The Formidine Rift - Part 2

[Heisenberg6626]

So is the Formidine Rift one area with the bridge crossing it or two rifts with the bridge separating them?
If so which is the Formidine and what do we call the other?
Heisenberg Gap?

I actually thought it'd be the fist of your two options -- the names used in the article are pretty much based upon the image found at http://i66.tinypic.com/25ujx1e.jpg , also at the beginning of this thread. There it looks like the Formidine bridge crosses the Formidine Rift -- and the Poseidal Wall is a part of the Formidine Rift.

Cheers, CMDR Heisenberg6626

 

[Belthize]

So I just had a rather (to me) terrifying thought. I was reading the Spacy McSpaceface thread and thought well it ought to be Orbis McOrbisface or something, and decided to refresh my memory on the various station types here: http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Station

How do we know that asteroid stations are not in ? Is there an official 'not implemented' statement or just assumption since one's never been seen. Nobody but nobody actually scans asteroid belts because there's no money in it. But they sure as heck existed in "And Here the Wheel". It's going to suck if whatever *it* is is in an asteroid belt and only visible if it's scanned with a detailed surface scanner.

 

[Jaiotu]

So I just had a rather (to me) terrifying thought. I was reading the Spacy McSpaceface thread and thought well it ought to be Orbis McOrbisface or something, and decided to refresh my memory on the various station types here: http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Station

How do we know that asteroid stations are not in ? Is there an official 'not implemented' statement or just assumption since one's never been seen. Nobody but nobody actually scans asteroid belts because there's no money in it. But they sure as heck existed in "And Here the Wheel". It's going to suck if whatever *it* is is in an asteroid belt and only visible if it's scanned with a detailed surface scanner.

"Elite: Legacy" has an asteroid station depicted prominently on the cover. If they couldn't make the station in the Executive Producer's novel match the description from the book then its pretty safe to say that they don't exist in game.

That doesn't change the possibility that what we are looking for could be in an asteroid field though. I've had the same worry. Unfortunately if there is something in a rock field that just quadrupled the size of the already near-infinite haystack.

 

[lorrad]

I actually thought it'd be the fist of your two options -- the names used in the article are pretty much based upon the image found at http://i66.tinypic.com/25ujx1e.jpg , also at the beginning of this thread. There it looks like the Formidine bridge crosses the Formidine gap -- and the Poseidal Wall is a part of the Formidine Rift.

Cheers, CMDR Heisenberg6626

I'll confirm you can easily reach HYPOAE AESCS YE-R D4-2 from the other side of the rift in the New Outer Arm. I think this is about 2-3 klyrs east of the difficult to navigate section of the Rho Cass side of the rift. Still cudos for a quicker route to the New Outer Arm than having to head across the bridge. Think I'll visit your waypoints and enter them in edsm so the Heisenberg Bridge shows up nice and bright in EDDiscovery.

 

[lorrad]

No insight there but it's always bothered m that the cannibalistic luddites in the book appear to be completely out of the discussion. I've never come up with a good angle on them but why put them in the book at all if they don't play some role. Not quite up to reading Ted Kacynzki's manifesto for clues but if I find another roll of tin foil I might, better yet I'll just re-read Edward Abbey's "The Monkey Wrench Gang".

spoiler deleted

Can't talk about them being not central to the ultimate plot,,,,

 

[hiciacit]

Kind of a spoiler talking about them but how long could they have been there? An all male society of cannibals who ate all the women cuz they're juicier can't have that much of a shelf life can it? There'd have to be other folks on the planet and it would be in their interest to hunt down the cannibals unless they're Quakers and have a live and let lunch attitude? As if crashing on a desert planet isn't enough jeopardy for our heroine.

These cannibals are actually one of the reasons I'm loosing interest. Drew said he included these because: "Another feature from both FE2 and FFE that intrigued me were the strange isolationist religious conclaves. ... Religion is another rich vein I wanted to explore. The capacity for faith and belief to overcome reason is a constant flavour of my books and stories. FE2 and FFE featured a number of special star systems that were ‘off limits’, protected by law and forbidden to star travellers without a special permit. In Elite: Reclamation we get to see what one of these futuristic religions might look like. I intended to use one of the existing ‘isolationist conclaves’ as they were known, but the existing ones were too far away from where my own star-system ending up being placed, so I was able to ask for another one not to far away. You’ll find the details in the story. Approach with caution!"

