The Occational Personal Queries (Maz's Journal: Antares Edition)

Let's just start off with the basics on the off chance I somehow die within the next few weeks or so and this datapad is recovered from my lifeless corpse.

My name is Mazékial Noviak. Since you'll be reading this and apparently 8/10 people (I've done the math) always mispronounce that name when they read it without hearing me say it, it's mahzae. keyal. It is NOT "maze-kyle", it is NOT "mazeekeyal". Maz is the shorthand, NOT "Maze" Last name can either be nove-ey-ak or nah-vey-ak, that one's not as important considering the main reason for the screw ups with my first name is usually because of that pesky little accented E which is always misunderstood or even omitted on account of most systems not registering it. I think it's supposed to follow the French or Spanish pronunciation of the accented E where it's sounded almost like an "ae" sound, it was never really explained to me other than that was how it's pronounced. Honestly, though, I don't blame the fact that it isn't spelled "Mazaekial". That just looks retarded.

Why the fancy name for a human? (oh yeah, I'm a human in case that wasn't clear by my snarky attitude and intentional misuse of the word "retarded") Well the short, snarky version is my grandfather was a heavy fantasy writer and my father was his biggest fan.

I'll attach a picture of myself in this thing at some point once I develop an artistic ability (which in short is never), but if you've ever met me in person prior to reading this I've found that 3/10 people instantly judge my age by my maturity level and white hair color. I'd call racism, but that only applies to biological construction and skin texture. I'll have you know I am at the lovely, relatively youthful manly age of 23 at the time of this current writing (my voice shows it), and 24 is around the corner. And by corner I mean a little less than two Earth Standard Months from this entry.

Why is my hair so white? (That statement sounds more and more racist the more I say it) I have no frickin' idea. Dad used to say I have all possible recessive traits for all possible hair colors due to how diverse our family's heritage is. You can choose to believe that, or you can choose to believe that when I was 9 some other kids in my neighborhood played a prank on me and dropped a can of white paint on my head and it dumped on me so hard that it painted my hair DNA white. Take your pick.

I have studied proficiently in the areas of government and economics, as demonstrated by my very specific political ideals. Among said ideals include the belief that all sentient races are ultimately equal in terms of "superiority" (WHAAAAAT? The humans aren't the almighty perfection of everything? And neither are the Avians, Apex, Floran, Glitch, or Hylotl? It's madness, I know!), that there are more ways to solve a crisis than flashing your gun out at the first sign of trouble and shooting the first person who disagrees with your position, that "murder" and "killing" are two entirely different terms, that this galaxy has no idea what the word "slavery" means, and that it's possible and quite lovely to live *gasp* a moral life! (UNHEARD OF! I thought we killed God and have ascended above the need for morals! Haha no.)

Currently I'm flying about from place to place in a perpetual cycle of "Look for civilization -> Find a settlement -> Find it empty/Find the Bar being the only active area of the settlement and remember I don't drink alcohol -> Get bored -> Fly off -> Repeat"

Anywho, if this galaxy is anything like my settlement back home or the people my father ran into in his occasional guard duties in the USCM, every shady, decently intelligent, outspoken, and remotely influential person and their mothers keep a journal recording their inner thoughts and feelings and ramblings and poetry that makes no sense to anyone unless you were there when they wrote it to ask "what kind of hell are you writing?", as well as the occasional personal queries.

I figure 2/5 is good enough grounds to join the bandwagon.

Hm...I suppose I should actually have a point to this entry besides roundabout exposition...

...

...Naaaaah, maybe next time.

 

Finally, I have acquired enough material to make enough snarky quips to amount to an actual journal entry! Yaaaaaaaay.

After an extensive amount of time running around from empty settlement to pointless settlement, I ran into this guy named Gray. Totally not named after the fact that his eyes and coincidently his sense of morals are gray. Anywho, we met at Liberty Mills, talked together, exchanged a joke or two together, and got farted on by a space hick together. He claimed that he and his female Avian partner Zolin were *Cargo Haulers* that were independent of the major powers. I put two and two together and figured out that they were smugglers and odd job pursuers. As much as I may not be too much of a fan of potentially illegal activities, I could honestly care less about the so-called "powers" of this part of the galaxy. The branch of the USCM here are not the same USCM that ran my home settlement, Taranis has next to no governing body, the R.A. aren't exactly public in their activities, Opportunity is very enclosed, and I have yet to see a soul on Stark or Talon's Reach. The last two didn't even really interest me. That said, I asked Gray if I could tag along on their ship, and they accepted me, giving me the highly esteemed title of "Bottom Bitch", even though I feel I have made it clear I am a human and not a dog, the "Bottom" part is accurate in that my quarters make up the tip of the upside-down-shark-fin-shaped ship, The Grackle.

Our ragtag team of adventurers consist of...

Gray: The Morally Questionable Captain who meets all the criteria of being a pirate! A missing eye, a missing arm, a missing leg, and a talking bird willing to "perch" herself on his "pedestal" (see Tsifira). Has good moments, has bad moments, and has moments that rub me the wrong way from time to time, but he at least somewhat knows what he's doing.

