I intend to maintain a running log of my expeditions here.
I've recently decided to join Clan UE, and feel it's apropo to detail any interesting trips I may take.
At the moment, I am undergoing my first trip to Sol, and am in RiftSpace trying to figure out just what to do next.
Will post the log when the trip is done.
[Edited on 8-25-2015 by RavenFellBlade]
First Captain's Log! *POSSIBLE SPOILERS!*
-
RavenFellBlade
- Ensign
- Posts: 36
- Joined: Fri Aug 21, 2015 9:43 pm
-
DaveK
- Global Moderator
- Posts: 4161
- Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 9:04 pm
- Location: Leeds UK
First Captain's Log! *POSSIBLE SPOILERS!*
Looking forward to hearing about your adventures! 
Callsign: Incoming
Life is like a sewer... what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. - Bob Newhart
Hell is being in a pure platinum asteroid field... with a diamond mining beam
Life is like a sewer... what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. - Bob Newhart
Hell is being in a pure platinum asteroid field... with a diamond mining beam
-
RavenFellBlade
- Ensign
- Posts: 36
- Joined: Fri Aug 21, 2015 9:43 pm
First Captain's Log! *POSSIBLE SPOILERS!*
As it turns out, this isn't actually my FIRST trip to Sol... just the first planned and properly equipped one. The first was a "long way around" drive straight from Sirius as soon as I got a Mantis and a Build Constructor. I didn't know any better yet. Long story short, I DID make it to Sol, but literally on my last dime as I had to buy a Trade Station in the middle of nowhere to refuel, and didn't really consider just how expensive this would be.
Then, to make matters worse, I get to Sol, have a quick look around, and then jump straight to Pearl... without every landing on anything or even checking out Earth. By the time I realized there was no quick way back, I had already saved AFTER the jump to Pearl. I also later realized (once I learned how to use the Map Log) that I never saved the coords to the station I built. Somewhere in between Sirius and Sol is a Trade Station named "Raven's Requiem". Think of it as an Easter Egg hunt trying to find it! It IS out there... somewhere. Even if I don't quite know where, myself. I pretty well remember where I left from at the time, and what I had left for fuel, so I probably can stumble on it, with the help of some probes.
Will you find Raven's Requiem? Happy hunting!
Then, to make matters worse, I get to Sol, have a quick look around, and then jump straight to Pearl... without every landing on anything or even checking out Earth. By the time I realized there was no quick way back, I had already saved AFTER the jump to Pearl. I also later realized (once I learned how to use the Map Log) that I never saved the coords to the station I built. Somewhere in between Sirius and Sol is a Trade Station named "Raven's Requiem". Think of it as an Easter Egg hunt trying to find it! It IS out there... somewhere. Even if I don't quite know where, myself. I pretty well remember where I left from at the time, and what I had left for fuel, so I probably can stumble on it, with the help of some probes.
Will you find Raven's Requiem? Happy hunting!
-
RavenFellBlade
- Ensign
- Posts: 36
- Joined: Fri Aug 21, 2015 9:43 pm
First Captain's Log! *POSSIBLE SPOILERS!*
<pre>
Captain\'s Log: Stardate 91031.62. Aug 23rd, 2417, 20:45, if you prefer "The Old Way" of doing things.
Captain Raven FellBlade reporting recent excursions.
Following an interesting tip from a Captain named Paul, who had previously helped me establish a... lucrative... Trade Station in Wolf Space, I headed out to Orion. He told me that there was a shortcut to Sol to be found in a region known as "RiftSpace", a wild and remote area swarming with Vonari. To reach this "RiftSpace" meant a lengthy excursion into uncharted space "northwest" of Orion, though a much shorter trek than my previous amateurish stumbling to Sol from Sirius... the one that left those poor souls manning a Trade Station in the most remote areas of uncharted space, since I\'ve somehow misplaced the coordinates for it. I\'ve made the discovery of that station something of a priority, though a low one.
As I left Orion, I had an odd feeling. A feeling of exhilaration, and of dread. I don\'t typically fear the unknown. It\'s my job, my very life, to try to make as much of the unknown precisely the opposite. In this case, however, the "unknown" had a name: The Vonari. I hadn\'t encountered them before, but I had heard much. Everything I had heard came to one conclusion: They were bad news.
While my autopilot did its thing, jumping ever closer to my destination as soon as sufficient power was available to the Mantis, I noticed an unexpected blue blip on my radar, and a voice came across my headset.
"Mercenary pilot: State your intentions and prepare to have your cargo scanned."
I quickly switched off the autopilot. I didn\'t really need to stop. I had plenty of fuel, and really didn\'t need anything else. My Legacy was in proper fit and finish, my Excaliburs loaded and armed. I realized, much too late of course, that I HAD missed the opportunity to make this a lucrative trade run. My holds were empty. Such is the consequence of being too single-minded.
The area was abuzz with ships from every faction. I docked at the station, which had the appropriate, if oddly literal, name of "Orion-Rift Halfway". There were many wares to be had here, and at very, very high prices. I must make a note in the future to buy some decent tech from one of my own stations, perhaps in Wolfspace, the next time I need to come here. I could make a small fortune.
I left having taken nothing but some potentially profitable information, and engaged the autopilot to continue the trip. There\'s a certain comfort in the monotonous cycling of the Mantis on these trips. I can\'t put my finger on why. I lose track of how much time has passed when the cycle stops, and I find myself looking at a jump gate, with a station named "Viper\'s Pit Stop" hanging beside it. I\'m not sure why the station is named that, but it seems ominous. I consider checking the station for prices, but my curiosity overwhelms me, and I punch the throttle towards the jump gate.
I quickly discover that there\'s some truth to the rumors about RiftSpace. I had heard it was swarming with Vonari, and as soon as I leave the gate, I nearly plow into one. I had no warning, no time to prepare. The moment I enter RiftSpace, I am battling for my life. A battle that is over all too quickly, almost disappointingly so.
"So these are the dreaded Vonari? That was child\'s play!" I say to nobody in particular. Deep space has this effect of making one talk to one\'s self.
Feeling like a true demon slayer, I quickly open my Nav console and take a look around. There\'s a station named "Info desk" here, as well as several wormholes that almost appear to have been artificially arranged in some kind of pattern. Knowing that the local station is probably going to be ludicrously expensive, I set my nav to 2 sectors "below" my entry point in the Y axis, and jump. Making my way toward the middle of the sector, I set about activating my Build Constructor. I order a Trade Station built here name "Raven\'s Rift Haven", in hopes of offsetting some of the expense of the local economy, and to use as it\'s namesake: a haven. As the station is nearing completion, I see what I had hoped not to see on my radar. Red. Coming toward me fast.
I spin around and wait for it. "Vonari-B"... I know nothing about Vonari ships, but having to play sitting duck while my station builds is not how I want to discover just how much punch they have. As soon as my targeting indicator turns red, I open fire with my Predators and Fusion Cannons. Somewhere behind me, I hear the humming of capacitors and the hiss of heatsinks as the weapons stream their tremendous destructive forces at the ship. This is not child\'s play. Spinning around in place, I keep him in my sights as long as I can. My shields are failing, my hull is at 60%, and I am fighting every single instinct to kick in afterburners and get into the furball. 30 seconds left.
Vonari-B takes another run at me, crabbing off to my left and strafing at me. He\'s hurt, but I\'m hurt more. I have to do something. I hit the center button on the stick, and 8 missiles streak after him. It. I don\'t really know what a Vonari is, and all I really care about is that
this Vonari will soon be described as "deceased". The missiles quickly catch up, the first few getting thrown off by countermeasures, but the pilot loses his cool. He panics, and pulls over hard while slamming on his lateral jets. The heat flare grabs the attention of the rest of the missiles, which quickly ignore the CMs to find and vaporize their mark.
I want to feel relieved. I should feel relieved. Why am I not relieved? I feel like I missed something right under my nose... like the several red dots that are now right on top of me, perhaps? That must be it, because the shots start coming in, and the missile warnings don\'t ever shut up. I spin furiously, trying to shoot down the missiles. Countermeasures would be useless with all this spinning and my lack of any lateral motion. 10 seconds.
2 minutes and 50 seconds for the Excals to recharge. My options are limited. I\'ve dumped all of my power into my shields, and continue pelting any Vonari that gets close enough to hit. Finally, the station materializes (how DO they DO that?!) and I punch it, twisting around the Vonari-F to my right. He\'s already weak, and I begin pumping death into his rear. Behind me, three more Vonari are entering combat range again, and I can hear some of their shots finding their mark on my nearly depleted shields. Hull is at 20%. I don\'t think I\'m going to make it. The Vonari-F gives up the ghost at the same time as my weapon energy runs dry, and as his wreckage clears, I realize I\'m only a few hundred away from gate 2 of my new haven. Entering the facility at full burn, I can see my attackers swarming around outside the facility. I\'m thankful that these stations seem to be made from the ancient Earth material called NERF, as slamming into the walls of the entrance seems to leave me no worse off. 3% hull. Skin of my teeth. The Vonari truly are not child\'s play. Bad news, hand delivered, whether you like it or not.
