THE FORMIDINE RIFT MYSTERY (Part 4)

[Darth Ender]

I didn't realise that they changed it so that stations don't make a system have a population any more.

not all stations was the change. see, before launching everyone got off his station for a bogus reasons fdev gave. they thought this would lead to the station having 0 pop but jaques started the journey from a populated system and fdev had not tested things.

after, they fixed things so jaques showed as pop 0 and the presence of a station in a system didn't automatically trigger a population appearing in the galaxy map, if it was given no population.

this is a unique setup. most stations are populated.

however, we do see the effect of these changes with stations taken over by thargoids not causing the engine to spawn human npcs and all...

I wasn't aware there was so many things proving it, if you could share them that would be great. I do know that Jaques intended to jump to Beagle Point initially, but not that Eol Prou was only meant to be the first stop.

there was no first stop. jaques was supposed to go straight to beagle point. he was disrupted in hyperspace by the whole 'lights' and singing thing that kept coming up in hyperspace experiments and noted in galnet.

the lights and singing in hyperspace thing was originally intended to be signs of the guardians or thargoids but i believe fdev abandoned and retconned that whole thing and ended up exposing the guardians as a dead race and thargoids in a different manner

i will see if records still exist. however these were actions that were discussed in the forum, Reddit, thru galnet, videos and just by updates in the game. are they were discussed like, what, 7 years ago now. it's not like fdev generally makes a nice post explaining their screwup and what they originally intended. it has to be pieced together by players over observations and what fdev does over time after.


many details are discussed here. along with observations of unintended automatic engine behaviour of jaques station, etc.

I have found Jaques Station!

Woah, how much would rares from the bubble sell for out there? :eek: And the system on the gal map says it is in expansion? Could this be the start of a new smaller deep space bubble? :cool: that would be awesome, but i think it will be a failed expansion / failed investment Fdev just dont...

forums.frontier.co.uk

Maybe, maybe not. But Colonia was in game when the rift mystery was "solved".

lots of things existed at the same time. it was not a short mystery. the rift had nothing to do with colonia and jaques beyond being another place to go repair and turn in exploration data towards the end. that and thargoids being hinted at in both. ultimately neither actually involved goids.

 

[Korvettenkapitan]

Now my fleet carrier is heading to Formidine Rift. I plan to spend a few months there. At least it's better than sitting in a bubble and doing stupid tasks.

 

[Ozric]

not all stations was the change. see, before launching everyone got off his station for a bogus reasons fdev gave. they thought this would lead to the station having 0 pop but jaques started the journey from a populated system and fdev had not tested things.

after, they fixed things so jaques showed as pop 0 and the presence of a station in a system didn't automatically trigger a population appearing in the galaxy map, if it was given no population.

this is a unique setup. most stations are populated.

however, we do see the effect of these changes with stations taken over by thargoids not causing the engine to spawn human npcs and all...


there was no first stop. jaques was supposed to go straight to beagle point. he was disrupted in hyperspace by the whole 'lights' and singing thing that kept coming up in hyperspace experiments and noted in galnet.

the lights and singing in hyperspace thing was originally intended to be signs of the guardians or thargoids but i believe fdev abandoned and retconned that whole thing and ended up exposing the guardians as a dead race and thargoids in a different manner

i will see if records still exist. however these were actions that were discussed in the forum, Reddit, thru galnet, videos and just by updates in the game. are they were discussed like, what, 7 years ago now. it's not like fdev generally makes a nice post explaining their screwup and what they originally intended. it has to be pieced together by players over observations and what fdev does over time after.

Right so all just your interpretation. I thought so, cheers.

 

[Darth Ender]

Right so all just your interpretation. I thought so, cheers.

not sure how you conclude that when even that one thread i noted directly describes most of what actually happened as it was happening. did you expect fdev to put out a release explaining what they did wrong and how they messed up one of their first big community events so epically? it's only up for interpretation if it can be explained in some other way. good luck.

 

[Star Ferret]

First time seeing this particular thread...

I've been interested in exploring parts of the Formidine Rift for some time, so I finally decided to start heading out there in my ExploraJumpaConda.

Not sure when I'll arrive there; not going by any specific ETA or flight plan... just whenever I get bored with playing other games, and feel like logging on to ED and continuing on my journey. Nor do I know how long I'll stay there after I arrive... maybe at least until I run out of repair limpets and decide I need to find somewhere to buy more.

