Day 28 (10th February 3305)

This week there was so much to see and not too much happened so I think this will be a shorter log than the ones before... more pictures, less story while I'm waiting for the announcement of waypoint 5.

The first point of beauty on this leg of the expedition was the rusty net nebula. This name really needs no further explanation. One of the many planetary nebulae on this journey.

The Collection of Wonders was the next point on my journey. Collection is really fitting for this system as is has a black hole, a ringed white dwarf and a ringed neutron star.

In the Skaudai Nebula I found some lagrange clouds and my very first mollusk and the view on the nebula from Sacagawea Space port is not to be scoffed at!

After making friends with this little guy I casually met up with my good friend PrimetimeCasual and we searched for some more mollusks and other interesting things while flying into the black again. These little social activities really help against the omnipresent risk of succumbing to space madness. Thankfully I have yet to even start feeling it and I will try to keep on meeting other commanders to keep it as far away as possible!

And then there were Guardian Ruins... I love these places! Like the abandoned settlements they hold mysteries and secrets. Normally, they are only found around the Bubble but now I saw this place more than 10,000 light years away from where they are normally found! I believe there was something about outcasts in the data Ram Tah uncovered. I have to read up about that!

After exploring around and trying to uncover the secrets of the Guardians in this region of space I moved on again towards waypoint four in the Llyn Tegid Nebula. Again, taking in the stunning views along the way.

During this last part of the trip to waypoint four I found a system with four terraformable water worlds and decided to name two of them after very good friends of mine Buur and Rheeney. They stayed back in the Bubble and did not leave with the expedition fleet. I sent pictures back and I really hope they reach them!

I am on this great expedition now. After some doubt before the start and euphoria during the first one, maybe two weeks. Still, some kind of routine has settled in. It's by no means getting boring! I'm getting used to living on my ship again after a pretty long stay in the Bubble after my first expedition to Beagle Point. Visiting all these points of interest, taking in the view and driving around in my SRV trying to uncover secrets... I have yet to experience any kind of loneliness. That's how much there is to explore with all the optional waypoints the organisers announce every week as the fleet makes its way towards the galactic core.

It's like a dream... and this after stating that the euphoria is over, I'm terrible aren't I? Well, I suppose that's how I am. An old song from earth about diving in a submarine has this line: The next dive will for sure be the longest.

So, how long will this trip be? It will definitely be the longest I have undertaken until now and we don't know yet what is yet to come on this journey or after it. But I am ready!

I am and explorer after all.

Special thanks to CMDR Rheeney for proofreading!

Day 21 (3rd February 3305)

Abandoned settlements… there are so many of these in this galaxy. Too many to count. Right now I’m sitting aboard the Antagony next to the Conflux Abandoned Settlement Delta Site. These sites have their very own magic and something pulls me towards them again and again. Each of these sites has their own story, humans that lived here and problems that led to them being abandoned.

But I think I should start with my journey here. I am on the Distant Worlds 2 expedition after all and that is all about the journey.

When waypoint three was announced I wasn’t in the Omega Nebula anymore. My curiosity forced me to move on and I was already in the Eagle Nebula. It somehow looks a bit like a black/blue-ish thargoid when coming from the Omega Nebula. I did a survey of the cluster of F-type stars in the Eagle Nebula and found quite a few Lagrange Clouds and strange lifeforms.

From there I jumped towards Eudaemon Anchorage skipping the optional waypoints between the Omega and Eagle Nebula.

After cashing in my exploration data I set a course to the next optional waypoint: The smallest ever discovered body our ships’ computers let us land on. It is called Quantum World and has a radius of 134 km. Its gravity is so low that one commander even managed to launch his SRV more than 30,000 km into space!

After enjoying this low gravity for a bit I moved on once again towards the 3rd waypoint at the Conflux Abandoned Settlement Delta Site. As soon as I arrived in the system a notable stellar phenomena popped up on my navigation screen and I just had to explore it. The crystals were nothing new to me but the PO1-type anomaly was! While sciencing it I found out three things:

They seem to have some kind of an electromagnetic field that disrupts ship systems and slowly damages shields and hull.

They are called PO1-type anomaly.

They are green.

Not an awful lot, I know, but I found this out myself and that’s enough for me.

After this I visited the real waypoint three: The abandoned settlement in the system.

In almost every single one of these we can find some kind of log about what happened there and why it is abandoned. Here it was different though: The logs talked about a ship I believe. They had some kind of problems and jettisoned the black box with it to leave some kind of record. But nothing about the settlement itself…

According to other records I found this and other settlements were the staging point for a ‘Dynasty Expedition’ but nothing apart from that…

Well, I still have some time until waypoint four is announced maybe I can find something out until then.

I am and explorer after all.

Special thanks to CMDR Rheeney for proofreading!

Day 13 (26th January 3305)

I'm writing this log as I sit here in this asteroid base of the Omega Mining Operation awaiting the announcement of Waypoint three of the Distant Worlds 2 expedition.

Almost two weeks ago we had our own little farewell party with our friends from the Buur Pit crew. We chose this instead of going with the main fleet and it was our very own start of Distant Worlds 2.

