Writing this post is almost seems like opening a police-style cold case. It has been years since the onset of this mystery which seemingly culminated with the finding of the megaship the Zurara out in the Formidine Rift. Despite the seemingly cold trail of evidence, there are some nagging questions that would be interesting to know, foremost among them being an answer to the question: Has the community found all there is to know about this mystery?
I am new to the research on this, as the cost of Elite: Dangerous was out of my range until Epic Games listed it among the games they offered for free in November of 2020. I have investigated much of what has been found, which is what I can say piqued my curiosity on this subject. I was quite surprised that, despite the plethora of information, there is still a great deal of research that can be done on the subject. I will state that my research is mostly focused on the Scutum-Sagittarii Conflux area, but I have added materials from other sources.
A great investigator, whom I have admired for most of my time in the Elite galaxy, once said “…the key to solving a mystery is starting at the beginning and looking at all of the evidence” (sorry CMDR Guru951 if I messed up the wording). Given that, if you are not familiar with the Dynasty Project or its lore, I invite you to click here to be taken to the Wiki page that gives the initial back story. This post will involve some of that information, information from other lore, and some speculation based on the information found in the data logs that can be found at the Scutum-Sagittarii Conflux sites, Hawking’s Gap sites, the Formidine Rift sites, and the Zurara.
With all the unanswered questions out there, I have come to the belief that there is more to the Dynasty Project mystery than has been discovered. I will freely admit upfront that this is speculation and in no way provable without FDev directly putting information out that this mystery has been solved to the level that they have put content in for it. I will note that with Drew Wagar and John Harper both mentioning the inability to add clarity to certain things over time, presumably due to their NDAs, strong implications are that there is more out there to be found.
Evidence I have not seen elsewhere:
1) The first thing to mention is a frame of reference: The ships that were used for these missions were Anacondas built around the time of that the mission started in April of 3270. They used old hyperspace technology that was much slower than what is available in 3307. Travel to the kinds of distances that these expeditions were going on were figured in weeks and months rather than hours and days. To compute how fast these ships traveled, we must look at the logs given us at the sites.
According to these logs, we can find that there are two ships that went out to their respective frontier locations and delivered beacons to be seeded by other crews: Conflux Gamma mission and Hawking’s Gap Beta mission. Reading the logs, one can see that both missions talk about dropping their cargo and returning to known space without spending the whole two months deploying beacons, thereby implying that they did a “shuttle run,” bringing more beacons out from the Core worlds. Assuming these ships left the Core on or about 15 April, then we can begin to build a frame of reference for the distances traveled by these spacers.
If this assumption is correct, then you have an approximate travel time of 153 days for the Conflux delivery (log 3) and 165 days for the Hawking’s Gap delivery (log 4). Given the distances for each site, a bit of math can be done, and one can determine that these ships could travel approximately 60-65 lightyears per day. A justification for the distances can be made in log 2 from the Hawking’s Gap Beta mission where the individual notes that the ship was traveling without shields or armaments, which would reduce tonnage and increase jump range. Plugging this information into the Conflux logs, I think I can make a couple of reasonable assertions.
1A) First, the Anaconda from the Conflux Delta mission probably met its demise about 1150(ish) lightyears from the Conflux sites. This most likely occurred in a system where there is a main sequence star orbiting in close proximity to a neutron star, remarkably like BLEAE AESCS AV-Y D2449 (a system well outside of this arc but illustrates my point well). I come to that conclusion because according to the lore, the original pilots did not use computers to chart their course. This reference was made by Drew Wagar when his character Luko said that “real pilots do not let computers fly for them.” Given this, I believe some form of logs will eventually be found in systems up to 20 lightyears away from said Neutron Star, based on the distance from the search point that GALNET published about the Dynasty locations and the locations that the bases were found at.
This location will also probably be found core-ward of the Conflux site. The author of log 1 from the Alpha mission notes that their course was core-ward and that the star density was rising fast. Given that these explorers were all heading in the same direction, this assumption seems quite safe.
