This'll be a series of diary entries of my character following my actual survival playthrough from where I am, given roleplayed narrative. Why? Because it seemed like a fun way to recount my journey from then to now and into the future until I get where i'm going. The story is dramatized. Just because it says i'm walking, doesn't mean i'm actually gonna walk my ass across a desert for a story. I have a bike... and a ship. I'll sum it up how I got where I am quickly: I chose the Arid Planet starter (named "Lodra"), and after a great deal of time getting set up and hunting and killing a lot of bad guys I went out exploring in the solar system yesterday. After filling my SV Gunship with loot and ores, I found I couldn't get back home. The warp paths I took to get where I am had a one-way jump and the ship's damaged after a run-in with a Radoz Patrol Vessel (CV). So here I am, at the beginning. Trapped on the desert planet of Taroz III with nothing but my damaged gunship, the Hunter. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Entry 001: Away from home "I'm leaving this record in case I don't make it back and they actually send someone to find me." "The time's uhh... 0922-16-54, I think." "My name is Varn Ingrahm, age: 35-ish, ex-military pilot and mechanic. Presently an employee of Forge Aerospace. At least until they find out how badly I screwed up with their latest prototype." "I'm here standing on Taroz III, stranded off-site with nothing on me but the clothes on my back and a ship full of geological samples. My ship in question is my employer's latest prototype gunship that I was meant to be testing at the forge testing grounds on Lodra. The uhhh... FA-005 Hunter." "Why some backwater shithole, lightyears from occupied space? Probably because the last thing the people want you doing is testing experimental weapons systems in their back yard. The other reason is likely trade secrets and plausible deniability if anything goes wrong out here." "Well, it's hot as balls out here so something's definitely wrong. It's not called a desert planet for nothing. I have a small constructor back on the ship with a few too many holes for my liking." "I'd best start fixing this tub before it gets any hotter." "Ingrahm out" - End Recording - -------------------------------------------------------- Entry 002: It's a tarp "Repairs are done. They look like ****. No surprises there, I was the one that repaired it." "Got more patches on the front than whole armor. Considering how much fire this thing took, i'm surprised it came off as well as it did. Those guys at Forge really know how to make a tough ship." "Fuel's low... Radar is... fuzzy at best. It got a ping to the north... flagged it as a human transponder. Name on it's something like "Hongo"... not sure if that's a person or a place. But if it's got power, it'll hopefully have fuel." "It's pretty far across open desert and i'm pretty sure there are more hostiles in the area. I'll cover the Hunter with one of the tarps for wet weather and set out on foot... Should make it there by nightfall." "Ingrahm out" - End Recording - --------------------------------------------------------- Entry 003: The quiet "Been walking for hours and the sun's getting low. Not much else to do but walk and talk to you; whoever you are." "It's weird here... It's the quiet. I mean, sure this is a desert planet, Lodra was desert too, for the most part. But the real noticeable difference is that the everything is quiet. There's no trees, not much in the way of grass, no dirt or gravel to walk on and no wind." "I think the biggest difference out here is probably that the air is breatheable. I don't have my helmet on so i'm not constantly hearing myself as I do things. I guess it's the little things you just don't notice until they're gone." "Speaking of things that are gone, my armor's heat sink is almost in the red. It's hot now, but without that heat sink and in this armor i'm gonna cook before I get to where i'm going." "Hydro rations are down to 20% too. They should hold out until nightfall but i'm not gonna enjoy the walk back if I find nothing." "I give it another couple of hours until I reach the spot." "Ingrahm out" - End Recording - ----------------------------------------------------------- Entry 004: Hongo "The sun's set but it looks like i'm finally here, and Hongo's a place not a person. At least I think it is... If there's a guy named "Hongo" here, I don't see him." "Looks like a shack made of scrap. No generator and no fuel. Power seems to be coming from a couple of solar panels on the roof. Gimme a sec to clear the crap off the stairs." ... "Okay, nothing much inside. A worn out bunk bed, an old table, a box of scrap and... A transmitter array hooked up to an old transponder core. I guess this is what pinged my radar. Looks to be in working order. I can probably salvage it to fix the Hunter's bung radar." "There's a pool of water out back, so I can hopefully replenish my Hydro-Rations." "I'll get this junk sorted out and ready to transport while the suit's heat sink vents. I'm outta here in 1 hour." "Ingrahm out" - End Recording - [End of Day 1] -----------------------------------------------------------------
