Klondike wrote:

Now you see, we don't actually know they made it off of Auriga. In the description for ∂, a Riftborn hero on the wiki, the Grey Owl is mentioned. And it says that the Grey Owl is the source of the inter-dimensional rift. Now, with that information 2 new questions need to be answered. 1) Who was on the Grey Owl? and 2)Where is it now? The Grey Owl was shown as possibly the only means of leaving Auriga before it froze over, outside of extraplanetary assistance. So, even if there were Vaulters aboard it, answering question 1, what if it was destroyed when it created the Rift? Now they're dead. The again, maybe it wasn't. I dunno. But I sure as hell hope the Vaulters are stil kicking haha, my favorite faction in EL and especially in ES1.

EDIT 1: Grammatical Errors.

Basing on the Vaulters questline (didn't finished it, but got close) I suppose they had escaped on Argosa (or how is it called). The Grey Owl was this Hissho-like ship in the New Beginning trailer.  So they may be alive now. Answering to your second question, I suppose that the Grey Owl exploded, and something on it created the rift in that moment. Concluding: the Vaulters are probably alive, the Grey Owl is the ship from the first ES2 trailer and it exploded, creating the rift (probably).

The tattoo image was part of the fankit and on the main page long before that date though, the first time posted in that thread was not the first time it was seen. Like I said I have it time stamped and saved on my PC from fall 2015. Regardless of the order, a HD version of the one without the tattoos is the one currently being displayed in the art section, that is the one they are using and promoting. Why would they add tattoos and colors to an existing image, post it once deep in a forum thread somewhere, then never use that image again anywhere else? They wouldn't, they did the opposite. They had the tattoo version up publicly for a while, then they edited it to remove the tattoos and replaced the tattoo version with the generic version and promoted the generic version.

vahouth wrote:

You can still find it in the OP here: https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/forum/65-general/thread/18859-art-and-screenshots-of-endless-space-2

The image with the tattoos was posted 3 months later.

All the image links in that post died ~8 months ago when the forum updated. They grabbed art from the art section I assume and reposted them, which featured the newer appearance of those humans. I actually posted in that thread before that date, the lab image wasn't even a part of the original OP. When the tattoo version was posted on a later page a few months later it had been the first time any variation had been posted in that thread and there was a discussion about those humans being in a sophon lab.

There was another thread I participated in long ago concerning the vaulters and we discussed that changed image, but I can't find it in my post history so I'm guessing it didn't migrate over to the new forums for some reason or was deleted. Before the image was edited we had assumed it meant Vaulters might be a minor faction, you would only expect minors working with a major faction in a lab like that, after the image was changed it gave some people hope that Vaulters could be a major faction, or were being kept secret for some reason.

Some really interesting comments in this thread.

"The vaulters made it off Auriga."

This stands out and requires the question; how can you say for certain they made it off Auriga?

Auriga was just a lab, but where was head-office? 

Head-office is likely the Academy, where after years and years of experimentation they refine and perfect their lab species, such as the Vaulters, so expect heroes not tied to any minor or major faction, this also provides an addition explanation to Vaulters appearance.

Truth be told, the Pilgrims are post-Mezari, so Vaulters will simply and likely be a part of Pilgrims. After all, Mezari are the macrocosm that the Vaulters and in turn, early-United Empire are microcosms of.

vahouth wrote:

Actually, it's the other way around. The first picture is the oldest one.

Either way, these are not Vaulter scientists, but rather Pilgrims by the looks of it (blueish tattoos).

Negative. That image with the tattoos is part of the very first batch of images released for the game back in 2015. I downloaded it as soon as it came out.

vahouth wrote:

1. Yes the Vaulters had indeed tattoos, but not the blue fluorescent kind.

That's why these are definitely Pilgrims.

2. Orange is already part of the Pilgrims color scheme in ES2 https://wiki.endless-space.com/academy/mwanga-moto#identity

3. Traditionally, all male Vaulters are bearded. Not the case here.

Finally, yes, Vaulters are part of all 3 games, but ES didn't start with them in the mix. 

If I'm not mistaken, they were added later on as a reward for those that bought Dungeon of the Endless or EL. I don't really remember.

Pilgrims have very light sky blue tattoos that usually cover most of one half of their face. The tattoos in that image are dark, almost black, and shiny, the blue tint might just be a reflection from the lighting. The location and sizes also matches known Vaulter tattoos.

White and orange with a bit of black, isn't the same as dark gray with orange and a bit of white. The color balance (minus the stereotypical white lab coat) is identical to the vaulter colors.

Pretty much everyone on Auriga had beards, it was cold. We only have one official image of a male vaulter face after they left Auriga, not enough to form a pattern.

