Wolves, Giants and Whales, Oh My! :)
21 Aug 2018LongDistanceClara
Fair warning and apologies - this one is a little bit geek-heavy 
So if you're not really into exploring, it might be a little dry! I just wanted to get back into some proper explorey-type poking around, rather than just flooring it about the place, so I popped up to my "pumpkin patch" of shiny things out to the west and - yep, geek heaven
I honestly ended up running into all of the stuff listed here in just one day of poking around, which might be normal for some but was a little unusual for me to say the least! If anyone's interested in the specifics or where to go and poke around for similair sites, by all means ping me a pm and I'll be happy to pop the details in a post - as daft as this might sound, I thought it felt a bit snotty to post them all here in the log and it wouldn't really fit with Clara's goofy style
So again, apologies if you're not that into the explorey side of E:D, just ignore this and hopefully will be back to more of the rp-type stuff soon, especially as the Gnosis jump nears next month!
Apologies for any errors also, I'm very much running on fumes as I write this one >.< I'm a little bit weirded out right now
It's only been what, a little over a day since my last log entry; and usually I don't record logs in such quick succession since, let's be honest, I don't usually have anything particularly insightful to say (and I can almost hear Coral mentally fitting in the "or ever" in that sentence
)! This time, however, the log pretty much wrote itself. In the past twenty-four hours, I've seen so much pretty! Due not in small part to the gorgeous ship that we just bounced out north and back in...
A little over a day ago, we woke up good and early, quietly fired up the thrusters (as quietly as you can in a ship the size of a small country!) and slipped out of Sacaqawea Port, with just over ten k left to Coeus in Colonia. No scans on the way out and pretty soon we were smoothly cruising along the plot towards our destination. We still hadn't heard a peep about our mysterious passenger but honestly, I wasn't too fussed; the ship was performing beautifully and was almost surreally nimble in supercruise, as we did the old last-second-slide into the neutron ejection cones and fired along the route. Although I couldn't help but keep thinking "if only I could squeeze a slightly bigger scoop in..." - some people are just never satisfied
Three jumps left...two...one....drop out of witchspace, out booms the ADS, Foster Port locked in on the nav panel and off we go. A few minutes later and we're dropping out of supercruise into OHCRAPCRAPCORALHELPKILLTHETHROTTLE-
Seriously guys, a little headsup would've been nice. Shieldless Belugas and asteroid fields do not a good time make - at least not when sober
But after my heart rate had subsided to something slightly less than a drum roll, I was able to enjoy the view; and full marks Foster, you are a very handsome looking home in a beautiful setting!We rather gingerly squeaked through the asteroid field, very conscious of our lovely Beluga's behemoth hull and swung her around to find our allocated docking pad. You know how the old saying goes, that cats always land on their feet? I swear there's some similair saying that my docking pad is always the most awkward/on-the-other-side-of-the-ship/furthest-away pad available. As I brought us around to the pad, we got a good look at the hulk's thrusters (thankfully in station-keeping mode) and as big as the Beluga was, she was just dwarfed by this beast!
Skids down. Secondaries off and down into the hangar - and as the pad locked into place, I was just about to ask Coral "What now d'you reckon?" when one of those slabs of beef came through the cockpit door and told us to wait. Cue a really awkward ten minutes of the irrepressible Coral trying to make small talk with this henchman guy, until a rather better dressed and slightly less monolithic guy poked into the cockpit, had us sign some forms, thanked us, then left with Stoneface McGee in tow.
So - what? That's it? The ship is ours?
As it turns out - yep! Done! Sold! Hurrah! And so we spent a good few hours running around its' never-ending interior; and I could go into great detail here, but I've got so much stuff to log in this one that'll have to wait for another time. We'd pretty much decided that night in Sacaqawea that we'd take her north up to our favorite "shinies" hunting ground and check out some fun stuff through the massive cockpit window. Thankfully, Foster Port was all about exploration and before long, we had a fairly decent fit sorted.
Food - check. Caffeinated beverages - check. Anything else - newp, we're good. Time to head off into the 'CLANG' - for crying out loud, docking permission requested, repair, let's try that again...
A few slightly less embarrasing hours later and we were well and truly up into "the fun stuff". I discovered this patch some time ago and it has never failed to put on a show; and sure enough, very shortly we were pulling up into a beautiful little system.
