Has anyone found out the hint to whats chasing the Vasari yet? I have no found it.
Well... I did find something awhile back before the Vasari were introduced (even before the Advent were as well), though I am not sure if it anything... I am speculating on the off chance that what I did find was a hint.
We know that the Vasari Loyalists have a separate "Returning Armada" research tech; the Vasari Loyalists have "Dark Fleet Beacon" while the Vasari Rebels have the normal "Returning Armada." The funny thing is that, during development, the Vasari Loyalists had something different - "Vorastra Dark Fleet." Back then, once this ability was researched, free ships warped into the gravity well that held your Vorastra Titan. Big deal, right? Here is the funny thing (and I hope that I can explain this properly, as it deals with the string file) - the IDS for "Returning Armada" is "IDS_ABILITY_FLEETBEACON_NAME." For Dark Fleet, it is "IDS_RESEARCHSUBJECT_ABILITYACCESS_DARKFLEET_NAME." Now, what is the IDS of the now scrapped "Vorastra Dark Fleet" tech? It is IDS_RESEARCHSUBJECT_CHARYBDIS_DARK_FLEET_NAME.
Charybdis comes from Greek Mythology. It refers to a whirlpool that was thought to be a monster. If this "Charybdis" does deal with what is chasing the Vasari, then I have an idea as to what is happening. Whirlpools are natural phenomena that can have devastating results on (smaller) ships. Mayhaps a catastrophic natural disaster started to appear in the middle of Vasari space?
What I do find funny is that the developers never bothered to remove this from the string file. Maybe they left it there for us to find, but I figure that they either forgot about it or were too lazy.
If you want to check this out, simply copy the English.str file, paste, and call it "fileName.txt." You can then open it with notepad and search for IDS_RESEARCHSUBJECT_CHARYBDIS_DARK_FLEET_NAME .