THE FORMIDINE RIFT MYSTERY (Part 4)

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

AH Squirel, did you have to mention those damned colours?

I fly in VR with an oculus CV1, the voids colours are s light sore point for me, as Elite - only happens in elite - makes the black space look like a cloudy night through the VR. I've given up trying to correct it and instead embraced it by tweaking the heck out of my graphics config xml so now my skybox is super vibrant with dark blues greys in the deepest void and oranges and yellows from the core - its pretty - very very pretty in fact.

(but it might occasionally feel like a digital rendition of an acid trip when flying a ship launched fighter)

 

[Harley Quinn]

I mean the only "ghosts" we could have found were the Zurara crew. (LOL !)
A little poor to justify dozens of legends and myths talking of "ships disappearing" and others "weird heat signatures" commented in every space station bar of the bubble for years.

Or, when using old tech spending days in witch space the Thargoids living there would react as you would in seeing a sailing ship crossing the ocean. They would see it travelling from point A to point B and would often have time to intercept, follow and see what humans were up to. This meant in areas where they had a interest and concentration of population such interceptions and monitoring were a common event and many ships were lost. But crashed condas and below are not easy to find. Considering the vast number of exploration data caches we find though it's definitely thousands of ships lost.

But now they only see us for a few seconds in witch space with our current drives. We are there then gone before they can react. Now more like a supersonic jet flying across the ocean rather than a sailing ship.

They have had to relearn tactics such as in an area of space surrounded by probes watching over their fuel sources. Rather than moving to intercept our passage they now need to be on our route waiting to ambush us. With it now being hundreds of ships rather than the odd one their resources are stretched.

And maybe if they felt a sailing ship crossing their territory was an intrusion 1000 low flying supersonic jets is even more of one and they have been trying to warn us off. Maybe they decided to put up with the sailing ships as necessary after the last war but think 1000 jets is too much.

It's easy enough to justify the mystery, the time since the previous war, lost ships and rumours about certain areas.

I would hope FDev have a logical justification for their absence, ramping up of events, reactions to humans and the tales told across the flickering embers of a midnight fire, wherever hardened space dogs gather to drink fermented vegetable products and compete in tales of blood-chilling terror.

The fact we don't have all that yet doesn't mean it doesn't exist or that it does, but I hope FDev do have it and it's part of the story narrative that will come out over time. If not I will be disappointed and fill in the gaps myself in my own imagination for my own enjoyment of the building threat. For now though, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that they do and that things already placed in the game or more likely to be placed in the game will reveal this over time.

 

[Jorki Rasalas]

Or, when using old tech spending days in witch space the Thargoids living there would react as you would in seeing a sailing ship crossing the ocean. They would see it travelling from point A to point B and would often have time to intercept, follow and see what humans were up to. This meant in areas where they had a interest and concentration of population such interceptions and monitoring were a common event and many ships were lost. But crashed condas and below are not easy to find. Considering the vast number of exploration data caches we find though it's definitely thousands of ships lost.

But now they only see us for a few seconds in witch space with our current drives. We are there then gone before they can react. Now more like a supersonic jet flying across the ocean rather than a sailing ship.

They have had to relearn tactics such as in an area of space surrounded by probes watching over their fuel sources. Rather than moving to intercept our passage they now need to be on our route waiting to ambush us. With it now being hundreds of ships rather than the odd one their resources are stretched.

And maybe if they felt a sailing ship crossing their territory was an intrusion 1000 low flying supersonic jets is even more of one and they have been trying to warn us off. Maybe they decided to put up with the sailing ships as necessary after the last war but think 1000 jets is too much.

It's easy enough to justify the mystery, the time since the previous war, lost ships and rumours about certain areas.

I would hope FDev have a logical justification for their absence, ramping up of events, reactions to humans and the tales told across the flickering embers of a midnight fire, wherever hardened space dogs gather to drink fermented vegetable products and compete in tales of blood-chilling terror.

The fact we don't have all that yet doesn't mean it doesn't exist or that it does, but I hope FDev do have it and it's part of the story narrative that will come out over time. If not I will be disappointed and fill in the gaps myself in my own imagination for my own enjoyment of the building threat. For now though, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that they do and that things already placed in the game or more likely to be placed in the game will reveal this over time.

