The Exploration Logs of Katia's Kindness

[Emilia_Dallocort]

Author's Note

The following logs may be considered as IC knowledge for your characters if you wish. They are posted to the GalNet by Emilia on a publicly available webpage as audio files, alongside automatically converted speech-to-text files for those who are hard of hearing or prefer to read. While she does not actively advertise this blog of sorts, and would only mention it to friends if appropriate to the subject of conversation, word of mouth and reposts by baseliners would make it reasonable for anyone to have stumbled across it. Use any information found below as you wish.

I plan on continuing to post new logs here in the future, as Emilia embarks on more adventures. I ask that nobody replies in this thread, that way the logs can stay neatly organized. Thank you.

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[Captain’s Log 000]
[11-18-YC123 11:52:23]

“Hello, this is Emilia Dallocort. This recording will serve as Exploration Log zero zero zero of Katia’s Kindness, an Astero class frigate, model BY-902.”

[pause of silence]

“I suppose I should start with an explanation, for those who may be listening without any context around the matter… On November eleventh, at around zero three hundred New Eden Standard Time, I undocked from the Perkone Factory orbiting moon three of Vasala five, in a Wolf class Frigate I’d named Howling Wolf. I was planning on staying in that station overnight when I realized I was close to Saisio, and I decided to make my first visit to Katia Sae’s monument near the Abagawa stargate. This had been a trip I’d wanted to make ever since I first heard her story, when it was publicized during my third year of academy, so, I traveled there in my Wolf and I arrived at the monument. I just sat there for a while, admiring it. The statue is beautiful. Eventually I switched over to my neocom’s virtual dashboard though, and began managing some personal things. Because I was floating in high security space, piloting a Wolf with nothing but spare ammunition charges in the cargo hold, I assumed I was safe and stopped monitoring my overlay…”

[sighs]

“I didn’t realize I was in danger until my system’s sirens blared. There was no time to even react. Automated safety procedures immediately ejected my capsule moments before the Howling Wolf exploded behind me. Luckily, Concord’s response was quick enough to dispatch the assailants before they could fire on my pod, so, I was able to get my bearings. Apparently I had been the target of the criminal Aiko Danuja and others who align themselves with the terrorist organization known as Safety. From what I understand the group largely operates around The Forge region, but they’ve caused a number of incidents around Matari space in the past as well.”

“I had been fortunate enough to be flying solo at the time. There were no crew casualties to be had, and I was able to escape in my pod without further issues… So the loss was purely material and mostly inconsequential. At worst, I was annoyed with the fact that I had to travel to Jita to immediately replace it. This happened the day before Lux’s final assault against Stribog assets in Eruka, where…”

[pause of silence]

“…Where a lot of people died.”

[pause of silence]

“I rented a hab in Jita that night. I was rather exhausted after sorting out the purchase of a new Wolf. When I awoke the following morning and connected to my neocom, I was shocked, because I had received a mail from Katia Sae herself. I immediately read it. Apparently one of the criminals had gone on to brag about the attack on social media, because there are psychopaths that treat death and destruction as if it were some kind of exciting hobby.”

[unintelligible]

“Anyway, I was further shocked when I read that she had transferred ISK into my account to replace the ship that I lost. It was incredibly generous of her to do that. I had no idea what to say. In all honesty, I didn’t care about the money, I was just happy to have received a mail from her… I suppose that sounds silly, but it’s true. She’s been someone I have sort of looked up to for a while. The idea that she was suddenly making contact me was… still is, a little surreal.”

“I thought about what to say for a while, wrote some things, deleted them, but eventually I decided on a message. I told her I didn’t need another Wolf, that the loss wasn’t overly substantial for me and that nobody but the criminals who attacked me had been hurt. I didn’t want her gift to seem worthless though, because it wasn’t. It meant a lot to me. So, I told her I would use it for something special. As odds had it, a month prior I had experienced a small glitch in my neocom interface and accidentally purchased an Astero from a seller in Jita. I didn’t want to turn around and just resell it, considering the loss I would take from market taxes, so I just left the hull stored in its dry dock with plans to make use of it in the future… This seemed like the perfect opportunity.”

