Lore
Several years ago professor Melville led an expedition attempting to find the first signs of the civilisation now knows as 'The Guardians'. Melville was driven by an intense rivalry with an engineer known as Ram Tah, who he saw as an upstart attempting to steal Melville's discoveries. After years of searching Melville finally tracked down the Guardians in his ship The Cete, but had been made unwell under the pressure of the voyage, causing the crew to mutiny and the expedition to be lost at the moment of triumph. Rumours are that Melville escaped from The Cete in a smaller ship, the Pequod, and went on to discover more areas of Guardian activity before finally disappearing into the Lyra's Song sector in pursuit of other alien lifeforms, inspired by his finds of the so-called 'Brain Trees' around the Guardian sites.
Armand's Last Stand
The search of Lyra’s Song was progressing. Armand knew his findings were related to the Brain Trees (whoever let that idiot Ram name them should be reprimanded) and the Guardians. Finding Quadripartite Trees would prove him right, not that fool Ram.
A quiet ping from the detector, the trickle of ionising radiation indicating an inbound warp signature. Not a ship - this was bigger and more worrying - a Massive frameshift anomaly. Massive - but smaller than a megaship like Armand's much missed Cete - maybe one of those new Drake class Fleet Carriers he had heard about? This made the signal far more urgent. While megaships took a week to jump the newer fleet carriers could move far faster, meaning it was incoming in minutes - no time at all! The identification in Armand’s navigation panel was the “DSSA Gam Nine”. DSSA meant nothing to Armand - some new initiative, they were springing up all the time - but Gam Nine - that made it personal. They were coming for him, and didn't care if he knew it. Armand knew his heritage, his famous namesake, that tale of obsession with a white whale, the eight meetings, or Gams, with ancient sailing ships which framed the tale. Whoever was coming also knew this, and knew that Armand knew. He was in trouble.
Armand swung into action - the opening of the fleet carrier jump portal was imminent, there wasn't much time to act. His ship the Pequod was an old original Krait which had been stowed on board the Cete when that ‘unfortunate incident’ had happened, so had the advantage was that it was built for smuggling, built for hiding things from the prying. In this case he was going to have to hide himself. He squeezed into one of the concealed holds, hoping that the age of his ship would confound the searchers. They would be here soon.
…
They were on board. Sounds were getting closer. Armand shuddered in his confinement, his shaking hand holding a sliver of metal in front of him - his last defence against the intruders. The door in front of him squealed, resisting to the last as it was forced back. Armand was confronted with two blackly space suited figures with those garish orange symbols confirming their allegiance.
One figure reached forward as Armand thrust the metal shard. The figure snatched it away, throwing it casually over her shoulder to her companion "Dammit Melville! Bad enough taking the Lab 5 drinks cabinet key, but bringing it all the way out here? Luckily we had to bring the Gam Nine here for the DSSA, otherwise we’d have been even more annoyed. Make use of her to repair your ship - we might have broken the Pequod a bit looking for you. Gam Nine should make a nice base of operations for your work. Try not to repeat what happened on the Cete, and next time you want a drink, remember to return the key afterwards. Count yourself lucky it wasn’t a biscuit locker..."
(as submitted to the Life on a Fleet Carrier competition. This is a made up non-cannon story trying to weave a few of the elements of the Melville story into the background of the current mission.)
The search of Lyra’s Song was progressing. Armand knew his findings were related to the Brain Trees (whoever let that idiot Ram name them should be reprimanded) and the Guardians. Finding Quadripartite Trees would prove him right, not that fool Ram.
A quiet ping from the detector, the trickle of ionising radiation indicating an inbound warp signature. Not a ship - this was bigger and more worrying - a Massive frameshift anomaly. Massive - but smaller than a megaship like Armand's much missed Cete - maybe one of those new Drake class Fleet Carriers he had heard about? This made the signal far more urgent. While megaships took a week to jump the newer fleet carriers could move far faster, meaning it was incoming in minutes - no time at all! The identification in Armand’s navigation panel was the “DSSA Gam Nine”. DSSA meant nothing to Armand - some new initiative, they were springing up all the time - but Gam Nine - that made it personal. They were coming for him, and didn't care if he knew it. Armand knew his heritage, his famous namesake, that tale of obsession with a white whale, the eight meetings, or Gams, with ancient sailing ships which framed the tale. Whoever was coming also knew this, and knew that Armand knew. He was in trouble.