I make some costly repairs to my Legacy, and spend the rest of my money on whatever stuff I can afford for trading purposes. I just know that the Information Desk station is going to make this worth the effort. I hope it will, at any rate. As I make my transactions and begin considering my next move, I get a message delivered to my Comms console via the station. It would seem that I have been accepted as a member of the Universe Explorers! This is exciting news, and gives greater gravity and a sense of propriety to my undertakings. I set course for the Information Desk trade station, and line up on one of the gates. The Vonari continue to swarm around outside, like insects around a flame. I could test my mettle against these vile creatures, now that I don\'t have to sit still, but it would be pointless. All I would get out of it is the certain knowledge that I can kill several of them in a very lopsided encounter. What I stand to lose, however, is all too precious to me. Properly lined up, I engage the Mantis.
I don\'t know why they call this The Information Desk. They offer no information. No useful data at all. I would like to know where all of these wormholes GO, precisely. I would also like to know where this alleged black hole to another galaxy would be. They cheerfully tell me nothing other than the local market prices, what missions are available, and just how insane I am to come out here all alone. That last bit was more of a body language thing.
The prices here are, indeed, exorbitant, and I make a fair few credits selling off my goods. I would have done better had I bought them someplace much cheaper, but it\'s never really about the credits. Sometimes, it\'s just good enough knowing I got these guys to buy this stuff for even a pittance more than I paid. Call it what you will. I call it "survival".
Having no useful information, I begin a methodical survey of the wormholes in this area. Somehow, I find that staring into the wormhole, and imagining myself blowing up on the other side, somehow tells me just where these wormholes go. Or, I have just gone space mad. Who can tell? Most of them all go to familiar places: Sapphire, Cerulean, Talison, but then I find one very, VERY unfamiliar. It seems to go to a place my mind says is "Vonarion". The Vonari homeworld? I don\'t enter it to find out. My survey goes swimmingly until I hit the last hole on my clockwise circuit: Sol. This wormhole, just "west" of the Trade Station, seems to go to Sol. At least, this odd premonition tells me it does.
I have to find out. I have to know. Have I just lost my mind, or is there something TO this? I edge toward the wormhole cautiously. When I fall out of the singularity, I find myself staring at some long-lost racial memory. Mercury. I\'m looking at Mercury. I was right. Somehow, I knew I would end up here. I would end up... home.
Tired. The whole experience drained me in an instant, but in a peaceful way that felt right. I would someday need to go back to RiftSpace and see if the rest of those wormholes did, indeed, end up where I believed they did. One very much in particular. Perhaps with a whole Naval flotilla in tow.
I found a nice, quiet sector of space between Mercury and Venus to place another Trade Station, this one named "[UE]Raven\'s Tavern".
My fellow Universe Explorers could certainly benefit from a respite should they embark on this particular journey. For a "shortcut", RiftSpace is a special kind of "short". I settle into the station for a moment to recuperate, and set my mind to the next step. All of known space is spread out "north" of Sol. So... what\'s to the "south", further outward? Before the question even finishes manifesting in my mind, I\'ve already decided to find out. The preparations begin...</pre>
EDITS: Spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. Added Stardate, using TrekGuide's 24th Century Stardate Calculator, cuz why not? Added Spoiler Warning to subject heading, because I'm an idiot and should have known to do this to begin with. What was I thinking? Thanks for the suggestions, Dave! Fixed format, changed font to "Calibri", resized to "5". Thanks for the help, Marvin!
[Edited on 8-26-2015 by RavenFellBlade]
[Edited on 9-1-2015 by RavenFellBlade]
Captain\'s Log: Stardate 91031.62. Aug 23rd, 2417, 20:45, if you prefer "The Old Way" of doing things.
Captain Raven FellBlade reporting recent excursions.
Following an interesting tip from a Captain named Paul, who had previously helped me establish a... lucrative... Trade Station in Wolf Space, I headed out to Orion. He told me that there was a shortcut to Sol to be found in a region known as "RiftSpace", a wild and remote area swarming with Vonari. To reach this "RiftSpace" meant a lengthy excursion into uncharted space "northwest" of Orion, though a much shorter trek than my previous amateurish stumbling to Sol from Sirius... the one that left those poor souls manning a Trade Station in the most remote areas of uncharted space, since I\'ve somehow misplaced the coordinates for it. I\'ve made the discovery of that station something of a priority, though a low one.
As I left Orion, I had an odd feeling. A feeling of exhilaration, and of dread. I don\'t typically fear the unknown. It\'s my job, my very life, to try to make as much of the unknown precisely the opposite. In this case, however, the "unknown" had a name: The Vonari. I hadn\'t encountered them before, but I had heard much. Everything I had heard came to one conclusion: They were bad news.
While my autopilot did its thing, jumping ever closer to my destination as soon as sufficient power was available to the Mantis, I noticed an unexpected blue blip on my radar, and a voice came across my headset.
"Mercenary pilot: State your intentions and prepare to have your cargo scanned."
I quickly switched off the autopilot. I didn\'t really need to stop. I had plenty of fuel, and really didn\'t need anything else. My Legacy was in proper fit and finish, my Excaliburs loaded and armed. I realized, much too late of course, that I HAD missed the opportunity to make this a lucrative trade run. My holds were empty. Such is the consequence of being too single-minded.
The area was abuzz with ships from every faction. I docked at the station, which had the appropriate, if oddly literal, name of "Orion-Rift Halfway". There were many wares to be had here, and at very, very high prices. I must make a note in the future to buy some decent tech from one of my own stations, perhaps in Wolfspace, the next time I need to come here. I could make a small fortune.
I left having taken nothing but some potentially profitable information, and engaged the autopilot to continue the trip. There\'s a certain comfort in the monotonous cycling of the Mantis on these trips. I can\'t put my finger on why. I lose track of how much time has passed when the cycle stops, and I find myself looking at a jump gate, with a station named "Viper\'s Pit Stop" hanging beside it. I\'m not sure why the station is named that, but it seems ominous. I consider checking the station for prices, but my curiosity overwhelms me, and I punch the throttle towards the jump gate.
I quickly discover that there\'s some truth to the rumors about RiftSpace. I had heard it was swarming with Vonari, and as soon as I leave the gate, I nearly plow into one. I had no warning, no time to prepare. The moment I enter RiftSpace, I am battling for my life. A battle that is over all too quickly, almost disappointingly so.
"So these are the dreaded Vonari? That was child\'s play!" I say to nobody in particular. Deep space has this effect of making one talk to one\'s self.
Feeling like a true demon slayer, I quickly open my Nav console and take a look around. There\'s a station named "Info desk" here, as well as several wormholes that almost appear to have been artificially arranged in some kind of pattern. Knowing that the local station is probably going to be ludicrously expensive, I set my nav to 2 sectors "below" my entry point in the Y axis, and jump. Making my way toward the middle of the sector, I set about activating my Build Constructor. I order a Trade Station built here name "Raven\'s Rift Haven", in hopes of offsetting some of the expense of the local economy, and to use as it\'s namesake: a haven. As the station is nearing completion, I see what I had hoped not to see on my radar. Red. Coming toward me fast.
I spin around and wait for it. "Vonari-B"... I know nothing about Vonari ships, but having to play sitting duck while my station builds is not how I want to discover just how much punch they have. As soon as my targeting indicator turns red, I open fire with my Predators and Fusion Cannons. Somewhere behind me, I hear the humming of capacitors and the hiss of heatsinks as the weapons stream their tremendous destructive forces at the ship. This is not child\'s play. Spinning around in place, I keep him in my sights as long as I can. My shields are failing, my hull is at 60%, and I am fighting every single instinct to kick in afterburners and get into the furball. 30 seconds left.
Vonari-B takes another run at me, crabbing off to my left and strafing at me. He\'s hurt, but I\'m hurt more. I have to do something. I hit the center button on the stick, and 8 missiles streak after him. It. I don\'t really know what a Vonari is, and all I really care about is that
this Vonari will soon be described as "deceased". The missiles quickly catch up, the first few getting thrown off by countermeasures, but the pilot loses his cool. He panics, and pulls over hard while slamming on his lateral jets. The heat flare grabs the attention of the rest of the missiles, which quickly ignore the CMs to find and vaporize their mark.
I want to feel relieved. I should feel relieved. Why am I not relieved? I feel like I missed something right under my nose... like the several red dots that are now right on top of me, perhaps? That must be it, because the shots start coming in, and the missile warnings don\'t ever shut up. I spin furiously, trying to shoot down the missiles. Countermeasures would be useless with all this spinning and my lack of any lateral motion. 10 seconds.
2 minutes and 50 seconds for the Excals to recharge. My options are limited. I\'ve dumped all of my power into my shields, and continue pelting any Vonari that gets close enough to hit. Finally, the station materializes (how DO they DO that?!) and I punch it, twisting around the Vonari-F to my right. He\'s already weak, and I begin pumping death into his rear. Behind me, three more Vonari are entering combat range again, and I can hear some of their shots finding their mark on my nearly depleted shields. Hull is at 20%. I don\'t think I\'m going to make it. The Vonari-F gives up the ghost at the same time as my weapon energy runs dry, and as his wreckage clears, I realize I\'m only a few hundred away from gate 2 of my new haven. Entering the facility at full burn, I can see my attackers swarming around outside the facility. I\'m thankful that these stations seem to be made from the ancient Earth material called NERF, as slamming into the walls of the entrance seems to leave me no worse off. 3% hull. Skin of my teeth. The Vonari truly are not child\'s play. Bad news, hand delivered, whether you like it or not.