“I told Katia I would use the money to fit out that Astero, and I did. I purchased a variety of modules along with a mobile depot, rigged the ship to be as effective as possible in any situation, and… now I’m sitting in it. I decided to name it Katia’s Kindness. It’s fitting, and I liked the name. I hope to fly it to a lot of places in the future…”

“I messaged Katia back after I assembled the ship and took it out for the first time. We had a short correspondence, and she suggested I publicize my travel logs. I thought… why not? I wanted to share my travels with Katia anyway. She had asked me to keep in touch, and by doing this, I can share them with other explorers, I suppose.”

[chuckles]

“I have no idea if anyone is even going to listen to these, but, at the very least, it might help to take my mind off of some things…”

“I think I will end this log here. I’ll describe my first trip in the next recording.”

[End Log]

[Emilia_Dallocort]

[Captain’s Log 001]
[11-18-YC123 12:02:55]

“Exploration Log zero zero one of Katia’s Kindness. This is a continuation of the precursor log, and will serve as a recount of the events after my first undock. The current star date is the eighteenth of November, YC one twenty three, however the events of this log should be back dated two days to the sixteenth of November.”

[pause of silence]

“It had taken me a week to return to Jita and actually purchase the modules and rigging components needed to fit out the ship. I just wasn’t in the area, I had matters to attend to elsewhere, but I eventually made it back to the trade hub and had the Astero configured. So, on the sixteenth at around… probably sixteen hundred New Eden Standard Time, I undocked from Jita on my first journey in Katia’s Kindness.”

“I decided to make my way back to Heimatar, traveling through high security space. I didn’t want to risk taking a shortcut through Rancer. That system has always been infested with pirates and after my incident with the Howling Wolf, I wanted to be more cautious. I made my way slowly along a fifteen to twenty jump route, launching probes to scan down any signatures that were picked up by my sensors along the way. It didn’t take me long to find a wormhole. Four jumps, I think. I was looking for my first wormhole to dive into so I cloaked up and warped in at a distance. I ran a visual analysis of the wormhole and then some diagnostics on the magnetic field. The connection seemed to be to a low class Anokis system, and stability and mass readings were stable. I started to approach, when I noticed a distortion. The wormhole rippled and my systems notified me of a spike in mass along the sphere’s edge. Someone had just passed through and they were sitting cloaked nearby…”

“They couldn’t know I was there. I hadn’t disengaged my cloak, so I shut of my thrusters and sat still, waiting. It seemed like a while, before the other pilot decloaked to activate his warp drive. It was a Legion class vessel, and it warped off towards one of the system’s stargates. After seeing this, I hesitated to continue forwards, and I’m glad I did. I wasn’t sitting there long before the same thing happened. This time a Proteus class ship appeared, followed by a second one. This is when I decided I had better move on. Better safe than sorry. I should have known that a wormhole connection so close to Jita would likely be busy anyway.”

[File attachment]

“I moved on, and several jumps later I came across my second wormhole. Analysis told me this was a direct connection to K-Space, likely a high security system based on the lensing, so I jumped it. Out of all places, it took me to Yebouz… Three jumps from Akhmoh…”

[chuckles]

“It’s a little uncanny, really. In the past two… almost three? Months after departing LOELK, I think I have found myself in their pipe four times now during my wormhole explorations. LOELK was the first corporation I joined after graduating academy. I was only with them for less than a month. I… kind of hated living there. It had nothing to do with the capsuleers in the training corporation, and everything to do with the fact that I had to live under an Amarrian roof. I couldn’t wait to get out. I was stressing about time spent training that I could be spending actually searching, but, I had been doing that for the past five years so it wasn’t anything new. Looking back, I miss some of the people I used to fly with. I never really got the chance to get close with any of them, but they seemed like good people, so I wish I had.”