So are these shrewd observations of yours useful clues to help solve the issues, or mere oversights from the author. I had been going through clues in the book, trying to find locations that weren't explicitly mentioned, such as the site of the ambush, Hassan's home, or the system that would be housing the Basilica. I thought that especially the latter might be a true ingame location, and the start of some trail hunt. (In fact, re-reading the book I started hoping that maybe I missed something when I first read it, and that somehow Octavia's plan had succeeded and Kahina is not really who we think she is, but alas. [big grin]) In any case, I kept running into a lot of inconsistencies and peculiarities that I wasn't sure might be actual hints; finding these locations would require a bit of wanderlust it seemed ... if they even exist ingame.

So that brought me back to the cannibals: this planet is actually mentioned explicitly in the book, and it is ingame. It's LTT 8740. Why not have a look ingame and see what amazing things this permit-locked approach-with-caution system might have in store for me?! Nothing too much turns out:
https://i.imgsafe.org/0fcb4b7.jpg
The system is there, including -I'm assuming- Drew's description on the galaxy map. It's not permit locked though (unless I somehow got a permit already? :-S).
https://i.imgsafe.org/5116ea1.jpg
What's worse, there's absolutely nothing noteworthy going on in the system itself, and there is only one atmospheric planet. An atmosphere that consists of 90% sulpher dioxide. No way that's where our senator crash landed. Am I missing something? Or is it just safer to assume this is another incomplete feature and there's nothing really there except from the inconsequential galaxy map description? And how does that bode for any other mysteries supposedly hidden somewhere in the game?

 

[simulacrae]

On a completely different topic anyone else than me remembers Drew stating we didn't identify all the characters involved in this plot? I'm digging through all the galnet articles so far for anyone interesting and also the forums for the aforementioned statement of Drew. A simple yes or no is sufficient I don't ask anyone to look up and link anything

Not sure ... but he did say something about the characters ...
one of Drews little clues barely concealed in the old thread: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=135529&page=44&p=3685653#post3685653
Ya I do like the character names though.

 

[Legacy_LuckyLuke]

Had a quick go at the 'PR5' message, below is the map of seats superimposed on the galaxy map.

http://i.imgur.com/U9WHTef.jpg

Haha. Nice work ... for science and all that ...

I had a go myself but couldn't see enough points of reference to see how it could/should be lined up

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So that brought me back to the cannibals: this planet is actually mentioned explicitly in the book, and it is ingame. It's LTT 8740. Why not have a look ingame and see what amazing things this permit-locked approach-with-caution system might have in store for me?! Nothing too much turns out:
https://i.imgsafe.org/0fcb4b7.jpg

I thought the 'cannibals' planet (isn't it meant to be some sort of monastic refuge?) was 'Isinor' and is indeed permit locked from what I can see.

I remember reading elsewhere (maybe Drew's blog - I can have a search later) that FD had plans for it (and other hermit communities) in the future.

 

[clavain]

So are these shrewd observations of yours useful clues to help solve the issues, or mere oversights from the author. I had been going through clues in the book, trying to find locations that weren't explicitly mentioned, such as the site of the ambush, Hassan's home, or the system that would be housing the Basilica. I thought that especially the latter might be a true ingame location, and the start of some trail hunt. (In fact, re-reading the book I started hoping that maybe I missed something when I first read it, and that somehow Octavia's plan had succeeded and Kahina is not really who we think she is, but alas. [big grin]) In any case, I kept running into a lot of inconsistencies and peculiarities that I wasn't sure might be actual hints; finding these locations would require a bit of wanderlust it seemed ... if they even exist ingame.

So that brought me back to the cannibals: this planet is actually mentioned explicitly in the book, and it is ingame. It's LTT 8740. Why not have a look ingame and see what amazing things this permit-locked approach-with-caution system might have in store for me?! Nothing too much turns out:
https://i.imgsafe.org/0fcb4b7.jpg
The system is there, including -I'm assuming- Drew's description on the galaxy map. It's not permit locked though (unless I somehow got a permit already? :-S).
https://i.imgsafe.org/5116ea1.jpg
What's worse, there's absolutely nothing noteworthy going on in the system itself, and there is only one atmospheric planet. An atmosphere that consists of 90% sulpher dioxide. No way that's where our senator crash landed. Am I missing something? Or is it just safer to assume this is another incomplete feature and there's nothing really there except from the inconsequential galaxy map description? And how does that bode for any other mysteries supposedly hidden somewhere in the game?

