So I was just watching some Space Engine videos on youtube, when my mind began to wander towards Elite: Dangerous, as it so often does these days. I was imagining a scenario that could potentially happen in the game that left me feeling rather uneasy.
Picture this: You are flying through the cosmos in your nimble little exploration vessel. You have speed, maneuverability, and a certain amount of self-sustainability, though you don't really pack much of a punch - but then why would you need to? You don't care much for violence, and whenever you've been given bother by unruly folk, you've simply hit the peddle to the metal, and left them swimming in space dust. The hyperspace jump you're about to make will take you where no man has gone before, to uncharted space. Diagnostics show all green; fuel tank is full, engine is at full power, navigation is set, and your zero-g space dice are firmly in position. You give one last glance to the colossal monster you spent the last hour scooping hydrogen fuel from, and begin your countdown. 10, 9, 8, 7... radar is clear, 6, 5, 4... dice show snake eyes, 3, 2 -- KRAAAA. The ships warning klaxon begins to screech, and the cockpit lights up crimson.
DANGER! DANGER! PREPARE FOR IMMINENT MISSILE IMPACT! DANGER! DAN-- an almighty crash causes the entire ship to shudder, almost rattling you out of your seat. Another crash, followed by darkness. It takes a second - or an eternity - for you to realise that the ships power has failed, when the backup generator kicks in. As the radar flickers back into existence, an ugly red dot appears slightly behind the white dot in the center. Pirates. Years of experience skirting the borders of civilization suddenly takes control of your body, forcing you to grasp your flight stick and begin evasive maneuvers. You push the nose down, and the speed control all the way forward. Bright streaks of yellow pass overhead, exactly where you were only a fraction of a second before. You check your navigation computer, while swerving left and right, and notice that your plotted jump is coming up as invalid. The missile must have done some damage to the engines, leaving you unable to jump. You bank right and pull the nose up, corkscrewing through the pirates hailstorm of shrapnel. Suddenly, the gas giant fills up the entirety of your cockpit window, and an idea presents itself. Perhaps you can outrun the pirate, and then lose him in the debris of the rings that circle the colossus.
Your fancy maneuvering managed to get you out of range of the pirates gattling guns, but it doesn't take long before you realise that your engines aren't maintaining maximum output, and your acceleration is dropping. It won't be long before your bogey is back on your tail and trying to depressurize your portable tin can. You don't have many options, and even less time to decide on a course of action. The ships 1 MW pulse laser wouldn't even warm the cockles of the pirates heart before he managed to re-unite you with Jake, your childhood pet dog. You don't have the speed to just outrun him in a single line any more. You need to out smart him, but how? The asteroid ring would take far too long to reach, so where else can you go? Your stomach sinks as you realise your only course of action. You must be consumed by the beast, and fly into the raging storm of the gas giant, and hope that he will either give up on you, or follow you in, allowing you to give him the slip when his radar inevitably fails due to the electrical storm.
The klaxon sounds again - DANGER! DANGER! - but you're ready this time. You drop your countermeasures, point your nose towards the eye of the leviathan, and force whatever thrust your crippled engine can manage. You feel vibrations run up your spine, and the fresh red dot that was the missile disappears from your radar. Looks like the countermeasures worked, but you only have two left. You pray to his noodlieness that the pirate has less than two missiles. The ships computer gives an ETA of thirty seconds before you hit the atmosphere, when Bogey McNobjock catches up to you. The outside of your ship begins to glow a rich orange, and the yellow streaks make another appearance. You maneuver as much as you dare, without tearing the ship apart in the turbulence, but take some comfort in the knowledge that your new friend should also be hitting the turbulence right now, making accurate aiming almost impossible. ETA 10 seconds before you enter the electrical storm that your scanners told you had likely been raging for the past five hundred years. You're the blink of an eye away from diving head first into the great abyss, when your shields light up a bright blue colour, and you hear a tremendous CRACK. Looks like a stray bullet caught your rear end, though diagnostics show that damage is superficial.
You finally submerge yourself, and are consumed by a thick, dark, purple haze. Your cockpit window is immediately pelted with heavy rain, and your ship begins to rock in every direction, buffeted by terrible winds, which are barely being stopped from tearing your ship apart by your atmospheric shielding. Just before your radar sputters out of commission, you see the glaring red dot change it's course, apparently giving up on it's chase. It worked, he deemed the risk far greater than the reward, and left you to wrestle with the giants wrath on your own. You stabilize your craft, and slow to a manageable speed, flying through the violent soup of metal rain and lightning.
