The Trans-Polar Beagle Point 2 Expedition

disorganise

disorganise
Waiting (im)patiently for the next episode Cmdr.
What joy it was to find I had missed your last update and so had something to read. Sadly, rep must be spread around so vrep only I'm afraid.
 

Macedonica

Macedonica
Vrep appreciated! Update soon. I bought an HTC Vive and have been trying to get used to long hours in the SRV cockpit - not easy as it is quite nausea-inducing. Installing the Vive was a doodle but I have had to alter the UI colours to render the ingame text more readable. I drove a long session finally this evening and think I have finally 'adapted' into the SRV motion-sickness.

It is something to 'poke' my head outside the SRC canopy and look back at one of the main thrusters! I wish there was a medium-sized SRV built specifically for long expedition hauls. I would love to stand up and move around inside such a vehicle!
 

disorganise

disorganise
I imagine it can be quite disconcerting. My wife has the Samsung phone occulus attachment and I found that really hard on my eyes especially as it was glasses incompatible. The sense of vertigo looking down over a cliff though....wow!
 

Macedonica

Macedonica
​



Report of the Official Trans Polar Beagle Point 2 Enquiry, September, 3303

Page 25 onwards.

Kalhauser: - Look, you don't understand - yes, the Scarab is a superb all-round Surface Recon Vehicle - hell, what ship out there doesn't have a couple locked up in its PVH -

Official: I'm sorry, PVH?

Kalhauser: Are you mass-locking me, son? The PVH - the Planetary Vehicle Hanger. You know, the modular unit assigned to hold surface vehicles? Have any of you actually taken your fancy boots off this planet and done any exploring?

Official 2: This is besides the point, Engineer Kalhauser -

Kalhauser: Is it? This is an enquiry into the remotest surface expedition in human history and not one of you has actually done any exploration? Well, mass-lock me, is all I can say.

Official: Enlighten us, then, do. Tell us about this 'Scarab' -

Kalhauser: Look, son, the Scarab is an all-round light-weight surface vehicle - nothing more. Good for planetary excursions, small SAR operations, repair and mineral retrieval, that sort of stuff. It is fast and can boost up over serious terrain obstacles, sure. But sustained surface exploration? For weeks on end? That would be like taking a grav-taxi home after a night out when your home is four continents away across an equator. I mean, seriously, what was this Felix Macedonica thinking? There are far better SRVs out there for expedition-work - the Dragonfly, for example, or the Firefly - now those 2 are superb endurance vehicles, hell, the latter even has 6 Weevil SRVs as support vehicles in its PVH -

Official 2: Weevil?

Kalhauser: A small SRV - smaller than the Scarab - half its size, in fact. Drop a Firefly down on a surface with 8 crew and you have a long-range surface expedition with all the trimmings. But the Scarab? Well, its price tells you everything you need to know, doesn't it? It costs nothing but small change - what, a little over 5,000 credits. Think about that for a moment. You are putting your life in a piece of hardware which costs so little it wouldn't dent anyone's pocket. Would you do that? Would anyone? The Firefly costs an average Commander 2.4 million credits. More than some ships. But the Scarab - it is nothing but a disposable object. Drop it down - throw it about - have some fun - bash it in - who cares? Buy another. Hell, son, there are even whole groups out there who do nothing but run canyon racing rallies and blow up the Scarab in ever inventive ways. It's a toy, really.

Official: So you are saying that you would never use the Scarab for sustained planetary exploration? Is that it?

Kalhauser: Look, it's not just the price of the thing. Here - let me bring a model up on the holodisplay - there, see? Look at it. 4 tons in weight. Top speed in ideal conditions, 38 m/s with 4ps. 2 ton cargo capacity. 2.5m high by 4.8m long. Look at that cockpit canopy. Barely room to turn your head. It is nothing more than an environmental bubble with wheels, two boosters, and a large cargo bay. Cheap and cheerful as my old mentor used to say. Now imagine sitting in that for days - hell, weeks, even on end. Sure, this Commander would recall his Lakon Type 6E - and don't even get me started on that old rust bucket as an exploration ship! He would recall it and establish a base camp for the night - but he will be mostly sleeping through that. No, this idiot will spend most of his waking time cooped up in this tiny cockpit without gravity, with minimal shielding, no room to stretch his legs, eat a meal, hell, even take a leak except to use his insuit bladder. He might as well as left the Scarab and walked across that surface for all the difference it makes . . .

