There’s nothing to suggest that they’re merely drones in any capacity, to be truthful - the Drifter autopsy alone is more than enough to confirm that they’re far beyond that at the very least, inhabiting bodies that would be far from an ideal form for a space-faring AI.
As augmented as they are, it’s important to note that Drifters chose a human form upon their emergence from the ruins of the Sleeper civilization - a strange choice for a standard AI like those in control of the Sleeper Drones, but not at all strange if they were in fact a branch of the VR-inclined (and still undeniably human) inhabitants of the Sleeper Enclaves.
Whatever they are, the Drifters are far more likely to be the Sleepers themselves than a normal AI. Or if they are in fact an artificial intelligence, they would be ones that choose or need to operate on human biological and infomorphic principles, given the autopsy results - and at that point, how far-removed from human would they really be?
This is something i can get behind. This is an idea i hadnt thought about and I will reverse my position on the genocide bit. I still don’t think killing them at every opportunity is the answer but this is a very interesting idea i hadn’t thought about. It’s logical based on general capsuleers behaviour.
Scanning hardware such as gates is something else entirely, I believe. They’re simply populating a database of objects that are anchored in place within a soar system. It makes sense if you consider that they need a way to open a wormhole somewhere in space that’s, let’s say not inside the local star. Having the relative coordinates of stations, gates, et cetera would let one calculate a safe point.
So let me get this straight - our favorite ominous, inexplicable entities with immense destructive potential are on the run from something even more ominous and inexplicable (and, most likely, with even more destructive potential).
And they’re running here, to our poor little cluster of all places. Fantastic.
One could, of course, try to remain positive and not assume that this as of yet unknown entity will be hostile. But the ground rule of W-space and everything and everyone spawned in it seems to be “why the hell would anything nice ever happen”.
With recent comparisons of the footage to existing designs revealing certain similarities to Talocan derelicts…
I’m not suggesting that the long-extinct Talocan are making a return, but it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to say someone got some of their toys back up and running - or made a leap in reverse-engineering them.
Considering the jump in effectiveness between out own tech II and tech III hulls I’d be concerned if such advances had been made. Given that I work with tech III invention and manufacture all the time I’m under no illusions that we have barely scratched the surface with regards to such tech.
Right maybe I was a little too far by considering them only “drones” but question remains as why it seems there are only 2 entities ? Does that mean only 1 infomorph for each clone of same kind or a copy of each infomorph for each clone ?
About their biology : are they a mix of biology and technology (implants etc) interacting together that need each aspect of them to be able to function properly (to exist and live) ? sorry, asking this because I have difficulties with authopsies According to this biological question and the weirdness that Aria Jenneth pointed about the silmutaneousity of the damages, could their damages be done by biological weapons or just any other biological interaction they might have encountered ?
For my part I wouldn’t consider Drifters to be Sleepers, or at least not entirely Sleepers but that’s just purely oriented from me. Unless… More study needed… Some kind of an offspring of the Sleepers that is taking parts of different civilizations they meet/know/come from. Maybe a survivor group of the Sleepers, specialised in one aspect of their enclaves.
Conjectures that are great to discuss with you M Paradisi.
How far from human depends very much on the source of their sentience. A sentient Rogue Drone (or other rogue AI) in an augmented human form would still be far from human.
Perhaps the sentience behind the Drifter infomorphs didn’t choose the human form. They possibly had it forced upon them due to compatabilty issues with the ships and equipments they had at their disposal in sleeper space.
Think of the Drifter clone shells as a biological API into the ancient sleeper/jove tech they found mothballed and/or developed.
Ed: Having re-read the autopsy report and with the above in mind I wonder whether the Drifter clone is more than an organic API but is actually a convergence of pod and clone technology. The body and exosuit are effectively the pod itself.
Refering to the sleeper implants being entirely untouched, could this be indicative of them being used to interface with the vessels. It would explain them being untouched at least. Are drifter corpses found in pod wreckage, or simply at the remains of a command post?
Additionally does the residual radiation in the body match the radiation from the vessels power source or weapon systems? Perhaps the exoshell/body are powered by the vessel when on board?
I’ve been watching this. Silently. Not sure if worth the time investment to get involved. Curious now. Sufficiently motivated.
Is the trinary code broken yet? Simple yes or no will be enough. Just banged out a line of crash. Feeling academic. Motivated. Want to make progress. Wanna help.
Did cryptography for the Navy. Was good at it. Before they fired me. For being gay, if I’m being blunt. Assholes. But I digress. Code? Solved? No? Yes?
Ah ■■■■. I see the issue here. No easy way to distinguish where one character ends and another begins. Makes things difficult. Too difficult. Too difficult to do on this napkin in this bar in Jita. Baseliner across from me is looking at me weird. Like I’m about to start speaking in tongues. Will have to do this later tonight. With paper.
Granted…
If we could collectively identify… say… 26 common characters it would be extremely easy to break this. Thing is, its easy to force yourself to find 26 common shapes. May be more complex, like some scripts in northern kaalakiota mountains. Does seem oddly familiar, like a variation on caldari bloc script. Maybe markers designate specific consonant combinations.
Apologies. For clarification, the above example is simply an example of Caldari bloc script to demonstrate how double concinants or common pairs may be indicated in a modern script. May be relevent, if there is any sort of common link between Caldari script and this… Drifter script. At the very least, it serves as a conceptual example.
Even if the script is many many thousands of years and dozena of variations removed from eachother, grammatical structure and general alphabet usage and shape tends to stay somewhat consistant over a millenia. May be helpful in identifying characters by comparing scripts when frequency analysis on its own is not enough. Similar figures may yield similar translations.
Second example is a far more less known script (in fact it is used only by remote populations at the extremely far north, and as such likely has no historical connection to this drifter script) that shows how the general direction in which shapes face and the markers on each character may change the meaning of a character drastically to form compound letters.
Just examples to take into consideration. Not only for breaking the code, but things to take into account when examining the cultures or organizations that created this script based on their alphabet structure. May also help in identifying unique letters as opposed to compound letters so you can make a table for frequency analysis.
Sorry if not exactly practical. Just find xenolinguistics fascinating. Not sure if ARC has their own linguistics division, as even if the code is somehow cracked there is still yet more we can learn based purely on their alphabet itself. Would be a shame to cast aside. Would love to help in the future.
According to this biological question and the weirdness that Aria Jenneth pointed about the silmutaneousity of the damages, could their damages be done by biological weapons or just any other biological interaction they might have encountered ?
See?