Nice find on the Brotherhood of Resonance, out of rep. It's too bad, but it does not surprise me that it does not fully reflect the system depicted in the book. I think many of the various key book locations (not just Drew's) were added in a rather rushed manner without perhaps properly fitting their system descriptions, or with other errors (why is there a system for Kumbaya and for Soontill, for example, when they are supposedly the same system?). Jackson's Lighthouse is another system that is almost nothing like the system described in the book. Peregrina and the destroyed research base - the list goes on.

I have never put my hopes very high that what we might eventually find in the Rift would be anything more than something like this. If it is, I will be pleasantly surprised. If not, I won't be more disappointed than I already am. ;-)

I spent some time looking for Hassan's world following Drew's hints about WREDGUIA sector and the book system description but without success (did not even find a binary system, let alone one matching the binary in the book, before I got bored and had to move onto doing something else to stay sane). I suspect Drew's accidentally dropped hint about COL 285 sector some time ago might be Octavia's base, but perhaps not. It could just as easily be in an asteroid belt as someone posted earlier. Needles in haystacks.

 

[Jaiotu]

Nice find on the Brotherhood of Resonance, out of rep. It's too bad, but it does not surprise me that it does not fully reflect the system depicted in the book. I think many of the various key book locations (not just Drew's) were added in a rather rushed manner without perhaps properly fitting their system descriptions, or with other errors (why is there a system for Kumbaya and for Soontill, for example, when they are supposedly the same system?). Jackson's Lighthouse is another system that is almost nothing like the system described in the book.

They didn't even get Achenar right. They are fixing the Imperial Capitol. Maybe one day they'll fix all the other systems. Who knows? I hate that they didn't put enough fore-thought into making the handful of systems that have a description in the lore at least come close to resembling themselves in the game.

 

[hiciacit]

I thought the 'cannibals' planet (isn't it meant to be some sort of monastic refuge?) was 'Isinor' and is indeed permit locked from what I can see.

I remember reading elsewhere (maybe Drew's blog - I can have a search later) that FD had plans for it (and other hermit communities) in the future.

Here's the relevant quote from the book: "‘So where are we?’ she asked. Luko smiled. ‘This place?’ He gestured to a faint system on the edge of the map. ‘No real name. Is called, ah, LTT 8740.’"
Not sure where the Isinor reference comes from, but you can see from the screenshot that the galaxy map description does match.

Edit - Drew does mention another system for which FD had other plans as I understand it: "The most famous one, at Van Maanen’s Star, was deemed off-limits, but I still wanted that fundamentalist religious flavour in my story … "

 

[hiciacit]

I have never put my hopes very high that what we might eventually find in the Rift would be anything more than something like this. If it is, I will be pleasantly surprised. If not, I won't be more disappointed than I already am. ;-)

You mean that the mystery of the Rift would turn out to be a 5 line description of a system on the galaxy map? That would be incredibly disappointing to say the least...

I spent some time looking for Hassan's world following Drew's hints about WREDGUIA sector and the book system description but without success (did not even find a binary system, let alone one matching the binary in the book, before I got bored and had to move onto doing something else to stay sane). I suspect Drew's accidentally dropped hint about COL 285 sector some time ago might be Octavia's base, but perhaps not. It could just as easily be in an asteroid belt as someone posted earlier. Needles in haystacks.

For Octavia's base, I jumped around a bit but nothing popped up. Tried a few COL 285 systems as well, but after seeing how the Brotherhood of Resonance system was implemented, I just gave up.

For Hassan's world, at some point when reading the book, I got the idea it might actually be Ferenchia. Because of this quote when we first run into Canos: "‘Hey, if it isn’t the cutest little trader in space. How you doing, Hassan? Still flying that flux-stained excuse for a ship?’ ‘Same old,’ Hassan replied, ‘and I thought you told me it was a fantastic craft for the discerning young buyer with high hopes and big dreams.’" Doesn't that make it seem like Hassan bought it from Canos, meaning Ferenchia (or another system where Canos was previously) is actually Hassan's homeworld? But in chapter two it's said about the Talon: "It had to be twenty turns since their grandfather had flown this ship. His brother had been working on it for years, hoping to make it space worthy again." Hassan also hints at some point his home world is in Alliance space. What gives? Just another one of those inconsistencies?

 

[Jaiotu]

Latest video in my Rift series is up:

[video=youtube_share;KGP6klfkWMg]https://youtu.be/KGP6klfkWMg[/video]

 

[Legacy_LuckyLuke]

Needles in haystacks.

