CMDR PAUSANIAS - THE SHIP OF THE MIND EXPEDITION - DAY 118
05 Dec 2020Pausanias
A VIRGIN BIOLOGICAL SIGNAL AT LAST, PLUS MY FIFTH EARTHLIKEHi Cmdrs,
It’s been 118 days and 48,000 ltyrs and I’ve finally found a Biological Signal in a ‘virgin’ system. Although it’s brand new to me, as I’ve never seen this type before, ever, someone else has already found a similar one in the Galaxy somewhere else.
Having scanned the system it popped up on the initial scan that there was a Biological Signal on one of the moons in the system, I finished scanning the whole system, mapped the nearest 3 planets that were worth something and then set off to the “Holy Grail” I’ve been searching for. It was 138,000 light seconds out.
What was I going to found out there???
I chose Biological Signal (1) on the moon and went down. This is the first image I took on my decent . . .
Strange spikes, very pointed, thrusting up from the ground and some smoke coming from vents similar to those I’ve already come across elsewhere mingled in amongst them.
I landed and went out in the SRV to investigate taking this shot looking back at the Asp.
They turned out to be called CRYSTALLINE SHARDS with Carbon Dioxide Ice Fumaroles interspersed between them.
If you look at my SRV’s radar you can see hundreds of possible material points.
I popped off quite a few of the material points, they were all Crystalline Clusters and everyone was a piece of Yttrium, I’m full of those, and nothing else could be found on these Shards.
The strange thing here is, these look like they are made of rock but this is a Biological site, therefore I can only conclude the Shards are alive in some way. There was nothing obvious to prove they were living, indeed nothing biological even laying around at all. They displayed no characteristics of life, I sat watching a few close up for a while and nothing unusual occurred.
These are the ones I watched for a while, in this particular place I was practically surrounded by them, there was however an eerie noise throughout the Shard field. Note the main planet hanging above in this image.
I then decided to low-level fly to the nearest Geological Signal which was only 206km distant. I took these three images of the changing terrain as I flew over. This first one shows a small area with blue ice.
Another area with blue ice, these areas appear to be very uneven.
Another shot of the ice, again very rough terrain. This one was taken quite close to the Biological Signal.
Once I arrived the Geological Signal it turned out to be Carbon Dioxide Ice Fumaroles again within a blue ice valley.
I’m pretty sure that once you’ve found either a Biological or Geographical Signal on a planet all of the signals on that planet are the same type, planet wide. To test this I went to the next Biological Signal, which was number 2, and I did in fact find the same Biological Shards I’d found at the first site.
I’ll test this theory again on another planet in the future.
Now for some reason I’d had to drop The Carl Sagan into a system which was near my route, not on it, something to do with sending it 498 ltyrs instead of 450. However, it turned out well as the last system I dropped into before my side step was required had an EARTHLIKE in, and, as a bonus, a Water World too!
Here I can be seen passing the Earthlike, my fifth on this journey. There were no lights on the dark side, so I assume no intelligent life. Although at first I did think there were some lights as I approached, it turned out to be sunlight catching high mountains on the planet, you can just make them out in this image, just above my Asp’s cockpit screen.
I then went to the Carrier system, which was empty apart from the main Star and The Carl Sagan.
Once on the Carrier I handed in a cool 27,500,00 credits for all the planetary data which had been made up of High Metal Contents, Water Worlds and the recent Earthlike.
I’m stopping on the Carrier for the night and hopefully I’ll get a good nights sleep ready for tomorrow’s continued journey to Beagle Point . . .
Total Ship jump distance so far: 97,347
Total planets Level 3 scanned: 32,938
Total exploration data: 967,500,000 credits
Total systems with my name on: 3979
My Ship is now 48,426 ltyrs away from Sol!
Distance to Beagle Point: 20,189 ltyrs
I wonder how long it’ll be before I find another Biological, what will it be . . .
P