starfield-lore

[safe kite]

This is exactly how the game modeled it before cruise mode.

In system interplanetary travel was measured in hours. The speed was always .2c or 20% light speed.

'Cruise Mode' in some form has always been a thing in the lore, just not explained at all, anywhere, ever.

And yes, this would have to be an in-system grav drive mode.

[peak halo]

If you have a grave drive with opening in the side. Apparently you can see the armillary inside when it's complete

[mossy cobalt]

Yes, it's in there when you assemble it on the ship, I've looked at it and it's actually pretty cool-looking floating inside the drive

[peak halo]

I wish my phone would stop auto correcting grav to grave

[safe kite]

Grave drive is pretty metal though.

[mossy cobalt]

If you're in third-person view when you take off before jumping to the Unity you can also see it if your drive is at the back of the ship! I think that's how I first noticed it, closer to the game launch

[peak halo]

That's just a hearse

[mossy cobalt]

I wish they sped up the game clock so it was still .2C instead of 30C though 😭

Like if it took 10-20 hours instead of 8 minutes (so if you left at noon in-game it would be after midnight in-game even if it only took 1 minute for the player) then that would be pretty cool IMO

That way the "new FTL???" thing wouldn't even be happening ideally

[safe kite]

Did you test this in game? It's on my to do list.

THat's how I would prefer it be handled, so we can maintain the long haul trucker chic.

[mossy cobalt]

Yes, I tested it right here

[safe kite]

Disappointing.

Game time to real time is 15:1, btw

Or was when I tested it last.

[mossy cobalt]

Yeah, that's why I just took the game time at start and finish, I was curious if they changed it

In this case it seems to have been somewhere around 8:1 give or take one either way

[safe kite]

Jemison to Gagarin:

1067.8 LS
09:00:00 PM 09:05:00 PM (In Game)
~3.56c speed using Cruise.

Gagarin to Jemison:

1067.8 LS
09:06:00 PM 10:37:00 PM (In Game)
~.2c speed using Travel To.

[mossy cobalt]

It accelerates more and more the further apart two bodies are; I think it's based on how long you've been continuously traveling

If you pick two bodies further apart I think you'll get a higher factor of C

[safe kite]

Muphrid V to Muphrid VII:

17646.2 LS
12:01:00 AM 12:15:00 AM (In Game)
~20.99c speed using Cruise.

Muphrid VII to Muphrid V:

17646.2 LS
12:16:00 AM 1+12:50:00 AM (In Game)
~.2c speed using Travel To.

21c might be the upper limit for cruise? Would need more testing.

The speed definitely leveled out to a constant pace once it got going.

[mossy cobalt]

I might've boosted out of habit when I was doing mine. That would push the numbers up a bit, but it definitely gets pretty high without boost.

I was a bit amused to notice that the ship can miss a destination when boosting even without turning off the autopilot

The autopilot then loops around to head back to the target 😆

It doesn't even feel like a bug; it's kind of hilarious (at least to me), so there's a decent chance they made it like that intentionally IMO

[coarse sundial]

I've noticed as a rule Bethesda is reluctant to screw around with the in-engine timescale settings so that might be part of it

[twin forum]

It is my strong opinion, based on the description and behavior of both, especially with available information for said parties. The Armilary Artifacts for the Unity, and the Elder Scrolls, are the same.

[mossy cobalt]

Nobody seems to have any trouble counting the Artifacts, though? And they don't take your sight.

Like, decent headcanon in some ways (visions, indestructible, apparently timeless...) but they behave so differently that even if we get over the difference in appearance I'd have trouble equating the two.

[mossy cobalt]

https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:An_Accounting_of_the_Scrolls

[twin forum]

While physically one to one they look different. They have quite similar behavior to those who interact with them, whether through plot, knowledgebase, or possesses them first. With starfield, our understanding of the univers is vastly different.

Parthurnax also said (tried) that Elder Scrolls are "Fragments of Creation". When you pass through the unity, yourself refers to it as infinity. Considering the first human constact with an artifact losing 12 (weeks or days?) of time, while an elder scroll was also used to cast Alduin "forward in time" but causing a noticeable anomaly at the reading point. there is by this connection to be the same things, based on a civilations understanding of their universe. I know there is a lot more with the universe of the elderscrolls, but it could also be they're both the bridge, since the first grav drive was using the artifact found on Mars

It is also striking that Jinaan Va'ruun's experience with the great serpent was profound, but sounds an awful lot like the description of Alduin. Alduin was cast outside of time, or forward. And the way Jinaan met the Great Serpent was within the vortex of a Grav drive malfunction, something like that.

[mossy cobalt]

Right, I get the parallels. I'm saying if you put Elder Scrolls in a group they become uncountable aberrations in the fabric of reality, and if you put the Artifacts (a distinct set of exactly 24 items) in a group you get the Armillary. Oh and they also allow you to enter temples which grant you powers, rather than blindness. IDK friend I get where you're coming from I just don't think equating the two is entirely possible considering the major differences.

[twin forum]

Perhaps Jinaan Var'uun did not meet the Great Serpent, but Alduin while he was cast outside Niirn

[twin forum]

I see what you're also saying, butt there are also those who have handled the Artifacts and gained nothing from them, whilst there are those who've read the Elder scrolls who did not go blind. As if there are either conditions they deem necessary, or just plot

[mossy cobalt]

Current consensus seems to be that Jinan met literally the Unity itself.

[mossy cobalt]

The first to touch an Artifact when it's unearthed gets a vision, but that's the only difference. We don't get visions from the Artifacts we weren't the first to touch (e.g. the one we get from Neon) but we can still do everything else with them (use their Temple etc.)

[twin forum]

thank you for the correction there

[mossy cobalt]

Not a correction, we're just chatting 😁 headcanons are fine, Starfield is just a newer IP than TES so there's less to go on; it's good to find the limits of what the in-game lore confirms for sure and what it merely allows

[twin forum]

I still see a lot of connections between the two on the characteristics.

[mossy cobalt]

You're not wrong! They serve similar purposes in the writing in some ways. I wouldn't be shocked if BGS in the future goes out of their way to never fully explain the Creators for example.

[daring lake]

Personally I think it is a mistake to compare Starfield lore with that of other games. I get that there will be similarities with works produced by the same studio, but I honestly think each should be treated separately.

[twin forum]

that's also a respectable one. We are just getting out of the entertainment wrold's craze for extended universes and crossing franchises

[autumn barn]

https://tenor.com/view/it-was-the-aliens-im-not-saying-it-was-aliens-ancient-aliens-gif-14839810013080040984

[dull oasis]

How where neon and new Atlantis built in the lore?

[peak halo]

New Atlantis was built from the ground up to be the capitol of the United colonies, built while earth was still being evacuated.

Neon started as a fishing rig, similar to how oil derricks are set up in the middle of the ocean in modern days. But they discovered drug, and it became a city of pleasure

[safe kite]

The core of New Atlantis started as the original colony ship. This is still present as The Well location, several character discuss. As mentioned above, it was built during the evacuation.

[peak halo]

And to clarify: the upper part of New Atlantis, the space port, MAST, ECT, was built specifically for usage as the Capitol

[west yoke]

Guys, I’ve got a problem

I’m absolutely loving the new free lanes gameplay, it legit makes the game 10x more playable for me, but I’m having a hard time reconciling the new cruising mechanic with in-game lore

Has Bethesda said anything about how ships are able to travel so fast between planets now? I know the old system was a little unengaging but it still adhered to that grounded NASApunk feel

[safe kite]

Prior conversation on the topic.

My headcanon, I still think the .2c in-system speed is lore accurate and the speed up from cruise mode is just gameplay.

[safe kite]

Related testing.

[peak halo]

Personal head canon that seems kinda popular is that cruise mode is a low power function of a grav drive, similar to the Gravity on the ship itself. Doesn't require active power, so no need to power grav drive, just sips off the reactor

[safe kite]

This is a lot of evidence that this is the case.

And if we take the fact that ships can cruise as canon, which it clearly is, then the grav drive is the only way that's happening. The speed of it is the only sus element for me.

[west yoke]

It would’ve been cool if they just explained it as constellation having access to some sort of super experimental engine that allows it travel faster than all other ships out there, which would explain why only your ship seems to be able to do it

Either that, or I’m just gonna install the inevitable mod that makes cruising 90% slower lol

[safe kite]

It is implied that other ships do it, by virtue of encountering ships and derelicts in the free lanes.

.2c cruise (what it was modeled as before the update) is still pretty slow. Dozens of hours for interplanetary travel rather than the months it would otherwise take.

I think Starfield took the Expanse approach of still having a super fast engine, but strictly non-ftl, so long flights are still the norm.

[west yoke]

I guess you could say that those ships ended up there by grav jumps, whereas you get there through cruising, but yeah I guess that explanation makes sense

Tbh I just think I’ll wait for that mod lol

Like I’m willing to accept it taking 30 minutes to get to Pluto from Mercury rather than it taking 3 minutes, that’s still super fast by IRL standards but still slow enough that it feels plausible to me

[safe kite]

I'm just glad they capped it at some point.

I would love a confirmation from the devs that it is just sped up for gameplay purposes and these are still long ass voyages.

Because everything about the game otherwise suggests long haul flights are the norm for in-system.

[west yoke]

Yeah, exactly

So much of the lore around Starfield is built around the idea that space travel is slow, dangerous and mostly uncomfortable

That shipping parts from one system to another is considered a job for those on the fringes and not something well-off people would do

And that grav jumping is basically the one Hail Mary keeping the whole system afloat

Having it so that basically anyone can travel from one planet to another within a minute or so doesn’t gel with that worldbuilding

For now it’s like you said my headcannon is that those trips do take hours / days (maybe even weeks?) and we’re just seeing the abridged version of them

[safe kite]

The modeled .2c is perfect, imo. Hope they stick with it.

Goin from A-B is a matter of hours to days and that seems to fit the vibe.

[west yoke]

Whats the current speed they’re using

[safe kite]

And since they went out of their way to model that when they didn't have to, I think that's the artistic intent

[safe kite]

.2c when using Travel To in system.

20% light speed

[west yoke]

Oh right

Yeah that makes sense

0.2c is a very realistic number and yeah fits well with the artistic vision

[safe kite]

Still requires Grav Drive shenanigans, but for context, that trims a 9 month journey from earth to mars to a little over an hour.

And Earth and Mars are super close, so.

[west yoke]

I’m just assuming that rocket thrusters in the future can get a ship up to that speed within a few minutes

[high copper]

There is some info about X tech were they think they can introduce FTL communication

[west yoke]

Starfield is very grounded but it’s still a civilisation 300 years more advanced than our own

[safe kite]

https://giphy.com/gifs/N4xCVPenanVcI

[safe kite]

This at Anchor Point?

[high copper]

probably

[west yoke]

I like Anchorpoint lol

It feels like the “we have The Key at home:” spacestation XD

[peak halo]

That's the vibes I was getting from the preview material. I still haven't been there.

Been using the cruise mode for missions that have you running all over a system, like Ground pounder and the one with the three families

[daring lake]

You know, I still think that what you have found with travel times is simply the way they designed the game rather than actual travel times.

[safe kite]

In what manner?

[daring lake]

Well, I can't get the NASA evidence of the 1st grav drive flight out of my head. It literally took seconds to travel 2,000 light seconds.

[safe kite]

The grav jump to Jupiter was instant.

It took a bit for the transmission from Jupiter to reach back to Luna confirming the jump worked.

[daring lake]

Yes. So in-system interplanetary travel is near instant.

[safe kite]

We know that jumping to other planets in the same system is possible. Nothing disputes that.

It just appears to be uncommon and in-system travel is portrayed as The Old Fashioned Way (likely with a boost from grav tech). That it always shows an in-system travel cutscene, the game goes out of its way to assure the clock always sets the average theoretical speed between the two points at exactly .2c, and there are dozens of references in game of in-system voyages taking some time, all suggest that there's slower in-system travel that is more common.

[daring lake]

Yeah, I get that. But I see it as a circle that cannot be squared. And given the devs viewpoint, it probably never will be.

[safe kite]

Well, I mean, they officially squared it with the canon addition of Cruise mode.

Ships can and do go pretty fast and travel between planets conventionally.

Rest is just details.

Do we go with their math model that anchors all travel at .2c?

Or do we go with the actual speeds of Cruise Mode in game that tops out, seemingly, at 21c?

[daring lake]

The cruise mode stuff is "handwavium" introduced without explanation other than "Go have fun" In terms of canon I feel that the goalposts have moved. The math model does not hold up for me either. It has become subjective rather than objective imo.

[safe kite]

Not really true.

The "Free Lanes'" as a concept is canon. It's in the game, the NPCs discuss it, you interact with it.

And the math model is objective. It is reproducible, it is consistent, it is testable.

Cruise mode is also canon seeing as Interdictions specifically disable the grav drive jumps, and you travel to them to disable the jammer 🤔

[daring lake]

Oh Dys, please. Its in the game so its canon, that's the devs decision. And they stated in deep dive thing that they know it may not fit in too but "we want to have some fun, right?" But it does not make sense. As for the math model, how long would it take to cover the 60kls in Groundpounder?
So, my view is that your conclusion is not the only one possble.

[safe kite]

Well... yeah, the devs determine canon.

If something is introduced to the game, the NPCs discuss it, you use it, NPCs use it, it's a focus of a storyline, then yeah... it's canon. That's not really in dispute.

As to '60k ls'

In the math model the game uses for Travel To, average speed of .2c, that'd be around 83 hours total flight time for all hops for groundpounder, assuming that's what 60k ls represents.

In the Cruise Mode, assuming the model caps at 21c, as appears to be the case, that's 47 minutes total flight time for all hops.

[faint cave]

I remember seeing in this chat that interplanetary travel within systems is via micro grav jumps. With the Free Lanes update, is that still true or is this a case of acceptable breaks from reality?

[safe kite]

See above

[mossy cobalt]

If by micro grav jump you mean doing an ordinary instant grav jump from one planet to another in a single system, that's a known capability and still an in-universe option in the lore.

