Green Meanies
19 Nov 2022Iridium Nova
It's been a long time since I was hyperdicted. Different ship, different century, different life, or so it seemed.For a long time I wondered why they never bothered to hyperdict me again. Ever since their return, I've been hearing stories from my fellow pilots about being hyperdicted. For most of them, it was a brand new experience. In my travels throughout the galaxy, I helped Canonn with their research, collecting Thargoid sensors and probes on occasion, visiting Thargoid sites, and on a few occasions, coming into contact with the giant flowers themselves. In all of that, I never got hyperdicted. And I never fired a shot at them. I didn't all those years ago either. Still haven't, by the way. I never believed they started the war. They might end it though.
On my way back to civilization, I noticed that HIP 22809 was on the way. So I decided to swing by and have a look. After all, the whole reason I came out here was to investigate the Proteus Wave. Well, it turns out that's not going to happen. Attempting to jump into the system got me intercepted by a trio of angry flowers. Well, I guess attempted genocide is a pretty good justification to be angry. I figured that's it for me. There's worse ways for my story to end. But as luck would have it, I was able to just high tail it out of there like a bat outta hell. And the prismatic shield generator held up remarkably well. I never imagined I'd get to test it against Thargoid weapons, seeing as I've gone to some lengths to avoid antagonizing them.
That said, the experience dug up some PTSD. The last time I got hyperdicted I lost 100 years. Instantly I gave up on HIP 22809 and beelined back to humanity. And as luck would have it, the CG system was on the edge of the bubble where I would be arriving. But unfortunately it wasn't going to be that simple. A couple of jumps out and I was hyperdicted again. Once again my shields were vibrating under a torrent of alien aggression. But they held - impressively well in fact. Prismatics are good, of course, but against the Thargoid weapons, it was almost like I was in god mode or something. Which is odd because during my investigation into the truth behind the prismatics, I got real familiar with their specifications, and there's no reason they should be performing this well against Thargoids.
Now, I'll admit, I'm no expert when it comes to fighting Thargoids, but I know people, and I do my homework. Thargoid weapons can deal damage through shields, even prismatics. That wasn't what I was seeing. Furthermore, I don't have a shutdown field neutralizer, and yet somehow I was also protected from that well known Thargoid ability. In short, I was slower to escape this time but during that time I became very aware of the fact that this Thargoid could not scratch me. I don't know if Thargoids can express emotion, but if so, I think that screech it made at me was either puzzlement or frustration.
But I don't shoot at Thargoids unless I have to. So even though it shot at me, I just turned and left. After that, getting back to the bubble was simple. Along the way I came to the realization that whatever was going on with my shields had to have something to do with the modifications I've done to the unit, some of which were done with materials I salvaged from that base in Grebegus last year. It's possible some of those parts were a little more special than they seemed.
I've decided not to throw out all this junk I'm carrying around after all. I'm just going to get a bigger storage area.