[File attachment]

“Anyway, fate had returned me to Yebouz, the system I more or less started my exploration career in. I had a really close call in a J-Space system that connected out from there. That memory made me slightly worried for some reason. Sort of a… superstitious feeling I guess. I think I was just overly paranoid about losing Katia’s Kindness the first day I took her out. So, I made a single jump to Hapala and scanned down my third wormhole signature.”

"It was another stable, low class Anokis system, and this time I actually jumped in. Everything seemed quiet. I found a couple of abandoned research sites that I was able to pull a decent haul of junk out of. Overall the actual trip into Anokis was uneventful, but that’s a good thing honestly. It also gave me some time to take a few photographs before I decided to head home. The system had a beautiful bright pink star at its center, as well as a visible black hole many lightyears away.

[File attachment]
[File attachment]

“After taking those photos, I left. I spiraled back through the wormhole into Hapala, and took the K-Space connect out of Yebouz. I made my way gate to gate towards Heimatar and stopped for the night in Hek. It was a good first trip, and an oddly reminiscent one.”

[End Log]

[Emilia_Dallocort]

[Captain’s Log 002]
[11-18-YC123 12:23:25]

“Exploration Log zero zero two of Katia’s Kindness. This is the final log for the day, which will cover my most recent expedition as of five hours ago…”

“I took Katia’s Kindness out for the second time today. I had seen something peculiar on my system’s overlay as I was traveling home through Eystur, which I had never seen before. I picking up on an unstable wormhole several AU away. This was not a cosmic signature that needed pinpointing, it was a clear signal. Upon warping to the coordinates, I noticed two very large structures beside the wormhole. Their architecture held a strong resemblance to objects I had only ever seen in Anokis. It looked like Drifter technology, the purpose of which I assume is to maintain a pocket of deadspace around the connection.”

“I was worried about what I might come across inside, so I quickly left the grid and jumped to Pator to reship into my Astero. I reasoned having access to a cloak might be invaluable. It didn’t take long for my pod to be transferred over to Katia’s Kindness, after which, I undocked, I jumped into Eystur, and then I warped to the wormhole. After burning 80 kilometers, I neared the edge and began my spiral inwards. A few moments later and I was through.”

[File Attachment]

“There was no activity on the other side. Nothing on my directional scanner, nothing on grid. I punched random coordinates into my warp drive and began looking over the signature data my ship had picked up when I entered. There was a lot. I’d never seen a system with so many cosmic signatures.”

“I began scanning things down, and everything I came across was a wormhole. Every signature. It looked like there were far more connections than what could be found in Thera. As I was scanning, I picked up on a mass of ships across the solar system. Broadcast signatures matched up with Sisters of Eve vessels, so I warped in to take a closer look. There was an entire flotilla of them flying through space. An incredible sight.”

“I decloaked and flew in close, hailing the pilots. They connected, and I had a short conversation with the fleet commander. I asked about the wormhole signatures and the strange drifter tech around them. She roughly confirmed my suspicions about their purpose in creating deadspace. Apparently I was in the system known as Redoubt, a very active system for Drifters. She was surprised I hadn’t come across any yet, so I guess I was lucky with my entry. I bid them farewell as I went on my way.”

[File Attachment]
[File Attachment]

“From what I was told about the drifters, I wasn’t so keen on sticking around much longer. It seemed there wasn’t much in the system aside from wormhole connections, and with the deadspace pockets on each one, plus the roaming drifter fleets, it didn’t seem safe enough to use as a shortcut system at the time.”

“I warped near the sun before I left. The plasma had an amazing indigo hue to it, one which I hadn’t seen in any other stars before. There was also some beautiful marbling of nebula gases around a Wolf-Rayet star in the distance.”

[File Attachment]
[File Attachment]
[File Attachment]

“While I was admiring the scenery, I picked up a Tornado on my scanner. I quickly cloaked up, after which two more appeared within 10 AU of me. I’m not sure if they noticed me or not, but I took that as my signal to leave.”

