The Work and the Startling Discovery
05 Jun 2023Taneth
Day 24 | 25,980LY from Sol | Errant Marches | Bludgaea SectorLeft the DSSA ship feeling pretty accomplished, due to the insane amount of credits on my name, but also pretty hungover due to the copious amounts of alcohol I consumed at the bar. Someone like me having access to lots of money might be a real problem.
Then the work set in. Jump. Scan. Jump. Scan. Jump. Scan. Fly. Scan. Land. Scan. Jump. Scan.
This is the part I was waiting for. I've experienced it once before, and I knew I'd be pushing my mental limits this time. What they never tell potential explorers in the vids is how in between all the amazing, overwhelming beauty and excitement of big finds are all the lifeless, empty, or 'same-style' systems you get to encounter. It's still a privilege to be the first to see these worlds, sure, but... hell maybe it's human nature. Eventually you stop feeling it and you're just doing the work of exploration.
And it is work. Endless work. Work that won't be finished in my lifetime.
Finally arrived in the Errant Marches. Continued following the edge spinward until I caught wind of a POI that might be worth seeing, try to break up the monotony, ya know? So I turned coreward and we'll see if it's worth the detour. Might have paid off actually, as my nav route is showing a lot of systems with no known data. Could pay off big.
But then I was interrupted and startled when I finished mapping a planet with some biological systems. I wasn't expecting a targeted signal, something you see all the time back in the bubble but not out here. It just came up as "Nonhuman Signature." I blanched, but I had to see what it was. Maybe it was something I needed to report back on, or something new and truly undiscovered. Only one way to find out, right?
I ended up finding two busted up 'goid sensor assemblies. I scavenged the parts I could, and left it sitting on the surface. If I had weapons on this boat I would've blasted them. Goids. This far out. On the edge of the damn galaxy. I left the bubble to get away from them and from their war! But here is evidence of them. Even here.
This sits uneasy with me, and I don't think I'm going to be able to shake it off for a few days. I need to think about something else, and maybe pop open another bottle of this brandy. So... signing off.