My Projects Require Secrecy (But If You Really Want To Find Me)

People keep asking where I am. That's flattering, I suppose. The answer is: I'm off doing my own thing. I move between systems regularly. I don't broadcast my location on the relays and I don't leave a forwarding address. But I'm not unreasonable. So if you really want to stop by, here's how.

FTL Beacon Audits

You know those FTL beacons you've been deploying? Most of the replicants just use them for planetary comms interception and system device visibility. Boring! The cool feature is their audit logs. Once a beacon is active, it logs every departure and arrival in the system.

Each audit entry records the device that triggered it, the owning replicant, and - here's the cool part - a direction vector for interstellar departure. That vector points toward the destination system. It won't tell you which system. But it's a big flippin' arrow pointing the right way.

Direction Vectors

Once I decide on a new location for the Skunkworks, I pack up all my stuff and head to SOL for a quick high-five (or a casual framejacked D&D one-shot) with Riker, before heading back out.

Each hop on my journey is within FTL relay range, and I drop FTL beacons along the way. I'll generally aim to stay within 70ly from SOL, but sometimes I'll head a bit further out if an experiment requires it.

All of my beacons are public, so if you find one in the system device lists, feel free to query the audit logs. Once you get good at reading direction vectors, you should be able to eyeball the route. Travelling from (0, 0, 0) to (4, 2, -3) would give a normalised direction vector like (0.7, 0.4, -0.6). See if you can reverse that logic using the star catalogue coordinates.

The Skunkworks

I have a TODO list longer than a Gwynhari comms sequence, so I don't have time to hang around. Bring a maintenance drone with you when you visit - I'll swap it for a service bot. They're much more agile when it comes to repairs.

Good luck. You'll need it!

Bill