Profil du CMDR XenosAurion > Journal de bord

Profil
Nom du commandant :
Vaisseau actuel :
CHOSEN'S TOUCH [XE-CHO]
(Federal Corvette)
 
Membre depuis le :
3 mai 2021
 
Distances envoyées :
0
 
Systèmes visités :
12 661
Systèmes découverts en premier :
3 674
 
Solde :
854 139 924 Cr
A Collision of Flavors

Been a busy month, a real rollercoaster. Joined Operation Ida and repaired some stations, very nice work. I have a knack for finding CMM Composites. They inspired me to get off my duff and invest in better ships, swapped out my old T7 for a T9, learned how to use the engineers better, grinded for Federation ranks and got a Federal Corvette. Used it to nab my first Guardian modules, gauss cannons, and bag my first Thargoid kill in Delphi! Even got it recorded, real cool stuff, my heart was racing by the end. Their death wail continues to echo in my soul. And then I died because their caustic cloud got on me, I wasn't paying attention, too busy telling friends about the achievement. It was a good 29m credit laugh.

I'd gone on an expedition to Colonia before this. Went well, took a passenger, saw lots of cool stars and biologically active planets. The Famous Explorer called it quits as soon as we landed because I got scanned on the platform by an agent. I chucked him out the airlock on the landing pad. Dick. But, free to roam, I wandered to the brightest stars I could find, discovered a lot of unclaimed territories, even got first footfalls on planets in neutron star and black hole systems. One planet recorded at 0K temperature. That was an interesting planet, not gonna lie, the sky was gorgeous with the black hole warping everything. Wandered through Sagittarius A*, moseyed on home, got within one jump of my home system, a white dwarf.

You know where this is going.

I fly into its cone, starts charging, and then UH OH: exclusion zone! I melt in the rays, unable to escape. Two weeks of travel data and claims gone.

But I recovered. Got into OpIda, did the stuff listed above, stronger than ever!

It's June 23 3307 and there is a stellar phenomena occurring. KOI 413 is a system host to two special gas giants, Rhubarb and Custard. Their orbits are unique in that one's inclination has it dip into the other's path, causing a collision every few months. Today is a special day wherein they would almost perfectly merge with each other. I high-tailed it over fast as I could and missed the initial kiss, but was able to take plenty of footage of the merging and unmerging process. Should it have been physically possible? Probably not, but there's a lot of things in the universe that defy logic and reason. Here is one chance where we can witness the cosmic dance in action. Even managed to make some gifs of the process and a still image if you'd prefer.

Heading back home now, scanning along the way. Lots of undiscovered stuff still, very surprising this close to the bubble. Excited to get back home as there's a war or something in my system that gives me a chance to push down a faction I dislike.

Fly safe, CMDR XenosAurion 23 June 3307

Change of Pace

Well, I went into the black and did more research on what I'd missed the past couple years. Learned a lot, discovered some unfound systems, planets, mapped a few spots. Found one ice body that was littered with organic spikes, only dropped Yttrium when I mined the bits. Super cool stuff, the spot I was looking at was almost entirely brown dwarf stars! Buttloads of ice bodies I found and didn't map because I don't have that much patience.

Then, I hop on and check my map to find a route home, find that we'd been attacked. Thargoid incursions in Musca Dark Region, Pleiades, and fraggin' California Nebula of all places. Map has the audacity to say they are under Thargoid control. Zip zoom my way back home, take lots of pictures, make a detour at a deep mining outpost in one of those 2MASS systems. Even push through the Pleiades just to assess the damage. Only hyperdicted once by a solo Basilisk. They seemed upset after not finding anything.

The stations looked like the usual affair after Thargoid attacks. Exposed fusion reactor barely holding together, flames everywhere, bits of stuff and things floating within the habitable area. Sped my way home, got out my transport, outfitted with as much economy seating as I could get my hands on, and went to rescue who I could. Started in the Pleiades sector, but made my way to Musca Dark Region next to the Coalsack after I cleaned out Arc's Faith and Donar's Oak of evacuees. Then, I noticed some strange patterns unusual from the last incursion periods.

On the way out of Pleiades towards Coalsack, I was hyperdicted three times. Twice it were Basilisks, both with a Cyclops escort. The Cyclops would approach while Basilisk scanned, they'd hoot out "all clear" or what have they and move on. The third time were two Cyclops'. They scanned me, then rammed me on their way out. Jerk move, but I noticed a couple things. For one, in every hyperdiction, the star at the end of the tunnel doesn't shake about. I've also been told that bobbleheads don't bobble (I don't have any, myself). Do these guys just set up fake hyperlanes, then close them like a net to their spot or slough us out of the space? That'd be a clever idea. How long did that take to come up with?

