Destroying Barnacles good or bad?

Arnold Layne

A
Hi Commanders
I am new to Elite Dangerous and have just had an invitation from Commander Farseer but she wants Metal Alloys which I have found out are really linked to the Thargoid Barnacles. I have managed to get to a Plaeades and from You Tube learnt how to mine Barnacles... It was very spooky out there but I shot the Barnacles and got the mining fragments of metasl alloys.

My observation is = isn't this a bit like the film AVATAR.. where the mining company are destroying everything just to get a small rock material. Is there some parallel here. Are we doing the right thing destroying the Barnacles? Does Elite Dangerous have an ongoing story/lore that might change for the worse because of our actions?[alien]
 

Micha

Micha
Many people wondered, but the ship has sailed; pretty much everybody (as well as some big Corps) are harvesting the Barnacles. Whether or not that precipitated the current hostilities with the Thargoids or whether that was foregone conclusion we'll probably never know.
 

JetsonRING

JetsonRING
Beat me to it. Given we are already involved in a conflict with the flower-ships it does not matter whether or not harvesting barnacles will incite a conflict.

PS: Barnacles currently cannot be "destroyed" by humans, only the "spikes". You can ram one at full speed (Pips to SYS!) and confirm it for yourself.
 

O'Roarke

O'Roarke
Honestly, after being in AX zones for quite some time, it feels to me that the "barnacle forests" that you can find are about Interceptor sized -- and you can notice the smaller barnacles in the forest being on the main ridge of Interceptor-like petals; and there are eight of those smaller barnacle ridges -- just as many petals as an Interceptor has.
If you're near the big central barnacle it sounds like some weird kind of underground building... or growing.

One of the GalCop/INRA related sites, the GCS Sarasvati, Project Equinox logs mentioned that "the Thargoids are sowing the seeds for their return".

I think those barnacles, and the meta alloy pods that grow on them, are just byproducts of what Thargoids are actually doing at those sites (the important stuff goes on below surface) - but they still don't like that we're taking that byproduct if they catch us carrying it.

Barnacle forests being visited by Interceptors? -It might be supplying the baby-Interceptor with power, it might be delivering it's programming data, it might be checking up on the growth of the baby-Interceptor.
A single barnacle? -Maybe it's a recently seeded start for an Interceptor - or maybe it's a Scout being grown...

And I don't know if the Thargoids see this as a conflict, or just a minor issue with their terraforming/colonization effort. Maybe it's even mostly automated for them right now - that would explain the lack of an insectoid-like xeno lifeform in the "cockpit" of Interceptors, and the rather predictable attack patterns of those interceptors.

So TLDR; no I don't think it's bad, but I also don't think it's good.
 
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GTwannabe

GTwannabe
Indifferent? Scavengers at the mega barnacle turn hostile after a while but I have no idea whether:

- they object to my presence/proximity
- they object to shooting
- the object to destruction of spires
- they object to possession of meta alloys
- they only turn hostile because some spawn underground and perish after a few minutes
 

Jmanis

Jmanis
GTwannabe said:
Indifferent? Scavengers at the mega barnacle turn hostile after a while but I have no idea whether:

- they object to my presence/proximity
- they object to shooting
- the object to destruction of spires
- they object to possession of meta alloys
- they only turn hostile because some spawn underground and perish after a few minutes
Click to expand...

They react to shooting things. I've done a few tests regarding this. At structures and barnacles they react to repeated destruction of any thargoid things.

Whether that's destroying the organic structures, shooting thargoid links or other cargoes, or shooting scavengers, it'll eventually trigger the whole site to go hostile.

At the back of my mind i think shooting a barnacle can trigger it even though there's no obvious damage when shooting it... but I'd need to verify that. Happy to go do a video proving the other stuff though.
 
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Envisitor

Envisitor
As far as I know the Barnacles are "mining and refinery devices" of the Thargoids. They extract the resources of the planet and refine them to meta-alloys. So the Thargoids are the guys who are exploiting the planets.
 

Turd Ferguson

Turd Ferguson
shooting barnacles is no different than shooting a mineral formation, cargo crate, or a brain tree. its just another thing to shoot to get drops.
 

Jmanis

Jmanis
Worth pointing out that I've done a couple tests now. Shooting organic structures did not get scavengers attention

However. Just shooting the structure in a non-specific location *does* get the scavengers hostile

[video=youtube;moDa-rnfGj0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moDa-rnfGj0[/video]

The same also happens if you shoot the a barnacle at a barnacle forest.
 

hems303

hems303
Arnold Layne said:
Hi Commanders
I am new to Elite Dangerous and have just had an invitation from Commander Farseer but she wants Metal Alloys which I have found out are really linked to the Thargoid Barnacles. I have managed to get to a Plaeades and from You Tube learnt how to mine Barnacles... It was very spooky out there but I shot the Barnacles and got the mining fragments of metasl alloys.

My observation is = isn't this a bit like the film AVATAR.. where the mining company are destroying everything just to get a small rock material. Is there some parallel here. Are we doing the right thing destroying the Barnacles? Does Elite Dangerous have an ongoing story/lore that might change for the worse because of our actions?[alien]
Click to expand...

I can see your thought pattern on this i.e. the thing destroyed in the film Avatar was a tree i.e a biological 'thing', and the Elite Dangerous Codex lists the Thargoid barnacles under 'biological' discoveries AFAIK so just there is a possible superficial similarity.

Also thinking about the film Avatar there were those glowy little white floating thingies linked to the tree; AND if you look carefully at the barnacles there are small glowing flecks floating about or there used to be anyway! Again a similarity.

About the EDH 'lore' I really think FDev have just reused a sci-fi trope, just as was used in Avatar and that is as far as it goes. There is NO hidden lore, meaning or consequence to our action 'mining' the barnacles.

However; IF we do see tall blue-skinned pre-industrial peoples fleeing the destruction, we had better call a halt to mining and re-evaluate!

Fly and Mine safe CMDR. (Enjoy the game for what it is, don't overthink things as the depth just doesn't warrant it)

o7
 
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