Armand swung into action - the opening of the fleet carrier jump portal was imminent, there wasn't much time to act. His ship the Pequod was an old original Krait which had been stowed on board the Cete when that ‘unfortunate incident’ had happened, so had the advantage was that it was built for smuggling, built for hiding things from the prying. In this case he was going to have to hide himself. He squeezed into one of the concealed holds, hoping that the age of his ship would confound the searchers. They would be here soon.
…
They were on board. Sounds were getting closer. Armand shuddered in his confinement, his shaking hand holding a sliver of metal in front of him - his last defence against the intruders. The door in front of him squealed, resisting to the last as it was forced back. Armand was confronted with two blackly space suited figures with those garish orange symbols confirming their allegiance.
One figure reached forward as Armand thrust the metal shard. The figure snatched it away, throwing it casually over her shoulder to her companion "Dammit Melville! Bad enough taking the Lab 5 drinks cabinet key, but bringing it all the way out here? Luckily we had to bring the Gam Nine here for the DSSA, otherwise we’d have been even more annoyed. Make use of her to repair your ship - we might have broken the Pequod a bit looking for you. Gam Nine should make a nice base of operations for your work. Try not to repeat what happened on the Cete, and next time you want a drink, remember to return the key afterwards. Count yourself lucky it wasn’t a biscuit locker..."
(as submitted to the Life on a Fleet Carrier competition. This is a made up non-cannon story trying to weave a few of the elements of the Melville story into the background of the current mission.)
Mission
The Search for the Pequod is a DSSA deployment expedition, aiming to place a Fleet Carrier (the Gam Nine) in the Lyra's Song sector. Final destination is PLA AICK GA-A e1 near the Black Hole known as Ostium Tenebris.
The trip is heading from Meene (home of Ram Tah) to visit the wrecked megaship The Cete in the main Guardian area, then two of the Guardian Ruin areas in the Eta Carina Nebula and NGC 3199 Nebula after visiting the third nebula in the Outer Orion Spur sector - the Statue of Liberty. We will be stopping in each nebula for one week to scout for new Guardian ruins and to search for double Tritium hotspots to help out other travellers.
Note that this is a one way journey - we will not be travelling back, so take that into account when getting on board (more on that in following sections).
Travel
Travel will take place on Wednesdays. Dates are provisional - if Fleet Carriers launch earlier we may bring things forward. The dates are for departure - the Gam Nine should be in Meene from soon after Fleet Carriers are available. Exact waypoints are available in the EDSM expedition map.
- Start in Meene. Look for the DSSA Gam Nine (X9Z-4XG) owned by Factabulous Minimus. Should be here from June 10th, though might be a few jumps around the bubble.
- June 17: Visit the last known location for Professor Melville in the Col 173 Sector. The system is also home to multiple Guardian ruins, some Brain Trees and the Bifrost - last stop in a best forgotten Canonn expedition
- June 24: Statue of Liberty Nebula - looking for undiscovered Guardian Ruins around the nebula
- July 1 : Eta Carina Nebula - visit the known Guardian ruins and look for more
- July 8 : NGC 3199 Nebula - visit the known Guardian ruins and look for more
- July 15 : PLA AICK GA-A e1 - start of the search for more Quadripartite Pods and their trees, and the final resting place of Professor Melville.
Fleet Carrier Facilities
The Gam Nine will have all facilities apart from the Secure Warehouse (stolen goods store). Yes, it has Universal Cartographics. It is not planned to set a service change. We plan to buy Tritium at normal market rates.
What to bring
These are all advisory, bring what you like, but these options might come in handy.
Modules:
- SRV Hangar (for visiting Guardian Locations)
- Detailed Surface Scanner (for finding Guardian Locations)
- Research Limpets (for testing pods)
- Weapon (for testing pods) - lasers work well
- Mining gear - apparently Tritium can be found on surfaces / sub-surface locations and via mining lasers
Ships
- Stock Sidewinder: Consider bringing along a stock sidewinder for quick return to the bubble (jump in the sidewinder, self destruct and choose your start system).
- Mining Vessel: We will also be attempting to re-stock with Tritium for passing FC once we get in place - as well as looking for nearby mining spots - if you want to help out then a mining ship would be good
- Explorer : Obvious
Comms channels
I can be contacted via the Fleetcom / Canonn discords Factabulous#7619 , or on this thread.
The official discord is on Fleetcom - search-for-the-pequod under the DSSA Deployment Events section - see Fleetcom thread for a discord invite
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