If by micro grav jump you mean cruise mode being a variation on grav jump technology, that's a headcanon some people (including myself) have proposed as a possibility for explaining the FTL speeds we see in cruise mode, but it is not directly established in-game; it's definitely not "the lore" so to speak, just something that could maybe sort of be consistent with the lore and possibly more satisfying than handwaving cruise mode away as "don't think about it too hard" (this is an RPG, I want to play my character and I'll be interacting with this tech, so 😭).

Even as a headcanon, cruise mode being a variation on grav drive technology does face some other lore issues even beyond never being mentioned in-game, including the gameplay reality that cruise mode still works when grav jumping is disrupted by Terran Armada tech. So, it's obviously far from solid. The "it's .2C in lore but they just sped it up to 20C in gameplay without otherwise acknowledging it" explanation by @safe kite is probably closer to being the actual lore, but nothing so far seems to be solidly confirmed so if you like the "alternative use of grav drive technology" explanation better then it's probably OK as a headcanon until we (hopefully??) get some kind of in-game material to work with.

[safe kite]

Grav Drive Jammers clearly do not fully disable the grav drive, as our ships still have gravity, which is provided by the grav drive.

[mossy cobalt]

Oh right, excellent point

Still headcanon level of course but maybe like 5% stronger with that precedent!

Hopefully the next update or DLC or something will give a better explanation from a lore perspective though (even just something like "our ships are sublight when we travel through the Free Lanes unless we grav jump")

I still need to dump the current CK dialogue to text so I can comb through and look for something like that. Hopefully this weekend I'll have some time for it.

[safe kite]

Yep yep.

To sum up the last few days of conversation, from my perspective:

Cruise mode is confirmed canon - In Game stories mention and utilize it
Free Lanes (IE: The space between orbits) is confirmed canon - In Game stories mention and utilize it
Grav Drives are used for more than jumping
Grav Drive jumps do work in-system, so remains an option.
Cruise Mode/In System Travel Speed is ??? - No real confirmation
Empirical testing using using existing Travel To option caps the speed at .2c
Empirical testing using Cruise Mode caps the speed at ~21c
Grav Drive Jammers appear to only prevent jumps
Both speed options would, necessarily, require Grav Drive usage, due to the speeds involved - but we don't know how it is being used or how fast it is going.

And, any FTL speeds being canon is lame

That one's a personal critique.

[mossy cobalt]

Up to ~30C if you're boosting for part of it!

0.2C is entirely possible IRL with known engineering principles IIRC (e.g. fusion engines, nuclear pulse propulsion, or other proposals IRL); they could probably decide grav drives are totally unrelated to the 0.2C speed and it would be reasonably believable aside from the ships not looking like real starships that would travel that way.

The instant acceleration to 0.2C is a bigger problem that grav drive tech would help explain, but the speed itself doesn't seem objectionable as far as I know.

[safe kite]

I guess in theory, if rocket tech progresses by leaps and bounds (not to mention fuel tech).

.2c is 215,850,569.8 km/h

For reference, Artemis 2 chattin up the Moon only topped out at 39,472 km/h

Parker Solar Probe hit ~691,000 km/h

Edit: Current speed record using modern tech

[faint cave]

I'm thinking that, for this particular mechanic, lore took a backseat to gameplay. It's not realistic, but players did not want to be too realistic in a space game.

[mossy cobalt]

Oh believe me, I'm aware that it's a mind-boggling (one might say astronomical) speed, just that it's also a speed real-world space exploration advocates seem to think is achievable, and I've seen it thrown around as a speed in hard-ish sci-fi works I've read (often using solar sails or nuclear pulse propulsion or other techniques proposed for IRL projects). Granted, again, that's usually over interstellar distances with long periods of acceleration prior to reaching 0.2C and comparable deceleration time afterwards. That being said, I've actually seen 0.3C and even higher as sublight speeds of interstellar vehicles in similar works. Either way, it's the instant acceleration that's sci-fi here (and does nod to your thesis, I agree), not the mere fact of reaching 0.2C. That probe you cited hit about 0.06C, which is nearly a third of 0.2C already!

[safe kite]

0.000641 c 😄

A ways off.

But I'll concede it is entirely possible that we developed some extremely efficient and fast engines by 2330.

Seems more likely to me, that the existing magic sci fi gravity manipulation macguffin (grav drive) is the cause, though.

What I wouldn't give for some primary source lore on the topic

[mossy cobalt]

0.000641C
Oof, good catch 🤦‍♂️ I had put it into Wolfram Alpha and one of the boxes gave the ratio back as a percentage. I wasn't expecting to see a percentage in this context so my brain interpreted it as a factor, I think 😅 It is 0.06% of C but it is not 0.06C (6% of C).

I certainly agree on all of your general points though, including that the grav drive being involved somehow would make a lot of sense and that more sources on it would be very nice 😭

[tall shuttle]

The Lore's definitely taken a back seat, no way they're going that fast without a gravity manipulation macguffin doing something in cruise mode.

[faint cave]

I think a line such as "Set your Grav Drive to Cruise Mode" would go a long way towards explaining it. They don't have to explain how, just why we can cross interplanetary space at such speeds.

[tall shuttle]

I've been of the opinion since day dot they could change half a dozen lines if that and just make it an Alcubierre drive, artefacts being the perfect 'exotic matter' to make them possible, cruise mode just low power folding of space and a full grav jump not quite instant.

without some lore to back up how it works, free lanes has pushed space travel further into don't think about it territiory which is dissapointing.

[chilly harness]

we need more DLC and lore concerning the exodus from earth and starborn
wheres the starborn dlc btw

[west yoke]

The more I think about it the more I feel like Starfield wouldve made for a great TTRPG lol

Or just text-based RPG

that way you could just say travelling between planets is like organising an adventuring party and that random encounters are just stuff the DM comes up with

[daring lake]

I think that we just set up a neutron field inside a can of peas. Should work.

[obtuse ledge]

You can easily take the traveller manual and create a campaign into the starfield universe

[worn pendant]

Do y’all think the UC and Freestar have chaplains in their ranks? With all the old religions and new ones, you’d think they’d have some in their ranks

[daring lake]

irl religions do not feature at all because, reasons. Enlightened is not really a religion as such, and the Keeper's pets seem to be pacifists. So no imo.

[safe kite]

No reason they couldn't exist.

The old world religions are present in some form just not in game. You can find the vague reference to them here and there but they do not feature prominently in any event.

Firm "Maybe?"

Not somethin the game proves or disproves, and we are unlikely to get a specific answer to that one.

[wind yoke]

Since we always had the cutscene "swoosh" flyby between planets, cruise mode could just explain what was happening!

[steel matrix]

Here’s a good question, how powerful are our ship computers and how strong the drives? The first computer used to calculate a grav jump was Voltaire and it had to be built on Luna for computer reasons I don’t really remember, cooling probably. That computer was needed to calculate a relatively tiny jump from earth/Luna orbit to Saturn(or was it Jupiter?). Now we’re doing up to 30 lightyears of distance in a single jump, in ships much smaller than those prototype vessels and presumably with less computer size than Voltaire.

The energy required as well. Must be massive

[bright ore]

Given both the decor and the NASApunk vibe, I'm assuming that most "real" computers could best be described as minicomputers.

[hushed stag]

Not all animals extinct after the incident of Earth, right?

[high copper]

well there is a guinea pig we can get, there are references to cats

[daring lake]

Pretty much all, although there is some debate about cats. But the game devs could bring anything back with a wave of a hand.

[steel matrix]

Yeah if they really want to bring back like deer or something they could just say there was a vault full of DNA samples or whatever

[hushed stag]

Well, this lore claims that cats extinct

[steel matrix]

But as far as we know, cats and Guinea pigs are the only earth critters to have survived up to the present. Depending on how you want to classify survived, the synth meats might count.

[steel matrix]

As part of Trackers Alliance there is a woman, who is alive, that references her husband playing with their cat. Though it could be an alien cat for all we know

[daring lake]

Some folk found slate text in the files that mention cats. Who really knows? 🙂

[safe kite]

The prevailing presumption is that most went extinct, but very few are actually confirmed extinct. Black labs and horses I think are the only two.

We have more that are confirmed still around. Guinea pigs, cats, chickens.

Others that are likely still around based on game evidence. Cows, frogs.

Rest of em are firm maybes. No evidence one way or the other, but it's safish to assume most varieties didn't make it off the planet. That's just not a rule and is firmly an assumption.

[daring lake]

There is a line from an NPC to the effect of " .... who knows what real meat actually tastes like, all we have is this synthetic stuff" I can't remember the exact wording.

[coarse sundial]

i will say that there are definitely plenty of confirmed incidences of folks eating real meat, though there are also lots of synthetics

it's just that it's usually implied to be alien meat

[daring lake]

Plenty of groat meat out there for sure 🙂

[open ice]

Let's not eat the Ackles this time round

[loud cobalt]

@potent quest Start up a real conversation here.

[hushed stag]

Wish I can know what Earth was like in the game before it became a barren wasteland

I know the UC was organized before the planet’s destruction

[coarse sundial]

The last 50 or so years were probably a Bad Time lol

[safe kite]

To say the least

[coarse sundial]

I'd say Max Max-ey but actually when I consider it, it was probably mostly living in bunkers and caves

as to avoid the ever increasing risk of radiation exposure and turbocancer

[safe kite]

With the mad max folks trying to get in.

And succeeding, evidently, since we see no underground settlements left.

[steel matrix]

It’s honestly surprising we didn’t get a bunker location on earth to explore

[west yoke]

Low key kinda hope we do one day, since the Terran story seems incomplete I’m kinda hoping they tie into into that somehow

[steel matrix]

I’d love a DLC that is just the bunker. Like you start by getting hired for an archeological dig on earth, maybe it could start at New Homestead since I think they do/did archeology on earth and ya know, they’ve got the museum. Get there, do some archeology stuff, find the bunker door, then shenanigans ensue.

With a mission at some point to get the people there vaccinated to all the new pathogens humanity has encountered. Really disappointed that was never brought up with the Constant.

[daring lake]

Not surprising that no surviving bunker locations exist. There is evidence of immense geological upheaval. Might be we could find a wrecked one though?

[coarse sundial]

Given the amount of sand I'm sure the entrance to any surviving bunker would have been buried by now anyways.

[high copper]

you can just clear up an area that didn't get buried that badly

[peak halo]

If they added a bunker. I don't think it would be a full DLC, that seems more the real of an official creation.

(which, xcept for the Doom one, I'd consider canon)

[hollow swift]

Depends on the bunker. Are we talking like a massive facility underground 'bunker', or a VIP bunker? If it's just like The Mantis base, that's hardly dlc-worthy imo. But if it's like ten floors of Vault Tec "survive catastrophe and rebuild humanity" kind of bunker, that might be something. Just my opinion.

[peak halo]

I'd say it would have to have a proper chain attached to it. Just getting a job to go here and explore is not DLC worthy, no matter how large the dungeon is. If it ended up being a fully customizable player home, maybe, but even that's stretching it. However. This isn't the place to discuss this.

However. On a lore note, I think Deep Space 13 is using AI to make their videos. Pacing is wrong.

[steel matrix]

What I was thinking was full on lore Vault-Tec Vault size.

[peak halo]

There would have to be a quest chain, like, finding the coordinates by searching other POIs.

[steel matrix]

I mean, the bulk of the DLC would ideally be interacting with the bunker and the people living in it.

[peak halo]

That's not DLC worthy.

A single location, is not worth the DLC moniker

[steel matrix]

How, by that logic Terran Armada isn’t DLC worthy. Anything can be DLC if the time and effort are put into it.

[steel matrix]

Shattered Space

[peak halo]

Terran Armada has more than one location, adds a ton of new POIs, and has a story.

[peak halo]

Planet sized location, with many POIs. A bunker, by necessity, will be rather small, at best it would be the size of Cydonia.

A single city, is not worth the DLC moniker

[steel matrix]

Again, Shattered Space, where the bulk of it takes place in one city.

[hollow swift]

Unless it was one bunker with multiple layers of security that requires you to go on a manhunt to find access codes? Maybe.

[peak halo]

But there are other POIs, several quest send you outside the city.

And most players agree that shattered space wasn't worth the price asked for it. Not going there though.

Actually. Isn't the entire system new?

[steel matrix]

Yes but the DLC story majority takes place in the one cell

[peak halo]

Plus the Oracle, several new enemy types, new weapons, a new ammo type.

Unless the DLC was to overhaul earth into a more interesting place, a single bunker, no matter how big. Is not worth being called a DLC.

[steel matrix]

How about underground artificial biosphere, if you’ve seen the Orville S1E4 If the Stars Should Appear, that but underground. Introduce some earth species too, like deer and beavers

[hollow swift]

A throwback to Fallout where there's a terraforming device that has yet to activate? XD

[peak halo]

Something that large would likely not have survived

[hollow swift]

Yeah, we are talking about planetary upheaval including tectonic activity and such. It'd be unlikely for anything to survive that intact. But that also makes the relics of locations on Earth incredibly unorthodox in that regard. Entire facilities related to NASA more or less survived. Abandoned and rundown from lack of maintenance, naturally, but more or less survived. It's then not impossible that it could have survived, imo.

[safe kite]

We can add eels to the list of confirmed extinct earth animals.

Found a derelict that references them in historical, past tense context.

[peak halo]

Hey, I remember that one. Full of ship maggots, yeah?

[safe kite]

Yep yep.

[peak halo]

Funnily enough, I recently read/watched so.etbing about the Eel reproductive cycle. So that was a fun little Easter egg

Sarah is at least 38

Assuming she didn't lie to join the military. She's a veteran of the colony wars, meaning she served in them. Meaning she was at least 18 before it ended. And it's been 20 years since the colony war ended.

[heavy vigil]

i think it works out she’s about 42 if I remember right

[peak halo]

How old is Sam?

Cora is 12, yeah? Or is she 13?

[heavy vigil]

I don’t think we’ve had any details for him, though hopefully others may know,
Personally I imagine mid 30’s maybe?

[peak halo]

Assuming an appropriate relationship with Lilian, he would have met her at least at 18, possibly having been running cargo for his father's friend starting at 16. He's at least 30. That's giving him the shortest timeline possible

I'm pretty sure Cora is 12.

