Starbirth
What does the quest Starbirth give? A living ship, and on the way the Solar Ray and the Animus Beam for your multitool. Across its 5 parts you follow the call of your Void Egg, grow the ship's parts, and make contact.
How it starts
The quest begins once you carry a Void Egg, which the Quicksilver merchant of the Space Anomaly sells.
The steps
Each part is one entry of the log, and the next opens when it ends. The last part sends you to find the new lifeform: the living ship itself. The table gives every step as the log names it, with the hint the game shows under it, and on a part's last step everything that part gives along the way.
| Part | Step | Hint | Gives |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Follow the call of the Void Egg | The strange egg I carry called out to another organism, a bizarre hybrid of starship and living being. | |
| 1 | Craft Consciousness Bridge | The egg is more than alive. It is calling out for something, screaming in a language I do not understand. | |
| 1 | Allow the Neural Stem to mature | The Neural Stem is too fragile for use | |
| 1 | Make Contact | I have fulfilled the request of the Void Egg, as best as I can understand it. | Fragile Neural Stem, Consciousness Bridge, Active Void Egg, Mature Neural Stem, Hexite |
| 2 | Follow the call of the Void Egg | The strange egg I carry called out to another organism, a bizarre hybrid of starship and living being. | |
| 2 | Produce a Pulsating Core | The egg is more than alive. It is calling out for something, screaming in a language I do not understand. | |
| 2 | Allow the Fragile Heart to mature | The Heart is too fragile for use | |
| 2 | Make Contact | I have fulfilled the request of the Void Egg, as best as I can understand it. | Fragile Heart, Pulsating Core, Stirring Void Egg, Mature Heart Node, Solar Ray |
| 3 | Follow the call of the Void Egg | The strange egg I carry called out to another organism, a bizarre hybrid of starship and living being. | |
| 3 | Prepare Impossible Membrane for the Egg Host | The egg is more than alive. It is calling out for something, screaming in a language I do not understand. | |
| 3 | Allow the Fragile Shell to mature | The Shell is too fragile for use | |
| 3 | Make Contact | I have fulfilled the request of the Void Egg, as best as I can understand it. | Fragile Shell, Awakened Void Egg, Impossible Membrane, Hardened Shell |
| 4 | Follow the call of the Void Egg | The strange egg I carry called out to another organism, a bizarre hybrid of starship and living being. | |
| 4 | Create a Singularity Core for the Egg Host | The egg pulsates with a growing lifeforce, straining to be free of its leathery casing. | |
| 4 | Allow the Personal Singularity to mature | The Personal Singularity is not yet developed | |
| 4 | Make Contact | I have fulfilled the request of the Void Egg, as best as I can understand it. | Animus Beam, Growing Singularity, Cracking Void Egg, Seeds of Glass, Singularity Core |
| 5 | Follow the call of the Void Egg | The egg intones a strange song, repeating: | |
| 5 | Acquire Archived Souls for the Egg Host | The egg pulsates with a growing lifeforce, straining to be free of its leathery casing. | |
| 5 | Locate the new lifeform | The pieces have been assembled. They must now find their vessel. | Soul Chamber (0%) |
What the items do
Everything the quest hands over, with the description the game gives it.
| Item | What it does |
|---|---|
Fragile Neural Stem | A delicate web of living tissue, this is the spark that will ignite a new lifeform into existence. |
Consciousness Bridge | A biomechanical construct, created to the design of an anonymous host. |
Active Void Egg | An anomalous egg. Since the encounter with the bizarre deep-space 'creature', its strange music has grown more active, more agitated. |
Mature Neural Stem | This web of living tissue has grown its own metallic filaments, a mesh of silver and flesh. It crackles with its own electric charge, a network in need of its nodes. |
Hexite | An odourless, mineral-rich substance with a hexagonal crystalline structure, harvested from the faecal matter of a creature. |
Fragile Heart | Though nothing more than a cluster of cells, it is already possible to detect the soft beating of this proto-heart. |
Pulsating Core | A biomechanical construct, created to the design of an anonymous host. |
Stirring Void Egg | An anomalous egg. Since the encounter with the bizarre deep-space 'creature', its strange music has grown more active, more agitated. |
Mature Heart Node | Powerful and muscular, this bionic pump sits within a network of synthetic tubes. It twitches when touched, its rhythms sensitive to the presence of other thinking entities. |
Solar Ray | A highly specialised addition to the Multi-Tool's mining capabilities, transforming terrain deposits into liquid sun. |
Fragile Shell | Translucent and impossibly thin, this shell is no more than the merest breath of glass. And yet the potential is clear, a relentless multiplicative hardening adding constantly to its strength. |
Awakened Void Egg | An anomalous egg. Since the encounter with the bizarre deep-space 'creature', its strange music has grown more active, more agitated. |
Impossible Membrane | A biomechanical construct, created to the design of an anonymous host. |
Hardened Shell | Translucent, reflective, iridescent, impossibly strong. This shell swiftly reconfigures itself upon damage, knitting itself back together stronger than ever before. The newly formed bonds create a memory in glass, reflecting back the light absorbed at the moment of damage. |
Animus Beam | A unique overload to the Multi-Tool's standard mining laser. Beam frequency is modulated precisely in a feedback loop with the delta-waves generated by the impact target. |
Growing Singularity | A slow knitting together of flesh, neurons and antimatter. The way this mind experiences the universe is beyond any imagining. |
Cracking Void Egg | An anomalous egg. Since the encounter with the bizarre deep-space 'creature', its strange music has grown more active, more agitated. |
Seeds of Glass | A biomechanical construct, created to the design of an anonymous host. |
Singularity Core | A sensitive arrangement of neurons in a stable orbit around a miniature black hole. The mind at the heart of this bionic miracle is free from the constraints of linear time, its experience an impossible web of myriad collected lifeforms. |
Soul Chamber (0%) | A biomechanical construct, created to the design of an anonymous host. |
Where living ships wait and what they hold is in the living ships guide; the Solar Ray and the Animus Beam are in the multitool modules guide.