‘LOUIS DE LACAILLE METALWORKS xxxxx’ - tinfoil hats ON

During last Thursday’s livestream the legend ‘LOUIS DE LACAILLE METALWORKS xxxxx’ appeared on Athur’s screen as his and Bruce's Beluga docked at Garrido Market.

Louis de Lacaille xxxxx.jpg


I noticed it but thought little of it at the time: I assumed that the station had recently been renamed in honour of our beloved Bruce, and that this was the old station name which had somehow lingered on to pop up in the stream when it shouldn’t oughter.

However, CMDR Plater in a stream on Saturday took a great interest in this legend, and he in turn had been clued in by Friday’s Elite Week podcast. Apparently this was most likely to be some sort of clue to something. Listening to Elite Week I was struck particularly by Kai Zen’s comment that the five x's could refer to five stars.

Now Louis de Lacaille was an eighteenth century astronomer who among other things named fourteen constellations. In particular he named one Fornax. Fornax is a Latin word meaning ‘furnace, oven or kiln’; it can also be use for ‘forge’. A check on Google showed that several companies working or trading in metal use Fornax as part of their company name.

So it seemed to me worth having a look at the constellation Fornax, in particular the 27 stars that Lacaille identified as part of it, to see if any of them had five stars, or indeed five of anything.

To cut a long story short, I found nothing. Nu Fornacis had five stars, and a Degraded Emissions USS, which had what they generally have, which is not much.

Nor did I find anything out of the ordinary at stars with five planets, or planets with five moons, or systems with five bodies in total.

So why am I bothering you with this sad tale of failure?

Well, at one of the Fornax systems I did notice something. Zeta Fornacis is a populous Empire system with four stations and, wait for it, five outposts. All five outposts (and for that matter three of the four stations) are refineries.

What if the devs have decided to concentrate, as far as possible, the system overload of carriers in one system where they can take special measures to mitigate the effects of carrier overload. By upgrading the five outposts to stations they’d have eight stations orbiting eight different planets to spread the carriers round the system.

Aren’t we about to see a program to upgrade refinery outposts to stations? I wonder where that will be?

OK, you can take the tinfoil hats off now.
 
Since I've already stuck my neck out, and there's still an hour before the CGs (if any) launch, here's a bonus prediction.

There will be two CGS, one to support each of the construction companies involved in the outpost conversions, and the relative outcomes will determine how many of each type of station gets built.

I'd go for the Orbis: it's easier to line up on the mailslot in supercruise.
 
Well, "Fornax" is also the title of a popular galactic magazine featuring erotica in the Mass Effect universe. What that means I leave to your imagination, I only know it is multi-species. It's meaning is likely derived from fornicare (latin) which is "to fornicate", but has nothing to do with ovens.

Two pieces of genuinely excellent trivia there mate, I'm going to bury them in the memory!
 
Well, "Fornax" is also the title of a popular galactic magazine featuring erotica in the Mass Effect universe. What that means I leave to your imagination, I only know it is multi-species. It's meaning is likely derived from fornicare (latin) which is "to fornicate", but has nothing to do with ovens.
I don't know about that; have you never heard the phrase "a bun in the oven"?
 
Thats more about a woman being pregnant.
That's hardly unrelated to fornication - well, maybe one time.

If I am obliged to be pedantic:

Latin definition for:fornax, fornacis

fornax, fornacis

noun
  • declension: 3rd declension
  • gender: feminine
Definitions:
  1. (baths/smelting/limestone/brick)
  2. (goddess of ovens?)
  3. furnace/oven/kiln
  • Age: In use throughout the ages/unknown
  • Area: All or none
  • Geography: All or none
  • Frequency: For Dictionary, in top 10,000 words
  • Source: “Oxford Latin Dictionary”, 1982 (OLD)
Fornication derives from fornix - arch or vault:

"In Latin, the term fornix means arch or vault. In Ancient Rome, prostitutes waited for their customers out of the rain under vaulted ceilings, and fornix became a euphemism for brothels, and the Latin verb fornicare referred to a man visiting a brothel."

I fear the Mass Effect writers have forgotten more Latin than I ever knew. Or else they saw the opportunity for a pun.
 
Maybe the tin foil should have been worn elsewhere.....? Aisling with baby would make her supporters weep and cause a bit of a royal stir..
 
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