EXPLORATION LOG 6 : The Inevitable Lone Exploders’ Philosophical Ruminations.
24 Mar 2022Creamy Goodness III
23 - 03 - 08 22:51
I am a positive person, but the Ass (my pet name for the ship I've been lent, Assistance 5) is denting my natural good will to all. It lands like a fat-arse flung haphazardly at the closest chair, and the footprint is so awkward the gear arrangement won't let one touch down if the surface is not big and flat enough to build a landing pad and flight control tower. It really is a poor choice for what I'm currently engaged with. I am sorely tempted to turn around and ask Wiggy if I have earned enough exploration data to buy a Dolphin, have him sort it out, then jump back to where I was.
Thank you for allowing me to sound to my professional abrasions, I feel much better.
I decided to pop down to a large Ice body with decent gravity for tonight, but before settling in I went to see what the single Bio return was, and I found this.
This chap found it necessary to grow it's own cage, thus my question. What the bloody hell is on this planet that is so damn dangerous, even flowers put themselves in a cage?
Think I'll get back in my ship and find somewhere else to bed down for the night.
Ta-tar for now log.
24 - 03 - 08 22:08
Time and boredom, for me at least, is the fertile ground that germinates the seed of philosophy, or rather deep thought and speculation. While I’m out here hopping from star to star the same way I used to pop into town in my car as a teenager, I’m reminded that a scant few hundred years ago, space flight was strictly limited and the FSD was the stuff of fantasy.
Back home, a chap like me is quickly dismissed when one start talking social philosophies, but out here I’ve only my self to talk with. What I have found is my ignorance is as interesting to explore as the patch of our galaxy the Ass is pointed at.
I’ve complained about the properties of the Ass I’m sat in, but it’s packed with technology I have no idea how to make, and barely understand why it works, yet I’m using it to gather snippets of information that wiser people than I, can add to their puzzle box and perhaps revile more of the bigger picture.
It truly is mind-bending that something that could be called the trigger of a new epoch is now available to any old Joe with a ship capable of housing an FSD. We tend towards use it to make money, and forge war, yet very few extremely clever people use it to peer a little further beyond the wall of ignorance.
It's that wall of ignorance that seems to be getting taller thanks to the return of absolution... or is that the absolutist? Well, my point is, I'm noticing more people gathering behind a point of view, and choosing to blindly deny anyone that doesn't believe every tenant of their inherited view. Not only that, we are actively happy to demonise the people that have now been labelled 'other'.
Out here, one can see how an inflation of divisiveness is getting in the way of clever people identifying and stating unbiased facts extrapolated from natural laws. Information that will, in the long run, benefit the entirety of the human race. Somehow, those facts of creation are not correct if the wrong person voices the discovery. I wonder how far one can take devotion to a political or social idea, before it becomes indistinguishable from a cult? One can't help but wonder if ones' own much celebrated open and free of judgment out-look is really what I perceive it to be. After all, I am a product of the same society that is looking for any reason to fracture and divide into smaller subcultures.
Personally, I have enjoyed flying all over the bubble, sampling the endless diversity of the ever-changing human condition. Other than a few loud voices shouting ill-informed prejudices and violently acting on them that need to be educated in better communication techniques, we are all capable of gathering together to find out what it is we are doing that is bothering the Thargoids.
When I was flying Meta Alloys out of Maia, the Thargoids would often pull us out of witchspace, have a look at our ship and then leave. It happened with such frequency, it became something I looked forward too. I kept oil-fueled flashing coloured lights to flash, I played music in case they could hear inside my ship, I wave at them while the ship was shut down. What I never did was shoot at them. I know we have a history with the Thargoids, but on a personal level they never bother us unless we steal their property or drop into a hot zone. It's our collective they seem to have a problem with, just like the absolutist.
If we continue to fight them where ever they appear, one of four things is going to happen. Annihilation, domination, migration or negotiation. Half of those options could be labelled as extinction events, and we have a good chance of being on the receiving end of that. After all, we can't stop fighting with each other. Can't say I've ever seen the Thargoids shooting each other down don'cha know?
As a boy was lucky enough to have an epiphany thanks to nanna Goodness. I was six at the time I believe. We were in the west tower eating sweet biscuits and dipping them in our tea. I was looking out over the upper meadow when I imagined a big alian ship lading outside and strange people stepping out. I thought of them looking up at our window with the intention of coming to get us. I asked nanna what she would do if aliens landed outside, thinking she would call grandad to come with his troops, and he would ask the Duke to send the Imperial navy to make them go away, so the Imperial flag could fly free over the Summerlayton estate once more! What she said completely surprised the adversarial little boy I used to be.
She looked out the window for a moment and said, "I would offer them a cup of tea" then she smiled and gave me another biscuit.
Apart from the swell of rushing hormones as a teenager that turned me into a well-spoken lout, that thought of offering someone I automatically assume to be hostile a friendly gesture has stayed with me. From my recent experiences, I think we could all do with offering people we are ready to label the 'bad guy' a friendly hand, and a chance to prove us wrong. I know that is going to be hard to do with the Thargoids, but from what I hear, there is a fair chance they may live in witchspace.
If the galaxy isn't big enough for us to live together, and another dimension isn't enough of a wall between us, we have to be doing something to vex them. What if evey time we make an FSD jump, we are putting holes in the Thargoides' witchspace lawn.. .. or worse.
We'll never know if we don't offer them a cup of tea and a bit of a chat.