09 May 3306

I finally did it. I arrived to Sadr!

To be honest, the voyage was more interesting than the destination. Not that I was disappointed. I knew I wasn't going to discover something no one has seen before. So many made the trip before me, so many more are going to visit Sadr after me.

Having collected so much data during my travel, I decided to dock at Sadr Logistic Depot in the Sadr Region Sector GW-W C1-22 system. Oh, boys and girls, I got the scare of my life here. As I was exiting supercruise, a small asteroid hit my ship with a menacing cracking noise. Diabound doesn't have a shield since I wanted to maximise his jump range and I really thought I had lost everything. Fortunately, Diabound resisted although my hull was barely above 40%. Needless to say that I flew carefully to Sadr Logistic Depot after that, eyes on my radar all the way. Had another asteroid hugged my ship, I'm not sure he wouldn't break.

As soon as I docked, I sold my cartographics datas and was really surprised with the number of first discoveries I made. Most systems had already another CMDR's name on them, but I suppose they add up quickly on a long trip.

I donated some of my money to the democratic local faction since they were struggling with civil unrest. I guess they won't have another visitor before a few days, maybe weeks. Then, I looked at the galactic map and chose my next destination : Nort America and Pelican nebulae. Of course, I don't plan to fly there in a bee line, you can be sure I'll make the trip as long as I feel the need to.

And speaking of being bored...

As I was just a few light years away from Sadr, I jumped into this system with two binary stars. What would happen if I flew between them purposely? I have a bucket list of stupid and reckless things to do before I die for good.

I didn't explode. My ship didn't like it, though. As I expected, several vital systems were damaged. So I was facing the choice between returning to Sadr Logistic Depot for repairs or continue my trip with my damaged ship.

Kissing another asteroid was a no-no, so now I'm out in the middle of nowhere, collecting datas on undiscovered systems.

06 May 3306

I hadn't even completed a third of my trip to Sadr when I decided to change course and head for the Veil Nebula (East). it was pretty. It was closer than Sadr. I thought, why only go to Sadr when the Veil is just about 30 jumps away.

Well, actually, it was much more than 30 jumps since I also wandered around. I found a system with a gas giant that was 17,581.90Ls away from its star and it was the sole planet on this system. I couldn't resist the temptation to take a picture. This dark, solitary planet looks a bit ominous, isn't it? I want to call it "The Lone Wolf of Synuefai". I know it's nothing unique by any means but one must be patient to reach it and it's hard to spot it as well since stars are scarce in that area.

On my way to the Veil, I took the risk to land on a few planets so I could collect mats. How to make a rather dull activity more fun? Speeding up while zigzagging between the rocks with the scarab.

I've encountered several stars hanging around with their friend(s).

And water worlds.

And alien life in a ring.

Then I made it to the Veil and, with a sky like this, you can't help but wonder if humanity would've been different if we had that view every night. Would we have believed it was the gods' celestial temple until some scientist told us we were wrong?

Having woken up to this beautiful view, it's time to continue my voyage to Sadr.

PS: Every day, my power sent me messages saying they're losing their grasp on many systems. Every day, I don't care.

01 May 3306

Yesterday, I made my decision. I'm going to travel to Sadr or Gamma Cygni. Chinese considers it to be a par of the Celestial Ford, which is also a part of a the Girl Mansion, one of their constellations, which is one of the mansions located in the region of the Black Tortoise of the North (we haven't found its elephants yet). Our ancesters all saw the sky differently and now I wonder if I should visit the stars of Cygni or those of the Celestial Ford. I'll probably decide once there. I not that good at making plans.

Before I departed for Sadr, I visited more inhabited systems, scanned more listening posts and took a few pictures. I also received a message from the superpower I'm supposed to work for, they apparently need help and aren't really pleased that I left the bubble. Quel dommage, je ne comprends plus l'anglais. En plus, la réception est vraiment mauvaise ici ! Rappelez plus tard ou jamais. Ciao.

After that nice trip - Did I crash my ship on a high gravity planet? You have no proof of this -, I dived toward the depths of the Synuefai region. I didn't plan a route this time.

30 April 3306

Since I didn't know what to do with myself after arriving in the Pleiades, I decided to jump to Merope and do some sightseeing since I hadn't visited that system the first time I was here. I should have, there's a lot to see, starting with the breathtaking view of several celestial objects.

