This is a barely coherent rant after finishing Shattered Space (and before that, the Main Quest.)

So, people have been complaining that the DLC just provides more mysteries. I think it actually gives us many more clues, but keeps the main questions intact.

So, allow me to summarize a few relevant points:

Artifacts have a myriad of effects, that we can establish. They give visions of auditory and visual nature. They can cause loss of consciousness. They allow a person to interact with the temples. Even while "inert" they affect gravity around them. When experimented upon that effect can be magnified (like at NASA), or they can cause dimensional shenanigans as seen in Nishima station. Touching one on Mars has lead Ezra to a Starborn encounter that gave him the Grav Drive idea in the first place. And when you assemble them all in a Grav Drive, you can reach the unity.

And also, if you touch one, you can talk to Anasko. Because only you and Barret can talk to Anasko. However there are other people who had things to do with the Vortex Phatntoms. The Herald heard a vision from Anasko. Ueda can hear his granddaughter if you solve his quest right. And the Farmers living near the Dam facility have dreams that connect them to the Dam and the Vortex.

So, what was Anasko trying to do? Anasko was trying to communicate with the great serpent. While doing that he managed to, via manipulation of Grav Drives, find a new tech. This is a continuation of experiments from Jarek's time. Manipulation of Grav Drive tech allowed them to somehow displace people out of local space-time, into a void. Teleportation, increased strength, awareness and insanity seems to be the main effect sof this new vortex tech.

Jinan saw *something* during a Grav Jump that went wrong. He made a religion out of it. We don't know *what* he saw, but he did see *something*. Something *did* happen, even if Jinan is unreliable as to what. He is important enough to be visited by the Pilgrim, to get the codes to help put people on the path to finding the unity.

So we know that Artifacts by themselves give access to temples that grand powers, with a space-time bending theme. Artifacts do weird things. Grav Drives are related to artifacts. I think what happened is that the Citadel experiment created a bastard version of the whole Artifact - Temple - Unity process. What does reaching the unity does? It creates a new universe and puts you into it, but part of you dissipates into the old universe. You die and move on to a new one, to repeat the process. The Unity shows our actions effect the Universe we live behind when we enter the unity. Us getting married is enough to cause romance to blood. Our decisions with everything from Bureaucracy to Cosmic conflict effect everything. So Ueda's love for his Granddaugther and the Heralds belief in the Serpent and the Speaker might be enough to tether them in place - at least somewhat.

So it seems that the void is, basically, what happens when that process of reaching the unity goes awry. Much like an artifact experiments, it has detrimental effect on the surrounding environs. Like the Temples, it gives you power - teleportation, hyper awareness, some resistance to physical damage. Like the Unity, it connects you to the space between universes, or tries to, But if entering the Unity allows you to move on and leave a part of you here, the Void puts in you in limbo.

So TL;DR, The entire experiment accidentally stumbled upon the opposite of Unity. If the unity is what connects the universes, the Void is what separates them.

In the Ryujin quest line, at some point you are introduced to Ularu who has a mission she wants you to do... meet an informant in Cydonia who apparently has info on an important project Infinity LTD is working on. But later we find out that this project is in fact a Ryujin project that was leaked to Infinity by Ularu.

So it makes no sense that she would send an operative to investigate this Infinity project - she must have certainly thought in the back of her mind that it might be the project she leaked and hence puts herself in jeopardy of being discovered as a mole.

Also, is it ever explained WHY she leaked this project to Infinity?

I've played the quest line twice previously, and I'm just in the middle of a third run, and maybe I'm dense, but I don't understand Ularu's actions at all. Please help me make sense of it :)

Have the computers at NASA been on and perfectly operational for 127 years?

Like every other place in the Settled Systems are petty diverse. so why is neon the outlier here.

The Second Serpents Crusade (2330-2332)

The Second Serpent’s Crusade was a war waged by House Va’ruun against the rest of the Settled Systems, including the Freestar Collective and U.C.

After Anasko Va’ruun’s experiment went wrong, and the Scaled Citadel was destroyed, the council voted to start the Serpent’s Crusade, despite a notable lack of the necessary ships or personnel. Due to this, they resorted to Guerilla warfare tactics and hit and runs. With the phantom soldiers destroyed, they relied exclusively on regular soldiers.

