enough to keep a hold of them.

If it was someone from "They"/"Them", then I'd expect them to have completely disposed of the evidence, not stored it for later. However, saying that -- The beacons in teorge mention the possibility that "They"/"Them" are no longer trying to hide things because too much is going on and the aliens can't be covered up anymore.

 

[Volimar]

Like there was a Salome on each respective platform?? I'm not buying it.

Nah, not her, just the cobra. I imagine if she got to the one on PC, they'd have broadcast from both cobras, probably manually.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

Nah, not her, just the cobra. I imagine if she got to the one on PC, they'd have broadcast from both cobras, probably manually.

Don't feed the conspiracy theorist. There are plenty of other thresds for them to go play on.

 

[sfx]

Personally I think the hole event was great fun. I have never seen the galaxy so alive, before.

Try for example the same time the previous week. The Salomé event actually had fewer players than any Saturday afternoon since 2.3 arrived.

Which actually makes it rather hard to believe some claims of the number who took part in the event. That Polygon article has the writer claiming he jumped as part of a fleet of 1000 players. As if he had any way of knowing how many other players were in-system outside his instance...

 

[DLewth]

Try for example the same time the previous week. The Salomé event actually had fewer players than any Saturday afternoon since 2.3 arrived.

Which actually makes it rather hard to believe some claims of the number who took part in the event. That Polygon article has the writer claiming he jumped as part of a fleet of 1000 players. As if he had any way of knowing how many other players were in-system outside his instance...

Fleet estimates are based on the number of participants in the relevant discord channels: Should be fairly accurate. On the other hand, total players at any time is known only to FDev.

 

[-Denali-]

So, I'm finally at:

System: EAFOTS GL-Y E2
Beacon around: A1
Rally Point (settlement) on: 6
DELTA SETTLEMENT FOUND: by CMDR AvvieXB1 26th Jan 3303
21.2838, 19.0682 - Discovery & Location Maps
Message Logs

I've listened to the logs, and it seems so bird was left stranded (she was there working on a mission connected to EXODUS) in a Sidewinder after strange power-outages, and a support ship vanishing. Apparently, she had heard reports that this part of space was strange (I'd love to have some strange happenings while I'm out here, but I doubt it).

So, what's the cause of this (the 'official' theory/conspiracy) - aliens, or something else?

Thargoids knock out the power to human ships pretty easily. I think that's the prevailing theory My guess is the alien armada was moving slowly through the rift at the time of the expedition and has since set up shop in col 70, preparing to launch their assault. What I don't fully understand is what has taken them so long to prepare?

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

What I currently think the "Formidine Rift Mystery" is:

FD story arc:
- All 3 superpowers are aware of the aliens (who ever they are)
-- they are working together to get prepared (typical Sci-Fi disaster movie plot)
--- not the happy together type of working together, but the as long as it helps me and only as long…
-- they know about the aliens for a "long" time
-- they know much more about the aliens than we do

Drew Wagar formidine rift salomé mystery:
- sub-arc of the FD arc (seasoning)
- influential people and organizations banded together to ensure their own survival (Dynasty organization)
- goal was/is their own survival in case the 3 superpowers can't ensure their survival or safety
- Dynasty is/was not an official mission of the superpowers
- the Dynasty expedition and bases needed to be kept secret not because of the aliens, but as a protection against other humans who might want to get shelter there
-- nobody wants some random refuge showing up uninvited at your nice little apocalypse shelter resort. It just ruins a good party.
- became obsolete with the invention of the FSD
- if names become public it would impact their power and standing in the society
-- reason why they still try to cover it up, but only the core part (their names)
- the 3 superpowers aren't directly involved and parts hierarchy (even high up) of the superpower don't know about it

This way the whole alien story arc stays in direct control of FD.
Drew Wagar has room for an interesting story without really affecting FD story arc.

I think I'll now try to find out Who was/is part of the Dynasty project. More GalNet reading ahead.
(But I suspect that I will have to wait for Drew Wagar's book)

 

[DLewth]

...What I don't fully understand is what has taken them so long to prepare?

It takes a long time to build a fleet of 1,000 Death Stars. Probably took them a year just to gather enough loo rolls.

 

[Commanjo]

On that note, I've been exploring the Bubble recently. I found a system called 'Two Ladies'. I'm willing to bet most people haven't heard of it, let alone visited it - and of those who did visit, even fewer will be aware that there's a pirate faction there called...

Spoiler

http://i.imgur.com/m3knLGV.png

Hah! Small galaxy - I had just adopted the Two Ladies Boys, thought it would be a fun BGS project to try to move them up to running a station. As you can tell, I have not yet made much progress.

 

[sfx]

Fake news. Seems to be a thing nowadays!

And who can tell the difference, with the 'authentic' news appearing so fake? (looking at you, Salome event)

 

[Jaiotu]

Was with you until the bit about Elyssia being TOW; I thought the whole point was that TOW of Reclamation was Rebecca, and she guided Salomé (her clone) onto the FRift mystery as a way of getting it out into the open at last. She (R) would have been monitored too closely for her to do that herself. Salomé had the connections, and character, of an Imperial senator so would have been a good mouthpiece for Rebecca to expose the conspiracy. But Salomé was silenced, by Patreus and Aisling, so they are almost certainly involved. It makes sense therefore to closely examine anything to do with those two.

