Lore questions. :)

[Jorki Rasalas]

On the Quest for Raxxla thread we have a claim that the guy remembers an interview with D.Braben (video, supposedly before release of Horizons) that we need to authenticate.

Apparently someone asked DB about Raxxla and the answer was:

DB: "- It would be more likelly to reveal itself to a group of players."
Interviewer: "- How so?"
DB: "- If you are at the right place and you scan it enough..."
Interviewer: "- Advanced scanner or the basic one?"
DB: "- Basic scanning is enough."
Interviewer: "- But you have to be Elite..."
DB: "- You have to be Elite."

Clearly significant if we can authenticate it; I’ve tried but found no source for this. Anybody remember it?

 

[drew]

I wouldn't be surprised if even he can't give you a definite answer on that. He was probably told back then that it is considered canon, but whether that's still true today? Who knows.

It definitely was at the time. However, I am unaware whether Frontier have abandoned the lore I was working with back then - they've never confirmed or denied. I'm not aware there have been any confirmations of the two dynasties of Thargoids actually present in the game itself. I fear the lore may have been retconned (or possibly just simplified into one set of Thargoids who are bad because 'reasons'). Impossible to tell I'm afraid.

It's been 2.5 years since Premonition was released - plenty of time for that storyline to have been substantiated in game. In my heart of hearts I fear that original lore is now dead, given the demise of GalNet etc, and the Thargoids are just end-of-level baddies for the game rather than the vanguard of an interesting narrative with a more complex and nuanced alien race (as opposed to the clichéd insectoid cannon fodder they seem to have become.)

Also, Aegis and the AX weapons were not in the lore I was working with. It's quite possible that Frontier have been 'winging' the lore from v2.3 of ED onwards.

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Is there anything you can clarify about what the Klaxians pursuing the Oresrians through human space actually means? (Or meant?)

A quick look at the map reveals that human space is far too small to literally hide behind, and even at the slowest reasonable estimate for how fast Thargoids travel it would only take a few extra weeks to go around it entirely. Is there something obvious we're missing here?

 

[yelboc]

Thanks for the response - most interesting. If you are right and the whole arc has been cut off then that doesn't leave much left of the original setting of ED. Its certainly been interesting reading the back story by yourself and others, but as usual, just as I come to understand how it all fits together it's too late to be a part of it

With regards to Ians question - I guess it would mean the Klaxians fighting on two fronts, as it were, fending off humans as well as Oresrians.

 

[drew]

As originally explained to me, the Oresrians and Klaxians were separate dynasties of Thargoids involved in an internecine war. The Oresrians were losing and being forced out of their 'home space' with the Klaxians in pursuit. The Oresrians had come across humanity before (circa the original Elite game period in 3125AD) and had fought a few skirmishes against us, aware we were a space faring culture.

The Oresrians were in retreat, with the Klaxians pursuing them. The Oresrians intended to make a run through human controlled space and 'rile us' in order for them to use us as a 'bullet shield'. The idea being that as the Klaxians rolled into humanity's sphere of influence the Klaxians and us would be too busy engaging each other and the Oresrians would be able to escape and hide somewhere else.

This was the 'premonition' upon which all of the Club's machinations, Salomé's secret, the 'Dynasty Plot' and the 'hyperdiction' events in early Thargoid encounters were based. Humanity was being manipulated to produce more weapons (eg. cancellation of the London Treaty) find escape routes out of the Bubble and generally gear up for a big fight. The Club suspected that humanity would be outmatched and might be forced to flee. The assumption was that some kind of devastating invasion was coming, but not all appeared as it seemed... it wasn't a bad wheeze.

Unfortunately, all we actually got were a few slightly different versions of Thargoids, which damaged space stations off camera (on Thursdays) and a few extra weapons.

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[yelboc]

"Thursdays - I never could quite get the hang of Thursdays"

 

[JT442]

I still think that the Klaxians are coming. Bare in mind that the narrative has been effectively on hold for over a year - the seasons should last 12 months, but its been over (?) two years since the last paid content... I just need a hint of their appearance and I can confirm my theories about future storyline.

 

[Ambient.Impact]

As originally explained to me, the Oresrians and Klaxians were separate dynasties of Thargoids involved in an internecine war. The Oresrians were losing and being forced out of their 'home space' with the Klaxians in pursuit. The Oresrians had come across humanity before (circa the original Elite game period in 3125AD) and had fought a few skirmishes against us, aware we were a space faring culture.

