Cutting a Path: Voyages through the Great Eternity - Entry 1
21 Jan 2022Ocilis
It has been far too long since I left the comfort of Jameson Memorial, far too long since I've jumped through witchspace to virgin stars and laid the first human eyes upon new worlds and incredible anomalies. I've made a few abortive journeys out of the bubble before in 3307, never got more than about 8k LY before it called me back for other duties. Not this time. This will be a long voyage with no set destination and no schedule: just me, my ship, and the wonders of the cosmos. Leaving the comforts of the bubble behind will be tough, but when you fly an Imperial Cutter, you bring comfort with you. The dockhands at Jameson took a day to rip the tuned-up modules out of Airmid (my Anaconda) and fit them in the vessel which shall be my home in the void, the cutter Magna Aeternum. She'd been christened Azrin's Folly back when I made my fortunes in the LTD boom, but I figured a change of duties needed a change of name. Whilst they were putting the ship together to speck I got to pondering my route in the bar. We're not aiming for anything special, just to go see the sights beyond the bubble. So I pulled up the galmap, scrolled around for what looked like the road less travelled, and set my sights upon the Statue of Liberty nebula. I also joined up with the Stellar Cartographers Guild, since it's nice to share your stories with like-minded fellows. With this incredibly important thinking done I bunked down for the last time at Jameson, packed what belongings weren't already shipboard, and headed down to the bay.
Magna Aeternum is as beautiful as they come, a handcrafted masterpiece of Gutamaya styling and Imperial craftsmanship. Why most explorers strip down their Asp's or Diamondback's or Anaconda's for long expeditions into the void has never really made sense to me: if you're going to spend months in your ship isolated from human contact, the last thing you'd want to do is strip out all the stuff that makes piloting bearable. All the internals are top-spec A-rated or D-rated where suitable, I've got a veritable garage of SRVs for planetary exploration, an armoury stocked with every weapon and suit there is to buy, and a fighter bay for zooming around canyons or fending off deepspace pirates. speaking of pirates, she's packing a full battery of pulse lasers and a pair of AX autocannons to deal with whatever might come our way. I've also got some company too! Rayna my trusty fighter pilot is along to keep me sane, and I've got a few aides from whatever court my princedom belongs to as entertainment and to keep me in a custom befitting an imperial prince.
We set off on what I thought would be a nice and gentle adventure to the Statue of Liberty Nebula, some 5k LY "east" of the bubble in the Outer Orion Spur. Since we're so close to the bubble there weren't too many interesting systems, and certainly no unexplored systems, along the flight path until we passed by the Thargoid-infested Coalsack Nebula. In the "PRAEA EUQ IA-A D136" system I ran into my first terraforming candidates, one of whom hadn't been mapped before! Once the mapping had been done I gunned the engine and we descended through the thin atmosphere to touch down on this relatively barren space rock. Unfortunately, I'm still not quite used to atmospheric flight and in my exuberance might have belly-flopped the cutter onto the rocky surface. Getting out to inspect the damage (nabbing the first footfall as a bonus) revealed a few scrapes and some moderate damage to the underside, so I plotted a course for the reportedly-nearby mega-ship Gnosis. Unfortunately, I arrived in-system mere hours after it had departed, so we had to jump a dozen systems over to a private fleet carrier for repairs.
As I waited for the engineering crews to patch up my ship I got thinking about where I really wanted to go. After all, I'd set my sights on Sag A* months ago before having to turn back, so why not really commit to exploring and make my way to destinations more than 10k LY from the bubble. It was high time I visited Colonia. As I sit here in my cabin writing the Magna Aeternum is 1,447 LY from the bubble and over 20k LY from the end goal, Colonia. I've got a waypoint set for the "SKAUDIA AA-A H71" nebula (a very creative name) and we're still a bit over 10k LY from the waypoint system there. Since changing course there hasn't been too much to note, though I recently mapped out 2 water worlds and an ammonia world in one system which should net me a pretty penny once I turn those in. Got some drone shots of the ship in front of the ammonia world I've dubbed "Foster's" to prove it to UC.
I'll try to take proper notes over my next few stints of flying for the next entry.
This is Commander Ocilis of the Magna Aeternum signing off.
Magna Aeternum above the site of bellyflop
Leaving the site of my poor belly landing
I wonder if they still make foster's here?