Personal Log, Galactic Date 11.03.3309

Wow. It's been almost a year since I last wrote a log. Most of the past year has been spent running rock on a little blue-green planet. People need roads, I guess. But It's good to be back on the Sir Francis Drake. My crew has done a great job maintaining her and my mothballed ships are getting the dust cleaned out.

Now that I've moved out of Jameson Memorial and onto my carrier, I let Angela keep Snoopy. They both get along so well and it's clear they both need each other. I just don't have the time to stay on a station with artificial gravity or on a planet and animals just don't do well in zero G. So, since Angela is still going to school on Jameson and looks to get into the engineering department, Snoopy should just stay with her. I made sure to give Angela all the toys, food and stuff along with some money to buy more as time goes on. But I know my beloved kitty is in good hands.

The past couple weeks I've been working for Terra-Ex Astro Corporation. They need lots of help to expand into a few systems. I've worked with them in the past and have always been treated well, and paid well. So for the next few weeks, at least, I'll be doing various missions for them.

But the black keeps calling me. I don't know what it is about delving deep into galaxy, looking for systems no one else has been to, that really satisfies me. So I might be taking a trip with my carrier to the top of the galaxy, or the bottom. I haven't been to either remote location yet. Then perhaps back to Colonia, I here there are some new engineers out that way who can really hook me up with my suits.

Marcus Apollo St Martin-Sepert AKA Sir Puma

Personal Log, Galactic Date 11.26.3308

Boy I've come a long way. I spent the past few weeks hitting up the trading lanes in my stripped down cutter, packing in the cargo. And in that time I managed to earn over four billion credits. So since I had so much unused equipment and a few ships that I wasn't going to get to upgrading or using in a long time I sold a lot of my inventory.

The pirates were super annoying and there must be something wrong with the docking computer. Early on one pirate managed to interdict me and destroy my giant tin can. Thankfully the escape pod worked as designed and someone honest picked me up. Over 20 million in profits plus the insurance cost of my ship gone up in smoke. But the shipyards were good and I was back up and running in no time. They sure wouldn't leave me alone so I actually got pretty good at avoiding them.

And for some reason when letting the docking computer guide me out of a station, if it was busy, it would frequently just run into the side of the station, or even other ships. Someone needs to reprogram this thing, ... with a hammer.

Anyway, I put the money together and dropped by Clark Port in Ehlanda and made the purchase. I had her christened the Sir Francis Drake. Somewhere way back in time on my mother's side the famed explorer and pirate Sir Francis Drake is a cousin. It'll take some time to get it all set up and of course I need to keep hammering the trading lanes to recover my money. But it's nice to have my own movable station.

Marcus Apollo St Martin-Sepert AKA Sir Puma

Personal Log, Galactic Date 11.17.3308

Hey, look what I found, my old pilot's journal. Thought I'd lost this thing.

Now where was I. Let's see, last entry was about going Thargoid hunting. So after got back from my trip out to the edge of the galaxy I spent some time outfitting one of my ships to go do a little Xeno hunting. That didn't exactly go as planned. Frankly I'm lucky to have returned at all.

My first encounter with a Thargoid was a bit freaky. I mean, I had heard of them, like everyone else, but I'd never actually seen one and I don't exactly pay attention to Galnet. So when I was cruising around the Pleiades one time a few years ago and came across one, I didn't actually know what the thing was. And so when I shot at it and it launched it's little ... what, drones?, I did what any sensible pilot would do, I jumped out of the system as fast as I could. It really freaked me out.

So after staring the edge of nothingness in the face I felt I needed to face that little fear and deal with it; thus I built an anti zeno ship. Then I went back out to the Pleiades and found one of those things and battled it. It wasn't easy or quick. And when I finally beat that monster I was forced to suck on my oxygen reserves and keep refilling them. My ship was about done in and my canopy was about gone. It was all I could do to find a station a few jumps away and get repairs.

To say it really shook me would be an understatement. So I took a hiatus from my ships and space. Got a job on the docks again and spent the past few months keeping the cat happy and getting to know the neighbor girl.