You spend the next ten minutes being thrown around like a small toy in a toddlers toy box, when you decide you dare not spend another moment in the hurricane. You point your nose upwards, and double your ships thrust. You hear the familiar hum of the engines heating up, when a terrible screech almost forces you out of your skin. You go from being forced into the back of your seat by an elephant, to being eerily weightless, to being pulled towards the heavens, all in a matter of seconds. The engines have failed. Your ship begins to take on a wild spin as you feel yourself being pulled into the belly of the beast. You spin for what feels like hours, your vision begins to narrow, and your temples feel like they are about to burst. Just as you are about to pass out the spin stops violently, and you are again forced into the back of your seat. You are in a complete nose dive towards to crushing center of a true god. Every moment that passes allows the darkness to creep ever further into your cockpit, the terrifying roar of a thousand angry Steve Ballmers imposes itself more and more. A crack of pure, unadulterated energy illuminates black tendrils, and spiraling arms ahead of you, ready to give their crushing embrace. Your eyes begin to feel heavy enough to fall out of your skull, and your neck like it is about to snap.
As you let out a hopeless sob, you hear a faint sputtering noise behind you. The engines are back online, though they have zero output. You flail the flight stick violently, punch your monitors, and scream bloody murder. Surprisingly none of this fixes the engines. Suddenly you are reminded of an ancient television program that documented the lives of computer technicians back when computers were a relatively new invention. You turn the ships ignition off, then back on again, and the engine screams back into life, forcing you even further into the back of your chair. You forgot to release the throttle, silly, though at this point you don't care, and pull your flight stick all the way back, and even pass out for a moment. You don't care about the blue whale sat on top of your head, and keep pulling your nose up until it is pointed towards the stars.
The darkness begins to recede, and the purple floods back in. The rain is bombarding your ship with such force that it is screaming. A final crack of lightning, and you are greeted once more with the beautiful black. You made it. You loosen the throttle a little, and allow yourself a sigh of relief, followed by a cry of joy. That was quite possibly your closest call yet, but even in your current elation you realise it won't be the last close call. Still, you're safe now, and worrying about the future won't do you much good for the time being, after all, what are the odds of anything else going wrong?
DANGER! DANGER! PREPARE FOR IMMINENT MISSILE IMPACT! DANGER!
Curses...
Okay, I guess I may have gotten a little carried away there.
TL;DR, does anyone get the willies with regards to big open voids of nothingness, such as the ocean of space?
I remember my first time playing with Space Engine, the very first thing I did was find myself a black hole, and set my auto pilot in motion. As I approached the event horizon, and it appeared on my screen, getting larger and larger, it sent a cold shiver down my spine. It's odd, because I have a fear of spiders, yet whenever I see them in games I think nothing of it, yet if I see a spider in real life I will cry like a little girl. However the thought of falling into the atmosphere of a gas giant in a video game scares me just as much, though the likelihood of that ever happening in real life is zero. I dunno, maybe it's a testament to the immersion of these types of games? Or am I being silly?
Oh and by the way, it's my first post. Hello!
Picture this: You are flying through the cosmos in your nimble little exploration vessel. You have speed, maneuverability, and a certain amount of self-sustainability, though you don't really pack much of a punch - but then why would you need to? You don't care much for violence, and whenever you've been given bother by unruly folk, you've simply hit the peddle to the metal, and left them swimming in space dust. The hyperspace jump you're about to make will take you where no man has gone before, to uncharted space. Diagnostics show all green; fuel tank is full, engine is at full power, navigation is set, and your zero-g space dice are firmly in position. You give one last glance to the colossal monster you spent the last hour scooping hydrogen fuel from, and begin your countdown. 10, 9, 8, 7... radar is clear, 6, 5, 4... dice show snake eyes, 3, 2 -- KRAAAA. The ships warning klaxon begins to screech, and the cockpit lights up crimson.
DANGER! DANGER! PREPARE FOR IMMINENT MISSILE IMPACT! DANGER! DAN-- an almighty crash causes the entire ship to shudder, almost rattling you out of your seat. Another crash, followed by darkness. It takes a second - or an eternity - for you to realise that the ships power has failed, when the backup generator kicks in. As the radar flickers back into existence, an ugly red dot appears slightly behind the white dot in the center. Pirates. Years of experience skirting the borders of civilization suddenly takes control of your body, forcing you to grasp your flight stick and begin evasive maneuvers. You push the nose down, and the speed control all the way forward. Bright streaks of yellow pass overhead, exactly where you were only a fraction of a second before. You check your navigation computer, while swerving left and right, and notice that your plotted jump is coming up as invalid. The missile must have done some damage to the engines, leaving you unable to jump. You bank right and pull the nose up, corkscrewing through the pirates hailstorm of shrapnel. Suddenly, the gas giant fills up the entirety of your cockpit window, and an idea presents itself. Perhaps you can outrun the pirate, and then lose him in the debris of the rings that circle the colossus.
Your fancy maneuvering managed to get you out of range of the pirates gattling guns, but it doesn't take long before you realise that your engines aren't maintaining maximum output, and your acceleration is dropping. It won't be long before your bogey is back on your tail and trying to depressurize your portable tin can. You don't have many options, and even less time to decide on a course of action. The ships 1 MW pulse laser wouldn't even warm the cockles of the pirates heart before he managed to re-unite you with Jake, your childhood pet dog. You don't have the speed to just outrun him in a single line any more. You need to out smart him, but how? The asteroid ring would take far too long to reach, so where else can you go? Your stomach sinks as you realise your only course of action. You must be consumed by the beast, and fly into the raging storm of the gas giant, and hope that he will either give up on you, or follow you in, allowing you to give him the slip when his radar inevitably fails due to the electrical storm.