I make some costly repairs to my Legacy, and spend the rest of my money on whatever stuff I can afford for trading purposes. I just know that the Information Desk station is going to make this worth the effort. I hope it will, at any rate. As I make my transactions and begin considering my next move, I get a message delivered to my Comms console via the station. It would seem that I have been accepted as a member of the Universe Explorers! This is exciting news, and gives greater gravity and a sense of propriety to my undertakings. I set course for the Information Desk trade station, and line up on one of the gates. The Vonari continue to swarm around outside, like insects around a flame. I could test my mettle against these vile creatures, now that I don\'t have to sit still, but it would be pointless. All I would get out of it is the certain knowledge that I can kill several of them in a very lopsided encounter. What I stand to lose, however, is all too precious to me. Properly lined up, I engage the Mantis.
I don\'t know why they call this The Information Desk. They offer no information. No useful data at all. I would like to know where all of these wormholes GO, precisely. I would also like to know where this alleged black hole to another galaxy would be. They cheerfully tell me nothing other than the local market prices, what missions are available, and just how insane I am to come out here all alone. That last bit was more of a body language thing.
The prices here are, indeed, exorbitant, and I make a fair few credits selling off my goods. I would have done better had I bought them someplace much cheaper, but it\'s never really about the credits. Sometimes, it\'s just good enough knowing I got these guys to buy this stuff for even a pittance more than I paid. Call it what you will. I call it "survival".
Having no useful information, I begin a methodical survey of the wormholes in this area. Somehow, I find that staring into the wormhole, and imagining myself blowing up on the other side, somehow tells me just where these wormholes go. Or, I have just gone space mad. Who can tell? Most of them all go to familiar places: Sapphire, Cerulean, Talison, but then I find one very, VERY unfamiliar. It seems to go to a place my mind says is "Vonarion". The Vonari homeworld? I don\'t enter it to find out. My survey goes swimmingly until I hit the last hole on my clockwise circuit: Sol. This wormhole, just "west" of the Trade Station, seems to go to Sol. At least, this odd premonition tells me it does.
I have to find out. I have to know. Have I just lost my mind, or is there something TO this? I edge toward the wormhole cautiously. When I fall out of the singularity, I find myself staring at some long-lost racial memory. Mercury. I\'m looking at Mercury. I was right. Somehow, I knew I would end up here. I would end up... home.
Tired. The whole experience drained me in an instant, but in a peaceful way that felt right. I would someday need to go back to RiftSpace and see if the rest of those wormholes did, indeed, end up where I believed they did. One very much in particular. Perhaps with a whole Naval flotilla in tow.
I found a nice, quiet sector of space between Mercury and Venus to place another Trade Station, this one named "[UE]Raven\'s Tavern".
My fellow Universe Explorers could certainly benefit from a respite should they embark on this particular journey. For a "shortcut", RiftSpace is a special kind of "short". I settle into the station for a moment to recuperate, and set my mind to the next step. All of known space is spread out "north" of Sol. So... what\'s to the "south", further outward? Before the question even finishes manifesting in my mind, I\'ve already decided to find out. The preparations begin...</pre>
EDITS: Spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. Added Stardate, using TrekGuide's 24th Century Stardate Calculator, cuz why not? Added Spoiler Warning to subject heading, because I'm an idiot and should have known to do this to begin with. What was I thinking? Thanks for the suggestions, Dave! Fixed format, changed font to "Calibri", resized to "5". Thanks for the help, Marvin!
[Edited on 8-26-2015 by RavenFellBlade]
[Edited on 9-1-2015 by RavenFellBlade]
-
DaveK
- Global Moderator
- Posts: 4161
- Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 9:04 pm
- Location: Leeds UK
First Captain's Log! *POSSIBLE SPOILERS!*
I like it!
FYI: It's in the 2400's in the Evoverse; The Vonari Invasion attempts on Earth were 2287 and 2288. The Arvoch conflict (an attempt to retake the Arvoch system back from the Vonari was in 2402-2408; not good though - we're still fighting the Vonari there (one of the four warzones) and it raised the temperature of the Alliance-Federation cold war!
As far as costs go - as you earn more and get more experienced you'll get paid more for contracts and better contracts will be offered, but (there's always a but!
) you'll get charged more for fuel and stations. Overall life is easier when you have a few million in the bank!
FYI: It's in the 2400's in the Evoverse; The Vonari Invasion attempts on Earth were 2287 and 2288. The Arvoch conflict (an attempt to retake the Arvoch system back from the Vonari was in 2402-2408; not good though - we're still fighting the Vonari there (one of the four warzones) and it raised the temperature of the Alliance-Federation cold war!
As far as costs go - as you earn more and get more experienced you'll get paid more for contracts and better contracts will be offered, but (there's always a but!
) you'll get charged more for fuel and stations. Overall life is easier when you have a few million in the bank!Callsign: Incoming
Life is like a sewer... what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. - Bob Newhart
Hell is being in a pure platinum asteroid field... with a diamond mining beam
Life is like a sewer... what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. - Bob Newhart
Hell is being in a pure platinum asteroid field... with a diamond mining beam
-
RavenFellBlade
- Ensign
- Posts: 36
- Joined: Fri Aug 21, 2015 9:43 pm
First Captain's Log! *POSSIBLE SPOILERS!*
Thanks for the info What 'year' would you say a current game should be taking place in? Is there any in-universe indicator of how long ago the Arvoch conflict ended? You seem to indicated that it hasn't, but put the years 2402-2408, so that could either mean that the conflict ended in 2408, or the current year is 2408. I'm a bit confused on this point.
What 'year' would you say a current game should be taking place in? Is there any in-universe indicator of how long ago the Arvoch conflict ended? You seem to indicated that it hasn't, but put the years 2402-2408, so that could either mean that the conflict ended in 2408, or the current year is 2408. I'm a bit confused on this point.-
SeeJay
- Captain
- Posts: 3507
- Joined: Wed Aug 11, 2010 9:03 am
- Location: Sweden
First Captain's Log! *POSSIBLE SPOILERS!*
Great story. Liked it a lot. You got some potential stuff there to make a quest mate! 
Here's some information about the History:
http://www.evochron.junholt.se/sysinfo/ ... estory.htm
Here's some information about the History:
http://www.evochron.junholt.se/sysinfo/ ... estory.htm
\"Nothing is impossible, it only takes a bit longer!\"
\"We are not retreating, we are advancing in another direction!\"
http://evochron.junholt.se (Old)
http://www.evochron2.junholt.se (New)
http://mercenary.junholt.se (Map)
http://www.junholt.se/evoschool/index.htm (No spoilers)
-8- Bzzzzzzzzz! -8- -8-
\"We are not retreating, we are advancing in another direction!\"
http://evochron.junholt.se (Old)
http://www.evochron2.junholt.se (New)
http://mercenary.junholt.se (Map)
http://www.junholt.se/evoschool/index.htm (No spoilers)
-8- Bzzzzzzzzz! -8- -8-
-
RavenFellBlade
- Ensign
- Posts: 36
- Joined: Fri Aug 21, 2015 9:43 pm
First Captain's Log! *POSSIBLE SPOILERS!*
Thanks to SeeJay and DaveK for the helpful advice and information! I'm at work on a shorter piece covering my most recent exploits. I didn't get as much flight time as I had hoped for, but I left off at a nice "cliffhanger" stopping point. Hope you guys like this one!
EDIT: So much for "shorter"... :-P The actual in-game play time and trip may not have taken a lot of time... but it was far more fruitful to the imagination. Enjoy!
[Edited on 8-25-2015 by RavenFellBlade]
EDIT: So much for "shorter"... :-P The actual in-game play time and trip may not have taken a lot of time... but it was far more fruitful to the imagination. Enjoy!
[Edited on 8-25-2015 by RavenFellBlade]
-
RavenFellBlade
- Ensign
- Posts: 36
- Joined: Fri Aug 21, 2015 9:43 pm
First Captain's Log! *POSSIBLE SPOILERS!*
<pre>
Captain\'s Log, Stardate 91034.49
Captain Raven Fellblade, reporting.
I\'m not sure what to make of this. My mind is barely comprehending what just happened. What the heck was I even thinking back there? I\'m still in a numb state of shock, every shred of logic in my brain telling me that I should most definitely be dead right now. Perhaps I am, and I just don\'t know it yet.
====
Stardate 91033.04
The Trade Station is remarkably busy for only having been in this sector for less than a day. "Day". Odd how words like that still manage to linger in our vocabulary when they have little real meaning. Depending on just where in the universe you are, it\'s typically either perpetually day or night, if you\'re defining it by light. These thoughts rattle around inside my skull as I allow myself to decompress from recent events.
I hear the low hum of the Legacy\'s Clan Richtor engines as if less a sound, and more a fabric of my little slice of the universe, a vibrating string embedded in my consciousness. Spend enough time in it, and your ship and every aspect of it becomes a part of you in ways that can be hard to describe.
I\'ve been a Mercenary for the better part of a decade. For a while, I thought of myself as a real threat. Hotshot pilot, dangerous, dreaded. In the waning years of The Arvoch Conflict, I came to working security details in the Iota system, a long way from the Vonari threat. I came to be fairly good at my job, stopping the odd Rogue that occasionally wandered in-system. By stopping, I mean killing. I got good at killing. It hadn\'t occurred to me back then that killing is rarely a good thing, less so to be proficient at it. It takes its’ toll.
