Drifter Interactions And Relations

Fiction Portal Intergalactic Summit
348

It’s totally possible that we’re invading their home. Actually it’s pretty likely.

We thought the Sleepers were dead. … maybe they were just, you know … sleeping. … dreaming of a better world. Maybe we’ve rudely awakened them.

But it’s not like we can just let them do what they want.

The Jove are gone. It’s likely the Drifters did that.

Empress Jamyl I is gone. The Drifters did that for sure.

Are we next?

We don’t know. They don’t talk to us. They don’t explain, or even apparently try. And we know they can: they tricked us, before, into giving them Jove DNA.

Why won’t they speak? Why not negotiate, at least to tell us what they want so we can maybe give it to them?

Until they do, it’s hard to know what could really work. It seems like too much to hope for, that they’ll leave us alone if we do nothing. Probably we’d just be continuing the conditions that woke them in the first place.

If we do nothing, there’s a good chance we’re just waiting to die. Aggressors or not, that’s not something we’ll let happen so easily.

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349

I believe that they may have some plan for the rest of us that we don’t know about and they think we wouldn’t understand anyways.

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350

I live part-time in a drifter hole. Won’t say which one but it favours my gameplay and is good ratting, and so far I have never lost a ship in it due to the bonus structure, in part. I have watched Apollo do some odd stuff but I just began into PvP and today I was about to take a breacher, as my first real kill with as a Pvp’r then realized the ammo cost more than the ship worth so I watched. Lancers got him, and he was floating around exploring this nifty place with a friend, both in capsules. Apollo podded him at a violent hole (a new wh being built)… that wasn’t so unusual either. What was unusual (that I had not previously observed) was Apollo seemingly gloating over his kill and (orbiting?) the corpse for a time. Or perhaps he was still aggressing… Then what happened next blew me away. He took the corpse. I don’t know why but he just took it. I was going to wait for him to leave and pick it up to return it to its owner but Apollo beat me to the punch. Anyone see this yet/have any explanation for this?

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351

They build their bodies out of our corpses.

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352

Or something. But probably that, yeah.

It seems like maybe biomass is something they can’t easily just build.

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353

That… sounds worse than my little pet theory of the Drifters’ weapons systems being an offensive material collection system. I shudder to think that both could be true.

Which is odd to me. The Drifters and their technological doctrines are all over the map in terms of level of advancement. We have Sleeper tech, Jovian biological systems, advanced synthetic organs, nanotechnology, and apparently, mechanical and cybernetic resurrection of previously expired biological material. This list isn’t even counting their ships, or their manipulation of quantum physics to create wormholes and other spacial rifts.

But of all their technology, printing and/or cloning of biological matter is either not possible for them, or for some reason is impractical. They obviously can recreate or supplement with completely inorganic organ systems that otherwise feel and act the same way as organic systems, but outright biological manipulation, genetics and biochemistry - as opposed to biological rigging - completely escapes them.

It’s utterly baffling to me. Far more baffling than a nest of psychologically insane slaver-hound sized arachnids that don’t have biological learning - the ability to change tactics or perform a different action when one course does not bear fruit - and that was staggeringly bizarre to me, but the Drifters are tenfold that of the deng swarms in mystery.

Ms. Aria, I would now ask your input in terms of action. You and Mr. Viriel know well where I stand, but aside from the Trinary relics we have no leads - or none that I am aware of, and I admit to my lack of access to such sensitive research. Short of conducting an invasive study on a Drifter vessel, which is both hazardous and potentially insane, what are our options?

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354

You mean Jovian tech, Jovian biological systems, Jovian synthetic organs, Jovian nanotechnology, and biomass repurposing (which we ourselves already do, we just grow it in a vat instead of recombining protein chains)?

Not all that all over the map when you think of it that way.

Depending on exactly how they’re doing it, just recombining ACGT chains from frozen samples may actually be far more efficient than the way we repurpose biomass.

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355

I still say Sleeper as opposed to Jove because yes, the Sleepers are Jove, but they’re distinct enough in design philosophy to be distinguished as such. You’re welcome to dispute it with me, but that’s where I stand. Sleepers are an alternative Jove cousin, and their technology reflects that.

I’ve never known the Jove to use purely synthetic organs. I believed they were completely genetically modded, and a few implants here and there, but never replacement organs. The way they are “built”, their mind is more likely to fail them before their body.

It’s likely, but not yet confirmed, as nanotechnology is not exactly rare, but highly uncommon, and there’s nothing about the technology that we have seen from them that ties it to the Jove.

The problem I have with the Drifters using dead biological material is that they still use the brain, and all the synaptic connections. Those expire quickly in the vacuum of space, and even before the capsule itself explodes, so we don’t need to experience the painful death of explosive decompression. If they replaced those systems entirely with mechanical, cybernetic, and synthetic adaptations, stand ins, and otherwise 1-to-1 replicas made entirely of inorganic material, I’d question why they need the human body at all, but it would make sense.

