Launch day.
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As the great departure of Distant Worlds Expedition 2 is just over a week away, and I have time to kill, I decided to get some practice in with the new mining tools. There's already been a further improvement to my loadout, which was the addition of twin abrasion blasters on the very bottom small slots of my 'conda Toward Eternity - turns out this is an excellent spot for them.
The really short version is that in a few hours' work, I've added over 250 million to my wallet, due to Void Opals and Low Temp Diamonds, and a handful of Alexandrite and Grandidierite; the very last trip's haul was:
2.7 mil for 5t of Alexandrite, 14.7 mil for 19t of Grand, 4.9 mil for 7t of LTD, and 106.2 mil for 64t of VOs.
It's definitely a new rush out there!

More importantly, I was having a grand time, using the pulse wave scanner to look for the brightest hits, cracking them open with seismic charges, and pulling off the freshly-exposed bits with the abrasion blasters. I hardly used my mining lasers at all; the only reason they're still there, is that the DW2 expedition has a station-building plan at two waypoints, and the required minerals may be the surface type only, and lasers are still king of ablating those kinds of goods off these rocks.
Time will tell.

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By my reckoning, after 1650 (and change) Thargoid scout kills to clear Deadly combat rank, I have snagged the third and final Elite rank. When I started not long ago, at a measly 5% Competent rank, I thought it was a pipe dream to get three for three. Turns out each Scout is worth a bit more than a human Elite, and the best part? They don't run away.
It was a dark harvest, mind you. I didn't start counting initially, but I did in the last few ranks, and it's not much of a stretch to work back from there; 1650 + 800 + 650-ish + ... It's safe to say that nearly four thousand scouts died at my hands at the controls of AX Multi-cannons. If I don't get hyperdicted now, nothing will.

Look at that badge; that gold foil looks superb on Toward Eternity.

A few days ago, I left the bubble for the Pleiades cluster, hearing the far greater density of Thargoid NHSS signals... And they weren't kidding. Merope is now my hunting grounds for scouts, and when the system FSS pings back with 130+ signals every time, it's almost an embarrassment of riches.

To the point where it's more expedient to pop to Maia for restock, repair, and combat-bond turning in, and then jump back to Merope & scan the Nav Beacon. Else you'll be sitting all night combing that storm of signals in the FSS.

Recently systems started falling to the Thargoids, multiple in the bubble and nearby Electra - AX Conflict zones, and "thargoid controlled." The Incursions have begun. I tried my hand assisting the local Pilots' Federation AX squads in the AX-CZ, but it was far too thinly spread out, and when pairs of interceptors start showing up, blacking out all human ships in the area, I knew that this wasn't worth risking my hide or ship.

Staying in Merope for now - I just hit 82% Dangerous, and if I push in the next cycle, I'll break into Deadly rank. That's a lot of dead 'goid scouts, considering I started from 5% Competent less than a month ago.
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"Titan's Daughter" station in the type-B lit system of Taygeta.

As ready as I can be, with a modest complement of mining gear aboard, with a jump range still greater than 70 light years, the Distant Worlds Expedition of 3305 is coming in less than a month now.

So I'm shooting Thargoids in Jormbu and Wuli for now.

While heading towards the core, getting the hang of these vastly improved exploration tools, I stumbled across Concentrated Signal Emissions on the FSS. It caught me off guard, but clearly this was showing the FSS was doing the job.

Naturally I had to get over there and find out what it was.
Proto-Lagrangian Clouds.

Not only that, two of them, and they were dark. How fitting that the first time I discover something, in an unexplored system, that they are dark, with strange metallic crystals and spherical mineral clusters lurking in their depths?

All told, it was four types in both of these:

• Flavus Metallic Crystals
• Purpureus Metallic Crystals
• Prasinus Metallic Crystals
• Solid Mineral Spheres

It's something to see your name show up in the Codex, in the home sector of humanity (Inner Orion Arm).

Word was coming for a long time now (or felt like it), that the technical wizards were cooking up a major update to our scanning tools... Well, jump to now, and boy howdy, I am loving the new Full Spectrum Scanner, which replaces the heavy Advanced Discovery Scanner (well it was only 2 tons, but every bit helps). The Detailed Surface Scanner got reworked to launch probes for accurate mapping of bodies and rings. It's a real gamechanger, that's what.

They also tinkered with our ship displays. The stars never looked so much brighter, and the nights are darker. Finally they gave us night vision (been asking for that one for ages, myself. Our dinky flashlights standing in as "headlights" were far too dim to be of use.) so darkside exploration is far less of a sweat-inducing gamble.

