Suggestions for an in Universe explanation for finding the Ancient Ruins.

[xdeath]

So it is well known that I found the Ancient Ruins by using the trailer.
As my CMDR is going to be part of the Lore now, using the trailer as an explanation would be fourth wall breaking.

So there has to be an in universe explanation as to how my CMDR knew where to look.
Originally my first thought was a depiction on an Ancient Artifact that the Canonn institute had, however some in Discord chat suggested my CMDR having a vision(mass effect style).

I would be interested to know of any other suggestions. I am sure Drew and the writing team at Frontier would like to know as well.

Cheers.

PS: Apologies if this is not the right forum for this.

 

[Sapyx]

I say go the full Treasure Island path.

Some strange guy who looks distinctly unwell walks up to you in a bar, gives you an old holodisc, makes you promise to keep it safe, then abruptly dies right in front of you. You wonder what the disc contains, so you take it back to your ship to play it and find a low-resolution, jerky video clip which seems to show some odd alien ruins on the surface of a dead, barren planet. Being a pilot with more than a casual interest in astronomy, you can't help but wonder if you can use your astronomical skills to try to pinpoint the location of this ancient ruin, using what you can make out of the background stars in the video. It's a long shot, but hey, somebody thought it was worth dying for, or killing over. All the while, you're suspecting it might just be a stupid hoax or a clip from some cheap sci-fi movie made in somebody's basement, but eventually...

Even now, you have no idea where the original holorecording actually came from. The poor guy must've been some explorer captain who was betrayed by his crew.

 

[Poy]

"A leaked anonymous picture on the intergalnet that a member of the Pilot's Federation (referred by the organisation as Commander "xdeath") used to masterfully triangulate its point of origin using nothing but nautical navigation expertise.

The original source of the picture has yet to be determined."



After all it wouldn't be the first time NPCs knew more than us, remember the CG for the alien wreck hints ?

 

[Loskene]

Hm, seems they didn't really think that one through when they made the trailer huh.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Someone else made it there before you. But only his data core made it back, discovered in a cloud of radioactive rubble. The video clip was all the data that could be retrieved.

 

[xdeath]

After all it wouldn't be the first time NPCs knew more than us, remember the CG for the alien wreck hints ?

*eye twitching* I hated that.

While I simply just wanted to find the site, I was actually happy that it didn't involve NPCs. I fully understand that in any game NPCs are needed to tell stories, but sometimes it feels that us CMDRs are merely observers rather than participators. In the case of the Alien crash site, we were underpaid actors, but generally we had no say in the course of events.

 

[Sapyx]

NPCs will always know more than us, and always be more likely to stumble upon things before us, simply because, in the ED universe, there are 5 trillion NPCs and only, what, 50,000 players? So they outnumber us by a billion to one.

For a legitimate in-game explanation, you've really only got three choices:

- You stumbled upon it purely by accident.
- An NPC (human or alien) stumbled upon it purely by accident and you found/were given their Treasure Island map offering clues to the place
- You're psychic, or have otherwise godlike/supernatural powers.

The first sounds unsatisfactory (since you did have to put in some hard work yourself), and the third seems to be unlikely to be supported by FD. That really only leaves you option 2, and I doubt FD would be too keen on a (live) alien giving you the info you needed, so that only leaves a human NPC as the prime source.

 

[Adept Geraden]

Personally, I find it a tragically sad state of affairs that anybody needs to have this conversation.

 

[halo jones 101]

I say go the full Treasure Island path.

Some strange guy who looks distinctly unwell walks up to you in a bar, gives you an old holodisc, makes you promise to keep it safe, then abruptly dies right in front of you. You wonder what the disc contains, so you take it back to your ship to play it and find a low-resolution, jerky video clip which seems to show some odd alien ruins on the surface of a dead, barren planet. Being a pilot with more than a casual interest in astronomy, you can't help but wonder if you can use your astronomical skills to try to pinpoint the location of this ancient ruin, using what you can make out of the background stars in the video. It's a long shot, but hey, somebody thought it was worth dying for, or killing over. All the while, you're suspecting it might just be a stupid hoax or a clip from some cheap sci-fi movie made in somebody's basement, but eventually...