Anyway, I'm back at it again. I decided I want to get a more permanent change of scenery and I want a Fleet Carrier. So I scraped all my funds together and bought the biggest ship I could, the Imperial Cutter. I stripped her down had the engineers lighten her up as much as they could while boosting the Frame Shift Drive and then I loaded her up with cargo holds. Now I can haul 792 tons of cargo at a time and I'm out and about finding the most lucrative runs I can.

I managed to make back the 500 million credits I spent on her in just three days and hit my first billion ever this morning. So I'm well on my way to being able to afford a fleet carrier. Then I can transfer all my ships and gear off Jameson Memorial, take my cat and perhaps the young lady who's helped me with Snoopy and have more adventures. You know, neither of them have ever been out in space. Their whole lives have been spent on Jameson Memorial. Strange.

Well, time for some rest then back to the slog tomorrow.

Marcus Apollo St Martin-Sepert AKA Sir Puma

Now that winter is coming in, I'm finding lots of free time to play ED. I've been working on goals to upgrade suits and weapons and unlock engineers. But ultimately I wand a Fleet Carrier to ease my travels across the galaxy. I spent all my money, just over 500M credits on a Imperial Cutter, dubbed the Eliza Drake after the second wife of my ancestor Sir Francis Drake. I've stripped her down to nothing, engineered her as best I can for now and loaded her up with nothing but cargo holds and an autopilot. In three days I'll have recouped the 500M and by the end of January I should be the proud owner of a fleet carrier.

I know this is out of my character, but work over the past couple months was so busy that I didn't even have time to get into ED, let alone my character. Perhaps as the winter days drag on me while I'm laid off from work (kinda hard to build roads in the winter) I'll be able to get more into character and put out a few more in character logs. But for now, it's the tedious slog of mass trading to build up 6 billion credits.

Commander Sir Puma AKA Marcus Apollo St Martin-Sepert

So I took a bit of a break from ED to focus on real world things, like getting my Ham Radio operators license. And of course work is ever present during the summer months. I have some construction projects to do around the house, like setting up a black smith shop and cleaning out the garage. But I will try to take a little time to explore and play. Gotta get some me time.

Puma

Personal Log, Galactic Date 03.08.3308

Home again, home again, jiggity jig, good evening Jameson Memorial and hello Snoopy the Cat.

Snoopy appears to be in good health and very spoiled. Angela didn't complain, she's such a sweet kid, so I made sure to pay her triple what she originally asked. I was expecting to be out for a month, maybe six weeks at most and instead it was closer to ten weeks. I didn't mean to be gone so long, but after seeing the absolute blackness of the nothing beyond our galaxy's rim I was stricken with a desire to just stay out there.

But I managed to make it to Colonia, made a short stay and visited some old friends. Then the bug bit me and I beat feet for home; and it's good to be home. I'll take a short break and reconfigure one of my sips to do some Xeno hunting. I hear the Pleiades sector is having Thargoid trouble. Wish me Happy Hunting!

Marcus Apollo St Martin-Sepert AKA Sir Puma

Personal Log, Galactic date 2.7.3308

I finally made it. The edge of the galaxy. Beagle Point and Ishum's Reach. Deep space, looking into the great nothing. No stars in view, no galaxies, just ... black. It's awe inspiring and humbling. To think we are so insignificant and small. People come and go, with grand designs on their lives, but we are mere gnats in the scope of the galaxy, and our galaxy is but a mere gnat in the scope of the universe, and the universal expanse, is but a gnat in the eyes of our creator.

Then I turn around. Billions of stars in our galaxy. Billions times that in sentient beings. And it all lays before me. All that ever was, is, or will be, lays in that glowing mass. My future's so bright, I gotta wear shades.

And so, now I turn back into the light and return to the living, and my cat. I begin my journey with an exploration run to Colonia where I'll stop off and visit some old friends. Then it's back to the bubble.

