A new journey

YC122. Somewhere in space.

I sit in my cockpit, laying in a comfortable position on the cushioned seat. My heart is thumping so loud that I think it echoes across my Velator. I have been expecting this day for months,the annual capsuleer test of the University of Caille, located at the second moon of Bourynes VII. Aura, my AI assistant throughout the capsuleer test, pops out on the hologram display. She tells me to don my headset. As soon as I put it on, I get a third-person view of my ship from the micro drones floating around it.

After that, she instructs me to fly my ship towards a CONCORD wreckage to inspect it. As I orbit the massive wreckage of some large ship, a Circadian Seeker decloaks and opens fire on me. I remind myself to keep calm, remembering my months and years of training. I lock on the Seeker and opened fire with my railguns. It was obliterated in a matter of seconds. I wondered why I was so nervous in the first place.

After a few more hours of flying around wrecks and a few dissapointed Seekers, Aura informs me that I have completed the first phase of the examination. Next, she says that I will have to head to the Federal Navy Academy, Moon 1, Couster II. I grab an instant curry meal and an iced chocolate, a childhood favourite from my ship’s pantry. After downing its contents and the drink, I slept for hours on the small but comfy bed.

After waking up, feeling energetic and confident, I started my journey to the Academy. It wasn’t that far away. Upon arrival, my Neocom was activated by Aura. It was a huge convenience to have a Neocom, it served as a multipurpose tool. Being able to find mission agents, access the regional market, browse through the galactic map and being virtually everything a capsuleer needs. Then, I was introduced to the 5 career agents, whose job is to hone new capsuleers skills in specific areas. Those areas were business, industry, exploration, military and advanced military. Almost without thinking at all, I chose exploration as my path. I have always wanted to be a recon scout, loving that adrenaline-filled excitement and sheer fear during dangerous missions into enemy territory. I may not have experienced this in real military ops before, but I think that the simulators from the University and the various video games I played as a child and teen were sort of a scaled-down version of real missions. Hence, I chose Senior Officer Rulie Isoryn to be my guide during the start of my new journey. She was a beautiful young woman who was strict but friendly.

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For the first mission, Rulie had me find an anomaly training site, collect the proof of discovery document and send it back to her as proof of my competency. In turn, she would reward me with a bunch of ISK and a brand new Navitas, a logistics frigate. Cosmic anomalies were locations in space which contained a beacon. The beacon emitted a signal that contained their coordinates and name, making them clear and visible to pirates and capsuleer alike.

I completed the mission in no time, it was very simple and straightforward. Rulie was impressed with my talent but I knew that this was very basic and shouldn’t get too full of myself. I knew that many great capsuleers met their downfall due to getting to proud. After getting some ISK and a new ship, I decided to save my money for a Heron, a ship that I had always loved the design of. I used a small fraction of my money to train the skill ‘Caldari Frigate 1’ from my Neocom skillbook. It really was handy.

Then, I requested a second mission from Rulie. She said that the second would be even easier than the first. I couldn’t believe that I only had to take a tour of gas, data and relic sites. I would even get some ISK as a reward. I saw it as an absolute win.

After accepting the ‘mission’, I warped to the first site, a data site. Rulie explained that data sites often contain valuable loot that can be sold on a market. There was also a crate that contained a Core Probe Launcher, 8 Probe Launchers, A Civilian Data Analyzer and a Civillan Relic Analyzer. As if the mission wasn’t good enough. Then, I activated the acceleration gate to the next deadspace pocket. Deadspace pockets were like deeper, hidden pockets in space and could only be accessed by an acceleration gate. Anyways, I saw what a relic site would look like and saw a gas site too. After spending a few hours learning and exploring sites, I learned that data sites often contained sensitive data left by pirates due to the fact that most of their communications were picked up by by CONCORD and the military. Relic sites contained loot and treasure but and gas sites had mykoserocin and cytoserocin for drug manafacturing.

Then, I returned to the Academy and received my ISK, bringing my wallet to 400k+ ISK. I could afford a Heron but I decided to not buy it first because I would be left with barely any money, making it impossible to fit the Heron.

For the next 3 missions, they were essentially the same thing save for the fact that they were different sites. Scanning was a bit daunting at first because Rulie didn’t guide me through it, but I figured it out eventually. And so, after breezing through the 3 missions, getting an Imicus and bringing my wallet to more than 800k ISK. I felt pure amazement because I could actually do everything. Rulie felt the same too.

So, I left Rulie and god knows when I’ll ever see her again, if I even do.

I got my Heron, which I wanted for years. I also sold my Navitas and Imicus.

It was simply amazing and breathtaking that all this was possible.


Thanks if you read this far! This is my very first attempt at a story. Also thanks to Fariot Ellecon for inspiring me to do this. Do check out his story too!

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YC122, Dodixie IX, Moon 20, Federation Navy Assembly Plant

Previously, I finished the exploration career missions and bought my dream Heron together with some modules for it. I fitted it with a very basic and simple fit, comprising of the usual Core Probe Launcher,Data and Relic Analyzers and a 1MN Monopropellant Afterburner.

I also moved to Dodixie. I didn’t know why, maybe I just liked the crowd there. I just finished my initiation and I was officially a capsuleer. I also knew how to explore the galaxy now but I didn’t know what to do. Before, I yearned to explore the galaxy. Now, I have the capability to do so but I’m directionless and stranded. So after pondering for a long time, I decided to take the risk by exploring the more dangerous regions of space. I wanted to go to nullsec and lowsec because I knew that with risk comes reward. I had no life to lose, technology had managed to transfer consciousness from clone to clone. From what I knew, I already had a clone in my home station that looked exactly like me down to the most discreet and private places.

And so, I did lots and lots of research about exploration in nullsec. Even after that, I still felt like I didn’t know enough. But one day, by sheer luck, I stumbled across a video of a very experienced explorer teaching beginners. His videos were different because he already set up a route for us. He could do this because of his vast sea of knowledge, down to which individual systems had the most gatecampers. Just to make sure his information wasn’t outdated, I checked Dotlan maps, a map software that was leaps and bounds above the Neocom map. He was completely right.

From what he said, a good place to do sites was the region of Syndicate. To go there he recommended going through Asanot-Genesis, Van-Aridia, Aguallores-Solitude and finally D85-VD in Syndicate. He stated that these systems were the safest and quietest placed to jump through. Just to make sure he was right, I checked each of these systems to see their total kills in the past day in Dotlan again. All of them had a big fat 0 kills. I had a short-lived problem though, I thought it would be quite time consuming to jump through all these systems, but in the end, the route was only a mere 19 jumps.

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I have merged Part 2 with part 1. Please keep this series toghether.

Buldath

There was one big problem though, one of the systems was being invaded by the Triglavian Collective. The triggs, as the capsuleers dubbed them, were an ancient race that resurfaced after millenia of dwelling in deadspace. They were a formidable threat to all 4 empires, yet the naturally selfish humans of New Eden valued their personal interests over the future of the galaxy and refused to unite against the common enemy. As a result, many systems were invaded, making travel difficult often. This was now happening to me. Even if I avoided the invaded system, there would be another system being invaded and the route would be even longer. For the very first time, I felt truly disheartened

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I decided to continue my route. When I reach the last system before the invaded one, I will board my complementary corvette and scout the next system. If it is safe, then I will continue with my Heron. If not, then I’m not so sure what to do

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