I had my run-ins with pilots who had been in The Arvoch Conflict. A lot of them, it turned out, were deserters. Their decision to turn tail and run had left them few options, so many had turned to piracy. A small band of them had put their funds together to get a Build Constructor, and had built their own Trade Station as a base of operations. Why they put it two sectors "south" of the system\'s star, directly in the middle of the primary shipping lane between the system\'s two planets, is anyone\'s guess. Maybe it was a "honey pot" to lure in unsuspecting traders, or maybe they were just stupid. Either way, it got the attention of System Security, and they wanted the station "sanitized".
I was outfitted with a Station Detonator, briefed on its usage, and sent with a wingman to clear out the sector and, if the Rogues refused to surrender the station, I was tasked with destroying it. We entered the sector, and were immediately greeted by some of the most pathetic-looking ships I had seen. They were mostly military frames, but they were shot up in ways that made you really wonder at just what was holding them together. Methodically, we worked our way through the fighters. It was a "target rich" environment. Just the way I liked things.
These were all obviously skilled Naval pilots, and they put up a fight. Fortunately for us, it just wasn\'t taking much to demolish their ships in such a pitiful state. Over the comms, I could hear desperation in much of the Rogue\'s comms chatter. Initially, they were coordinating with each other. Near the end, they were pleading with us for mercy. Their voices were like nothing I had ever heard. They were the voices of the dead. These were men that knew they were already dead, and had been living on borrowed time. Desertion is a death sentence, and every one of these men knew it. It wouldn\'t be the Navy carrying out their sentence, but it mattered little: Death wears the same hood, regardless of who wields the scythe.
I followed my instructions, my wingman chasing down the last pair of survivors who were blasting their afterburners on Inertial and praying to get up enough steam to simply outrun him. The timer began to tick down, and i sat their impatiently waiting. One day, in the future, I would forget just how silly this was: nobody was trying to kill me while I lingered.
"You can\'t do this, Mercenary! There are families here! Women! Children! Think about what you\'re doing! This is murder!" The voice leapt from the comms panel, straight for my throat.
I knew nothing about women and children. I knew that this station was the base of operations for a group of deserters gone Rogue, pirates and thieves. Women and children had never entered into the equation. It was a woman making the communication, but of course, a woman can desert the Navy just as readily as a man. I ignored the comm, certain that it was just a ploy to save their sorry hides.
"Mercenary... Look, I know you\'re doing what you think is right, what you\'re told is right. We have no place to go. We have nothing. No one will trade with us. Most places will kill us on sight! Just let us live out what\'s left of our lives and misery, and leave us in peace! We won\'t attack anyone anymore. Besides... everyone knows who this station belongs to. Everyone will steer a wide berth, until the Navy eventually comes to call. Let them deal with us!"
Ten seconds left on the countdown timer.
"Listen, you can\'t blame me for this. A contract is a contract. I don\'t do this, I don\'t get paid. Desertion and piracy are suicide in these parts," I say this as if the words are hewn from diamond, hard and cold.
"Mommy, why does that man want to kill us?" A child\'s voice. A young girl.
Before I can react, before I can move a muscle to cancel the timer, the station vaporizes. I will never know just how many woman and children were really on that base, how many innocents whose only crime was to be the family of a deserter. But in my nightmares, they are too numerous to count, and they all blame me. They will always blame me.
====
I awake in a cold sweat, my heart trying to climb its way up my throat to freedom. How many more times must this memory be relived?
As the fog of sleep begins to lift, I notice that my comms panel has a message waiting. I rub the sleep from my eyes, stretch my legs, and order up a hot tea from the food and beverage dispenser from the bulkhead to my left. The hot, bitter tannins quickly shoo off any remaining drowsiness, and I punch up the new message. It\'s brief, it\'s anonymous, and it\'s downright enigmatic.
"Raven. How was your brief stay in RiftSpace? You really ought to go back there. There\'s something I think you need to see. It\'s in the Vonarion system. Don\'t worry, I\'m not asking you to blow up the Vonari homeworld. I understand you have a distaste for that kind of thing.
Just go "north" as soon as you leave the gate in Vonarion. You\'ll know it when you see it." --S
Vonarion?! That\'s the last place I wanted to go! I don\'t have a clue who "S" is, but I\'m definitely not playing this game!
As if somehow in answer to this thought, the comm chimes again. Another message from "S".
"Just so we\'re clear, I\'m offering you an opportunity to go where no man has gone before. Well... very few men. And who knows how many of any other species? You\'re an explorer. Explore."
Again, as if someone were reading my mind, as soon as I finished reading it, both messages disappeared from the comms panel. I quickly tried to bring up the log, but all traces had already been deleted. Just who the heck is this "S", and why is he so intent on my going to Vonarion?
I finished up my preparations, and began to head "south" out of the Sol system. I was passing very near Uranus, taking in its beauty, when I heard someone over vocal comms.
"Hey Raven. That\'s the wrong direction. You want to go back "north". The jump back to Pearl is in the corona of the sun. Careful jumping back, though. You might only get one shot at it before you burn up!"
I have no idea who sent this. There\'s no ship within voice comms range, nothing on my radar. I pull the throttle back, bringing the Clan Richter engines to idle. I slowly pan my ship around, trying to see if I might find a ship nearby, one that\'s somehow been masked from my sensors. Nothing.
\'I\'m being stalked by a ghost.\' I think to myself. A shiver runs down my spine.
Somebody really wants me to go to Vonarion. Perhaps badly enough to kill me if I don\'t cooperate. It occurs to me at this exact moment just what that first message told me: They know me. They know me well enough to insinuate my involvement in the destruction of the Rogue base. Whatever their game, this just became personal.
I turn the Legacy around, take a heading straight for Sol. As I\'m plotting the nav for the jump back in-system, I notice a blue streak shoot out of Uranus\' upper atmosphere. It\'s gone in a flash of light. I make a mental not as I finish the plot and engage the Mantis. Moments later, I\'m trying to get a good bead on that purple dot in my nav as the sun drags me down faster and faster. I can\'t see the gate in the blinding glare of the sun. I just have to hope I hit it.
I don\'t. I see something blue streak by to port, and watch the purple dot swing around me on the navball. Great... I swing myself around, punching up the throttle as I do. It\'s no good. I have too much momentum, and the sun just doesn\'t want to give up its prize. I push harder, threatening to shear off the throttle handle, but my momentum remains negative. Whoever "S" was, he wasn\'t kidding about getting one shot at this or you burn up. Maybe this was what he wanted all along?
It takes a moment for the hot panic to die down into icy surrender. Death is knocking. Should I open the door? The cabin temperature is skyrocketing by the second, hull plates groaning under the combination of searing temperatures and tremendous gravity. This is when my brain finally notices what my eyeballs have been glued to for the past several seconds. My navmarker, my floating yellow savior, lined up right behind the blue sphere of the wormhole. Wormhole? I suppose it would be difficult to anchor a gate here. I\'m not really aware of these thoughts as I hit the Mantis, and the ship accelerates, clawing its way up the gravity well, and hurtling into the wormhole to Pearl.
====
Stardate 91033.49
I lost consciousness during the jump out to Pearl. In the violent surging, I somehow managed to bash my head into my headrest so hard that it knocked me out. Outside the ship, there were a few Mercenaries floating nearby.
"You alright, mate?" came one voice, male.
"You\'ve been drifting there at least an hour. We thought you might be dead," Another voice, female.
"Ayup. These ainimals was fixin\' to set on yer ship as salvage, bub!" Another voice, male, jovial.
"Shut up, Demetri! We were preparing to tow him to Pearl Station if he didn\'t respond soon." The female. She sounded more amused than irritated.
"Awww, was you playin\' at Good Samaritan, Thela?" Demetri mused.
"Felix is a Good Samaritan. I\'m just here for the witty dialogue." Thela replied.
"\'Felix\' is whatever the situation calls for, Love. And \'Felix\' can speak for hisself," This was, presumably, Felix.
The three idly chatted a few moments longer, my mind no longer registering their words as the last few moments before my loss of consciousness came flooding back.
"Who the heck puts a wormhole in the corona of a star!" I suddenly blurt.
"Oi, this one must\'a come from Sol! \'Ow\'s things on The Old World, chappy?" Felix asked.
"I don\'t know. To be honest, I didn\'t take the time to look around much before I kinda got... sucked into something," internally, I groan at that remark.
"At least you made it out. You\'d be surprised how many burnt out hulks come popping out of that wormhole. Seems like a handful give up the ghost just as they make it in," Thela informs me. She seems to think this is comforting.
"Anythang we can do fer ya, pally boy?" Demetri asks.
"No. No, I\'m fine. I just... I need a few seconds to get my bearings.
"Bearings? Them\'re fer industeral mochines!" says Demetri.
"So they are," I cannot think of any other response.
"Demetri, \'ave some tact, man. \'E\'s just been through \'ell! I\'ll wager \'e\'s got a whopper of a \'eadache!" Felix chides.
"Yeah, uh... thanks for keeping an eye on me. I really appreciate it," I tell them. I punch up my trade console, and offer each 1,000 credits, hoping it will please them enough to make them leave me alone.
"Right thanks, mate! Pleasure babbysittin\' ye!" Felix says. The others say nothing as the three head off in a loose formation.
I set my nav to the Rucker jump gate, and begin the trek back toward Orion, and RiftSpace beyond. I would tell you what happened on the trip, but there\'s nothing to tell. The comforting monotony of the ship sailing the stars is something that can\'t really be narrated, but must be felt.
