Total solitude (with friends)
19 Aug 2022Valanga
I'm going to apologize to myself for not keeping up with this log over the past several days, but it's been quite busy. The ongoing strife in the Bubble as a result of Salvation's reckless assault on the Thargoid race had given me no shortage of things to do. And gerrymandering the elections in Almagest was a rather time-consuming process - a fight that I ultimately relied on proxies to finish.Before even seeing the political process through, I had to depart for the Eta Carina nebula some 9,000Ly away. It had been the destination for CMDR Aiso's first major expedition into the black, and while they did arrive in one piece, they misjudged a planetary landing and sustained more than a little hull damage. Understandably, they're afraid to leave the surface of the planet with their Asp Explorer in its current condition, so I ripped out the fighter hangar from the Ancient Scapes, installed a repair limpet controller, and set off for the vast unknown.
The past several days have just been the same thing on repeat: wake up, put myself together, start jumping from system to system, full-spectrum scan, acquire surface map data of any bodies of interest, scrape samples of local flora off the surface of any planet with signs of life, and then do it all over again except 60Ly closer to Eta Carina. I've got it down to enough of a science at this point that it's not severely impacting my ability to move along the route expediently. CMDR Aiso has assured me that they have enough supplies to last a few weeks, so time isn't necessarily of the essence.
But understandably, I've not really had time to scribble down my own musings.
And now I do, because I've just arrived in the Eta Carina nebula. So let's unpack.
The night sky is painted a rich vermillion here. It's really quite a beautiful sight, both from the inside and from a distance. Nebulae have always been one of my favorite things in the black - star factories full of truly alien sights.
In fact, nothing about this place feels quite natural.
Galaxy Map reports several systems with a Guardian presence in a very close vicinity of the nebula. I've found some quite bizarre plant life - or at least, I think they're plants? - on some of the moons around here. And as I'm writing this, I'm sitting in a viridian Lagrange cloud surrounded by spiky and hexagonal crystalline structures in system EL-Y D18. It doesn't even feel real. It feels like some sort of space-madness-fueled fever dream.
And I love it.
It's times like this that remind me why I do what I do. To know that I wield the means to travel from the familiar sights of the Bubble to something as patently foreign as this is more empowering than any Class 4 weapon fixture, more fulfilling than any sum of profits from a Type-9 full of cargo. Exploration is truly what keeps me alive, I think.
But it does get quite eerie out here sometimes, especially knowing how far I am from any other human being. If I mess up, that's probably it.
Well, I guess that isn't totally true. After all, Aiso messed up, and yet here I am, here to save the day. Or at least, I would be, if I had any idea what planet they had beached their ship upon. And they haven't responded to my comms requests, so they may be resting right now - leaving me to poke around the place until they stir and tell me where to go.
Hence why I'm sitting in this Lagrange cloud. Surely this isn't bad for my ship, right? Isn't this just a lot of space dust and gas causing an unnatural discoloration of the local area?
It's probably nothing to worry about. But it is still pretty spooky-looking.
Thankfully, I have a little something to anchor me to the reality I know. I saved some street food that I picked up at Bluford Orbital in LHS 3447. Had to stop by on my way out to renew my Pilots' Federation license - what a lovely 6 hours of waiting around that was! Makes me wish there were more systems occupied by Pilots' Federation local branches... maybe then the wait times wouldn't be so ungodly long.
But at least I got some good eats out of the visit. And it tastes even better when you're 9,000Ly away.
This is CMDR Valanga, off for now.
P.S. I'm sure I'm going to be out here for a while. I'm hoping that I make it back in time to throw some support behind the Alliance-Sirius megaship materials drive. I trust the Sirius Corporation about as far as I can throw them - which is not at all - but they AREN'T Salvation, and they've proposed a reasonable and proactive plan.
But anyway, that's not even the point.
I'm sure I'm going to run into more weird plant life out here. Codex tells me that I found something called a "brain tree" a few systems back. Next time I see one of those, I want to save some plant matter and some of the ground it's growing in, see if I can grow a little one in a pot. They look pretty neat.