SOS Transponder // Pathfinder Telamon // 05.01.5244 // 00:06 Fleet Standard Time

SOS Transponder // Pathfinder Telamon // 05.01.5244 // 00:06 Fleet Standard Time

(weary, broken) This is... (sigh) Stars above, I just don’t know what to say.

[beat]

I’m stranded on a cold, lifeless desert moon without a name. This planet’s sun is like a dark, angry eye, glaring down at me. At night, the sky shines with violet clouds. I think the word for it is nebula. ...I’m alone. Nobody else lives on this world, as far as I know.

[beat]

(sigh) Judging by the wreckage, I must have crashed, though I only have the vaguest notion of how long ago that happened.

...Months? ...Years?

The remnants of the hull are intact enough for me to read the name Telamon. I feel like I should know what that means, but I don’t. Most of the systems on the ship are destroyed beyond repair, at least as far as I can tell. I feel like I used to know how to fix these things, but that’s all gone... The only system still in working order, besides life support, is... this. Whatever this is. Some sort of communicator, I think.

[beat]

...I hope.

[beat]

(more broken) If anyone out there is listening, please come find me. Or at least send some sort of reply. I need help, however you can help, please just... help me. I don’t know where I am, or how I got here. But worst of all...

(wavering) I don’t know who I am.

[transmission terminates]

wrote a teaser prologue thingy for a Hyperlanes campaign I want to run, called Orion’s Echo. possibly more parts to come!

Captain's Log // Pathfinder Telamon // 20.5.5240 // 05:15 Fleet Standard Time

[several seconds of silence]

(quietly) ... I never know how to begin these things, even after twenty years of recording them.

(normal volume) This is Commander Akair Vayth of the Pathfinder Telamon, Argo-class capital ship for the Pathfinder Initiative expedition into the Trapezium Cluster. We're currently docked in Palladion Skyharbor, and preparations to leave Athenian orbit are nearly complete. We're scheduled to launch at 0600, bound for 45 Orionis. Our plan is to take the jumpgate routes to Rigel to resupply, then make the jump to Alnilam. From there, we're on our own as we fly into unknown territory.

[beat]

Our fleet is twelve ships strong: the Telamon herself, a support carrier and the capital ship; four Asterion-class exploration frigates, the Archimedes, Pythagoras, Aristarchus, and Eratosthenes; four Hephaestion-class industrial frigates, the Prometheus, Brontes, Arges, and Steropes; two Heraklion-class support frigates, the Balius and Xanthus; and an Asclepion-class medical support corvette, the Dione. I'll admit, when the commission proposed a mere twelve ships for an expedition of such long duration, I was quite skeptical, but in composing the fleet I've grown confident in the crew's capability.

[beat]

Still... I worry. We're going further into the Orion Nebula than anyone ever has, and we don't know what lurks in the dark between the stars. Previous expeditions in the Clouds have described unusual readings from the Trapezium Cluster, hinting at... well, we're not sure. It could be a black hole. Could be a high-arity pulsar, or an exotic star. Or something... organic.

[beat]

I'm overthinking this, I'm sure. We're just going to chart the cluster, gauge its habitability, and set up a jumpgate if possible. But in any case, I'm needed on the bridge again. Commander Vayth, signing off.

[log terminates]

i’m posting this from the afterlife

stars above it really fucking is. my additions:

so no man’s sky is ridiculously pretty

I have used Firefox EXCLUSIVELY for like 8 years now. I refuse to touch chrome and safari is on thin ice.

I love Mozilla. They’re adamant about data protection and FF is so modular that whatever extra browser function you’re looking for, there’s almost definitely an add-on for it. I have one that unlocks academic paywalls!

USE FIREFOX!!

seems that Chrome has around 60-65% market share, so it’s not totally dominating the market yet but it’s worrying that we’re basically reliant on Apple and Microsoft to hold the line.

thoughts on gravity recorded from the ground.

There is a saying for the wicked in Russian that goes, “How does the earth carry you?”. Lowercase “e” - “earth”, the implication being that it would be decent to swallow you whole. 

I am left thinking of Earth - capital “E”; the thought all the more staggering, all the more stilling. As if, if you are too far gone, you will be exiled from the laws of gravity altogether,  singled out,  spat out.

But then the flip side: gravity as “I want you”; gravity being a choice to hold us close to its chest.

TODD DAMN YOU