Community Event / Creation Elite Dangerous Writing Competition 2017: My Thanks to FD People
- Thread starter Manticore
- Start date
I noticed Dale E posted my entry but the copy and paste in the forums has removed some of the formatting.
For completion (and to illustrate the effect of the formatting as it helps to tell the story) I'll post the story here:
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The ship drifted through the quantum sea. All around infinite spectra spoke to the ship as it travelled.
It was pleasing to feel the ship's life as they made their flowing progress through the everywhere of subspace, the holy ground of Witch Space. The void sang its song as wave functions crashed, collapsing on the shores of perception, vibrating against the senses of the pilot, and of the ship.
It was a special song, heard so often but never wearing on the spirit. The pilot hummed along, excited by the progress they made.
The fabric of spacetime blared in agony as the ship dropped down to be greeted by the majesty of a blue-white supergiant. Solar winds blasted against the ship's shields as the drives whined; tugging-of-war with the intense forces of the gravity well as they shot a transit across the face of the stellar deity. The ship's frame groaned and creaked, the hiss and sigh of plasmatic hydrogen collecting filled the cockpit as they refueled. All around them solar flares peaked into high purples and violets, uncountable radio frequencies shattering and penetrating, passing through and then out into the vastness of the universe.
They were making good progress.
The pilot scanned the ocean of space where island nebulae glowed, rich with colour and radiation. The ship raced out of stellar orbit and made ready the next jump, a ritual they had undertaken time and time again. Exploration was the life-force for the pilot and discovery its engine, alone in the void but for the ship out here. It had always seemed to matter little that they were far from home. Space was seemingly endless and the galaxy waited to be revealed, just to the star beyond and then out, to those unnumbered.
It will be good to go home……………
They had been away a long time, long enough to realise how long a life could be, alone and out in the black. They had gone to the ends of this spiral galaxy. It was not only a task; it was a quest and a dedication to their faction.
All of those who chose to go in order to preserve their faction's mission of exploration, discovery and science had scattered to the voids and abyssal realms of the deep black. They had chosen the lonely path, the path that may have no ending except for the end they would all, someday, face.
As explorers they were shunned, only returning to civilisation when the need to arose. And when they did return it was only to far-flung outposts where they remained unknown, and nobody cared about their faction or their mission.
These outposts were places of little worth, where the outcasts gathered, or hid. Places where no one cared to remember and where pasts, sometimes violent pasts, were still being acted out; or trying to be be forgotten.
Explorers were just crazy loners and their faction, their disparate family, was no different in the eyes of others. They weren't off the grid; for them there was no grid, and no outpost, no faction of disreputable drifters, cared to remember them coming, or going.
And what about this civilisation that allowed us all to be thrown down?
No one cared to know of them because their civilisation, all the superpowers and other factions, were too busy holding station; perpetually mired in cycles of civil unrest, war and the social horrors of medical emergencies, plague and famine. After all they had suffered through as a civilisation faction heads still argued and warred, politicians mouthed empty words and no-one was listening anymore or trusting of any of them. No one cared because they were too self-interested, or too sick of self-interest, to listen anymore, or because the march of their greed had replaced the reason of forward thinking and evolutionary advancement; perhaps of their very survival. The explorers returned to civilisation's edge but then they left again, and quickly, the black beckoning to them; spirits in the deep.
But now it was time to go home.
It was not pre-ordained. They didn't know if a time would ever come when the call would bring them to this action. They had been prepared to run this mission into the oblivion of old age and death; sharing some hope that a new generation would arise to continue their work, far out in the currents of the many billion stars.
When and where would this new generation come from?
Inertia kicked at the pilot as they boosted away from the frigid illumination of a brown dwarf, drives whined as particles accelerated, subsumed slaves to fusion. The universe cracked open and they careered down another subspace tunnel, freefalling once more in the quantum sea.
They had continued their mission, their work, but then the call had been made.
Navigation data uploaded at outposts had returned encrypted drop boxes, the time was coming soon. And the time was coming because civilisation had a greater enemy to face and, in the realisation of this, they had come together as one. Superpowers had stopped arguing, factions had stopped warring; medical science had caught up with evolution's puzzle-game of outbreak and plague and civilisation had begun to grow again.
The pilot worked the controls of the ship, electrified at the thought of returning home, as they made ready for the ultimate jump.
And then they arrived.
