Time to get serious - Welcome to 3305
01 Jan 2019Mike Probably
3305. A new year starts after stepping back behind the controls in 3304.It has been a while. 30 years in fact. Things were simpler, back then. Looked simpler. And even if it does not feel that way, it was the same galaxy. So, I came back. And found out that they lost the paperwork.
The Elite status, gained in other times, gone. It meant something, back then. You followed a code of conduct, back then, wearing that badge. It was a question of honor.
Maybe it still is, today, for some. Guess I will find them, in time. Among the young ones, or the grey hounds, like myself. Had a look around, in those past months of 3304. Re-established some of my cred, as Explorer. Flew to the Founder’s World. Heard that the Dark Wheel was still there, found them, too. Not so sure about them, though. Felt like just another faction, doing business, giving their rational for jobs too easy and without finesse. Would the old guard really do that? But then… would they allow for someone else to use their name? Unlikely, that one, but it may be a front, a bone thrown to the dogs, making the kids hop through the loops. All the fractions do it. And we all play the game, some in need of the money, others of the cred, or, how it was for me, the access.
Access to people, to planets, to whole systems. Did not want to believe it, at first, that my ship refused to make some jumps. Heck, could have lived with the powers that be telling me ‘you go there, we will be your end’. Would not have expected differently, in fact. But my ship refusing to work? How did they ever get that much control?
Still, you play by their rules, you get there eventually. Well, to most places. Not to all. And that is where it gets interesting.
So, time to get serious. Time to become Elite again – not just to have the rank.
Welcome to 3305.