A story of Guardian grinding and Thargoid surprises
02 Apr 2020ThinkingWithPortals
I’d seen the marker on my galaxy map ever since I joined up with the 46&2nd regiment, an odd little green marker way down towards the Pleiades. The note said “encoded/raw farming”. Raw materials I’d never had that much of an issue with, and the Jameson crash had always given me the encoded materials I could trade across for at Antal. I ignored it for the most part.I had just finished up my Guardian expedition. 16 hours of grinding in the Synuefe sector, hundreds of sentinels destroyed, my spreadsheet of required materials was satiated. I had enough Guardian materials to unlock every blueprint. Travelling back, in my Diamondback Explorer, I marvelled at the wonders I would be able to create once I finally got back to the bubble. Once I was there, I remembered that not all goods come at a credit price, nor can they be traded for. HN shock mounts, micro-controllers, and a dozen other commodities were required to complete my task. I plotted out the nearest system to my home, Marici, where I could purchase these commodities. Alas, the DbX is not a hauler, and cargo space was limited.
A badly-timed interdiction dropped me down to 30% hull, and I was not going to risk that again. Switching to my slower but better armed Cutter, I travelled and collected the remaining commodities required. Only one mission gave me real pause. A wetwork mission, assassinating a local general, ConJoint. On my first arrival, he and his entourage of 4 medium ships ignored me. I’d never taken on a Federal Corvette before, but it wasn’t a wing mission so I wasn’t worried. Once I opened fire with my overcharged Plasma Accelerator, I thought it would be an easy kill. Little did I know at the time, this wasn’t your average RNG-build wanted anaconda, it was a battleship. More manoeuvrable than I expected, after the initial volley I had difficulty keeping him in my sights. Before long, his entourage had peeled off my shields and half my hull. Conjoint was down to 40% hull, but I was at 16%, and I didn’t want to spend 47 million on the hope that I could take him down. I jumped away to lick my wounds.
500k credits later, I returned to the system and hunted him down again. Same entourage, same ship, but with a crucial difference; I was wanted in the system. I engaged him again, one plasma shot followed by a boosted ram. His shields barely survived my initial onslaught. I kept on top of him, grinding against him like the tide on a shore. No doubt I’d have to tip my engineer back at the station, to repaint. I’d taken him down to 80% hull, when I realized that something was different about this engagement; SYSTEM AUTHORITIES ARRIVING IN 00M 10S. Activating a shield cell, I desperately tried to finish the fight. Evading me, as though he knew that buying time would mean far more trouble for me, I couldn’t kill him before the authorities arrived. 6 ships jumped in, adding to the 4 that Conjoint already had with him. My cells barely kept up with the laser barrage, but with a desperate hit with the plasma accelerator, I killed him and escaped the system. This was the final piece of my Guardian plan. Handing in the mission and taking the Articulation Motors, I went and finished buying the Class 2 and 3 Turret Plasma Chargers.
I felt like I wanted something new, but more relaxing, so I decided to take my DbX down and check out that squadron bookmark. The new FSD booster reduced the time down to 9 jumps. Back when I wanted to unlock Felicity, I remember it being closer to 40 (type 9s are not known for their range, certainly not ones carrying 400 meta-alloys).
Once in HIP 16613, I noticed that an odd point of interest had shown up in my Nav page. “The Bug Killer”, on a nearby planet. I flew over to check it out, on the dark side of A 1. As I neared my landing site, I saw the wreckage, strewn about a couple hundred metres behind a crashed Anaconda. Night vision was required to land, although the parts strewn about were illuminated by my SRV headlights just fine. Once I landed, I drove my buggy around the site, finding cargo racks filled with precious raw materials and data points revealing the history of the ship. A rather neat place I thought, although the racks were too spread out for any real efficiency. But I figured that a few rounds wouldn’t hurt.
After the first round, I came back, resuming my loops. Then everything turned green. I activated the turret and looked up. A Thargoid was staring at me, its central bulbs enclosed by the canopy examining me as I was examining it. My last encounter I was far more helpless, it shutting down all my electronics before going about its business. Although dual plasma repeaters against a Thargoid, the only way I stood a chance was if the pilot had a stroke and didn’t react. As before, it scanned, and flew away. One more round later, I waited for him to arrive. After maybe 30 seconds of it being a no-show, I took the camera high and looked around. One of their ships was firing a beam at a nearby green cloud I hadn’t noticed before. Intrigued, I drove my SRV across the dark terrain towards the mysterious destination.
As I entered the green cloud, my SRV warned me, HULL INTEGRITY BELOW 50%. My first thought was one of a corrosive atmosphere. My second thought was of how bad my driving was. A small canyon opened, revealing the carnage of a lone SRV, and an occupied escape pod nearby. Scooping up the pod, I then travelled back to the anaconda, discovering that my DbX had despawned in my absence. Either that or a Thargoid had decided it wanted a DbX bobblehead.
Every time I return there, a Thargoid arrives, as though they are drawn to the site like I was. I’m led to wonder if they’re just curious as we are, or if their intentions at this site are more sinister than idle curiosity.