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Log #5 Time: 29 Dec 3310 Location: Distance to Sol:

Expedition discoveries: REDACTED

engaged with non-newtonian black hole in system REDACTED. experienced mild temporal manipulation... ship suffered severe damage to frame shift drive, sensor array, scanners and hull integrity. saved by sco - disengaged from event horizon and got far enough away to cruise to a nearby star REDACTED. barely survived - extreme psychological phenomena experienced, tesla's face anomaly. sanity severely tested. regrets painfully reminded. newton nominal

have spent last 2 weeks on a mild atmosphere hmc planet mining materials to repair ship. AFM ran out 3 times while repairing. still, most ship systems have returned to running order - hydroponic bay still operational so food supply is a non-factor.

ATTACHED: ASTROPHOTOGRAPH_023_4335

demotivated to continue expedition. there is so much more if you reach out beyond the flesh and wash away the rot. had hoped this would be a new start but this whole trip has been a massive 180 backwards into the same shit that ruined me in the first place. too many memories, too much regret... amplified by the fact you're alone with it all. by the same token though, a comfort in loneliness. im the only hairless monkey around here for many thousands of light years... wondering these days how we always have to feel like we're going somewhere, how we always have to have a destination, or a goal, every day, sometimes many times a day. how many superficial goals will you tick before you find yourself before tesla's face? before you get tired of it all and choose a goal so lofty you will never complete it? or give up and stop, which is dangerous still, as you stop attaching yourself to a future. so much more beyond, so little i understand.

2;18;5;1;11;6;18;5;5

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Log #4 Time: 21:52:03 UTC Oct 5 3310 Location: Flyue Flyi NN-I c26-15 Distance to Sol: 43,252.89 ly

Expedition discoveries: Earth-like worlds: 3; Water worlds (Terraformable): 26 (16); Ammonia worlds: 2; Terraformable High Metal Content worlds: 140; New life forms sampled: 20

ATTACHEMENT: ASTROPHOTOGRAPH_19724_03 technical: ship status nominal with light w&t. exceptions: ship is spending on average 5.3% longer in witchspace; within spec but will require maintenance if continues. minimal use of afm and jumponium so far. lower frequency of jet cone boosts.

interstellar: from hawking's nebula, took diagonal route towards the main level of galactic disk. continued northwards until submerging below the disk to visit flying flea nebula. turned east upon crossing into the veils, climbing back onto main level, so as to chart course across the arms to sagittarius-carina (sector: mare somnia). as of writing still to cross arms. frustrating amount of red dwarfs and lone g-class stars

exoplanetary: lower discovery rate of terraformable HMC worlds. third earth-like discovered, but to use an old explorer's adage, not telling 'til i'm selling. other notable discoveries: 1) in system Pha Bre DK-R c4-43; two HMC worlds in binary orbit around a k-class star. one is lightly golden coloured and terraformable, the other is a magma world. due to contrast and close proximity i've named them "Yin and Yang". would have probably submitted them to the galactic mapping project, were that still a thing... 2) within a 400 ly stretch have discovered 3 argon-rich non terraformable water worlds, on average 1.8 times terran mass. featureless and with little to no polar ice caps. surface scans reveal completely eclectic wave patterns... i've monikered them solaris-likes and encourage explorers and universal cartography to mark these as dangerous: Flyue Flyi NK-E d12-5 A 1, Flyai Flyuae DV-H b39-0 A 1, Flyue Flyi LN-Q b51-2 1.

ATTACHEMENT: UNICARTSYSMAP_PHA_BRE_DK-R_C4-43 the "yin and yang" hmc worlds in question

personal: jumping like hell. like im running away from something, which maybe i am. unsure whether psychological patterns match early symptoms of space madness. tesla's face has become present in witch-space, dreams... somehow saw it in the cloud of the flying flea nebula, upon which i expressly vacated the system. next leg of the trip will be towards the face; relatively non-anxious, as i'm still aware it's just an extragalactic body. more concerned about it appearing in places where it isn't. newton has been uncharacteristically calm, mostly sleeping these past few days. companionship appreciated.

ATTACHEMENT: ASTROPHOTOGRAPH_19729_88

Windswept leafless tree

Grateful and yet sorrowful

Immoveable roots

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Log #3 Time: 11:50:23 UTC Oct 3 3310 Location: Eock Bluae QL-X C1-1 Distance to Sol: 31,593.65 ly

Expedition discoveries: Earth-like worlds: 2; Water worlds (Terraformable): 21 (16); Ammonia worlds: 1; Terraformable High Metal Content worlds: 115; New life forms sampled: 16

ATTACHED: ASTROPHOTOGRAPH_30140_428

writing this log from the deck of the DSSA Bougainville. the trek across the arms was stranger than i would have expected... started hearing the black again. the usual sounds; the white noise, a woman almost singing, ships landing even though i was the only one there; happening sooner than expected.

facing eastwards along the trip i kept seeing an extragalactic nebula, or galaxy... i could have sworn i knew the name of it, but all my galnet searches have come up empty. i'm sure it's got a name. at first it reminded me of frankenstein a bit, but then it clicked for me, it looks like that one photograph of tesla, where's he's facing sideways but looking at the camera. on one system a star was right in his eye socket, attaching now.

ATTACHED: ASTROPHOTOGRAPH_71943_1 tesla's face, looking at me.

travelling below the disk i started encountering already scanned systems; seems i wasnt the first one to do the route from the perimeter nebula to hawking's. went through 3 scanned systems in a row before deciding after the next jump i'll dogleg up towards the milky way for the rest of the trip... and on that jump i discovered an earth-like... it's got a moon, but relatively low on landmass, with a lot of water in the atmosphere and temperatures of 41 c. whatever's living down there must be p. hot and humid. i turned left to jump to the next system, toward's tesla's face, and it became a skull. started hearing the black not soon after.

arriving at hawking's nebula couldn't have come sooner; i needed something to wash off the bad juju. after some rudimentary repairs to the ship integrity, and selling off a page of my exploration data so far as gratitude, sat down at the concourse to write this. i'll be leaving soon, it seems the juju has gotten to this place as well. the whole place is run by a skeleton crew and they seem very empty and void of life. or maybe that's just me and i'd forgotten how to talk to people. coincidentally the carrier orbits an earth-like world.

dogleg up towards the main body of the arm. follow arm northwards. probable detour to flying flea nebula; cross over to the carina arm at some point thereafter

ATTACHEMENT: ASTROPHOTOGRAPH_94235_06

Dandelion seed Carried by a thousand winds Far away from home

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Log #2 Time: 15:23:15 UTC Oct 2 3310 Location: Hypio Prao TZ-E D12-172 Distance to Sol: 27,023.58 ly

Expedition discoveries: Earth-like Worlds: 1; Water worlds (Terraformable): 12 (8); Ammonia worlds: 1; Terraformable High-metal content worlds: 94; New life forms sampled: 12

ATTACHED: ASTROPHOTOGRAPH_43150_276

writing from perimeter nebula... been a busy couple of days of non-stop jumping, honking, scanning, landing. ship performing optimally. 40 neutron jumps have chipped the paint and damaged the fsd, sensors, powerplant and secondary systems; repairs brought afm down to 4500 units, or 75%. no factor due to large surplus of synthesis matrials for top-ups. flying under the disk has been very productive; a lot of terraformables, but not as many ammonia worlds or earth-likes this far beneath the milky way. newton in good spirits. tried to stow away on the srv just as i was about to deploy it. unfortunately they don't make artemis suits for his size so he was extracted in a brave rescue effort.

ATTACHED: ASTROPHOTOGRAPH_43132_235 pictured: landable rocky body with 3 geological features (geysers) in the Athair TC-B C1-95 system. tentatively named "Ambria"

will detour eastwards towards trojan belt for ~7k lightyears. ds1 went through there so might do some space tourism. will then decide whether to take the scutum-centaurus arm or continue further east and ride the sagittarius-carina arm... might look for fleet carriers in the area to restock. will update log then.

Long burst-open star In the smoke of my bonfire Lonely starling croons

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Log #1 19:56:25 UTC Sep 30 3310 Location: Mynoarr RD-S D4-172 Distance to Sol: 19,462.62 ly

Expedition discoveries: Earth-like Worlds: 1; Water worlds (Terraformable): 5 (3); Ammonia worlds: 1; Terraformable High-metal content worlds: 48; New life forms sampled: 7

never really saw the use in these, but i figured why not write things down for a change

last month i decided to go again. had a nice thing going on in the eagle nebula these past couple of years, but then it ended. or well, it almost ended me... so with gritted teeth i made it back to the bubble. vandergrift was a bit dusty but she made the trip without much fuss; still, she was showing her age. for what im doing i needed more range and that new sco everyone's been yapping about.

went to see grandma to engineer the new drive. took me a week just to get all the components, and that guardian business... chore. took off from the bubble august 26th. new coat of paint, vertical stabs, extra long range antenna clusters, fully engineered frame shift drive with supercruise overcharge, 74 ly jump range.

hyperdicted near shinrarta dezhra on my way out. escaped with moderate damage. ran like hell as far as away from the bubble. found a fleet carrier out near NGC 6357. took 3 weeks to repair. continued expedition september 26th. went under the disk. made it to nebula Clookuia A-A H35; beautiful. ATTACHED: ASTROPHOTOGRAPH 359320_938

just crossed into the arcadian stream. already the star density is throwing off the route plotter; having to go 100 jumps at a time. mostly using neutron stars through this section of the trip. newton broke into hydroponics again, at this rate he's going to chew through the hull soon enough. stupid cat. was repainting the srv just now and of course he had to get sharpen his claws on it while the paint was still drying, so now he's walking around with nail polish. ending with haiku

What light there once was Flows like water and surrounds Holding out of hope

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