Alien archeology and other mysteries: Thread 10 - The Canonn

[Nagual]

I don't see how a virus/fungus should be effective against non-organic machinery.

Everything is just made up of atoms, have some form of life form / virus / fungi that consumes said atoms. After all, even plant life requires non organic elements to live eg iron, copper, etc.

 

[Xenia_K]

Everything is just made up of atoms, have some form of life form / virus / fungi that consumes said atoms. After all, even plant life requires non organic elements to live eg iron, copper, etc.

and in mining ops there are even bacteria used which gather their energy-supply from reduction of Gold-Oxide

 

[Jorki Rasalas]

I don't think this is the case. We know that the UPs encode their distances from Col 70, but there isn't evidence (unless I missed it somewhere) that they transmit to Col 70.

Well, that was the interpretation I put on the use of coding relative to Col70 sector yf-n c21-3; but you are correct, we have no proof that is where the signal is going. Can't remember where the UP's tight beam transmission was being sent-col70 or Merope 5c? It's so long ago....

 

[Genar-Hofoen]

Well the simple question to that is do we have any Bio tech in our ships? if not then its not a virus.
The damaged human ships have blast/impact damage don't look like some sort of flesh/hull eating virus.

You sure about that?

When I looked at the Federal Convoy wreckage site, the damage on the hulls looks more like splatter patterns than blast or impact patterns.

Like something big splooged a lot of green corrosive gunk onto the ships. Also note that's what the Scavengers do to your SRV.

Combine the visual evidence of 'splatter' rather than beam, kinetic, or blast damage, with the 'spitting out green goo' that the Scavenegers do, and you're left with 'The Federation ships must have been attacked with a giant green goo gun'.

The hull damage on the Fed ships definitely looks like corrosive damage, and in a splatter pattern. In fact to me it looks strikingly similar to what the Scavengers are doing things to the damage on the 'Goid wreckage sites.

 

[Xenia_K]

Well, that was the interpretation I put on the use of coding relative to Col70 sector yf-n c21-3; but you are correct, we have no proof that is where the signal is going. Can't remember where the UP's tight beam transmission was being sent-col70 or Merope 5c? It's so long ago....

UP narrow beam aims to Merope

 

[rizal72]

You sure about that?

When I looked at the Federal Convoy wreckage site, the damage on the hulls looks more like splatter patterns than blast or impact patterns.

Like something big splooged a lot of green corrosive gunk onto the ships. Also note that's what the Scavengers do to your SRV.

Combine the visual evidence of 'splatter' rather than beam, kinetic, or blast damage, with the 'spitting out green goo' that the Scavenegers do, and you're left with 'The Federation ships must have been attacked with a giant green goo gun'.

The hull damage on the Fed ships definitely looks like corrosive damage, and in a splatter pattern. In fact to me it looks strikingly similar to what the Scavengers are doing things to the damage on the 'Goid wreckage sites.

Not only the Scavangers, we have UA, UP and UL causing corrosive damage.
I think it's rather clear what type of damage the Thargoids will do to our ships: Electromagnetic (shutting down our ships and systems), and Corrosive
That's why the Farraguts could do nothing to avoid it: they where shut down first, then "greengooed"

I preview some anti-EMP module to counter this: there was one of the new modules showed at lavecon, that could fit well with this...

 

[Genar-Hofoen]

Not only the Scavangers, we have UA, UP and UL causing corrosive damage.
I think it's rather clear what type of damage the Thargoids will do to our ships: Electromagnetic (shutting down our ships and systems), and Corrosive
That's why the Farraguts could do nothing to avoid it: they where shut down first, then "greengooed"

Imagine being a crewmember in that convoy - what a way to go. Horrific.

 

[Kaltern]

Is it possible that it WAS the ships we see damaged that the Feds attacked, and the various other ships we have seen in pieces, that we see strewn across the galaxy in these wreck sites, but as a result of being attacked, the 'green goo' is the 'blood' of the alien ships, much like we see in Alien - being corrosive and rather nasty?

This would of course mean, that the Feds are able to at the very least hurt these alien ships, and I'm not 100% sure how likely this is. Perhaps they have weaponised the original Mycoid virus, and this is the main reason we see a lot of wrecks?

I have yet to have my morning coffee so I may be talking alien droppings.