In actual game play, i'm days ahead of this recording and i've built a lot of stuff on this planet. Though for continuity of story they'll be salvaged wrecks. Images will be added later. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entry 005: Sand Screamer [Day 2] "Okay, time's 0242-17-54 or around that. Status report:" "Walked most of the night to get back to the ship. It's not something i'd recommend to the average space pilot. I suppose i'm lucky that this planet has normal earth gravity..." "Ship's right where I left it. Though I doubt it'd just pack up and leave on its own. Found an unwelcome guest under one of the passenger seats; one of those ugly desert worm things that don't shut their mouths and scream like angry goats. He could've climbed on board on Lodra and hitched a ride and I somehow missed him. Unlikely... So he must've climbed on while I was off on my little walk. Which means two things: One, that there's food for the little bugger nearby; and two, that they live on this planet too. So i'm not in too much trouble environmental-wise." "In any case, after almost shitting my pants when that bastard opened his mouth and screamed while I was in the cockpit, I now have a tasty steak for dinner. Things are looking up for now I guess." "Well, Dinner time. Ingrahm out." - End Recording - --------------------------------------------------------------------- Entry 006: Radarmy "The Radar is still fuzzy, but working better than it was. I can see some weird blimps that look like ore deposits. We've got... Iron, Copper, Neodymium, Promethium, Sathium and some surface traces of Gold, Silicon and Pentaxid. Silicon'll be a problem if I wanna fix anything electrical. There's some in the ship's cargo boxes, but that's all survey samples." ... "The Hunter's transmitter is completely gone. Fortunately, there'd be nothing in range to transmit to anyway. Bonus though, I finetuned the radar enough to pick up a human installation a few kilometers to the southwest. So i'm getting the hunter ready to fly. She's only got enough juice for a 10 minute flight but i'll need her weapons if it turns out to be a trap or a bug with the radar. I've also spent too long here. I've been hearing aerodrone engines on and off for the past few hours. So there's a good chance someone not friendly is out looking for me and getting closer." "I'll check back when i'm in the air." "Ingrahm out." - End Recording - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entry 007: Station #19 "Looks like I got out of there just in time. Radar flagged 3 drones coming over the canyons from the west just as I bugged out. Doesn't seem like they're following, so their sensors are definitely sub-human quality. Because of them I had to take a detour to the south, low-down, below the canyon walls. That'll cut my flight time down by a few minutes more than I needed. If it's a trap at the end of this journey, I won't have the fuel to escape or the ammo to fight." "Speaking of ammo, I have 4 rockets and around 800 rounds of 15mm ammunition for the gatlings. Which raises another weird question I have for my employers, who will no doubt hear this recording eventually... if it's found of course." "Why the fuck does this bird have 5 Gatling guns? The hardpoint turrets on the sides have clearly got mountings for 4 railguns and the ammo feeds on the inside can also support plasma cartridges. There's probably an attachment module in one of the compartments for those plasma cannons. If i'd HAD those cannons, I wouldn't have needed all these repairs. That Patrol Vessel would've been downed in seconds, instead of both of us. And i'd be salvaging it for fuel and pentaxid!" "Ah crap, ETA 93 seconds. I'll deal with this **** later." ... "Okay. So, i'm coming up on the base now..." "Looks more like a wreck than any sort of useful installation and at this distance i'm getting more details on it from my radar. Maintenance Station #19 is the name its giving when pinged. No guns, no heat signatures, nothing. I can see into the structure through open panels on the roof. Clearly not