Some years ago, people discovered strange artefacts on one of Merope's planets who was thought to have been created by an alien species. You all know what happened next and I wasn't disappointed. Those barnacles are everywhere, and the Thargoids as well.

That doesn't deter travel agencies from bringing tourists. Having visited the two listening posts floating there, I made a stop at the tourist beacons, "Unknown probe code" and "Out of sight, but not of mind" and scanned them. There were a lot of Beluga and Orca ships. But I really didn't think of snapping a picture of them and focused on some of the planets instead.

Then I flew to Alcazar's Hope and wondered if the planetary port was named after the Spanish word 'alcázar', a type of Moorish fortified castles built in Al-Andalus during the rule of the Muslims. 'Alcázar' actually comes from the Arabic word 'al-qaṣr', one of my friend told me. Anyway, Barnacles are sprouting on Merope 2 a like wildflowers in a meadow. They better fortify that starport a lot.

Speaking of barnacles, I equipped my ship with a Scarab and wandered around, scanning alien 'space shells', sulphur dioxide fumaroles and iron magma lava spouts. For once, I didn't crash, nor did I destroy something. But I did drive faster than I should have with the scarab.

I'll stay a bit longer in the Pleiades before flying somewhere else.

29 April 3306

The first and last time I flew to the Pleiades was in a Sidewinder during a trip whose sole purpose was to acquire a piece of meta-alloy. I didn't take the time to look around and admire the vastness of the galaxy. And I left Maia quickly because who wants to linger in systems full of Thargoids when flying a weak Sidewinder? I may do dumb things when I'm drunk, but taking on Thargoids unprepared isn't one of those things.

But rest assured I did plenty of dumb things during that short but slow trip.

After jumping a bit towards my destination, I stopped at Arietis Sector BX-R A5-0. There were floating a water planet and a piece of rock with methane magma I wanted to get a closer look at...

So I flew around the water planet, then headed for B5-A, mapped it and travelled to the nearest geographical point of interest. It was on the dark side of the planet, but I managed okay once I activated the night vision.

I don't bring vehicles during my trips since it makes the ship heavier so I didn't land. I hovered over one of the fumarole thingies and scanned it with my ship. It wasn't easy. Diabound was floating up and down above the ground as though he were drunk and I swear I hadn't opened a bottle of wine yet. Low gravity.

Once I was done, I got cocky and decided to fly to the sun-bathed side of the planet. I wanted to take a pretty picture. I also toasted to celebrate my small victory.

I took my picture juuuuuust fiiiine. Why my hull was only at 59% after that? We won't talk about it. No. Nein. いいえ、だめだ。 Non, n'insistez pas.

I decided to fly more safely after that. It was easy. Nothing was interesting to see out there so my stupid brain wasn't tempted to do stupid things.

Everything was fine until I reach a system with two stars sitting dangerously closely. Pleiades sector YQ-2 B8-1 (according to my shitty handwriting). And, of course, Diabound finished jumping between them.

It's not the first time something like this happens to me, so I wasn't worried... at first. I positioned my ship so I could fly away safely. Then hit the gas. Well. My ship suddenly screamed he was taking huge heat damages and I really thought we would be toasted there.

Fortunately, I managed to get out and only one of my ship's modules lost integrity. A glorious 1%. I'm considering sending my COVAS to retirement for the fright. Did he drink my wine?

There was no more accident after that. Except for that time I almost crashed on a listening probe-thingy. We won't talk about it either. J'étais distrait.

I admired the view while I was getting closer to my destination.

I finally landed at Ieyasu and made about 2,640,000 of my exploration datas which was a nice bonus considering I only visited discovered systems full of ice and rocky bodies (there were a few gas giants and water worlds here and there though). Interesting point, that station surrounded by Thargoids has been named after one of the unifiers of Japan and the first Shôgun of the Tokugawa shogunate. He was a great military and political leader, he was also the first Tokugawa to enforce a policy of limiting the influence of Europeans, so let's hope it brings us good luck and that the Thargoids won't devour us all.

According to my flight log, here are all the systems I visited. As I said before, there were all already discovered. The purpose of the trip wasn't to discover something new.