B-type star, out here in the black:

Distant Worlds 2 expedition is drawing near - there's plans to kickoff a new station construction as well, out near Sag A* - that'll be a huge step forward for exploration, that's for certain. I've added mining lasers and juggled parts around so I can repair hulls and collect cargo (currently got room for 96 tons of it too), but I'm wondering if I should repurpose the disused Whale Noises T-9 for it and ship it off to Colonia. Or get a second Python? (There's a hell of a lot more mining tools now too)

When I heard word of being able to make a difference in the attacks by Thargoids, and another word that the famine-afflicted system of Byeru Bese was getting heaped with woes by Thargoid incursions... I had to try something.

I stowed the lasers off the top mounts on my Krait MkII, pulled out the fighter hangar (sorry crewmate, consider it a cushy job perk), and a few other bits and ends so I could double-down on the hull reinforcements and make room for some shiny Anti-Xeno multicannon turrets.
A short stop to Jameson Memorial later, I was ready to help out. Man I had been spoiled for the long range jumps of Toward Eternity, so it took a little longer to rush over to Byeru Bese outside of the bubble.

I wasn't going to tangle with the larger Thargoids, and Aegis advised that eliminating scouts (the smallest type) yielded the largest impact on repelling a full-out assault on a system station. So I kept my scanners peeled for Non-Human Signal Sources, threat 3 & 4 only. A cold sweat did form when a few of the signals were rated threat 9 - I shudder to think what fate would've awaited me had I foolishly dropped into those.

The Aegis megaship Acropolis was a solid base to return and restock up at, and while the combat bounty was a modest 10k per scout, it was my combat rating that was the pleasant payout; 1% for every kill, so after an evening I was already more than a third of the way to the next rank. Far less excruciatingly unrewarding compared to hours and days spent in human warzones squabbling over the most insignificant rocks in space.

The plan is to keep slugging it out here, until either the Thargoids fall back, or a station falls - they usually leave after they've brought one down, leaving any others unscathed in the system. Your guess is as good as mine as to why that's 'enough' for their goals, instead of a total system purge.

After coming back from Colonia, I did several trips around the bubble to scrape up more materials, supplies and whatnot, as well as taking on side jobs of ferrying passengers around.

I think I also did a few rescues from burning stations along the way - though I'm sure a ship with black livery and name referencing the end of life was a bit of a mixed feeling for those refugees.

I heard word that there were abandoned/attacked settlements of the Far God cult, and while I still had those murmurs of the Outer Dark seeping in my spine, I felt it worth a look to see if I could uncover any clues.

Sadly nothing else but the audio-logs of the cult's members, ranging from the madly deluded enthusiasm to the crying fear of being dragged into something with no means of escape. Judging from the damage and utter lack of remains, one has to surmise that if it wasn't the Thargoids that took them, then the forces behind Zurara's demise are at work here.

I heard the call, and sought them out. Brain Trees. I don't quite rightly recall how I knew, but I found them, and drove among them in my SRV; they actually had plentiful materials for me to pluck, and my research afterwards shows theories that the trees are Guardian-engineered, to extract useful elements for easier collection later. The sound of them is odd, though. Unlike the Outer Dark, like a muted echo, distorted, and disagreeable.

Now I find myself in a system that's beleaguered with 'Goids, and I've taken up arms against them in my Krait; have downed 4 scouts so far, a first for me, when previously I avoided them or watched them benignly scan my ship.

Many apologies for the delayed logging - I kept getting sidetracked by preparations for Distant Worlds Expedition 2, as well as copious amounts of researching and fine-tuning the Toward Eternity ship loadout. Before getting into a truncated summary of my journey to the absolute farthest edge I dared to jump to, I've done some interesting changes to my favorite option for exploration - switched out the fuel scoop to a class 7, and upgraded the SRV hangar to carry four SRVs.

The material holds are almost full-up now, thanks to all my side-tracking. Paid my respects to the resting place of Jameson, and rescued a brazen hot-shot from the wreckage of the Bug Killer.

Seeking the Edge of Night Expedition

I've had a growing need to see the total void between galaxies, and while I had a good taste of the view when I was travelling along the top and bottom of the core during my travel to Sag A*, I still had a dense ocean of stars to sail on. Going to the outermost edge of the Milky Way would mean getting as deep into that dark as I dared to jump. And which edge?

What better place to seek the darkness than the legendary Formidine Rift.

So I left Sol towards BD+65 210 on 3304-Oct-9th, 3:40:46 AM local time. Not long after a few jumps past the official edge of the powers' bubble, I did a side-along jog to get myself off the direct line path, as far too many would-be explorers make a beeline to popular destinations. So much unknown systems missed when folks take the superhighway.

After much meandering and then a more direct line along the untouched regions, I arrived at Farsight Expedition Base, deep in the Heart & Soul Nebulae complex.

Sold off the cartographics collected already, and topped up. This was the edge of the Formidine Rift. There were tales of lost ships, vanished expeditions, and derelict settlements out there, but human nature tends to inflate even the most mundane things; still I was drawn to that outer darkness, and if I become yet another name added to the roster of the Lost, so be it.

