So, I came across this excellent piece of artwork by a Deviant Art user by the name of Ashlerb and it inspired me to write a short story of someone who found one of my castaway Velators that I left somewhere and just forgot about.
The artist designed the ship to be a non-capsuleer version, but as this is a mass produced corvette, I’m just going to assume they’re designed with redundancy in mind, so it can either be crewed normally, or run with a pod.
If you want a zoomed in picture of the image, you can find it among the artist’s various works through the link above.
Greetings Fellow Capsuleers.
I recently received a strange video log from a ship I apparently owned years ago. I’m curious if anyone has had similar experiences. Station services might need to call in an exterminator to deal with the rats again.
01100011_01100001_01110011_01110100_01100001_01110111_01100001_01111001.VID
[PLAY]
A black screen is displayed with the following text:
[external camera feed | location: unknown | date: unknown]
A short moment later the words disappear and a video feed starts playing. The video playback is nearly back and white, with a washed out sepia tone.
The video displays the inside of a hanger with a deep trench-pit bisecting the floor; the sort of hanger you’d see planet side in some dingy frontier outpost or maybe a farmer’s plantation, mass produced and cheap. The state of disrepair, general mess of random ship parts, cast about containers, and overall dust everywhere complete the setting.
A moment later the hanger’s door raises slowly. The door is not large enough for a ship, these sorts of hangers have retractable roofs so the ship can go vertical, but just large enough for a land transport to enter and off load or receive items. And right on cue, a transport does just that.
Two people step out of the 4 wheeled transport.
The video playback flickers and switches to another camera angle; it’s a wide angled shot at the end of a long wing. The ship is unmistakably a Gallente corvette, with it’s curved vertical structure, attached to it’s center protrusion, jutting into the pit in the hanger’s floor.
The two people, now clearly men wearing cold weather jackets, enter the view and continue to walk forward.
“See? I told you!” One of the two speaks in an excited voice.
“Yes, I see.” The other replies, in somewhat raspy disinterested tone. “This is clearly a ship.”
“If we can get it working, we’ll have it made!” Excitable exclaims. “There’s bound to be enough parts around here to make it happen.”
Raspy turns and looks at Excitable for a moment without speaking, then says, “how do you know this doesn’t belong to someone?”
“Technically, it belongs to us now. This place is at the edge of my parent’s stake. And besides, the only people on this side of the planet are our families and the weird Intaki clan that live on the crater lake island about 500 klicks from here.”
“This place looks like a smuggler or pirate den.”
“An abandoned den.”
Raspy grunts in acknowledgement.
“Look, no one is going to claim this place. Why don’t we have a look inside and see what we need to do to get it working?”
“Raspy sighs, sure, why not. How do you plan on getting inside?”
Excitable laughs. “Well, that my friend, is the easy part!” He took a data pad out of his coat pocket and started interacting with it.
A couple seconds pass before the screen goes dark and displays more text.
[internal camera feed | location: cargo hold | date: unknown]
The feed comes alive again, this time the telltale green and black of night vision. The hallway door opens and Excitable tromps through with a hand lamp lighting his way.
“You really should be more careful,” Raspy says, following Excitable through the door.
“What?”
“I understand that you’re excited, but we do suspect this place was formerly occupied by pirates. Or at the very least smugglers.”
“Hmm. Point taken, but I don’t see any obvious traps, do you.”
“Just be a bit more aware of your surroundings before you go flying through doors.”
“Sure. Ah, the reactor!” Excitable runs over to the door leading to the engine room and effectively flings himself through the door."
Raspy sighs.
[internal camera feed | location: reactor | date: unknown]
“Everything seems to be in order here.” Excitable calls over his shoulder. “I can see there was definitely some work done here, but nothing is out of place.”
“So, the previous owners weren’t scrapping it?”
“No, it was definitely maintained. At least back here anyway. We’ll know more if we can get the computers running.”
[internal camera feed | location: cic | date: unknown]
The door to the command cabin opens and in walk Excitable and Raspy.
“So? What do you think so far?” Excitable asks.
Raspy looks around the command cabin, presumably for anything out of place. “Well, it certainly seems promising. It’s obviously a mess, but it seems serviceable. I do have a nagging feeling of why someone would leave a working ship abandoned like it was.”
“Well… moment of truth.” Excitable says, and flips the switch to power on auxiliary.
The two hold their breath.
A chime sounds and logos display on various screens around the cabin.
“Yes!” Excitable cheers.
Raspy chuckles.
The screens start displaying various status screens for various sub systems.
“Okay, reactor seems to be functional and in standby, that’s good. This does say it only has three of four generators, so maybe that’s what they were waiting on. The missing one is for fire control though so it’s not something we need right away.”
Raspy looks over the various screens. “These other systems seem to be good to go as well. Wait. This screen is showing market data.”
“So?”
“The Capsuleer market,” Raspy says. “You can’t normally get access to that. My dad has been trying for ages to get a market license with no luck.”
“So what does that mean?”
“It means something very good, or very bad.”
END TRANSMISSION | PLAY AGAIN?
That’s all I received. I suspect they trigged a dead switch and blew the reactor. The 4th PEG being inactive or missing seems suspicious.