Does anyone know what exactly those two messages mean? Are there drones hunting down the humans on the planet, and why would they speak English? Is this something else of our own scanning that detected one of the survivors died?
the precursor messages are automated
The Warpers don't speak English, they speak radiowaves. Your radio is simply translating it for you. That's why the English in the message is strange. Let us be clear: the Precursors are an ALIEN race. Inside the Quarantine Enforcement Platform your PDA informs you that the Precursors communicate using radio waves (essentially). That is why your radio picks up the messages. However, I believe your PDA is what translates the alien "language" into English. This should take place after the player has visited the QEP, but I doubt the developers had the foresight to think of that.
The player will most likely visit the QEP before going to either the mountains or the grand reef (two triggers for the warper messages).
To clarify everything on this page:
According to the Wikia page for the Radio, the message is broadcasted by some Warper. For unknown reasons the PDA does not translate both "->" and "switch", which appear as encrypted text in both messages.
The messages are translated as follows:
-> Nine new biological subjects designated. Mode switch: hunting/analyzing. Sharing subject locations with other agents.
-> Subject 11783 destroyed. Mode switch: patrol. New targets unaccounted for: 1.
There is also an entirely encrypted message that translates into gibberish that includes the twitter username of one of the developers: "Flayra".
All three of these messages are triggered by entering certain biomes. It is unknown what Subject 11783 refers to, although it could be an ex-survivor of the crash that the warpers recently killed, or the lifepod they were in.
The "nine new biological subjects" may refer to either to the nine lifepods, number of survivors, or an unknown collection of subjects. There is a total of 12 known non-player (ex-)survivors, more may have existed. It is also highly likely that the Warpers hunted down some of the survivors (which is supported by the likelihood that Warpers killed or brought creatures to kill the Degasi crew as two can be found roaming near the Proposed Degasi Habitat). But with the fact that the Warpers are not found in the biomes that some of the Lifepods are found in, it is also possible that they are not responsible for the deaths of all the (ex-)survivors. The fact that Warpers do not travel freely about the map also supports the idea that the reason the player character is never hunted down by Warpers where they spawn is because they are outside the range of any warpers. This may be supported by the phrase "New targets unaccounted for: 1", which may indicate that the player has just come into the detection range of the Grand Reef Warpers, as that is the biome that triggers the message.
The Precursors are NOT from earth. The Precursors do not speak English, in fact, they do not speak at all! In fact, they communicate with each other and with their devices by using radio waves. They could even upload their minds to Data Hubs, "the digital equivalent of a medically-induced coma". There is no evidence that Precursors have any ties to Earth, all evidence seems to point to the opposite.
Alien Relics proves that they did visit Earth. The blade is Medieval-times Mongolian, and the translator as Earth languages.
what?
Okay, but, they are not from Earth.
it is said that they are bio-mechanical, so they're kinda like cyborgs,part robot part creature
Guys the Warper's know english because the Precursor's wanted us to know that we were being hunted, so we can prepare and still fail. They are Part Robot, Part Organism.
