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Into the Wormhole: The current story-arc
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Jandice Ymladris
Aurora Arcology
#1 - 2014-11-16 10:16:26 UTC  |  Edited by: Jandice Ymladris
By now most folks know there's big changes coming up related to Sleepers, Anoikis (Wormhole systems/space) & Eve in general. Things have been going fast & the current story-arc might be hard to follow for people who haven't dived into the IGS Forum to follow the page-long discussions.
This thread aims to create some clarity into this story arc, some background info, highlights on what's happening and what we can expect & to what it leads to.
There will be plenty of links, serving a variety of purposes, from pointing out where certain bits of info come from, to links giving a summary of info we know.

Here's the list of the sub-sections:

-The Past: Awakening the Sleepers
Some background info about Wormholes, sleepers & Arek'Jaalan, to better place the current story arc

-What's going on now? A race for results, damn the consequences! Wormhole story arc, part 1
An overview of all the recent wormhole/sleeper related events & releases that tie in to the story-arc.

Old mysteries return, wormhole story arc, part 2
The second part kicks off with a blow as Shattered wormholes are found & strange Seeker ships appear everywhere!

-The Future is here!: >4&X
What can we expect out of all this? What new things will appear? What stuff came out related to this arc?

-What's the current progess on the story arc? Loose cannons are a go!
With all the chatty & talks, what's the current status of the story? This part will be updated when changes occur.



The Past: Awaking the Sleepers

It all began in 2009, when a colossal explosion detonated several planets in New Eden. Shortly afterwards: Wormholes! A new era had dawned on Eve with the Apocrypha expansion, an age of exploration, random connections, no local (the horror!), new systems, new enemies (the sleepers) and a new take on ships! (Tech 3 cruisers).

With all this, a live event was started, the Arek'Jaalan project. Lead by CCP under the Live event actor Hilen Tukoss, players explored the lore behind all this new stuff and through this make their mark in the lore of Eve itself! Rapidly, Arek'Jaalan grew & made great discoveries related to Wormholes & their inhabitants, the Sleepers & Talocan. It even grew beyond it's scope and revealed things about other aspects of Eve lore as well!

With this in mind, it's important to remember that Sleepers & Talocan are NOT new races/civilisations released for Wormholes. they were already in the game as various archaeology sites in Eve. Sleepers have ruins in Minmatar space and Talocan can be found in caldari space.
What Apocrypha did was expanding the lore of these two ancient races & adding extra mystery to it as well. The Talocan were masters of manipulating time/space and with Wormholes it became clear what they did with it. The Sleepers on the other hand proved to be a doomed offshoot of the Jovian race who fled to Wormhole space to escape their fate.
The mystery herein is what happened between them, both factions seem to be gone, vanished from eve as a civilization. Yet, whatever occured has the Sleepers coming out on top, as their machines guard the Wormhole sites. Yet, most installations of the Talocan & Sleepers are intact, with very little to no battle-damage, so whatever happened, it seemed not to be a normal armed conflict.

The advanced technology found however, did lead to the tech 3 cruisers, very flexible & versatile ships. But rapidly after release, their flexibility offered one major problem to CCP: balance. It turns out such ships were extremely hard to balance right. CCP did their best over the years, nerfing/boosting certain configurations, but never came out a satisfactory balance. This can be attributed to the lack of reference shipps, Tech 3 cruisers were unique, and CCP had no reference on how to balance them as a whole, resolving to patchwork solutions.

But for a long time, any development on wormholes, sleepers & tech 3 was silent, except for small updates. But now, they became the focus of the current story arc & the upcoming expansion Rhea!

Useful links:

The expansion trailer: The Apocrypha intro,adding to the mystery of Wormholes

Timeline of the Seylinn Incident that sparked the Wormhole apperances: YC111 March

Arek'Jaalan homepage revealing alot about the lore of wormholes & ancient races

An Aurora News article, giving a short summary on above Live event: The Arek'Jaalan project

Devblog about the wormholes: The Darkness at the end of the tunnel

Devblog about the sleeper NPC's: What have we done?!