Reached Salome's World in Eafots RX-T d3-3, on October 13th. Came all the way to that ammonia world she left her name on, and gave a moment or two to ponder what she might have found out here in the black. We'll never know.

I had heard legend of it, so I took a short but circuitous route to the silent corpse of the megaship Zurara in Syreadiae JX-F c0. Huge hulk, with some of the lights still strangely active. Downloaded the system logs and had a listen to what a few already knew, but fewer still understand (though we have dark suspicions)

From here, I left for the darkest reaches. I like even neat numbers in math, and coordinate systems are no exception. So out of symmetrical preference, I headed in the direction that would be on the "45 degree diagonal" from Sol.

On 3304-October-18th, I reached my "edge." A then-undiscovered system, 20,025 light-years from my start & Sol, Phrae Dryue UM-H d11-0. It took some careful plotting and triple-checking of my fuel & jumponium supplies, so I leapt into the abyss, and jumped 140.69LY from the nearest system. Out here, the darkness of the Night was nearly total; the whole of the Milky Way galaxy was behind, bracketed by void. The Magellanic clouds and Andromeda were the lone smudges of light beyond.

After I scanned every body in Phrae Dryue UM-H d11-0, I landed on a planet lit only by a dim red failed star and the galaxy, got out for a stretch and sat for a spell.

Needless to say, I loved being out here.

Might be the Space Madness talking.

Time to start heading back to the light of civilization, both figuratively and literally. After another jumponium-enhanced leap back to more accessible galactic structures, I noted that Oob Phlai QJ-I d9-0 had several earth-likes, a system-first (that I can recall) in having first-discovery on.

I wasn't going to go back to Sol just yet; instead I set my sights on Colonia, and even then I was not going to take the direct route; no, I was going to follow the Outer Arm, leap back across the Formidine Rift, and keep zig-zagging up along arms and jumping across the gaps until I got to Jaques' bar. And thus it began.

Tiefeia DA-Z d0 - A green Jumponium candidate system EDSM-verified

Multiple planets & moons within 1000 ls of main star, loaded with materials.

Prue Eom YV-G c13-2 - another new green system, with the added feature of having the Water World and landable planets in a very close-together "clockwork" orbit.

Crossed the Far Bridge over the Rift; the galactic core grows larger and brighter pretty quickly.

Bloo Eon XN-F b3-1 - a most notable system, for being one of the most "alive" systems I've discovered; Earth-Like world with human breathable atmosphere, two water worlds, two gas-giants with life...

Speaking of life, it got exceedingly rare that I'd see some past commander's name on a system I arrive at; those heat-maps of discovered systems on the EDSM network are a bit misleading as to how many stars have actually been visited; what you think is moderately dense with discovered systems is still vastly sparse compared to the volume of space filled with stars.

Reached Prie Phlai XO-I d9-28 on October 30th, and was nearly blinded by the view. A trinary system - while that isn't too rare, there was a planet on my sensors that I could land at, a mere 68 light-seconds from the barycenter. So of course I did land on it, and after checking my temperature readouts for safety's sake, I got out the photo-drone.

Floarph KJ-F d12-49 - Neutron star, with a water world orbiting its companion star, but more notable is the binary pair of ringed black metallic worlds. Possibly my favorite kind to come across, these worlds have the strangest pitch-black polar caps with no detectable albedo. Too bad one can't land on them... Yet.

Finally, after countless systems visited (well it's countable, but I can't be arsed to do the math), on 3304-November-4th, I had finally reached Colonia for the first time. Made my way in to Jaques Station, already begrudging the crowds and noise of all the ships in the system. I hadn't even been a full month out in the Great Black, and yet on the way in, I found myself squinting at brightness of all the stars in the Core skies, and flinching at the crass commotion of other humans.

Needless to say, the folks at Jaques Station were very very happy with me when I sold off my cartographic scans, including the new neutron systems on the Highway and the jumponium-green systems. For a spell I hung around, frequently in the bar, but also running some deliveries, but I soon wanted to get back home. It was about here I swapped some of the modules around, including the fuel scoop to go from class 6 to 7, and decided to try the Neutron Highway back.

The Neutron Highway. While I was less fearful of those stellar corpses, hearing about the damage that accumulates, plus the risk of full control-loss and slamming into the EZ of a dead star, does put one a little off at testing their beloved ships against such moribund forces. But I owed myself a little time saving to get back; so off I went, after grabbing a plot from the local Spansh geeks. 88 jumps, for 22,500 light years? Goddamn. I headed out on November 5th.

I arrived back at Sol, with a couple extended naps along the way, on the morning of November 8th.

The Dark still softly calls, and I hear its sussurant charms during the quieter moments.