The war began when a small fleet of Va’ruun Dirges launched a surprise attack on the Freestar Clinic Starstation, in the Narion system. Medical personnel attempted to evacuate as many patients as they could, but many vessels, including the station itself, were destroyed.

In the aftermath of this, the Council of Governors voted for a declaration of war against House Va’ruun and a mobilization order. The United Colonies condemned the war crimes of the House, since they destroyed a medical facility, yet refrained from declarating a state of conflict. (They secretly mobilized a large fleet, and assigned the UC Vigilance to be the commanding flagship)

The Va’ruunian fleet launched a surprise bombing raid on HopeTown, but many of their ships were taken out by the combined HopeTech Security and Freestar Rangers force.

Finally, the last official battle took place in the Wolf system, where a small fleet launched an attack on the Den. At first, with the limited defenses of the station, a U.C. Defeat seemed inevitable until the Vigilance and fleet arrived. The Va’ruunian grav drives were taken out, so they were unable to flee, and the entire fleet was destroyed.

Back in Daz’ra, house Ka’dic had grown increasingly weary of the new war waged, and had voted to abstain from the initial vote. By this point, they were actively lobbying against the war, and citizenry joined in supporting that House. On top of that, the Va’ruun had hardly any forces remaining.

Informed by a Vanguard Captain, who had personally ventured to Dazra after the Oracle warped there, the U.C. had obtained the home planet’s coordinates. Hoping to quickly knock the Va’ruunians out of the war, The Vigilance launched a massive bombing raid of the remnants of Dazra City, decimating the population.

The Va’ruun council officially surrendered by the end of 2332, marking the end of not only the war, but also House Va’ruun’s political influence, as the faction was seen as a powerless pariah of doomed cultists.

Footnote: This is just my idea of what a 2nd crusade would look like, based upon the idea that Va’ruunian power was severely diminished after the calamity.

Spoilers ahead.

So, I'm currently on Entangled quest, but I need help understanding what's really going on here. I already know about the endings, how to save everyone, and all that, but I'm having a hard time understanding how this anomaly happened.

My first interpretation was that: In two different universes, Nishima was performing the same experiment on the same artifact at the exact same time, which led to the two having the same accident, this caused the two artifacts to "connect", and consequently, the universes as well. MC is the only one who feels it because they had contact with the artifacts, and was near the distorcion.

But, lore-wise, how is it possible to save everyone and "repair" both timelines? Wouldn't we literally be collapsing two universes into one? And if that's the case, how can Nishima be the only place where there's significant change?

And if we choose to stay with the alternate universe, where everything is destroyed, wouldn't we literally be leaving our universe to stay in an alternate one? And if the two universes are connected, then there are two artifacts and we technically have access to both, but we only get one, what happens to the alternate one? Actually, if we took the alternate artifact, in the destroyed version of Nishima and come back to ours, then that universe would be without one artifact, so no one from that universe would be able to access Unity, right?

And if in fact the alternate universe where Nishima was destroyed didn't exist before and was created due to the experiment with the artifact, then this means that messing with the artifacts can create new realities?

Sorry if I sound stupid, this quest just left me with a lot of questions. For me, the only plausible solution is to just fix the distortion and stay with normal Nishima, which is what happened in our "main" universe. This way, we would have our own artifact from our own universe without getting stuck in an alternate one or collapsing two universes into one, for me is the only thing that would make sense lore-wise. Lol i just don't get it, I hope some lore experts can help me.

So one of the key points of Shattered Space is that the station you encounter is unique in that it has a grav drive. however, it got me thinking of something.

It is explained that the reason ships have gravity is because of the grav drive, and this is demonstrated by the party ship being able to turn off the grav drive, as well as Cora asking to disable it on your ship, as well as if you disable it in combat then dock with the ship, you get a zero G environment. So if stations dont have grav drives... how do they (mostly) have gravity on them? Is this explained anywhere in lore? Or am I just an idiot that missed something completely? I guess it could be explained away as "Well stations do have grav drives, they just dont use them to jump places", I am just wondering if its actually stated in game.

