I was checking up on the OoPhysics of WitchSpace and time-of-flight and came across this old thread.
Cmdr James wrote:I know its canon, but it makes no sense to me, and even if it did, as is said elsewhere why is the place always full of thargoids? The explaintions in my opinion are weak.
The question that occurs to me is, why don't I see Thargoids
in transit between systems? Normally, I drop into a system, take my random heading and hit the Jump, then I'm into a situation with another ship and a Thargoid in combat. Occasionally two Thargoids. But what I never see happen, which I would expect to see, is a Thargoid ship popping out of WitchSpace near a Beacon, or diving down to scoop the star.
<P>Don't they inhabit the same universe as us? Are they not subject to the same laws of OoPhysics as we are. Does their Qurium not surge into (and out of) their tanks as ours? Curse them, do they not ignore us? Blast them with coherent light, do they not boil into vapour? Lock them, do they not shy?
<P>That we don't see the Thargoids doing normal things suggests that they have either a different Qurium handling technoology (sorry, neoologism ; too many "oo"s), or they play by different laws of physics to us. Both of which are potential subjects of investigation. I.e. ship destruction, followed by dismantling if you have the equipment. And the cargo hold space.
Star system distribution
The Kepler and K2 missions in the RealWorld (subject of an upcoming version of Oolite?) have revealed that a high proportion of stars have planets in orbit. But the Oolite maps never show a star without a planet (that's getting a bit vaguer with the multiple-planet and multiple base OXPs - I haven't met a system with just a sun and a few asteroid swarms, but they're not physically impossible.) So, do the Oolite maps include ALL galaxy stars, or only those stars with at least one settled (or natively inhabited) planet. If the latter is the case, then potentially the Thargoids are using uninhabited (or unexploited) systems to move around without bringing attention to themselves. I can almost read the mission specification :
GalCop Navy is looking for an experienced and brave (i.e. suicidally foolhardy) Jameson to carry out a reconnaissance of a newly-discovered "channel" of Brown Dwarf stars which are unsuitable for human habitation but may be suitable for Thargoid bases and/ or military infrastructure.