Winter 2013 - Into Jove Space?

CCP was massively vague about the plans for Eve post-Odyssey. I blame the POS plans from Fanfest 2012. After giving out so many details, ideas and plans CCP created expectations of awesomeness. Then with deciding not to do it, and the resultant player backlash, I think CCP have a new approach to discussing future Eve plans.

"Don't tell those ****ers ANYTHING!!!"

Whilst the DUST bunnies got lots of cool plans for their future (fighter craft, boarding Titans and stations, rogue drones, lots of new weapons, PvE etc), what did we get? Some vague idea's - colonisation, building stuff including stargates, doing things empires currently do. New space!

Now not sure this is a great idea to start with. Do we need any more space? Isn't our space diluted enough? Notwithstanding this, I have an idea how they might be planning to do this. Jove space!

The next section contains spoilers regarding the background and history so if you don't want to know or are reading Templar One now, go away now!

Still here? Right. First off in the last year and a bit CCP have STRONGLY hinted that the Jove are all dead. I mean dead-parrot dead. The entire race has died out from the Jovian Disease. So there is a lot of empty space and free systems in what remains of the Jovian Empire. The map below shows the extent of the Jovian Empire. There is plenty of space there currently cut off from the rest of Eve for us to play in!

But Drackarn, they are not free and empty, someone already lives there.... CCP! That's where GM's and Devs live and the alliance tournament is held there.

Yes but it would be really easy for them to relocate them to a newly created system(s). That wouldn't be a problem.

But Drackarn, what about all the Jove technology. It would unbalance the game.

It certainly would! First corp to get there and jump in 100 Eidolon battleships found parked up at an abandoned station would be an issue. However, the Jove are not stupid. For hundreds of years they've meddled in the development of the four Empires. So as their race was on their last legs they will have taken action. The Jove will have known that eventually one of the Empires will have found a way into their space so they have, for the last few years, been destroying and hiding their technology. We know they did this with the Terran wreckage near the site of the Eve Gate. Cloaking the ancient advanced technology to ensure one race does not get their hands on it to the detriment of the other races.

Stations may have been crashed into the atmosphere. Ships auto-piloted into suns. Cities been nuked from orbit (it is the only way to be sure). As the last of the Jove died, so did any evidence of their advanced civilisation. However there are some older forgotten sites left to be explored.

This could lead to new exploration and T3 production including the hinted T3 industrial with Orca-like bonuses (not sure if Fozzie was drunk or trolling us on the pub crawl). This works as basically the Jove are the Sleepers..... ish.

Mark726's Eve Lore Guide explains the relationship between the Jove and the Sleepers better than I could:-

The Sleepers were apparently once part of the Jove race. The Jove arrived in New Eden in two parts: most of the citizenry were frozen in cryogenic suspension and connected to each other in a computer program (yes, just like The Matrix); the rest stayed unfrozen, taking care of the ships and the frozen citizens (if any of the ships were named Zion I’m quitting). When the colony ships arrived, many chose to stay in their virtual reality construct, only coming into the real world when necessary. At some point, the Sleepers split off from the Jove, presumably because of their desire to largely stay within the construct. They settled in Ani, and eventually moved on to wormhole space (how they moved there, or why, is not revealed in the book). However, the Sleeper civilization itself is still alive, even if they rarely leave their virtual world. They survive in their VR construct to this day, their bodies kept in hibernation, and only very rarely come out of their hibernation to interact with the real world (real world in the game... you know what I mean).

So basically some 'low-tech' Jovian historical sites could be left to explore and reverse engineer. May be forgot and lost sites are still protected by Jove drones in deadspace pockets. This is pretty much the same as the Sleepers. Same race, almost same tech. Same reverse engineering. The systems are already in place to have some different normal space T3 production on a smaller scale perhaps. It would need to be different to Sleeper tech so wormholers are not shafted. Jovian T3 should be utterly different to Sleeper T3.

As well as T3 production who knows what else lies in Jove space. CCP could do a good job here of exploration and fighting over these new systems. New outposts, perhaps even new stations built by players?

What kind of rats would we find in Jove space? None? Rogue Jovian drones?

What asteroids and minerals could we find in Jove space?

Is there different moon-goo?

Is this where Ring Mining could be implemented?

What else could we discover in this previously unknown area of space?

Yes it is a long shot. Yes I'm taking a wild guess here. But thinking about the above. It might be doable?