[File Attachment]

“I warped back to the wormhole that would take me to Eystur, and spiraled through the connection. When I exited, I wasn’t alone.”

“As I emerged from the wormhole, two battleships lensed into view. They were drifters, I knew immediately, even though they were the first I’ve ever laid eyes on. It made my heart stop. I was still cloaked up but the wormhole jump was quickly causing my cloak to destabilize. I paused for a moment and just took a deep breath. It helped me calm down, and get my bearings. I knew I was fast. As long as I aligned to something immediately, I had a good shot of getting away. Deadspace wouldn’t prevent me from warping out. So I went for it.”

“I swung my ship around, and punched it towards the nearest celestial to me. I got away before they even had time to lock me. I assume they tried. Everything I have ever heard about the drifters is that they are extremely hostile. It’s not something I’m too keen to test.”

“This ends the second expedition log of Katia’s Kindness.”

[End Log]

[Emilia_Dallocort]

[Captain’s Log 003]
[11-29-YC123 00:02:25]

“Beginning recording for Exploration Log zero zero three of Katia’s Kindness…”

“I just returned from my first wormhole daytrip with fleet members today. It was a small group, only myself and two others. Ragnar and Muustaffa were each flying an Endurance though, so… they didn’t really move much… but I’ll still count it.”

“This isn’t the first time I’ve flown with someone in Anokis. I used to explore with Iszara. She was in the same class as me, I guess you could say. We joined the Rough Riders within a few days of each other. Neither of us really knew anyone yet, and we both liked to explore, so we started talking and running down wormhole chains together. I enjoyed those trips. I didn’t realize I missed doing that until today. Exploring with others just makes for a better experience.”

“I do hope Iszara is doing alright. She went planet side a little over a month ago, there were some personal things she had to handle. I haven’t spoken to her in a while but I plan on reaching out next time I see her around.”

[pause of silence]

“I’m getting a little off topic though. The point is, this was my first fleet adventure. Two pilots aren’t enough for a fleet, that’s more of a partnership thing, so my trips with Iszara don’t quite count. Three pilots though, that can be called a fleet… I guess…”

“Arsia would call probably call it a gang, actually, since it’s not a form of over nine. So maybe I should consider this my first gang adventure. We’ll go with that.”

[quiet laugh]

“But, I digress. The exploration log.”

[pause of silence]

“There honestly wasn’t much that really happened.”

“Ragnar had been the one to find the shattered wormhole. It was connected to their island so he and Muustaffa were both mining an ice drift when I arrived. Naava had called me earlier, just before I entered, so I was chatting with her while I ran my first scans of the wormhole’s cosmic signatures. She eventually had to go, and after she disconnected I warped myself over to the others.”

“I had never seen an ice drift before. It was actually rather spectacular, a lot more so than I expected it to be at least, which is why I didn’t warp in right away. The drift was at least three hundred kilometers long, easily, and there were quite a few shades of blue. I sat there with them for a while, admiring the ice formations while their lasers broke them up. It was peaceful.”

[File Attachment]

“A couple of signatures popped up while I was sitting there, so I left to investigate them. Someone had entered our wormhole from one. I caught their probes on my scanner but we never did see a ship on scan. They passed by without causing problems. As I began to explore further, I realized that our chain was actually rather well connected. One exit dropped us four jumps from Dodixie, another six or so from Amarr, and I eventually found a connection two jumps from Jita. It was pretty lucky, but, it wasn’t the strangest thing to happen.”