About an hour later, I find myself parked in RiftSpace. 7004,0,9501:0,1000,-70000. Staring into another wormhole. This one goes to a place that I am frightened to go to. Curiosity gnaws at me, just as trepidation is having a go at my stomach.
Vonarion.
I push the thottle forward. As the lightshow ends, I am spit out in a very nasty looking system. Or perhaps it’s just the knowledge of who, what, lives here that colors my judgement. I nudge the throttle incrementally, turning to a zero heading, and engage Inertial mode. The ship slowly and conservatively builds speed, until I hit a reasonable 4K velocity. I ease off the throttle and let her coast. I\'m not really sure just what I\'m looking for, but the message was emphatic that I "would know it when I see it." It takes quite a while to coast through a sector at this speed, but if you go too much faster, you run the risk of slamming into something before you can react.
Five sectors crawl by before sleep overtakes me. Or perhaps it\'s a concussion? Either way, the theater of the mind begins its horror show, interpolating my recent brush with death into the old hell of years past. Somehow, instead of merely blowing up the station, I somehow consign those poor souls to their condemnation by dropping the station into a star. They. Still. Blame. Me.
"Danger! High Gravity Field Detected!" the ship\'s warning system informs me. I groggily pick my head up from my chest, and see that, indeed, I am in a high gravity field. Sprawled out before me is a massive black hole. I\'ve coasted another 13 sectors while I was out, finding myself at 1001,0,5019. I don\'t even bother looking at the chronometer. The puddle on my chest tells me that I was out for several hours, and in a position that was far too unkind to my neck. I really don\'t have time to worry about this, however, as my ship is now being pulled into the hungry maw of the single most destructive force in nature.
I decide not to loiter here any longer than I have to, and set the nav to jump to the lower-right quadrant of the sector. Engaging the Mantis, I feel a sense of relief as soon as I am free of the gravity well. I could do with fewer encounters with gravity wells, right about now. My comms panel chimes and the indicator flashes.
The message appears out of nowhere. Thinking ahead this time, I try to trace the message before I read it. The comms system can give me no point of origin or even routing for this message. As far as the computer can tell, it\'s just there, as if it has always been there.
"Isn\'t it lovely? She\'s more than just pretty to look at. At her heart is a singularity. A wormhole. She\'s jumpable. What you need to ask yourself are the following: Am I skilled enough to make the jump? Do I have the nerves to make the jump? Am I insane enough to make the jump? What lies on the other side? This is for you, and you alone, to discover." --S
Just as before, the message is immediately erased once I have read it. I can\'t help but wonder how this is being accomplished. "S" has issued a challenge, and one that I can\'t help but think is suicidal. Then again, who knows?
"Just one shot. Get it right, Raven." --S
Now he\'s just taunting me. Or she. Or it? For all I know, some Vonari is having a real laugh at my expense right now, waiting breathlessly for me to willingly hurl myself to my doom. Seems like a whole lot of effort just to get me out here to die stupidly, though.
I think it through logically. I know that, if there is, in fact, a wormhole inside the black hole, it\'s within the event horizon. The gravitational forces there are mind-boggling. So, if I am to get to the wormhole, I need to get to it without being exposed to the gravitational stress presented by the black hole. I need to jump into it. More precisely, I need to jump into the wormhole, directly. When I make a jump, I don\'t come out directly where I set the nav, I come out in the neighborhood of 2500m short of it, presumably so that you don\'t immediately crash into something if you accidentally choose to jump directly to, say, a station.
Taking all that into account, this means I need to set my destination to the wormhole, and then manually correct this so that I enter normal space at the exact point of the wormhole. Furthermore, heading and momentum need to be accounted for. Since you enter normal space oriented to the pitch and heading you had when you jumped, and your momentum will carry over, I conclude that I must orient myself at a zero heading, zero pitch, and be "parked" at the moment I jump.
Still... calculating this won\'t kill me. Calculating it wrong and then attempting it most certainly will. I sit and wait a moment, getting up the nerve. I\'m jolted back into the moment when a gigantic ship streaks into the sector, almost right on top of me. It\'s identified as "Vonari-C", and from it, swarms of Vonari ships begin to stream out.
I don\'t have time to recalculate, or to change my course to some place safer. A massive discharge of energy just narrowly misses my hull, searing off the entire rear shield with a near miss. If that thing hits me, I will never know it. I engage the Mantis. I experience the usual sensation of jumping, but what follows turns my mind inside out, and the gelatinizes it. I hit normal space inside the confines of the wormhole, which is nested within the confines of a black hole. For just a split second... I am inside a black hole, within the event horizon from which nothing returns.
I can feel the gravity. I feel what should never be felt, see what should not be seen, can never be unseen. I see the entirety of reality unravel before me. The universe becomes two-dimensional, and somehow I comprehend it. Becomes one dimensional. Still, I comprehend it. I become it. The universe and I are one. We are then multidimensional. Multiversal. We are many. We are one. We are everything.
We are nothing.
We are nothing.
I am nothing.
I am nothing. Dust. A speck on a lens capturing the light of all creation. I\'m back in normal space, but my ability to cogitate things like "I" and "normal" and "space" have become somewhat warped, perhaps irreparably. I can\'t remember specifics, no details at all. All that I am aware of is that I have somehow experienced something that transcends... everything.
I try to take my bearings. I cannot. My intellect is buried somewhere, screaming in measured pain and ecstasy. Shattered. I remain in this state for several hours. I couldn\'t tell you if the experience was good or bad, as such terms are not only insufficient, but inappropriate to quantify it. Language is simply not up to the task of communicating it. The term "infinite" has a meaning, and that meaning can be conveyed in a logical sense. Experiencing the infinite, actually becoming infinite...
====
Stardate 91034.49
I\'m not sure what to make of this. My mind barely comprehends what just happened. What the heck was I even thinking back there? I\'m still in a numb state of shock, every shred of logic in my brain telling me that I should most definitely be dead right now. Perhaps I am, and I just don\'t know it yet.
I get a sudden sense of Deja vu. A klaxon is blaring in my ear. Probably has been for hours, and I\'m just now noticing it. My hull is at 11%. I\'m lucky to have survived. Perhaps I would have been luckier not to. I take stock of what\'s around me. The navigational computer is still trying to get a fix on my location. It can\'t seem to find any familiar stars.
Nearby is a planet, a star, a huge asteroid belt... and another black hole. Well, there\'s no way I\'m jumping that one in this condition. I can detect no gates, stations, or wormholes anywhere. Sensors pick up an anomaly on the asteroid field, an artificial construct. It doesn\'t match any known configuration for a station or ship. Wherever I am, I\'m stuck here for a while.
The navcom dings at me. I pull up the navmap, and see the system name: Andromeda. Andromeda? I\'ve never heard of a system by that name, just the galaxy. The coordinates. I\'m... not in the Milky Way. At all. I\'m in the Andromeda galaxy.
What have I just done?</pre>
EDITS: Precisely that, edits for spelling and grammar. All sentence fragments are intentional, so please don't point them out. If you assume I am referring to you, then I am :-P
Reformatted, font changed to Calibri, resized to "5".
[Edited on 8-25-2015 by RavenFellBlade]
[Edited on 8-26-2015 by RavenFellBlade]
[Edited on 9-1-2015 by RavenFellBlade]
Captain\'s Log, Stardate 91034.49
Captain Raven Fellblade, reporting.
I\'m not sure what to make of this. My mind is barely comprehending what just happened. What the heck was I even thinking back there? I\'m still in a numb state of shock, every shred of logic in my brain telling me that I should most definitely be dead right now. Perhaps I am, and I just don\'t know it yet.
====
Stardate 91033.04
The Trade Station is remarkably busy for only having been in this sector for less than a day. "Day". Odd how words like that still manage to linger in our vocabulary when they have little real meaning. Depending on just where in the universe you are, it\'s typically either perpetually day or night, if you\'re defining it by light. These thoughts rattle around inside my skull as I allow myself to decompress from recent events.
I hear the low hum of the Legacy\'s Clan Richtor engines as if less a sound, and more a fabric of my little slice of the universe, a vibrating string embedded in my consciousness. Spend enough time in it, and your ship and every aspect of it becomes a part of you in ways that can be hard to describe.
I\'ve been a Mercenary for the better part of a decade. For a while, I thought of myself as a real threat. Hotshot pilot, dangerous, dreaded. In the waning years of The Arvoch Conflict, I came to working security details in the Iota system, a long way from the Vonari threat. I came to be fairly good at my job, stopping the odd Rogue that occasionally wandered in-system. By stopping, I mean killing. I got good at killing. It hadn\'t occurred to me back then that killing is rarely a good thing, less so to be proficient at it. It takes its’ toll.
I had my run-ins with pilots who had been in The Arvoch Conflict. A lot of them, it turned out, were deserters. Their decision to turn tail and run had left them few options, so many had turned to piracy. A small band of them had put their funds together to get a Build Constructor, and had built their own Trade Station as a base of operations. Why they put it two sectors "south" of the system\'s star, directly in the middle of the primary shipping lane between the system\'s two planets, is anyone\'s guess. Maybe it was a "honey pot" to lure in unsuspecting traders, or maybe they were just stupid. Either way, it got the attention of System Security, and they wanted the station "sanitized".