1B) This point depends on the previous points being correct. In a reasonably straight line from the Conflux sites, through the site of the Delta Anaconda’s destruction, one should be able to determine an approximate location for the destruction of the Beta Anaconda’s destruction. If my numbers are right, that would place it about 1920 lightyears from the Conflux sites, and about 780 lightyears from the destruction of the Delta Anaconda. Again, I believe that additional logs could possibly be found within a 20-lightyear distance from the actual site of destruction.
1C) The logs for the Beta Anaconda state that they were almost to their destination (log 4, although Canonn has it listed as log 1). This would give the reasonable estimation that the area that was being seeded with beacons could be found approximately 2000 lightyears from the Conflux sites.
2) The second thing to mention is that the beacons probably had some form of Thargoid technology incorporated into them. This assumption comes from the fact that the Delta Formidine Rift log number 4 mentions that all power was lost in the Sidewinder when something “weird” happened when one of the beacons was set up. Later in log 6 from that same mission, the author notes that the support ship was destroyed. In fact, three of the 4 Formidine Rift missions mention strange things happening.
Adding to this assertion, the Hawking’s Gap Delta mission notes that they were deploying a “series of artefacts of some kind,” (log 4). Hawking’s Gap Gamma mission notes a beacon started “squawking some weird code” before it was switched off (log 3) and Hawking’s Gap Alpha mission notes that the satellites looked like “strange tech,” (log 2).
I have already mentioned the Conflux Beta mission and its unfortunate demise above. Taken from experience, I traveled quite a bit through Thargoid areas without being intercepted. My one encounter with them only happened AFTER I first visited a Thargoid crash site to unlock Professor Palin. Most of the interdictions I have read about do not end with destruction unless one has a piece of Thargoid tech aboard. This may not be the case; however, it does seem rather suspicious.
3) The last thing that bears justice and I feel needs to be added to this list of observations involves an entity known as the Club. According to the Wiki, the Club is a mysterious organization that has been manipulating society for years to ensure the survival of humanity, or so the lore would have us believe. Perhaps that is true, but perhaps that assertion is not as altruistic as we are being led to believe.
It is worth noting that the lore does establish a relationship between the Club and INRA. INRA, as many know, developed the mycoid virus weapon and then sent out CMDR John Jameson to test it against a Thargoid Mothership. It was during the “minor modifications” that were done to CMDR Jameson’s ship that INRA planted a program that would ensure that he did not return to inhabited space upon the completion of his mission if he were successful. When INRA was later dissolved, the Club swooped in to keep the Thargoid threat a secret so that mass panic did not occur amongst the inhabited regions. Did the Club acquire the secrets to the mycoid virus weapon when they did this?
The tactic of eliminating witnesses as INRA did seems to be one of the things the Club did acquire from INRA. Look to the case of the Zurara. The Club could have just as easily edited the memories of the crew after they completed their mission of seeding systems with those beacons, rather than employing a sleeper team of assassin/saboteurs who were hidden among the crew to ensure they did not return. What secrets were so important with that ship that the Club was willing to sacrifice such a monumental investment as the Zurara to the void of deep space?
Perhaps there is more to it than that. Could the Club have chosen those locations to provide a shield for humanity? That would make sense if the beacons were not meant as a guide for humans, but rather as a trap for Thargoids. Knowing that Thargoids are attracted to their own tech, could the Club have designed these beacons to draw in Thargoids so that they were either killed or disabled by some weapon hidden within the beacon? This could provide either a shield to protect humanity (notice the reference to the etymology of Scutum there) or allow easier access to those seeking to harvest and study Thargoid technology.
I could also be postulated that the reasons for these beacons containing Thargoid tech is quite sinister. If the Club knew that Thargoids were attracted to their own tech, could their social manipulations have been to ensure that humanity “stayed put” and then marked out our know territory so that the Thargoids would know where to look when they invaded? They could then select those who would best serve their interests to aid them in the future somewhere else in the Galaxy. Notice in your manual on page 28 (a nice dramatization of that material can be found here) that some “mysterious benefactor” provided the opportunity for you to gain your first ship.
