Curiosity Almost Killed The Cat
23 Dec 2020Tobias Von Brandt
I did a really dumb thing...So the plan has changed a little bit since my last entry. At the time, I was on my way to collect some Meta-Alloys in the Hyades Sector. I had picked up signs of Thargoid acvitity on my FSS, and so was a little nervous about encountering one in my unarmed DBX. I chose another small planet in the system to rehearse landing at a surface site (i.e. not at a port) and get familiar with the SRV and its tools, as I didn't really have any experience with either and I didn't want to be fumbling with things if there was trouble.
(This was a good idea, I've got the hang of handling it now. I also inadvertently discovered that the Chelone will auto-dismiss herself if I drive too far away and, after a brief moment of "WHERE THE FUCK IS MY SHIP?", learned how to get her to come back...)
But then a thought occurred to me: there are other destinations I wanted to hit while in this region of space, in a nebula with known Thargoid presence, and flying around with a bunch of Meta-Alloys would put a huge-ass target on my back. Would they attack me if I refused to fork them over and fly away empty-handed? The Chelone's not equipped for that fight. So I decided to switch things up. Do my sightseeing first, gathering more exploration data on the way, then come back, pick up the MA's, and get out of Thargoid territory. Good plan.
Jump, honk, FSS, DSS anything of value, lather, rinse, repeat.
As I got deeper into the Pleiades Sector, I started detecting Thargoid sites on some planets. Buzzed one just to scope it out. There was nobody home. (And no ripe barnacles anyway, so I wasn't even tempted.) A few jumps later, my FSS started showing "Non-Human Signal Sources." They're out there. Glad I'm not carrying any cargo that would piss off the locals. This is a good plan.
Except my curiosity got the best of me. I decided to go investigate one of the signal sources. Picked one with a low threat level. Wasn't carrying any cargo. Wasn't going to fire on them. Just want to see. Should be fine right? Wrong. There were two and they opened fire on me the instant I dropped out of Supercruise. (From behind, so I never even saw them.) My shields were immediately toast. Luckily I had already queued up my next hyperspace destination, so I threw the throttle to full and kept boosting until the FSD could jump us out of there.
The Chelone took some damage, but we survived. Definitely not doing that again. (Until I can afford an AX build, then it's on.) We found an asteroid base in the Pleione system to stop at for repairs. First time seeing one of those. Once she's patched up and ready to go, we'll continue on and finish our sightseeing in the Pleiades. I'm eager to see the black hole in the Maia system. One of my buddies told me there are some shipwreck sites nearby that could be worth seeing too. But I'll have to be careful. In addition to the Thargoids, there are also a lot of fleet carriers around the populated systems and I've had to evade a number of attempted interdictions by pirates. We all know the galaxy is a dangerous place, so unless you want to sit at home and do nothing (which I don't), you have to deal with some amount of risk. But at least I will try to be a little bit smarter about when I choose to seek it out.
"Fly away and leave me on the surface, very funny..."
Nearing the Pleiades
Chelone and Stargazer Base