I was outfitted with a Station Detonator, briefed on its usage, and sent with a wingman to clear out the sector and, if the Rogues refused to surrender the station, I was tasked with destroying it. We entered the sector, and were immediately greeted by some of the most pathetic-looking ships I had seen. They were mostly military frames, but they were shot up in ways that made you really wonder at just what was holding them together. Methodically, we worked our way through the fighters. It was a "target rich" environment. Just the way I liked things.
These were all obviously skilled Naval pilots, and they put up a fight. Fortunately for us, it just wasn\'t taking much to demolish their ships in such a pitiful state. Over the comms, I could hear desperation in much of the Rogue\'s comms chatter. Initially, they were coordinating with each other. Near the end, they were pleading with us for mercy. Their voices were like nothing I had ever heard. They were the voices of the dead. These were men that knew they were already dead, and had been living on borrowed time. Desertion is a death sentence, and every one of these men knew it. It wouldn\'t be the Navy carrying out their sentence, but it mattered little: Death wears the same hood, regardless of who wields the scythe.
I followed my instructions, my wingman chasing down the last pair of survivors who were blasting their afterburners on Inertial and praying to get up enough steam to simply outrun him. The timer began to tick down, and i sat their impatiently waiting. One day, in the future, I would forget just how silly this was: nobody was trying to kill me while I lingered.
"You can\'t do this, Mercenary! There are families here! Women! Children! Think about what you\'re doing! This is murder!" The voice leapt from the comms panel, straight for my throat.
I knew nothing about women and children. I knew that this station was the base of operations for a group of deserters gone Rogue, pirates and thieves. Women and children had never entered into the equation. It was a woman making the communication, but of course, a woman can desert the Navy just as readily as a man. I ignored the comm, certain that it was just a ploy to save their sorry hides.
"Mercenary... Look, I know you\'re doing what you think is right, what you\'re told is right. We have no place to go. We have nothing. No one will trade with us. Most places will kill us on sight! Just let us live out what\'s left of our lives and misery, and leave us in peace! We won\'t attack anyone anymore. Besides... everyone knows who this station belongs to. Everyone will steer a wide berth, until the Navy eventually comes to call. Let them deal with us!"
Ten seconds left on the countdown timer.
"Listen, you can\'t blame me for this. A contract is a contract. I don\'t do this, I don\'t get paid. Desertion and piracy are suicide in these parts," I say this as if the words are hewn from diamond, hard and cold.
"Mommy, why does that man want to kill us?" A child\'s voice. A young girl.
Before I can react, before I can move a muscle to cancel the timer, the station vaporizes. I will never know just how many woman and children were really on that base, how many innocents whose only crime was to be the family of a deserter. But in my nightmares, they are too numerous to count, and they all blame me. They will always blame me.
====
I awake in a cold sweat, my heart trying to climb its way up my throat to freedom. How many more times must this memory be relived?
As the fog of sleep begins to lift, I notice that my comms panel has a message waiting. I rub the sleep from my eyes, stretch my legs, and order up a hot tea from the food and beverage dispenser from the bulkhead to my left. The hot, bitter tannins quickly shoo off any remaining drowsiness, and I punch up the new message. It\'s brief, it\'s anonymous, and it\'s downright enigmatic.
"Raven. How was your brief stay in RiftSpace? You really ought to go back there. There\'s something I think you need to see. It\'s in the Vonarion system. Don\'t worry, I\'m not asking you to blow up the Vonari homeworld. I understand you have a distaste for that kind of thing.
Just go "north" as soon as you leave the gate in Vonarion. You\'ll know it when you see it." --S
Vonarion?! That\'s the last place I wanted to go! I don\'t have a clue who "S" is, but I\'m definitely not playing this game!
As if somehow in answer to this thought, the comm chimes again. Another message from "S".
"Just so we\'re clear, I\'m offering you an opportunity to go where no man has gone before. Well... very few men. And who knows how many of any other species? You\'re an explorer. Explore."
Again, as if someone were reading my mind, as soon as I finished reading it, both messages disappeared from the comms panel. I quickly tried to bring up the log, but all traces had already been deleted. Just who the heck is this "S", and why is he so intent on my going to Vonarion?
I finished up my preparations, and began to head "south" out of the Sol system. I was passing very near Uranus, taking in its beauty, when I heard someone over vocal comms.
"Hey Raven. That\'s the wrong direction. You want to go back "north". The jump back to Pearl is in the corona of the sun. Careful jumping back, though. You might only get one shot at it before you burn up!"
I have no idea who sent this. There\'s no ship within voice comms range, nothing on my radar. I pull the throttle back, bringing the Clan Richter engines to idle. I slowly pan my ship around, trying to see if I might find a ship nearby, one that\'s somehow been masked from my sensors. Nothing.
\'I\'m being stalked by a ghost.\' I think to myself. A shiver runs down my spine.
Somebody really wants me to go to Vonarion. Perhaps badly enough to kill me if I don\'t cooperate. It occurs to me at this exact moment just what that first message told me: They know me. They know me well enough to insinuate my involvement in the destruction of the Rogue base. Whatever their game, this just became personal.
I turn the Legacy around, take a heading straight for Sol. As I\'m plotting the nav for the jump back in-system, I notice a blue streak shoot out of Uranus\' upper atmosphere. It\'s gone in a flash of light. I make a mental not as I finish the plot and engage the Mantis. Moments later, I\'m trying to get a good bead on that purple dot in my nav as the sun drags me down faster and faster. I can\'t see the gate in the blinding glare of the sun. I just have to hope I hit it.
I don\'t. I see something blue streak by to port, and watch the purple dot swing around me on the navball. Great... I swing myself around, punching up the throttle as I do. It\'s no good. I have too much momentum, and the sun just doesn\'t want to give up its prize. I push harder, threatening to shear off the throttle handle, but my momentum remains negative. Whoever "S" was, he wasn\'t kidding about getting one shot at this or you burn up. Maybe this was what he wanted all along?
It takes a moment for the hot panic to die down into icy surrender. Death is knocking. Should I open the door? The cabin temperature is skyrocketing by the second, hull plates groaning under the combination of searing temperatures and tremendous gravity. This is when my brain finally notices what my eyeballs have been glued to for the past several seconds. My navmarker, my floating yellow savior, lined up right behind the blue sphere of the wormhole. Wormhole? I suppose it would be difficult to anchor a gate here. I\'m not really aware of these thoughts as I hit the Mantis, and the ship accelerates, clawing its way up the gravity well, and hurtling into the wormhole to Pearl.
====
Stardate 91033.49
I lost consciousness during the jump out to Pearl. In the violent surging, I somehow managed to bash my head into my headrest so hard that it knocked me out. Outside the ship, there were a few Mercenaries floating nearby.
"You alright, mate?" came one voice, male.
"You\'ve been drifting there at least an hour. We thought you might be dead," Another voice, female.
"Ayup. These ainimals was fixin\' to set on yer ship as salvage, bub!" Another voice, male, jovial.
"Shut up, Demetri! We were preparing to tow him to Pearl Station if he didn\'t respond soon." The female. She sounded more amused than irritated.
"Awww, was you playin\' at Good Samaritan, Thela?" Demetri mused.
"Felix is a Good Samaritan. I\'m just here for the witty dialogue." Thela replied.
"\'Felix\' is whatever the situation calls for, Love. And \'Felix\' can speak for hisself," This was, presumably, Felix.
The three idly chatted a few moments longer, my mind no longer registering their words as the last few moments before my loss of consciousness came flooding back.
"Who the heck puts a wormhole in the corona of a star!" I suddenly blurt.
"Oi, this one must\'a come from Sol! \'Ow\'s things on The Old World, chappy?" Felix asked.
"I don\'t know. To be honest, I didn\'t take the time to look around much before I kinda got... sucked into something," internally, I groan at that remark.
"At least you made it out. You\'d be surprised how many burnt out hulks come popping out of that wormhole. Seems like a handful give up the ghost just as they make it in," Thela informs me. She seems to think this is comforting.
"Anythang we can do fer ya, pally boy?" Demetri asks.
"No. No, I\'m fine. I just... I need a few seconds to get my bearings.
"Bearings? Them\'re fer industeral mochines!" says Demetri.
"So they are," I cannot think of any other response.
"Demetri, \'ave some tact, man. \'E\'s just been through \'ell! I\'ll wager \'e\'s got a whopper of a \'eadache!" Felix chides.
"Yeah, uh... thanks for keeping an eye on me. I really appreciate it," I tell them. I punch up my trade console, and offer each 1,000 credits, hoping it will please them enough to make them leave me alone.
"Right thanks, mate! Pleasure babbysittin\' ye!" Felix says. The others say nothing as the three head off in a loose formation.
I set my nav to the Rucker jump gate, and begin the trek back toward Orion, and RiftSpace beyond. I would tell you what happened on the trip, but there\'s nothing to tell. The comforting monotony of the ship sailing the stars is something that can\'t really be narrated, but must be felt.
About an hour later, I find myself parked in RiftSpace. 7004,0,9501:0,1000,-70000. Staring into another wormhole. This one goes to a place that I am frightened to go to. Curiosity gnaws at me, just as trepidation is having a go at my stomach.
Vonarion.
