Log 01: Home (18 Mar 3307)
18 Mar 2021NullPriestess
Location: ProcyonDistance from Home: 0 ly
Home has a lot of different definitions. Hell, it has different contexts, depending on whom you ask. To some people, where I was born would be home - though, as they say, you can never go home again. To others, my home station, where I've chosen to keep the majority of my vessels and the like; by that measure, you could say Procyon is my home. To others, home might well be where you sleep, and to them... well, I probably have a lot of homes. I'm kind of a nomad. I have quarters on every ship I own, and, believe it or not, I do sleep in them. My quarters aboard the In Majesty Beheld are well used, along with those on the Carte Blanche. But are those home?
Not really, and that's kind of the thing.
To me, home is a single ship: My Phantom, the In Freedom Radiant. I've spent *time* on her, made plans on her. I've been fitting her for long range, deep space operations for the better part of a month (between trading runs and combat sorties, admittedly.) Of all of my ships, she's the one I've put the most thought into, the most worry. What AFMUs does she get? (A class five and a class three - redundant repair systems, for while operating in the dark.) Can I strip down some of her core systems for want of a reason to do otherwise? (Yes, but only in a few cases; I'm unwilling to compromise on some details.) Do I equip hardpoints? (Mining lasers, two of them; I might need to restock in the field, and I don't want to be dependent on having an SRV.) This ship is an expedition in a can - and a promise, to myself. I'm going out there.
And she's also home. I'm taking all the comforts thereof with me.
You wouldn't really think much about it, to look at it, but I've been thinking. Rations are... kind of terrible. An onboard garden will help with that (and zero gravity vegetables taste better; if you disagree with me, you're wrong. Sorry.) Similarly, the amount of coffee I'm taking onboard is likely worrisome by most measures; enough for three months at my usual usage levels. (I don't expect to be out in the black for months, of course, but... expectations and reality, you know.) So on, and so on. I've done a lot of work turning this into a place I can stay for an extended period of time, even while I'm out diving into the black.
Can't wait to see what's out there.