Even now, you have no idea where the original holorecording actually came from. The poor guy must've been some explorer captain who was betrayed by his crew.

Lore wise this type of scenario does give you a lot of room and flexibility for adapting it too fit any Role Play of your Cmdr's back story. Also I would like too add my congratulations for the great work in navigation and astronomy to discover the ruins too. o7

 

[roryclague]

Ever seen Star Trek: Deep Space Nine? You could be the Emissary of the Guardians.

It all sort of depends on how this evolves, but perhaps whoever built the ruin (whether their intentions are good or ill might shape the outcome in different ways, both possibilities are interesting) came to you in hypersleep or in witch space and showed you the way to the ruin. Neural examination of your memories by scientists at Canonn (which you are a member of) prompted the participation of dozens of Canonn CMDRs in the search. In the end, it could only be your CMDR who actually found the site.

Perhaps it all started when you encountered something in your travels, and this somehow selected you as the recipient of the message. Have you done a lot of exploration? Depending on your CMDR's history, perhaps these experiences prompted the site to transmit the message to you. Or maybe the in-game lore is that you were simply traveling in the area and you found a smaller artifact. Perhaps it contained a stellar configuration that you used for the trangulation? Depends on how 'mystical' or 'hard sci fi" of a direction Drew and FDev would be happiest with.

 

[drzdeano]

Please no visions crud, they are the worst plot device ever!

Apart from the whole " this episode was just a dream"

 

[Riverside]

Research of old Earth documents from the early 21st Century reveal a hitherto unsolved mystery. With the aid of modern technology not available in C21 the intrepid Cmdr was able to triangulate, postulate and most importantly, locate the prize.

 

[varonica]

Research of old Earth documents from the early 21st Century reveal a hitherto unsolved mystery. With the aid of modern technology not available in C21 the intrepid Cmdr was able to triangulate, postulate and most importantly, locate the prize.

No, no a million times no. You want to take one of the worst "Aliens" movies ever made and turn it into a method for exploring the Galaxy? (Apologies to those who liked Prometheus, I didn't). One of the issue causing the current problems with the lore is simply this, that everything starts now. Which means they have to either introduce reasons why during all our explorations out to the far side of the galaxy we have not yet turned up evidence of alien life, or introduce clues in a jarring fashion, both of these are wrong.

I put it to you Commander, that before setting out on your trip you explored the Federation archives looking for interesting places to search and discovered a message beamed back from a generation ship hundreds of years ago but which was never investigated at the time due to technology limitations. It eventually got buried and forgotten during various reorganisation of the archives and the footage you observed and used was all that could be recovered from the ancient and deteriorating records!

As an aside I suggest that other explorers start searching the same archives, who knows what mysteries may be hidden and long forgotten just waiting for the lucky commander to find.

I put it to FDEV, they make a great game, they just need a decent story writer to get their stuff together!

 

[Riverside]

No, no a million times no. You want to take one of the worst "Aliens" movies ever made and turn it into a method for exploring the Galaxy? (Apologies to those who liked Prometheus, I didn't). One of the issue causing the current problems with the lore is simply this, that everything starts now. Which means they have to either introduce reasons why during all our explorations out to the far side of the galaxy we have not yet turned up evidence of alien life, or introduce clues in a jarring fashion, both of these are wrong.

I put it to you Commander, that before setting out on your trip you explored the Federation archives looking for interesting places to search and discovered a message beamed back from a generation ship hundreds of years ago but which was never investigated at the time due to technology limitations. It eventually got buried and forgotten during various reorganisation of the archives and the footage you observed and used was all that could be recovered from the ancient and deteriorating records!

As an aside I suggest that other explorers start searching the same archives, who knows what mysteries may be hidden and long forgotten just waiting for the lucky commander to find.

I put it to FDEV, they make a great game, they just need a decent story writer to get their stuff together!

Are you sure you quoted the right post? Your suggestion seems to be functionally identical to mine.