pressurized. I'm seeing 2 hangars on the north side, one door is open and the hangar is empty. The second door is closed... can't see inside. Neither of them are big enough to fit this bird, so i'll have to set her down on the sand." "Bingo, i'm seeing a subspace transmitter. A big one, right in the middle of the station. If it works, I can hopefully get word out to Forge and they can send a ship to come get me. If the cheap bastards feel like it." "Circling once more, I can see mounting points for solar panels. No panels though. Should made it easier in the long run if I can find some spares in the base. Looks like this place'll be home for the foreseeable future." "Tank's almost empty, so i'm landing now. Will brief you when i'm down." "Ingrahm out." - End Recording - ------------------------------------------------------- Entry 008: The Scrapper "I'm inside the main building now. Looks like living quarters on this side, mess hall on the other side, with a hangar off each hall. The transmitter's outside in a small... courtyard, I guess you could call it, with everything crowding around it." "There's sand everywhere and where there's no sand there's dust. By the state of the old constructor and transmission equipment, i'd guess this place hasn't been used since before I was born. The windows into the hangars and completely covered in dust so I can't see what's in the closed east hangar and the door's jammed. I'll need both hands, so i'll have to pause the recording..." - Recording Paused [1129] - - Recording Resumed [1144] - "Managed to pry the door open, and you won't believe what I found inside!" "It's a sand runner. I haven't seen one of this since I was a kid; always wanted one. Well, it's what's left of a sand runner. The hover engines are completely corroded on the front and the back end is stuck in a sand dune so probably aren't much better. Yes, stuck in a sand dune... inside the hangar. Must've blown in through the holes in the roof over the last 40 years or so." "A bit of rust, but with how dry it is here it's not that bad. I'll check the open hangar next and then get to work on getting the transmitter in working order." "Ingrahm Out" - End Recording - ------------------------------------------------------------ Entry 009: Timelapse [ Day 5 ] "Son'uv a bitch... I found it." * heavy static* "Sorry about the delay. I uhh... lost the data recorder when I put it down to repair the transmitter. I couldn't find it again. Must've fallen into one of the air vents under the transmitter. It's probably my fault, but i'm blaming it on the wind and since there's no one here to say otherwise, that's what happened." "Well, it's been three days since I got here. It's feeling more like home now. There's still a lot of work to do, but i'm safe for now from the drones at least. Seems they just ignore this place, and once I folded back the thruster pods on the Hunter I was able to squeeze it into the west hangar after I took out the crap that was under the sand that had piled up in there." "That crap in question turned out to be very valuable. They're a bit chipped, but fully functioning industrial-size solar panels. I've set them out where the mounting brackets were on the west side, with my O2 generator hooked up to them to get me some water and extra O2. As long as I keep the power usage down I can run the whole station off them, so i'm good for electricity." "There's no fuel and I can't rig the hunter up with cables to the base since it doesn't have an internal capacitor. There's a generator in the Scrapper's hangar too, but it's completely shot. The vaccuum chamber is cracked, the focusing lens on reaction chamber is chipped and the thermocoil is completely corroded. It'd probably explode if I tried to turn it on, assuming I had the fuel for it. It'd be easier to just replace the entire thing. Which, as it turns out, I can actually do now that i've got the base's constructor up and running." "Oh, and about the Scrapper... that's the name of the sand runner in the hangar, I dug that out. It took less time than you'd think. All I had to do was get the buried hover boosters uncovered enough to clean the sand out of them and connect the whole thing to the base's power and presto! A nice big boom and the sand is gone. Mostly out the door, some went into the living area, so there's more cleaning to do there. But now I can fix the hover engines on the scrapper and use the engines to blow the rest of the sand back into the desert." "Well, that's about all i've managed to do so far. The mess hall is pretty much useless with just me here, so i'm thinking of digging up the floor and putting down some plots since I can't live on worm steaks and protein bars. But that's a thing for tomorrow." "I missed this you know. It's pretty boring when there's no one to talk to; Just talking to yourself just seems weird. Easier to just think to yourself and that's not quite the same." "Well, i'll check back when i'm done with replacing this converter on the transmitter. Ingrahm out." - End Recording - ----------------------------------------------------------------