Marcus Apollo St Martin-Sepert AKA Sir Puma

Personal Log, Galactic date 2.1.2208

After spending a couple weeks in the heart of the NGC 3199 Nebula, recovering from my Space Flu, I needed to get back to my trip across the galaxy to Beagle point. I decided, however, not to take the long route around the outer edge of the Galactic Disk and make a more direct route, heading toward the core systems.

On a whim, once I got as far as the Norma Arm I decided to start searching for Wolf-Rayet stars and Black Holes no one had bothered to go to before. Boy was that hard. Frequently checking on the Codex left me frustrated and puzzled how I could pass through so many unexplored systems, for hundreds of light years, only to arrive at my destination and have the Codex pop up a confirmation that someone else had already been there.

But eventually I found Phua Aurb AA-A G0, a small black hole system with a couple brown dwarf stars with ring and moon systems acting as planets for the primary. It was what I was looking for, no one had been there but me. It was also very anti climactic as it was a boring system. Ah well, such is the chances we take as explorers.

I finally took a detour to Explorer's Anchorage near Sagittarius A for some needed repairs. Though, I think I'll leave the paint job, or rather the lack of a paint job, alone for the time being. She looks a little rough, but I love her just the same.

But now it's time to get my butt moving again. More sights to see and nebula to explore. Onward to Beagle Point.

Marcus Apollo St Martin-Sepert AKA Sir Puma

Personal log, Galactic date 01.13.3308

Well, that was a long slog. The Crab Nebula was very nice, certainly did not fail to impress. Such a wide range of color for such a small nebula. But it was hundreds of jumps, across the Formidine Rift, across the Sanguineous Rim and into the Outer Orion Spur to get to the NCG 3199 Nebula.

This is a disappointment. The colors are bland with little range, just dark red. The one thing that is fascinating is the galactic disk from inside this nebula is almost invisible; just a blurred lightening across a small section of space, like someone spilled dark orange paint on a black background.

I did get to see a few nice systems, saw an amazing sunset and somewhere collecting biological samples my ships suit scrubbers stopped working and I picked some infection up. Folks talk about "space madness" as being the biggest threat to an explorer, but I think it's the strange bacterium out here. It really is hard to keep pushing along my route when all I want to do is sleep off this perpetual hangover.

Going to find a quiet spot to turn the ship down and rest for a while. Then I need to figure out the next leg. Still working on my goal of Beagle Point, but I'm not sure if I want to continue to skirt the galactic disk, or cut across the middle and stop at Sag-A on the way. Guess I'll ponder that later. Maybe there's some nice nebula out along the rim.

Marcus Apollo St Martin-Sepert AKA Sir Puma

Personal Log, Galactic date 1.4.3308

Finally made it across the Formidine Rift. Managed to scrape a mountain top at high speed in one of the systems while looking for some Bio samples. And after realizing I'd be coming close to the Crab Nebula I figured I'd jump up there and take a look, figuring there would be a place to get some repairs done. Came across the Fleet Carrier MJÖLLNIR V5N-05Y in the Cyoidai WF-L c9-0 system and stopped in, got my repairs and sold my Carto data (making sure to kick them some money). Then I finished my trip to the Nebula.

Super pretty, especially from the Crab Pulsar deep inside. I did manage to find one inhabited system. Station X, a small asteroid station in the Crab Sector DL-Y d9 system is a sad little setup. I admire these hard working miners for eking out a living inside an asteroid, but they really could have chosen a better system. They have two Tauri stars and two asteroid fields and nothing else. No planets, no stars to get fuel from, nothing. There are easily a half dozen better systems in and around the nebula where they could have set up operations. And the station was nasty. I don't think anyone bothered to hire a janitor or buy a cleaning bot. Garbage everywhere. I sold my Bio samples and got out of there before I got tetanus from something.

I'm going to hit up the two other nebula in the area, Monkey Head and Jelly Fish, before heading back down the eastern arm and up to Beagle Point.

Marcus Apollo St Martin-Sepert AKA Sir Puma