The Oresrians were in retreat, with the Klaxians pursuing them. The Oresrians intended to make a run through human controlled space and 'rile us' in order for them to use us as a 'bullet shield'. The idea being that as the Klaxians rolled into humanity's sphere of influence the Klaxians and us would be too busy engaging each other and the Oresrians would be able to escape and hide somewhere else.

This was the 'premonition' upon which all of the Club's machinations, Salomé's secret, the 'Dynasty Plot' and the 'hyperdiction' events in early Thargoid encounters were based. Humanity was being manipulated to produce more weapons (eg. cancellation of the London Treaty) find escape routes out of the Bubble and generally gear up for a big fight. The Club suspected that humanity would be outmatched and might be forced to flee. The assumption was that some kind of devastating invasion was coming, but not all appeared as it seemed... it wasn't a bad wheeze.

Unfortunately, all we actually got were a few slightly different versions of Thargoids, which damaged space stations off camera (on Thursdays) and a few extra weapons.

Cheers,

Drew.

I really hope Frontier are reading this and add depth and nuance to the Thargoids in whatever new narrative they involve them in, either in the 2020 update or after. As interesting as combat versus them was, the interactions with them came down to shoot/don't shoot, which felt kind of two dimensional. I'd love to see non-violent options in scenarios. District 9 comes to mind whenever I think of a good example of how to make an alien species both fearsome and nuanced.

 

[Redden Alt-Mer]

It's quite possible that Frontier have been 'winging' the lore from v2.3 of ED onwards.

Sadly, this seems to be the case.. or, at least, that they didn't have anything ready for after the return and season 3. But this is the easy one to believe.

It is also quite possible that the next step of the story requires something to be implemented and that that something has been delayed, for technical or management reasons. First things that comes to mind (for me, at least) are hive ships - so far the game can only support rather static megaships, that would make for quite underwhelming hive ships. It then comes natural to think that they planned to release hive ships together with fleet carriers in 3.3, about a year after The Return, but they have been delayed first for a year and now for another six months.

I really hope Frontier are reading this and add depth and nuance to the Thargoids in whatever new narrative they involve them in, either in the 2020 update or after.

Don't wanna play the white knight role here, but I seriously doubt Frontier has to read this to know there're people that care about the thargoids narrative and are wondering what happened to it But you need to consider the return of investment. What if according to their internal analytics and telemetries they determined that not enough people were actually interacting with the Thargoids to make it worth the effort of progressing the narrative further? Except for a few groups, Canonn, AXI, OpIDA, the rest of the player base seemed to be quite oblivious of the Thargoids, except when they caused Palin to shutdown ops. It's possible their telemetries indicated clearly that they had issues keeping new players in after the beginning, so they invested into the new player experience, while Thargoids possibly seemed rather self-maintaning for the few endgame players enjoying them

Finally, a last possibility: bugs. For what we know, the next step in the story requires AX CZs to be working perfectly, and they discovered a bug in them that prevents them from deploying the next iteration, bad to the point that they decided to disable them altogether for months rather than keeping them in the current state.

Tl;dr; lots of speculation, main point is that it's easy to say "they weren't ready for taking the narrative further" or "they don't care" or "they're winging it" but really there're so many possible reasons because they could have decided to pause (or even completely drop ) the Thargoids related narrative that all we can do is speculate.

 

[Ambient.Impact]

Sadly, this seems to be the case.. or, at least, that they didn't have anything ready for after the return and season 3. But this is the easy one to believe.

It is also quite possible that the next step of the story requires something to be implemented and that that something has been delayed, for technical or management reasons. First things that comes to mind (for me, at least) are hive ships - so far the game can only support rather static megaships, that would make for quite underwhelming hive ships. It then comes natural to think that they planned to release hive ships together with fleet carriers in 3.3, about a year after The Return, but they have been delayed first for a year and now for another six months.



Don't wanna play the white knight role here, but I seriously doubt Frontier has to read this to know there're people that care about the thargoids narrative and are wondering what happened to it But you need to consider the return of investment. What if according to their internal analytics and telemetries they determined that not enough people were actually interacting with the Thargoids to make it worth the effort of progressing the narrative further? Except for a few groups, Canonn, AXI, OpIDA, the rest of the player base seemed to be quite oblivious of the Thargoids, except when they caused Palin to shutdown ops. It's possible their telemetries indicated clearly that they had issues keeping new players in after the beginning, so they invested into the new player experience, while Thargoids possibly seemed rather self-maintaning for the few endgame players enjoying them

Finally, a last possibility: bugs. For what we know, the next step in the story requires AX CZs to be working perfectly, and they discovered a bug in them that prevents them from deploying the next iteration, bad to the point that they decided to disable them altogether for months rather than keeping them in the current state.