I go back and add onto my initial posts with additional entries and images; so if you actually give a **** about this story you should check in every few days and make sure that I haven't added new stuff to old posts. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Entry 010: Between a rock and a hot place [ Day 6 ] "Hey there boys 'n girls. Let me tell you what I learned today!" "I am com-plete-ly FUCKED. I wondered why the drones would leave this place alone, despite what should be obvious changes to the outside. You know, Solar panels and ****. Turns out I don't need to wonder any longer. It's a miracle I haven't been bombed from orbit actually." "So let me tell you why i'm fucked. I walked my ass up the big dune to the north-east to get a clear view of the area and found that the area i'm sitting, aside from being insanely hot, is surrounded by cliffs to the east and west and those cliffs are covered in Radoz fortifications. Worse than that, on the desert valley floor, that's this desert that i'm currently a resident of, is the central base of operations for all Radoz military and mining operations on this planet. Guess where it is? Only about 2 km from station #19, over that big-ass dune I climbed up." "So the only reason the drones haven't come looking for me here is that they assume that if someone's living in this rust heap they're either Radoz personel, completely insane or incredibly stupid. I'm leaning towards the second option, because i'd have to be insane to stay here and that's exactly what i'm gonna do. I'm also probably the third option too since my next big plan is to stick a big cannon on the roof of the station and 'procure' usable replacement parts with it." "Ingrahm out... of his fuckin' mind." - End Recording - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Entry 011: Signal "So, i've rigged up some garden plots in what was the mess hall and built myself half a cannon. The scrapper is hooked up to the mains and is slowly charging. As long as I keep to the east half of the desert, I won't be near the Radoz base and the emplacements on the cliff are too far back to see into the desert. So i'm not as screwed as I first thought." "Anyway... I got the transmitter working. I've only got a signal from Forge's automated production facility in orbit around Lodra. It's only a small one designed to make drones for weapon testing, but it's warp capable and even with the time lag from Taroz is accepting commands. I can theoretically disable the parking brakes and force it to warp here, but that'll use almost all its pentaxid. But at least i'll be able to get my hands on supplies and more fuel, maybe even a new shuttle." "Oh right, Theft of military manufacturing equipment is also a crime too." "Well, i'm fucked already. So it doesn't really matter, as long as i'm not stuck here. I'll go for it." "Ingrahm out." - End Recording - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entry 012: Lemons? "Well, it wasn't as hard as I thought it'd be. Shame on those system engineers at forge for making such a lousy security setup for autofactories!" "So... now I just need to wait for that thing to get here and enable the parking brakes before it gets too close because those shipyards aren't designed to enter atmosphere. Because that would be bad and i've had enough of bad **** happening today." "Well, for the rest of the day i'll concentrate on being a farmer. I've got enough room and materials for 6 garden plots in the mess hall. Things to grow are another thing entirely, but I did find a few plants on Denran during my initial foray into this section of space before realizing I was stuck here; So I have an orange-like sapling, one of those weird ones that taste like lemons but look like oranges but have leaves like mangos." "When life gives you oranges: Make lemonade." "Yes, I know that's not right. But I don't have lemons. Then again, life never gives you lemons. Life never gave anyone lemons. People MADE lemons by hybridizing like... a bitter orange with something called a citron. So... yeah. I'm gonna go get that orange out of the ship. Yup." "I think the heat's getting to me..." "Ingrahm out." - End Recording -