If we adjust his age so he gets his first job at 18, and he knows Lilian for a few years before they marry and have Cora, then possibly mid to late 30s

I think Barret is the oldest however. And Andreja is the youngest.

Though it would make sense if they are all roughly the same age

But Sam doesn't really make reference to the colony war from a first hand knowledge perspective.

[steel matrix]

I thought Sarah was supposed to be the oldest?

[peak halo]

She's been part of constellation the longest, but I don't know if she is the oldest

[heavy vigil]

No, Barret, though its never really stated how old he is

[peak halo]

I've never done his romance, I have only done Sam's actually

I wonder if they included lines for companions if you take their wedding gift to the next universe with you....

[heavy vigil]

oo that could be interesting

[peak halo]

But the war Barrett talks, his opinions on things, he feels like a Dad who's trying to stay in touch with his favorite kid.

[steel matrix]

I think Barrett might actually edge her out by a few years there but I’m fuzzy on all the details

[peak halo]

Idk, that's just my feel of him.

Actually... Does Barrett find his artifact before, or after, he joins Constellation.

[coarse sundial]

barrett joined constellation in 2305 so he's presumably at least 43

constellation found its first artifact in 2310

[peak halo]

Because if he found it first.... That could be what happened on Kazaal.

That math doesn't add up

Barrett found the first artifact on a shelf in the basement.

[coarse sundial]

that can happen while he's there

[peak halo]

The second was the one he personally found

[coarse sundial]

i'm sure there's lots of stuff that happens at your job that you aren't fully aware of

[peak halo]

I don't have a job

[steel matrix]

After, Ka’zaal was a dig while Barrett was a member of Constellation and commissioned by them. I believe that’s how he and Lin met

[coarse sundial]

ka'zaal was in 2328 and was a dig specifically comissioned by constellation, yeah

[peak halo]

Okay

[steel matrix]

Same, I miss having one

[coarse sundial]

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/starfield-game/images/3/3d/Starfield_Lore_Facts_YEAR2326.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20230825213108

[peak halo]

I wish more games incorporated something like the Codex from Mass Effect

[steel matrix]

Really gotta ask, why was that thing sitting in a basement for so long? Like I’d get “well we tried everything we could, better archive it” but the way they talk about it makes it sound like they got it and then immediately it went in the basement

[coarse sundial]

we know that unless you're specifically looking for the artifacts and know what their signature is they register to most scans as essentially worthless, so it's very possible that while barrett was fresh somebody else brought it in and thought it was just kind of a weird curiosity and hucked it in the archives

also the colony war was happening at the time

so like, presumably there were more pressing matters than figuring out the weird rock

[steel matrix]

What would an explorers guild even be doing in the midst of what is essentially a world war on a greater scale? I don’t imagine exploring was very safe(well more unsafe than it is usually) and presumably a few back then like now would be spending most of their time at the Lodge. At least look at the funny symbols man.

I still question why Constellation, with money bags Walter, doesn’t have a bigger ship. Only use Nova Galactic for its reliability and parts availability/ease of repair? Cool, you can get bigger Nova Galactic ships or even make one. Walter better reimburse my inheritors for the Apollo!

[hollow swift]

Almost makes me wonder why it didn't get sent to researchers in the Colony War instead of chucked into Archive. A mysterious metal that scans as worthless and has a strange/odd design found in the middle of nowhere. Sounds like X-Tech, but under different circumstances, since pretty much everybody that's found X-Tech has deemed it "the future". Yet somehow the Artifact was just "huh. Junk."

[steel matrix]

X-tech is a new discovery, first artifact was discovered long before that

[worn pendant]

I’d say probably because they all have their own respective ships. We only see the Frontier as one of the shared ships

[steel matrix]

This isn’t about everyone having their own ships, this is about Constellation as an organization only having the equivalent of a camper van. They’re explorers and scientists, the Frontier is not equipped for any long stints exploring and researching planets

[peak halo]

X-tech is comparitvely new, likely not discovered until after the Colony war. And. I don't think X-tech is basically immune to scans

[hollow swift]

Well, yes. I'm just surprised that seemingly nobody seems intrigued by any Artifact they find unless they're super eccentric as an individual; i.e Barret or The Collector.

I'd have figured that instead of being thrown into a locker and very nearly forgotten, it would have intrigued at least somebody enough to be sent to a research outpost and studied, if not for an obviously strange metal scanning as worthless, then as a strange metal that has odd intricate designs.

It seems very strange to me that its properties and obvious uniqueness piqued no interest whatsoever.

[daring lake]

Well, no interest that we currently know of. At this point any possibility is on the table.

[safe kite]

Nishina built an entire research center to study one.

Whole research complex around the Buried Temple, too.

[hollow swift]

Sorry. I rather meant in regards to this Artifact that Constellation had specifically. Other than taking a fascination in it and doing scans on it, they've done very little to nothing to actually research what makes it tick. And they've had it for years. They're kind of no different from The Collector Dx

In fact, that would make for an interesting Starborn. The Collector gathered them all up, somehow used his wealth to get past Constellation, The Hunter/Emissary and went through Unity. Heh.

[coarse sundial]

ok but how do you know that's their only ship

the frontier belongs to barret, specifically

anybody else's personal ship would equally be constellation's

[safe kite]

Frontier seems perfectly equipped for science expeditions, as well.

The whole vibe is 'Barrett lives here and does science'.

[steel matrix]

The Frontier belongs to Constellation, not Barrett, he just monopolizes its use because he’s out more often than the others.

[coarse sundial]

i can't seem to find a source for that, only an uncited statement on the starfield wiki

[steel matrix]

I also not talking about everybody’s personal vessels, I’m talking about the organization Constellation and the fact that they only have the one registered to them.

[steel matrix]

Pretty sure Barrett and Vasco tell you when you first meet

[safe kite]

We do not know if the Frontier is their only ship. We just know about that one because it becomes the player ship.

Their financier owns a shipyard. >.>

[coarse sundial]

beyond that, though, it's a explorer's club, not starfleet

i assume you're generally expected to explore using your own ship and resources

we know that sam has his own ship that he typically uses, per cora's dialogue

andreja also mentions that she occasionally flies her own ship, but prefers not to

[safe kite]

Sam, Andreja, Matteo are all confirmed to have their own ships.

Vlad is presumed to, since he goes back and forth to the Eye.

Which of those are strictly personal and which are owned by the club? We don't know.

I think it's fair to assume the Frontier isn't their only ship, given they have multiple active expeditions at any given time, but we don't have confirmation either way.

[steel matrix]

They complain about Barrett taking the Frontier all the time. Don’t think they’d complain about him taking the company car if they had more company owned cars.

I will concede that the members have their own personal ships, but the organization itself, does not appear to have any others.

My issue with the Frontier is that it’s tiny, it’s great for little jaunts to grab a rock or something but would suck for proper exploration of far flung worlds, one guy does not make for a planetary survey team… realistically.

[safe kite]

I don't recall hearing said complaints about Barrett, but I am not doubting they exist.

Counterpoints:

No one complains that you are hogging the Frontier as the player. No one requests to use it, aside from accompanying you on missions you are specifically going on. Vlad has no issue getting to the Lodge and back to the Eye without it.

best we can say is Frontier might be their only ship. It also might not be.

[odd maple]

Sam’s daughter Cora mentions that your ship smells better than her dads (or something along those lines) they definitely have their own ships

[peak halo]

I think Barrett is the only one without a personal ship, because he exclusively used the Frontier as his ship.

Or, he uses the Frontier for official Constellation business, like meeting the dig team Constellation Hired

Which might make more sense than him not having a ship, using the company car for company work

[steel matrix]

I mean Barrett is just generally chaotic so I could see him not having a personal ship because he crashed it or something

[jaunty ginkgo]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1368310243582279761/1494045412758261780/image.png?ex=69e12db8&is=69dfdc38&hm=7996c429dc7adccd469a1481e49f7f2113ddca7217e6ebf8fb338672efe51619& !

[bright ore]

I suspect that some of the behind the scenes lore is connected with Roger Penrose's ideas on the quantum nature of consciousness, so it wouldn't entirely surprise me.

[steel matrix]

Wouldn’t mind a neuroamp that lets me hear the thoughts of the drive.

Somewhat related, Starborn ships don’t appear to have a control console and instead connect to the pilot on a deeper level, like they’re one.

[safe kite]

The scan bit is interesting.

I believe this is found on a derelict where the dude died during the experiment, right?

[steel matrix]

Yes, I have fuzzy memories of this ship and I believe there was a corpse in the cockpit

[sand spruce]

It's simultaneously an interesting bit of lore and an easter egg toward Stargate Universe.

[daring lake]

Yeah. This evidence helped to form part of the Machine Theory. The latest (possibly) addition to it would be the existence of X-Tech.

[peak halo]

Machine theory?

[daring lake]

Yeah, started out as a hunch which then became a hypothesis. Evidence contained in Shattered Space made it into a theory. There are still unknowns and it could all come crashing down. But I've been looking for anything that would break it, without success.
The theory states that The Unity, Temples, Artifacts and Grav Drives are all distributed parts of a single mechanism.

[open ice]

@hollow swift Arboron (subsidiary of Ryujin) are currently the only manufacturer (other than Va'ruun) that makes particle weapons with the Novalight, Novastrike (Trackers Alliance Creation) and Novablast being an EM using particle ammo so i'd say they are fairly established.

[safe kite]

Big Bang is from CombaTech

[open ice]

Honestly forgot about that shotgun xP i see so few of them drop

[safe kite]

Reasonable. It's my delete button in my current save.

I agree that Arboron likely has been around for a bit. Not as long as the big three...either Arboron or Kore Kinetics are likely the youngest, but neither are brand new, or so it seems.

[open ice]

Yeah and they have the more unique weapons it seems to compete with the more established manufacturers.

[steel matrix]

There’s a named one in the Well, love it’s location and the implications they entail

[open ice]

I'll need to hunt for it

[hushed stag]

So Dr. Victor Aiza is responsible for the destruction of Earth

He had put humanity endanger

[daring lake]

First time doing the NASA thing?

[safe kite]

He sure is.

Also, props for posting this in lore instead of gen chat. It is a bit of a spoiler./

[steel matrix]

Yes and he knew beforehand what he was doing, one man made the choice to sacrifice our homeworld and billions of lives.

[brave tendon]

Honestly, I wonder if at one point there could be a variant universe where he made the decision to not do that. Earth would still be around (only predetermined landing zones), but the only spacefarers would be other Starborn. None of the man-made structures outside of Sol would exist because humanity didn't go there to build them.

The artifact hunt would go quite differently, I think.

[glossy iris]

Honestly. Not a bad idea. Makes me think of other potential futures too.

Like an alternative universe where Freestar and UC either didn't exist or fully destroyed each other in the war. Maybe even other big locations not existing too, like Neon or Paradiso.

[steel matrix]

Canonically those do exist, the Hunter mentions seeing a living earth in one of the universes he’s been to. He doesn’t elaborate further though from what I remember

[brave tendon]

Yep. Effectively the whole game would change in that universe if we were to go to it. I imagine:

• The artifacts themselves would either still be buried in their original spots across the stars prior to human meddling, or they'd all be transported to on/around Earth. Either way, our method of acquiring them would change.
• No Frontier in this universe, just the Starborn ship we spawn in with.
• Maybe a small handful of designated landing zones on Earth and no landing allowed outside of it?
• The only quests we'd have outside of artifact stuff would involve Earth and maybe the Moon? I'm thinking a main quest involving the earthbound humans, plus some side stuff. The focus would likely be the contrast between this universe and the other ones.
  I'm imagining this'd be a content drop roughly the size of Shattered Space. If so, I'd be happy to pay for it. Since it'd be NG+ exclusive, you could put it under Creations so that people feel like it's less mandatory?

[hollow swift]

Its kind of crazy that he let Earth be destroyed. It even sounds like the 'fix" for the atmosphere distortion cause by the grav drives was a relatively simple fix, too. They pushed it out on some unbelievably small maintenance premise or something like that, like replacing fuel injectors or something on a car. It actually infuriates me once i found that part of in the logs. Like, why? Why let it get that far? The research was well funded and undergoing intense research. It was on schedule. Putting up a small delay before things went past the critical PONR to fix the issue would not stop the grav drive technology from advancing, and it would have let Earth survive.

And eventually, people still would have found and begun collecting the Artifacts. If The Eye's scanning is any indication, they're not that hard to find if you're actually looking for one. They would even have the Artifact from Earth still in order to be able to track them much sooner, supposing anybody ever thought that there was more out there.

[safe kite]

We don't have a window into his brain, but from the logs, it appears he was under the impression (or told by whatever he interacted with during his lost time) that the future he saw would not happen unless humanity was forced out the door. The destruction was intentional to ensure that that future would occur.

[daring lake]

Yeah, that's the way I see it too. I'm a bit biased though, as I believe it may be the Unity ensuring that everything that happened in its creation process happens.

Or at least, continues to happen

[steel matrix]

First artifact came from Mars and more to your point of easy to find, they’re all within an extremely tiny area out from Sol, galactic scale wise. You’re looking for a needle in a haystack, but someone else has taken the needle, put it in a little medicine cup with some hay and told you to look in there.

[west yoke]

Honestly the deliberate destruction of earth has to be one of the most baffling writing decisions in a Bethesda game I’ve ever played

I get that they didn’t want to have earth around for gameplay / technical reasons (having a full earth around that you can’t visit for whatever reason wouldve been too handwavey, and having a full earth you can visit would have put too much strain on the games resources), but there’s a million other ways they could’ve written it other than “this one scientist guy wanted to destroy earth for… reasons”

They could’ve made it so that he simply didn’t know about the magnetosphere effect. That wouldve made the whole exodus into space more bittersweet (“we made it to space but it cost us our homeland”) instead of, idk, needlessly cruel and destructive

Why would someone sacrifice 10,000 years of human history, language, culture, religion etc (alongside countless lives) so that a handful of us can build one semi-interesting future city on a planet somewhere else?

Not to mention all the beautiful wildlife, flora, geography etc that was lost 😞

It’d be like if someone decided to nuke the entire US so that a handful of survivors could found a new city in Antartica

Idk it just doesn’t make sense to me

All I can think of is that there’s some starborn shenanigans we’re not aware of that needed the destruction of earth for some reason, but if that’s so there needs to be a really good reason why

Earth is just too cool to sacrifice for some grav drives and cowboy towns otherwise imo..