If they were supposed to be Pilgrims and all the things they edited out like the colors and tattoos were normal Pilgrim stuff, then they wouldn't have been edited. Pilgrims would certainly make sense in a Sophon lab, so there would be no point to turn them into "generic humans."

I would bet $50 Vaulters will be in ES2 at some point, either as a free update, DLC, or as a surprise release bonus. 

I'm willing to bet we'll see more of the Vaulters and likely the Mezari, probably as DLC somewhere down the line. The Vaulters are an incredibly popular faction and have been in nearly all of the Amplitude games to one degree or another, it'd be sort of bizarre for ES2 to be the exception. I'm also willing to bet we'll see the Mezari. If for no other reason then they seem to be an incredibly widespread and distributed human faction (The source of the United Empire, the Horatio, the Vaulters and even a Vodyani hero.) for them to get no further explanation would be jarring. 

Actually, Vaulters always had tattoos. Just google ES1 vaulters art. There were tattoos in EL too. I always thought that orange was the main color for vaulters, not pilgrims. In ES1 pilgrims were based on blue. If vaulters will be added as a part of a DLC ( as major )  I'd definately buy it. They were with us for so long. All three games. It is hard to let them go. And I really want to see their updated design. The improvement of UE design was wonderful. Maybe I actually need to make an idea about ship coloring. The UE quest + their ships + some ship coloring = vaulters. A budget version.

Astasia wrote:

They wouldn't leave the Vaulters out entirely. They are either going to be a minor or major faction, and since all the slots are full that means DLC. Vaulters as the first DLC faction makes a lot of sense economically, I feel like they are the favorite faction of at least the devs but also likely the playerbase. Not to mention there were several pieces of art for the game released very early on that were clearly vaulters, and some of that art was carefully edited later on to not look like vaulters.

IE this image from the artwork section:

Used to look like this:

I personally don't care too much. I mostly liked vaulters because they had a female leader, I'm happy with Vodyani.

Actually, it's the other way around. The first picture is the oldest one.

Either way, these are not Vaulter scientists, but rather Pilgrims by the looks of it (blueish tattoos).

They wouldn't leave the Vaulters out entirely. They are either going to be a minor or major faction, and since all the slots are full that means DLC. Vaulters as the first DLC faction makes a lot of sense economically, I feel like they are the favorite faction of at least the devs but also likely the playerbase. Not to mention there were several pieces of art for the game released very early on that were clearly vaulters, and some of that art was carefully edited later on to not look like vaulters.

IE this image from the artwork section:

Used to look like this:

I personally don't care too much. I mostly liked vaulters because they had a female leader, I'm happy with Vodyani.

I don't think they really fit in this version.  One human faction is enough for me.

I dont know what special feature would make them special

I was deeply dismayed to hear that the Vaulters might not have a chance of surviving into the new game at all, you know, because of the Gray Owl exploderizing into dimensional cancer. But we still have a glaring plot hole. ∂'s background story story clearly states that it was because of the Grey Owl exploding that they were exposed to dust and the Riftborn's native cosmos was damaged. Emphasis on clearly, other academy entries don't say "nobody knows the truth, that cannibalism was his secret to absorbing that much dust". No, either it's a common fact or it's some sort of mystery. This means that the Academy and/or the Riftborn if not the rest of interstellar civilization know not only that it was the explosion of a ship, but a ship bearing that specific name. This means that either someone had been watching the explosion as it happened, probable considering the trailer. Except that it would have to have had been transmitting an identification signal for them to know, and I doubt that a ship dating from when the Endless were still called the Torians would be compatible with modern computational systems. Or someone escaped the incident, because Opbot is alive. This is important considering his role in Endless Legend, you know, the game that introduced the Vaulters? But if Opbot isn't talking about how he ended up on an otherwise insignificant backwater planet, then there's no way he would mention a detail as significant as him ESCAPING ONE OF THE MOST LEGENDARY PLANETS IN THE GALAXY! Finally, the description for the Vaulters in the first Endless Space describe them as having "suffered a number of major setbacks in trying to establish a permanent home for themselves". I, personally, can't imagine much fitting the description better than your initial attempt at space travel receiving an unscheduled demolition midflight. And from a meta standpoint, the lore built around extends into every game in the franchise, so making all of this hardship end up in the last hope for a doomed culture not only failing but dooming an entire plane would be really unsatisfactory, also Amplitude really loves its DLC fodder.

I'm obviously in denial.

UndeadPuppy wrote: 

Also they can't be a Minor Race because the last two left are those industrialist moth dudes and those symbiotic scientist guys.

Where did you get this inf? Been some time away and probably lost something.

Or was this a vote n very early stage of EA?

So I guess the simple question would be, did the Mezari, and the Vaulters reintegrate with each other, or did the Vaulters freeze, or did the Mezari cull the Vaulters?