Old Habits
13 Apr 2022Echofox06
Sometimes, I wonder if I should have been a mechanic.The Degenerate is a bit of a diva. Like all other Anacondas, she wants the best of everything. Don't want to be a giant target for anything out there? Better load up on the biggest guns and lasers you can get. Want to actually use those guns and lasers? That'll be a new power plant. All your heavy upgrades give you the speed and agility of the galaxy's best armed space slug? Get used to hearing "Frame Shift Drive charging," because you'll be making a few trips to the haunts of engineers across Inner Orion. All of Degenerate's core and optional upgrades also begin with a 6, 7 or 8, so I was never going to be canning parts from the Pythons and Asps that got me the credits to buy the big lady's services in the first place.
I shouldn't be complaining. I spent countless hours in the rings of gas giants, fighting off pirates and boredom until I had enough Osmium to trade. I eyed her every time I docked with a full load in the Python, mentally calculating how many more trips I would need to make to buy the crown jewel. I worked for this, and I do love the ship. It has already saved me from more of my stupid decisions than I care to admit. Two days ago, I took on a set of missions to hunt pirates of the Hongbiri Jet Cartel, diving into a group of seven enemy ships like a moron. Maybe my insurers breathed a sigh of relief with me when, instead of experiencing the swift defeat I deserved, my fighter pilot and I managed to take down a single pirate and escape with 25 percent hull integrity remaining. After letting the repair limpets do their thing, I mopped up pirates from the rest of the system, looking more like a professional privateer than I had any right. It's almost as if Degenerate wants me to make these idiotic decisions, out of a sense of smug pride at having kept me alive.
Having had such a thrilling time, I'm now in the Tiraon system, mining the pristine metallic ring around Tiraon II. I'll probably spend the next few days carving up asteroids until I get that 8A power plant, become bored and venture off to nearby systems to blow some more things up for the Federation. The fact that most of my guns and the fighter hangar are stored at Hippalus Hub does serve to make the venture a bit more thrilling, but...it's still mining. I'm literally banging rocks; restlessness is probably just around the corner.
Why do I do this? Occam would say "for the credits," and he isn't wrong. I'm no more immune to the lure of a good payday than any other commander, so if that means doing something mind-numbing, well, sometimes that's just what it means. That said, I'd get more out of it if I learned to embrace one role, if I stopped converting Degenerate - versatile as she is - to so many different configurations. I wouldn't spend so much on shipping for the modules I leave hundreds of lightyears away, at the very least.
But isn't that why we do it? Looking at that galaxy map, seeing how far you are from where you started, then zooming out and seeing how much farther still you can go, does it not invite you to explore yourself as much as the stars?
So I'll be a miner for today. I'll put on some music, get my payday(s...hopefully), and leave Tiraon with more and/or better equipment than I started with. I have a feeling that this journey will go on long enough for me to indulge in a few old habits.