This had its genesis in the ending of Elite Reclamation, when MB asked me for some mystery ideas. All the authors chucked ideas in, but The Formidine Rift was the one that got Michael excited, so we developed it from there.
We were aiming for a sort of “The Da Vinci Code in space”
BTW – Formidine is “Fear” in latin. We wanted it to be spooky.
Historical note. The Formidine Rift idea was actually concocted by Michael Brookes and myself prior to the launch of ED. We were both working through in a private writers’ forum hidden on the main fdev forms. We discussed a “raxxla-esque” type of story (raxxla itself was off-limits to the writers) that would play out in game and I embedded the first clue in Reclamation during 2013 as it was being written.
The way it was supposed to work is as follows.
Michael Brookes and I collaborated on putting a small code in the text of systems scattered across the bubble. This was done when Michael Brookes was creating the starmap for the stellarforge in an Excel spreadsheet before ED went live. Michael Brookes didn’t want the rest of fdev to know about it either as he thought it might get stopped, so it was a bit of a secret pact!
We embedded a code “EBP” in various systems across ED and seeded the galaxy. These systems had Greek mythological names as a clue that they were linked in some unusual way… It was supposed to be a bit like “Bad Wolf” in Dr. Who
The idea was that in systems throughout ED with Greek mythological names in them, there would be an odd repeating code in the text descriptions of those systems…. the letters “EBP”…
Eventually EBP was revealed a code used by MB and myself to indicate folks were on the right track. EBP is a -13 caesar cipher which gave “ROC” – Right on, Commander. – There were several “EBP”s in various Galnets issued.
"Take a line from Reorte to Riedquat and carry on to the edge of the arm
The “curious transmission” pointed at constellations
2 in the same direction"
This was “technically” the first clue, as it was put in the text of Reclamation before the game went live. MB organised Reorte and Riedquat so they would indicate a general direction in space towards the outer edge of the galaxy…
The “curious transmission” was the first in-game clue that confirmed to players that the story was an actual in-game thing, not just an easter egg for the book.
In terms of selling the exploration data...
When I first discussed this idea with the Dev team and MB, I was told it wouldn’t work because players always go with the money. I said, let’s try it and make the Federal CG more lucrative… but the CoR less lucrative… but indicate that the CoR is the “right thing to do”. The CoR CG won. I think it’s one of the only examples of a competitive CG where the underdog won. Players changed the galaxy that day.
FD Fail...
The delays in spawning the bases due to the patch problem was the main issue here. We had a skip a clue that would require players to visit all the Greek myth “EBP” tagged systems, because there wasn’t any more time in the dev cycle and Frontier wanted the book published in the summer. So we had to issue an “fast track” clue.
Each of these names are spread across the ED galaxy in various please and were, at the time, connected with EBP clues in text descriptions. Unfortunately a lot of them have been replaced now, so it’s not possible to find and follow the original clues. However, the intention was for players to visit the various locales, find the EBP… slowly assemble the bits and then get the final location as a result…
"The Zurara Megaship"
As mentioned before, originally a wrecked Anaconda with text logs prior to me being commissioned to write Premonition. It was later upgraded… a bit cheeky… but since no one had found it, MB and I thought it was a great way to introduce megaships and voice acting into ED.
FD Fail...
"Salomé had the answers, in the lore, at this point and wanted to release them to everyone rather than them being hidden."
These logs were inadvertently released into the game too early by an error by Fdev. They should have only appeared when one of the four protagonists reached Teorge. But they appeared during the chase. Something similar happened with the Galnets for the Gnosis – Fdev QA was a bit hit and miss!