Official: But he did take the Scarab - 2 of them in alternating shifts, it seems -

Kalhauser: You need to listen to those early logs again, son. This Commander has traversed the galaxy - touched down on Beagle Point 2 - looked back across the wash of stars to our Bubble here and . . .

Official 2: . . . And what, Engineer Kalhauser?

Kalhauser: It's not about finding something. It never is.

Official: He was very explicit about traversing pole to pole - to conduct the first trans-polar expedition at the edge of the galaxy -

Kalhauser: Was he?

Official: He was trying to find a route from pole to -

Kalhauser: No. He wasn't. He wasn't trying to find anything. It wasn't about that.

Official 2: Then what was it about . . . Kalhauser?

Kalhauser: It was about what we all fear - out there - in the black - beyond the Bubble . . .

Official: Tell us . . .

Kalhauser: . . . Son, it's about not letting go . . . Not giving up . . . Hell, it's even about simply not coming home . . . What do you do when you reach the end of the galaxy? Where do you go after that - where CAN you go?

Official: This is madness - nothing but madness -

Kalhauser: Not at all. Exploration is nothing if it is not a matter of the heart. Of the soul. And nothing burns brighter than a soul in the most remote darkness, does it?

Official: . . . You admire him, don't you?

Kalhauser: -Admire? Hell, no. I envy him


​
 
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Macedonica

Macedonica
​


Inflight Journal, June 15th, 3302, recording


. . . So I am now in the middle -60s Latitudes. I know, I know, a few days have passed without updates or audio logs. What can I say? I guess the monotony has set in. After the whole Erebus descent and then ascent, the landscape has been nothing but an unending carpet of meteoric rock, impact craters, and either level plains or small warrens . . .

And I am beginning to regret ever having begun this.

So I suppose I am breaking 'log' silence now if for no other reason than to end the tedium. It is - what? - a few minutes after 10am - I have been driving the 'Dudley Docker' for an hour or so since dismissing the 'Apostata III' into low orbit - how many days since Erebus? 4, I think. Yesterday, I pulled out and replaced the entire Lakon's command dash. Wear and tear had taken its toll since I had left Palleani back in January. I had a brand new dash assembly - the Holt 52i model from Saitek Systems - and it took all day to assemble it and integrate it into the main AI. Now the Lakon is purring and responding like a brand-new ship.

Although to be honest, I did it to take a day out. Out of the endless driving. I reviewed some of the earlier audio logs and almost laughed at myself: the Graveyard? The Lustral Plain? What nonsense. I was attempting to poeticize a barren landscape. There is no poetry here. No features worthy of a name. This is nothing but a barren rock at the rat-end of the galaxy.

As I am.

Chatter on the fleet-comms is hinting at a muster for all remaining Commanders at Darwin's Legacy on the 26th, June. It will be a final last hurrah, I suppose. There are still some left here in-system - drifters, those too tired to begin FSDing back, the bored - and those holding out some faint hope that Jacques and his Station will appear high in orbit.

It is those last I pity the most.

And I? I am driving from pole to pole and each latitude I cross strips one more layer of enthusiasm from me. It wouldn't be so bad if this damned planet would throw up something interesting but it is the same landscape day after day. And I am now beginning to take risks - if only to relieve the tedium. My hand sweats with anticipation of the boost grip - and I am gunning the engine harder and harder as each hour passes. Is this what happens then? Do all great endeavours tip over into madness out of boredom? Are we all that shallow?

So perhaps I should end this and bunny-hop the Lakon over to that final ceremony on the 26th?