Here's the tricky one. The top and bottom star? They're both in a nice little dance with each other, about sixty light seconds from our ship. They are however orbiting the middle star - which is about ten thousand light seconds off in the distance behind them. Perspective's a bit of a tricky one when all you've got to compare are celestial light bulbs! But yep - big old honking A-class supergiant, right there
As we trotted deeper into the patch, more beautiful sights jumped up and down for our attention, made just utterly stunning by that wonderful single-piece crystal-clear canopy. When these two little ringed beasties lined up in front of us, it almost felt like you could get out of your chair, reach out and touch them - honestly, just full marks Saud-Kruger - job very well done
And yet the crazy was only just beginning. Blind jumping along, glorious sight after glorious sight and- is that a- yep. That's a Wolf-Rayet. These things are gorgeous, just so big, bright and beautiful. And HOT - we brought the Beluga in as close as we dared but nothing like as near to the photosphere as we could have gotten with a chillier hull.
I think the excitement may have gotten the better of me, as I launched an SLF for a better peek; but very quickly both mothership and fighter were screaming their protest at the blast of radiation sweeping over them. A hasty dock, a muttered apology to the ship and we quickly withdrew to a safer distance in the cool dark way outside the corona.
They're not exactly a dime a dozen these things, so to find a hitherto undiscovered Wolfie was a lovely little surprise, especially as we hadn't been looking for one. But then - then we got greedy
And started poring over the galmap to see if we could sniff out anymore...What happened next was just bizarre. Over the course of the next several hours, we found undiscovered Wolf after Wolf after Wolf... it was beyond weird. From all different classes, no less - NC's, N's, O's - everything from the mesmerizing purple fiercely hot giants through the blues to this rare little yellow gem;
I'll be perfectly honest, that's the first time I'd ever seen a yellow Wolf Rayet. At first I thought I'd misread the scans, and that it was the adjacent star - but newp, that was a huge O-class about twenty-two thousand light seconds away. Throughout the night and the following day, we just kept finding these rare beasts, interspersed with some more gargantuan supergiants - one of whom topped the scales at slightly over half the size of that stellar behemoth, VY Canis Majoris.
After a while (and the briefest of naps!), we decided enough was enough; we'd located a final likely candidate and as we dropped in, sure enough - another Wolfie.
This one seemed to have a fairly nearby companion - nothing unusual about that; most of the WRs we'd seen in the past day or so were in a dance with various O's, B's and A's. Since it was so close, I thought "sure, let's go take a peek", so I brought up the nav panel and - half a million light seconds? Newp, sorry, not this lazy pilot! Let's get go - wait, half a million and it's that visible? Let me just target it for a sec - holy crap, it's scanning!
Yep - a HUGE supergiant. I had this very surreal feeling that someone was playing a galactic practical joke, it was a little unnerving. The scan finished, I looked at Coral - yep. This has been great but - super weird! Let's get back to Foster asap and get these logged with Unicart before the universe catches on.
I'll be honest, being fairly exhausted at this point didn't help with the whole "surreal" vibe; and when we came across a nice little Earth-like squarely in our spool-up path, it was almost a relief to have a slice of normalcy and swing by to take some pics;
God I love that view
Jump-jump-jump - hi Foster, can we land please, I promise I won't ding you again! Skids down, into the hangar, hook up with the Unicart interface in station and nervously wait for confirmation the data was logged - aaand yep, done.
SO - the final tally; in a little under 24 hours, we'd discovered 2 carbons, 5 supergiants (and some HONKING big ones at that!) and 14 Wolf-Rayets of every size, shape and flavour, and a whole bunch of pretty besides. And we finally decided on a name for our ship - Ylva, which seemed appropriate after all the Wolfies we'd run into on her maiden voyage!
I think it's time for a little well deserved sleep coma before we figure out what the hell we're doing next - but I feel like we both need a dose of the humdrum for a little while! Take care out there you guys and don't let the space crazy get you!
(Oops almost forgot! Many thanks to Cmdr Leomon for the Coeus/Foster recommend - it's an utterly breathtaking station, an amazing jumping-off point for heading north and apparently a really good luck charm! So thanks once again
)