The Zoomies
26 Nov 2020LongDistanceClara
//If I can claim ONE skill (because apparently faceplanting stars doesn't qualify) - I have an unerring ability to come up with nerdy stupid ideas!
Although in all fairness, this one isn't too nuts, it's very "doable" without having to hang an IV bag of coffee and hopefully I should actually be able to get some good scanning, poking and exploring done whilst zooming about. Looking forward to getting back in the groove! Little footnote thanks at the end.OOPS - almost forgot: happy thanksgiving to those across the pond!
The Zoomies
This is much more my thing.
I have us locked up tight about one light minute from a nice balletic pair of binaries in very close orbit of one another; it's always funny to come across stuff like this. The maths on the orbits of these guys isn't at all sustainable - but then very little is for all eternity! We drop in on these things in the briefest snapshot of their lives which, given that they often span billions of years, means a day, a month, a year is the most infinitesimal fleeting instant! So every now and then, the universe puts on a show for us and (added bonus) gives us one heck of a sun tan!
Lot of lightbulbs!
We're scuttling back to the bubble after our last supply run up to our secretive colony north of the core. They should be set up with everything they need for a while, which frees Coral and I up to do some actual exploring for the first time in what feels like forever!
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Since my last log, we'd carried on out into the Orio-Persean conflux, wandered aimlessly further up to the north, pinballed around the Abyss sector for a bit, then lazily started wandering back down through the core. I couldn't help but idly sniff around for a potential new earth-like hideyhole, since our current one had become occupied! There were plenty of candidates but I knew from experience, it would probably be quite a while until we came across that perfect gem which ticked all our boxes!
We did however find the usual plethora of shinies, one of which ended up giving our poor Krait a dripping nose. I'd dropped us into a system not too far from the core when the FSS had pinged up a couple of fun little ringed planets in close orbit of one another and the primary star. As good a place as any for a lunch stop! One of the planets was riddled with geysers and it wasn't long before our trusty ship was crunching down into the sands surrounded by a field of hissing little vents.
I love these geysers; they're pretty non-descript, extremely common and yet - cue anthropomorphising! - I love how they give the planet "life", how they show that it's not just a dead ball of rock. I can't help thinking of the ancient myths of huge sea creatures, giant chelonians the size of islands, dozing in the oceans and being mistaken by sailors for land? These geysers often conjure up in my head that same image; a sleeping planet quietly snoring away, puffing out gas and steam as it slumbers its way through space.
Sulphurous snooze
All well and good; until I returned to the ship and discovered that one vent, innocently puffing out steam and gas right under the cockpit had caked our view with condensed sulphur and god-knows-what-else! Not my best move ever.
Cue a discreet, semi-blind take-off and scuffle back to a safe distance, followed by a lot of clambering around outside knocking a kilo or ten of crystallised gunk off the windows!Onwards! I know that a lot of people find the whole jump - scan, sniff, poke around - jump routine terminally boring and I don't blame them, it's very much a personal like/dislike thing! But right now, I was finding it wonderfully relaxing.
All that charging around in the bubble, all the contention and squabbling and so on had put my teeth on edge a bit - and therein brought out the worst in me, which I hate! So being back out here just brainlessly bouncing around the stars was really lovely. Another dumb analogy but for me, being in the bubble is very reminiscent of being at a party? It's great fun, vibrant, exciting, but sometimes you need to step out of the crush, nip outside into the cool night air and just catch your breath.That's basically what exploring does for me.
Which is not to say you don't end up bumping into other things! We'd only been scuffling around for a couple of days before running into these deep-space tumbleweeds!
Briar patch!
I've only seen these weird little things a couple of times before, but they're just as pretty now as ever; to me they're basically the exploring equivalent of staring into a campfire and the "sparks" that float around them give an almost festive air! It helps having your head in the clouds and being incredibly impressionable sometimes because I couldn't help feeling as though we were flying along some kind of deep-space arcade festooned with christmas decorations! Absolutely beautiful.
We spent a while just goggling at them - they really are lovely things and I very much recommend anyone visit them whenever they get the chance! - before heading back up above the rings and jumping back into witchspace. Our next stop was back in the bubble; there were a few little things that our colonists had requested we bring out to them and then they'd be set. So a hop, skip and pulsar-boot-in-the-bum and we were back home, stocking up on bits and bobs.
What with all these jaunts up and down to Marimba, I noticed we'd added a light year or two to our galactic pedometer! And the Hera had once again been a joy to fly around in - as Phantoms go, she wasn't particularly 'long legged', but having honking great tuned thrusters and a nice safety blanket in the form of a prismatic shield made the planetside canyon-zooming much more fun and not quite so white-knuckle when we were thousands of light years from civilisation! However as we took off heading back up to the core, I couldn't help glancing at the Clair sat a little sadly in hangar storage, and mentally promised myself I'd take the conda for a spin before too long.
The Hera made short work of our third trip back up past the core in the past week or so; we quickly dropped off the requested supplies with the colonists, said a final (for now) goodbye, and hopped back on the ship. As we broke orbit, I couldn't help glancing down at the world below; I really am so happy we could get these people settled here, fleeing the persecution of the bubble, but I couldn't help feeling a little sad saying goodbye to Marimba. It had been my sanctuary for quite a while now and though it's more than big enough to share with just a handful of people and I'll definitely come back and visit - it won't be the same.
Goodbye, hideyhole.
On the way back home, as we ate through the light years, I started nattering with Coral about just how much fun I was having being back out here, away from civilisation and just rattling around the galaxy again. To which she groaned and covered her eyes.
She really does know me better than I know myself! When I asked her what the problem was, she replied that whenever I talk like this, it means I have (and I quote) "the zoomies" - which is basically Coral's word for when I get itchy feet and end up zooming off on some half-baked challenge or other.She's not wrong.
SO after a lot of chatting and trying to work out something that was fun but not likely to hospitalise both of us, we settled on a fun little jaunt. The plan was to visit every sector in the galaxy, starting and finishing from the Bubble, in four days. Having had a poke around the galaxy map a bit, it seemed like it could easily be done a lot faster! But neither of us really had the urge to go absolutely bananas this time; we could easily do the trip in four days AND still have plenty of time to wander off the path a bit and find some shinies in the process.
Sounds good! So tomorrow morning, assuming we haven't been burnt to a crisp by the four honking great stars in front of us right now, we'll scoot on back to the bubble, pull the Clair out of her gigantic mothballs, load up on the coffee and nibbles and work out our exact route, before heading off sometime early next week. So if you're out there in the galaxy and see two idiots zooming by in a beaten up old conda taking pictures of all the weird and wacky out there, give us a wave and we'll wave back.
All the best!
C
//Haven't mapped the exact route yet but it doesn't seem anywhere near as daft as it sounds - it's basically a wobbly circumnav with a loop back into the galaxy, and really should be quite easy to do in four days. I can't really go bananas in elite at the moment as rl things are being a pain, so have to take it quite easy anyway. This seemed like a fun challenge without going too nuts! I'll post the route in the next log but a pre-emptive HUGE thank you to Cmdr Qohen Leth who (yet again!) seems to have created a really helpful graphic showing all the galactic sectors, which has made my preliminary test plots a bajillion times easier than doing it in game!