Log # 20 : 65,659.24 ly from sol, the Scutum-Centaurus Arm , and a brain malfunction
12 Jan 2018(Wettoast) Wanda Fersegi
Returning from Oevasy sector : Post Semotus beacon distance attempt
It has been a few days since the crack at the galactic void record, don't think I could try that again for a while. I'll just go ahead and be contented with second place knowing I beat Persera's record of 11.7 ly for 11.9 . I had taken a tank of 80 tons but had to turn around out of fear of being stranded just to chase 1 or 2 more light years. Furthest from sol was taken by someone else who was 30 bloody light years out from the Semotus beacon, this information coming from a short chat with Persera. I would be hurling metric tons of bulls*** if I were to say that I wasn't even the slightest bit angry, would have held onto it if I were a few days earlier !
The current record holder must have outfitted their vessel to be made of almost entirely fuel tanks. Well... Second furthest human from humanity .... Woo....
Heading towards the Scutum-Centaurus Arm passing through Pyrie Eurk QX-U e2-0
Seeing the edge not just from a distance but the last star next to the intergalactic void will stick with me for a while. While cruising out into the void, I swear my mind would play tricks on me, shapes forming in the black out of dim red lines, dreams of two large planets appearing out of nowhere threatening you with smashing into them at 2000c, and hearing mumbling from a conversation down the hallway, only to open the doors and find no one there. What may not have helped would be the fact that I sat in the flight chair nearly the entire trek, listening only to the hum of the frame shift drive, the ship cycling its systems, and sleeping on the bridge while staring off into nothingness .
I could not trust the fuel gauge, or myself to check the fuel gauge long enough to get up and occupy my time with other things . I made it clear to myself, that letting attention off of fuel levels was extremely dangerous, as if I screwed up I didn't know if the fuel rats would be able to pull off another long distance rescue in a similar fashion to the Persera rescue. While it is expected that weird things can happen to the minds of some explorers, what happened felt like a whole new level of hallucination, close to life even. While in the more dense areas of the galaxy, you would rarely have a lack of stimuli. But at the very edge of the galaxy facing outwards, your only source of light is your heads up display and any other gadgets lying around. Apart from the occasional message from the bubble, my brain was well and truly free to mess with me all it wanted to.
Thankfully after returning to brighter areas of the arm, the strange line work drawings my brain would do seemed to slope off along with hearing mumbling behind me . After previous exploration trips I knew I was susceptible to some sort of mental strangeness, but not to the extent of full on imaging a group of people engaged in a deep conversation about ... Something. After taking some advice from fellow spacers on how to deal with this phenomenon, I checked the entire ship, from rear to front, top to bottom in order to fully disseminate the idea that there were other people on board. In hindsight of that little scare, a schedule of once every 12 hours has been established of checking every room and compartment . Each round takes about 2 hours to do to completion, but I was assured by the disembodied voice that this would help wi-... disemboided vo-? Uh oh...
Scutum-Centaurus Arm Lysoodgaei sector
Going to go ahead and ignore that little episode for now, what's the worst that can happen? heh.. Oh no....
Ok, maybe I should create some new habits to try and correct this... Yeah... Maybe after doing the top to bottom ship check I can do laps around the cargo bay if I find a world close to 1g . Or push ups, kind of wish I had brought along dumbbells or some other exercise equipment now.... But for now, I guess I will just do laps on an irregular schedule along with the top to bottom ship check in order to break up routine.
As for cartographic discoveries, the valuable or strange ones were slow coming. I'm trying my best to break up marathon jumping, but at the same time not stopping for every funny looking ball of rock.
Strangely, what I did come across alot of was water worlds. Hot water worlds. The temperatures according to the scan should boil water under normal circumstances, but it seems that the pressure on these planets wold keep liquid water from boiling away. Other planetary bodies around it were molten balls of rock and metal, but for some reason this ball of water is sitting here at 533 kelvin, polar ice caps included.
This region was also home to plenty of those huge ice planets with close to 2 times the gravity of earth but much larger due to low density. Thanks to the heavy gravity of the planet, some craters were filled with gases from inside the planet creating a sort of local atmospheric effect. While these planets themselves aren't out of the ordinary, it was strange seeing them at the frequency they were popping up. Did I stumble on an anomaly ? Hard to believe that I would but there's always a chance, be it a small one.
Some eyes back in the bubble
Beginning to feel loopy, I shot Capricos a message asking if they were there, which was of course answered promptly with accusations of being stranded... Recently headlines began to circulate about the ship manufacturer Lakon releasing their new pride and joy to grace the spaceways, the type 10. Since I was exactly one forever from home I shot back messages asking about how it flew, its price to completely upgrade, and it's ability to stand up to thargoids in combat. My interest was peaked early on from news about its eventual release on the market. Well I got my answer quickly. Apparently Lakon's new big bad thargoid combat machine was the equivalent of strapping more armor to the stock type 9 and adding more hardpoints and leaving the distributor as it was. The delacy python comes with a class 7 distributor and Lakon's new high end offering comes with a class 6 distributor...... I guess we both did have a few choice words for it .
On top of that, more stations outside human space were coming under thargoid attack in the Pleiades region. Is it just me or are these attack waves getting worse ? News reports of the screaming and fleeing brought back uncomfortable memories of flying with crowded cabins, quarters, and bridge in order to evacuate as many as I could. First time around doing rescue runs I was driven into regression, the second time drove me to leave the bubble entirely. I'm in absolutely no shape to step up for more refugee rescue, I can barely keep my own problems together...
Eventually I'll have to return to the bubble regardless of whether the thargoids have turned it into hell or not, sadly having to do more for an organization that I don't trust in the slightest. Aegis may be crooked but at the time being they are the only chance we have at defense against the thargoids. I remember seeing some of their personnel board my ship when doing evacuation from Titan's daughter, some of them may be fully aware of Aegis' inner workings. Crooked or not, you couldn't tell them at the time that you weren't going to evacuate them, you would end up the bigger monster.
Dead silence
I've shut down as many non essential systems as I could, I need to be sure the mumbling isn't getting worse . I've done the top to bottom ship check, running laps around the cargo bay, and push ups as well. Been sitting on the bridge in absolute silence for the past hour waiting for any sign of hearing something that wasn't really
there.
So the mumbling has become slightly more concerning. The mumbling has come back but words are more distinguishable now and somewhat aggressive. They sound judgmental, directed at me . Okay, this is a bit scary now, my methods of holding back space madness may not be effective as I thought. I've been awake for 48 hours straight , maybe hitting the bunk for a solid day will work some miracle or at least stop the mumbling from being so loud.
Going to try and slowboat my way around here, the company of another explorer may alleviate some of these problems, however transmitting your location into the black may attract the attention of someone hostile. Need to think about this for a while.
What's the saying? If you're alone in the jungle is it wise to call out ?
Wanda N. Fersegi " Wettoast" out.