The Collective log of The Dead End's Circumnavigation Expedition

Rojo Habe · Jun 2, 2018

CMDR's log, Rojo Habe: 21:47, 2 June 3304

While travelling between the Sublustris Beacon and Basecamp Sixteen my navcomp seemed reluctant to plot a route that didn’t include multiple unscoopable stars. Fearing for my fuel supply I decided to intervene and headed for a nearby triple F-star system. Imagine my joy when I discovered, there, orbiting the second and third stars, about 51,000 light-seconds from my jump-in point: a previously undiscovered ringed earth-like world.

Heading there now…

Weylandt · Jun 4, 2018

Kudos CMDR... personally, I think you're mad to make this journey in about a week, but then, we are all mad to make this journey to begin with.

Rojo Habe · Jun 7, 2018

CMDR's log, Rojo Habe: 21:35, 7 June 3304

The real definition of Space Madness is:

Forgetting your sequences.

My power plant is now down to 84% because I keep forgetting that it is not possible to repair your Frame Shift Drive while using it.

That’s what it should say in the dictionary, under the entry: “idiot”.

Weylandt · Jun 11, 2018

Rojo Habe said:
CMDR's log, Rojo Habe: 21:35, 7 June 3304

The real definition of Space Madness is:

Forgetting your sequences.

My power plant is now down to 84% because I keep forgetting that it is not possible to repair your Frame Shift Drive while using it.

That’s what it should say in the dictionary, under the entry: “idiot”.

Trust me... you're not alone with that... though for me, it was usually the thrusters.

Rojo Habe · Jul 6, 2018

CMDR's log, Rojo Habe: 21:14, 6 July 3304

It’s happening again. Atmospheric integrity is not compromised but I swear when I woke up the fourth wall was missing from my sleeping quarters.

Anyway, I’ll try to remain sane for the duration of this log. It’s ben a month since my last entry, and things have moved on. When I say things, I mean I have. I’ve reached Ultima Centauri approximately a week ahead of the main fleet. Despite my earlier reluctance to return home I can now almost smell it, even though I’m still over forty-two thousand lightyears away.

Time’s a ‘tickin’, and no sooner do we get home than there’s another expedition to be prepared for, in the name of Distant Worlds 2. I must admit to having misgivings about this at present: it feels less like a sequel and more of a spin-off, like “Distant Worlds: The Next Generation”, but I know I’ll regret not going, so the urgency to return to the Bubble and prepare for this is growing with each passing jump.

What’s quite telling though is what’s in my mind right now: completing this current mission will be a major achievement; finishing DW2 will be a case of whether I can be bothered or not.

Hanekura Shizuka · Jul 15, 2018

CMDR’s Log – Hanekura Shizuka – July 15, 3304
Location: Jameson Memorial, Shinrarta Dezhra

Just arrived today from the Perseus Arm – after Houtou Mono no Chakai blew up.

Am still in shock. At the moment, am in a coffeehouse in Jameson Memorial; the home of the best CMDRs in the galaxy long-ago learned the importance of quality tea and coffee for their pilots. The heat from the coffee is of small comfort; I still feel cold – the infinite cold of space. And the tears keep falling.

I failed my ship.

Everything was a blur – I still have no clear picture as to what happened. The hull had been damaged on NO-T B44-0 6 A; the icy body is a promising candidate for a base camp for the main body of the Expedition. I managed to land the ship, and then took some remarkable photos of the gas giant that the body orbits. I spent a day on the moon, then moved to take off. As near as I can tell, the previous damage on the hull led to catastrophic failure once the ship reached significant acceleration.

I was extremely foolish – again – and my ship paid the price – again. I went back along the route to scout base camps for the mission, but I failed to prepare my ship for scouting. The ship was built for speed and for stellar cartography, but not for planetary landings; the ship had no shields, nor did it have a surface recon vehicle. The ship was not set up for what I asked it to do, and I lost the ship as a result.

What Houtou Mono no Chakai accomplished in eighteen months of service is nothing short of extraordinary. The ship was purchased shortly before my first circumnavigation, and was my primary ship for most of my travels since. Its first mission was a circumnavigation; its final mission was to advance scout for basecamps for a circumnavigation expedition – after it had completed a second circumnavigation. Few ships could claim as many light-years, nor as many accomplishments.

Goodbye, my friend. You will be missed.

Weylandt · Jul 17, 2018

I'm sorry for your loss.

Rojo Habe · Jul 27, 2018

CMDR's log, Rojo Habe: 21:14, 6 July 3304

DAMMIT!!

+++end log.

Rojo Habe · Aug 19, 2018

CMDR's log, Rojo Habe: 14:48, 19 August 3304

I need to pick up the pace.

Just got news that the Gnosis is going Somewhere Interesting (or at least somewhere nobody’s been able to reach for three years) and I’d like to be aboard if I can make it. I started this expedition by hitching a ride on the Gnosis to the Witch Head sector, and if I can finish by boarding her again it’ll be like coming full circle in more ways than one.

Skates on. I’ve got until the end of the month…

Rojo Habe · Aug 29, 2018

CMDR's log, Rojo Habe: 16:04, 29 August 3304

I had hoped to be in the Skull & Crossbones nebula by now but irritatingly I’ve been seeing a few generic system errors on my secondary information console. It’s taken me a while to track down and has unavoidably slowed my progress. Turns out it was an erroneous out-of-coffee error caused by a faulty sensor in the water recycling system. I mean, seriously, I’ll be the first to know I’m out of coffee, and I certainly don’t need some damned sensor telling me it’s OK to continue my journey at a moderate pace. I’m on a strict schedule here!

Anyway, I’m still on course to meet the Gnosis before she jumps. Just might have to cut short my stopover in the bubble by a few days.

Still roughly 34kly to Achrende, if I go via Skull & Crossbones, even though it’s a straight-line distance of only 22.

Gonna be a busy weekend…

Rojo Habe · Sep 7, 2018

CMDR's log, Rojo Habe: 16:32, 07 September 3304

Well.

As disastrous situations go, that was pretty disastrous.

I knew what was going to happen: certain as death and taxes, but I wanted to finish my expedition on the Gnosis like I started it, and that’s what I’ve done.

I was so certain that this was how it would turn out, but somehow I still had hope that it wouldn’t: that something wonderful would happen. I don’t know, maybe we’d get lost in space, like Jaques, and Halsey before him, and gain some insight into what really happened. In both cases they seemed to have had some otherworldly experience and talked about “lights” in some mystical way, and then subsequently changed their story and gone all David Icke (20^th Century crackpot, look him up) and said something along the lines of “sorry about that, I went a bit mad but I’m fine now”.

Yes, that would have been fine, to find out what really went on there. All sorts of things might have turned out to be an adventure but no, we get hyperdicted by angry insects because we kicked their nest, and now we’re wondering why they’re no longer mildly disinterested, if a little opportunistic (see my log entry of October 10^th, last year), but intent on our destruction wherever and whenever they see us.

The Pilots Federation can have their little war with the Thargoids but I’m not interested, so I got out of there post haste, and am now on my way back to the bubble to finish honing my shiny new Krait, with the temporary (and slightly Argonian, to my ear) moniker of Work-in-Progress, to see if she’ll be up to the task of the upcoming Distant Worlds II expedition (and let’s pray that we haven’t upset the Thargoids so much by then that they harry us all the way to Beagle Point). If there’s time, I’ll head back out to meet up with the fleet at the remaining basecamps, but for now, landing on the Gnosis marked the official end of my DECE expedition.

CMDR Rojo Habe, signing off: 16:56, 07 September 3304