Finding Eden - Part 2
05 Oct 2017LongDistanceClara
Finding Eden - Part 2: Days 2&3
I can't tell if I'm just fed up with all the muppetry of people squabbling - who owns what, who knows the most, who's the best at something; or if I'm just an antisocial so-and-so
Or a healthy combination of the two! All I know is I'm far, far happier out here. I know I've already referenced him, but this kind of thinking always reminds me of part of the Pale Blue Dot soliloquy by Carl Sagan;“.. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the 'Momentary' masters of a 'Fraction' of a 'Dot' ”
Of course, he was trying to prove a point - it can't be considered an absolute or taken out of context - for example, obviously to the parents of a child who fought and died in one of those wars, it's their whole world and very important indeed!
But that only serves to highlight my point; for the last couple of weeks, I've been gritting my teeth against the petty bickering and preening of seemingly more people than ever before - as I say, either a sign of the times or just that I'm becoming a bitter, grouchy old thing or both. At least here in the Cassandra, I can take the easy way out!
Every jump further and further from "civilization" became more and more cathartic
Slowly the number of discovered systems dwindled until eventually we were in that wonderful "it's just us and the stars" zone. Each to their own and all that, I know some people would find it unbearably boring and that's absolutely fine - but to me, this is just so peaceful. Drifting through the void from star to star, taking in the odd spectacle - like this big old coffee bean of a gas giant in close orbit of its primary...
We weren't in any rush; but the upgraded nav computer is just glorious and can factor in neutrons and white dwarves, so why not? The Cass isnt the most nimble of ships and its always needed a little more concentration dropping her into the pulsar stream, but she's done it so many times it's second nature. As the jumps passed, the bubble vanished into the backdrop of the Orion Spur.
Pretty soon we arrived in the region I was hoping to fish for ELW's in; and I swear this happened, without a word of a lie. A few ELW's in, we dropped into a system; the ADS boomed out and the system map popped up - and there was something odd there. Hmm - that's not that common, couple of water worlds in close binary orbit, cool - wait a minute, zoom in...
Ok so it's not the best picture! But that blue blob the Cass is pointing at - that's another ELW, circling the one we're in orbit of. I've only personally discovered one other ELW "binary" in my years of searching (maybe I've just been unlucky!) and this one was amazing - one of the planets was as near-as-dammit perfect too! Near-identical Earth atmospheric composition to within 0.4%, atmospheric pressure at 1.02, .78g, 1 degree cooler than Earth - a real beauty, but dammit - seems to be tidally locked! Bit more checking and sadly it was indeed locked to the primary star. Well, close; it'll definitely get put on the shortlist, but the search wouldn't end here!
It was getting pretty late at this point. The Cass will rest up just fine in space but I generally prefer to set her down and after a bit of mooching around, a few systems later we found a couple of dustballs monkeying around in close orbit of the primary star. We set down on a nice little campsite, right on the rim of a honking great crater with the twin body in the background watching us
Gn buddy!
Early start next morning and we dusted off straight away; the plan was to continue zig-zagging up the galactic arm, looping around the core and up to the top of the galaxy. We seemed to have used up most of our luck the day before - pickings were pretty slim, with the only real diversion being a beautiful golden metal-rich world, bathed in a binary:
As pretty as this was, a few systems later we came across a planet caught in a gravitational tug-of-war between the primary and a nearby gas giant. Its surface showed the effects of the tidal forces beneath, heavily marked by seas of lava and generally looking pretty grim!
Not somewhere I'd like to live! Putting it in the rear-view, we hopped onwards. More and more ELW's began popping up, none of them really ticking the box. That binary still looked to be the leader of the bunch, although later in the day we did come across a slight rarity - a ringed ELW. Unfortunately she was a bit of a big girl, at nearly 2g, but looked lovely as anything through the asteroids;
Distance was kinda irrelevant - we were just aimlessly pinging around - but we'd actually moved quite a long way up the galaxy at this point, despite a very haphazard route weaving drunkenly back and forth across the arm! The eyelids were getting pretty heavy and I felt it was time to heave to for the day. Ok, next system will scan for a decent campsite and EEEEP...
(Real-time)
Bit of a celestial glitter ball! I've come across crazier hyperactive magnetars before now, but I was so tired this guy was a bit of a surprise! After fooling around a bit with the slf, I thought I'd better head before I started doing something really silly. Not long after, we found a fairly non-descript moon - gear down, power down, collapse into bed. We'll see whats out there tomorrow but for now, I think sleep is a reaaally good idea