Safer away from the bubble!
Barely escaped on my first jump. For a minute I regretted my decision of not having any weapons on my spaceship. Then I thought better and accepted it was a wise choice. I could not win, anyway, I just wanted to run away from it all.
Although this is not a diary of my journey, I wanted to write this departure note, on leaving the bubble of Elite Dangerous, for another trip to the stars. It’s safer away from civilization, I know, as I almost died on the first jump of the voyage.
The bubble, or the coloured bubbles that represent the space where different factions fight for supremacy, is like a lighthouse in the dark eternity of space. If you’ve been on voyage through the distant worlds away from the bubble, that point in space always seems too distant when you decide to return.
Although I am not a long distance traveler, like some explorers in Elite, I’ve been out and about more than once, sometimes for a whole month. Being in the void, even if sheltered inside your spaceship, is a unique feeling in Elite. It is, I think something like I’ve never experienced in any other game or simulation. You feel you’re alone, and the idea of home, home being the bubble, makes you point your spaceship back to that point on light in space. Sometimes in despair to return.
Horizons increments that feeling of loneliness. Leaving your spaceship in your SRV gives you a better understanding of the dimensions of everything in the game. If you’re flying with a group of friends, it is different, but once you’re alone, on the surface of a planet, lonely is a word that comes to mind a lot.
While traveling the cosmos, when you stop for the night — or for whatever you call night in your schedule — the feeling of loneliness creeps on you. There is a ritual on the simple fact of entering orbit around a planet, choose a location to land and take your spaceship down, with caution. When you turn the engines down, you can almost feel the silence of the stars above you. Close the lights and rest!
Being away from the bubble is a moment of peace. Yes, you’re alone, mostly alone, and the real danger is different: a miscalculated jump that leaves you close to a blazing inferno or a trip down to a planet surface that goes wrong (check your data in advance and be ready). Or the eternal enemy of lonely astronauts: fall asleep and crash your ship.
Still, these days it feels better out there. Crazy NPCs that attack you without reason are on the loose around the bubble. My first day on the way out was an example of that. I carry no cargo, have no weapons, still barely escaped a mad NPC that intercepted me and started shooting. Escaping the attack with 40% hull I had no option but to travel to the nearest station, some 5 jumps away, repair the spaceship and leave. I am on my way to Eskimo Nebula now, and there is a unique quietness in the air. I am better off away from the civilized bubble. Strange that the species to which I belong calls themselves intelligent!
Note: article first published in June 2016 in a Wordpress blog that I decided to move to Medium this March 19, 2017
