Stargoid questions

[Mattius101]

Hi.

After a long hiatus my interstellar itch for this game has returned.

I am aware of the current situation with the proteus wave, slavation screwing up and the thargoids turning his weapon on humanity.

My question is, how many of these "stargoid" anomalies are currently known about. I have heard there are currently 8 that people are aware of.

Is this true?

And if so do people have the approximate last known locations of these spiralling stars.


Many thanks

 

[Jack Winter]

Yes, at the moment 8, have a look at: https://map.canonn.tech/route_uia.html

 

[Mattius101]

Yes, at the moment 8, have a look at: https://map.canonn.tech/route_uia.html

Thanks Jack

 

[deleteduser]

.

 

[Leadfoot]

View attachment 332874

well that's disturbing.

do those vectors originate in known Tharg hotspots?

One would expect them to be coming from the COL 70 area since that's where we think the thargoids live, but with the exception of number one which started in the cone sector, none of them seem to be starting from anywhere in particular.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

do those vectors originate in known Tharg hotspots?

No, which is even more worrying. Previously the Thargoids were generally thought to be interested in and living primarily in nebulae, for providing conditions to grow barnacles, and a relatively small number of those largely to the SE of the bubble. The discovery that we'd missed their centuries-long presence in Coalsack should have been rather more of a warning than it was...

None of the eight originated in a nebula
None of the eight originated anywhere Thargoid activity had previously been seen
Their origin positions are widely distributed and cover multiple galactic arms

#1 appeared a few hundred LY from the Cone nebula in an area we did know was Thargoid territory after the Gnosis incident (and somewhat suspect beforehand)
#2 appeared in an area we'd never expected Thargoids to be but at least it was a very poorly explored part of the Slegi region so it wasn't impossible we'd missed something
#3 to #8 have mainly shown up in regions which have been fairly heavily explored already without any sign of Thargoid presence, spread out over a nearly 180-degree arc. At that point it becomes obvious that they had to have been actively hidden from casual observations.

Their starting positions also seem a little implausible for these to be the only 8 Stargoids in existence: they may just have been the eight nearest the bubble. On that basis it seems prudent to assume that there might well be tens or even hundreds more of them still lurking quietly in the interstellar void, at least in the galaxy's outer regions.

 

[William J Smith]

Their starting positions also seem a little implausible for these to be the only 8 Stargoids in existence: they may just have been the eight nearest the bubble. On that basis it seems prudent to assume that there might well be tens or even hundreds more of them still lurking quietly in the interstellar void, at least in the galaxy's outer regions.

Thank you for that ray of sunshine, next time I feel a need to be depressed I'll be sure to give you a call

Bill

<<currently checking his carriers cargo bays... someones been stealing the Lavian brandy....

 

[Leadfoot]

Thank you for that ray of sunshine, next time I feel a need to be depressed I'll be sure to give you a call

Just think of it as exploration and Discovery opportunities.

 

[cmdr milesred]

to guess from clues given in the game, I would say there are hundreds of thousands.

from what I see in the game there are far more than 8 nearby. But so far only 8 are on the move.

the current ones in our lives being Thargoids, many things about the lore and what they are aka part cicada part mantis parts unknown
both are dangerous, cicada a bit of Locust for you....swarms of Locust is tiny tiny compared to swarms of Thargoids but the style is very similar
can you imagine locusts after being left alone and evolving for millions of years and eventually becoming sentient, then the entire universe becomes its feeding grounds.
and with the very deadly mantis type being involved..
so much still to learn.

 

[Italianoblack]

I have two questions...

1) as I don't have the time these days for long distance work, has anyone thought about exploring systems along the extrapolated travel lines of the stargoids, to see if there are "yet-to-be-found-by-humanity" Thargoid clusters in outer edges of the galaxy? See if maybe we can find the sources of the stargoids?

2) we know they're heading for the bubble. My entire fleet is currently at Jameson Memorial, and I'm getting worried, what happens if the station is attacked, could I lose my ships? It would be a bit nasty of FDev to do so, but with the Gnosis and some other instances I'm not sure I trust FDev not to say "this little manoeuvre will cost us 51% of our player base" :-D

 

[Ian Doncaster]

1) as I don't have the time these days for long distance work, has anyone thought about exploring systems along the extrapolated travel lines of the stargoids, to see if there are "yet-to-be-found-by-humanity" Thargoid clusters in outer edges of the galaxy? See if maybe we can find the sources of the stargoids?