Tl;dr; lots of speculation, main point is that it's easy to say "they weren't ready for taking the narrative further" or "they don't care" or "they're winging it" but really there're so many possible reasons because they could have decided to pause (or even completely drop ) the Thargoids related narrative that all we can do is speculate.

I like the way you think.

 

[Jellicoe]

Is it significant that the Zurara still has its lights on, its engines apparently powered up and its hab rings spinning rather than being a 'dead' hulk like many of the deserted generation ships, or is it just an oversight that it looks like a 'live' ship?

 

[Yure]

I think we've missed something with the probe. It's been two years since the story progressed. Yes, we've had more content in the terms of aggression and background / historical knowledge, but I truly believe FDEV is waiting for a trigger to be pulled.

I do not believe everything we have about Merope and Merope 5c has been uncovered. I know MOST of the evidence suggests otherwise, but we've ignored important facts. Like Merope 5c was chosen as a "meter stick" to reference other locations and divulge data. Any other planet could be used as a ratio. It's not because it had the "first" barnacle, other planets have barnacles, and fdev commented on this notice being a correct assumption.

 

[Jorki Rasalas]

I think we've missed something with the probe. It's been two years since the story progressed. Yes, we've had more content in the terms of aggression and background / historical knowledge, but I truly believe FDEV is waiting for a trigger to be pulled.

I do not believe everything we have about Merope and Merope 5c has been uncovered. I know MOST of the evidence suggests otherwise, but we've ignored important facts. Like Merope 5c was chosen as a "meter stick" to reference other locations and divulge data. Any other planet could be used as a ratio. It's not because it had the "first" barnacle, other planets have barnacles, and fdev commented on this notice being a correct assumption.

Many of us thought, and still think, that there must be something special about Merope 5c (see the old Canonn threads if you can find them!); however there were several planetary searches done at the time, and I know a couple of people (me included) have scanned it with DSS since we got that piece of kit.

Nothing was ever found. We’d be really interested if you could!

 

[Yure]

Not sure if it is what is on the planet. I believe it might have to do with its orbit and Merope 5. Merope 5 temperature wise is.... safeish... either way only way to see if we missed something with the probe is long recordings at different angles of 5c.

 

[Jorki Rasalas]

I still think that the Klaxians are coming. Bare in mind that the narrative has been effectively on hold for over a year - the seasons should last 12 months, but its been over (?) two years since the last paid content... I just need a hint of their appearance and I can confirm my theories about future storyline.

You want a hint on Klaxian appearance? I suspect these may be relevant:

Source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=54pJnrt0pcs

Source: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HxgOKumdgJ4

 

[Eckee]

I think we've missed something with the probe. It's been two years since the story progressed. Yes, we've had more content in the terms of aggression and background / historical knowledge, but I truly believe FDEV is waiting for a trigger to be pulled.

I do not believe everything we have about Merope and Merope 5c has been uncovered. I know MOST of the evidence suggests otherwise, but we've ignored important facts. Like Merope 5c was chosen as a "meter stick" to reference other locations and divulge data. Any other planet could be used as a ratio. It's not because it had the "first" barnacle, other planets have barnacles, and fdev commented on this notice being a correct assumption.

Fine I'll check things for you. It's off-topic here, ping me in Canonn and tell me what do you want to be checked.

 

[Yure]

@drew - Dynasty Expeditions, all were sent out in Anacondas, correct?

Ground Stations that picked up or hacked these expeditions' databases/transmissions. What happened to the personnel that had manned these monitoring sites?

 

[Crimson Echo]

Is the dragon like thing/reptile on the Dark Wheel medallion (like the one given to Salome) supposed to represent a specific dragon? Perhaps Typhon of greek mythos?

 

[JT442]

You want a hint on Klaxian appearance? I suspect these may be relevant:

Not what I meant.... a hint as to whether there actually is a second race of Thargoid approaching which is fundamentally different to what we have now in tactics/raw strength or physical appearance of the ships. Leaked images of alleged graphics prove nothing...

 

[Jorki Rasalas]

Not what I meant.... a hint as to whether there actually is a second race of Thargoid approaching which is fundamentally different to what we have now in tactics/raw strength or physical appearance of the ships. Leaked images of alleged graphics prove nothing...

Ah, you meant “appearance” as in “an occasion when someone appears in public”
Not, as I interpreted “the way that someone or something looks”. Your post was ambiguous.