Fire on the Mountain, Run, Boys, Run!
18 Jul 2022Ember Lacson
I managed to get the full hold of Guardian artefacts transferred over to Bright Sentinel last night, but when I returned to my carrier I returned to a mahoosive fire in one of the docking bays. Six of them are currently out of order, and it'll take some time to fix them. I can still head out and gather mats for Gauss ammo synthesis, but it'll probably be a month before everything is back to 100%. Maybe I should just leave my carrier where she is and head out in my DBX, Ennaveth, which I've outfitted with a Scorpion to use against the Sentinels.Then again, I might just stick around and see what happens with the Proteus Wave. There are less than 24 hours on the clock, and I think they'll activate it soon after the countdown expires. Probably at the end of the call for defense. Maybe I'll try to snag some more bonds before "the bulk of the Thargoid fleet" is kill switched.
I was actually thinking before I went to bed yesterday, I still don't trust Salvation. I've helped him out several times, and he's certainly produced results, but let's be honest here. Our best and brightest have been trying to understand the Thargoids for centuries, and they're still largely a mystery. We know how to kill them, and we've gotten good at it, but most of our infrastructure was dedicated to watching, waiting, and reacting. Then this Salvation guy arrives out of the blue claiming to have a weapon that will wipe them out en masse. And lo and behold, the SOB did it. And he did it again. And he's poised to do it yet again. Where did he dig up this knowledge, this tech, this...whatever? Thinking about the resurrection of the extinct as I finished the film The Lost World: Jurassic Park, I can't help but wonder...what if he's a Guardian?
I mean, it's generally accepted that the Guardians lost the war against the Thargoids and became extinct, but the galaxy is an enormous place, and there are still tens of millions of stars no CMDR has ever visited, let alone honked at. Maybe they're still out there. Maybe all those weird "unknown permits" keeping us from exploring large swaths of this galaxy have something to do with the remnants of the Guardians protecting themselves from trespassers, be they Thargoid or human.
If Salvation is a Guardian, will he team up with Ram Tah and give us the full size Guardian hybrid AX combat ships that have been living rent free in my head since the first time I saw a Trident? Time alone can tell. Maybe I should sketch out my designs and send them over.
EDIT: Apparently I'm out of the loop. He's just been researching Thargoids since the previous war in the 32nd century. Still, I think the Guardians could still be out there somewhere. And I still don't trust Salvation, especially since I know he worked for INRA.
Author's Note:
I live out in rural California. Agricultural territory, mostly nut and rice farmers. Today, as I was about to put together my synth material shopping list, a structure fire just over a mile (1.15 mi, 1.84 km) from my house sparked a huge, fast burning vegetation fire. This is just a week and change after another fire sparked just over a mile in the opposite direction (1.31 mi, 2.11 km). But unlike the previous one, this one was burning north, toward me. CAL FIRE ordered mandatory evacuations, so I grabbed everything I couldn't replace, stuffed it in the back seat of my car, scooped up my cat, and helped my family load. A huge tanker jet flew low over my house to dump retardant on the northern edge of the fire, which was just 1.1 km/0.69 mi away—a tiny distance when it comes to rural California wildfires. Helicopters also used a pond across the road to ferry water to the front line. As I drove past the fire on the way to our evacuation point, I saw one of my neighbors on his tractor plowing a fire break, as well as another neighbor's dozer and another neighbor's white water truck, now pink from the tanker's payload. Add them to the heroes of the day for sure. The evac order got lifted after probably twenty to thirty minutes, because the fire was almost completely contained by the time we actually left. My poor cat forgave me pretty quick for scooping her up and tossing her into a hot car (I immediately got the AC running and cracked the sunroof to let the heat out, don't worry). But I was taken aback at just how underprepared I was.
Take-aways from today:
- Have at least one fire extinguisher in your house. Know where it is. Know how to use it. Make sure it's in working order and not expired (yes, they expire). If you have multiple outbuildings, you should have an extinguisher in each one. Also learn which types of extinguishers work on which fires.
- Put a go-bag together. Always know what you're going to take if you have to evacuate right now. I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off for far too long. I grabbed stuff I probably didn't need to, and I missed stuff I probably should have grabbed.
- If you need to evacuate, know where you're going. Know multiple routes to where you're going. I missed my turn because I couldn't remember which street the community hall was on. I only go there to vote. Fortunately I knew there was a cross street, so I made it without having to turn around.
Fly dangerously, but look out for yourselves IRL, CMDRs. O7