“The weirdest thing was that the original wormhole Ragnar took, was a connection between his home system of Fegomenko to the shattered one in Anokis. That connection was unstable and at the end of its life, so it eventually collapsed, as expected. Both of them were on the J-Space side when the connection died, so I began looking around for a convenient shortcut back home. I left the central system my friends were mining in, taking one jump to a low class wormhole I’d already scanned down. A new signature was there. I pinpointed it, then warped in. It led to Minmatar space, I could tell from the nebulas I saw through the lensing. Then I jumped it…”

“Fegomenko. Of all places. I landed in the exact same system, one jump over. I’ve never seen that happen before. It seems like when I explore, I am either really lucky, or just not fortunate at all. It’s not often in the middle. Very odd…”

[pause of silence]

“I think today is one of the good ones. The shortcut to Jita is still up, so I think I might undock in my pod and buy my first Vexor at the trade hub. I have a fit put together already. I plan to fly it into J-Space. I’ve been wanting to take a closer look at the abandoned sites that are guarded by Sleeper drones. I’m curious what is inside. I figure using drones to take care of the Sleepers at a distance is a safe way to go about it, and today has been good to me so far… I’m going to try.”

“Wish me luck. I’ll take Katia’s Kindness out again in the future.”

[End Log]

[Emilia_Dallocort]

[Captain’s Log 004]
[12-11-YC123 00:03:43]

“Exploration Log zero zero four of Katia’s Kindness.”

“Since I last flew this ship, I had the engineering crew make some refittings to it. Minor things, mostly. The biggest change I made was installing a better probe launcher. Inarri gave me an Astero a few weeks ago. When Lux was evacuating Smokey, before its destruction, he’d asked me to ferry out an Astero he named Birdfly in the frigate bay of a Praxis. We had it loaded up and I left with a fleet to filament, when he decided he didn’t want to have to transport it to Pator. He gave Birdfly to me. After having it inspected, I was told there was a Sisters core probe launcher installed. It was in good shape, so I had the probe launchers swapped between the ships. Since Katia’s Kindness is my primary Astero class exploration frig, it only made since to keep it updated with the best fittings I have on hand. I’m going to get Birdfly cleaned up and on standby as my backup, should something ever happen to this one. Hopefully that never occurs but… I have to be realistic.”

[pause of silence]

“I woke up to an ice storm in Pator this morning. The system is right on the fringe of it. I had heard that this strange phenomenon was coming in, but I never expected to see what I did when I took a look out of the window. The distant sky has turned a light shade of blue from the storm’s effects. It looks beautiful, like the backdrop of stars are sparkling. I hadn’t flown Katia’s Kindness since refitting it, and I knew this was the perfect opportunity to take it out again. I quickly got ready and shuttled down to the hangar, boarding the Astero and hopping into pod. The view of the storm and the stars after undock was spectacular. Much better than the view from my apartment window.”

[File Attachment]

“So, after having seen that, it absolutely blew my mind when I took two jumps to Onga, which was in the center of this storm. I have never seen anything so beautiful in my life.”

[File Attachment]

“There are billions of tiny ice crystals floating around me in space, which cling to my hull as I fly through the clouds. It’s just… Amazing… I’m actually sitting out here now, just drifting through the dusting of what you could probably call snowflakes. They’re similar enough at least. Reminds me of the snowfall we get during Kohiri’s winter season. My home city isn’t on the coast, but it is nearby, and it sits near the Kohiri mountain range. So we get a fair amount of rainfall, and snowfall, in the area. This is beyond anything I’ve ever laid eyes on though. I’m taking lots of pictures. I plan on attaching some to this log and sending a bunch home to my family. I won’t be surprised if the next time I visit, my mom has these put up all over the walls.”

[File Attachment]

“I plan on staying in high security space on this trip, and just jumping around the ice storm systems. My signature scanner picked up on some interesting readings earlier. When going to investigate I found a communications relay station, possibly set up recently to monitor the ice storms. The thing was pretty massive. I didn’t realize the scale until I got up close.”

[File Attachment]

“I may go search around for more of these, or other similar constructions. It feels strange not scanning for wormholes. Up until now, I’ve always used this ship to explore Anokis, but it seems there is a lot of beauty to explore in the known space regions of New Eden as well. I hope to see many more jaw dropping scenes.”

[End Log]