Devblog about the Tech 3 cruisers: Strategic cruisers: a new breed

Providing a new home for refugees in the Aurora Arcology
Jandice Ymladris
Aurora Arcology
#2 - 2014-11-16 10:16:54 UTC  |  Edited by: Jandice Ymladris
-What's going on now? A race for results, damn the consequences! Wormhole Story arc: Part 1

So far, the story arc has progressed a great deal already, with some results. But it's not yet over! As the messages of Hilen Tukoss & DED (Concord) show. To bring you up to speed, a timeline with relebant articles linked. Keep in mind, the first part of the story-arc is split in two different parts ; the research race & the return of Hilen Tukoss


Sisters of Eve release Sleeper research findings

This message is what kicks off the whole story-arc, the sleepers have altered their behaviour, but not clear in what way. However after a Concord meeting, involving all Navies, the research race is kicked off!


The Research race of YC116

And so it begins, a research race between the 4 Empires. Players have to collect Sleeper libraries & neural links to donate to their faction of choice. The result of this research race would be the release of the new tech 3 destroyers! However, they would be released in phases, so the winning faction would get theirs first, and the last one on the list would subsequently get theirs last. The top donator would also get a unique ingame item, commemorating them on their dedication.

But Eve players being eve, a 5th side was opened with the Independent drive by Guillome Renard (Independent capsuleer research rally link) This drive turned out to be important for a renewed interest into the revival of Arek'Jaalan by the community. I do like to thank CCP for their efforts in giving it a place into their event, by mentioning it.
The research race progress could be followed through my ingame news blog: Empires seek capsuleer assistance in Sleeper research!


Amarr Victor!

After a thrilling final donation drive, the Amarr faction won the race and thereby get the privilege to be the first faction with a Tech 3 destroyer. The release order is as follows: Amarr - Minmatar - Caldari - Gallente. The independent researchd rive kept up nicely, until the last day, where it stalled while the 4 empires got a massive donation haul. However, CCP recognized the efforts of the people that supported the Independent drive & they got featured during the Las Vegas Presentation!

The tech 3 destroyers themselves work very different from the tech 3 cruisers, having no subsystems to install, but rather having 3 different stances to choose from & change on the fly. It's possible they are being developed in this way to give CCP a better insight on how to handle & balance flexible & versatile ships, giving them more info & data so they have a betetr insight to balance the tech 3 cruisers as well.
The result of the research race, along with a first summary of tech 3 destroyers can be read on Aurora News: The result of the YC116 Sleeper data research race: Tech 3 destroyers unveiled! This is also the article that CCP referred to when they mentioned Arcology News in their november newsletter. Thanks alot for the mention CCP, I am honored to be featured in it!
The end of the research race is also the end of the first part of the story arc, the research race.


Revival of Arek'Jaalan

To get things clear, this is a fully run player initiative! With the recent event, the RP community decided to revive Arek'Jaalan, finding ways to run it proper & offering discussion about it.
This revival however would be recognized by CCP as well when they start the second part of their wormhole story arc!


The Return of Hilen Tukoss

And so it begins, the second part of the first story arc! However, this story-arc plays out on the IGS forum, so it's easy to miss if you're not so interested in RP. Hilen Tukoss is the Live event actor that guided the original Arek'Jaalan project.
The messages sent are coded however, so it needed player input to reveal what he tries to say & what he wants. Lucky the RP community knows a thing or two aboud coded messages, thanks to past experience with them. In total, two coded messages were received.
On his return he already has a very interesting request: Jovian body parts! These are from a very old Live event, where a Jovian got teleported in tiny little bits into everyone's hangar.Don't worry! We managed to rebuilt him!
This does show that CCP never truly abandons a story-arc, but keeps them in reserve for future use!

The mention of colonized wormholes does contain a clue however, as all but one wormhole got identified. This one non-identified wormhole is probably Thera (see Future subsection for more details)

A summary on both coded messages & their implications can be found here: The return of Dr Hilen Tukoss, Arek'Jaalan project leader

Providing a new home for refugees in the Aurora Arcology
Jandice Ymladris
Aurora Arcology
#3 - 2014-11-16 10:17:42 UTC  |  Edited by: Jandice Ymladris
SSC increases Sleeper component prices!