The one message I was happy to see from the E3 reports was that FD have a book about Thargoids that is quite thick, implying lots of detailed background storyline, just we've only been seeing it in dribs & drabs limited to story increments constrained to major software updates. I think FD have learned the lesson from all the salt spread around over the last months and in 2.4 are fundamentally changing the game mechanic so they can remotely turn on at their end stuff that's on our local machines so the storyline can be synchronised across the player base. That should (if they have exercised sufficient foresight about how the story should develop) make for a much more dynamic pace. What's more we won't know when to expect any such storyline increments since minor updates should henceforth be only for the purpose of bugfixes, they will enable the next bit of plot whenever they feel like it-possibly depending more on what we've been doing.

 

[Harley Quinn]

That would certainly meet what I hope for Jorki

 

[Jorki Rasalas]

That would certainly meet what I hope for Jorki

Me too, I await in hopeful anticipation!

 

[VR Jay Le Chardon]

Or, when using old tech spending days in witch space the Thargoids living there would react as you would in seeing a sailing ship crossing the ocean. They would see it travelling from point A to point B and would often have time to intercept, follow and see what humans were up to. This meant in areas where they had a interest and concentration of population such interceptions and monitoring were a common event and many ships were lost. But crashed condas and below are not easy to find. Considering the vast number of exploration data caches we find though it's definitely thousands of ships lost.

But now they only see us for a few seconds in witch space with our current drives. We are there then gone before they can react. Now more like a supersonic jet flying across the ocean rather than a sailing ship.

They have had to relearn tactics such as in an area of space surrounded by probes watching over their fuel sources. Rather than moving to intercept our passage they now need to be on our route waiting to ambush us. With it now being hundreds of ships rather than the odd one their resources are stretched.

And maybe if they felt a sailing ship crossing their territory was an intrusion 1000 low flying supersonic jets is even more of one and they have been trying to warn us off. Maybe they decided to put up with the sailing ships as necessary after the last war but think 1000 jets is too much.

It's easy enough to justify the mystery, the time since the previous war, lost ships and rumours about certain areas.

I would hope FDev have a logical justification for their absence, ramping up of events, reactions to humans and the tales told across the flickering embers of a midnight fire, wherever hardened space dogs gather to drink fermented vegetable products and compete in tales of blood-chilling terror.

The fact we don't have all that yet doesn't mean it doesn't exist or that it does, but I hope FDev do have it and it's part of the story narrative that will come out over time. If not I will be disappointed and fill in the gaps myself in my own imagination for my own enjoyment of the building threat. For now though, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that they do and that things already placed in the game or more likely to be placed in the game will reveal this over time.

That has to be one of the most mature and informative pieces of prose I've ever seen posted on this forum, the only thing I found disagreeable was that you mentioned fermented vegetable products but failed to mention distilled ones

+1 rep Harley Quinn

Jorki - I so so so hope you are right and FD have indeed heeded the players complaints and reacted to the salt. I hope however that the files well encrypted or are drip fed in minor revisions, eg: 2.4.01, as having the files stored locally unless will inevitably result in someone streaming spoilers.

Having the narrative stored in encrypted files locally in the software setup, and decrypted on reciept of a command by the servers containing the key would let the story move at a dynamic pace and prevent file dippers / streamers spoiling FD's plans. IE: when the server sees a player achieve this step of narrative, or a time and date are passed the servers tell the local clients to dip into the encrypted repositories and install narrative 2.4.00A or 2.4.00B etc, here I'm using letters suffixes for narrative updates to separate them from software updates that change code of the executable program.

 

[Harley Quinn]

...the only thing I found disagreeable was that you mentioned fermented vegetable products but failed to mention distilled ones....

What can I say. Well my preference for Gin wouldn't have me disagreeing with the need for a still as well, but it seemed an appropriate time to quote Kryton from Red Dwarf.

 

[Râgnôs]

I've been busy with stuff, but has the investigation progressed at all since finding the Zurara? I found one mention of it on the FP which was Drew hopes the community does something with it. If not have we at least checked systems with capital shipyards?

Somebody had to have built it...

 

[Harley Quinn]

I've been busy with stuff, but has the investigation progressed at all since finding the Zurara? I found one mention of it on the FP which was Drew hopes the community does something with it. If not have we at least checked systems with capital shipyards?