It is worth noting at this point, the Club did arrange for Sirius Corporation (named in one of the Hawking’s Gap as a possible financier of the mission) to acquire the MetaDrive Corporation. This ensured that the galactic balance of power was maintained. If they were in the business of ensuring that humanity survived a war with the Thargoids, would it not have been better to for them to allow one power to become dominant and then unify humanity as a singular cohesive group to defeat the Thargoid threat?
Stepping away from that specific subject for a moment, what I have offered is severely lacking in proof. That is where I am asking for help from you as the reader. Do you know of information that can fills in certain gaps that I have? The following is a list of questions that I am going to be working towards answering over the next couple of months, and you, if you so choose can help me with this.
1) Does anyone know of a list of Neutron Stars that have close companion Main Sequence starts (200ls or less)? EDSM does allow you to search specifically for Neutrons, however I have not found a way with that database to add the additional filter of companion stars. Additionally, the results cap out at 2000 stars per search which means you must make multiple searches from different areas to get more than just the nearest 2000 stars.
2) Does anyone know of areas that Thargoids have been known to be active in between the Conflux area and the Norma Arm region? I have not found online any definitive proof that they have been in this area other than the Conflux Beta logs.
3) Speaking of Thargoids, in the search for these beacons has anyone tried using the Thargoid artifacts to attempt to locate the beacons? It would make sense if they could be found this way as the Formidine Rift Delta logs seem to indicate that the beacons had some form of Thargoid technology incorporated into them.
4) Does anyone have any proof that any of my assertions are incorrect? I am new to this and willing to accept that I am wrong, so long as it is done in a constructive manner.
Finally, I would like to give a shout-out of thanks to CMDR Mattius, CMDR ObsidianAnt, CMDR Drew Wagar, and CMDR Guru951. All of you have helped enhance my enjoyment of this game and inspired me to look deeper into the lore of the game.
I want to note at this point, I am of sound mind and body. I am not expecting to die anytime soon nor am I expected to return to the Bubble soon as I am currently seeking answers in the area near the Conflux sites. That beeping you hear in the background is my microwave telling me my popcorn is ready…
I am new to the research on this, as the cost of Elite: Dangerous was out of my range until Epic Games listed it among the games they offered for free in November of 2020. I have investigated much of what has been found, which is what I can say piqued my curiosity on this subject. I was quite surprised that, despite the plethora of information, there is still a great deal of research that can be done on the subject. I will state that my research is mostly focused on the Scutum-Sagittarii Conflux area, but I have added materials from other sources.
A great investigator, whom I have admired for most of my time in the Elite galaxy, once said “…the key to solving a mystery is starting at the beginning and looking at all of the evidence” (sorry CMDR Guru951 if I messed up the wording). Given that, if you are not familiar with the Dynasty Project or its lore, I invite you to click here to be taken to the Wiki page that gives the initial back story. This post will involve some of that information, information from other lore, and some speculation based on the information found in the data logs that can be found at the Scutum-Sagittarii Conflux sites, Hawking’s Gap sites, the Formidine Rift sites, and the Zurara.
With all the unanswered questions out there, I have come to the belief that there is more to the Dynasty Project mystery than has been discovered. I will freely admit upfront that this is speculation and in no way provable without FDev directly putting information out that this mystery has been solved to the level that they have put content in for it. I will note that with Drew Wagar and John Harper both mentioning the inability to add clarity to certain things over time, presumably due to their NDAs, strong implications are that there is more out there to be found.
Evidence I have not seen elsewhere:
1) The first thing to mention is a frame of reference: The ships that were used for these missions were Anacondas built around the time of that the mission started in April of 3270. They used old hyperspace technology that was much slower than what is available in 3307. Travel to the kinds of distances that these expeditions were going on were figured in weeks and months rather than hours and days. To compute how fast these ships traveled, we must look at the logs given us at the sites.