[hollow swift]

An easy way i can think of to limit Earth is that you're simply not an Earthling in this future of humanity. So you don't have citizenship or clearance to land on Earth, or Luna (which would likely have moonbases or colonies). But through quests you'll gain access to at least one zone you can land at, a landmark futuristic-Earth location where you interact with Earth's society to some minor degree, receive a reward for your efforts, maybe get a house because game logic, and can take further radiant quests at an embassy like location. I could imagine this having been the case for an Earth that survived in to the future.

[jaunty ginkgo]

needlessly cruel and destructive
I'm not surprised that a human would be capable of this. We can be lower than the animal, higher than angels

[sand spruce]

It is very much implied that he saw the future of space flight and humanity amongst the stars as worth the cost. He is ultimately a very evil man, when you boil it down - but there is a question: What did he see? He was shown something (by another Starborn, perhaps even a version of himself) that made him decide this was the way forward.

[high copper]

Sometimes you gotta force humanity to act

[hollow swift]

Wait what, why was that taken down

[hollow swift]

It's revealed in that quest that what he saw, his vision specifically, was a Starborn version of himself that imparted Grav Drive technology to him, the disastrous Earth results from developing it, and the future of humanity spreading across the galaxy. But the picture he was painted sounded rather like a future utopia, rather than what we currently see in Starfield. I honestly think he was tricked.

He also saw a vastly different vision than what our character or Barrett sees. All we see is a 'rift' in space (kind of looks like a closed "Mind's Eye" tbph) and then some constellation/formation out of the Milky Way while we are presumably injected with some kind of cosmic energy tied to Unity (the Crossroads of the Multiverse, as it were) while sound/music is also going through our minds.

The only difference to this is when we interact with a Temple and we get the Double's power, and Barrett interacts with his multiversal other. Learning things from another timeline entirely.

That is much more akin to what the Doctor experiences. But he didn't (that we know of) have a power, or was able to interact with a Temple. Unless there was a secret stipulation where "the first person in the universe to touch an Artifact is granted an exception" or something. But that sounds more like an excuse to give him the power.

[west yoke]

It would have to be something of cosmic importance though. He was prepared to sacrifice humanity’s homeland, pretty much our entire cultural heritage as a species, and like 90% of the human population in order to go through with it. All I can think of at this stage is that something about the Unity wanted him to force humans to abandon earth and draw closer to it, but then what are the implications of that? Are all humans meant to end up as starborn? Is the Unity pointing towards something even greater than itself? I’m not saying it can’t be done but there’s a lot of information were currently missing to make Aislza’s decision even remotely justifiable

As far as Starborn / Unity go, we know that the Starborn have been around since at least the earliest days of grav jumping (the Pilgrim.) As someone else pointed out the Hunter says he remembers his life back on old earth, so it’s possible there are other universes where Earth wasnt destroyed. And we also get a few sketches of Starborn people that resemble old Mayan cultures etc, so it’s possible the Starborn have been around a lot longer than just the last hundred years or so. I guess that could lead somewhere.

[sand spruce]

That's kinda my point. Sacrificing billions of people just to 'rush' into space seems silly. So, to justify it, it would need to be something unbelievably important.

[west yoke]

I don’t like being a critic but I feel like Bethesda wrote themselves into a corner here

I really want to like the story of Starfield but so much of it just kinda feels thrown together :/

There are some really cool ideas there (Starborn, Varuun, grav jumping, etc) but it feels hard to tie it all together

I mean then you have things like Constellation and Sebastian Banks, which could lead to something interesting

[sand spruce]

There is a trademark filed titled Starborn which most assume is a DLC

[west yoke]

I hope the next DLC focuses on the Starborn

That’s one part of the game that’s severely lacking atm imo

Especially considering how much of it revolves around it lol

[steel matrix]

It wasn’t to rush into space, it was to become a galactic species, that’s what he was told, to spread out among the stars Earth had to be sacrificed. Now whether that was true is up for debate. I personally don’t buy it and think he was misled in some way, but regardless that is what he believed he had to do to get humanity to colonize the stars.

[sand spruce]

Well yeah, that's the thing, though. The Grav Drives were fixable, but he rushed it.
And as far as he goes, we have to assume we're operating with incomplete data. Decades of global history and his personal thoughts are not covered at all in the few entries we get.

[steel matrix]

Is it rushed if that was the plan all along? He wasn’t trying to rush us out the door, he wanted to get us out the door because he was told that was the only way to get us out the door. He knew the drives would kill earth, this was not a man caught up in the discovery of new technology forgetting to check the safeties, this was a man knowingly consigning a world to death, so we could have the stars.

[daring lake]

So, you think this viewpoint is wrong? #starfield-lore message

[west yoke]

Wdym?

[daring lake]

Well, you have said that the writers have written themselves into a corner. But if the story includes a Unity that is making everything happen then that would not be so.

[west yoke]

Well that’s what I’m hoping

The way I see it the entire lore of Starfield boils down to the Starborn / Unity etc

If Bethesda can find a way to tie the destruction of earth, the Artifacts, the Unity etc together then I feel like the story will make sense, if that makes sense

I guess I’m just curious to see how they’d pull that off

[steel matrix]

Early grav drives killed earth, they were invented utilizing the Mars artifact. The equations and knowledge to do so was given by something when Dr. Aiza touched the artifact. He spoke to himself outside of time. Either he spoke with a Starborn version of himself or he spoke to the Unity.

[daring lake]

Well, my thinking is that both Aiza and Jinan were given information from the same source. And both provided tech that makes the Unity possible. " ".... everything that was, is, or will be ..." and The Unity is making sure that its existence is assured.

[hushed stag]

I know he’s dead, but even if he was alive, UC would’ve execute him for murder of billions of lives.

[steel matrix]

I didn’t even bring up the fact he’s dead?

Also considering the UCs track record in executing valuable mass murderers, they would not, especially not one that invented Graviton Loop Array technology. You put that kind of person in a basement.

[winged topaz]

I was under the impression that the information he's directly responsible for earth becoming what it is is basically a secret he took to his grave

[steel matrix]

Yes, it’s a secret only him and two other people knew and they all took it to their graves because grav drives were humanities only hope for the future and they didn’t want people to become fearful of the technology. Now us the player and Constellation are the only humans who know

[hollow swift]

And also Hunter/Emissary, but that is far more implied than stated that they directly know. It's like 99% implied they both know the history too.

[daring lake]

Starborn are not classed as Human though 😉

[steel matrix]

They’re Starborn and they definitely know, they send you to NASA and then talk to you about what you saw. Good chance all the Starborn are aware of NASA and the invention of Grav drives, which is why I specified humans.

[hollow swift]

Ah fair, you did say human. But! I retort: They are human-based. Checkmate.

[steel matrix]

I’d say they’ve transcended being human. Wouldn’t really call us fish even though that’s what we’ve come from.

[peak halo]

Eh, less fish-human, more ape-human

I don't think we ascended to near-godhood. Just the a few steps up. Still technically human, but different enough to be a subspecies.

Is there even a genetic change to the star born?

[steel matrix]

I don’t think there’s any mention of a genetic change because I don’t think we ever get our DNA tested. But, there is at the beginning of the Vanguard questline where you get scanned and if you’re Starborn, Tuala will remark that you’re giving off some crazy radiation, with a throwaway line to the effect of “you must spend a lot of time in space.” So there is a noticeable physiological change when becoming a starborn, as well turning into sparkles on death instead of a regulation corpse.

[daring lake]

The game makes the distinction in the skill tree between human and humanoid. Makes sense really.

[peak halo]

It does?

Do they actually affect differently?

[daring lake]

Yeah, can't remember which one of the combat skills without looking. The one that affects when an enemy is "downed" Tier 1 is amount of damage needed for a human, Tier 2 same but for humanoid etc.

[peak halo]

The only skill I can think of that would 'down' an enemy would be EM based

[ashen lion]

the skill is crippling lvl 4 is all enemy types

[twilit nexus]

What exactly is Starborn and the Unity thing? When i go through Unity and start NG+, is it parallel universe?

[safe kite]

Different universe, yeah. Unity has access to a multiverse, so when you hop through the unity, your 'essence' is added to the current universe and hundreds/thousands of copies of you are shotgunned into the multiverse. Your next ng+ is one of those.

[twilit nexus]

why no other "me" is in other universes?
and i assume its just a gameplay thing, and not a lore or timetravel stuff that we start NG+ from the same "point in time" every time?

[heavy vigil]

|| One alternate ng+ does have you ||
I believe the consensus is the Unity places you in orbit of where you first interacted with an artifact, and as such itself

[steel matrix]

Vasco tells you, they disappeared, that’s it, they just disappeared while on the way to the Lodge.

[twilit nexus]

🤔

[daring lake]

Yeah, there are 2 unique Uni's that feature other versions of "You" One is other you as the miner from Argos Extractors (You can take you with you as companion 🙂 ) And then there is "Constellation You" where the Lodge has various versions of "You", each linked to a faction, but no regular Constellation folk.

Also, whether our NG+ starting place is gameplay or lore based is up for debate.

[steel matrix]

Indeed, though it would make sense that touching your very first artifact creates a kind of save point somewhere close(relatively speaking) to where that happened

[peak halo]

I don't think it's orbit, i think it's the first grab jump, but that would put you around Kreet instead of around vectera

[heavy vigil]

You jumped from Vectera to Kreet, so could be when you entered the grav jump?

[steel matrix]

You flew there not jumped.

[steel matrix]

Probably weren’t born on Vectera so first jump wouldn’t have been in that system. Unless you mean first jump after touching an artifact

[daring lake]

First Artifact makes sense tbh.

[hollow swift]

I actually rather think of first Unity jump is more akin to time travel than an alternate universe. Nothing in the first verse's jump seems to be different than the first universe, and yet, you're afforded the opportunity to subvert disaster for Constellation. Feels a lot like a time travel intervention to me.

The rest though are obviously other universes/timelines.

[safe kite]

It's a bit of both.

You are moving to a new universe (proven by there being distinct variations you can find, and the Unity just flat out telling you that).

You are inserted into that new universe at a preset, specific time, relative to the events of your origin universe. That's not really 'time travel' since that implies going backward within a universe, but the jump to the new universe is at the point in development that roughly matches (seemingly) when you touched the first artifact in your original one.

Not every universe is on the same time table, so there's really no need to 'time travel' to get there.

There's no undoing events you have experienced (if Sam dies in your universe, that Sam is dead, period), but since you have experienced events similar to those that are happening in the new universes you find yourself in (they are largely identical), you get a leg up in speeding up or altering events that you can anticipate. That's not changing history, since it's an entirely different timeline and separate universe, but it is handy.

[hollow swift]

What alterations are there in the first UJ? I didn't notice anything.

[steel matrix]

Well first and foremost, you’re flat out told you disappeared while taking the Vectera artifact to the Lodge. If it was purely time travel then you would still have shown up and Starborn you would have shown up in the original

[hollow swift]

Which partly makes me think time travel. The exact same person re-entering the timeline elsewhere, rewriting history.

And no, you wouldn't have shown up as Starborn in the original since you yourself have yet to let events unfold to the point where you would time travel. No inconsistency there.

[steel matrix]

It’s not time travel, you’re multiverse hopping. You get inserted back in time from your perspective, but it’s still just multiverse hopping

[hollow swift]

Then where did that universe's version of us go to? If the sequence of events plays out the exact same from that point on like they do, then we should just show up at The Lodge with the Frontier and Vasco in tow. But that's not what happens. We physically vanish, then re-appear as a Starborn with the Starborn's ship. That sounds a lot like an alteration/ripple effect to messing with time, instead of hopping in to a new universe. We already know two of us can exist at the same time. It doesn't make sense in that regard.

[safe kite]

We don't know what happens to original us in most NG+ Universes. Constellation says we disappeared, but we don't know what happened to them.

We do know that they don't just poof out of existence, because you can run into original yous in alt universes.

We also know, according to the Hunter and Emissary, that most of the time, you die during the events leading up to/during the Artifact hunt.

[steel matrix]

I’d love to meet the disappeared us, even if it’s just a corpse somewhere

[hollow swift]

Yes. And yet Vasco has it logged that you quite literally just inexplicably vanish right in front of him. That's not: running away, dying, sneaking off, or anything else.

And yes, we die in most timelines. Partly why The Hunter is so taken aback in our original timeline when you manage to get as far as you do.

[safe kite]

I don't believe that is what Vasco says.

[steel matrix]

“The miner from Vectera who disappeared while transporting the artifact.”

None of what Vasco said implies the original you just poofed and if the original did just poof there would be mention of this phenomenon, not just a reaction of “well at least you showed up eventually.”

[hollow swift]

This line was from before my video 'research'

Sarah: Excuse me this is a...
Sarah: Wait, there's something familiar about you...
Sarah: Vasco. Identify.
Vasco: Scanning. Cross-referencing known employee records of our affiliated organizations. Please remain still...
Vasco: This appears to be the miner from Argos Extractors. Lost as we were carrying the Artifact from Vectera. Current whereabouts previously unknown.

No other dialog seems to be relevant from rolling through clips of videos. Everything seems to point to this being another universe because of dialog options, but we know unreliable narrators exist. Irregardless of that though, Vasco uses the word 'lost' to describe your disappearing act. Lost means a few things, but noticeably: misplaced, unable to find, or dead. The latter isn't the case, Vasco would have commented on your dying. Misplaced makes as much sense as unable to find.

You disappeared in the middle of Vasco's Protocol Indigo program, which is a very strict monitoring/surveilance and hygiene protocol. He'd have had eyes and scanners on you nonstop until you reached The Lodge, as per Barret's orders.

Since you inexplicably somehow find yourself 'lost' from his overprotective scrutiny, he continues on with delivering the artifact himself as that is the primary directive of his orders with you no longer present needing overwatch, and he likely exhausted all means at his disposal of finding you (ran his options, came up empty.

