a) The project might refer to "the darkest time", for example the Winter Equinox is the darkest point of the year (shortest day) - this might be a poetic way of describing the Thargoid War as being the "darkest point" of human history to date.
Nope, that is a solstice not an equinox.
I wonder if Project Equinox was named such as the procession of the equinox is a complete traversal of the heavens, so Project Equinox to keep an eye for the return of the Thargoids was in all directions
Here are the results of my weekend's digging - I might not have found any megaships or listening posts but I have a couple more leads that we can follow up, as you'll see:
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The following systems that are the same distance from Jotunheim as the GCS Sarasvati were searched, in each case every planetary body (but not distant stars with no planets) was approached to within 1Kls, although not all were scanned (a few potential First Discoveries remain):
No ships or other findings of importance resulted from this phase of the search and except for a couple of First Discoveries (not sure I've turned in all the data for these yet, though) these systems are uninteresting. The only highlight was an untagged Ammonia World in IC 2391 Sector.SYNEUFE FR-H B57-8
SYNUEFAI MN-Q D6-35
WREGOE BX-P B46-4
PRAEA EUQ AG-R B4-4
SWOILZ CS-H B2-8
B92 SECTOR RD-S B4-5
WREDGUIA SX-L D7-32
COL 359 SECTOR VG-J B24-4
COL 359 SECTOR XE-N C8-4
COL 359 SECTOR EU-J A12-2
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After visiting these systems, I then searched a number of systems in the bubble with relevant names, again approaching to within 1Kls of each planetary body:
Again, no sign of ships or listening posts. The local Galnet at Hel had some articles from Summer 3301 about conflicts between player factions (Adle's Armada and Cosmic Space iirc) but nothing since.Hel
Midgard
Alfheim
Niflheimri
Heimr
Thor (no planets but visited the secondary star)
Sif
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At this point I did a little digging in the Galaxy Map. Typing Odin into the search sends you to a system called 'Odin's Wisdom'. This seemed like a good lead: this system lies in a star cluster called Blanco 1 and is about 900 LY below the Galactic Plane, more or less directly below the bubble. The name sounds like a good place for Calvin's archive, so I set out at once and found as I got close that there are three more named systems amongst this star cluster, where in the centre all the stars have non-procedural names. I searched each one as before:
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Odin's Wisdom
Ziggy
McBurney's Point
Gilthaven
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Clearly there is the possibility that some plans are afoot for this region. There are many landables in these systems (a lot of gas giants) so the possibility remains that the archive could be here - but we'll need to find the co-ordinates from somewhere as there is too much to search by eye. I found nothing relevant, although McBurney's Point has three water worlds and several candidates for terraforming, which should pay the maintenance on my Python for supercruising 460+ Kls out to the tertiary star.
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Once more I did some digging in the Galaxy Map. There is a system called 'Parvati' which I have just reached but it has no planets, only two stars and I found nothing within 1Kls of them. There are two more leads however within the bubble that I have not followed up:
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1) Typing 'Calvin' into the Galaxy Map search gives only one result: Calvin Lawrence, a station in the Akkadia system. I do not know if this is a backer name but this system may be worth checking.
2) Typing 'Lyons' into the Galaxy Map search directs you to a planet called Lyons in the Groombridge 34 system. It is a small landable body that hardly seems worth the name, next to the other named bodies in the system. Although it's a 76 Kls trip, it might be worthwhile investigating here as well.
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I feel like this weekend has been useful. It's helpful to be able to rule out some things and the Blanco 1 cluster is an interesting place to visit. It also threw up a couple more places to investigate in the bubble. I wonder what the significance of the naming of those systems in Blanco 1 is; something else to look up.
That's a lovely little find. I think that cluster will be my next destination.
A bit of googling of Blanco reveals a great deal about kitchen sinks. I'm sure there is a joke in there somewhere. Blanco 1 however is real. It was found by Víctor Manuel Blanco. I did a quick search for that in game to see if there was a station of base named after him, but there was not.
Well,i found this today at Colonia. Listening post orbiting 2 B planet,and i think it is somewhat related to Project Equinox. https://ctrlv.cz/ElC2 https://ctrlv.cz/w9QvHere are links on the images as i don´t know how to insert them directly here. https://ctrlv.cz/ElC2 https://ctrlv.cz/w9Qv
Well,i found this today at Colonia. Listening post orbiting 2 B planet,and i think it is somewhat related to Project Equinox. https://ctrlv.cz/ElC2 https://ctrlv.cz/w9QvHere are links on the images as i don´t know how to insert them directly here. https://ctrlv.cz/ElC2 https://ctrlv.cz/w9Qv
Well,i found this today at Colonia. Listening post orbiting 2 B planet,and i think it is somewhat related to Project Equinox. https://ctrlv.cz/ElC2 https://ctrlv.cz/w9QvHere are links on the images as i don´t know how to insert them directly here. https://ctrlv.cz/ElC2 https://ctrlv.cz/w9Qv
I've done all the investigation I have the energy for, for now. Today I checked (i.e. flew to within 1Kls of every celestial body) Akkadia and local Galnet at the starport Calvin Lawrence but found nothing, however checking Groombridge 34 showed that there is a Scientific Installation near the planet A4. There was NPC dialogue from ships that jumped in about them doing research that will get them an award but nothing specific. A pair of satellites are present but I only got Specialised Legacy Firmware when I scanned them. There is a nav beacon which I also scanned but this did not reveal anything, either. I docked at the Coriolis in orbit of the planet Lyons but there was only the usual faction/trade/traffic updates in local Galnet. I had a quick perusal of possible one-third distances concerning Blanco 1, McBurney's Point, Jotunheim and Sol: there are one or two non-procedural stars way down below the Galactic Plane about twice as far away as Blanco 1 from the bubble (e.g. HIP 1966) but they probably need extreme range builds to reach and lots of jumponium, if they are even accessible. There were no named systems in between the bubble and Blanco 1 but 1/3 distance from it to the bubble is still in Blanco 1 Sector. I will take a break for a couple of days at least on this because I can tell I'm close to burning out. Good luck in your own investigations!
Well,i found this today at Colonia. Listening post orbiting 2 B planet,and i think it is somewhat related to Project Equinox. https://ctrlv.cz/ElC2 https://ctrlv.cz/w9QvHere are links on the images as i don´t know how to insert them directly here. https://ctrlv.cz/ElC2 https://ctrlv.cz/w9Qv
Ok been a while .. But was thinking about this .. Sarasvati is a Hindu diety who is connected to Indra and is referenced to be the daughter of his thunderbolt (the vajra also pavirava) ... So ya she could be the thunderchild... Also she is a goddess of knowledge .. Which leads us back to the archive... Only thought on Equinox is that the literal translation would be equal night...but not sure how to search planets for balanced day and night cycles
That's a good idea, maybe a planet that's tidally locked to the star (that doesn't narrow it down much, but it might helpwhenif more clues build up...).
Maybe another route to follow would be trying to track down the other members of the project(s). We know there's a few:
Equinox: Cassandra Lockhart, Dr. Calvin
Thunderchild: Julian Lyons, Izzy, Gail, "The team".
It's possible (though unlikely) that somewhere another LP, Comms beacon, log recovered from a POI site, etc. mentions one of these people with no other context.
By the way, what does "GCS" mean? I assumed it was "Galactic Cooperative Starship", but I realise that's just an assumption.