There would be no shame in that. None at all. How many Commanders started out with the Distant World's fleet? And how many arrived here? I have nothing to prove and therefore feel no shame if I abort this endless drive south to north. Perhaps I should do that. Then I can depart and begin the long, long, trip back to the Bubble.

The timing is perfect. One last hurrah with the Commanders still here and then out in the velvet of the black. Out into the stars - and freedom . . .

Except I will be going back.

Not forwards.

I will be going back and I suppose this whole trip from the beginning has been about getting away.

Away from the Bubble. Away from its politics. Its petty intrigues. All that. There is nothing back there. There hasn't been for a long time. Since I gave up on my father ever returning . . . Well, we all know what a fool's errand that was.

No, there is no going back - or rather nothing to go back for. So I drift here on the edge of the galaxy and stare into an abyss of - what? Indecision? Boredom? Ineffectuality? Is that me then now? I drive because I lack the courage to find another path?

. . . Hmm, talking into a mic may not be the best action here right now . . .

They say that if you look into beauty too long it withers and becomes nothing but dust. Out here it is the opposite. Dust has become a thing of beauty - but it is a frozen beauty under a motionless star. I stare and stare out of the plexiglass canopy into a world of wonder paused in time itself. Even the shadows have frozen, their black ink solidified into obsidian almost. I drive through a world of bitter wonder and feel as if I am breaking into it rather than becoming one with it. Each day is the same and is therefore no day at all. So now I spout philosophy - the philosophy of the mad! Time does exist, of course, but it is here inside the SRV. Distance is marked off. Time counts down. Meters and holo-readings change. All that. But it is not felt time. Lived time. It is not my time. I am caged by the glowing numbers of an abstract time which is not my own. I cannot even reach out and touch this time - for if I put my hand out to touch the readings, it simply passes straight through each one.

This time exists without me. It exists inside this SRV within its own little bubble adrift from myself and that bitter landscape outside . . .

And without time, there can be no space.

And I have this irrational fear that one day - outside this non-time - I will drive over the North Pole without realising it - that I will carry on driving, my eyes locked onto a lost horizon, my face set against a time long-since lost. Which makes me wonder, if I have not already done so - have I already done this trip? Is this my second loop about the planet? Have I been doing this circular drive for months now? Years even? How long have I been here at Beagle Point 2? All those Commanders still here - do they know of me? Were they here when I arrived - or are they newcomers from another Distant World's Expedition? Perhaps they, too, have been here before and fly endlessly about the low orbits seeking a Waypoint which can never be found?

. . . So, yeah, THIS is why I shouldn't talk too much into the mic.

One day others will hear this and I can't even begin to imagine what conclusions they will make . . .

Oh look - another impact crater. I really can't describe how stimulated I feel . . .
 
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disorganise

disorganise
After sitting so long this weekend, you summary is apt. the near constant 'plane, bumps, plane, bumps, crater, bumps' does your head in after a while. And the stupid little rocks that 90% of time pass seamlessly beneath the vehicle but then 10% of the time act either like a catapult, tossing you 20m in the air, or a solid brick wall and dropping 20 odd % off you hull with an almighty bone-crushing dead stop crunch! they do little to break the monotony other than prevent a decent run.
 

Macedonica

Macedonica
Agreed. However, I am still less than a 1/4 of the way to the northern polar extremes so I am hoping things change. The impulse to boost the Lakon up into orbit to survey the landscape ahead is a hard one to resist, though . . .
 

Macedonica

Macedonica
​



Inflight Journal, June 23rd, 3302, recording


. . . I suppose in the end, it is the silence which overwhelms me . . . Oh, I know I cannot be entombed in complete silence. Not at all. This SRV will never allow me that grace - I mean, outside. Outside the flimsy plexiglass canopy. It is all dead. Inert. Still and silent. It is an awful void and the glitter of the sun above only adds to that feeling . . . It hangs up there - what, -64 Latitude now so over a quarter way up above the horizon now. Once I reach 0 degrees I will be at the equator and the sun will hang over me at high noon (as it were). Then it will start its inevitable decline behind me.