The only factor that makes one think that this is an alternate universe is your characters own narration choices. Referring to everybody as different, or 'not mine', or that you're in another universe. And why wouldn't you think that? It's what you were told would happen/be the case.

Yet Sarah has a case of deja vu and seems to recognize somebody she has clearly never met. Another point towards possible time travel in the first UJ, not a dimension hop.

[steel matrix]

Presumably when Vasco showed up at the Lodge he showed them the person who recovered the artifact from the ground.

[hollow swift]

Sarah wouldn't had have a deja vu moment from a photograph she saw just minutes prior, if even minutes. Besides, Noel is the one we see handle all of the exchanging of data first in every case of Constellation business, through her pad, and she never mentions a thing.

[steel matrix]

“Where’s Barrett?”

“On Vectera.”

“He sent you back alone!?”

“No, he sent a miner with me to deliver the artifact.”

“Where is the miner? Who were they?”

“They disappeared. Uploading visual data to table thingy.”

Also there’s no guarantee it’s minutes prior, we don’t exactly know what time we got spit back out at. Also Sarah could’ve just gotten a debrief report from Vasco when he returned and simply glanced at what we looked like.

[hollow swift]

Pretty sure we show up right after their exchange of dialog when they get all giddy and excited (looking at you Noel and Mateo) from adding the Artifact to the others and seeing their reaction unfold. Sarah even mentions "some of our theories seem to be true" or something like that when you spill the beans to them right then and there, so their exchange of words took place. We certainly don't ever hear mention of any other time when they were formulating theories and opinions on the Artifacts prior to adding this one to the bunch, although you can't entirely rule out that they, as a scientific group of explorers, wouldn't have formulated any to begin with. Still, it tracks for the series of events.

Bring artifact, place artifact, artifacts react, Mateo and Noel nerdgasm for a minute or two, Sarah calms everybody down and refocuses the group's efforts.

Now replace you with 'Vasco brings artifact', because you're missing in action obviously, and then you reappearing at the end... It fits.

But to go further: Sarah would not have put so much faith in some random nobody miner she only just glimpsed the picture of because of a status report from Vasco. She hangs on every word you say, believes you, and trusts you implicitly following that deja vu moment. That's a very strange occurrence when you consider that we just up and disappear, casting many doubts and aspersions to our intent, commitment, faith, blah blah. You would be naturally disinclined to believe that person at fact value, not the other way around. Walter's reaction is much more the normal response in this regard.

[steel matrix]

Barrett trusted you, that’s why she trusts you at all.

I’ll bring up again, Vasco specifically mentions you disappearing while transporting the Artifact, not when you get to the Lodge, while transporting.

[hollow swift]

She can think that, but we still up and disappeared for gods know why to her. That would indicate that Barrett's trust was initially misplaced, and she would have doubts about you. Buuut she doesn't. Not one. You can't have that much blind faith in somebody, lol. It's way too unrealistic.

Yes? Nothing I've said implies that we disappear just before the Lodge, but rather before we even get to Jemison.

[steel matrix]

Oh also another option, Sarah saw us in an employee manifest, Constellation commissioned the dig, presumably that would include seeing who was on the dig.

[steel matrix]

Isn’t that whole Old Neighbourhood mission your intro to Constellation to prove to her you’re trustworthy?

Also you had a vision like Barrett, trust or not that’s a piece of the mystery and you and Barrett are the only two people they know of to have these visions.

[hollow swift]

Ehhh. I think Barret would be the likely one for blimps the employee roster, since he commissioned the dig in the first place. According to Lin anyhow. I just don't personally see Sarah caring about the backgrounds of a bunch of Argos miners, which happens to be a respectable mining business. But it's just as easily that he didn't care, since he commissioned the dig through Lin, who he trusts after their first dig for Artifact #2.

And i don't think Sarah was aware of our visions or anything until we confirm it to her, since it's just a theory or one-off that happened to Barret (with him being the only confirmed case to that point iirc). Telling as much grants some credibility i suppose, but she trusts us in NG+ even before then.

[hollow swift]

Was it? I thought it was more of a competency test myself. And partial psych-eval.

[steel matrix]

Don’t we talk to Barrett about our vision in front of Vasco when they arrive to pick up the artifact?

Sarah is also the Constellation chair, the dig was commissioned by Barrett on behalf of Constellation and given how secretive they were about it, Sarah would definitely look at who was doing the dig.

[hollow swift]

Yes. Or more Barrett asks, and you have no choice but to reply affirmatively even if you choose the obviously dismissive option. 🤷‍♂️

[steel matrix]

Well we were in a medical bay, there’s no real denying that something happened and given how it happened he has a good guess on what you saw

[hollow swift]

I just don't see Sarah perusing the roster, sorry. :/

But i'm not convinced it wasn't just a reversal of time and that your disappearing was not just a side effect of you being reintegrated into the timeline. Either way fits from where i sit and how i see it. Alternate universe that just happens to be exact except for this one initial detail vs rewind, but you're Starborn now.

[hollow swift]

Well yeah. The Artifacts can have an affect on somebody. But do they always show visions? It's an unproven, untested theory that you can dismiss or somewhat deny to his face. I chose the option where i said something like "i don't care that thing almost killed me" and Barrett just goes along like if you said "yeah it was a musical with lots of lights! It was soooo cooooooolll"

[steel matrix]

We have four known cases, Barrett, the player, Dr. Victor Aiza and an unnamed fourth. Each experienced something skin to a vision, the fourth appearing rattled according to Vanguard Moara

There’s a high likelihood that everyone who pulls an artifact out of bedrock experiences a vision.

[hollow swift]

Barrett, before you confirming yours, it's the only known case prior to anything else iirc for that point of the story.

[steel matrix]

He is, at least that Constellation knows of. The Collector also has an artifact but I do not remember if he had any information about its acquisition.

[hollow swift]

You can ask him about the seller and specifically ask if they had visions and he says yes.

[steel matrix]

Then we have five people, it’s been literally years since I met with the Collector. Well, properly met.

[hollow swift]

XD Daaamn lol

[steel matrix]

Oh, the Hunter, if we time traveled wouldn’t the Hunter remember us being Starborn if he went with us through the Unity?

[safe kite]

I always took Vasco's wording as you went into the Kreet facility and didn't come back out, so he just went back to Jemison as planned.

[daring lake]

Yeah, its well established imo that we don't time travel. Its the multiverse, with an infinite number of Hunters, Emissaries and Kibwe Ikandes. When we, as players, enter the Unity for the 1st time we are not really alone. At least from the perspective of Unity "You" who says.... "Go out into the stars, all of you here ..."

[safe kite]

Regardless, that's a ton of assumptions doing heavy lifting to support a time travel theory that is directly refuted with other primary evidence.

[safe kite]

Mmhmm.

We have plenty of evidence that the original does not poof as soon as a Starborn version shows up.

Necessarily, they can't, as at least 2 versions of the Hunter exist in every universe.

And Emissary.

[daring lake]

You might be preaching to the choir Dys 😄

[safe kite]

Who else am I gonna preach to? No one else goes to church anymore.

[steel matrix]

Wish there was a quest to follow up on the original us, I want to know what happened to me and if there’s a loose end that needs to be tied up

[daring lake]

The loose end that I would like to investigate is to discover who runs Argos Extractors.

[steel matrix]

Lin, she’s just really into undercover boss.

[daring lake]

Well yeah, that would be a fair shout but for being able to hire her as outpost crew.

[steel matrix]

Knowing who runs Argos would be nice, they appear to be a mining company but can be hired by an explorers guild for secretive digs? Something seems strange and raises some eyebrows

[daring lake]

They have an office. And the boss is never there. It's one of the first things I check after each Unity jump. 🙂

[steel matrix]

I always forget to collect my paycheck, I should do that. Especially now that I’m renowned hero and Class 1 Citizen Draytin Hase who saved New Atlantis from a Terrormorph attack, took down the Crimson Fleet, Freestar Ranger, miscellaneous other heroics.

[peak halo]

Wait. We can collect a pay check?

Where is the Argos HQ?

[safe kite]

The building in new Atlantis, where Whetstone is. Elevator. Argos Extractions.

[peak halo]

Thanks

What are all the triggers for SSNN interviews? I know the Vectera assault, the Gal bank situation, but I can't remember the others

[misty lake]

Every major story line quest, as well as the factions

[peak halo]

I don't recall an interview for the Tau Ceti mission for Vanguard

Or even most of the vanguards questline.

[daring lake]

The attack on NA.

[peak halo]

I did forget about that one

[daring lake]

Also, have a chat with the lady sat at the desk in SSNN.

[peak halo]

I think ground pounder should have an interview. A heartwarming story about the Freestar and UC working together to fight off spacers and protect civilians

[peak halo]

That's what I'm talking about, those interviews.

[daring lake]

Well, "officially" the UC + FC did not work together in Altair. 🙂

[steel matrix]

Officially it was a training exercise gone awry

[daring lake]

Yeah, that is how it ended up being reported. But Myeong was sent to Altair to deal with spacers. Just not the spacers on Altair II

[peak halo]

I know, but I think it would have been a good propaganda piece showing the FC and UC working together for the good of the settled systems

[daring lake]

I don't disagree. But would the FC willingly allow that? Given Radcliff's attitude towards the UC, probably not.

[peak halo]

It's not really her decision. If someone was to go the the council of give era about it, might they have a different opinion on it

(although, depending on how you do the FC questline, there might be an open seat on the council for her

[exotic goblet]

I hope that potential next DLC if we have any would give us aliens-demi-mutant(ex-human) faction. Like if we could select alien dna for our hero why some groups not build new civilization based on that. We have Serpent worshipers but its not the same.

Galaxy kinda lack diversity of enemies-allies. ||Terran Armada|| was dissapointment cos its mostly robots with minor ammount of actual ||Terrans|| and we cant join them and have our own droid armies. Why not, we could be Railroad member or raider overboss in Fallout 4.

[jaunty ginkgo]

I'm not sure if both your posts are related, but to your second one I think that's mostly a enemy variety problem rather than a lore thing. To me it looks like most of their variety budget went to the planetary fauna

[exotic goblet]

Yep, they are related. Colonies are very small and empty-barelly populated too. They could add more populated space stations and planets with cities like Akilla, New Atlantis.

Srly New Atlantis, the "largest and most populated" city exist for +170 years and look like it was build no more then 30 years ago and almost noone live there. And it look like a part of larger city what was existed and destroyed by nukes.

[high copper]

Well the topside is nice and fresh, the Well was the original part i believe

[exotic goblet]

They could at least add +10 skyscrapers around New Atlantis. To have illusion of small city.

[fierce creek]

Chiming in to say you don’t collect the paycheck there, you do it in gargarin landing

[daring lake]

It is not her decision, true. But she is fairly representative of FC sentiment. Leah Casler would be another example.

Private Mahoney; " and I can't believe I'm saying this but ..." etc.

[bright ore]

This would certainly be an interesting idea: a culture that used genetic engineering both to meet the challenges of living in space, and for aesthetic reasons. Something like the Cetagandans or Quaddies from the Miles Vorkosigan books.

[exotic goblet]

Yep, mutants, cyborgs. +faction/people from different culture -more like Serpent worshipers.

Synths too

[daring lake]

One of Delta's challenges takes you to a couple of mad scientists that have been trying out the genetic manipulation thing. Trying to incorporate various features from creatures into humans.

[hollow swift]

Is there any significance to the visions of the Temples showing you different galaxies? Or at least, the center of those galaxies in the visions always seem to be different. A different center for each and every power/artifact. Or is it just something just because and there's probably no significance to it?

[daring lake]

The different patterns seem to be linked to the symbols for the associated power gained. So, "just because" may be right.

[hollow swift]

I don't persay mean the pattern, but the actual galaxy itself. The core or middle area is always different, like having a green nebula core, or an elongated red nebula, ofc there's the milky way for the first temple, so on and so forth. Just ran through all the Temples possible on this first universe on this new save and i just happened to notice that minute difference doing them back-to-back.

[mossy cobalt]

It seems to me that we already have nonhuman presence via AI. The difference between ||Delta and the Terran soldiers|| seems to be one of degree, not of kind. Likewise, the base game already gave us Juno, so ||Delta||'s status is not unprecedented.

Some players also interpret the tactics of the final Terrormorph boss in Londinion to suggest sentience among the most capable Terrormorphs (because whatever they're doing with those pheromones seems to be a lot more precise and organized than just creating a frenzy response).

The point I'm making is Starfield definitely tries to keep nonhuman presence low-key overall but if you pause to think what makes a human a human relative to other life, nonhuman peers do seem present via at least Juno and ||Delta||, and probably also via ||X-Tech enhanced robots in general||. (Maybe also Terrormorphs.)

In many ways I don't mind it the way it is. I wouldn't mind a peer civilization, certainly, but it's been done to death and the way Starfield is positioned currently provides room for creators to play around with the themes (e.g. At Hell's Gate using ||a Terrormorph as a possible impetus for its events||) without the narrative actually rehashing the entire playbook of first contact, culture shock, etc. etc.

There are even POIs populated by renegade robots. Not even ||BUCK-E||, just ordinary non-Terran robots who've rid themselves of human management and... coworkers.

It would be neat if there was a settlement with independent robots we could interact with in ways that don't involve combat, and that kind of "nonhuman faction" type of thing might be the actual sort of content I'd personally want to see if a future DLC feels like touching on the concept, but as far as nonhuman presence I'd argue the game already fulfills that (and mods could easily expand the X-Tech robots in particular to a full faction if anyone feels like doing that).

[sweet cypress]

I would not mind having a non-peer alien civilization to stumble across. Something planetbound, yet sentient and sapiant. Either truly alien in body and mind, or perhaps somehow locked to a very specific stage of civilization development.

Perhaps a lack of easily accessible metals means they are hamstrung to “”wood”” and stone, leaving them planetbound?

At the very least, Creator potential aside, I somewhat doubt that there are any sentient-sapiant interstellar cultures within human reach in the human section of the Milky Way.

With the sheer distance covered at the momemt, one would think they would have slammed headfirst into a pack of Zeta Reticulan Flying Saucers(joking) by now.

I think man is currently alone in the peers department.

