What lies beyond?
Day 1
Location: IZ-AOB Outer Ring
Setting off from Piak in Lonetrek I have to admit to being a little apprehensive. It is quite some time since I did any travelling through null-sec and things change. Back then BOB still existed, CVA were in charge of Providence and TRI was.... well I forget which incarnation they were on, it was a little difficult to keep track to be honest. My primary concern was the transition from Empire space to null-sec, with so little knowledge of who is where and what the current political situation is between any given neighbouring entities I had picked a point I remembered as being pretty quiet.
Looking at the universe map on my copy of Ombeys most excellent pdf (available here) I chose Cloud Ring as my starting point. From there I am hoping to head anti-clockwise passing through each null-sec region and doubling back or visiting twice as little as often. Cloud Ring is one of the smaller regions and it should be a short trip through as I hadn't spotted anything of particular interest to a galactic tourist. It would also serve, hopefully, as a way to ease myself back into the correct mind-set after bearing it up in Empire for too long.
Passing out of Lonetrek and into Black Rise I set course for W-4NUU and passed uneventfully through the quiet north-western part of the Caldari FW area. Low-sec, despite received wisdom, is not exactly that hostile a place for the most part and your attitude to it is key.
"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for I am the baddest mother fucker in the God damn valley"
Now okay I'm not, really not. But it's all about the confidence you have and confidence is something I don't have an issue with. I am hoping that this same attitude will help rather than hinder when I cross the border.
Jumping into Okagaiken all was quiet which was fantastic news. With no-one else in local I knew that it was incredibly unlikely that there would be a camp in W-4. The worst I expected to have to deal with was unguarded bubbles anchored at the gate. With that I jumped.
| The gate was clear. Not just of people, there was only one other person in local, but of bubbles as well. Result! First job was to get off the gate, I didn't want to get caught gawping with my pants down. I decided that I should start as I meant to go on and do things properly. With that in mind I found the next gate on my route and as luck would have it, it had been created in close proximity |
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to a planet. Since we now have PI and the accompanying orbital customs offices there is more choice in what to warp to when doing this. Before it was either pick the planet or pick a moon on the planet and hope you didn't drop on a POS. Even that no longer applies since there is now a fixed POS anchoring location at each moon. So entered warp, cloaked and went on my merry way. When I landed I manually started the ship flying off in a direction that was not in line with any other celestial so that should I be distracted and someone jumped in and happened to warp to the same object and at the same distance as I did they wouldn't de-cloak me. That would be what is known in the trade as a bad thing™.
Great! I was in null-sec after an uneventful short run and there was shiny new starscapes to admire. These are all supposed to show nearby nebulae and you should be able to track your progress by watching which recede, which become more prominent and which you end up inside of. I am keen to see this in action as I travel.
Panning the camera around to take in the heady atmosphere I was immediately presented with a site I was used to seeing from my recent residence in the Kador region. That swirling darkish brown mass attempting to constrain a light green light (visible in the lower left of the above image). The Kor Azor region seems to lay right on the edge of this and I currently believe that it is the Genesis region which would be nicely poetic given its appearance.
The main feature of this region is the green/pink steam-like expanse that encircles your view. Somewhat "ring" like in fact. I've seen images of a nebula of similar colour and texture to this but from a much greater distance and it was very pretty. Hopefully over the next few days I'll be able to find the best region to view the Cloud Ring from. All part of the fun.
The next region on my list was obviously going to be the Outer Ring and it is only eight jumps away. Looking at the map I expected that if I was to encounter anything trap like it would be in either FD53-H or DY-F70 since these form a short pipe. There is also the issue of a gate not being within scanner range of any planet which I know is going to raise its head at some point. I have a plan for dealing with that but I don't know how well it will work or what tweaking I will need to do to get it working well.
Either fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you look at it the pipe was empty and although there were instances of gates being out of scanner range it was pointless attempting to enact my plan since I already knew the result. FD53-H did present me with my first picture opportunity though. The O-ZXUV gate is sited adjacent to a planet and I happened to appear on the far side of the gate from it. I grabbed my trusty screenshot button snapped away.
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| A moment of tranquillity with the light just starting to glint off the stargates rear housing. |
The last couple of jumps through Cloud Ring were, again, quiet although I did see a small gang appear behind me in B-DBYQ and head off towards Fountain. So, I sit here now in the Outer Ring and ponder my next move. Things have been surprisingly easy thus far and I cannot allow myself to become complacent. Since I am in the home region of ORE I think I may have to visit one of their stations and see what I can pick up in the gift shop. I assume that they have one....