A white giant star opened up the volume of space, its harsh light a majestic illumination as they dropped down. Some of the others were already there; the family of their quest, at last in their place of belonging.
As the pilot called out to them others arrived, dropping down on rails of shining, luminal purity. And as the call went out so it was answered as more vessels dropped down to join them.
The pilot knew this space as the returning explorers all called out to each other. All around deep, rich blues fell away into carbon-black silhouettes, gargantuan clouds occluding the light of supergiant suns. Space hummed in waves of cobalt and indigo, pierced by the pearl-white luminescence of nearby stars. They called out to each other as the nebula, their home, glowed around them, singing radiation in the high-band.
In knowing, a fury arose in the pilot as the memories of countless stars and endless years in exile flooded back and, as the fury arose in the pilot, the others kept arriving.
And still they kept arriving. But it was no longer just their expedition fleet; it was an armada becoming multitude.
The pilot felt the fury burn all around as he watched vessels gather, the veins of their petals vibrating through the rainbow to settle in a violent red. Everywhere space was filled with sensors and probes being deployed, scattering as seeds on a divine cosmic wind to the light years of their spiral home; always turning back in the depths to pay homage to the one those others named "Maia".
But at the light seconds, in this system, on a moon captured in the mighty grip of a ringed gas giant's gravity and in a place entrusted to perpetual night, their family's home waited. Their presence had been sensed and their home was becoming awake. The pilot hooted and wailed the greeting to the eternal heavens, his faction and family's song, at the thought of once more worshipping in their own central map room; their family's story within now to be rewritten, now that they were finally returning from the great without.
And the family answered back. Colour patterns in their petals moved through the sequences of their faction's song, they wailed and bellowed their mourning to each other, to the multitude and to the endless void.
The pilot fed upon the excitement of their anger and the heat and colour of the vast gathering, and joined in their calls for revenge.
We have returned………….. and now we will take back what is ours.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I've noticed this before with the forum software here that copy and pastes tend to kill the original formatting.
So there you go.... enjoy (or whatever). Any typos or other junk are my fault.
Shoutout: THANK YOU FD PEOPLE!
For completion (and to illustrate the effect of the formatting as it helps to tell the story) I'll post the story here:
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Pilot
a
Manticore Fabrication
a
Manticore Fabrication
The ship drifted through the quantum sea. All around infinite spectra spoke to the ship as it travelled.
It was pleasing to feel the ship's life as they made their flowing progress through the everywhere of subspace, the holy ground of Witch Space. The void sang its song as wave functions crashed, collapsing on the shores of perception, vibrating against the senses of the pilot, and of the ship.
It was a special song, heard so often but never wearing on the spirit. The pilot hummed along, excited by the progress they made.
The fabric of spacetime blared in agony as the ship dropped down to be greeted by the majesty of a blue-white supergiant. Solar winds blasted against the ship's shields as the drives whined; tugging-of-war with the intense forces of the gravity well as they shot a transit across the face of the stellar deity. The ship's frame groaned and creaked, the hiss and sigh of plasmatic hydrogen collecting filled the cockpit as they refueled. All around them solar flares peaked into high purples and violets, uncountable radio frequencies shattering and penetrating, passing through and then out into the vastness of the universe.
They were making good progress.
The pilot scanned the ocean of space where island nebulae glowed, rich with colour and radiation. The ship raced out of stellar orbit and made ready the next jump, a ritual they had undertaken time and time again. Exploration was the life-force for the pilot and discovery its engine, alone in the void but for the ship out here. It had always seemed to matter little that they were far from home. Space was seemingly endless and the galaxy waited to be revealed, just to the star beyond and then out, to those unnumbered.
It will be good to go home……………
They had been away a long time, long enough to realise how long a life could be, alone and out in the black. They had gone to the ends of this spiral galaxy. It was not only a task; it was a quest and a dedication to their faction.
All of those who chose to go in order to preserve their faction's mission of exploration, discovery and science had scattered to the voids and abyssal realms of the deep black. They had chosen the lonely path, the path that may have no ending except for the end they would all, someday, face.
As explorers they were shunned, only returning to civilisation when the need to arose. And when they did return it was only to far-flung outposts where they remained unknown, and nobody cared about their faction or their mission.
These outposts were places of little worth, where the outcasts gathered, or hid. Places where no one cared to remember and where pasts, sometimes violent pasts, were still being acted out; or trying to be be forgotten.