[steel matrix]

Man is currently alone in an incredibly small speck of space, galacticly speaking. The abundance of human safe habitable worlds within close proximity to Sol is already quite lucky.

[autumn barn]

Paid creations are canon*

*To an extent

[mossy cobalt]

*To the extent that Creations released by BGS themselves are almost guaranteed to be in everyone's game in future releases

It's possible they could promote some other Verified Creators' work into the base game like that in the future 🤷 Anything's possible with the Creations system! But I think the only ones everyone agrees are canon are the BGS creations

And even those get some discussion around whether Constellation canonically have plushies and whether At Hell's Gate should be in lore discussions etc.

Chat do we think Constellation canonically have plushies?

Sarah seemed pretty irritated that someone made an action figure of her

Discuss.

[peak halo]

Well. I think her issue with the figure was more that it was 'celebrating' her actions in a time of War and Horror.

[mossy cobalt]

That too, yeah. She definitely seems like she prefers not to think about the ||downed ship/shuttles|| incident, for example. Not very cool of the (in-universe) action figure marketers to turn her image into an action figure without even asking her, considering (from that perspective) she's a real person with real trauma from the time.

[peak halo]

Depending on the laws around it, she might even have a case to sue them, making an action figure without her consent, heck, without her knowledge. I know IRL you have to have consent from either the person, or the estate they left behind

Though, having served in the military. They (the military) might have the right to use her likeness for promotional material

[analog moth]

I’ve actually been thinking about this a lot while using Mods on my latest play-through. I’ve come to the conclusion that in my Starfield save paid creations are canon. In a game about the ||multi-verse|| anything anyone ever played is canon to their Starfield. Bethesda 4th wall broke with this this game in an awesome way lol.

[sand spruce]

All player experiences are canon. I've believed that from the start.

[strange gust]

It's a certainty, Bethesda already do it with TES with Dragon's break where each player is part of the universe story cannonically. They did the same thing with Starfield, ||Multiverse and the starborns state|| integrate each player experience in a logical manner in the story, as a player you can't ever restart a game from zero, you will always carry a transcending experience from your past playthrough, they integrated this in the game design. But there's more than that, the dilemma and decision of ||the Hunter/The Pilgrim|| represent the players grinding obsession for getting everything and always more, and then the realization than this is futile and eventually you will want to settle down and enjoy life instead of chasing something that never had a real answer or reward in the first place. ||There's no explanation about the starborn experience, like there is none for anyone life. And chasing infinity leads nowhere by definition.||

[sand spruce]

Yep

[safe kite]

Yes and no.

The multiverse they went with for Starfield appears to be the variety where any plausible reality exists. IE: any universe that could arise naturally given the same starting conditions and/or differences in event outcomes is Canon.

This does not mean that all possible universes exist. So if a paid mod adds something entirely ridiculous and out of place, such as injecting Star Wars or Harry Potter verbatim? Not Canon. Just because there's a multiverse doesn't mean Game of Thrones or Transformers canonically happened in Starfield somewhere.

Universes where the UC won the colony war, or the FC was never founded, or the Earth was never evacuated, etc all exist somewhere in the multiverse. Plausible variations.

The shorthand for me is currently "If it's in the base game or official dlc - that being creations published by bethesda - it is Canon. Otherwise, it isn't"

Of course headcanon is way more flexible than that.

[mystic garnet]

Is it known which specific ship is used in the Terran armada propaganda posters?
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1162032960401313894/1496265826569945088/RDT_20260421_0010031730734848867507582.jpg?ex=69e941a4&is=69e7f024&hm=26d2dff8e24fb5bb3a376c0c0ade51f28b11df15747e7fbec418d1601e0a8d32&

The actual ships all look very similar to one another so maybe the art is just a generic mix of all of them? 🤔

[sand spruce]

Just seems like typical ship parts with the new engines on the back.

[jaunty ginkgo]

I'm not sure I would classify Dragon Break as a multiverse, because the timelines realigns and merges after 1008 years

Starfield has a multiverse, as in multiple universes. Multiple places and peoples even if said places and peoples look the same, the're still different between each other

Dragon Break is named that because it concerns the domain of the Akatosh as the Dragon God of Time, where Starfield is more about the Space. Hence things named like Shattered Space

Yes can be used as a way to validate all of the players' experiences and choices, they can be similar in terms of use and goal, but I'd be wary of muddling the properties of the two

[final yoke]

is it ever stated explicitly what happens if someone were to use a grav drive in atmosphere, will something like the slipspace thing that happened ovr new mombasa

[mossy cobalt]

Slipspace actually involves using a bunch of force to rip a hole in space, so it makes sense it would have that effect at short range. Grav drives don't work like that, they're more like a warp drive conceptually in that (as far as I understand it) they literally warp spacetime instead of actually leaving it in some sense. I'm not sure if a grav drive would even work that close to a planet (grav effects nearby make the calculations more complicated, and that might make a gravity well too close by a very big problem for a jump), but in-game your ship can be right next to a ship that's grav jumping and there are no ill effects, so if the local grav distortion does anything negative at that range then I don't think it would be as dramatic as that Halo example, no.

We can jump from the area affected by a gas giant (i.e. where ||the Legacy|| is) so I don't think the atmosphere itself would be a problem, but there's reason to think the gravity might prevent jumping from a planet's surface either way.

[strange gust]

Considering the story, jumping too close off a planet like in atmosphere, I would be more worried about disturbing the magnetic field of a geomagnetic active planet like Jamison. But again it is probably a question of fine tunning. I don't know maybe jumping close to other ships with a bad calibration should fry their electronics or disable temporarily their own Grav drive. Could be used as a weapon too...

Maybe we should have a story dlc where someone try to use a modified grav drive to kill a colony.

[safe kite]

The negative effects on magnetospheres were fixed in the grav drive structure and they no longer cause harm to planets.

[bright ore]

I expect that Starfield's multiverse is based off of the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics. So the multiverse is basically the set of all possible quantum states (or state trajectories) of the universe since the Big Bang. This provides an explanation for why all the universes are basically the same: if an electron orbiting a nitrogen atom in M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy, should happen to zig instead of zag, then obviously this won't have any effect on our own neck of the woods.

This also leaves open the possibility of other multiverses each with their separate Big Bangs, which could have different physical laws than our own. Something like from M-theory or from Max Tegmark's "The Mathematical Universe" for example.

[autumn barn]

God ordered off Temu but he ended up getting too much, but didn't want it all to go to waste so he decided eff it we ball

[mossy cobalt]

I think a lot of people get confused about what "canon" means. It's a reference back to a religious and literary concept meaning "standard" or "decreed". Thus, we could refer to the canon of Chinese Classics (the universally accepted ones upon which the Imperial Exams would test), the canon of Scripture in a particular tradition (the Bible of Christianity or the Pali Canon of Theravada), or the canon of Shakespeare (works universally accepted as being written by him). We could say a particular religious experience is a valid encounter with a particular spiritual tradition, but we would not say that it's part of the canon people on the other side of the world will reference by chapter and verse in discussions of that religion.

Things that happened in one of my Starfield saves are not standard or universal to the entire community. This is why @safe kite and I both started talking about content in the game when canon came up, not experiences of the game. It's universal that if you go to the Sanctum Universum headquarters you can read Among The Grav Jumps from the shelf there. If I accidentally throw a grenade in the headquarters and get a giant bounty in the UC, we wouldn't then say that it's a universal experience that if you go into that building you'll get a giant bounty, or even that there's a particular set chance of this occurring or something like that.

The book being there is canon because it is universal to all unmodified games and to the baseline for all players. The grenade and the bounty are not. The game supports throwing the grenade and the bounty is a valid result, and plenty of other players would relate to the experience if told about it, but if I say "oh the new quest ||with Delta at the farm|| sounds a bit like what happens the first time you go to the Sanctum Universum" nobody is going to immediately relate, let alone jump straight to "Oh, right! The grenade."; it's not universal. It's not canon.

[sand spruce]

I normally agree with that assessment but in the sense that the multiverse's existence is canon, and given it's literally infinite nature, an argument can be made that all players exist within its shared multiverse and therefore, when the scope is literally infinite possibilities of experiences as the baseline, they're just as integral as the rest of infinity - even the different player characters, in all their variations, are explainable that way. Your tossed grenade, at least from that angle, is in fact canonical - because there's nothing to say it didn't concretely happen within the multiverse my own character also inhabits.

[mossy cobalt]

Right, I see where you're coming from. There's no way to exclude it, no. But Starfield is also a game, and there's no way to make every experience a universal point of reference. Referencing the building does not include an implied reference to the grenade, the way that (say) referencing ||the Legacy|| includes an implied reference to ||the storyline of the crew starving||.

That's the other side of what "canon" means in literature. If I walk up to a Shakespeare professor and begin talking about Pyramus and Thisbe, the professor will 1) know that I'm probably talking about the depiction in A Midsummer Night's Dream and 2) already know the story. We can immediately have a conversation about it because it's a part of the canon.

They might know extra stuff I didn't know relating to the mythological background or whatever, but there's a shared baseline that doesn't need further establishment because it's already there. Likewise, if I reference some Starfield dialogue that another player didn't encounter, I can at least immediately establish "that's from the weapons dealer in Neon Core" or something, and the other player can at least know how to reach the thing I'm referencing.

[safe kite]

Certainly a plausible outcome for someone to enter the building and drop a grenade for no reason.

That event potentially happening somewhere in the multiverse is valid.

Just kinda not really something the game provides an avenue for players to experience intentionally.

And that's getting close to the canon lore vs gameplay mechanics debate.

IE just because free lanes lets you try to nyoom into a gas giant and your ship stops before hitting it, doesn't mean there's canonically a mystical force keeping you from descending to a gas giant. If that makes sense.

Some stuff is just there because it's a game.

[sand spruce]

Well yeah, certainly. But this is why I feel that infinite multiverses of 'copies' are inherently a flawed premise to begin with.

Fun, though.

[mossy cobalt]

I don't think the concept is inherently flawed, they use it effectively with e.g. the Hunter IMO.

[safe kite]

Doesn't seem flawed at all to me, personally. I dig what they've done with it so far and hope that future dlc adds more ng+ variants. Huge canvas to explore.

[mossy cobalt]

NG+ variants are actually the closest to a flaw that I see with the current implementation now that you mention it. I get what happened with it (the variants are linked to the Main Quest, so they're limited to the Lodge and the Eye) but I would've liked to see variations that could pop up elsewhere. Maybe replacing a random side NPC at the Hitching Post or something, IDK

It would've made the universe variations feel more like something that happens to the universe than something that happens to that particular narrative in practice, you know?

[safe kite]

Definitely something that could be expanded.

[sand spruce]

Flawed in the sense that infinite means infinite - all potentialities do exist over enough inspection. I do agree that there are certainly constants within Starfield (because, as you said, it is a game) but even the hunter makes allusions to variants of reality no player can experience since dev-time is not infinite. The scope or the concept is not possible to convey to the player in a way that is adequate, even when fulfilling!

[mossy cobalt]

Hmm, I see what you mean. Narratively biting off more than it's possible to chew, kinda thing.

[sand spruce]

There are very subtle variations that occur that don't even need a NG+. Booth in Cydonia sometimes wears a security helmet, other times he does not. Sometimes the guard in the Well talking to the brain fogged guy is male or female. I am trying to notice others, but, again, subtle, and the game is large.

[mossy cobalt]

I guess it goes back to the old Bethesda scaling thing. Like how it takes days to reach Solitude from Riften on foot in the lore but it wouldn't take you a whole day to do that in game. Likewise Madame Sauvage definitely has a home colony in every universe but there's no way for the player to see it in any universe, etc.

[sand spruce]

Yup.

[mossy cobalt]

I never noticed additional differences! Good call!

[quaint pilot]

Fast travel saves a lot of the time when traveling, because it's like warp speed.

[mossy cobalt]

If that's a reference to the scaling thing, that's true but it's not going to take you days to get to Solitude with or without fast traveling.

[safe kite]

Game time scale kinda compensates for stuff like that, but game scale is always going to be smaller than is 'reasonable' for any game setting.

[quaint pilot]

There was a documentary somewhere where someone said that there couldn't be arenas in every city because it would overload the game.

Having lore accurately scaled places can definitely make the game less playable.

[hollow swift]

Then just get creative with loading instances. Devs have had to work around creating massive levels and loading areas as you travel/progress a zone. It's hardly going to be less playable if you develop your game with the scale and scope in mind from the beginning.

[west yoke]

I always saw it that the different universes were mostly based around you as a character, not really broader scopes such as who won the Colony War etc

So sometimes you end up in a constellation of all Yous, or a constellation where Walter tried to buy it out, but otherwise the universes are (mostly) the same

It’s also why the Hunter says something like “you’re an anomaly to the timeline” on your first playthrough, and in all other universes you’re the one he kills when attacking the eye

All other universes before you jump through the Unity yourself that is

[hollow swift]

He also admits sometimes the Emissary gets to Constellation first, then he takes out Em.

[worn pendant]

So looking at some of the action figures like the admirals one, I think the Terran Crewman uniform (the white one) is actually an old UC Navy uniform if you can believe it

Or just a specific UC fleet uniform at one point.

[west yoke]

considering the Terrans are just a splinter group of former UC/FC soldiers that makes sense

[strange gust]

In Help Wanted, Caruso is clearly based on Dave Bautista in Blade Runner 2049 and I need people to know. Also Do replicant exist in the Starfield universe? That's a bit scary. But fitting with the All sci-fy setup. Maybe we need a storyline about that.

[peak halo]

There is a settlement called 'Crucible' that's all I'm saying about that

[daring lake]

There are a ton of Sci-Fi references and nods to space based stuff in the game. No synthetic humans known, but cloning exists.

Also, maybe we need the current story to play itself out 😉

[strange gust]

I know about the cloning, I released my guy Genghis and how she's called the girl from Vae Victis, cloning already exist on animals at a scale people underestimate today. But a human clone is still human. A bioroid/replicant is not and it's much more freaky. They may want to kill us on the long term, sneakily like infiltrated agents.