But for now, I'm currently in Phroi Hypue XX-F D12-24 .. making a beeline straight for the Formidine Rift, probably enter near the border with Kepler's Crest and start exploring around that side of the Formidine Rift. Though now I'm curious about this particular thread.

I'm wondering if someone could give me a brief rundown... considering this is 725 pages long and was started back in .. 2017?

Is there anything specific I should look for; or any specific areas I should focus on, while exploring the Formidine Rift?

 

[Frankymole]

First time seeing this particular thread...

I've been interested in exploring parts of the Formidine Rift for some time, so I finally decided to start heading out there in my ExploraJumpaConda.

Not sure when I'll arrive there; not going by any specific ETA or flight plan... just whenever I get bored with playing other games, and feel like logging on to ED and continuing on my journey. Nor do I know how long I'll stay there after I arrive... maybe at least until I run out of repair limpets and decide I need to find somewhere to buy more.

You can synthesise limpets, in the materials panel, so it could be quite some time before you fully run out!

 

[Star Ferret]

You can synthesise limpets, in the materials panel, so it could be quite some time before you fully run out!

I totally forgot about that!
Thanks for reminding me about it!

 

[Archon Valec]

This thread can be closed.

Rift mystery was solved almost 7 years ago with the discovery of the Zurara and Project Dynasty.

Here's the discovery post.

Drew's confirmation.

 

[Frankymole]

Drew's confirmation.

But it says "The last chapter remains..."

 

[M_72]

But it says "The last chapter remains..."

There is no last chapter of that storyline now that Frontier ditched Drew and decided to do all the storytelling inhouse. He never got to reveal the follow-up story, and probably won't be able to because of NDAs

Such a shame since the whole Rift saga was one of the best times in Elite.

Thargoids, Thargoids, and more Thargoids, is where Frontier want to steer things now.

 

[marx]

There is no last chapter of that storyline now that Frontier ditched Drew and decided to do all the storytelling inhouse. He never got to reveal the follow-up story, and probably won't be able to because of NDAs

Such a shame since the whole Rift saga was one of the best times in Elite.

Thargoids, Thargoids, and more Thargoids, is where Frontier want to steer things now.

Well, Thargoids was what the Salomé storyline was about anyway. They are coming back, and that there's a big old conspiracy which planned contingency plans for this, and also manipulated current events to better prepare the various human factions for combat. Which leads to the question: okay, and? How does that change anything for us?

If memory serves, Drew Wagar had said (written) somewhere before that if Salomé somehow survived, she would have delivered this message and then escaped to live in Colonia. If that scenario came to be, then the only thing that would have changed would have been that she could have been brought back for some other stories in the future, although I'm not sure what for. (Maybe Subject D-2 would have been Kahina Tijani Loren instead of Seo Jin-ae. Yay.) But if I'm remembering wrong, feel free to correct me. It's a "what if" scenario that'll never come to be.

 

[M_72]

Well, Thargoids was what the Salomé storyline was about anyway. They are coming back, and that there's a big old conspiracy which planned contingency plans for this, and also manipulated current events to better prepare the various human factions for combat. Which leads to the question: okay, and? How does that change anything for us?

If memory serves, Drew Wagar had said (written) somewhere before that if Salomé somehow survived, she would have delivered this message and then escaped to live in Colonia. If that scenario came to be, then the only thing that would have changed would have been that she could have been brought back for some other stories in the future, although I'm not sure what for. (Maybe Subject D-2 would have been Kahina Tijani Loren instead of Seo Jin-ae. Yay.) But if I'm remembering wrong, feel free to correct me. It's a "what if" scenario that'll never come to be.

The Salome storyline was a lot more in-depth than what we got. There was a lot more to come after Premonition (she was a clone after all), and the Thargoid storyline that tied into it was radically changed from what Michael Brookes and Drew Wagar had planned for it in the aftermath of Premonition (according to Drew in a recent livestream). Our relationship with the Thargoids may have not all boiled down to just pew pew is something he hinted at. But Frontier decided to slimline it all, ditch Drew, move MB on to another project and hand it over to a new writing team who have produced what we see today. I guess we'll never know what the original narrative would have brought to the game if it hadn't been changed, it would've certainly been quite different to what we got, and likely more faithful to the original lore (which both MB and DW loved and respected).

 

[marx]

The Salome storyline was a lot more in-depth than what we got. There was a lot more to come after Premonition (she was a clone after all), and the Thargoid storyline that tied into it was radically changed from what Michael Brookes and Drew Wagar had planned for it in the aftermath of Premonition (according to Drew in a recent livestream).

