Circadian Seekers

I’m not sure what it says that I’m writing more here as a part-time writer than I do on my own blog (seriously, Eve Travel updates are coming), but let’s talk about Circadian Seekers today, shall we?

You’ve probably seen them by now. A small fleet of them will warp into an area with no warning and then begin scanning all the things in it. But what do we know about our Seeker friends fellow space travellers? Precious little, it turns out.

First off, we know that they are of Sleeper design. We know this because, well, our overviews tell us as much. The design seems a bit odd, even for Sleepers, and I don’t believe we’ve ever seen another Sleeper drone or structure with that odd floating ball of theirs that will pop out of their backs at times.

This also marks quite a departure from the Sleepers. Ever since capsuleers have gained access to WH space (discussed in Rhavas’s excellent article on the Seyllin Incident), Sleepers have always been viewed as a reactive force. They would defend their sites from capsuleers, but never showed any obvious interest in us otherwise. With those first overt appearances of Sleepers in known space, whatever driving intelligence is behind them has clearly taken a more active approach to New Eden. Indeed, with the Sleeper caches that have been popping up all over the cluster, it’s possible that the Sleepers have been performing covert operations in New Eden for years, perhaps for almost as long as we’ve had access to Anoikis (which is just fancy RP talk for WH space, in case you were curious).

But what exactly are they after? We have two hints on that. The first is the name itself: Circadian Seekers. Webster’s Dictionary defines ‘circadian’ as: “relating to the regular changes in a person or thing that happen in 24-hour periods.” The name itself solves at least part of this mystery: they’re examining the daily ebb and flow of New Eden. Our cluster-wide circadian rhythms. Between that and the failing cloaks of the Sleeper caches, it suggests they have also begun collecting bits and pieces of our technology to continue their studies.

Furthermore, the Seekers only seem to appear in systems that have an Unidentified Structure. We’ll ignore, for now, the fact that Unidentified Structures seem to appear and disappear from a system at random. They will still only appear in certain systems, and I believe those are the only places where Seekers have been seen. This suggests some kind of connection with the between those two, but what? The Seekers seem to scan the Structures as much as they scan everything else in system. Indeed, the odd thing about the simultaneous appearance of both is that, unlike the Seekers, the Structures are definitely not of Sleeper design. Sleepers have a rounded, almost organic feel to them, reminiscent of the Gallente in some ways, but the Structures are nothing like that. Their lines are harsh and angular, tall and jagged constructs that seem almost crystalline in design. Very unlike the Sleepers. Still, both appeared at the same time in the same systems. What could it mean? The answer is well beyond me at this point.

The other thing to note about the Seekers is, that they are clearly starting to adapt. Originally, they sat like lumps on a log when attacked by us capsuleers, not really responding to anything we did to them. But with the coming of Proteus, Seekers have started to become a bit more proactive in their defense. They follow ships in warp, even to safe spots, to finish off the job of killing the offending capsuleers. There have even been hints that they may start podding violent capsuleers soon. Furthermore, Seekers show other attributes as well. They are the first Sleeper ships to have shields on them, yet another innovation that they learned from us.

With that, I think I’ve summed up just about all we know about the Seekers so far. Many questions still remain, and I have no doubt that the lore community will continue headdesking themselves, debating just how these ships fit into the new, broader narrative of Eve. Of course, I have my own things to headdesk over, but rest assured that I am watching these developments closely as well.