I push the thottle forward. As the lightshow ends, I am spit out in a very nasty looking system. Or perhaps it’s just the knowledge of who, what, lives here that colors my judgement. I nudge the throttle incrementally, turning to a zero heading, and engage Inertial mode. The ship slowly and conservatively builds speed, until I hit a reasonable 4K velocity. I ease off the throttle and let her coast. I\'m not really sure just what I\'m looking for, but the message was emphatic that I "would know it when I see it." It takes quite a while to coast through a sector at this speed, but if you go too much faster, you run the risk of slamming into something before you can react.
Five sectors crawl by before sleep overtakes me. Or perhaps it\'s a concussion? Either way, the theater of the mind begins its horror show, interpolating my recent brush with death into the old hell of years past. Somehow, instead of merely blowing up the station, I somehow consign those poor souls to their condemnation by dropping the station into a star. They. Still. Blame. Me.
"Danger! High Gravity Field Detected!" the ship\'s warning system informs me. I groggily pick my head up from my chest, and see that, indeed, I am in a high gravity field. Sprawled out before me is a massive black hole. I\'ve coasted another 13 sectors while I was out, finding myself at 1001,0,5019. I don\'t even bother looking at the chronometer. The puddle on my chest tells me that I was out for several hours, and in a position that was far too unkind to my neck. I really don\'t have time to worry about this, however, as my ship is now being pulled into the hungry maw of the single most destructive force in nature.
I decide not to loiter here any longer than I have to, and set the nav to jump to the lower-right quadrant of the sector. Engaging the Mantis, I feel a sense of relief as soon as I am free of the gravity well. I could do with fewer encounters with gravity wells, right about now. My comms panel chimes and the indicator flashes.
The message appears out of nowhere. Thinking ahead this time, I try to trace the message before I read it. The comms system can give me no point of origin or even routing for this message. As far as the computer can tell, it\'s just there, as if it has always been there.
"Isn\'t it lovely? She\'s more than just pretty to look at. At her heart is a singularity. A wormhole. She\'s jumpable. What you need to ask yourself are the following: Am I skilled enough to make the jump? Do I have the nerves to make the jump? Am I insane enough to make the jump? What lies on the other side? This is for you, and you alone, to discover." --S
Just as before, the message is immediately erased once I have read it. I can\'t help but wonder how this is being accomplished. "S" has issued a challenge, and one that I can\'t help but think is suicidal. Then again, who knows?
"Just one shot. Get it right, Raven." --S
Now he\'s just taunting me. Or she. Or it? For all I know, some Vonari is having a real laugh at my expense right now, waiting breathlessly for me to willingly hurl myself to my doom. Seems like a whole lot of effort just to get me out here to die stupidly, though.
I think it through logically. I know that, if there is, in fact, a wormhole inside the black hole, it\'s within the event horizon. The gravitational forces there are mind-boggling. So, if I am to get to the wormhole, I need to get to it without being exposed to the gravitational stress presented by the black hole. I need to jump into it. More precisely, I need to jump into the wormhole, directly. When I make a jump, I don\'t come out directly where I set the nav, I come out in the neighborhood of 2500m short of it, presumably so that you don\'t immediately crash into something if you accidentally choose to jump directly to, say, a station.
Taking all that into account, this means I need to set my destination to the wormhole, and then manually correct this so that I enter normal space at the exact point of the wormhole. Furthermore, heading and momentum need to be accounted for. Since you enter normal space oriented to the pitch and heading you had when you jumped, and your momentum will carry over, I conclude that I must orient myself at a zero heading, zero pitch, and be "parked" at the moment I jump.
Still... calculating this won\'t kill me. Calculating it wrong and then attempting it most certainly will. I sit and wait a moment, getting up the nerve. I\'m jolted back into the moment when a gigantic ship streaks into the sector, almost right on top of me. It\'s identified as "Vonari-C", and from it, swarms of Vonari ships begin to stream out.
I don\'t have time to recalculate, or to change my course to some place safer. A massive discharge of energy just narrowly misses my hull, searing off the entire rear shield with a near miss. If that thing hits me, I will never know it. I engage the Mantis. I experience the usual sensation of jumping, but what follows turns my mind inside out, and the gelatinizes it. I hit normal space inside the confines of the wormhole, which is nested within the confines of a black hole. For just a split second... I am inside a black hole, within the event horizon from which nothing returns.
I can feel the gravity. I feel what should never be felt, see what should not be seen, can never be unseen. I see the entirety of reality unravel before me. The universe becomes two-dimensional, and somehow I comprehend it. Becomes one dimensional. Still, I comprehend it. I become it. The universe and I are one. We are then multidimensional. Multiversal. We are many. We are one. We are everything.
We are nothing.
We are nothing.
I am nothing.
I am nothing. Dust. A speck on a lens capturing the light of all creation. I\'m back in normal space, but my ability to cogitate things like "I" and "normal" and "space" have become somewhat warped, perhaps irreparably. I can\'t remember specifics, no details at all. All that I am aware of is that I have somehow experienced something that transcends... everything.
I try to take my bearings. I cannot. My intellect is buried somewhere, screaming in measured pain and ecstasy. Shattered. I remain in this state for several hours. I couldn\'t tell you if the experience was good or bad, as such terms are not only insufficient, but inappropriate to quantify it. Language is simply not up to the task of communicating it. The term "infinite" has a meaning, and that meaning can be conveyed in a logical sense. Experiencing the infinite, actually becoming infinite...
====
Stardate 91034.49
I\'m not sure what to make of this. My mind barely comprehends what just happened. What the heck was I even thinking back there? I\'m still in a numb state of shock, every shred of logic in my brain telling me that I should most definitely be dead right now. Perhaps I am, and I just don\'t know it yet.
I get a sudden sense of Deja vu. A klaxon is blaring in my ear. Probably has been for hours, and I\'m just now noticing it. My hull is at 11%. I\'m lucky to have survived. Perhaps I would have been luckier not to. I take stock of what\'s around me. The navigational computer is still trying to get a fix on my location. It can\'t seem to find any familiar stars.
Nearby is a planet, a star, a huge asteroid belt... and another black hole. Well, there\'s no way I\'m jumping that one in this condition. I can detect no gates, stations, or wormholes anywhere. Sensors pick up an anomaly on the asteroid field, an artificial construct. It doesn\'t match any known configuration for a station or ship. Wherever I am, I\'m stuck here for a while.
The navcom dings at me. I pull up the navmap, and see the system name: Andromeda. Andromeda? I\'ve never heard of a system by that name, just the galaxy. The coordinates. I\'m... not in the Milky Way. At all. I\'m in the Andromeda galaxy.
What have I just done?</pre>
EDITS: Precisely that, edits for spelling and grammar. All sentence fragments are intentional, so please don't point them out. If you assume I am referring to you, then I am :-P
Reformatted, font changed to Calibri, resized to "5".
[Edited on 8-25-2015 by RavenFellBlade]
[Edited on 8-26-2015 by RavenFellBlade]
[Edited on 9-1-2015 by RavenFellBlade]
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SeeJay
- Captain
- Posts: 3507
- Joined: Wed Aug 11, 2010 9:03 am
- Location: Sweden
First Captain's Log! *POSSIBLE SPOILERS!*
I love it Raven. Excellent story! ;-)
Really cool sequence when entering the black hole ... Epic!;)
Really cool sequence when entering the black hole ... Epic!;)
\"Nothing is impossible, it only takes a bit longer!\"
\"We are not retreating, we are advancing in another direction!\"
http://evochron.junholt.se (Old)
http://www.evochron2.junholt.se (New)
http://mercenary.junholt.se (Map)
http://www.junholt.se/evoschool/index.htm (No spoilers)
-8- Bzzzzzzzzz! -8- -8-
\"We are not retreating, we are advancing in another direction!\"
http://evochron.junholt.se (Old)
http://www.evochron2.junholt.se (New)
http://mercenary.junholt.se (Map)
http://www.junholt.se/evoschool/index.htm (No spoilers)
-8- Bzzzzzzzzz! -8- -8-
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RavenFellBlade
- Ensign
- Posts: 36
- Joined: Fri Aug 21, 2015 9:43 pm
First Captain's Log! *POSSIBLE SPOILERS!*
I just wish the forum allowed for proper indentations for paragraphs. It looks like an odd wall of text on here, compared to how it looks in Word. I actually typed these first two directly into the forum, and then just copy/pasted them into Word so that I can write it out as a single volume. Cleaned it up, made some corrections to things I missed while I was typing it, indented all of the paragraphs, and then just replaced the most recent entry with the "clean" version from Word... and lost my formatting. You just can't indent on a forum [sadface] I'm rather enjoying this process, though. I haven't really done any creative writing in years. Good to be back in the saddle.
Thank you for the feedback, SeeJay! That whole things just kinda played out in my head the second I hit that black hole. I just knew what I wanted to do with it. I'm also beginning to enjoy writing "S". S could be Silly, could be Sinister, could be Serious, could be Santa Claus. I can't wait to find out!
Thank you for the feedback, SeeJay! That whole things just kinda played out in my head the second I hit that black hole. I just knew what I wanted to do with it. I'm also beginning to enjoy writing "S". S could be Silly, could be Sinister, could be Serious, could be Santa Claus. I can't wait to find out!
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Sinbad
- Commander
- Posts: 765
- Joined: Mon Sep 28, 2009 7:28 pm
- Location: Medellin, Colombia
First Captain's Log! *POSSIBLE SPOILERS!*
Hey RavenFellBlade! Great flight logs! You certainly have a talent for writing. About the formatting... why not make a pdf from Word and host it on something like dropbox? Then we can read it with your original formatting.