No, the body and the parts I’m assuming they’re after are toast, even before they are acquired, and to try and use them would be fruitless. They do not start decomposing immediately, but the damage is done. The physical gray matter of a hard drive and its connections are shot, and nothing will bring them back, no way to recover what was lost.

And somehow they do it. That is the biggest issue I have. Their technology may make some strange sense, besides being related by a string, but the how and why? Not a clue.

It would be easier to scrap the bodies and make new ones. It’s obvious they can, they make synthetic organs, they could make a synthetic or grown/printed organic body. But why don’t they?

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http://i.imgur.com/h9q6lmN.gif(image larger than 3072KB)
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357

With Seycon YC120 only a few days away, I am eager to learn the results of the trinary relic research from Ibrahim Tash-Murkon and Trii Seo, and the Drifter and Sleeper activity update from Makoto Priano. It saddens me, however, that Ms. Aria will not be hosting a panel, but I hope to see them in attendance. I have cleared my calendar for this, and after the visit from CONCORD to see my charges, I would like to take a break from my normal routines, and participate in this event, catch myself up to speed with the state of affairs, so to speak.

I only hope Drifters do not attempt a surprise visit. I will be very cross if they do.

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358

Much to my surprise - and slight disappointment - the Drifters chose not to represent themselves at SeyCon, and the date and all consecutive days have past with little incident.

Hm.

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359

Maybe they didn’t get the invitation. You know postal services these days.

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360

If I recall, neither did you.

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361

My explanation for that is I was required planetside in the hours leading up to the conference, and I lost track of time. Makoto can corroborate my story, because six hours after the first day of the conference had ended, I can scrambling into comms, trying to confirm the location and all other pertinent information.

Makoto kindly informed me that I missed my window, and after that I was called again to other tasks on the second day, fully aware of my absence in it.

I have no excuse for it, but I have read the transcripts, and I feel as though I was there. I don’t think much would have changed either way.

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362

Unfortunately, the Drifters RSVP was destroyed by Caldari Customs as part of a Quafe Convoy.

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363

I planned to go but I had to get ready to defend out Keepstar in 9-4 which we successfully did by the way.

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364

Really?

I hadn’t noticed.

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365

:roll_eyes:

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366

After setting aside some time for rest, I remember reading the SeyCon 120 transcripts, and I heard talk of the j-sig system of Run once again, the infamous Arithmos-camped Drifter system.

After speaking with the people of ARC - and bettering my bearings for doing so - I have since relaxed my wild speculations about what exists in Run, but I still do not know what is in there.

There has been talk of getting into Run, even before SeyCon 120. I brought it up nearly three months ago, and there was talk of getting into Run.

But that’s all it’s been. Talk.

However, I will not dismiss the Consortium’s already existing projects. The fact that it is an organization that is run and managed by capsuleers, independent elements who dedicate their time and effort to ARC, but still have to manage their own affairs.

I do not say that it will be easy.

Still, I chuckled when I read Makoto’s mentioning of a proper dedicated bomber squadron, an idea I suggested on this thread some time ago. I do not claim credit for that, this idea may have been a long time coming before me, but it would be interesting to see an ARC fleet composition that isn’t the use-all Hive buster fleet.

I ask openly, are there any official plans to actually investigate the system in the near future - not what those plans actually are - and if not now or soon, will there ever be?

It could just be a simple system, but I wonder…

I have little doubts that people have tried to break through the blockade on a whim, and eventually chip away at the fleet, merely out of sport or on a bet, but to hear that either not a single one has been destroyed, or there have been losses, and they’ve been replaced…

I find it more likely that no one person or small ragtag group has ever scratched the hull of a Run Arithmos, but I don’t know.

The curiosity is distracting me, and I must know.

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367

Very little of interest apart from the drifters themselves I would expect.

“Run”, as it is known, is not a special system in any particular way. Capsuleers have triggered the Drifters to respond they way they do in any c5 or c6 system, by destroying sleepers until an as-of-yet unidentified structure decloaks.

Performing an aggressive action against this structure will cause a drifter to respond. Certain measures can be taken to avoid this drifter, which will then warp off and start to patrol the system.

Doing this over and over again will create a build up of responding drifters, which will band together and patrol in a group.

Doing this enough times to create a system as heavily infested as Run is certainly unusual, and fairly foolish, but it’s nothing particularly difficult.

Some capsuleers will do this deliberately, up until just lower than the defensive capabilities of a super-tanked Phoenix, then clear the drifters out all at once. “Run” is clearly far beyond this point, which can only lead to the conclusion that whoever triggered so many drifters to respond at once, intended to do so.

I really very much doubt it. Remaining on grid with that many drifters is immensely foolish.

An idea with a small nugget of potential, but a serious reality problem. You’d need dozens of bombs to kill drifters in that fashion.

Overall, “Run” is an interesting anomaly, but nothing particularly special.

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