HD 76037

It is a special feeling to jump into a system and not to know what to expect. Maybe just a sun shining lonely, maybe earth-like planets, water worlds, black holes, maybe Raxxla or maybe just a bunch of ice planets and piles of stones. If you jump into such a system with your exploration ship, at first the basic character of the system is immediately revealed, but if you jump into the system on the carrier below deck, it is different. The first thing you see is the system overview in the navigation panel and only when you go up you will know where you are. And the display in the navigation panel didn't reveal anything at first, except that the system was indeed previously undiscovered, which in itself was a huge stroke of luck, because after all, this expedition was supposed to end here, and a great system, in which there is a lot to discover, would of course be an appropriate final chord.

And we were not disappointed.

When the slats of the landing pads folded back and the landing platforms went up, the scan-team started their work. After the first honk it was clear that the mapping teams would also get work, because there were 16 objects to map. The following system scan revealed two things: Neither earth-like planets, nor water worlds, nor ammonia worlds were in the system, that was one thing, but the other was surprising and entertaining at the same time: None of the moons in this system were round. They all had dents, deformations or were not round per se. Inevitably we had to think again of the omen of our carrier's name: 'Walhalla', because each of these moons looked as if Thor himself had personally worked on them with his hammer, in addition there was a highly metallic planet with a glistening ring, which was visible from afar glowing red of magma, there the hammer itself was probably forged and there the Walhalla swung into orbit, and the mapping teams started their work.

HD 76037 was almost 600ly over the previous limit of visitable systems and the "Ultimate Destination" at the Anaconda Grave seemed so far away and with a little melancholy we thought of the fallen pilots who at that time would surely have chosen a place like this to start their way to Valhalla.

It was simply beautiful here.

The mapping teams found snow-covered hills rising above plains of red sand, planets that looked as if they had been created by a sculptor in marble, a purple gas giant that, through its cloud systems, looked as if it had been sliced and reassembled, and on top of that, it was orbited by an egg-shaped moon.

Admittedly, all this may not be anything extraordinary when you look at the whole galaxy, but we were the first to see it and the way to this place was no straight line and it just happened to reveal itself to us without us looking for it.

And we found something else, but that we found on the journey and not only in this solar system, which is high above the stars one could reach so far, was something that should actually be the building block of our modern civilization: It's not about generating lots of credits as quickly as possible, because at the end of the day there's nothing left to buy with it anyway. It's about comradeship, the commitment of one for the other, the common experience of the universe and unity in difficult situations. Only together we could make it here, to where no other squadron has gone before.

Borders are there to be pushed because they only exist in our heads, and when we finally started our way back, we visited other systems and found places that were unique in their own way.

And we found new systems on the Galaxy Map again. Systems that were unreachable even for the Walhalla. But maybe the right path for these systems has yet to be revealed.

The re-arrival of Valhalla at the decision point below the Cancri Cluster marked the end of the trip and the expedition, part of the squadron took advantage of the Valhallain's convenient homebringing service to take care of their daily business in this galaxy again, another part chose the oldfashioned way home, which consists of honk, scan, map, repeat.

**So if you meet a CMDR with squadron ID 'BLUE', just send an 'o7', as he will do.

o7**

PS: There has been a lot of speculation about what we found and it's not RAXXLA. Maybe RAXXLA is not really an object that you can find, but a state of mind or a level of knowledge that you can reach. Maybe also by seeing things a little more relaxed, more relaxed. Then the letters would almost be correct. We are not disappointed that we didn't find RAXXLA, because that's not what we were looking for.

Not this time.

"Attention, carrier jump-sequence initiated"

We were at the point of no return. Once again. But this time it had a different meaning from that time in 3302.

Four years later we stood with our SRV's at the remains of a great expedition, which found its programmed and voluntary end here, at the "Anaconda Graveyard" in HD 76133, more precisely, at a point they called "ultimate destination". How ironic... Because with what we were about to do, we were robbing the place of its finality, we would shift the boundaries of what could be achieved, rise higher than anyone has ever done at this point, beyond the Elysium, higher to the stars, closer to the true ultimate destination.

Was it a coincidence or an omen that our carrier was named "Walhalla"?

In a long past earthly mythology, the name was given to the hall where fallen warriors were allowed to enter if they died honorably on the battlefield. Also the CMDR, who had fallen here at the Anaconda Graveyard, certainly did so honorably and undoubtedly earned their place in Valhalla.

