Post Gnosis Blues
14 Dec 2018Count Iblis
It was about 3-4 months ago that Reece had set off for what he thought would be the great expedition of a lifetime- Voyage to the Gnosis station.The Gnosis facility itself was impressive and he met some interesting and rather eccentric characters.
There was Soto Braun the wild eyed long haired scientist. Quite narcissistic and ego centric but also very insightful and knowledgeable.
The laboratory facilities at the Gnosis were also impressive. I was looking forward to the deep and long distance expedition in the company of the galaxies great scholars, be they from the Empire, Alliance or Federation!
Unfortunately early on in the endeavor the Thargoids arrived and started to attack.
The Imperial Clipper the Imperious Rex was mainly set up for exploration. I improvised and geared it as best I could for combat against Thargoids to do 'my part'. At least I had a Xeno Scanner. Unfortunately it wasn't enough. We'd see how my thermally enhanced Prismatic shields stood up
My first encounter with the 'goids didn't go well. It was a cyclops and Scout of some sort. Their weapons tore through my shields as if they weren't even there and I lost some integrity of my powerplant. I aimed my guardian gauss cannons but mostly missed. I ended up exercising the better part of valor and running away- and that's the one area the Imperial Clipper excelled with its amazing turn of speed.
I came away with powerplant and power distributor at less than 60%. After that I went down to the Thargoid crash site and harvested some interesting Thargoid artefacts.
This whole episode was terrible and on reflection and after helping my compatriots at the Gnosis and saying our good byes I decided to take off and head towards an easterly spiral arm of the galaxy, aimless, unbridled and free.
It's been said that when you travel far enough you'll eventually find yourself. My ship was far from ideally equipped had only a 22 max light year range.
The expedition spanned 10,000 light years. I discovered over 500 worlds, 1 earth like world and several ammonia worlds and gas giants. Looking back the trip blended as one now. There were prospect mining expeditions and surface mapping journeys in the SRVs. It was a great time to reflect. A lot of solitude. A lot of time to get the Imperious Rex better, although the paintwork started to look worse for wear near the end. The AFM unit was able to repair a lot f the damage caused by the Thargoids but I hadn't installed a limpet based ship repair system. A lot of thought about the next level of mods for the Imperious Rex. I needed shields less focused on thermal weapons and more on outright HP. They would need reoptimizing.
In addition I think there was some further head room for improvement in the maneuverability and speed of the Clipper. These actions would help in the future should I take on Thargoids again.
This epic voyage took 12 weeks and I was back in the bubble. The tasks and chores of the journey may have blended and hazed but the amazing alien vistas and sceneries of orange skies, red dwarf suns, and purple optically refracted clouds formed a very pleasant pastiche of memories that would last a lifetime.
I was back at my favourite star port at Jameson Memorial to get the Imperious Rex refitted. Except they were lacking on several Imperial parts. In addition, the drive motors were rigged with a neutron singularity shift system which differed significantly to comparable Core Dynamics and Faulcon Delacy machinery to cause issues with mechanics who did not know. They ended up depolarizing the inducer coils. In addition while the ship was waiting at the shipyard, a colossal Security vessel, a Type 9 rammed it and damaged the right rear wing.
Fortunately dealing with the insurance bureaucracy to get this all repaired was relatively easy but it still took another 3 weeks. In that time, I went planet side and actually interacted with REAL people. 12 weeks, solitary, in perpetual travel can take its toll on the most introvert of us and in this case I was an extrovert.
Plenty of time to reflect yet again, on what to do next, expect this time the reflection would involve interacting with others to help make the decisions.