I’d love to say the journey was uneventful but that would be a lie. The very first jump of Distant Worlds 2 already saw a complete breakdown of the pilots’ federation communication systems as over 5000 commanders attempted to jump all at once. Many of the participants got stuck only one jump after the start as their FSDs wouldn’t boot up again because they couldn’t connect to the network.

When this was resolved after a few hours we could finally start our journey. For real this time.

The organisers of this expedition are certainly not lazy. They provided us with no less than eight points of interest to visit on our way to waypoint two!

That being said, they are not without their very own dangers. But what would a rose be without its thorns? "The View" has a 3 g world that cost at least one commander his ship. Planetary rings look very stunning viewed in the right light but one moment of inattention and you crash your ship into one of those rocks…

The world nicknamed Labirinto has some of the most spectacular canyons I have ever seen. They aren't far behind Pomeche 2 C. You can crash your ship into them very nicely or fall of cliffs in your SRV if you are not careful enough.

And then there was Thor’s Eye… that bloody black hole almost got me for good when we tried to take pictures there. But first things first. When I arrived in the System I didn’t find it was all that special. Or beautiful. That was the point where our squadron’s (and IMO one of the galaxy’s as well) most capable camera operator CMDR Rheeney joined me in telepresence and captured these views in a way I never could.

We took some shots in a ring system and set out for the black hole afterwards. I am afraid of black holes. I don’t really know the reason but they scare me. Still, you can get very nice pictures with their gravitational lensing effect so we flew over there. I closed in via supercruise and admired the galaxy through the lensing effect. I decided to drop out of supercruise with the black hole between the ship and the main star of the system and the galaxy behind the ship. 80 km distance was too close. A few seconds after the drop my ship informed me: Warning! Body exclusion zone hit!

That was the moment I decided to turn tail and get the hell away from that thing! But even though I was going full throttle away from it I lost speed. I boosted and gained speed again while charging my FSD at the same time. The ship’s heat indicator went up quickly so I deployed a heatsink and finally entered supercruise!

After this nerve-wrecking experience I needed something chill. And a drink. The decision to visit the Cinnabar Moth Nebula seemed just right. There I met up with commander PrimetimeCasual and we took some pictures together (this expedition is seriously turning into a photo orgy…).

The rest of the journey towards the Omega Nebula was as uneventful as I like it and I landed at the Omega Mining Operation. Once my ship had restored full communication with the pilot’s federation network I got a memo that the fellow explorer Commander Picard (MissionFarsight) dubbed an earth like world Tyvin. Wow… that really hit me hard (in a positive sense of course). Now I have to discover a new earth like world during this expedition and name it “Farsight’s Rest”.

For the adventure, for all the explorers out there and especially for Commander Picard!

I am an explorer after all.

*Special thanks to CMDRs Rheeney and PrimetimeCasual for some of the pictures.

T minus 2 days (11th January 3305)

I did it. I signed up for the Distant Worlds 2 expedition. Well, that was months ago and it didn’t feel real then… It was so far away… But now I am getting cold feet.

I outfitted my ship and engineered the modules. All of that was just business as usual: Collecting materials, visiting the engineers and applying the upgrades.

There were some really great events between me signing up and now:

Speedbowl 2, organised by CMDRs PrimetimeCasual and Halo Jones. The craziest thing I ever did! Speeding towards a high g world at speeds in excess of 4400 m/s! And we survived! The flight control at Bombelli Prospect definitely hates us now but who cares! I came in 5th in the end (I’m not completely satisfied) but found something irreplaceable: Friendship.

The grande finale of Speedbowl 2 was the BuurBowl. We tried to hit CMDR Buurs Anaconda with our ships at these speeds. Great fun with great people.

Afterwards we met up more often to try out different kinds of combat. Standard bounty hunting in HazRes zones. We were seven ships or so and I almost felt sorry for those pirates who came in wings of four ships max.

Going into combat zones – 7 ships again – and trying to draw out a capital ship was great fun. As intimidating these ships might look we were enough people to send them home crying.

I did some minor excursions close to the Bubble to test the Antagony. All systems worked as intended. The jump range is excellent at just short of 60 ly with a full cargo hold and even landing on high g worlds works well.

So that means I’m prepared, right? It certainly seems so when looking at my ship but… am I? Am I really ready for this?

It’s two more days until the launch of DW2 on Sunday 13th January 3305 and I’m really getting cold feet now. Leaving behind the Bubble in this state with Thargoids on every corner?

Leaving behind friends I had so much fun with? Leaving even my family behind for this? A journey into the black where the two greatest dangers are space madness and a lack of attention? A journey during which I might get lost forever?

A journey to see all the beauty of this galaxy I have yet to see? A journey back to the galactic core where there is no night and you are surrounded by the galaxy? A journey to find new and strange lifeforms and stellar phenomena? Am I ready for the greatest adventure I will have undertaken to this point? No, mankind has undertaken.

I am. I am not alone on this journey. More than 9000 CMDRs are going. Some of my friends are going too.

So, yes, I am willing to take this on. For science. For the possibility to see the beauty of this - our - galaxy. For the adventure! I am an explorer after all.

I am an explorer after all.