Man, I'm bored.
07 Dec 2015Calteru Taalo
Hauling poop makes no sense. Just shoot that shit out of the airlock and into Sothis or whatever. So I told 'em to shove their contract renewal. Problem is... now I've nothing to do.Hopped into Longshot. Figured I'd go exploring. Didn't take long to realize this consisted of flying to a system, honking the horn, flying up close to planets to get info, and repeating. I guess I'm fillin' out some kind of progress meter somewhere, but I'm not sure why. What's Universal Cartographics even do with the information? Is it even important if I bring it in? None of this has ever been really clear in a galaxy with few answers. (Weird, eh? Back in the Stupid Ages you could call up a search engine and get some answers. Here there's not even a search engine. How did we get to this state as a species?)
Thought about turning around. Then I was like "what for?" To haul more poop? To haul something that isn't poop? Nothing I haul seems to make a difference anywhere. The stations all still demand the same amount of stuff; the only problem is that production never keeps up with consumption. Stations are rarely, if ever, sated. Kinda disillusioning.
Considered killing some AIs, until I remembered my last expedition to hunt down rogue programming - they're just not much of a threat anymore. Got up behind an Anaconda, opened fire on it, and all it did was sit there and spin around, as if confused by the concept of combat. Maybe they're becoming pacifists. I don't know.
Sat there and stared at a ton of metals in my hold. You know, people back on Earth used to be able to craft things out of all kinds of substances. Not sure how we lost that ability here in the 34th, but we have. They say we're going to get it back sometime, but no ideas on the details. Far as I'm concerned, it's nothing but promises without any kind of hard citables behind it.
I suppose I could get my ship outfitted to land on airless worlds like a few others have, but I can't help but feel the process is kind of a money-grab by the equipment manufacturers. "You know, Phineas, these people paid just to fly around and LOOK at these planets - I bet we can charge them more to land on just SOME of them!" "Brilliant, Barnaby! Order us some more caviar!" I'm sure that's not how it went down exactly, but it wouldn't shock me either.
The only other thing I can think of is getting down on one knee and suckin' off some "power" like a bunch of others did, but I still haven't gotten over the terminal boredom I suffered "working" for Winters. Go to Rhea. Get propaganda. Pay for more propaganda. Deliver propaganda. It's like trading, except you don't make any money. I've never understood why anyone thought that was a strong concept.
Guess the only thing left to do is to throttle forward into this star that's in front of me. A lot of data can be learned, as the temperature climbs inside this cockpit: How long will the canopy seals hold in the face of the intensifying heat? At which distance will the hull start sloughing off the frame of the ship? How much further will the ship fly after I'm cooked alive in here?
Will the ship try to save itself?
I think I know the answer to the last one. The ship's been as bored as me.
Ah. I see the cabin temperature has reached 80 degrees Celsius. It won't be too long now until I get some data. Better fire off this message in a bottle, then.