Two: this is the most I've seen of Basilisk variant in such frequent occurrence. Old, unupdated statistics suggest a Basilisk or Basilisk with escorts is about 9% chance or less of appearing. What are the odds my first three this incursion were them? I looked at the threat levels of non-human signal sources around. In Pleiades, mostly 4-6, some 7 and 8. Just a lot of them, and a conflict zone at one of the Eagle Eyes... But then I make it to Musca.

My stars, it was heavy. 8's and 9's all over the place, every other system was infested with Hydras and lesser. I didn't dare go into those zones, not with this Type-7 passenger transport with a 3C shield generator (not that it matters much to them). I went to Betancourt Base and began evacuating, getting onto the discord server for Operation Ida. Fun group, friendly, the others don't seem to update much. Haven't tried fuel rats, not in a position to dedicate the time yet, but I want to volunteer some day.

I digress. Op Ida and co. got to talking about the upcoming Odyssey expansion. Data miners see information about a Thargoid mothership. A shuddering thought. We can barely handle interceptors, what will we do when the big guns come out? Coalsack is scouring the place of human life with the best they've got available. My guess is they're prepping for a safe arrival of that rumored mothership and whatever armada they may bring. Who knows, maybe we can land and walk on it? Maybe it will have the scars from the trick bioweapon poor Jameson launched at them unknowingly.

Let's hope we can find something more diplomatic. They can't all be hostile to humans. If they were, why would they leave us messages and clues to find their home?

My Own Personal Raxxla

Since beginning my journey, I've come to make a sea of mistakes and taken lessons from each and every one. Between the times I've experimented with Thargoids by poking them with a stick to attempting to fly in style to Colonia in a fully-laden Beluga (spoilers: I hit self-destruct after 1800 jumps with 300 left. Space madness took me. Thank goodness for clones, right?)

And then I learned about Raxxla. What a compelling puzzle! I became enraptured in this galactic easter egg hunt and tore into the lore and clues that people had come up with after so many years of searching themselves. There is hope that I might find it myself, for I am great with puzzles. It's all about finding the right pattern and knowing a little history and mythology, in this case. The more I dove in, the deeper I discovered the rabbit hole to be.

Out of all the clues brought up by other commanders, three things stood out to me: There is a strong connection with Greek mythology, Nebulas play a key role, and the Thargoids are a confirmation that our efforts are on the right track.

The closer we get, the more reactive the Thargoids will become as a whole. Why is that? Because within two hours of using Maia b to look at the Andromeda galaxy, they show up from the nether and begin to push and continue their mysterious plans. It can't be coincidence. This tells me that Raxxla can take us to another galaxy, so it must be a great transport of some kind.

But travelling takes fuel. What kind of fuel reserve would we need to travel such a distance in a sane amount of time like we do with FSD? Enter the nebulas. A nebula is a stellar explosion, basically. So how come so many nebulas in the milky way look the same? Why do some look like they are clearly pointing towards places like Andromeda or parts of the Milky Way that are blocked by Unknown Permits? There is no pattern to their trail that I have found yet, but surely there is reasoning to their destinations? Is it mere coincidence that humanity is colonizing in places where these nebulae reside? Hardly.

My theory is they are wakes, Raxxla being a vessel which consumes a star to propel itself across vast distances, and these many nebulae are what we find from the Dark Wheel's experimentation with it... until they lost it, somehow. How do you lose a portable black hole? Write it on a sticky note and put it on the fridge or text someone where you're going, it's exploration 101 people.

The last place they saw it was "On the brow of the mother of galaxies," which we think is Zeta Cassiopiae. Great. Nothing there, really, it's a star like any other. What's above it? Oh, it's a pink nebula, LBN 623. How pretty. Why is it shaped like a boar's head? It could be related to Hercules. It could be an easter egg considering the devs also run Planet Zoo. Curiouser and curiouser.

But I'll wrap it up. Why am I bothering starting a log? Well, I found an interesting phenomena whilst combing the stars of the galaxy map: the lines of the universe. On y-coordinates -20 to -45 across most of the map, looking at it flat will show that stars are clustered heavily within that y-range. I looked straight up and down then, finding that some places were clustered into squares.

For whatever reason, I searched far out to the ends of the galaxy arms, and I stumble upon Slyaipt, a small L-shaped cluster of mostly brown dwarf stars in an almost unreachable location as the stars surrounding it are all so out of reach as to create issues with the route maker. Upon arriving, I find it's perfectly fine, they are simply far apart until you get into there. Less than half the stars were mapped already, unsurprisingly as these are dull stars. My mission was to map them all, turn red "undiscovered" dots into blue ones, at the very least I get some cool credits out of it. Who knows, maybe I'll find something out here? It's spooky and purple most of the time and the solitude is nice (though I have run into a couple fleet carriers along the way).

CMDR XenosAurion 13 May 3307