[peak halo]

I misunderstood the term replicate, wasn't thinking blade runner. However, the closest we have are a few robots, but nothing that emulates a human perfectly, AI are illegal

[coarse sundial]

for the record, tes has a multiverse too and has explicitly since Shadowkey

[final yoke]

I assume because of keeper aquilius is a starborn, but gotta ask, when you jump through the unity, do you come out at the age you jumped? lol

[candid adder]

The Starborn are in a self-imposed groundhog day style loop.

What I'm curious about is why you seem to take over your body in the new universe, but the Hunter and the Emissary don't take over theirs.

[daring lake]

Well, you don't "take over" anything at all. "You" is reborn anew.

[static sky]

You don’t

People think you’re the « you » from this universe because they don’t know. Because you in this universe usually die around where you show up

||But sometimes you’re with the you of this universe|| minor spoiler

[candid adder]

Oh? I just ran it and they said something about the person disappearing.

[static sky]

If you kill them both or any of them, they still show up in the next universes. They’re not always the same one either

The huntr mention that you’re usually dying, in your first run. Basically, your first run is an anomaly. You usually die around vectera

[daring lake]

Yeah, that's not strictly true

[static sky]

Your first time playing starfield is the first time you don’t die, which is also why you don’t have another you running around ||unless…||

[static sky]

The emissary is also not always the same person

[daring lake]

Never said that they were. But "Dusty" does not usually die around Vectera

[static sky]

Yeah, not always

The « you » have an unknown fate, most of the times

[daring lake]

All that the Hunter admits to is that " ... you have never got this far before" At least from the perspective of that version of The Hunter 🙂

[static sky]

During the finals missions of main quest, you die in the arms of vlad on the eye instead of the one that is the emissary

[static sky]

There’s also theories that hunter keeper is the dude who created the grav drive

[daring lake]

This bit is open for debate. The Buried Temple messes around " .. always testing you" Also. Aiza is not the Hunter imo. Too many dead Aiza's for that I think.

[static sky]

Well, yeah, but the hunter want you to kill the keeper

Also, he saw himself from the future, that convinced him to kill earth for the stars, something the hunter would do

Hunter also mention earth / living on it ? Or something vaguely like this

[daring lake]

In the same Buried Temple sequence, Petrov will tell you that you are not worthy to reach the Unity. Makes me lean towards those scenes being made up by the Buried Temple.

[static sky]

Who is petrov

[daring lake]

The Collector, owner of the scow

[static sky]

Right

He does say that

Maybe there’s an universe where he know the unity

But also, in the unity, you’re greeted by none other than you so yeah, maybe you’re right

[daring lake]

In the Machine Theory both Aiza and Jinan Va'ruun are given information on how to construct tech that would eventually lead to the building of the Unity. The experiences that each had are very similar, and could be linked to the ability of the Buried Temple to show you whatever it wants to show you.

[static sky]

Jinan saw the unity & though it was a snake ?

Their sigil does look like the unity

But how would he reach it without the spicy metal lol

[daring lake]

Well, I believe that Jinan was shown exactly what the Unity knows he was shown. As for your question it comes down to the bottom line of the Machine Theory.
Namely, that The Unity, Temples, Artifacts/Armillary and Grav Drives are all distributed parts of a single mechanism.

[static sky]

« jinan was shown exactly what the unity know he was shown » what

[daring lake]

The Unity exists outside of spacetime and has access to everything that " .. was, is, or will be" The general idea is that The Unity is ensuring that everything that happened to create it will always happen. And our part in that "play" always starts at Vectera.

[strange gust]

Oh! Now that you are saying it, the great serpent + unity circle and concept = Ouroboros! The circle is the great snake eating itself ! It's so obvious now. Lmao. Jinan definitively saw the Unity.

[dull marten]

so can only one starborn use the Armillary or could that just share the same ship?

[coarse sundial]

Anybody on the ship.

If you have any of the Constellation companions aboard your ship (and Cora) when you jump to the Unity, if you then leave the Unity back into your original universe, you can talk to them about their encounters with the Unity and ask them why they turned back like you did.

[north holly]

Has anyone been able to make sense of why Victor had 12 days of lost time from touching the artifact?

[jaunty ginkgo]

Time dilation?

Wait am I using the term right

[daring lake]

He was given a lot of information and 12 days is how long it took. There is practically no information available other than that. We don't know if he was alone before or during his experience, so maybe no witnesses.

[frank island]

With the Free Lanes update, do grav drives act like warp engines in system, then switch to wormhole mode to jump between stars?

You ship moves pretty fast in cruise mode, covering light-seconds in… seconds

[peak halo]

The best head canon we have is basically that. The grav drives have a 'low power' mode that does something with gravity to shorten the distances between 'here' and 'there', which allows faster in system travel than the traditional slow boating. (Which is basically how a warp drive works)

However. We also generally agree that the speed of the Cruise drive is a gameplay mechanic to keep you from having to spend three days in game getting between two planets.

[coarse sundial]

afaik, the actual ingame speed of cruise mode is pure game mechanics, yeah

[daring lake]

The devs in the Deep Dive vid. straight up said that they know it does not fit with the game "but we all want to have fun, right?" Cruise mode is "handwavium" 🙂

[frank island]

I figure it's some kind of warp drive, while interstellar jumps are wormholes

[daring lake]

No. Grav drives are not wormhole stuff. And cruise mode is a gameplay mechanic with no actual base in lore. But headcanon is a thing I guess.

[coarse sundial]

i mean, by definition, a grav jump is creating a small, extremely brief wormhole, for all intents and purposes.

That said, we do know that even without cruise mode game mechanics, cross-system travel in the game involved getting to a high percentage of c without time dilation (because you can compare distance traveled to the amount of time passing), presumably through use of the grav drive.

[crisp mulch]

https://youtu.be/Duh21XGKfOE?list=RDx3WWgzj9VME

[peak halo]

Wrong place

[north holly]

Wondering if I could get an opinion on something regarding the story from the player character's perspective.
Do you feel that it would make sense for the main character to I guess freak out over getting his/her first temple power and then temporarily call it quits from Constellation
Because they go from being a regular miner who's then tasked with collecting artifacts - the visions were already bad enough now they don't feel human anymore after getting their first power

Would it make sense for the player to just go alright this has been fun but this is a whole other level of freaky, I'm out guys good luck on your artifact search, I need to go figure out how to be normal again

Go do other stuff, like work for Ryujin or The Rangers just to get away from UC and Constellation then come to terms with the power at some point, return to Constellation

[daring lake]

No. That then becomes RPG on rails, and this game is not that. And also, from a lore point of view, this is not "Dusty's" 1st rodeo. He has a background, and a history of being something else before he signed up with Argos.

[coarse sundial]

It's your character. Do you think this would be true of your guy?

[north holly]

Loving the push back and exactly what I was hoping for to get different perspectives so thank you for sharing your thoughts. So from a lore POV you're right Dusty had a prior background before joining Argos but he now no longer works for Argos and is out of a job as Lin tells him. Constellation is his current pay check so to speak especially if he needs to pay off the Dream House or send money to his family. However as I was discussing, finding the artifacts is one thing, gaining super powers is another and I'm exploring the psychological effect and impact it could have on a person who goes this is all too much and the more I'm involved with this group the worse this could get. They might be able to help but right now it feels like I'm the one being exposed to all this weirdness so I decide to walk away from them for now. Out of a job and lack of income, resorting to joining Ryujin since they're hiring or joining the Freestar Rangers or even Trackers since all three had job openings. Vanguard would also be another offer but that would mean hanging around in the UC and by extension Constellation.

[daring lake]

My Combat Medic guy can handle it 🙂

[north holly]

Yes but that's your character's way of dealing with it. I'm looking at what else could be possible? Alternatives. Even the dialogue with the companions have both sides of the coin. Some options express the player's excitement in being super human while other options indicate he's overwhelmed. If the player character is ok with it I mean great but what if he's just being human and this is all too much would the route I mentioned above make sense?

[north holly]

Thank you for your response as well friend. I have some thoughts at a personal level but I'm looking to see how other players feel about the situation 🙂

[coarse sundial]

I would say generally yes, but maybe some major side quests makes more sense than a whole aas faction questline

[daring lake]

It would make sense for you if that is how you wanted to approach it. How players deal with the game and the characters in the game will be their own personal take. Going back to your original question of whether it would make sense for Dusty to freak out, my answer is still no.

[north holly]

That's fair and you're right perhaps not too deep if they do dabble into a faction line

[north holly]

Agreed it is subjective, hence why I'm just getting feeback and opinions. Not trying to say one way is better than the other. More like how many pathways could there be. So when you say no have you taken into consideration meeting yourself the miner in NG+ and the way they respond rather meek as well as what has been said by the Emissary about how the Dusty typically doesn't make it in most instances?

[daring lake]

Yes, I have.

[north holly]

So what exactly in your opinion helps or is the catalyst for the miner to break past their meek nature and otherwise amounting to nothing be able to suddenly be acceptive of the powers like it's just another Tuesday

[daring lake]

Ourselves. I have not said that this is a subjective thing btw. We create the character and we decide how the character behaves. Our version of "You" is objectively unique. Other versions of "You" portrayed by the game are not the same as our version. The multiverse threw our "You" into the mixer and so, not surprising that the Hunter is thrown off balance 🙂

[north holly]

Gotcha and thanks for sharing your perspective and thoughts, sincerely appreciate it friend 🙂

If anyone else would like to chime on or have a different perspective for or against would love to hear it

[static grail]

Is there any lore on what X-Tech is, or where it comes from?

[rigid summit]

To be seen in DLC 3, probably.

In Terran Armada, X-tech is left to research as a status. That means eventually will be shown in future dlc's or built upon

[static grail]

I haven't played TA yet, but found X-tech all over the settled systems...
someone must have gotten it from somewhere, or did it just pop up in random places, space-magic like?

[rigid summit]

^

Once you do TA, you'll see in the questline a specific doctor excruciatingly wants more data on X-tech and to continue incursions to research X-tech even more

But that's it for now

[static grail]

Thanks
I'll be patient for now xD

[sullen apex]

So there’s a third DLC planned?

[final yoke]

So I get you can get citizenship through the vanguard but why about the UC navy/army? I’m guessing they would have to serve even longer than vanguards

[snow briar]

Do y'all think that a typical Serpent's Embrace person (follows the religion but not a part of house Va'ruun) would be more likely from the UC or Freestar Collective? I know Akila City has a tent that has Va'ruun decorations in it, but I'm curious if there are any signs of Serpent's Embrace type people in the UC

[fathom matrix]

Other than the Va'ruun embassy and the prisoner in the security office, not really. I would personally assume that an estranged member of House Va'ruun would either live on the fringes of settled space independantly or more likely (if living in a more populous area) somewhere in the FC, given their more lax views on everything.

[gentle latch]

Depends on you. There are agents embedded in both factions. So you could write up a story that fits.

Have a friend that wrote something along those lines and ended up being orphaned in neon.

[peak halo]

Well, we do know there is a Varuun sect on neon.

[daring lake]

Do we?

[lyric sequoia]

i was actually wondering, what happens to the original “you” in a different universe when you become a starborn and have reborn into that universe? since you just kinda grav in with your starborn ship ready to go, and constellation says you were “lost” which is why vasco had to bring the artifact back solo.

Did the og of that new universe just disappear? did you integrate with them somehow? are you using the same body but the souls within are different?

[daring lake]

Firstly it is not the "same body". There is one of the unique unis where we meet "Other You" at The Lodge. So the other you is not deleted when you become Starborn. Its not unreasonable to think that they did truly become lost, or even decided to go no further and go and do other stuff.

[rigid summit]

There's dialogue regarding this. Your original you died in a ship crash on the way to vectera from a pirate raid.

If you show up at the lodge, you miss this dialogue because you skipped forward.

And another time you can find your own corpse on masada

Then also meet a gang of you, one of you, or simply a universe where you never even existed

[lyric sequoia]

oh damn alright, that’s pretty cool, so there is always another you, but something happened to them, maybe the unity sends you to an universe where they know you have died or wasn’t there to begin with

[rigid summit]

If you get the "We lost you and vasco had to bring the artifact back" that's the you that got killed by the hunter. If you enter NG+ and instead meet Barret instead of going to the lodge, that's the you that got killed in a pirate raid

[lyric sequoia]

aaah alright so it’s just this specific universe

[daring lake]

Well, that's conjecture. But could be I guess

[rigid summit]

Well it's only minor details, more or less.

The you that is lost is the lore 99% that the hunter says you are, the one he keeps killing each time. The you that is lost to a pirate raid is the lore insert dialogue they added if you go to the mines first instead to meet barret outside when you land. It just depends on what you do first. The you that survives in your first playthrough is the 1% that makes the hunter stay his hand because he finally found a version of you that fights back, and this highly amuses him and makes him feel its worthwhile making you do the jumps to fight you at the bitter end NG+10.

[daring lake]

The Hunter never says that though

[rigid summit]

Another time the hunter will appear in another NG where he will just hand you the artifacts

[rigid summit]

He actually does.

There's a bit of dialogue with the hunter where he mentions you keep dying constantly in other universes/generally

[daring lake]

He says "You've never got this far before" Not that he kills you.

[rigid summit]

That's essentially him saying he kills you because he literally does in every other universe

Even when you meet him again, he will mention this in a way

Haphazard writing but that's just Bethesda's crew

He also has the lodge attack dialogue where he mentions he successfully kills you

[daring lake]

I can't agree with your view. I've found no evidence to suggest exactly why previous failures have happened.

Just that they did.

[rigid summit]

I'm looking at it from a scriptwriting point, frankly

Todd has mentioned many times he hates giving concrete endings/canon stuff, so it's just avoided in writing with hints instead

[daring lake]

I'm looking at it from the evidence provided in game 🙂

[rigid summit]

Which is stupid and moronic but meh, all they can do is hint, which the hunter does

[daring lake]

Right. Hint. All possibilities are on the table, and not so much because of haphazard writing. But because we have a canvas with a multiverse as a background

[lyric sequoia]

doesn’t he say “normally you’re the one who dies”

[rigid summit]

He does lmao

[lyric sequoia]

and that whoever is crying over your body becomes the emissary

[rigid summit]

You can also find hidden dialogue from the hunter based on first actions in NG, too

[daring lake]

Yeah, but not "normally I kill you"

[lyric sequoia]

i mean he’s talking about the attack within the context

[rigid summit]

He's a hunter, his mentality is murder

That should kind of be enough of a hint, logically

[mossy cobalt]

I'm with Vimes on this one

It only ever says "you" got lost on the way back from Vectera

Nobody says you died on the surface or that pirates killed "you". It's undefined, and NG+ actually uses that.