Somebody had to have built it...

A CG request has been put in to try and find out more. Otherwise nothing new and doubtful to be so until after the publication of Premonition.

Personally I would steal it and use it but as I promised to let the general feeling of this board lead if it wanted to do something with certain caveats, I'm just waiting to see if the CGs get adopted by FDev and where that leads to first.

 

[CMDR_Halceon]

I've been busy with stuff, but has the investigation progressed at all since finding the Zurara? I found one mention of it on the FP which was Drew hopes the community does something with it. If not have we at least checked systems with capital shipyards?

Somebody had to have built it...

I've been checking the submission thread regularly, but no news yet about the CG I submitted. Seems like the story has moved in another direction, and from what others have said about CGs, it seems like a long wait il might be in order.

 

[Edelgard von Rhein]

I've been checking the submission thread regularly, but no news yet about the CG I submitted. Seems like the story has moved in another direction, and from what others have said about CGs, it seems like a long wait il might be in order.

Likewise, there is no news about the CG I submitted as well. These were both attempts to move the story forward ourselves as Drew suggested. I would not say that the current story arcs invalidate the proposed CGs, so they might yet come to something.
.
From looking at the number of CGs that are being proposed (even though you can only view your own submissions, you can see how many threads are in the subforum), I would not say that FD are being swamped with proposals but it's a question of assessing how much work is involved and how much time there is to devote to a player-suggested storyline. An interactive storyline is a lot of work - we're asking for more than a starport upgrade. Nevertheless, the whole point (for my own submission especially) was to have an engaging storyline for us to interact with prior to 2.4, rather than just be passively around waiting to be given the next story fragment several months down the line. It was also intended to give us some characters to interact with - since the end of Premonition, there is a dearth of characters in the game for us to engage with.

 

[Masheikh Scytale]

I really liked the mystery myself. I spent most of it trying to figure it out alone while believing everyone in this thread (and those before it) were a bunch of tinfoil crazies but I think that was part of the fun.

We still don't know why Salome was near col 70. I'm not convinced that the greater mystery is over, just pivoting.

You may be right, but anyway the turning point of the Rift mystery, what spoiled and "killed" it (IMHO) was when the witch discovered a relation between FR, HG, Conflux and Pleiades.
Until then, no one had ever heard about legends or mysteries related to HG or Conlux. I am persuaded that FD storyliners found that way (Zurara and Co) to cut off from the best potential storyline in this game for whatever financial/humane/technical resources reasons. I bet Drew Wagar was disappointed up to some point. His nice FR mystery array of clues dropping to a mere human derelict and conspiration.
Anyway .. there is no point now in all my tinfoil. But when I remember the FR hype when I played this great game I feel it still is a real pity.

 

[Masheikh Scytale]

Or, when using old tech spending days in witch space the Thargoids living there would react as you would in seeing a sailing ship crossing the ocean. They would see it travelling from point A to point B and would often have time to intercept, follow and see what humans were up to. This meant in areas where they had a interest and concentration of population such interceptions and monitoring were a common event and many ships were lost. But crashed condas and below are not easy to find. Considering the vast number of exploration data caches we find though it's definitely thousands of ships lost.

But now they only see us for a few seconds in witch space with our current drives. We are there then gone before they can react. Now more like a supersonic jet flying across the ocean rather than a sailing ship.

They have had to relearn tactics such as in an area of space surrounded by probes watching over their fuel sources. Rather than moving to intercept our passage they now need to be on our route waiting to ambush us. With it now being hundreds of ships rather than the odd one their resources are stretched.

And maybe if they felt a sailing ship crossing their territory was an intrusion 1000 low flying supersonic jets is even more of one and they have been trying to warn us off. Maybe they decided to put up with the sailing ships as necessary after the last war but think 1000 jets is too much.

It's easy enough to justify the mystery, the time since the previous war, lost ships and rumours about certain areas.

I would hope FDev have a logical justification for their absence, ramping up of events, reactions to humans and the tales told across the flickering embers of a midnight fire, wherever hardened space dogs gather to drink fermented vegetable products and compete in tales of blood-chilling terror.

