Update 2: Home, and the horse that got me there.
29 Sep 2020"Red" the Pirate
So, I made it home. 54Klys, repairs at Explorer's Anchorage, a detour halfway to Colonia, and a carrier ride home, I've finally made it back. Yep, you read that right. Against my better judgement, I've entrusted another Commander with getting me home. Saw the drama unfold in the bubble around the Empire, and caved to hitching a ride on a carrier. But not without a stop at Sag A* though.Had mostly everything repaired, including the FSD booster. Got lucky there. But probable didn't need to.... sort of.
Once the drama broke out, I started scouring the channels, looking for a reliable carrier owner for a quick ride back home. One of those carriers, the Mystic Explorer, just so happened to be on a rescue mission beyond Colonia. They didn't have the fuel to re-route to Sag A*, so I arranged to rendezvous at a black hole at the center of a small nebula. At least the repaired FSD booster was able to push my 'vette past 32lys in one jump.
The ride was rather relaxing. Gave me time to reflect on my journey, and more importantly, what I was going to do once I got back home. Particularly in regards to Palin. Now, Canonn itself has decided not to support the "Turning the Wheel" initiative, citing neutrality. And thus, I had no intentions of jumping aboard either, until "the club" decided to throw me across the entire galaxy. Now it's... personal. Dumped all my exploration data at one of the Dark Wheel stations, hoping it would at least help them in the slightest. I do plan on helping them out in the future too, but definitely not in the Corvette. The internal damage from the mis-jump and all the subsequent jumping is going to take months to fully repair. I would scrap it and use the parts to build another, but... this ship in particular is far to valuable to me to even consider such a thing.
...
And then there's Palin, and his data. I've already swapped ships, landed in Arque, questioned Palin, and observed his documentation. Palin maintains his innocence, and his documents seem to support that. Except where he made his breakthrough. I was right about him being fed misinformation. Apparently, the mathematics were near perfect, but still impossible. Just one piece of the data he gathered was fraudulent, but that was just enough to throw him off. And me across the galaxy.
The modded probe was a part of it, too. It seemed to not only attract a 'goid, but a medusa specifically. But most importantly, when picked up by said medusa, would emit a radiation that would interfere with a 'goid's witchspace conduit's ability to repel human ships, allowing them to pass through it. At least the data wasn't entirely garbage after all....
...
But that's for later. As of now, I'm off to [REDACTED], to see the rest of my [REDACTED]. The vast majority of them don't miss me, obviously, since they're just robots and [REDACTED], but I sure as hell miss them.
Yet again, another repost from here.