The klaxon sounds again - DANGER! DANGER! - but you're ready this time. You drop your countermeasures, point your nose towards the eye of the leviathan, and force whatever thrust your crippled engine can manage. You feel vibrations run up your spine, and the fresh red dot that was the missile disappears from your radar. Looks like the countermeasures worked, but you only have two left. You pray to his noodlieness that the pirate has less than two missiles. The ships computer gives an ETA of thirty seconds before you hit the atmosphere, when Bogey McNobjock catches up to you. The outside of your ship begins to glow a rich orange, and the yellow streaks make another appearance. You maneuver as much as you dare, without tearing the ship apart in the turbulence, but take some comfort in the knowledge that your new friend should also be hitting the turbulence right now, making accurate aiming almost impossible. ETA 10 seconds before you enter the electrical storm that your scanners told you had likely been raging for the past five hundred years. You're the blink of an eye away from diving head first into the great abyss, when your shields light up a bright blue colour, and you hear a tremendous CRACK. Looks like a stray bullet caught your rear end, though diagnostics show that damage is superficial.
You finally submerge yourself, and are consumed by a thick, dark, purple haze. Your cockpit window is immediately pelted with heavy rain, and your ship begins to rock in every direction, buffeted by terrible winds, which are barely being stopped from tearing your ship apart by your atmospheric shielding. Just before your radar sputters out of commission, you see the glaring red dot change it's course, apparently giving up on it's chase. It worked, he deemed the risk far greater than the reward, and left you to wrestle with the giants wrath on your own. You stabilize your craft, and slow to a manageable speed, flying through the violent soup of metal rain and lightning.
You spend the next ten minutes being thrown around like a small toy in a toddlers toy box, when you decide you dare not spend another moment in the hurricane. You point your nose upwards, and double your ships thrust. You hear the familiar hum of the engines heating up, when a terrible screech almost forces you out of your skin. You go from being forced into the back of your seat by an elephant, to being eerily weightless, to being pulled towards the heavens, all in a matter of seconds. The engines have failed. Your ship begins to take on a wild spin as you feel yourself being pulled into the belly of the beast. You spin for what feels like hours, your vision begins to narrow, and your temples feel like they are about to burst. Just as you are about to pass out the spin stops violently, and you are again forced into the back of your seat. You are in a complete nose dive towards to crushing center of a true god. Every moment that passes allows the darkness to creep ever further into your cockpit, the terrifying roar of a thousand angry Steve Ballmers imposes itself more and more. A crack of pure, unadulterated energy illuminates black tendrils, and spiraling arms ahead of you, ready to give their crushing embrace. Your eyes begin to feel heavy enough to fall out of your skull, and your neck like it is about to snap.
As you let out a hopeless sob, you hear a faint sputtering noise behind you. The engines are back online, though they have zero output. You flail the flight stick violently, punch your monitors, and scream bloody murder. Surprisingly none of this fixes the engines. Suddenly you are reminded of an ancient television program that documented the lives of computer technicians back when computers were a relatively new invention. You turn the ships ignition off, then back on again, and the engine screams back into life, forcing you even further into the back of your chair. You forgot to release the throttle, silly, though at this point you don't care, and pull your flight stick all the way back, and even pass out for a moment. You don't care about the blue whale sat on top of your head, and keep pulling your nose up until it is pointed towards the stars.
The darkness begins to recede, and the purple floods back in. The rain is bombarding your ship with such force that it is screaming. A final crack of lightning, and you are greeted once more with the beautiful black. You made it. You loosen the throttle a little, and allow yourself a sigh of relief, followed by a cry of joy. That was quite possibly your closest call yet, but even in your current elation you realise it won't be the last close call. Still, you're safe now, and worrying about the future won't do you much good for the time being, after all, what are the odds of anything else going wrong?
DANGER! DANGER! PREPARE FOR IMMINENT MISSILE IMPACT! DANGER!
Curses...
Okay, I guess I may have gotten a little carried away there.
TL;DR, does anyone get the willies with regards to big open voids of nothingness, such as the ocean of space?
I remember my first time playing with Space Engine, the very first thing I did was find myself a black hole, and set my auto pilot in motion. As I approached the event horizon, and it appeared on my screen, getting larger and larger, it sent a cold shiver down my spine. It's odd, because I have a fear of spiders, yet whenever I see them in games I think nothing of it, yet if I see a spider in real life I will cry like a little girl. However the thought of falling into the atmosphere of a gas giant in a video game scares me just as much, though the likelihood of that ever happening in real life is zero. I dunno, maybe it's a testament to the immersion of these types of games? Or am I being silly?
Oh and by the way, it's my first post. Hello!