[rigid summit]

Barrett does

[mossy cobalt]

The Hunter references killing you many times in the past during the attack on the Eye and the Lodge, not randomly killing you every time you meet anywhere in the Settled Systems. In fact, if you walk up and talk to him in the Viewport in your first universe he doesn't seem at all inclined to attack, presumably because for him it's not time to hit Constellation yet.

[mossy cobalt]

Quote?

Maybe I missed that one

I don't see how that can match up with the NG+ where you make it back to Constellation at the same time as the "you" from that universe, though

[rigid summit]

I don't have it at hand but it happens in NG+ if you talk to Barrett or later when it's hinted that you got lost during the argos raid which is mentioned by Barrett or Sarah depending on when you talk to one or the other

I vaguely remember it because I tried different approaches and in one Barrett just said I went after the pirates and got killed/lost there, another I got the usual Sarah lost dialogue

Or you'll also have Vasco say you were lost suddenly

There's three options more or less from the dialogues in the game

[mossy cobalt]

Well, if you find the direct quote I'll certainly give that some credence, what I recall from going down to Vectera at NG+ start is them saying you need to make your way to the Lodge with the Artifact, not anyone saying something like "wait we just saw you die"

[rigid summit]

I think it depends on what you do beforehand tbh

[mossy cobalt]

What you do before spawning into the universe?

[rigid summit]

I've had Barrett tell me I got lost during the raid, then go to lodge and sarah say I got lost and same with vasco, all in the same universe

[rigid summit]

When you spawn in and then right after, I think?

I detoured, went to Argos at some point, and then found Barrett in the aftermath of the attack, telling me I got lost during/after or something of the kind and to bring the artifact to constellation

[mossy cobalt]

Well, even if Barrett said "you" were lost during the raid, the Lodge could very well still have "you" from that universe physically there, not dead. So "lost" can't be code for "killed" there in a general sense. Not by pirates or by the Hunter or by anyone else.

[rigid summit]

Lost is usually the word in the english language for dead, in this case

[mossy cobalt]

That's just... not true, my friend.

[rigid summit]

Which is the hint more or less, cause he doesn't say lost in the sense of you just poofed

[mossy cobalt]

So I went down to Vectera in a fresh NG+ and Barrett just says exactly what I remembered him saying, "Get that Artifact to Constellation."

He doesn't seem surprised that you're alive (nobody there is) and Barrett says nothing about the raid or about "you" going missing. In fact, Vasco says "Lost as we were carrying the Artifact from Vectera. Current whereabouts previously unknown."

That is, you seem to have gone missing (note, not killed: "Current whereabouts unknown." wouldn't be your situation if they did know what your status was, which was just dead) somewhere between Vasco joining you on Vectera and Vasco reaching the Lodge.

Vasco joins you when Barrett assigns him to you after the pirate attack, so I'd be very curious if you could dig up that quote from Barrett which you say confirms you went missing during the raid.

Personally, I suspect a plausible reading would be that "you" (in the universes where we don't meet "you" already at the Lodge) may have gone missing in the Kreet research facility and that Vasco simply wasn't in there with "you" or hadn't caught up to wherever "you" wandered off to inside the facility, and that it's reasonable to think a pirate got "you" and that was that. But that's not what the text says; all that's confirmed is that "you" picked up the Artifact as in the original universe and that (in most universes that we happen reach) "you" did not arrive at the Lodge.

What's interesting about this for me is that the Hunter and Emissary remember "you" usually dying in the Hunter's attack on the Lodge/Eye, so that we've entered (created?) a branch in our Unity jumps where that's usually not what happens. I suppose that could be what happens the small percentage of the time where "you" arrive at the lodge, and then they can just retrace our original steps aside from probably dying at the Lodge or Eye, but the Hunter and Emissary have usually just left a universe that is noticeably different from the universes we arrive in, so I think that could have some kind of implications for whatever decisions the Unity makes in sending you to your next universe maybe.

The Hunter almost certainly arrives before you (and mentions remembering good times back on Earth), so I do wonder if the Hunter is dumped back before the loss of Earth every time or if he too has a branch that the Unity typically drops him in, and we (and the Emissary) have some kind of branch off from that. A subset of a subset, so to speak.

Certainly we never show up in a universe where (say) the Colony War is still going, as known to exist based on Barrett's companion quest. So there does seem to be some kind of baseline that must exist for the Unity to drop us into a particular universe.

We can also send the Hunter through the Unity with us, but if our character has done that we still never meet a Hunter in a later universe who recognizes us as someone who may be inclined to help him.

I know I'm retreading things that have already been discussed in this channel in the past, but I think examining the conditions at the start of NG+ always leads me back to pondering what the narrative is suggesting about the Unity and its decisions on where to place us in the multiverse.

[daring lake]

Well, I too have some thoughts about that. The Unity has access to all points of spacetime, and is aware of everything that had to happen in order for it to be created. And the people who were involved. So, because you did not exist in any other portion of its story, it will always send "You" to the time and place of your origin. The inference is that it may be orchestrating its own creation.

[burnt sinew]

The game’s limitations definitely conflict with lore. In that, there seems to require a vague but strict set of rules to make the loop plausible.

[daring lake]

Heh, the Free Lanes update conflicts with lore 🙂

[burnt sinew]

How so?

[fathom matrix]

Cruise Mode is FTL, whereas we've been told heavily up to this point the only way to get above FTL is the Grav Drive.

[daring lake]

The devs themselves said so in the deep dive vid. Words to the effect of " ... we know it does not quite fit with stuff, but we all want to have fun right? .."

[burnt sinew]

It is a game, ultimately. I understand that.

[heavy vigil]

I've always head canoned it kinda working like that anyway, In my head you'd grav jump into a system then travel to the planet

[peak halo]

It's more the speed at which we travel that's non-canon.

The free lanes have always been a thing, in lore, they just got expanded on (and named) in the update

[mossy cobalt]

I guess I try to perceive the universes we have access to as a snapshot of what the lore at a minimum is. For example, we can land in a universe where most or all of Constellation has already retired (the "plant" and "kids" universes). We can also get to a universe where another Starborn showed up before us and took Constellation over, including a Zealot version of Andreja and a bitter version of Cora, ||potentially a Cora we've personally met before because if we ever allowed Sam to die during the main quest she recognizes us, showing that it's possible to meet individual Starborn again||.

Cora has especially interesting implications for me both because of her being an adult (whereas she's a child when she ||enters the Unity if you allowed Sam to die||) and because there's no obvious point in the timeline that it makes sense (to me) for her to be sent back prior to the events on Vectera. She seems pretty well established in that universe though, so that might suggest a more complicated "drop-off" placement than what the Unity picked for us. (It might also nod to some of the questions about when exactly in the timeline was the Hunter put into our universe.)

[burnt sinew]

Fun stuff. I hope Bethesda fleshes it out more.

[coarse sundial]

(except for the fact that we were already capable of cross-system travel at relativistic speeds via the quick travel system without using grav jumps)

presumably this is the same principle, just goosed a bit for gameplay

[fathom matrix]

Not necessarily, the implication before at least was the you just skipped the legit having to do the travelling yourself, whereas now they just gamified and shortened the length of time needed to do that.

[coarse sundial]

i mean, time progresses when you fast travel and it takes shorter than the months if not years it would take to otherwise cross the system at standard slower than light speeds

so there has to be some degree of screwing with the local speed of light to get close to c using the grav drive

[daring lake]

No. In game clock measures go no higher than 0.2C when using fast travel. BGS have used a bucket load of handwavium to create the travel system. It does not have to make sense.

[coarse sundial]

.2c would still require grav drive use to fudge with things

[daring lake]

Well, make up whatever head canon makes sense to you I guess. 🙂

[coarse sundial]

beyond it being genuinely impossible with rocketry, there would be noticable time dialation

[final yoke]

i mightve missed it but does nova galactic still exist as a company? i saw something that their old habs are still being used, but im assuming theyre defunct

[peak halo]

It's implied that the Terran have set up manufacturing of Nova Galactic parts, but otherwise I think the ones in the rest of the SS are recycled

[daring lake]

Sarah's dialogue during "The Old Neighbourhood" explicitly states that Nova Galactic no longer exist.

[keen acorn]

The Nova Galactic parts still exist to this day. Talk about longevity.

[gentle latch]

Hold up. I thought they just went dark? @elder wadi

[daring lake]

They probably decided to set up a carpentry workshop at New Homestead 😉

[gentle latch]

I am not opposed to this

[elder wadi]

They're defunct according to the lore and what people know in the Settled Systems, but we know the truth man

Nova Galactic didn't go bankrupt, they went dark.

[mossy cobalt]

I think it's worth noting that Sarah also mentions that Nova Galactic put some emphasis on having open designs. I think this was meant to imply that they're the originator of the modular part interface used by the other manufacturers.

Personally, on a headcanon level I extend this to include the schematics and manufacturing guidelines of their parts in general, explaining why other manufacturers randomly have "Nova Galactic" windows on their brand new hulls, and why we never see parts from minor shipbuilders that are known to exist such as pre-merger Eklund. In my headcanon these shipbuilders are probably just building new Nova parts based on the proven and openly published designs of Nova Galactic.

[peak halo]

They made their hardware open source? Like. Published it on the interwebs. Or like sold it to the other companies as an attempt to stave off bankruptcy?

[jaunty ginkgo]

If I remember correctly they closed shop after the exodus is done

[peak halo]

Well. Someone is making Terran ships

[sly skiff]

That's touched on in the Developer Deep Dive video for Terran Armada:

[The Terran Armada] have taken Nova Galactic ships and have added new models.

[sly skiff]

This is cool!
I like the implication they started the modular interface, too. I didn't know that.

[daring lake]

They make their own. Reclaimers mine the resources they need, and once manufacturing plant gets set up everything would be automated. Including ships and robots.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1147055470733967410/1508103142930124963/Photo_2026-05-03-175931.png?ex=6a145200&is=6a130080&hm=4a9893b9e385b08d0ca704b621131501b1faad04b085462b026c75dc5d2906db&

[peak halo]

I have yet to see a Terran incursion on the surface of a planet, except for the ones where it's just some people running around

[daring lake]

A Reclaimer on the ground does seem rare. That pic was the first of only two that I've had.

[toxic steppe]

Honestly, I wouldn't have loved an option to join the Terran Armada. It'd kinda like joining the Institute in Fallout 4 in being an "evil" route, but only by how you headcannon it.
Considering the admittedly sorry state humanity is in (Earth was rendered uninhabitable, most of humanity lives in three major cities or scattered amongst a handful of ships, the only two major factions went to war twice and are still bickering more than rebuilding), the unification of humanity could honestly be a really good thing in terms of expanding our presence and exploring the stars.

You could headcannon that humanity, after some conflict and a lot of politics, would go on to expand their presence and enter another age of exploration.

[peak halo]

Well. Apparently, Anchorpoint was built earlyish into the settled systems exploration. When they thought there might be a breakthrough in grav drive tech that allows for a further jump than about 30 LY, but that never really happened, it is not possible to explore past the settled systems it seems, according to the lore. Which might also lend credence to the Machine theory, they artifacts are all placed within the settled systems, and there is no-known tech to explore outside that area. Jinan was lucky, Va'ruun Kai is still relatively close to the rest of the explored settled systems, the only reason it was not on the map originally is because they have agents in all governments (or a very powerful computer virus), that deletes all info on the Va'ruun home world.

So his jump past the limit would have been in the very early days, possibly before the max jump range was reached, and so he jumped much further than the grave drives of that time, which is what broke reality and gave him the visions of the Great Serpent

[daring lake]

Good lord. Whatever makes you think Mad Jim Snapcase jumped further than 30ly?

[peak halo]

Isn't it stated that his ship jumped past known limits and he ended up 'going crazy' because of it? Considering Va'ruun Kai is still in the settled systems, and depending on where he jumped from, it could be within range of the 30LY, but outside earlier models of drive.

Unless they jumped straight from NA, in which case it would be MUCH more than 30LY. Which would also likely break the local universe

[daring lake]

No

Also not stated that only one jump was made to get there

[jaunty ginkgo]

He was there with the other passengers when he had the vision

There's a recording or two of the incident in the Speaker's office within the Citadel

[mossy cobalt]

I don't recall anything about the Dazra colony ship going over 30 LY in one jump

It was just a jump during that voyage where he had his glimpse of (apparently, judging by the recordings) the Unity

[mossy cobalt]

Yeah my headcanon is that they made the information freely available (like the Internet suggestion) or available at low cost (like how ISO standards technically cost money but if you're a huge company what's a couple hundred dollars for thousands of pages of important specs?)

[mossy cobalt]

Regarding the idea that Jinan was crazy, this has still been my favorite post on the topic, unless someone has a better explanation

[daring lake]

He lost it when his message about the GS was rebuffed by citizens of the settled systems. The Crusade began shortly after. And sorry, I'm not going to reddit 🙂

[sly skiff]

If X-Tech is an alloy, how can we mine it directly...?

[peak halo]

It extracts the raw materials and smelts them into the alloy?

X-Tech isn't very well explained. I think the extractors is more of a gameplay concession than a lore accurate representation.

To give the player more options for sourcing X-tech than murdering people or boarding ships

[sly skiff]

I'll think about it as a gameplay concession -- thank you.

[static grail]

I mean, some alloys do occur naturally

(at least according to wikipedia)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrum

I'm more wondering why we can't extract the iron out of Iron(III)-oxide with water (Aqueous Hematite), whereas we can extract the Aluminium from a mix of Aluminium-Oxides and Hydroxides (the Aluminium Deposit looks like Bauxite)

[daring lake]

Well, the game does not exactly do material science in a perfect way.

looks at plutonium

[wet lance]

We can also mine aluminium directly...

[sly skiff]

All true. X-tech is the only one I’ve heard referred to directly as an alloy.