Meanwhile, Concord is doing it's own thing & increases the prices of the sleeper components, probably in an attempt to gather as much as possible sleeper components before capsuleers keep it for themselves. A possible result of the Independent research drive, where players refused to donate to the empires & kept the data for themselves.


Inner Circle Call short notice Wormhole Summit

This article is interesting, due to the mentioned NPC corporations. They're not a bunch of random corps, but rather all the corporations who got their logos stickered on the Sister of Eve ships!
This points to a deeper involvement of the Sisters of Eve in this story-arc. After all, the Sister ships have been designed to relay back their findings to SoE. So for anyone who flew a Sister ship (Stratios, Astero, Nestor) know that whatever you did got registration by the sisters! Yes, Big brother is real in EvE!


Sleeper Sites in Empire space

Finally, it got revealed what the changed sleeper behaviour is. Turns out they've been investigating our space, stealing our tech, just as we investigated & raided their space. While plenty is still left to mystery, the RP community is gathering data on the sites themselves, to see if they can find any clues: Sleeper cache investigation report, Kuoka/Lonetrek, 1700 11.11.116
These sites not only contain existing meta-level modules, but also new stuff, like a sleeper variant of the Data analyzer and the new tech 2 modules! These new tech 2 modules are called Polarized and are probably designed by the sleepers, giving a lore explanation for the 0 resist when you use these (Polarized modules not compatible with your ships defensive systems)
A summary on these sites, along with possible conclusions on them & the polarized weapons can be read here (Aurora News summary): Newly discovered Sleeper sites contain advanced weapon blueprints!


A third message from Hilen Tukoss, throwing a spanner in the works!

The third message is coded as well, but very differently from the previous two messages! Upon decoding it, a grim realization dawned. People might have helped enemies! No idea what one can do with Jovian body parts, but considering their rarity & unique genetic make-up, it's not something that should fall in the wrong hands!
So far not much has been peeled out, except that there's possibly two unknown factions at work. One who holds Hilen Tukoss captive & another who has colonized a wormhole without anyone knowing (this unknown colonized wormhole got revealed in the previous messages of Hilen Tukoss)

Unusual Nation activity

A short time after, there's reports of strange Nation activity in nullsec, upon inspection it turns out they are retreating, but not through their wormholes, but rather by using the gate network, as if something disrupted their wormhole generators.
But the mystery was quickly overshadowed by an event discovered during this investigation by Caroline Grace, namely an unusual bright star...

Caroline's Star!

This star became know across the cluster as Caroline's Star! A supernova who's light reached every corner of the cluster, making everyone wonder what was happening.
To add to the mystery, rapid pinpointing made it clear the star couldn't go supernova by natural means.... Whatever or whoever's behind it, it had to be powerful...
Over the months, Caroline's Star had everyone talking & the cluster in a frenzy, on the lookout for more oddities, and there would be more coming...
Recently a neat Scope video has been released regarding Caroline's Star: Scope broadcast regarding observations & speculations about Caroline's Star

And so ends the first Story Arc, with the appearance of Caroline's Star in the nightsky. yet many things are left unanswered: what happened to Hilen Tukoss? Who needs the Jovian parts & why? What's Concord involvement in all this?

Providing a new home for refugees in the Aurora Arcology
Jandice Ymladris
Aurora Arcology
#4 - 2014-11-16 10:18:39 UTC  |  Edited by: Jandice Ymladris
Old Mysteries return, wormhole Story arc, part 2

And now the second wormhole story arc kicks off after Caroline's star explosion, it literally starts with a big bang! A month after Caroline's star, the release of the Rhea expansion brings alot to Eve, not only new systems but also a ton of new/old lore to dig in!

Thera!

And so it begins, the reveal of a new system, Thera. A wormhole with stations, lots of connections & shattered planets! Not to mention alot of weird thinsg too, like Talocan static gates, wreckages of ships thought long gone etc! A prize to visit for almost every player! This system was colonized in secret by the Sisters of Eve, a humanitarian organisation with a dislike for capsuleers, as they generally are the cause of the misery of the people helped by SoE.
The reason for this secrecy can be attributed to this dislike, however the various wrecked SoE stations in Thera do give a hint they were doing some very controversial research in there with Sleepers!
If you like to visit Thera and see it all for yourself: EVE-Scout offers a handy map, showing the links to thera (click on the regions to reveal the systems!)