Universe Explorers Clan
[UE]Sinbad
Clan Leader
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. - Carl Sagan
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Marvin
- Global Moderator
- Posts: 14373
- Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 5:47 am
- Location: Fallon-Reno
First Captain's Log! *POSSIBLE SPOILERS!*
If you like, I can format the post for you so that us old codgers, with weak eyes and slow wits, have an easier time reading it. Then, next time, you can use the same formatting technique on your own.
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DaveK
- Global Moderator
- Posts: 4161
- Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 9:04 pm
- Location: Leeds UK
First Captain's Log! *POSSIBLE SPOILERS!*
Try a blank line for a paragraph break - that might help
Callsign: Incoming
Life is like a sewer... what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. - Bob Newhart
Hell is being in a pure platinum asteroid field... with a diamond mining beam
Life is like a sewer... what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. - Bob Newhart
Hell is being in a pure platinum asteroid field... with a diamond mining beam
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Marvin
- Global Moderator
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- Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 5:47 am
- Location: Fallon-Reno
First Captain's Log! *POSSIBLE SPOILERS!*
From post: 180057, Topic: tid=12052, author=DaveK wrote:Try a blank line for a paragraph break - that might help
Over here, we call it double-spacing. And, yup, that's about what I would do ... anything fancier takes extra BBCode.-
RavenFellBlade
- Ensign
- Posts: 36
- Joined: Fri Aug 21, 2015 9:43 pm
First Captain's Log! *POSSIBLE SPOILERS!*
Maybe I just need to learn the BBCode? I'll take all of these suggestions under consideration. I may just create a blogspot page for it, but I have a preference to keeping the story local to the forums. Since I'm incorporating the community into the story, it seems like it just belongs here.
EDIT: It looks like if I use the I'll try editing my first post and see if it works.
[Edited on 8-25-2015 by RavenFellBlade]
[Edited on 8-25-2015 by RavenFellBlade]
EDIT: It looks like if I use the
Code: Select all
"code" tag, it will maintain my paragraph indentations. [Edited on 8-25-2015 by RavenFellBlade]
[Edited on 8-25-2015 by RavenFellBlade]
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RavenFellBlade
- Ensign
- Posts: 36
- Joined: Fri Aug 21, 2015 9:43 pm
First Captain's Log! *POSSIBLE SPOILERS!*
I don't think code-tagging will work, as it seems to squeeze text into a much smaller field in the middle of the post. I'll look up some alternatives.
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DaveK
- Global Moderator
- Posts: 4161
- Joined: Mon Apr 19, 2010 9:04 pm
- Location: Leeds UK
First Captain's Log! *POSSIBLE SPOILERS!*
There are similar probs with trying to tabulate data for the forum. Your can't use multiple spaces or the Tab key to get indents of line things up - full stops work but it's a bind - it's easier to post a graphic of the tables - not an option for a story though!
Good luck with the quest - indents and tabs would be a really useful addition - as would an 'embarrassed' smiley!
Good luck with the quest - indents and tabs would be a really useful addition - as would an 'embarrassed' smiley!
Callsign: Incoming
Life is like a sewer... what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. - Bob Newhart
Hell is being in a pure platinum asteroid field... with a diamond mining beam
Life is like a sewer... what you get out of it depends on what you put into it. - Bob Newhart
Hell is being in a pure platinum asteroid field... with a diamond mining beam
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Marvin
- Global Moderator
- Posts: 14373
- Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 5:47 am
- Location: Fallon-Reno
First Captain's Log! *POSSIBLE SPOILERS!*
There is a way to get text to display as it is written. You use the less-than and more-than characters to bracket the word pre. Bracket pre before the text and then bracket /pre after the text. And it comes out like this:
<pre>Tab Tab Tab and Spaces</pre>
<pre>Tab Tab Tab and Spaces</pre>
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Marvin
- Global Moderator
- Posts: 14373
- Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 5:47 am
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First Captain's Log! *POSSIBLE SPOILERS!*
Using some of your story as an example ...
<pre>
As the fog of sleep begins to lift, I notice that my comms panel has a message waiting. I rub the sleep from my eyes, stretch my legs, and order up a hot tea from the food and beverage dispenser from the bulkhead to my left. The hot, bitter tannins quickly shoo off any remaining drowsiness, and I punch up the new message. It\'s brief, it\'s anonymous, and it\'s downright enigmatic.
"Raven. How was your brief stay in RiftSpace? You really ought to go back there. There\'s something I think you need to see. It\'s in the Vonarion system. Don\'t worry, I\'m not asking you to blow up the Vonari homeworld. I understand you have a distaste for that kind of thing.
"Just go \'north\' as soon as you leave the gate in Vonarion. You\'ll know it when you see it." --S
Vonarion?! That\'s the last place I wanted to go! I don\'t have a clue who "S" is, but I\'m definitely not playing this game!
As if somehow in answer to this thought, the comm chimes again. Another message from "S".
"Just so we\'re clear, I\'m offering you an opportunity to go where no man has gone before. Well... very few men. And who knows how many of any other species? You\'re an explorer. Explore."</pre>
[Edited on 8-25-2015 by Marvin]
<pre>
As the fog of sleep begins to lift, I notice that my comms panel has a message waiting. I rub the sleep from my eyes, stretch my legs, and order up a hot tea from the food and beverage dispenser from the bulkhead to my left. The hot, bitter tannins quickly shoo off any remaining drowsiness, and I punch up the new message. It\'s brief, it\'s anonymous, and it\'s downright enigmatic.
"Raven. How was your brief stay in RiftSpace? You really ought to go back there. There\'s something I think you need to see. It\'s in the Vonarion system. Don\'t worry, I\'m not asking you to blow up the Vonari homeworld. I understand you have a distaste for that kind of thing.
"Just go \'north\' as soon as you leave the gate in Vonarion. You\'ll know it when you see it." --S
Vonarion?! That\'s the last place I wanted to go! I don\'t have a clue who "S" is, but I\'m definitely not playing this game!
As if somehow in answer to this thought, the comm chimes again. Another message from "S".
"Just so we\'re clear, I\'m offering you an opportunity to go where no man has gone before. Well... very few men. And who knows how many of any other species? You\'re an explorer. Explore."</pre>
[Edited on 8-25-2015 by Marvin]
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RavenFellBlade
- Ensign
- Posts: 36
- Joined: Fri Aug 21, 2015 9:43 pm
First Captain's Log! *POSSIBLE SPOILERS!*
Excellent, Marvin! You're a Godsend! I'll get to work re-editing the current chapters. I'd like to work on the story more tonight, but I've only got about an hour or so of free time. I'll put in a play session to gather some story elements, and if I get enough out of it, I'll see what comes together tomorrow evening.
Seriously, guys, you've all been a great help. I really love to write, but I haven't in years. I can't rightly say why, except that it's some combination of a lack of time and inspiration and an overabundance of apathy. I've only just begun to really participate in this forum, even though I've been a member for a couple years, and despite this I feel right at home, among friends. Thank you.
Seriously, guys, you've all been a great help. I really love to write, but I haven't in years. I can't rightly say why, except that it's some combination of a lack of time and inspiration and an overabundance of apathy. I've only just begun to really participate in this forum, even though I've been a member for a couple years, and despite this I feel right at home, among friends. Thank you.
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Marvin
- Global Moderator
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- Joined: Wed Mar 04, 2009 5:47 am
- Location: Fallon-Reno
First Captain's Log! *POSSIBLE SPOILERS!*
I can put the edit in your post ... that way you can see how it's formatted.
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RavenFellBlade
- Ensign
- Posts: 36
- Joined: Fri Aug 21, 2015 9:43 pm
First Captain's Log! *POSSIBLE SPOILERS!*
Check out the new look! Thanks again, Marvin! This looks much better, though the text is much smaller. I know I can BBCode it to a larger size, but I think it's fine the way that it is. Thankfully, all I really had to do was add the pre tags, since both posts were already formatted properly in the editor.
Thanks again, Marvin! This looks much better, though the text is much smaller. I know I can BBCode it to a larger size, but I think it's fine the way that it is. Thankfully, all I really had to do was add the pre tags, since both posts were already formatted properly in the editor.-
Marvin
- Global Moderator
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First Captain's Log! *POSSIBLE SPOILERS!*
Codes should be in brackets. To change the font, use font= and designate the actual font name. For size, I used size=3. Different fonts might require different sizes. All codes should be inside the "preview" coding ... preferably on the same line as the text.
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RavenFellBlade
- Ensign
- Posts: 36
- Joined: Fri Aug 21, 2015 9:43 pm
First Captain's Log! *POSSIBLE SPOILERS!*
More on the way tonight. I wish I could have gotten to it sooner, but things have just been a bit crazy lately. I've been cooking up some ideas on what to do, in a narrative sense, with my last play session. It wasn't very long, but there's some interesting material to work with. I think I'd like to get in another session, though. I feel where I left off in the game doesn't give me much to work with, but I flat ran out of time and had to log off. I can't thank everyone enough for their support! I hope you guys have all enjoyed the story thus far, and I really look forward to giving you guys something to look forward to on at least a weekly basis, though I would prefer twice a week if I can manage it. Stay tuned for the next installment!
EDIT: I'm an idiot.
[Edited on 9-1-2015 by RavenFellBlade]
EDIT: I'm an idiot.
[Edited on 9-1-2015 by RavenFellBlade]