The mystery surrounding the alien vessels that have been interdicting Elite Dangerous players for the last few months just got a whole lot deeper. New footage, published by redditor Mobius135 (aka CMDR Mobiusetti ), shows two players encounter the unidentified vessels in a new locale: the surface of a planet. But the outcome wasn’t much different. This time.
If you haven’t been following the recent events in Elite Dangerous, players have been interdicted -- yanked out of hyperspace prior to reaching their intended destination -- hundreds of times by one or more unidentified vessels. The encounters tend to occur in deep space, far from the prying eyes of any local authorities, and end shortly after the interdicting vessel scans its target. We wrote about the phenomena shortly after it began occurring and have watched (with a certain amount of jealousy) as one pilot after another posts footage and screenshots of their encounters on the Elite Dangerous subreddit. But now the plot is thickening.
Thursday night, CMDRs McJamz and Mobiusetti were (separately) mining metal alloys from barnacles when their surface recon vehicles (SRVs) suddenly lost power. McJamz was the first to publish evidence of his findings, followed by Mobiusetti and a handful of other Elite Dangerous players. Fortunately, both pilots began documenting the event as soon as it began, McJamz mashing his screenshot hotkey while Mobiusetti jumped out of his rover and into the recently-introduced camera suite. Neither pilot knew what they were about to witness. But the lack of power suggested it would be a big deal.
“We were there for maybe 15-20 min,” McJamz told iDigi, via reddit’s private messages. “[My partner, Sgt Glory, and I] were separated for a short bit, and I continued to mine some MA's. Then I heard a noise. Not the normal noise of the barnacle, this was different.”
After a few seconds, a familiar (but still unidentified) ship crept into view, gliding into place above a nearby barnacle. A small opening on the ship -- the same one used to scan player-owned ships in previous encounters -- began to emit a beam of light. But this time the the beam wasn’t the only sign of life. The unidentified ship also projected a beam of energy that made brief contact with the barnacle. And it appeared to be harvesting something.
Each pilot watched the entire encounter play out, recording video and still-images for posterity, but mankind’s latest run-in with the aliens ended the same way as all of our previous encounters. There’s no violence. No communication. No significant attention of any kind. Just a quick refueling -- or whatever that beam was doing -- before the ship disappears back again. It isn’t much. But it was more than enough to excite the Elite Dangerous community, once the footage hit reddit, and the first two commanders to document the event are looking forward to seeing what comes next.
“In the long run, the aliens open a lot of opportunities for combat, exploration, and even in a sense, trading,” Mobiusetti said. “Thus far even our most powerful ships seem weak in comparison to the impregnable shields of this Unknown Ship. I hope we see a lot more, and have many more opportunities to learn about them!”
“What I saw was unreal. The ship was changing shape, and that large beam was focused on the barnacle,” McJamz said. “Was it refueling itself? Was it sending a communication? I’m not sure but it sure was a sight to see! It didn’t have any interest in me. I was glad. Hopefully they do make contact with us one day and everything turns out peaceful. However I don’t think that will happen. So arm up.”
To see the entire encounter, check out the footage uploaded by CMDR Mobiusetti or scroll through the image gallery published by McJamz. Then head down to the comments section and let us know how you think all this alien business is going to play out in the coming months.
Elite Dangerous is currently available on PC and Xbox One. The game hits PS4 on June 27.
Be sure to check back with iDigitalTimes and follow Scott on Twitter for more Elite Dangerous news in 2017 and however long Frontier supports Elite Dangerous in the years ahead.