So I finished Shattered Space last night and the ending didn't explain anything.

1. What is the Vortex?
2. What are the Vortex horrors?
3. Is the Great Serpent real? If not, how did the High Priestess get the visions to send us into the cave where Anasko Va'ruun was??

I'm going to go through the Unity again and replay the expac with Barrett as my companion. Maybe, as the physicist in the group, he can explain what I saw.

When you enter The Unity every major decision that you made as a player in the base game is represented there. However, the massive decision you made at the end of Shattered Space is not represented there at all. This, could simply be a huge oversight by Bethesda, but it could be something more. In the base game we're told the following:

"According to House Va'ruun scripture, at some point in Jinan Va'ruun's life, he met a mysterious stranger called the Pilgrim who gave him a false prophecy. Jinan's conviction in the Great Serpent was such, however, that he cut the Pilgrim down without hesitation. Despite that, the Pilgrim returned, Jinan thought this to be a test of the Great Serpent, and he would not be found to back away from the challenge. In total, they fought four times in over one hundred and twenty planetary rotations. "Remember these four battles, Jinan," The Pilgrim said, "Remember these one-hundred and twenty rotations". Jinan, seeing this as blasphemy, delivered the killing blow to the Pilgrim."

The Pilgrim is clearly a Starborn and the false prophecy is information about the unity. So, what if the reason the events on Dazra don't show up in The Unity is because Dazra is in the domain of another celestial being? This could be an intelligent way of hinting to the player that The Great Serpent really exists and is powerful enough to cut its corner of the universe off from The Unity.

It would also possibly entail that the Unity is lying to the player about its true nature and lack of limitations. Perhaps it is more sinister than we are initially lead to believe? It might have even destroyed earth's magnetosphere to hasten mankind's journey into space and towards the Unity itself.* It also seems more than happy to let mass murderers like The Hunter keep going through it to other universes just so long as someone keeps going through it. Maybe this is its form of having worshippers and also how it sustains itself?

If we do find out in later DLCs that The Great Serpent and The Unity are competing deities, then the absence of the player's actions on Darza in The Unity in this DLC will seem like a brilliant and subtle way to first hint at this revelation in retrospect.

*Dr. Victor Aiza touched an artifact on Mars and a version of himself appeared to him and convinced him to take it back to earth and experiment on it. This, occurred in every single universe you visit, so, from a lore perspective, it seems more likely that The Unity appeared to him to ensure that mankind builds grave drives and goes out into space rather than it being an accident (remember that the unity appears to the player as a version of the player).

So we know going through unity with anyone on your ship sends them as well, proven by the hunter tagging along with you if you side with him. So any constellation companions would go as well and they all seem to want to being explorers. What it you have Heller, Lin, Hadrian or any other crew on your ship instead? There’s no way conversation with any of them regarding it so if they’re on your ship and you go to the unity they’re going to become starborn against their will essentially. Just a thought that occurred to me while working today. What does everyone think about that?

My question is this: are all members in each noble house actually blood-related? Or is it sorta like a mob family situation where it's just a very elaborate organization mostly made up of various families, with some being actually being blood-related to each other? 'Cause some house members mention some fellow members as "cousins".

You know the ones I’m talking about. Caves full of HR Giger meat that makes a squirmy macaroni sound. Has anyone found a slate or two that explains their existence?

So you get no add on in the unity about the future of house Va’ruun? Duuuuuuude!

Has anyone else found the 'confiscated recording' note in Anasko Va'ruun's private apartments? It sheds a completely different light on the start of the Va'ruun religion. Are there any more in-game pointers to Jinan Va'ruun of the Astrogation Club?

Whoops - spoke too soon. There's more recordings in Anasko's office.

How did Anasko Va'ruun plan to become human again in the All Must Serve ending? He only mentions that completing the experiment would bring the Vortex soldiers online, nothing about fixing Dazra or restoring corporeal form to the Vortex Phantoms. He clearly has plans to lead the second crusade, but how would he do this without becoming human again? Every moment he stays as a Phantom he risks becoming feral like the others and even if he could retain his "sanity" only people who have touched an artifact can actually communicate with him, and the player dies in this ending so there's nobody left who could communicate with him and would be on board with the crusade.