That I am not looking forward to . . .

Now, though, I remain cocooned in this Scarab and feel nothing but silence outside. The absence of life, of movement, of energy.

This planet is a dead planet.

I am entombed in it.

Can absence have presence, weight, feeling even?

Yes, yes, it can.

. . . The landscape is an unremitting carpet of shattered rock and impact craters. Over the last few days, that rolling panorama has been leavened by the odd huge impact crater or a series of uneven low hills which the 2 Scarabs have rolled up and down over without breaking sweat . . .

No, the landscape is a constant now and unremarkable.

Not so the 2 Scarabs. They were never built for this kind of sustained use. I never really appreciated that before. Yes, I am exchanging the 'Dudley Docker' for the 'James Caird' and that does go some way to relieving the stress and toil - but in the end, both SRVs are taking a punishment. How many times can I or the ship's systems repair them before they degrade beyond the point of no return, I wonder? The solar radiation and violent swings in surface temperature will eventually take their toll, I fear. If the SRV moves from an irradiated plain into a dark black canyon, I can feel the chassis begin to pop and creak with the abrupt plunge in surface temperature. Equally, once I cross again from that blackness into the awful light of the star above, the Scarab groans as if being tortured . . .

Something must give eventually . . .

Something will crack or fail or give way - and that will be the end . . .

Already, the inflight recorder of the 'Dudley Docker' is playing up. For the last 3 days, I couldn't use it at all. I swopped out the comms panel with the 'James Caird' and still nothing. Most of last evening aboard the 'Apostata III', I had all the wiring and data components scattered about the hanger - nothing. Everything was green across the board. All the onboard diagnostics indicated no issues. The Lakon's AI cleared both SRVs for use. I was baffled - but for 3 days I hadn't been able to record a thing -

And now it is working again. Obviously - as I am recording this now.

I have no idea why.

And do you want to know the weird thing? The inflight recording logs on the main AI aboard the Lakon indicate that several logs collated from the 2 SRVs were deleted over the last 3 days. How can that be? How can something which never existed be deleted? I am baffled - but the evidence is plain for all to see. Deleted files - all audio logs. 3 days' worth. But when and how? Is the glitch in the memory core itself, I wonder, indicating a deletion where none existed?

Or is the gap in me instead?

Am I deleting myself and forgetting it?

I am almost a quarter across this hellish landscape - no, not even that - and it folds about me like a shroud. There is an endless monotony now and I wonder if that eternal view outside is seeping into my skull now. Am I drifting into a world of endless repetition and in doing so recording and deleting and recording again?

If so, I wonder how many times have I spoken these thoughts now - only to delete them an hour later in disgust - and then forget I ever did so the more this world rolls past me?

And I remember once what my father told me about why he explored - what pushed him always into the black and away from the Bubble:

" . . . Son, it's never about finding something - that odd planet, or those unusual rings - never that. Movement. That's it. It is that simple. I explore to keep moving. It is an itch in the blood, son. Something you will never understand. Some people put down roots. They make a home. Others build something - a business, a dream, art - whatever. Some even fashion empires and shape the stars themselves. But there are a few souls who are destined to leave all that behind. Their fate is to travel; to leap beyond the known; to bridge that gulf between the familiar and the darkness which surrounds it. It's that simple, son. Those souls cast themselves out into the abyss and never stop. Never. No matter what they find in that journey, You see, to be honest, the finding is a by-product. Nothing but a consequence. It is the movement which is the destiny. You won't get that. You're a dreamer, son. An imagineer. I expect you get that from your mother, eh? Not for you the endless gulf of the stars out there. They have no siren-call in your heart, do they? I pity you, son . . ."

. . . Well, father, where is your pity now, I wonder? I have travelled farther than you ever had. I am at the end of the galaxy and I have seen the void beyond it with my own eyes. Now I can look back into the galaxy and only see you somewhere in it behind me. Always behind me now . . .

And I wonder what you see when you look outwards in that next jump knowing I have already passed it . . .