 

[Becks]

Everything is just made up of atoms, have some form of life form / virus / fungi that consumes said atoms. After all, even plant life requires non organic elements to live eg iron, copper, etc.

That's not how a virus works though. A virus requires living cells to spread.

And a fungus against a hardened ship hull in space? Maybe, but certainly not at a speed were it'd be able to be weaponized.

It's more likely that they have a highly acidic fluid/substance they use as projectiles against non-biological enemies.

 

[rizal72]

Imagine being a crewmember in that convoy - what a way to go. Horrific.

A return back to ANALOGIC would be amazing! Like, bow's and arrows-like to fight them, catapults-like manual weapons, slaves to make ships flight despite the EMP, things like these

...partly joking...

 

[Becks]

Not only the Scavangers, we have UA, UP and UL causing corrosive damage.
I think it's rather clear what type of damage the Thargoids will do to our ships: Electromagnetic (shutting down our ships and systems), and Corrosive
That's why the Farraguts could do nothing to avoid it: they where shut down first, then "greengooed"

I preview some anti-EMP module to counter this: there was one of the new modules showed at lavecon, that could fit well with this...

I think this is their most likely choice of weaponry. Electromagnetic interferences against shield and subsystems + corrosion against the hull.

If their ships can interfere as much with our systems as their base and "Thargons", then we have a serious problem.

 

[Genar-Hofoen]

Is it possible that it WAS the ships we see damaged that the Feds attacked, and the various other ships we have seen in pieces, that we see strewn across the galaxy in these wreck sites, but as a result of being attacked, the 'green goo' is the 'blood' of the alien ships, much like we see in Alien - being corrosive and rather nasty?

This would of course mean, that the Feds are able to at the very least hurt these alien ships, and I'm not 100% sure how likely this is. Perhaps they have weaponised the original Mycoid virus, and this is the main reason we see a lot of wrecks?

I have yet to have my morning coffee so I may be talking alien droppings.

Judging by how Frontier have portrayed the Goid wreckage on the surface, i.e. as being embedded within the regolith, it looks like these things have been lying there for an awful long time, and not some fresh wreckage shot down by the Feds. I'd be inclined to assume that these wrecks weren't shot down by humans recently.

 

[Thatchinho]

Not only the Scavangers, we have UA, UP and UL causing corrosive damage.
I think it's rather clear what type of damage the Thargoids will do to our ships: Electromagnetic (shutting down our ships and systems), and Corrosive
That's why the Farraguts could do nothing to avoid it: they where shut down first, then "greengooed"

I preview some anti-EMP module to counter this: there was one of the new modules showed at lavecon, that could fit well with this...

Agreed.

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

We all know the feds are trying to monopolise the supplies of meta alloys, I'm presuming this would be for their military, and most likely to upgrade their ships... (meta alloy bulkheads for upgraded hitpoinds and weight reduction???)

Flies vomit their stomach acid onto their food, then sook up the acid / food solution then absorb the dissolved food leaving just acid in their stomachs to vommit on their next meal.

Could the corrosive damage on the fed ships be the thargoids trying to eat / ingest fed ships for their meta alloy component.

 

[Nagual]

That's not how a virus works though. A virus requires living cells to spread.

And a fungus against a hardened ship hull in space? Maybe, but certainly not at a speed were it'd be able to be weaponized.

It's more likely that they have a highly acidic fluid/substance they use as projectiles against non-biological enemies.

True for how human technology works. However we are talking about an advanced alien race, who's had aeons of time to develop weaponry.

 

[Genar-Hofoen]

I think this is their most likely choice of weaponry. Electromagnetic interferences against shield and subsystems + corrosion against the hull.

If their ships can interfere as much with our systems as their base and "Thargons", then we have a serious problem.

And we've seen the new weaponry designs we'll need in order to combat the Goids. They look like launchers of some sort of tube-shaped weapon. I suspect we'll be shooting capsules of our own type of green goo at the Goids, in the future.

 

[Thatchinho]

I think this is their most likely choice of weaponry. Electromagnetic interferences against shield and subsystems + corrosion against the hull.

If their ships can interfere as much with our systems as their base and "Thargons", then we have a serious problem.

We've hacked their tech and done our own thing with it before. We can do it again!