It's not talked about in-game, but there's some interesting lore implications with some of these weapons I was having some fun speculating about. Presumably, the weapon manufacturer in Dazra got wiped out when the calamity happened before you got there, but it's interesting to me that House Va'Ruun devoted resources to creating conversion kits for Settled Systems weapons. Let's talk about their laser pistol, the Quickstrike. The trigger section is combatech and even still says combatech on the screen in the back, but the battery and barrel are all Varuun custom. I wonder if they made these specifically so they could easily adapt Settled Systems weaponry in the field. Seems like a quick and dirty method to equip troops since combatech is definitely the most common firearm manufacturer you'll find out there. Va'ruun heavily favor energy weapons to all others so it's interesting they've also created their own domestic versions of the laser rifle and the Orion. Presumably so they can easily use captured battery packs on campaign. The following is spoiler heavy:>!Because House Va'ruun was heavily committed to preparing for another Serpent's Crusade, it's likely that they deliberately chose to create domestic versions of common Settled Systems energy weapons to equip their troops with once things really kicked off. Their own proper in-house weaponry might be powerful, but also costly and intensive to make, so this was a measure to get as many troops armed as possible as quickly as possible for a lightning war into Settled Space. Inflictors and their pistol counterparts would probably have been reserved for more elite troops and domestic garrisons, in that case.Of course, that's the Watsonian explanation. The Doylist one is that Bethesda didn't want to spend resources creating too many new assets. The Watsonian explanation is more fun and fits in with what we know.!<

So what do we know about what happened in the quest Eyewitness, when New Atlantis got hit with the power surge?

It's the exact point when the player is in group conversation with the Cabinet, in the Mast Chamber hall, and there is an explosion in the distance, then the shutters drop.

Afaict, two things happened, 2 Terrormorphs appeared in the spaceport, and the House VaRuun Embassy got hit. Inside the embassy, a venom tree has grown wildly out of control and destroyed the place.

Have I got this right? Did I miss something?

Thanks

I’m going through some of the audio files in the game data and see there’s a ton of dialogue for Jinan Varuun where he’s clearly talking to our character and other npc’s like Sylvie

He says “It’s sylvie yes? I sincerely appreciate all you’ve done.”

I’ve played the main quest and some side quests but don’t remember encountering any of his dialogue even in audio logs so was curious if anyone has encountered him in the DLC?

It seems like they were going for the same vibe as the UN building but the flags all seems so vague. Individual colonies maybe?

My biggest problem with main questline od the Shattered Space, is how little we learn about anything happening there.

We don't learn about nature of the Vortex, nor "space between universes". We don't learn why people turn to spectres. Why Vortex field teleports us. Are horrors native to the Void, or just fauna affected by it? And how intelligent are they? Is Vortex connected to the Unity? How did house Va'ruun discover such a miraculous tech? Maybe great Serpent isn't a hoax after all?

So many questions, so little answers. And worst of all, we probably won't ever find those answers. I'd really appreciate at lest some hints on the nature of things, right now all those things just... are.

I went through the Vanguard quest line again and realized something. During the colony war the UC was defeated by the Freestar civilian fleet. Through the whole presentation on it they did nothing but talk it down and how they were all cowards. But then after the colony war was over they went and founded the Vanguard which is just a UC civilian fleet. I thought this was interesting cause it shows just how petty the UC is and its willingness to blatantly copy other factions successes.

Vibe check positive and exploring planets all day. What are you guys listening to?

https://youtu.be/ok9arRkguS8

I struggle with these concepts so it might help to explore where and why Starfield is wrong. Acknowledging that it isn't a simulator, it's a game, how does time-dilation fit? or better said, how should time work in Starfield.

Though I don't understand it, I accept that math n shit says outright that there's no such this as a universal "present," no universal simultaneity. And it also says that anything that travels faster than light (especially information) breaks casualty and time. Again, I don't understand it, but I accept it. My understanding says grav drive ≠ FTL since you're piercing space, not accelerating to at/close to the speed of light (so no time-slowing twin on a super fast ship problem...yes?). But my gut says a physicist is about to tell me that doesn't matter when talking about the causality breaking effects of FTL travel, no matter it's means.