According to these logs, we can find that there are two ships that went out to their respective frontier locations and delivered beacons to be seeded by other crews: Conflux Gamma mission and Hawking’s Gap Beta mission. Reading the logs, one can see that both missions talk about dropping their cargo and returning to known space without spending the whole two months deploying beacons, thereby implying that they did a “shuttle run,” bringing more beacons out from the Core worlds. Assuming these ships left the Core on or about 15 April, then we can begin to build a frame of reference for the distances traveled by these spacers.
If this assumption is correct, then you have an approximate travel time of 153 days for the Conflux delivery (log 3) and 165 days for the Hawking’s Gap delivery (log 4). Given the distances for each site, a bit of math can be done, and one can determine that these ships could travel approximately 60-65 lightyears per day. A justification for the distances can be made in log 2 from the Hawking’s Gap Beta mission where the individual notes that the ship was traveling without shields or armaments, which would reduce tonnage and increase jump range. Plugging this information into the Conflux logs, I think I can make a couple of reasonable assertions.
1A) First, the Anaconda from the Conflux Delta mission probably met its demise about 1150(ish) lightyears from the Conflux sites. This most likely occurred in a system where there is a main sequence star orbiting in close proximity to a neutron star, remarkably like BLEAE AESCS AV-Y D2449 (a system well outside of this arc but illustrates my point well). I come to that conclusion because according to the lore, the original pilots did not use computers to chart their course. This reference was made by Drew Wagar when his character Luko said that “real pilots do not let computers fly for them.” Given this, I believe some form of logs will eventually be found in systems up to 20 lightyears away from said Neutron Star, based on the distance from the search point that GALNET published about the Dynasty locations and the locations that the bases were found at.
This location will also probably be found core-ward of the Conflux site. The author of log 1 from the Alpha mission notes that their course was core-ward and that the star density was rising fast. Given that these explorers were all heading in the same direction, this assumption seems quite safe.
1B) This point depends on the previous points being correct. In a reasonably straight line from the Conflux sites, through the site of the Delta Anaconda’s destruction, one should be able to determine an approximate location for the destruction of the Beta Anaconda’s destruction. If my numbers are right, that would place it about 1920 lightyears from the Conflux sites, and about 780 lightyears from the destruction of the Delta Anaconda. Again, I believe that additional logs could possibly be found within a 20-lightyear distance from the actual site of destruction.
1C) The logs for the Beta Anaconda state that they were almost to their destination (log 4, although Canonn has it listed as log 1). This would give the reasonable estimation that the area that was being seeded with beacons could be found approximately 2000 lightyears from the Conflux sites.
2) The second thing to mention is that the beacons probably had some form of Thargoid technology incorporated into them. This assumption comes from the fact that the Delta Formidine Rift log number 4 mentions that all power was lost in the Sidewinder when something “weird” happened when one of the beacons was set up. Later in log 6 from that same mission, the author notes that the support ship was destroyed. In fact, three of the 4 Formidine Rift missions mention strange things happening.
Adding to this assertion, the Hawking’s Gap Delta mission notes that they were deploying a “series of artefacts of some kind,” (log 4). Hawking’s Gap Gamma mission notes a beacon started “squawking some weird code” before it was switched off (log 3) and Hawking’s Gap Alpha mission notes that the satellites looked like “strange tech,” (log 2).
I have already mentioned the Conflux Beta mission and its unfortunate demise above. Taken from experience, I traveled quite a bit through Thargoid areas without being intercepted. My one encounter with them only happened AFTER I first visited a Thargoid crash site to unlock Professor Palin. Most of the interdictions I have read about do not end with destruction unless one has a piece of Thargoid tech aboard. This may not be the case; however, it does seem rather suspicious.
3) The last thing that bears justice and I feel needs to be added to this list of observations involves an entity known as the Club. According to the Wiki, the Club is a mysterious organization that has been manipulating society for years to ensure the survival of humanity, or so the lore would have us believe. Perhaps that is true, but perhaps that assertion is not as altruistic as we are being led to believe.