Shattered Wormholes!

Along with Thera come roughly 100 new wormhole systems, but unlike any we know before. They contain only shattered planets as their 'planetary' bodies and have alot of odd sites to visit. Do keep in mind, it's not certain if Caroline's star was responsible for the shattering of these planets or the Seylinn incident!
The wormhole system centers often house the epicenter site, home to the Talocan static relics, remnants of an ancient race now gone. Or are they? Eve travel did a great article on these epicenters! Have a look here: Epicenter
It's hinted by devs that there would be answers & new questions to be found in the Shattered wormholes if we dive into them.

Seekers & Unidentified structures appear across New Eden!

And if above wasn't enough excitement, strange cloaked structures pop up in numerous systems as well, baffling players as to what purpose they serve! Due to an error in the patch notes (that was quickly fixed, but not quick enough) they were revealed to be 'Jove outposts'
On top of this, new NPC appeared as well, the now famous Seekers. At this stage however, they were harmless, jumping around in the systems they were found, scanning all manners of objects where they arrived. Attacking them didn't invoke a response, they merely accepted their fate. What did caught the attention was that these Seekers had a similar design to certain Sleeper drones, but had shields! Did the Sleepers manage to reverse-engineer shields? Or is it a remnant of old obsolete technology?
The mysteries surrounding the Structures & Seekers lead to a ton of speculation, but no firm conclusions.

Sansha wormhole systems found!

Turns out 'finding answers to old lore' did fit the bill, alongside with 'more questions' upon this discovery. These Sansha wormhole systems were part of the shattered ones recently released, and are a nod to one of the largest live events ever held by CCP: When nightmares turn reality: The Sansha invasion During this, players determined that some of the staging systems used by Nation must been in wormholes. Something else that matters is that during this Live Event, Nation temporary occupied a Jove system, before they got kicked out by the Jove.
It's believed that we now have found these staging systems, however it was apparent something happened, as all there was to be found was wreckage & ruins.... Important to note is that the shattering event can't be the sole responsibility of this, as you can find battle-sites where sansha has been fighting unknown enemies (possibly Sleepers, maybe Talocan?)

The Arek'Jaalan Prometheus Seminar

Due to the overflow of all this new information, the Arek'Jaalan community set up a meeting in order to share all the info they collected so far & theories & hypothesises forumlated based on all the recent developments.
This proved to be a very fruitful meeting, giving many people present new ideas & revelations about info previously not known or forgotten. It also showed that the current story arc links together some very old live events & ingame news articles!
It also gave everyone a better idea what to look for in regard of lore & ingame sites.

After the seminar, things cooled down a bit, giving everyone time to catch up & search in Thera & the shattered wormholes for clues, alongside poking the Seekers & the various Sleeper sites in known space for information.

Providing a new home for refugees in the Aurora Arcology
Jandice Ymladris
Aurora Arcology
#5 - 2014-11-16 11:48:27 UTC  |  Edited by: Jandice Ymladris
Circadian Seekers change behaviour

But then something changed, Concord warned people about changing behaviour regarding the Seekers. Shortly after this announcement, people were treated to their new approach, the Seekers now fought back when attacked!
But their most remarkable change was their persistance. They would pursue people through warp when they fled, not even cloaks could stop them from pursuing you! (they didn't decloak cloaked ships, so at least you had that, they still love scanning your cloaked ship tho!)
A full change on their behaviour can be found here: Circadian Seekers retaliate!

The Athinard Science Expedition

Realizing that we're missing clues, various groups set their investigations in full gear in an attempt to uncover more about the cloaked structures & Seekers, as we still lack any ingame info about their motivations or origins, or what could possibly happen.
The Athinard science expedition was one of these attempts to find out more, organized by both the Live Event community & Arek'Jaalan, they set off to test all kinds of interaction with the Cloaked structres & the Seekers patrolling, to no avail.
On top of this, devs did confirm that we missed out on an important clue, regarding a site in the Shattered wormhole systems that needs deeper looking into (people do run it, but didn't look deeper in the site descriptions or objects/enemies present according to the dev)
Stuff you can do to help out finding clues or links is listed here: Arek'Jaalan needs YOU!

