Jacques Recon and Resupply - Day 1
03 Jul 2016James Hussar
Currently in "IC 1287 SECTOR ZP-P B5-4" -- next waypoint: "BLEIA EOHN HW-0 B 12-0" approximately 912 LY away, 69 jumps. I spent a few hours this morning just walking around the ship and looking out onto the surrounding space. It's very calm out here, but the stars look different enough to be a little unnerving. I am able to pick out familiar nebulae, like Barnard's loop, but it's smaller and dimmer already, that even though it is a mere (mere!) 1000 light years farther away, the sense of distance is palpable. Familiar constellations look different as the parallax of distance skews the angles between familiar stars. This is something that I've seen before, obviously, but on shorter journeys where I regularly returned to familiar systems it was just a passing novelty. On a distance journey, I have a slight sense of dread when I think about how far and alone I am out here. I am well outside the time it would take to deplete my life support, should something catastrophic happen.
I kept the D rated system, just for the extra sliver of jump range, and I'm well outside the safe range that even an A rated system would offer, but the D system feels utterly useless - I might as well have none at all -- this is irrational fear, just my animal brain-stem asserting itself. The low-end life support will come in handy if I need to take the power plant offline for any reason, like repairing it. Is that even possible? Can the AFMU function with the power plant disabled? Seems like a very important question, but it didn't even occur to me to ask it while in the showroom. Will the life support oxygen be replenished once the power plant comes back online, or do I have only 5 minutes of time to repair the power plant on this entire journey? That just occurred to me - maybe I should have gone for the A rated life support after all. Maybe I should go back.
You only life once, though, so I should press on and not let these jitters get to me. But that's exactly it, isn't it? You only live ONCE. Have I sealed my fate by not preparing well enough in advance? I feel I've been blind to my most fundamental needs as a living being. I thought so much about everything else, dual AFMUs, dual SRVs, dual fuel tanks, weapons, the best shield generator possible, food and water for months - but I've neglected the most fundamental thing. I've taken for granted the very air that I breathe. If things go well, I could be out here almost indefinitely. But if things go badly, I will have 5 minutes of air to come to terms with my mortality. After that, two to three minutes of sheer panic, a minute of unconsciousness, and then oblivion because as far as I'm concerned, the very Universe will come to an end. I am the center and the entirety of my universe, after all.
Is this what early explorers felt when they pushed away from shore and lost sight of land for the first time? Did I pack enough fresh water to endure the brine? Did they rationalize that it will have to rain once in a while to keep themselves alive? They could no more drink the sea than I can breathe vacuum, yet they pressed on, and colonized Earth. Then they pressed on and colonized the Bubble - and at least the earlier ones, before witchspace, had to contend with limited air, water and food supplies. And yet they pressed on, and succeeded. It's funny though.
History tells of the ones who succeeded. It tells also of some who failed. Some only because they fist succeeded and were therefore famous. Others who failed so spectacularly history demanded to make an example of them. But history doesn't speak of the countless many who died trying what only a few managed to accomplish. It tells of those who crossed the ocean, not those who died trying. It tells of Columbus who discovered an entire hemisphere of Earth for the predominant culture, and of Shackleton whose entire party starved and froze in Antarctica in his pursuit of bragging rights. It tells of Anasti who brought Earth the first sample of habitable soil from Achenar, before the Empire made that system the seat of it's power. It tells of Murugumbu and his Colony ship of ten thousand, all corpses by the time they were found. There are stories of The Missing, and much speculation about their fate. For all we know, they're thriving, and we may have cousins out there somewhere, or bitter enemies because they did leave with at least some animosity on both sides. Who knows.
And here, I'm sitting in my tin can, as the Starman sang, planet Earth is blue and there's nothing I can do. Enough existential dread for now. I'll get about scanning this system an then press on.