People have tried travelling extrapolating backwards from their first sighting - in a lot of cases you quite rapidly exit the galactic plane, and none of them have anything obviously interesting in that backwards direction. Nothing out of the ordinary has been found, anyway.

That said, if they had come from further away than they were originally sighted, that raises the question of why they were undetectable (especially the later ones) on that earlier part of their path, and then suddenly became very obviously detectable at an apparently arbitrary point on their route: without a plausible answer to that question it seems more likely that they set off from somewhere near where they were initially detected and we couldn't pick them up on the FSS before then because they weren't moving before then.

2) we know they're heading for the bubble. My entire fleet is currently at Jameson Memorial, and I'm getting worried, what happens if the station is attacked, could I lose my ships? It would be a bit nasty of FDev to do so, but with the Gnosis and some other instances I'm not sure I trust FDev not to say "this little manoeuvre will cost us 51% of our player base" :-D

On previous occasions where stations have been destroyed, rendered inaccessible, or have otherwise lost shipyard function, ships stored then have generally been moved to the next nearest active shipyard ... or since ship transfer was added, been possible to transfer to an active station for the usual fee. They've never been lost entirely - even ships aboard the destroyed megaships in HIP 22460 were recoverable - and I can't see Frontier starting now.

At this stage none of the eight appear to be heading for Shinrarta specifically, so in the short term you're unlikely to be even put to the inconvenience of finding somewhere new to store them.

 

[Italianoblack]

That said, if they had come from further away than they were originally sighted, that raises the question of why they were undetectable

Mmmm, so I assume that indicates they're only here for some part of the future story. I hope it's a good story. The stargoids are bringing me back to Elite after a while away, because it was getting a bit tedious and samey. Finding some Thargoid outposts would have been interesting. I guess it's just FDev randomly placing the stargoids at a start point and letting them go.

so in the short term you're unlikely to be even put to the inconvenience of finding somewhere new to store them.

I know that (and humourously said) this comment is "some guy on the internet said...", however, thank you! It's reassuring, that in the past everything has been recoverable.

 

[Leadfoot]

People have tried travelling extrapolating backwards from their first sighting - in a lot of cases you quite rapidly exit the galactic plane, and none of them have anything obviously interesting in that backwards direction. Nothing out of the ordinary has been found, anyway.

That said, if they had come from further away than they were originally sighted, that raises the question of why they were undetectable (especially the later ones) on that earlier part of their path, and then suddenly became very obviously detectable at an apparently arbitrary point on their route: without a plausible answer to that question it seems more likely that they set off from somewhere near where they were initially detected and we couldn't pick them up on the FSS before then because they weren't moving before then.

And that is why, from a "writing/plot-hole-so-big-you-could-drive-a-fleet-carrier-through-it" point-of-view, it would have made more sense to have them originate from the permit-locked areas of the galaxy. At least then we wouldn't wonder why they just suddenly appear where they weren't detectable before.

At that point, the only thing one can rationalize is "They came from the system they were first noticed in, but we couldn't detect them before due to the fact that they had a hidden, underground base in those systems."

If they were Guardian AI constructs that had been reactivated by Salvation's little experiment, FD could have modified some of those Guardian Ruin sites to have those closed doors open along with evidence of missing ships that used to be inside of them. We always wondered what was inside of those doors.

Well, we only have 10 days to wait and find out, don't we?

 

[Henoch]

[snip]

Well, we only have 10 days to wait and find out, don't we?

Yes, FDev will write another Galnet...of what happened somewhere in some system...

 

[Leadfoot]

Well, we only have 10 days to wait and find out, don't we?

Yes, FDev will write another Galnet...of what happened somewhere in some system...

I'll bet 100,000,000 quatloos that we'll all see what happens when we log in after the update finishes.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

At that point, the only thing one can rationalize is "They came from the system they were first noticed in, but we couldn't detect them before due to the fact that they had a hidden, underground base in those systems."

