End of the Road

Section47ABH

S
Macedonica said:
Commander’s Log - Felix Macedonica (Updated)

November 15, 3302

Deep in the Abyss

I am not sure what more I can do.

The Lakon is locked down tight on the moon’s surface. I have enough fuel scooped to make a 29ly jump. Materials are bursting at the seams. All save one. That elusive Germanium. Who would ever imagine that but for 1 unit of Germanium, a pilot and his Lakon Type 6E must remain forever stranded at the far end of the galaxy. 1 lousy unit.

I have piloted through hundreds of systems and barely glanced at them - scooped a little fuel, honked the scanner, glanced at the system map - and moved on, ever on. This was supposed to be one of those systems. No, really, it was. It was a stepping stone on my way out of The Abyss and back towards the Roncevaux Crossing. A smear across the cockpit view. Nothing more.

Until I made that fatal error.

Now I have spent three days here in this place and despite the despair and the helplessness, I have found beauty and awe. It has reminded me a little why I drove for so long across the surface of Beagle Point 2. I have ‘lived’ a little now in this system. I know its vagaries - the odd orbit lines, the ring fields, the four suns revolving in ever complicated arcs. I am intimate with it now. It feels like home. As Beagle Point 2 did - well, for a while, at least. I have driven the SRVs - both the ‘Dudley Docker’ and the ‘James Caird’ here on this icy moon in search of Vanadium and I have grown again into that odd skin which is rooted in gravity. I look up at the galaxy and feel its weight upon me, over me, like a magnificent shawl resplendent with jewels and pearls.

And I find myself smiling a little again at the irony that here, on the ground, in an SRV, I seem to find more peace than up there among the stars and the endless cold glamour of witchspace.

Does that mean then I am the opposite of Commander Chiggy? He soars across the galaxy, almost a ghost, a wraith of speed and purpose, whereas I am nothing but a statue looking up, my feet encased in ice, my visor frosted over inside and out. A thousand stars tumble past his cockpit. I am enamoured of the motes of dust swirling about my feet. What opposites we are! He fills time with movement; I am slowing down like an automaton gradually unwinding. That is an illusion, of course. A deeper part of me knows this is nothing but the survival instinct kicking in. He will arrive soon and this illusion of peace and solitude and stillness will be shattered.

And then the real battle begins - not against men, nor even against errant machinery, but instead against the uncaring universe itself. For either that Germanium will be here in one of the rings or the asteroids up by the main star - or it won’t. And no amount of railing or swearing will change that. My salvation lies in the genetics of space itself. It is that simple.

And that terrifying.

I look up into that magnificent shawl of the galaxy above and wonder if one of those lights is where Chiggy is now. Once or twice, we wing-locked and his position was projected onto the cockpit and I took comfort from that. But now I think I prefer to wonder on it - to guess and smile, thinking he is nearer than he really is. For soon, one of those lights will give birth to another light and that light will flow across my vision even as the comms crackles into life - and all this solitude and all this reverie will end.

Soon . . .

http://i.imgur.com/qtHrdot.jpg
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Repped for "Wraith of speed and purpose". If you're quoting there, thank you for bringing it to my attention. If it's original to you: OUTSTANDING turn of phrase, that man. o7.
 

Straha Yeagar

S
Karla said:
Just make sure that your materials storage isn't full when you try scooping up some Germanium.
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And make sure the cargo scoop has power...would be awful to see that elusive Germanium popup, and spend it's entire life trying to figure out why the cargo scoop isn't working...
 
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rrobes

R
Sitting 9kly from Sag A* in my CondaX, wanting to help, but helplessly watching.

What Chiggy is doing may be in a game, but requires a RL sacrifice and a desire to take up a challenge to assist a fellow explorer.

The Fuels Rats saved me a 20 mill+ re-buy after they got me out of a box, I hope it all ends well for everyone.

Good Samaritans still live.
 

YinYin

YinYin
Macedonica said:
I am not sure what more I can do.
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You could still put the system onto eddb, really curious what you're stuck with.

I suppose you scanned it before 2.2? Otherwise it'd be a simple sync via EDD or another tool.



Also on mining priority once you're getting started:

I would go for rings over belt clusters since you'll have enough to shoot at until you know all 3 common elements.

And for type:
metal rich (highest material content, so this will pass most quickly)
metallic (I personally encountered a lot of germanium in this type despite low material content)
rocky (high material content)
icy (low material content)

If it does come down to belt clusters you may have to visit each multiple times to discover all 3 common elements, since they only have 6 or 12 asteroids and it takes 2 hours before you can mine one again.
 

Ravenov

Ravenov
Great thread, been following it all week :)

One other thought if you don't find germanium in any of the rings, and this is the longest of desperate long shots ... Surface POIs have been known to spawn a ludicrous way out in the black, and they sometimes contain a cargo rack (not a canister) that when shot with the SRV gun will drop a material. Something worth bearing in mind, especially if you see the red circle on the scanner.
 

Col Frost

Col Frost
For those not aware of the back story of these two commanders, to the best of my knowledge Macedonia is a first class explorer, and Chiggy has first discovered over 700 Earth Like Worlds (many hundreds more than any other commander in the Galaxy).
Epic

Personally I would like to see Chiggy's name on every 100th Earth like world he's first discovered, and the System named after Macedonia.
There could then be a cruise for VIP passengers to visit "Chiggy's 7" lol
 
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Mengy

Mengy
Col Frost said:
Macedonia was the first commander to circumnavigate a planet for many thousands of kilometres in his SRV.
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Woah, that’s…actually an idea I’d not thought of before. I have over 400km on the SRV odometer, but driving all the way around a planet? Sweet idea. I may just pick a little potato world and do that simply for the exploration of it!


I wonder how far out Chiggy is now?
 

Noobdelux

N
check the twitch.. im almost in mind going back again lol giving up going out to help

Mengy said:
Woah, that’s…actually an idea I’d not thought of before. I have over 400km on the SRV odometer, but driving all the way around a planet? Sweet idea. I may just pick a little potato world and do that simply for the exploration of it!


I wonder how far out Chiggy is now?
Click to expand...
 

Col Frost

Col Frost
Mengy said:
Woah, that’s…actually an idea I’d not thought of before. I have over 400km on the SRV odometer, but driving all the way around a planet? Sweet idea. I may just pick a little potato world and do that simply for the exploration of it!


I wonder how far out Chiggy is now?
Click to expand...

He just told me he's less than 5K ly's out
 

Allitnil

Allitnil
Col Frost said:
For those not aware of the back story of these two commanders, to the best of my knowledge Macedonia was the first commander to circumnavigate a planet for many thousands of kilometres in his SRV, and Chiggy has first discovered over 700 Earth Like Worlds (many hundreds more than any other commander in the Galaxy).
Click to expand...
ahem, you might wish to reconsider the "many hundreds" comment... ;)
 

Macedonica

Macedonica
Just popped out of the game to check the twitch settings and catch up on this thread - Chiggy is now about 4.8kly from my position!

Also, just to clarify, I attempted to do a pole to pole expedition using the 2 SRVs (docking in the landed Lakon each night). Only made a third of the way alas. Cmder Disorganise actually did the entire circumnavigation of Beagle Point 2 along the equator at the same time. My proverbial has been tipped off to him!
 
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