Given these constraints, how should time work between Akila and Jemison if you can jump back and forth before a single light ray can reach Jemison? And Akila has a heavier gravity than Jemison, shouldn't everyone be younger there? And Venus. If you jumped over there, spent a year, then jumped back to Earth, how will your body have aged relative to Earthians?

If any of you nerds can help a desperate guy out, I'd really appreciate it! This comes after asking another question that got pretty thorough responses. I hope this stimulates something similar (and I learn something)!

Here this! Why Going Faster-Than-Light Leads to Time Paradoxes https://youtu.be/an0M-wcHw5A?si=S8SwTGFRdS2yuFSs&t=765

I've watched this video a ton of time and I'm ashamed to say I still don't get it. If a physicist much more smarter than I would not mind swapping those planets out for SF planets and dumbing it way the hell down, well I'd love ya

Say you took your current day character and just kept jumping in a certain direction, how far would you get in 50 years?

I guess there are a lot of parameters for this type of question so I guess take your pick. What I mean by this is: type of ship, realism mode vs. not, refueling, realistic to the math, etc. I didn't wanna stifle this rather simple question so I'm curious to hear your answer and your logic.

(how does helium > warping gravity work anyhow?)

Unlike Fallout and Skyrim there aren’t that many lore/long form Starfield videos on Youtube which is kinda annoying. I found this guide and figure it’s worth sharing, something to play in the background for the weekend. If you have any other good streamers or creators that make Starfield lore for sure post them in the comments Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/CTHfYKBokdw

I recently sold some contraband and I wondered, "with all the mech components and xenowarfare tech lying around, plus veterans of the war still alive, plus pirates...why haven't any of the criminals but this stuff to use?"

So, Starfield introduces this element "caelumite" that always appears around artifacts. Caelum means "sky" or "heaven" in Latin which is a pretty obvious reference to the otherworldly nature of the artifacts themselves. But the interesting thing is that humanity already seems to have some experience with caelumite. You can use it for spacesuit mods and chems. I've always assumed that because of caelumite's unique influence on gravity that it is used to build grav drives, because every science fiction universe needs a fictional resource to power FTL travel, and also to create artificial gravity in space. But it seems like the game never fully explains this. Caelumite is just there, and no one talks about it. Am I missing some kind of in-game slate that mentions caelumite? Is it a known resource that is mined for grav drive manufacturing? Or is it just a super rare resource that hardly anyone knows about?

Personally, I think the biggest reason why the Spacefarer is usually the one to die during the Hunter’s attack is because in the vast majority of universes they are just another Average Joe. Basically they just assist Constellation with survey work & other research tasks and therefore never really get much exposure to combat scenarios beyond the pirate attack on Vectera, while Sarah and the other three major companions are the ones who go on the more dangerous missions to retrieve the Artifacts.

In the universe in which the game takes place, by contrast, you instead take much more of an active role in co-leading Constellation with Sarah, you are the captain of the Frontier + other ships you buy/build, may have also joined the Vanguard, Freestar Rangers, etc., and just generally are much more of your typical action movie hero type…and therefore you actually are able to put up a fight when the Hunter attacks.

EDIT: To put it into a little more context, imagine if you had the ability to travel across parallel universes and observe the lives of humanity playing out in different ways, just like the Starborn. And then all of a sudden you come across a universe where someone in your family has become President - and based on who they were in your original universe as well as thousands of others you've visited, they're the last person you would've expected to become President. But in the infinite dice roll of the Unity, sooner or later there has to be a universe where it really did happen.

I Actually read the computer entries in the abandoned starstation near neon and they read that Deimos was developing a brain astronautics interface to make mind controlled grav drives!

(sorry wont let me post screenshots)

As for now, The Unity is a big unknown and a way to start NG+. But do you think it could be integrated into the plot more?

Some sort of hive mind/grey goo/weird matter infection ever-expanding through the network independent from Starborn and Creators is a properly spooky concept, but I'm not sure It'd fit rather small scale narrative of the game.

Aside from that, multiversal questline would probably require going into NG+ as part of it. And it's really hard to imagine right now.