Logbook entry

Distant Earths Expedition - 3306

Finally, the ship is ready. After a first trial voyage to Sagittarius A+, the deep space exploration vessel "Il Silenzio" is ready.



More than a year has passed since I received this strange contract.

"We need your help, Commander. We're sure you too understand that the Bubble is going to be threatened more and more. And if we fail to stop the aliens... we need an escape plan."

The money they offered... well, I do not have any doubt anymore regarding how serious they was. They asked me to locate as many inhabitable worlds as I can, far away in the void. Worlds we may flee to in case things... maybe I don't want to think about it.

So here I am, planning this expedition, the longest voyage of my career. I will follow the Perseus Arm to its end, till the end of Tenebrae sector. Then I will shift in the Sagittarius-Carina Arm, following it to Beagle Point and Semotus Beacon.

Then, only God knows.

It's time to leave.

The first part of this expedition went quite smoothly. I used the Jackson's Lighthouse to leave the bubble as quick as possible, and then plotted a direct route to the first planned checkpoint, the Skull And Crossbones Nebula. Unfortunately, I did not manage to find any planet suitable for human life, although several ocean-like word has been discovered and mapped. Maybe my generous clients will be interested in the data... otherwise, I will gladly sell the package to the Universal Cartographics.



I also found a couple of those strange Ammonia world... I find the mystery around these kind of world quite intriguing, especially after learned about the Exioce incident.

But the most amazing surprise was waiting for me in the Nebula: the system FG-Y E6 includes two giant B and A stars and 71 planetary objects, rich of geological and biological sites of interest.



There was three different species out there, one of which was a very strange colony of micro-organisms producing beautiful white crystalline structures. The crystalline shards also had another surprise in store: they were very rich in Yttrium, which is one of the materials required for the FSD injections (that will be vital for the success of this expedition, both in Tenebrae and in The Abyss). I was able to fill the capacity of my Yttrium tank without harassing too much the poor colonies.

After a brief exploration of about twenty systems around the Nebula, I'm now on route for the next sector along the Perseus Arm: Achilles's Altar.

Location: Achilles's Altar Sector, Blia Theia cluster
Date: 17th June, 3306

The search for Earth-like worlds has still been unsuccessful in this first part of the expedition. Furthermore, the fate is playing with me a lot, since I'm discovering more of those strange and rare Ammonia worlds.



I must say that the sector itself seems to be a quite uninteresting one. There are no nebulas there to be explored, and the codex lists only two species of biological life discovered. The stars are becoming more sparse as I proceed toward the end of the Perseus arm, and the Milky Way is not the giant bright cloud I was used to anymore.

I'm about halfway to the next waypoint, the Void's Brink. I hope that visiting the worlds that my predecessors have found will give me enough motivation to proceed in my mission. And I hope the next sector along the way, the Lyra's Song sector, will bless me with some good results.

Location: Achilles's Altar Sector
Date: 12th July, 3306

Finally, my wandering in this disappointing sector has been rewarded with an encouraging discovery. I found a perfect environment for an human settlement, far far away from the bubble. Distant Earth 1 orbits around a G-type star very similar to Sol, with also an ocean world and a couple of high metal content bodies: the pioneers that will colonize it should not have any resources issue.

With the morale up high for the first time in the last weeks, I leave this beautiful garden and prepare to enter Lyra's Song Sector.

Location: Tenebrae Sector
Date: 29th July, 3306

It took not so much time to travel through the tiny Lyra's Song sector, but the reward was rich indeed. Distant Earths 2,3 and 4 has been discovered and explored, making this sector of the galaxy a perfect safe zone away from the bubble. All considered, being less then a hundred jumps from the Void's Brink and less then halfway from Beagle Point, I can call this expedition a full success already.



Nevertheless, I can't feel happy about that. Maybe it's the Milky Way getting smaller and smaller after every jump, maybe it's the loneliness... but I feel tired. I started to make little, dangerous mistakes (like the lithobraking manouvre that drained 15% of my hull landing on a metal rich planet) and, I started to feel anxious... almost paranoid.

I would have sworn that I saw a couple of time a moving dot on my scanner, almost at the limit of my sensor range. It can be exciting to meet a fellow explorer out there, thousands of light years from home. But if you start to think you've been followed... well, fortunately the last weeks of exploring has been full of earthlike worlds, space crystals and alien life forms which kept my mind busy.

I will for sure reach the Void's Brink, then I will decide how to proceed the expedition.

Location: Lyra's Altar
Date: 14th September, 3306

I reached the Void's Brink. The little paradise on the very edge of the galaxy was meant to be the half-way check point to Beagle's End, but recently my feelings about this expedition has changed a little. I used to laugh about the stories of the "explorer's depression", but now I'm being so overwhelmed by the darkness out there that I can barely think of even take my way back.



I actually stayed in the system for a long time before I manged to turn my engines on again, with kind of a new flight plan: I will head to Sagittarius A* taking advantage of the neutron highway, then I will visit Colonia for the first time. The money from the contract and all the exploration data selling will be more than enough to stay there for a while.

Right now, I must admit I kinda ignored the difficulty of finding a suitable bridge between Perseus Arm and Sagittarius-Carina Arm. I'm forced to backtrack to Lyra's Altar sector, where I found a possible passage. This little maneuver has costed 51 days...

Location: Hawking's Gap
Date: 19th September, 3306

I finally found a passage to the inner Sagittarius-Carina Arm and made my way to the Hawking's Gap sector. I was expecting to be closer to the galactic center here, but I realized that the Bubble was actually closer at this point... and I made the decision to head back home immediately. I must admit that the turmoil regarding the Prince Duval Assasination and the development of Starship One investigation had a great influence on the decision: whatever is going to happen in the core systems, I want to be there and make my part.
At least I finally had the chance to test my ship "Il Silenzio" through the neutron highway, and I must admit I'm quite impressed. I was able to cover 20000 Ly in far less than one hundred jumps, making the trip back to the Bubble a matter of hours. This will make my future trip planned to Colonia much more easier.

Despite the crazy run, I managed to discover what I think will be the last Distant Earth of this expedition.




I'm now about to enter the Inner Orion Spur, and I foresee to be back in Meikle Dock in a short time.