. . . I think this log deserves to be deleted, if any does. This silence is making me maudlin, I fear. But I will not. If the glitch has been fixed, I need to preserve this recording to prove that. If I AM deleting the logs and not remembering - then I need to force myself to reverse that. So. I will end this recording and store a back-up in the main AI core under an encrypted password. That way only the AI will be able to delete it.

If I am deleting myself, then at least my voice will remain out here in this void. At least that will survive . . .



​
 
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Jermus

Jermus
This is a piece of art. :)

I already repped you in another thread, so receive this +Vrep instead.

Fly safe Stay sane,
CMDR Jermus
 

Macedonica

Macedonica
Jermus said:
This is a piece of art. :)

I already repped you in another thread, so receive this +Vrep instead.

Fly safe Stay sane,
CMDR Jermus
Click to expand...

Thanks for the compliment! Art? Hmm, not sure about that - musings prompted by the game's wonderful landscape and sense of immersion more like! And as for sanity - see below . . .

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Jon474 said:
+vrep

I am feeling your pain through the writing!

Jon
T-6E
Click to expand...

Pain or struggle? As a fellow SRV explorer at BP2, I hope you fared better than me across the surfaces!

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Report of the Official Trans Polar Beagle Point 2 Enquiry, September, 3303

Page 505 onwards

Official: So you're saying there was nothing faulty with the inflight comms or storage drives?

O'Grady: Not according to the diagnostics, no. Obviously there is always some margin for error. Essentially, though, as he was using the Halstrom B360 series, it is practically crash-proof. I have seen technicians recover full flight and data logs from a 9G plus wreck and not have one recording lost.

Official 2: So in your opinion there was no breakdown in the internal comms or recording devices on either of the SRVs?

O'Grady: As far as we can tell, no . . . However . . .

Official: Speak up, Technician O'Grady.

O'Grady: Well, this is off-the-book stuff, you know? Conjecture only - although some reports do suggest . . .

Official: Please, go on.

O'Grady: The clue is there - only, it's just a glimmer, you see? Nothing more than a suggestion.

Official: I am sorry, what clue? Be specific.

O'Grady: It wasn't the logs at all or the equipment. Or him. It wasn't him at all. So, that does leave one other option on the table, doesn't it?

Official: For a technician - that is, a practical man - you are maddeningly evasive, O'Grady -

O'Grady: It leaves the AI - the ship's core AI, doesn't it?

Official: What? You are not suggesting -

O'Grady: Think about it - listen to his recording again. Just listen. How does Felix Macedonica know about the missing data, the deleted logs? What makes him aware of that situation?

Official: You saying the ship's AI lied to him?

O'Grady: It makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? The comms was down in the 'Dudley Docker', yes? He swapped out the main unit with the one from the 'James Caird' - and nothing. He stripped both SRVs in the Hangar and could find nothing wrong. Then the comms started working again as if brand new. And then the Ship's AI informed him that several logs in its database had been deleted over the last few days . . . It makes you wonder doesn't it? It makes you wonder who is the deluded one here . . .

Official: I am sorry but this is pure conjecture -

O'Grady: A little, yes - but we have had reports in the past of aberrant AI. Schindstrom over in the MaiaTec Institute describes it as Personality Disorder Asymmetry or PDA. In layman's terms, the AI becomes split between its own programming matrix and that of the Commander's personality. Schindstrom argues that a certain 'wobble' creeps in as a result - a deviation as the AI attempts to accommodate itself to both parameters, you see? It is rare but there are instances. You should talk to him. He can go into more detail, I think.

Official 2: So you're saying the ship's AI inherited some of Felix Macedonica's traits? That it became torn between him and its own personality modeling?

O'Grady: You must understand that the AI is modeled to interact with and serve a Commander - to function as an intuitive servant to the ship's systems, yes? It speeds up ship response time and allows the Commander to focus on the essentials of inflight operations and navigation. Well, the thing is, see, that all the models of interactivity are predicated on a general understanding of human mental operations and responses. The AI has a certain expectation as a result and anything which confounds that means it must adapt accordingly -

Official: So if Felix Macedonica WERE mad then that would 'infect' the AI - is that what you are saying here?