 

[Becks]

True for how human technology works. However we are talking about an advanced alien race, who's had aeons of time to develop weaponry.

Neither virus nor fungi are human technology though

We took something already existent and changed some of its characteristics to a way suitable for us. The idea was that the Thargoids changed the Mycoid virus so it'd work against us. That is simply not possible for a virus, as a virus requires a living cell as host. In short, the mycoid may be dangerous for humans in some reengineered form, but not for our ships.

 

[LordZoltan]

Barnacles -> Meta Alloys -> Wrecks

Hmm, maybe the UA shell is the Thargoid equivalent of a quarantine zone. IF (big if) all sites are displaying damage/infection inside the zone with a general reduction towards the outer shell, the active sites maybe outside the shell. I shall start some investigating.

Seconding @Xenia_K here.

And it's triggered a train of thought in me, too, regarding Mycoid (or something similar) and its relationship to Meta Alloys or Barnacles.

Work with me here - but TL;DR - go down to 'Idea #2'

The previous source of Meta Alloys - known to be a defence against the damaging effects from the Unknown toxic corrosion were barnacles - and barnacles have a logo on them which must indicate an artificial source at the very least - most probably human since we love our logos.

When you go to these wreckage sites (or possibly scrapyard?) you also find similar spires to those of the barnacles - producing meta alloys, but - crucially - no barnacles.

But we do know, thanks to the messages you get at the site, that some kind of infection or other invasive nastiness was involved, presumably in the destruction of the stuff at the wreck itself. We are assuming this is the Mycoid virus because of history.

So, to recap:

1) We have a human, or at least artificial, link to the source of Meta Alloys via the logo on the barnacles
2) We know meta alloys effectively neutralise the damaging elements of unknown objects
3) We also find *only* meta-alloy producing spikes (no barnacles) at these wreck sites - along with evidence that something 'neutralised' whatever's at the wreck site.

Idea #1

Barnacles are the original (or current) source of whatever caused the destruction of the material at the wrecks - and meta alloys are potentially a product of the development of that in the barnacle - or even the seed/carrier of it.

And the reason we find meta-alloy spires at these wrecks (but no barnacles) is because that's what they were infected with, and when the wreckage arrived on-site (notice I'm not committing to 'crash-landed' because: no direct evidence), the agent responsible for the destruction started its reproduction process in the ground around it, hence new meta-alloy producing spires.

Slight issue here is that there is a general consensus that the cause of the damage to the wrecks is the Mycoid virus - and 'Mycoid' is a generic term for 'fungus-like'. Neither Barnacles nor Meta Alloys are fungus-like.

---

This got me to thinking about the weird fungus farms out in the California Nebula (thanks DNA-Decay, PanPiper and others)

That's obviously suspicious as hell!!!

---

Idea #2

What if actually the Meta-Alloy effect on the unknown artefacts/probes/links etc - i.e. protecting us against the corrosion - is an accidental by-product of the intended effect: To protect/inoculate Unknown objects and anything of a similar tech/origin from the infection which appears to have blighted the wrecks?

Palin described the toxic effect as a side effect of the UAs 'self-repair mechanism', and that meta alloys appear to interfere with that, thus giving us CrCrs.

We never asked: why is the UA constantly repairing itself? Well it would if it was infected with something, right?

Obviously, flowerships don't appear to harvest MAs - but they do appear to suck *something* out of those barnacles. It's not a stretch to think it must something similar to, but perhaps more fundamental than, meta alloys.

So why the logo on the barnacles? Well, again: artificial (or engineered) source - still possibly human (hidden 'allies' or at least 'friends' of Thargoids - there is a precedent), or perhaps the Thargs are also partial to a bit of labelling

---

Obviously there are probably loads of logic holes and many other explanations here - this is just me taking an idea and running with it

 

[Becks]

And we've seen the new weaponry designs we'll need in order to combat the Goids. They look like launchers of some sort of tube-shaped weapon. I suspect we'll be shooting capsules of our own type of green goo at the Goids, in the future.

I'm curious what FDev has come up with in that regard. Maybe some launcher for viols of Mycoid?

Dunno, but I suspect we'll be able to harm the Thargoids with normal weaponry, too, although it's probably not too efficient.

We've hacked their tech and done our own thing with it before. We can do it again!

We just throw Guardian relics en masse at them and watch how they go ape. xD