Zolin: The Cock-Headed First Mate who bears an obsession with breaking kneecaps! Takes no crap, rarely takes a joke, and is the one who gave me the honorable ranking of "Bottom Bitch". (Also ha! Cock-headed! Get it? Because...she's an Avian...ha...haha...hehhhhh...yeah it's not funny). She's buddy-buddies with Gray as the evidently worked together for awhile.

Sessiel: The Detective in a Galaxy Where No One Needs One! Seriously, he's so jobless he joined a crew of two Smugglers. It's kind of hilarious. He seems to have a good head on his shoulders, but I haven't quite seen enough to know for sure where he stands on things.

Omizu: The Hylotl Hag With a Medical Bag! I pray to God she never reads this. Regardless, not so sure why she wanted to join in the first place. I won't complain about having a Medic, of course, so as far as I'm concerned I don't care as long as she'll be willing to patch me up when I need it. If I need it. Bottom Bitches tend to not see too much action, and when they do they're in the back out of the way of enemy fire.

Tsifira: The Bird Who Banged the Boss! Yup. Three dates in and on day one of joining the crew they bang in the engine room. Exhibit A of things that rub me the wrong way but are ultimately so absurd I can't help but find them hilarious. Stupid 23-year-old sense of humor. She's described as a "Freelancer". I would bet money that due to that the only draw to this place is her lover's genitalia. I would bet money, if I actually gambled.

And Mazékial: The Sarcastic Moral Fellow and a Jack of Multiple Trades! Engineer, Pistol-whipper, Metal Finger flipper, and somewhat of a musician. I am not cocky enough to give myself more than three sentences when I already have an entire datapad entry dedicated to blabbing about myself.

In my past two days, as a united crew we have...

-Wandered Aimlessly and Independently on Opportunity.
-Wandered Aimlessly Together on Liberty Mills.
-Witnessed Arguments Between the Two Highest Ranking Members.
-Killed a Cultist Who Captured Our Captain.
-Stowed the Cultist's Body in the Freezer.
-And Installed a VR Training Simulation.
-As Well as a Few Other Things I Didn't Care Enough to List!

As you can see, we've been very productive. At least ten times more productive than I ever was when I was wandering aimlessly alone! Hopefully we can find more to do soon. Zolin's been getting quite restless, and from what I know, she doesn't get nicer when she's restless.

...I know I have much more I should be able to say right now...but I can't remember anything significant enough to mention that I haven't already glossed over.

Next entry, then, assuming I don't get killed by any crew members who stumble upon this and don't find my witty tag lines funny.

Farewell for now, Future Me and/or Journal Thief!

 

So Gray's dead, Tsifira's dead, Sessiel's hair is dead (to me), Zolin vanished off the grid, and Omizu's living in a giant fishbowl.

Me? I've been so bored this past month and have so little to do I'm making a micro-addition to this journal over my meal at the Wolf's Den.

I ditched Liberty Mills once people started stupidly trying to kill each other over the cockheads of the Avian Elitist Society (aka the Migrant Fleet or Holy Fleet or whatever the heck they call themselves), so that's another settlement I can cross off my list of options as a non-faction-aligned jack-of-multiple-trades. Still don't know anything about the Armada's interior, still rubbed the wrong way by this branch of the USCM, am not an Avian, and the Wolves seem slightly a bit too...chaotic neutral for me. Emphasis on the "chaotic". As for settlements, Marathon is pointless unless you're in the USCM, Teranus is too medieval and Floran for someone like me to find homely, Stark, Opportunity, and Talon's Reach are ALL inconsistently populated, and Liberty Mills shares the same problem the Armored Wolves do. Everywhere else pretty much fits that third criteria.

So where does that leave me? The Wolf's Den. A frickin' bar that doubles as Armored Wolves HQ.

It's times like this I kinda wish I had a reason to want to build my own home, and when I get to those times I remember I don't exactly have the numbers or the need to pursue that objective. Money may not be a problem, (A couple hundred of those diamonds I keep digging up in X-Sec can probably sway just about anyone who lives for profit) but if a settlement popped up it would either share the fate of being neglected and inconsistently populated, or it would be targeted for just about no reason and brought down before it could become stable. Sigh.

So much for a short entry...then again, this isn't nearly as long as the other entires in this thing. All two of them. Meh, whatever. Another day, another attempt at dealing with boredom and lack of direction.

 

Wellp, I have officially sold my soul. I'm so frickin' tired of not doing anything and being forced to live as a sane guy amongst insane individuals wasting fuel flying from planet to planet that I decided to toss an application at the R.A. I swear I'm never going to memorize that "R" word.

But just to be clear in this journal on the off chance future me forgets, I'm only joining because there is literally nothing else to do that's within my area of interest. Ideally I'd want to get into government/politics, but currently the definition of politics in this galaxy is "who has the bigger gun and can shoot straighter?", so all elected officials that this place wants making decisions are the ones who have fought battles and gotten promoted through loyalty and/or bloodshed.

So basically the same reason I wanted to join the USCM on my home planet before it, well, got eaten by a supernova.