The fact we don't have all that yet doesn't mean it doesn't exist or that it does, but I hope FDev do have it and it's part of the story narrative that will come out over time. If not I will be disappointed and fill in the gaps myself in my own imagination for my own enjoyment of the building threat. For now though, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that they do and that things already placed in the game or more likely to be placed in the game will reveal this over time.

Nice!
But, for me, all these legends weren't due directly to actual alien activity. Lot of lore could point to..."a mix".

 

[Neil1889]

But the void ... the void ... its colors, they're beautiful, they are talking to me!

You should stop staring into Azathoth's multitudinous cavities; that way lies madness, my friend.

 

[Masheikh Scytale]

But the void ... the void ... its colors, they're beautiful, they are talking to me!

3 possibilities: space madness, adulterated Anlian gin, synaesthesia due to a recent lecture of La Symphonie Pastorale

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

You may be right, but anyway the turning point of the Rift mystery, what spoiled and "killed" it (IMHO) was when the witch discovered a relation between FR, HG, Conflux and Pleiades.
Until then, no one had ever heard about legends or mysteries related to HG or Conlux. I am persuaded that FD storyliners found that way (Zurara and Co) to cut off from the best potential storyline in this game for whatever financial/humane/technical resources reasons. I bet Drew Wagar was disappointed up to some point. His nice FR mystery array of clues dropping to a mere human derelict and conspiration.
Anyway .. there is no point now in all my tinfoil. But when I remember the FR hype when I played this great game I feel it still is a real pity.

I recall seeing suggestions on the Canonn thread that there should be a 3rd cluster of Guardian ruins out in the vicinity of Heart and Soul.
A tiny sliver of my FR tinfoil clings to the hope that the original 'more-trouble-than-the-Thargoids', Dynasty mission space-madness-suicide-inducing 'Big Bad' is the reason that those ruins don't exist.

 

[Masheikh Scytale]

I recall seeing suggestions on the Canonn thread that there should be a 3rd cluster of Guardian ruins out in the vicinity of Heart and Soul.
A tiny sliver of my FR tinfoil clings to the hope that the original 'more-trouble-than-the-Thargoids', Dynasty mission space-madness-suicide-inducing 'Big Bad' is the reason that those ruins don't exist.

You are really bad!
You are wanting me to travel to the Rift AGAIN ??? :O
I even can't remember where I parked my AspX ! [smile]

 

[Han Zulu]

You may be right, but anyway the turning point of the Rift mystery, what spoiled and "killed" it (IMHO) was when the witch discovered a relation between FR, HG, Conflux and Pleiades.
Until then, no one had ever heard about legends or mysteries related to HG or Conlux. I am persuaded that FD storyliners found that way (Zurara and Co) to cut off from the best potential storyline in this game for whatever financial/humane/technical resources reasons. I bet Drew Wagar was disappointed up to some point. His nice FR mystery array of clues dropping to a mere human derelict and conspiration.
Anyway .. there is no point now in all my tinfoil. But when I remember the FR hype when I played this great game I feel it still is a real pity.

So, I'm new to all these stories, mysteries, etc. And started exploring somewhat recently.

I understand FR is the Formadine Rift, and I'm on my way there right now. I want to see the Zurara derelict. Past through the Farsight station a few days ago. But took my own little route that was a dead end in the rift, so I'm back tracking and going to take another path. Probably going to the Abandoned Settlements and then taking the Mobius exploration route.

But what exactly is the Conflux, and what does HG stand for?

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

So, I'm new to all these stories, mysteries, etc. And started exploring somewhat recently.

I understand FR is the Formadine Rift, and I'm on my way there right now. I want to see the Zurara derelict. Past through the Farsight station a few days ago. But took my own little route that was a dead end in the rift, so I'm back tracking and going to take another path. Probably going to the Abandoned Settlements and then taking the Mobius exploration route.

But what exactly is the Conflux, and what does HG stand for?

The Conflux and Hawkin(g')s Gap [HG] are two regions of space - somebody should be able to point you to a good map

Check the section of the first page (2nd post) titled 'Dynasty Expedition 3270' for more details of what was found there.

 

[[Diplomacy] Carnegie]

You are really bad!
You are wanting me to travel to the Rift AGAIN ??? :O
I even can't remember where I parked my AspX ! [smile]

I can't help it - there's part of me that's still fascinated by the mystery, or at least what I thought the mystery was, which just won't let go.