Their grave became a legend, a memorial with an aftertaste that no one could return from there. Too great was the distance at the neutron star that led into the Cancri Cluster, which had the fitting title "Decision Point". A charge of the FSA brought the traveller over the void, but since there was no equivalent neutron star on the other side, one could not jump back. At the Decision Point, commanders became heroes. and at the Anaconda Grave, heroes became legends.

"Attention, Carrier lockdown in 5 minutes"

I was at the Graveyard too long. Thanks to the outstanding technology of 3306, the Decision Point was no longer a one-way street. With a carrier, systems became reachable that nobody could reach before, and since the influence stuff in our home system was very routine anyway, my squadron decided to make a little trip to the Graveyard. With a carrier, exploration and mining ships and all that. The Valhalla was filled with tritium up to the edge, so that the galaxy-wide tritium shortage could not harm us. The journey and the stay in the cluster were unspectacular with beautiful views of the Cancri Cluster, which is nicknamed "Elysium", the island of the blessed. Whatever the reason, actually it looked exactly the same here as everywhere else. We found BIO-signs, the one or other hotspot and finally we reached the highest system of the cluster, there we had to fill in jumponium again to make the jump to the Graveyard. i flew ahead to scout the area and to identify any problems for our younger participants. so i hung around the graveyard and waited for the arrival of my comrades, and the waiting time i spent browsing the galaxy map and exploring the surrounding area. I could imagine that the members of the expedition in 3302 were doing exactly the same thing here, hoping to find another way back into the bubble and maybe they were as surprised as I was when they happened to find a bright spot on the Galaxy Map, that was labeled "HD 75406". How big must have been the disappointment when they realized that the short glimmer of hope they had was deceptive, because the distance next to it was 349.14ly. Except for mega ships, no other ship could cover this distance at that time, so they had to admit that they had reached their ultimate destination.

But we had our mega ship with us, so I contacted the tour guide and the carrier-owner and we discussed and calculated whether our tritium supplies would still be sufficient for the return trip. Soon the enjoyment of the trip gave way to the excitement of an expedition, which our trip now became. An expedition. For many of our youngest squadron members a completely new, unfamiliar experience, but together with Distant Worlds 2 veterans the further procedure was explained and the schedule was discussed.

And then I looked at the Galaxy Map again and found another system.

and then another one.

And the last one was almost vertically above the previous one and by using lateration we tried to find out how far the distance from the second to the third discovered system was and we estimated at just under 500ly, which means that with a lot of luck, the Walhalla could reach this high system but we would only know when we arrived at the second one. We did not intend to open a carrier graveyard up there, so again we calculated how many jumps we would need for the outward and return flight and how much tritium would have to be available. The calculation showed a reassuring tritium supply but we decided for safety's sake to hold a squadron mining unit at the tritium hotspot. Within two hours we had finally acquired enough tritium for another jump. It was possible.

"Attention, counting down. 10, ..."

So we decided on the route,

"5"

determined the time for the start,

"4" divided the squadron members into scanning and mapping teams

"3" invoked discipline and teamwork

"2" hoping for the luck of the brave

"1" held their breath And the Walhalla jumped...

So today the journey home finally begins. We want to follow the route of the USS Voyager. The first leg is already a tough one: almost 30,000 light years from one waypoint to the next, and an estimated travel time of 6 weeks. But that's only the first third of the entire journey.

I'm very curious what we'll find out here and I'm kinda homesick already.

So we managed to accomplish the Distant Worlds 2 - Expedition. Staying at Beagle Point for almost three weeks, waiting for the rest of our little subfleet to arrive. In this time, flying a spaceship was not the primary topic of the todo list, neither was planning the route back. Some thousands of lightyears ago we decided to take the voyager route back but will there be an official expedition? Will it be guided and administered in the same amount as DW2 was? The answer came quite quickly and simple: No, it won't!

The time came when the fleet was planning its way back. And the majority of the CMDRs joined "The Great Return" - Expedition following a relatively parallel route to DW2 back to the bubble and in an official expedition. I thought, well I want that too!!! So I designed a badge and plotted a special route to the starting point of the Voyager Trail (some 20k ly away from Beagle).

And yes, now we are on our way. The voyager route wing of the DW2 - Fleet is spreaded very widely across the route but the main group has almost reach the first waypoint of the prolog. So if you want to join, you still can do!

When you are hanging around Beagle Point and you don't know where to turn, turn to the east an follow The Voyage Home.

I got my "Leader of the Pack" Badge. Feels interesting...

cu in the black, o7