The second Non human Relic that was found (Elite 2)

While I was watching Drew's Lore Tour, I cracked open my old copy of Elite 2 and looked at the timeline on the Gazetteer (which is also on the wiki but is stated to be retconned).

The two relevant entries from the Gazetteer:
2100s - Discovery of fossils on Mars, "hyperspace" discovered, humans throughout solar system.
-
2280s - Discovery of first non-human relic in space. Origin still unknown in 3200.


Now I'm looking at the Nonhuman relic beacon in the sol system and the text doesn't look right:
nonhuman relic.jpg

I guess they just thought that since Mars is in 'space' it seems right to state as such, but so is Earth. If they were retconning the history from Elite 2, why even mention the first sentence that is derived from the lore of Elite 2? just say it was found buried on Mars.

Using the Elite 2 timeline it appears to me that humans reverse engineered the first hyperdrive technology from the artifact found on Mars 2100s and then I'm taking a wild guess here, but I feel that the second artifact found in space in the 2280s is tied into Raxxla mystery (first mention of it is 2296 from the wiki), perhaps it could be the 'Omphalos Rift' that is described in the codex?
 
ED has its own lore, you shouldn't compare its history with the other games or even books.

Yeah the space means just space, including Earth. It's weird they mentioned space though.

And I think that relic is a reference to Total Recall. Because humans couldn't terraform Mars at first, but then they found the relic and the second attempt was a success. Even if not, we can't see or interact with that relic in the game and there is no additional info about it so it's completely useless.
 
ED has its own lore, you shouldn't compare its history with the other games or even books.

Yeah the space means just space, including Earth. It's weird they mentioned space though.

And I think that relic is a reference to Total Recall. Because humans couldn't terraform Mars at first, but then they found the relic and the second attempt was a success. Even if not, we can't see or interact with that relic in the game and there is no additional info about it so it's completely useless.
This is what I find a bit odd (perhaps it is just accidently misleading). Why include part of both statements from the timeline in Elite 2 in Elite Dangerous?

It's likely more realistic someone just tried to adapt some of the events from the old timeline as best as they could given the requirements of the new ED timeline, but when worded weirdly like this I can't help but be a little tin-foil-hatty.

On a similar note, is there a reference to the first terraforming attempt in game? From the "Second Terraforming Attempt" beacon, terraforming was completed in 2291 after nearly 100 years and is regarded as crude by later standards, but I can't see any reference to the first terraforming attempt, nor the exact date the second terraforming attempt actually began. This is though in the Elite 2 lore:
2170s - First attempt to terra-form Mars started.
-
2200s - Earth environmental recovery program started, terraforming of Mars abandoned.
-
2270s - Second attempt to terra-form Mars started.
-

2290s - First man "outside" on Mars (ie breathing unaided) on completion of terraforming.

In ED, Mars terraforming was happening during all of that business with the rebelling colonies (eg Tau Ceti 3) and eventual formation of the interstellar Federation, while in Elite 2 it isn't until a few decades after the interstellar Federation is formed that the second teraforming attempt is started again.
 
Using the Elite 2 timeline it appears to me that humans reverse engineered the first hyperdrive technology from the artifact found on Mars 2100s...

No, the things found in the 2100s were fossils (remains of extinct native lifeforms). Nothing to do with sentient life, let alone artifacts.

"Hyperspace discovered" means the theory was worked out, and perhaps the early experimental probes were built. Hyperspace-capable survey-exploration ships would take another few decades at least, and hyperspace-capable colonization a few hundred years (we have no evidence of a non-generation-ship colonization attempt prior to the Achenar colony).

For hundreds of years after its discovery, hyperspace was seen as risky, dangerous technology, not something a sane person would trust their family with. That's why it wasn't until the 2600s that slower-than-light generation ships became obsolete.

On a similar note, is there a reference to the first terraforming attempt in game? From the "Second Terraforming Attempt" beacon, terraforming was completed in 2291 after nearly 100 years and is regarded as crude by later standards, but I can't see any reference to the first terraforming attempt, nor the exact date the second terraforming attempt actually began. This is though in the Elite 2 lore...

Apart fromt he name of the beacon implying that there were at least two attempts, there is nothing I'm aware of in canon lore.

If we were to assume that the tourist beacon author got their maths slightly wrong, and it should read "just over 100 years" rather than "almost 100 years", then the ED timeline matches the old FE2 timeline. The "100 years" timeframe would thus include both the first and second terraforming efforts and the FE2 timeline could then be more or less accurate: 30 years for Attempt 1, a 70 year gap, then 20 years for Attempt 2.

We aren't told how far along Attempt 1 went before it was abandoned, nor why (Out of money? Colonists died out? Defective terraforming theories and tech? Put in too hard basket? Out of control cometary bombardment?). 20 years seems way too short a length of time for humanity's first attempt at terraforming, especially if the planet was only marginally terraformable to start with, so presumably at least some of Attempt 1's efforts were helpful.
 
No, the things found in the 2100s were fossils (remains of extinct native lifeforms). Nothing to do with sentient life, let alone artifacts.

"Hyperspace discovered" means the theory was worked out, and perhaps the early experimental probes were built. Hyperspace-capable survey-exploration ships would take another few decades at least, and hyperspace-capable colonization a few hundred years (we have no evidence of a non-generation-ship colonization attempt prior to the Achenar colony).

For hundreds of years after its discovery, hyperspace was seen as risky, dangerous technology, not something a sane person would trust their family with. That's why it wasn't until the 2600s that slower-than-light generation ships became obsolete.
Oh wow...thanks for emphasizing that it was a fossil; my brain seemed to be pretty keen on equating them as the same when that is plain wrong. Well this isn't really that much of a retconn then and Hyperspace was something humans did actually manage to invent themselves in Elite 2.

I'm still unsure about the reason for the long setup time for that Hyperspace, but during the Lore tour it sounded like it was partly due to needing to set up Hyperspace beacons.
 
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