We're all curious about the next step of this story arc of course! The decloaking of the Jove structures, showing them in their full glory, alongside the appearance of the powerful Drifter NPC battleships! Expect updates here when they're in the game!

Providing a new home for refugees in the Aurora Arcology
Jandice Ymladris
Aurora Arcology
#6 - 2015-02-07 13:39:12 UTC  |  Edited by: Jandice Ymladris
-The Future is Now!: >4&X

So now we have landed into the future. What will be the eventual outcome of these story-arcs? Some already got mentioned, but others not yet, so lets have a look shall we! Do keep in mind, some things are already available.
Most of the new stuff is planned for the upcoming Rhea expansion, that by now seems to be one of the most anticipated expansions of Eve!
Now, keep in mind, that most results of the story-arc are already known, however, the path to them is still shrouded, so there's no thinking what kind of impact it has on the lore for now. Alebit Sister of Eve lore looks like it'll get a big update!


-Tech 3 destroyers

2 of the 4 new tech 3 destroyers are released now. Considering tech 3 uses wormhole parts & the research race was the kickoff of the whole story arc, their existance can be considered a direct result of thie wormhole story arc!
Confessor, Amarr tech 3 destroyer
Svipul, Minmatar tech 3 destroyer


-Polarized weapons & modules

These can be found as blueprints in the various Empire space Sleeper sites now. They prove a choice of consequences as they're more deadly/efficient then their regular Tech 2 modules. However they do offer one massive drawback: 0 resistances on your ship, with no way to up it!
This makes the modules only interesting to players who are not hampered by lack of resistance/tank on their ships, like Stealthbombers. One migth say gankers, but the cost to produce them is high, so while they might find their way to gank sturdy ships carrying expensive cargo, it's doubtful they find their way to mainstream gankers.


-Sleeper sites in empire space

These Sleeper cache sites already got a mention, but one has to keep in mind that the ones we currently can find are the Limited version. These are only accessible to frigates and contain no defenders. In Rhea larger versions of these sites will be implemented, along with active defenders in it! Considering the toughness of Sleeper drones, this should be quite the challenge to do. The good news is that these beefed up sites have no size restrictions for ships!


-Roaming Sleepers in Empire space!

On top of it, there will be Sleepers roaming the starlanes, thanks to a new NPC AI, keeping the Sleeper NPC's on the forefront of powerful NPC opponents! So far, not much is know, except that these Sleeper scout drones are looking for something.
As noted, these are the Seekers, and they're fighting back now!


-Thera!

Doubt this needs any introduction, the mysterious new wormhole CCP plans to implement. With it's colossal size (300+ AU) sparsed out stations (150+ AU) and numerous high sec links & random WH links, CCP hopes no single player organisation can fully claim the system. It's hoped that Thera will become some kind of freeport in Eve.
As this system has no precedence in Eve, it's hard to predict how it all will turn out, as players have surprised CCP in many ways before.

-Shattered Wormholes

Along with Thera, a hundred other special wormholes will be introduced. These are the Shattered wormholes, aptly named as all their planets are shattered by some colossal disaster (lorewise probably related to the explosion that created the shattered worlds in eve so many years ago) There are also no moons in these systems, making permanently settling these systems hard. However, I can see player ingenuity finding a way to do it!

These systems are special, as you can mine ice in them! Previously, wormholes did not contain any icebelts. On top of it, some of these also contain lore & story locations to be discovered & investigated!

-More? GIMME MORE!

That's it folks, but i'll surely add to it if more is revealed!
See links below for more info on above:

The Rhea Devblog: Coming to Eve online in Rhea on 9 december This contains most info about many of the mentioned Future wormhole & sleeper stuff

Devblog: Thera and the shattered wormholes The go-to source for your Thera & Shattered Wormhole info needs!

Devblog: Sleeper Cache sites & Polarized weapons here you find the info about the Sleeper sites in Known Space & the Polarized modules that you can find in them.

Aurora News article: The result of the YC116 Sleeper data research race: Tech 3 destroyers unveiled! For your tech 3 destroyer needs

To keep in the loop, follow this thread as well: [HOLY COW] Sleepers, Jovians, and the 'Other' It's on top of this story arc & offers the latest news, findings & theories!

