The Riken...did something ESCAPE?

[ajb1978]

I just noticed something today, several years after Desolation Point was introduced, but the hole in the Riken can't be from hitting a rock.  The metal around the edges of the hull breach bend outwards.  If it had hit a rock, they'd be bent inwards.

What were they hauling?

[Serenity]

The Darkwalker

[theisaactrain]

10 hours ago, ajb1978 said:

What were they hauling?

Yeah, so I had a whole theory written about this, but clumsy old me refreshed the page.

Anyway, basically I think the reason The Riken has that hole is because someone was there before you. Someone found the ship, and he was determined to get into it to find its secrets. Think about it like this, in Interloper there is a very limited amount of resources. Perhaps other survivors before you have taken the majority of the supplies, trying to survive and fend for themselves. 

I think having the though that something escaped The Riken is a fun idea, but lets be real here, there's more realistic options 😆 

[s7mar7in]

32 minutes ago, theisaactrain said:

Perhaps other survivors before you have taken the majority of the supplies, trying to survive and fend for themselves. 

Well said @theisaactrain, you have a good idea. 

Seems the ship was damaged and stranded at the rock outcropping for a while.

After it was found by survivors, the hole in the hull, (which is now at ice level), would be enlarged for better access/egress.

A manmade tarp roof at the hole would lock this theory, but even the barrels are arranged like a small base camp would be.

...that, or they had harpooned an Aurora Whale, and it was revived somehow and escaped the ships hold... 

Or maybe it is more an artistic choice by the artists who created the game.

Stay safe my friends.

[UpUpAway95]

My guess is some sort of explosion aboard the vessel caused the hole... perhaps a boiler.  The Riken was a whaler and, I believe, they did use boilers to process the whale blubber.  The captain then probably ran the ship aground to prevent the ship sinking.

[UTC-10]

I personally think the Riken is perched too high up to have been where it was when the ship sank or the ocean level receded - like a tsunami wave put it on the rocks. 

It might have been more realistic to require characters to climb up onto the deck then enter the hatch to the galley but at that point there was probably no climb mechanic either by rope or by hand in place so a hull breach was substituted rather than a convenient pile of stones.  A breach because a rock stove in the hull was probably thought to result in too small a hole to be a practical entry so an outward breach was placed there notwithstanding the illogic. 

 

[s7mar7in]

7 hours ago, UTC-10 said:

like a tsunami wave put it on the rocks. 

Good idea @UTC-10, perhaps there is a change in ocean currents, wind, and ice flows.

The ship does rest rather high when viewed from a distance,

Or so it seemed until I found this image depicting whaling ships; wreckage found near Northern Alaska in 2016,

Ice pack damage to the Riken hull offers us many possibilities for a back-story to the wreck.

Stay safe my friends.

 

Nearly 150 years after they were trapped and sheared in half by packs of Arctic ice, the ships from a long-lost whaling fleet have finally returned to human view...in the same place and at the same time of year as when the whalers were waylaid by ice, government archaeologists have been able to access the site freely, thanks, they said, to global warming...

Edited December 21, 2020 by s7mar7in