Mm, thanks for proving my original point then, that the Salomé storyline was about Thargoids. Perhaps more was planned, but that was what we got in-game and in Drew Wagar's two related books too. From what you wrote, it sounded like MB's and DW's plans would have centered on the Thargoids as well, not on the human conspiracy angle... and said conspiracy was also centered on the Thargoids. So yeah, to quote you from earlier: Thargoids, Thargoids, and more Thargoids.
Well, an interesting angle to explore would have been the story of how such a conspiracy could come to be. However, this is a game we are talking about, and if that story didn't lead to any actual gameplay, it would have been mostly pointless.

I guess we'll never know what the original narrative would have brought to the game if it hadn't been changed, it would've certainly been quite different to what we got, and likely more faithful to the original lore (which both MB and DW loved and respected).

The thing is, ED had already changed from the original Thargoid lore of Elite (the first game). There was little written about them, and it was that the Thargoids are an insectoid race who are only interested in war with us and shoot on sight. So, when the first Thargoid ships in ED didn't shoot on sight, that was a break with the original lore (and gameplay) already.

Of course, it wasn't a break with the third game (FFE)'s lore, where Thargoids didn't fire on the player first, but Drew Wagar often said he'd prefer to disregard that entry of the series. Still, that one's angle (that the Thargoids are actually good guys, just the victims of a human conspiracy) wasn't all that either, so in my opinion, it was better that ED retconned that part out.
Besides, in the end, few video games are known primarily for their lore, all of the famous ones became famous because of their gameplay. In the end, that is the most important aspect.

 

[M_72]

The Thargoids Thargoids Thargoids comment I made was in reference to there not being much happening of note in Elite anymore other than Thargoids Thargoids Thargoids, (surprised it needed to be explained tbh), whereas at one time or another there were multiple noteworthy things happening almost every few months, some related, some not (birth of Colonia, Rift Saga, UA mystery, Dangerous Games, Jaques' big jump, all alongside newsworthy community events like DW1, DW2, Gnosis Incidient, Premonition Event, August Exodus, etc etc.). You know right?.. back when there were people like MB and DW around who encouraged, instigated, and promoted this kind of thing? Now its Thargoids Thargoids Thargoids . But I suspect you already know all this and just wanted to chat?

 

[marx]

The Thargoids Thargoids Thargoids comment I made was in reference to there not being much happening of note in Elite anymore other than Thargoids Thargoids Thargoids, (surprised it needed to be explained tbh), whereas at one time or another there were multiple noteworthy things happening almost every few months, some related, some not (birth of Colonia, Rift Saga, UA mystery, Dangerous Games, Jaques' big jump, all alongside newsworthy community events like DW1, DW2, Gnosis Incidient, Premonition Event, August Exodus, etc etc.). You know right?.. back when there were people like MB and DW around who encouraged, instigated, and promoted this kind of thing? Now its Thargoids Thargoids Thargoids . But I suspect you already know all this and just wanted to chat?

Come now, I just borrowed a line from you earlier. If you're upset about me doing that, my bad, there was no offense meant.
Since you didn't reply to anything else I wrote, and the original point has been made, I believe we're done here anyway.

 

[The Reverend]

This thread can be closed.

Rift mystery was solved almost 7 years ago with the discovery of the Zurara and Project Dynasty.

Here's the discovery post.

Drew's confirmation.

There are still players following the story though. The link someone posted earlier is a livestream that had Drew as a guest guiding the player through the journey. So its worth keeping the thread open for new players imo.

The Thargoids Thargoids Thargoids comment I made was in reference to there not being much happening of note in Elite anymore other than Thargoids Thargoids Thargoids, (surprised it needed to be explained tbh), whereas at one time or another there were multiple noteworthy things happening almost every few months, some related, some not (birth of Colonia, Rift Saga, UA mystery, Dangerous Games, Jaques' big jump, all alongside newsworthy community events like DW1, DW2, Gnosis Incidient, Premonition Event, August Exodus, etc etc.). You know right?.. back when there were people like MB and DW around who encouraged, instigated, and promoted this kind of thing? Now its Thargoids Thargoids Thargoids . But I suspect you already know all this and just wanted to chat?

The players behind most of those, and the community team frontier had at that time, are long gone. Its was inevitable the game would head in a different direction. It is was it is. But yes, those days were peak Elite by some distance. Memorable times.