Needles in haystacks made from needles

Yeah I really hope FD can put some time in to fix a lot of the lore systems in the game. It seems they are tackling them bit by bit. I generally accept we are playing an unfinished game and at some point the universe will be put right

Although by then player factions will have adopted some of the systems and will cry if any changes are made. Maybe it's more of a parrallel universe kinda thing. :S

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Here's the relevant quote from the book: "‘So where are we?’ she asked. Luko smiled. ‘This place?’ He gestured to a faint system on the edge of the map. ‘No real name. Is called, ah, LTT 8740.’"
Not sure where the Isinor reference comes from, but you can see from the screenshot that the galaxy map description does match.

Thanks for the clarification. I should have known that I had read 'Isinor' in another thread and I think assumed they were referring to the brotherhood system.

Whilst on the subject - very little has been made of Luko. Who he actually is, why he was there and so on... Maybe he is simply intended as a mentor figure. I suspect there is something hidden about him though.

 

[Jaiotu]

Okay ... in light of the fact that we haven't had any 'recent' clues I have an idea on how we can get some fresh information.

We pretend that we've found 'it' in the Rift but that we refuse to reveal what 'it' is. Then when Drew sees the thread he'll be like, "I wonder if they actually did?"

We refuse to share what we 'found' so Drew will then say, 'well ... is what you found near %SYSTEM X%?"

Turn the tables on Drew the tables on Drew so that HE starts asking US for hints!

Okay ... I admit. The hunt is driving me nuts.

 

[Cmdr Cheese Wedge]

Here's a thought, didn't Drew let slip something along the lines of "getting to the CORE of the matter" ?
looking in the barnacles thread we have Sterlino place an image of the FD galaxy map over the barnacle spikes image, all spikes very close to BH's and nebs including the CORE Sag A* dead centre.
Now look at point 7 on that map , very close to the Heart & Soul Nebs and Formindine Rift.

Wouldn't the correct term for (cheeky) Drew to use be "getting to the HEART of the matter"?

Maybe I'm putting two and two together and coming up with three, but I'm going to head out to the Heart Nebula for curiosity and science!

 

[Agony_Aunt]

So I just had a rather (to me) terrifying thought. I was reading the Spacy McSpaceface thread and thought well it ought to be Orbis McOrbisface or something, and decided to refresh my memory on the various station types here: http://elite-dangerous.wikia.com/wiki/Station

How do we know that asteroid stations are not in ? Is there an official 'not implemented' statement or just assumption since one's never been seen. Nobody but nobody actually scans asteroid belts because there's no money in it. But they sure as heck existed in "And Here the Wheel". It's going to suck if whatever *it* is is in an asteroid belt and only visible if it's scanned with a detailed surface scanner.

One of Drew's hints was that it depends on who goes looking. He confirmed it wasn't related to ranks or reputation.

It might be that it relates more to what sort of person goes looking. Are you the sort of explorer that actually looks closely at things?

It wouldn't be entirely surprising if what we are looking for is in an Asteroid belt, and you actually have to enter the belt to see it. And yeah, without more clues, its then like looking for an atom in a needle in a haystack.

Oh, and remember Braben's or Brookes' comment about stuff to be found by flying a long way off the system's plain? How often do people actually do that? Way out there, it may just be we can spawn a special kind of signal source if we fly a few thousand LY up or down from a star.

Ultimately, we still probably need more clues to narrow down the region of space we need to explore, but even if we get such clues, we might still need to be more thorough when looking, rather than just jumping into a system, pinging it, and moving on if nothing displayed.

It may even be that some CMDRs have even been in the right system, they just never saw what they should have looked for.

 

[drew]

Not trying to get into an argument. I am nobody when it comes to saying what is or what isn't canon. But neither are Drew Wagar or John Harper. If it isn't actually in print then, regardless of the intention, it needs to come straight from Michael Brooks as to whether or not it can be considered canon. The authors were required to work with Mr. Brooks closely to make sure that their books fit into the Elite: Dangerous lore. You are welcome to pretend that the text says what the authors say the original intention was. That is fine. I'm not arguing that you shouldn't. For me though it is quite simple: If it isn't in the text and it doesn't come directly from Michael Brooks then, while I find it interesting, I can't consider it to be canonical.

To clarify this one. The original text in "And here the wheel" was approved by Frontier and was copyedited out by accident *afterwards* as part of the proofing process. We're not quite sure how that occurred, but it was an unfortunate mistake that we've only just become aware of. Ebook version will be updated, but the audio and physical copies can't be.

Cheers,

Drew.

 

[Bieltan]

I'm thinking the kind of ship you are in matters. People have been out there in Anacondas, anyone gone in an Imperial ship...?

 

[dynamicbob]

Does access to permit systems rely on the ship youre flying (if not yet is it planned)