Xibe ; Cephei Sector JH-V b2-0 ; Loga ; Gliese 9843 ; HIP 2422 ; Cephei Sector DQ-Y b2 ; Cephei Sector CQ-Y b5 ; Mileku ; Hsini ; Chiboneskhe ; Lalande 2933 ; Mapocori ; Hongbiri ; Hyades Sector NU-N b7-4 ; Hyades Sector GX-T c3-6 ; bhodumba ; Hyades Sector NU-N b7-0 ; Hyades Sector PP-N b7-8 ; Hyades Sector GX-T c3-24 ; Hyades Sector GX-T c3-25 ; Hyades Sector KJ-P b6-7 ; Arietis Sector AB-W b2-2 ; Arietis Sector AB-W b2-1 ; Arietis Sector BX-R a5-0 ; Arietis Sector BX-R a5-3 ; Arietis Sector AM-T a4-2 ; Arietis Sector AM-T a4-1 ; Arietis Sector AM-T a4-0 ; Arietis Sector WF-V a3-2 ; Arietis Sector WF-V a3-1 ; Arietis Sector SZ-W a2-2 ; Arietis Sector SZ-W a2-0 ; Arietis Sector SZ-W a2-3 ; Arietis Sector XE-Z b1 ; Arietis Sector TZ-W a2-1 ; Arietis Sector PT-Y a1-0 ; Hyades Sector AS-Q a6-2 ; Hyades Sector AB-W b2-6 ; HIP 17196 ; Hyades Sector WL-S a5-0 ; Hyades Sector WL-S a5-1 ; Hyades Sector WL-S a5-2 ; Hyades Sector WU-X b1-5 ; Hyades Sector XZ-Y c2 ; Hyades Sector XZ-Y c8 ; Col 285 Sector MH-T b4-2 ; Col 285 Sector JR-V c2-8 ; Col 285 Sector JR-V c2-11 ; Col 285 Sector OC-T b4-0 ; Col 285 Sector OC-T b4-2 ; Col 285 Sector OC-T b4-4 ; Aries Dark Region GX-S b4-4 ; Aries Dark Region HX-S b4-2 ; Pleiades Sector YQ-L b8-1 ; Pleiades Sector MN-T c3-16 ; Pleiades Sector WF-N b7-1 ; Pleiades Sector MN-T c3-3 ; Pleiades Sector WF-N b7-2 ; Pleiades Sector WF-N b7-3 ; Pleiades Sector MN-T c3-11 ; Pleiades Sector SZ-O b6-4 ; Pleiades Sector HR-W d1-57 ; Pleiades Sector UU-O b6-3 ; Pleiades Sector QO-Q b5-3 ; Pleiades Sector IH-V c2-12 ; Pleiades Sector RO-Q b5-0 ; Pleiades Sector IH-V c2-6 ; Celaeno ; _Pleiades Sector PD-S b4-0__ ;

28 April 3306

When one grows tired of the bubble and is itching to do some exploration, it's not that easy to choose where to go. After all, there are infinite possibilities.

I flew from Deciat to the Wregoe sector three times before since I wanted to test my new engineered AspX, Diabound. I came across several undiscovered systems, some with water worlds or beautiful gas giants, and also plenty of unmapped planets. I learned a lot during those trips. I actually learned the hard way like so many seasoned commanders before me... Once my ship got destroyed as I tried to land on a planet. After failing to glide, I pushed the thrusters a tad too much and, attracted by the gravity, eventually hit the ground at a speed above 500kmh... Lesson learned. A commander should always check the data of a planet first, especially when flying an unshielded ship. So I decided to be much more careful the next time I want to check some geological areas.

Anyway, yesterday, as I was docked at Wood City in the Xibe system and considering how tired of everything I was, I opened the galactic map on a whim. Seeing that one of the local factions was Interplanetary Explorations inspired me. I wanted to go somewhere where... a lot of humans had gone before, so I chose the Pleiades Nebula. I also decided to make a slow trip although Diabound can jump over 40ly. Why always be in a hurry?

I know I won't discover anything that hasn't been discovered before, but it's still less boring than being a pawn for the Federation. Why I decided to pledge to help Felicia Winters, I wonder? It seemed like a good idea at the time, I was curious and they promised rewards, I like shiny, expensive things, but I realised I have no interest in those petty wars and I'm not Space UPS either.

According to my calculations, travelling to the Pleiades sector PD-S B4-0, first star picked on the map, should take me 56 jumps. I have no plan once there. I may wander from system to system for a while or perhaps scavenge around for interesting materials (some may say "steal") or even fly to another nebula. Whatever floats my spaceship. Et voilà. Adieu, la bulle.