The Center of it All
15 Oct 2019Rex-Cramer
It's been a few days since my last log. I've been pushing on through the jumps and made a few landings as time permitted. It's a bit strange now. The galactic disk was always 'that away'. Things were either towards it, or away from it. It was an anchor for me, a mountain peak in the forest that gave you a sense of direction in the blanket of trees. Now it is all encompassing. In every direction there it is. Now it's a continuous line across the sky. This is most dramatic on the surfaces of planets where the disk spans the entire night sky. A remarkable effect to this bubble-born guy. Soon I was within a handful of jumps of Sag A. and I started to stumble across some previously mapped systems. The disk was now solid all the way around my view. I was excited to see the beast at the heart of the galaxy. I fire up the FSD drive for that last jump and suddenly my cockpit explodes in red warning lights and my ship announces an FSD malfunction. "You idiot" I thought to myself. I'd been so used to exploration near the Colonia region and the safety of a station just a couple thousand LY away that I had completely forgotten the damage to the FSD from those neutron boosts. My FSD was down to 71%. Not only that, but tucked into my module banks was a nice, handy, AFMU. All powered down and still with new-module smell. Sometimes I don't know how I avoid sucking vacuum.
After dropping down and repairing the FSD drive I was able to complete the jump to Sag A. Warping straight into that monster's face is definitely a pucker-up moment. The size and mass of it are staggering and the lensing effect is quite powerful. I took some readings and then largely just idled about and admired it. It's not a grueling trip but it was several days effort in jumping, scanning and mapping to get here. Source 2 is not a disappointment either. Fifteen solar masses of intense heat and 5 solar radius make it an epic monster. You loose scale out here sometimes but the numbers are impressive. I believe that is my largest star thus far.
From there I settled in and jumped to Explorers Anchorage. Man what a location! I can only hope there is someday more human presence in this area. A guy could really enjoy working out here. I touched up the paint, resupplied the AMFU and refueled the SRV. Plotted a course about 1000 light years below and I'm ready to head out. I will be making my way back to Colonia from here.
Flyby of an earth-like near the core:
Next stop, center of the Galaxy:
Rest at Explorers Anchorage:
