After returning to the bubble I had the opportunity to check out a bunch of vessels of the ‘local fleet’ including the Beluga Liner Ahab’s Desire, which brought me all the way to Beagle Point and indeed Salomée’s Moon during the Distant Worlds 2 expedition in 3305.

In retrospect I have to state how amazingly good the Beluga Liner is working either as an exploration ships as well as a mining rig used for the second Community Goal on DW2 expedition: Both CGs were establishing and erecting mankind’s station at the Centre called Explorer’s Anchorage. Explorer’s Anchorage so far remains the furthest outpost in the ED galaxy, if we leave the numerous fleet carriers deployed into deep space after 3306 out of context.

Until the recent day I still use my oldest ship, Honest Tuck, an ASP Explorer. Nowadays Honest Tuck is repurposed as an exploration ship mainly; sometimes it fulfils the role of a refuelling and rescue ship, a so-called ‘ratter’. Although for my first trip to the Colonies my second ASP X, now being called Clarity of Dream, was used (and a Diamond Explorer for the way back to the bubble in autumn 3305); back then the Honest Tuck setup could be described as one for a multi-purpose vessel. Anyway, later I kept upgrading and reconfiguring Honest Tuck and it became as useful as it is in recent days. There is some footage of some of my vessels available too:

Homage DW2 expedition and Beluga Liner

Honest Tuck - Hot Jupiter Footage

Odyssey 3309 - An Explorer's Dream

There is a good number of ships in my fleet. Yesterday, I used the one called Small Elephant as well due to the fact it suited the hauling job best I was doing. Surprisingly, after several years not using the Lakon Type 7 Small Elephant I have to state it is an amazingly good ship and always fun to fly.

I do remember Small Elephant managed to snatch some occupied Rescue Pods from Thargoid Interceptors while surviving the operation back in 3304, an aspect coming back to further notification in recent days. Also it was occasionally used as a ratting ship.

One of the huge ships we use is the Cutter. I actually own three of these. Late June 3309 I carried out the frequent function tests for the Cutter Hirilonde. This time I did this job on my own. Since there are a few ships in my fleet I let some of my carrier engineers do these checks or, in cases a ship is parked not on the fleet carrier, I usually contract personnel doing so. The latter in cases of the ships spread over the bubble (e.g. McArthur Base), vessels parked in remote locations (e.g. the mining Python “Der Pott” in Omega Mining, a ship used during the first community goal CG on Distant Worlds 2 expedition) or parts of the fleet located at the Colonies (e.g. at Shurly’s Nest, Giles Station or Jacques's Station).

The test includes as well a visual inspection of the outside hull and moving or working parts of a ship: In case of a cutter it means either a lot of surface to be inspected as well as a number of additional security checks. Checks include corrosion of armour plating, possible hydraulic oil leakages (are there films of oil visible), connection checks for the landing gear and all movable parts attached to the ship’s outside, checks related to hull integrity and isolation, checks of the function of the positioning lights as well as the main head lights or landing lights, workability checks of all hatches and attached modules and, if installed, weapons or the empty weapon hard-points, checks of canopy and window transparency and integrity, checks of heat management components namely the heat vent covers and fans and finally also visible checks of the vector thrusters and main thrusters.

Well, I guess you got the idea.

Thankfully there are some drones stored on the cutter helping with the overall visual surface and hull check. The drones are scanning all surfaces and analyse the spectral imagery as well. Also, where indicated and necessary, we still use such ancient methods as ultra sound and x-ray scans.

To deploy the drones supporting the task it makes sense to have some free air space above the vessel to be inspected. This is where the photos attached here come from: I downloaded some of the inspection images in visible light. The following image shows me inspecting one of the mid decks starboard side while the above image gives an impression of the dimensions of a cutter compared to the human scale showing me walking over the surface of the starboard wing after my inspection of the nacelles attached to this structure.

Since operation was carried out in Shasir, I also visited McArthur base. This planetary base is one of the really huge planetary surface bases consisting out of numerous buildings including scyscrapers, which mainly are located inside a perimeter formed by a ring structure providing all landing pads as well as the gates insuring the access to and from the base over the planetary surface directly.

I was also able to inspect the ship parked at McArthur base and having lunch in one of the restaurants at the base’s main hub. The following image shows a photo I made when leaving McArthur Base a few weeks later.

In May 3309 Shadow Head, its crew and Aldarion returned to the Bubble.

The Bubble was burning. Multiple Thargoid Maelstroms moved from the outside of the bubble-sphere towards its centre and Thargoid forces took over one system after another. Humanity started to fight back but taking back systems or preventing Thargoids from preparation of system take overs were slow, bloody and it was unclear if the invasion eventually could be stopped.

Aldarion found out, that there was the need for updating at least some of his ships to harden these against Thargoid weapons, whether he used these ships for evacuation and support missions of stations and outposts under alien attack or active fighting.

Evacuation missions involved partially long round trips between the rescue ships and the places being evacuated. Aldarion was not to fond of fighting the Thargoids since he was convinced Salvation and his actions were malicious and the true reason for the chaos ruling huge parts of the Bubble. On the other hand the situation for mankind became severe due to the attacking Thargoids.

Aldarion visited some of the space ship engineers with three different vessels: The AX-Alliance Fighter, one of the Pythons and one of the Cutters. Martuuk, Jean, Quwendt and the Dweller were providing their services to harden these ships and the whole undertaking gave some reason to travel around some parts of the Bubble again.

Finally it seemed the efforts of the defending forces became fruitful and the Tharg-Activities slowed down significantly, which did not mean mankind was saved yet.

One day of exploring some Nebulae at the southern edge of the Norma Arm Region culminated in the finding of an Electricae lifeform; I think I did not find a specimen of this kind ever. It seems these treelike creatures are able to emit light during the night, which I could not verify due to the fact I preferred exploring the dayside of the icy body. If so, there should be some beautiful sites created by reflections on bright ice in darkness.

The nebula I explored today showed some higher visibility during approach than the one I found last week. Todays nebula at the southern edge of Norma Arm is located above the galactic plain over the direct routes between the Bubble and The Center; it is not surprising, many planetary objects here were tagged in the past.

I try to find a planetary object, which is Easter egg shaped, also known as an ellipsoid shape. Any rotating planetary object might resemble an elliptic shape due to the centrifugal forces acting on its composites.

Anyhow, these shapes normally come as very minute changes of the globe and are barely visible to the human eye.

Theoretically strong tidal forces may form an Easter egg shape. If the tidal forces overcome the gravitational forces forming the planetary object, the body may disintegrate, ripping apart: This is known as spaghettification.

I did not find any spaghetti, yet but an illusion of an Easter-egg-planet shape, here is what I saw:

I found this system in 3304. This system consists out of 52 planetary bodies and its sun. One moon features 5 lifeforms on its surface and plenty of geysers and fumaroles can be found on several surfaces too.

Fifteen rings around various bodies in Byua Aim HC-M d7-2196; plenty of hotspots of Painite are remarkable. Also Platinum, Muscovite, Alexandrite and many other valuable minerals could be mined in these rings. There is one Water-world located in orbit around the outermost gasgiant as well.

Other from me I know of two more commanders visiting the System: CMDR Chrismasterski and CMDR Dr_Chieves.

The next image shows a metal rich 2G world and its rings, the sunlight becomes refracted in the ice crystals and reflective particles of the rings.

The system features numerous beautiful sights – I wonder why there are no tourist-vessels around. On the other hand, it feels good not to be disturbed by Beluga Liners filled with hundreds of nosey part time astronauts not knowing what is going on. As well, the commanders of these tourist Beluga Liners mostly are known for their reckless flying – I wonder if they think they were untouchable in an Anarchy-System.

I also had to face some minor damage on my Scarab SRV. Therefore I had to fix the auto cannon while collecting some crystalline minerals on one of the volcanic sites: Once being back on my carrier, I need to ask the mechanics to replace the autoloader springs and give the whole system a good maintenance.

Recently the Shadow Head slowly but constantly moves South, towards the so-called bubble. Honest Tuck is shadowing the Shadow (Head) on loops West and East.

While travelling through the Region Norma Arm, several Notable Stellar Object were found inside system Greae Pjio ZR-A d14-448 or neighbouring systems close to the nebula.

The background Image was taken on a different site namely the planetary surface of Oephaik EI-B d13-4193 A 3 b.

The West-North-Western Loop expedition saw plenty of stars, planets and moons as well as numerous lifeforms on the surfaces of a variety of planetary objects.

As well and somewhat surprisingly a second non-human Signal source was detected, which originated from a Guardian-Thargoid Hybrid Probe located at the surface of the following planet: Flyue Flyou KY-C c15-42 2 d Hybrid Probe. The coordination on the planet’s surface are: -5.4201°; 84.7794°; 0.14.

This was the second time I was able to detect such an artefact in outer space far north of the galactic centre. The following graphic shows several things: The HUD indication of the signal source after the DSS-Scan of the planetary surface, the constituents of the signal source, including the broken sensor fragments, the system names and locations in regard to the galactic plain of the two findings. Both findings could be located within half a year.

These findings do illustrate the existence of such sensor artefacts throughout deep space and north of the Center. The origins of these probes – so far - are largely unknown as well as their context in regard of the history and lore of the ED-galaxy.

The collected artefacts are not contagious and can be collected as materials, which is good, since the tiny hold of my exploration vessel is filled with occupied rescue pods, I did collect on a surface somewhere south of the Colonies.