Try Fred Saberhagen's Bezerker series if you want good tense sci-fi.

 

[Cmdr Frawd Digger]

So it is well known that I found the Ancient Ruins by using the trailer.
As my CMDR is going to be part of the Lore now, using the trailer as an explanation would be fourth wall breaking.

So there has to be an in universe explanation as to how my CMDR knew where to look.
Originally my first thought was a depiction on an Ancient Artifact that the Canonn institute had, however some in Discord chat suggested my CMDR having a vision(mass effect style).

I would be interested to know of any other suggestions. I am sure Drew and the writing team at Frontier would like to know as well.

Cheers.

PS: Apologies if this is not the right forum for this.

I just think you're awesome for actually figuring it out from the video! Great work Cmdr. +1 rep.

And I do like Cmdr Sapyx's explanation above ('cept I cant rep him because I already did somewhere else).

Frawd

 

[Jaiotu]

Simple explanation: Finding the ruins was a "happy accident". On a hunch that the Synuffe (SP?) sector might be an extraordinarily rich source of some rare materials you were performing planetary surveys in the area when a strange surface feature caught your eye and prompted you to investigate.

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I just think you're awesome for actually figuring it out from the video! Great work Cmdr. +1 rep.

And I do like Cmdr Sapyx's explanation above ('cept I cant rep him because I already did somewhere else).

Frawd

I rep'd him for you. If I'd actually read the thread first I'd have seen that he already made my suggestion.

 

[DNA-Decay]

I say go the full Treasure Island path.

Some strange guy who looks distinctly unwell walks up to you in a bar, gives you an old holodisc, makes you promise to keep it safe, then abruptly dies right in front of you. You wonder what the disc contains, so you take it back to your ship to play it and find a low-resolution, jerky video clip which seems to show some odd alien ruins on the surface of a dead, barren planet. Being a pilot with more than a casual interest in astronomy, you can't help but wonder if you can use your astronomical skills to try to pinpoint the location of this ancient ruin, using what you can make out of the background stars in the video. It's a long shot, but hey, somebody thought it was worth dying for, or killing over. All the while, you're suspecting it might just be a stupid hoax or a clip from some cheap sci-fi movie made in somebody's basement, but eventually...

Even now, you have no idea where the original holorecording actually came from. The poor guy must've been some explorer captain who was betrayed by his crew.

CMDR Billy Bones!

I've even got a pic of the dude:

Which makes you Jim (xdeath) Hawkins.
Actually your avatar almost suits right now - but there's a wealth of resources from Treasure Planet:

 

[varonica]

Are you sure you quoted the right post? Your suggestion seems to be functionally identical to mine.

Try Fred Saberhagen's Bezerker series if you want good tense sci-fi.

In Prometheus they followed a star map found in ancient cave paintings and other stuff that could only be interpreted using a modern point of view, it's a form of Deus ex machina where a plot problem is solved by suddenly introducing an external device that has no relation to the story. We need a method to find the Aliens in the new movie, oh look here's a star map. My suggestion is that the finding be embedded in the lore of the game, generation ships have been wandering off and getting lost for ages, why wouldn't one of these have stumbled across the ruins and sent back a message before just jumping out to have a look was an available method of exploration. It's the difference between having something fit the universe and having something just dropped in to solve a plot problem.

It's also something that can be used as an ongoing story line in the ED universe to avoid so much jarring intrusion, whereas what do we do the next time we get a hint from the devs and find ruins from a picture or something else on youtube, introduce another ancient 21st century puzzle map?

I will point out you are correct, it performs the same function, but it does it in a way that fits with the existing universe and lore, this is important when writing any sort of extended story, which ED arguably is.

 

[noa12390]

ya my back story short was given the rusty hunk of crap they had yet to scrap and told Get lost and never come back and they couldn't care if the ships power core blew up a few 1000 km from the station type of Be gone

 

[DNA-Decay]

ya my back story short was given the rusty hunk of crap they had yet to scrap and told Get lost and never come back and they couldn't care if the ships power core blew up a few 1000 km from the station type of Be gone

U wot mate?