O'Grady: Well, I don't know about madness, as such . . . A PDA is not madness. Think of it as a sublime experience. The AI is confronted with a Commander who stretches it beyond its core parameters . . . Listen to the musings and you can see the introspection there . . . So it attempts to adapt and in the process develops a PDA condition . . . Understand this is speculative research . . . Schindstrom may be the only person working on this . . .

Official: I am not sure how this PDA, as you call it, leads to the AI lying to Felix Macedonica about the deleted logs -

O'Grady: It's trying to accommodate him - both of them - the AI is creating a sense of loss in both of them. Of a missing past. It is attempting to bond with him - and it is doing so by manufacturing an instance in which his voice has been erased. The AI is - in its own clumsy fashion - attempting to understand him using his own mental processes.

Official: I have to be blunt here and state that this is nonsense.

O'Grady: There are studies which suggest -

Official: Nonsense, I say. And as such should be struck from the record's proceedings immediately. We are here to establish an enquiry into the Trans Polar Beagle Point 2 Expedition - not indulge in one Technician's fancy about aberrant AI.

Official 2: I agree - while fascinating - this is no more than speculation. I think it should be deleted also -

O'Grady: Ironic, isn't it?

Official: I beg your pardon?

O'Grady: That you seem to want to delete a log recording investigating the deletion of log recordings. That's ironic, isn't it? I wonder where the madness truly lies here, eh?

Official 2: . . .
 

Jermus

Jermus
[haha]

Where do you find this stuff? Brilliant.

You should definitely drive down there longer: it makes for extreme good reading.

Forget what I said about sanity! ;)

CMDR Jermus
(Who starts to become curious if CMDR Felix Macedonica will ever reach the north pole...)​
 

Jon474

Banned
Jon474
"As a fellow SRV explorer at BP2, I hope you fared better than me across the surfaces!"

Not really. It sometimes seemed that every single rock was trying to kill me! Sometimes I could roll right over them...but the next one, a much smaller rock, would then try to rip the heart out of my SRV.

BP2, BP3, BP6 and BP7...my SRV carries the scars from all of them.

It is so good to be back in space!

Flying happy
Jon
T-6E
 

Macedonica

Macedonica
Jermus said:
[haha]

Where do you find this stuff? Brilliant.

You should definitely drive down there longer: it makes for extreme good reading.

Forget what I said about sanity! ;)

CMDR Jermus
(Who starts to become curious if CMDR Felix Macedonica will ever reach the north pole...)​
Click to expand...

I live to serve! But seriously, too much sci-fi when I was a kid, I suppose. That and the addiction to driving the SRV and all the thoughts it throws up! And of course I will make it - won't I (brief burst of static . . .​)

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Jon474 said:
"As a fellow SRV explorer at BP2, I hope you fared better than me across the surfaces!"

Not really. It sometimes seemed that every single rock was trying to kill me! Sometimes I could roll right over them...but the next one, a much smaller rock, would then try to rip the heart out of my SRV.

BP2, BP3, BP6 and BP7...my SRV carries the scars from all of them.

It is so good to be back in space!

Flying happy
Jon
T-6E
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's a pain - I am trying to get into a routine of driving the SRV almost on auto while I read or watch a vid but those damned rocks always scupper that attempt. Sometimes I get the impression BP2 is out to get me . . . I am jealous you are back in the black. I am missing it!
 

Macedonica

Macedonica
Real life, an alt-account, and an impossible mountain have all conspired to derail my attempt to drive pole-to-pole across Beagle Point 2. With regret I must announce that as of this afternoon, Felix Macedonica climbed back into the pilot's seat of the Lakon Type 6E and FSD'd off that rock for good. A final message fragment mentions ' . . . damned planet . . .' followed by lots of static and then '. . . Oh thank the space gods, Lavian brandy . . .'

Thank you to everyone who followed this mad attempt. Now I have to pilot this old tub back to the Bubble . . .
 
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