I'm only now just a little bit outside of the Eta Carina Nebula, and my Vette can only jump around 18ly at a time. Between that, and me working two jobs, which cuts into my playtime, I doubt I'll be running into anyone amytime soon.
I set out because I wanted to return to Sag A, which I first traveled to almost a year ago now. Then once all the alien business started I got to reading about all the unregistered comms beacons, and altered my route to Sag A to include the Hawkins Gap area. My main goal was to return to Sag A in a Corvette, all the while gathering exploration data to close the gap to Elite in exploration.
Since I was going to be passing through the anyway, eventually, I decided that I would offer my assistance in searching some of the systems in that area.