I still want to know haow Rebecca foisted her clone onto the Loren family, and why they accepted her. That in itself may be a clue. I am also confused about clones; since they are grown in a laboratory why do they need a family? Rebecca had one but they were murdered & they were supposedly simple traders.

Edit: ah, had forgotten hexedit, but that doesn't explain her family

One of the problems with walls of text is that people don't always read them as thoroughly as they should. I know I'm guilty

I didn't say that TOW = Elyssia. I said that it is very likely that Rebecca and Elyssia knew each other. If Rebecca was a member of The Dark Wheel and Elyssia was married to the former leader of The Dark Wheel ...

EDIT: Because of the way the Oolite saga tended to include altered timelines ... I'm not 100% sure if Rebecca's family was murdered or not or even if Rebecca's last name is Tyley or Weston.

If the Rebecca from the Formidine Rift is the same Rebecca from the Oolite saga then she isn't a clone. That doesn't mean that Kahina couldn't be a clone of Rebecca though. If Kahina is a clone, however, my money is that she is from the same genetic source and Elyssia Fields.

 

[John41]

It takes a long time to build a fleet of 1,000 Death Stars. Probably took them a year just to gather enough loo rolls.

Or half decent engineer rolls...

 

[Jorki Rasalas]

Some of the exodus logs do put me in mind of UPs actually. I think it was one of the Gap logs that described the deployment of "artefacts"/"new tech", and another (think it was a conflux log) mentions the ship having been disabled after deploying a beacon...

Yep, I speculated that at the time. We've been trying to find one ever since to dis/prove that hypothesis.
It is possible these could be Sirius weapons to detect and slow down pursuing aliens. But it would really help if we could find one...

 

[Garud]

Btw, what happened to all the meta alloys that were stolen by luko?

 

[Jorki Rasalas]

Repeatedly trying to second guess yourself, as you retrace the steps you yourself were hiding as best you could, between consecutive memory wipes?


Even though I'd bet a... a cinnamon bun, say, that the real reason the Teorge listening posts unlocked prior to their related event, was simply to avoid somebody at FDev having to work on the weekend, it is hard to not feel that unless there was something more to the run to Tionisla (other than some diva's soapbox moment opportunity), the whole event became rather pointless, the instant they were independently discovered the day before.

Some details would certainly be nice, Becky -- Ok, so somebody has indeed been pulling strings from the shadows, and may thereby, for all their somewhat less than perfectly ethical skulduggery, have prepared and saved us all... But who? -Did you recover that much?

Maybe Raan and friends did pick up some additional material at the ship graveyard, and are rifling through it as we speak... although, if clones are a thing, maybe such material is on a memory tape recording, that is only compatible with the wetware of a clone of Rebecca's line, sharing some vital fundamental neural pathways... (EDIT: Why make a big hullaballo approach to the Cobra? Maybe for the attention, when broadcasting the conspiracy revelation, sure; But maybe even more because it was being watched (EDIT2: ...ruling out stealth). Maybe they brought something with them from 46 Eridani, which would help corroborating the listening post data.)


As for an escape-to-new-worlds-contingency plan: Even given the size of the Milky Way; With the tech in the game universe, one can't help imagining there couldn't possibly be any hiding from any large enemy force that is determined to hunt you down and eradicate you, unless you bunker down where you go, rather than set up terraforming shop... :7

The conspirators have known about the threat for decades or centuries (Rebecca's logs) sso it is slow moving, but unstoppable. Like a swarm of locusts. So get far enough away from the bubble across a rift where there are few stars for the enemy to follow and you should be safe, at least for a fair while. Enough time to develop Galactic Raid, or maybe manufacture enough mycoid to eradicate a species, perhaps it needs to be upgraded. Perhaps mycoid is not manufactured per se, but grown, perhaps on human subjects on specially terraformed laboratory worlds? Now that really would be hot water for the conspirators.

- - - Updated - - -

Still a needle amongst a thousand needles hidden in a haystack in a field of haystack in a country of fields. And in the case of the rift and gap with a moat and bridge to defend as well. Don't think we have even done 1% yet so it at least gets you decades to reverse engineer alien tech to build a proper defence.

It would be interesting to see the latest FD figure on the extent of the galaxy we have now explored. When MB did a livestream ages ago he said it was only about 0.001%, but the explored systems showing in EDD map seems to have gone up significantly over the last two years..

- - - Updated - - -

So, I'm finally at:

System: EAFOTS GL-Y E2
Beacon around: A1
Rally Point (settlement) on: 6
DELTA SETTLEMENT FOUND: by CMDR AvvieXB1 26th Jan 3303
21.2838, 19.0682 - Discovery & Location Maps
Message Logs

I've listened to the logs, and it seems so bird was left stranded (she was there working on a mission connected to EXODUS) in a Sidewinder after strange power-outages, and a support ship vanishing. Apparently, she had heard reports that this part of space was strange (I'd love to have some strange happenings while I'm out here, but I doubt it).

So, what's the cause of this (the 'official' theory/conspiracy) - aliens, or something else?

She mentioned just a cloud of debris, no sign of weapon fire. So my guess is the hexedited cargo handler zombie sleeper agents destroyed the ship. Maybe they got the fusion reactor to explode