Explorers were just crazy loners and their faction, their disparate family, was no different in the eyes of others. They weren't off the grid; for them there was no grid, and no outpost, no faction of disreputable drifters, cared to remember them coming, or going.
And what about this civilisation that allowed us all to be thrown down?
No one cared to know of them because their civilisation, all the superpowers and other factions, were too busy holding station; perpetually mired in cycles of civil unrest, war and the social horrors of medical emergencies, plague and famine. After all they had suffered through as a civilisation faction heads still argued and warred, politicians mouthed empty words and no-one was listening anymore or trusting of any of them. No one cared because they were too self-interested, or too sick of self-interest, to listen anymore, or because the march of their greed had replaced the reason of forward thinking and evolutionary advancement; perhaps of their very survival. The explorers returned to civilisation's edge but then they left again, and quickly, the black beckoning to them; spirits in the deep.
But now it was time to go home.
It was not pre-ordained. They didn't know if a time would ever come when the call would bring them to this action. They had been prepared to run this mission into the oblivion of old age and death; sharing some hope that a new generation would arise to continue their work, far out in the currents of the many billion stars.
When and where would this new generation come from?
Inertia kicked at the pilot as they boosted away from the frigid illumination of a brown dwarf, drives whined as particles accelerated, subsumed slaves to fusion. The universe cracked open and they careered down another subspace tunnel, freefalling once more in the quantum sea.
They had continued their mission, their work, but then the call had been made.
Navigation data uploaded at outposts had returned encrypted drop boxes, the time was coming soon. And the time was coming because civilisation had a greater enemy to face and, in the realisation of this, they had come together as one. Superpowers had stopped arguing, factions had stopped warring; medical science had caught up with evolution's puzzle-game of outbreak and plague and civilisation had begun to grow again.
The pilot worked the controls of the ship, electrified at the thought of returning home, as they made ready for the ultimate jump.
And then they arrived.
A white giant star opened up the volume of space, its harsh light a majestic illumination as they dropped down. Some of the others were already there; the family of their quest, at last in their place of belonging.
As the pilot called out to them others arrived, dropping down on rails of shining, luminal purity. And as the call went out so it was answered as more vessels dropped down to join them.
The pilot knew this space as the returning explorers all called out to each other. All around deep, rich blues fell away into carbon-black silhouettes, gargantuan clouds occluding the light of supergiant suns. Space hummed in waves of cobalt and indigo, pierced by the pearl-white luminescence of nearby stars. They called out to each other as the nebula, their home, glowed around them, singing radiation in the high-band.
In knowing, a fury arose in the pilot as the memories of countless stars and endless years in exile flooded back and, as the fury arose in the pilot, the others kept arriving.
And still they kept arriving. But it was no longer just their expedition fleet; it was an armada becoming multitude.
The pilot felt the fury burn all around as he watched vessels gather, the veins of their petals vibrating through the rainbow to settle in a violent red. Everywhere space was filled with sensors and probes being deployed, scattering as seeds on a divine cosmic wind to the light years of their spiral home; always turning back in the depths to pay homage to the one those others named "Maia".
But at the light seconds, in this system, on a moon captured in the mighty grip of a ringed gas giant's gravity and in a place entrusted to perpetual night, their family's home waited. Their presence had been sensed and their home was becoming awake. The pilot hooted and wailed the greeting to the eternal heavens, his faction and family's song, at the thought of once more worshipping in their own central map room; their family's story within now to be rewritten, now that they were finally returning from the great without.
And the family answered back. Colour patterns in their petals moved through the sequences of their faction's song, they wailed and bellowed their mourning to each other, to the multitude and to the endless void.
The pilot fed upon the excitement of their anger and the heat and colour of the vast gathering, and joined in their calls for revenge.
We have returned………….. and now we will take back what is ours.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I've noticed this before with the forum software here that copy and pastes tend to kill the original formatting.
So there you go.... enjoy (or whatever). Any typos or other junk are my fault.
Shoutout: THANK YOU FD PEOPLE!
Last edited:
Hey, sorry about the lost formatting! I haven't had a chance to go through and pair up the formatting on the forum with the document. 
Sorry about that.
Sorry about that.Hey, sorry about the lost formatting! I haven't had a chance to go through and pair up the formatting on the forum with the document.
No apologies needed sir. Since the other threads were locked I just thought I'd post my thanks to all you FD people here.... then I discovered the formatting thingy.
No worries..... o7!