Providing a new home for refugees in the Aurora Arcology
Jandice Ymladris
Aurora Arcology
#7 - 2015-02-07 13:40:02 UTC  |  Edited by: Jandice Ymladris
-What's the current progess on the story arc? Loose cannons are a go!

Currently,investigations are still ongoing regarding the last message of Tukoss, claiming the first two are not from him. Also a warning was given, both by this Tukoss as by the DED (Concord) not to cooperate with the false Hilen Tukoss.
Some parts of his latest message still needs to be decoded, mainly a string of numbers. ( +366470.5504 >> +021452.0104 >> 5586152.0017 is the coded info. Go nuts, see if you find a clue!)
Confirmed this string of numbers does mean something, still not decoded yet....

The warning comes a bit late, as the Jovian Body parts already have been dropped off. What will occur is unknown at this point. No relevant information is found yet, but the arrival of the Drifter NPC's & the Jove listening posts might help to shed some light on this! It's suspected the Caroline Star event is linked to this, as there exists rumours of a Jove superweapon (Armageddon Project)

Circadian seekers are upgrading their behaviour, their purpose & actions are still unknown; alongside the unknown structures. We do now know that the unknown structures are Jove Listening posts & that the Drifter NPC battleships will come along as well.
But for now, we just know too little about this part & how it connects to wormholes. there must be a link, but no clear ingame link has been found yet.

Currently, people are searching for storyline clues in wormhole systems. It's confirmed a certain scannable combat site in shattered wormholes contains important clues. Got to find out which one now!

An additional new mystery has surfaced: [AM] Thera Data Bounty is looking for more info about an odd image they acquired, possibly related to Thera (non scannable Site?)

A full list of stuff to look into can be found here: Arek'Jaalan needs you!

I plan to keep tabs on the story arc development through my ingame news blog: Aurora Arcology News If you know of any useful links, you can share in this thread to improve everyone's understanding of the current wormhole story arc!!
If you got any other leads or info you might have found, please do share! You can contact me through eve-mail or ingame if you prefer.

Other good sources to keep track on regarding this Wormhole story arc are these sites; they're also great to get deeper into the lore side of things regarding this event!
-Interstellar Privateer, by Rhavas
-Eve Travel, by Mark726
-Hydrostatic Podcast by Ashterothi, Lockefox & Phyridean
-Forum thread: [HOLY COW] Sleepers, Jovians, and the 'Other'

You can also join the channels ' Arek'Jaalan ' & ' AJ: OOC ' to keep in touch about the latest developments & research into this storyline!

If you know of other sources to track for the storyline developments do let me know! Also if you got comments or want something added, do let me know!

Providing a new home for refugees in the Aurora Arcology
Jandice Ymladris
Aurora Arcology
#8 - 2015-02-07 15:53:14 UTC
Reserved for future updates

Providing a new home for refugees in the Aurora Arcology
Nevyn Auscent
Broke Sauce
#9 - 2015-02-07 16:28:56 UTC
Good stuff, thanks Jandice.
Xadiran
Moira.
#10 - 2015-02-16 22:09:10 UTC  |  Edited by: Xadiran
I have to ask. Do people actually realize that the odd image (http://i.imgur.com/1L04Cd4.jpg?1) is from the game Warframe?

Literally nothing to do with EVE
Winters Chill
Unitas Incorporated
#11 - 2015-02-20 22:49:21 UTC  |  Edited by: Winters Chill
Strange how nobody has noticed the listening posts are actually Drifter/Jove Titans. Given the racial parity between The Drifter battleships drive assembly and the massive similar drive assembly on the "listening posts". Yes they both look like swords and yes the Jove Titans are parked in a clever deceptive manner.

Those Drifters arn't investigating, they are resupplying.
Macumba Oxossi
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#12 - 2015-02-25 22:52:54 UTC
Someone should mention that Drifter battleships will now attack without provocation, I had a scanning ship popped the other day at one of their generated unidentified wormhole sites as I moved in to take a closer look. Maybe they just thought the imicus was too ugly to live though.