It is worth noting that the lore does establish a relationship between the Club and INRA. INRA, as many know, developed the mycoid virus weapon and then sent out CMDR John Jameson to test it against a Thargoid Mothership. It was during the “minor modifications” that were done to CMDR Jameson’s ship that INRA planted a program that would ensure that he did not return to inhabited space upon the completion of his mission if he were successful. When INRA was later dissolved, the Club swooped in to keep the Thargoid threat a secret so that mass panic did not occur amongst the inhabited regions. Did the Club acquire the secrets to the mycoid virus weapon when they did this?
The tactic of eliminating witnesses as INRA did seems to be one of the things the Club did acquire from INRA. Look to the case of the Zurara. The Club could have just as easily edited the memories of the crew after they completed their mission of seeding systems with those beacons, rather than employing a sleeper team of assassin/saboteurs who were hidden among the crew to ensure they did not return. What secrets were so important with that ship that the Club was willing to sacrifice such a monumental investment as the Zurara to the void of deep space?
Perhaps there is more to it than that. Could the Club have chosen those locations to provide a shield for humanity? That would make sense if the beacons were not meant as a guide for humans, but rather as a trap for Thargoids. Knowing that Thargoids are attracted to their own tech, could the Club have designed these beacons to draw in Thargoids so that they were either killed or disabled by some weapon hidden within the beacon? This could provide either a shield to protect humanity (notice the reference to the etymology of Scutum there) or allow easier access to those seeking to harvest and study Thargoid technology.
I could also be postulated that the reasons for these beacons containing Thargoid tech is quite sinister. If the Club knew that Thargoids were attracted to their own tech, could their social manipulations have been to ensure that humanity “stayed put” and then marked out our know territory so that the Thargoids would know where to look when they invaded? They could then select those who would best serve their interests to aid them in the future somewhere else in the Galaxy. Notice in your manual on page 28 (a nice dramatization of that material can be found here) that some “mysterious benefactor” provided the opportunity for you to gain your first ship.
It is worth noting at this point, the Club did arrange for Sirius Corporation (named in one of the Hawking’s Gap as a possible financier of the mission) to acquire the MetaDrive Corporation. This ensured that the galactic balance of power was maintained. If they were in the business of ensuring that humanity survived a war with the Thargoids, would it not have been better to for them to allow one power to become dominant and then unify humanity as a singular cohesive group to defeat the Thargoid threat?
Stepping away from that specific subject for a moment, what I have offered is severely lacking in proof. That is where I am asking for help from you as the reader. Do you know of information that can fills in certain gaps that I have? The following is a list of questions that I am going to be working towards answering over the next couple of months, and you, if you so choose can help me with this.
1) Does anyone know of a list of Neutron Stars that have close companion Main Sequence starts (200ls or less)? EDSM does allow you to search specifically for Neutrons, however I have not found a way with that database to add the additional filter of companion stars. Additionally, the results cap out at 2000 stars per search which means you must make multiple searches from different areas to get more than just the nearest 2000 stars.
2) Does anyone know of areas that Thargoids have been known to be active in between the Conflux area and the Norma Arm region? I have not found online any definitive proof that they have been in this area other than the Conflux Beta logs.
3) Speaking of Thargoids, in the search for these beacons has anyone tried using the Thargoid artifacts to attempt to locate the beacons? It would make sense if they could be found this way as the Formidine Rift Delta logs seem to indicate that the beacons had some form of Thargoid technology incorporated into them.
4) Does anyone have any proof that any of my assertions are incorrect? I am new to this and willing to accept that I am wrong, so long as it is done in a constructive manner.
Finally, I would like to give a shout-out of thanks to CMDR Mattius, CMDR ObsidianAnt, CMDR Drew Wagar, and CMDR Guru951. All of you have helped enhance my enjoyment of this game and inspired me to look deeper into the lore of the game.
I want to note at this point, I am of sound mind and body. I am not expecting to die anytime soon nor am I expected to return to the Bubble soon as I am currently seeking answers in the area near the Conflux sites. That beeping you hear in the background is my microwave telling me my popcorn is ready…