An alternative answer is "they came from the midpoint [1] between the two systems they were originally seen traversing" - that's generally a point tens of LY from anywhere and one it would be entirely plausible for a honk-and-jump explorer (or even a more conscientious one) to have missed entirely.

To me these things having been quietly hiding is way more plausible than us all having missed the Coalsack barnacle presence for several years despite it being a popular and highly explored nebula close to the bubble.

[1] Remember that in the original Elite, if you were hyperdicted by Thargoids, you ended up surrounded by them at the midpoint of your jump...

 

[Leadfoot]

An alternative answer is "they came from the midpoint [1] between the two systems they were originally seen traversing" - that's generally a point tens of LY from anywhere and one it would be entirely plausible for a honk-and-jump explorer (or even a more conscientious one) to have missed entirely.

To me these things having been quietly hiding is way more plausible than us all having missed the Coalsack barnacle presence for several years despite it being a popular and highly explored nebula close to the bubble.

[1] Remember that in the original Elite, if you were hyperdicted by Thargoids, you ended up surrounded by them at the midpoint of your jump...

That IS a plausible explanation in that context. I never played the original Elite but I remember hearing about how you could be interdicted at random in the game, always in the middle of the trip and it was a fight to the death where you just didn't walk away from it - you won or you lost (at least, that's how I understood it happened - could be wrong).

But what would one do in the middle of nowhere for all that time? And why those individual starting points? I guess once they arrive, I'll ask them - hopefully before they eat me.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

That IS a plausible explanation in that context. I never played the original Elite but I remember hearing about how you could be interdicted at random in the game, always in the middle of the trip and it was a fight to the death where you just didn't walk away from it - you won or you lost (at least, that's how I understood it happened - could be wrong).

And even if you won, you might still not have enough fuel to start a new hyperjump to anywhere.

But what would one do in the middle of nowhere for all that time? And why those individual starting points? I guess once they arrive, I'll ask them - hopefully before they eat me.

I assume they got through a lot of rounds of cards.

Why those particular starting positions is very unclear - but it may not be significant as such. They're almost all (#2 slightly further out) at about 2k-3k LY, which based on the Dynasty logs would have been well outside any reasonable exploration and detection distance at the time. Close enough to get back in a hurry when the time comes, far enough out not to be noticed by things like Project Equinox.

 

[Leadfoot]

Why those particular starting positions is very unclear - but it may not be significant as such. They're almost all (#2 slightly further out) at about 2k-3k LY, which based on the Dynasty logs would have been well outside any reasonable exploration and detection distance at the time. Close enough to get back in a hurry when the time comes, far enough out not to be noticed by things like Project Equinox.

I'm a little surprised that eight fleet carriers haven't already started backtracking them, or at least, started sweeping the starting areas yet, since you mentioned you'd end up going outside the galaxy. Another mystery to solve, I guess. Maybe we can find batches of their litter from where they've been hanging out.

 

[Esare Kranse]

People have tried travelling extrapolating backwards from their first sighting - in a lot of cases you quite rapidly exit the galactic plane, and none of them have anything obviously interesting in that backwards direction. Nothing out of the ordinary has been found, anyway.

That said, if they had come from further away than they were originally sighted, that raises the question of why they were undetectable (especially the later ones) on that earlier part of their path, and then suddenly became very obviously detectable at an apparently arbitrary point on their route: without a plausible answer to that question it seems more likely that they set off from somewhere near where they were initially detected and we couldn't pick them up on the FSS before then because they weren't moving before then.


On previous occasions where stations have been destroyed, rendered inaccessible, or have otherwise lost shipyard function, ships stored then have generally been moved to the next nearest active shipyard ... or since ship transfer was added, been possible to transfer to an active station for the usual fee. They've never been lost entirely - even ships aboard the destroyed megaships in HIP 22460 were recoverable - and I can't see Frontier starting now.

At this stage none of the eight appear to be heading for Shinrarta specifically, so in the short term you're unlikely to be even put to the inconvenience of finding somewhere new to store them.

Moved my whole fleet as far off plane and away from the bubble as I could find a shipyard within a reasonable jump range for my smaller ships. Just wrapping up Fed rank so I can get a Vette at JM and high tail it to safety until this whole mess shakes out.