I know for a fact there's going to be things I don't like in the R.A., things that may attempt to compromise my moral standing, decisions I won't agree with...

...But hey, that's the whole point of getting promoted, right? To eventually get to a point where my words actually have merit and aren't followed by someone shouting "Oh shut up, you stupid little bottom bitch. What would you know about this crap?"

A whole lot, actually.

 

Day 1

Just before I finally got an interview with Lieutenant Daniel Graveson of the Relzurautt Armada (Yay I think I got it!) I got to sit at the Wolve's Den and listen to other people perform for a change. Namely this pleasantly attractive girl named "Aranya", I believe. From our brief conversations, I must say there are a few things I don't agree with about her character...but meh, that's nothing new in this quadrant. She claims to be living with some "cute guy", but the aforementioned guy has pretty much stuck her in the friendzone, she says. Not fully buying it, myself, pretty sure it's going to change after a few weeks. Regardless, she's notably...well, passively pervy, or at the very least distinctfullly flirty. Not that I mind that, mind you, it was a lot of fun and I had a lot of laughs catching her mind in the gutter with how I worded things. As with most members of the female gender, she had a distinctively cute giggle. We talked, we laughed, we showed off our arsenals by shooting guns into a snowy cliff, and she gave me a kiss on the cheek before she left. That's a win as far as I'm concerned. I don't even care about the fact that she more than likely does that with every other guy she meets.

Go figure that I would spend the entire first paragraph of my log going on about a girl. God, it's been too long since this kind of crap happened. Anyways, on more important business, I finally made contact with Lt. Graveson. I guess I made a good impression with the interview, because I was automatically bumped up to Specialist, effectively skipping the bottom bitch Private ranks. From what I understand I am getting the requested role of Combat Engineer. I have been assigned to "Fireteam Alpha Strike", under the command of "Marcus Crosswell". That name sounds incredibly too familiar. Might have seen him before on Liberty Mills, probably. I sadly didn't get enough time to track him down and meet my squad or commander, because my first Op was basically an hour later.

"Operation Moonlight", the complete seizure of Tetanus Fields to compensate for the debts they owed to the Armada. Don't know how those debts were incurred, but I'll find out sooner than later. Thankfully, there was no bloodshed, just a bunch of us guys in armor securing the BLZ, bringing the leader forward, getting everything formalized, letting civilians pass, scouting around to make sure we weren't ambushed, done. Not bad for a first day on the job.


Well, I better get back to patrol. Here's hoping the next entry is longer.

 

Day Four-Hundred-and-Twenty-I-don't-even-friggin-know-anymore. I lost count at 2, apparently. Should probably work on my Math skills again.

Actually the R.A. went under shortly after I joined, I never heard from any of those freaks again, ship broke, left to fix it, came back to find everything that I was familiar with in this sector was gone. Not exactly a jab to the heart--I was actually kind of sick of the places and even more sick of the factions. Also I found this journal just now buried under the seat cushons, saw the awkward "Day 1" with nothing past it, decided to shove more words into it. I mean, it's been over a year (I think), you'd think I'd have a whole biography of stories to tell.

Well, it turns out that the past year has set the new record for "Most Uneventful Year of My Life." Suck it, 3rd Grade! You have finally been kicked from your pedestal!

The most eventful thing that happened was probably two months or so ago. I stopped by this sector only to find a Gas Station in the middle of nowhere accessed by traveling through mysterious interdimensional rifts located conveniently in every single sector. I'm pretty sure those weren't there before. I chatted up the occational passerby, danced with a lovely lady (minus the alcoholism) when invited to a gentlemanly Glitch's formal party, made the acquaintence of a Mute with freakishly good hearing who used paper airplane messages as an icebreaker, and attempted to civilize a pervert...yeah that last one went more south than my last relationship. The one that didn't happen since she turned out to already be in a relationship...with another equally attractive female. Ouch. There's always a catch with the pretty ones.

The second most eventful thing of the past year I guess would be deciding to call myself a "Demon Hunter." "Wandering Jack of Multiple Trades" is both a mouthful and has lost its shine. Plus, Demon Hunter sounds edgy enough to make the emo corner-sitting types sink in their seats (It's absolutely hilarious to watch that happen, by the way) and always prompts a question something to the effect of "What the hell does that mean?" or "GTFO what's with your dumb religious judgemental crap?" both of which give me an excuse to use a witty comeback and secure a conversation. Also, it gives me a reason to brush up on my demonology studies (that were so rudely interupted by that supernova wiping out my home settlement and shorting out the vehicle that has since been repurposed into my cruddy ship. It was very distracting), which is a very interesting subject and very often neglected in these current times. No wonder the world's gone to hell if they're willing to neglect the spiritual.

On the bright side, no one giving a crap about demonology means all the books are conveniently located in th discount bins of book stores. Not that I really need a discount anyway; I'm still living comfortably from that year and a half of diamond mining. I'm still confused of how people can be poor in this galaxy.

The best part is "Demon Hunter" for me basically just translates to "Morally Obligated Mercenary." Travel around, root out corruption, help where I can. Simple enough for now.

I'll look into those other settlements soon, I guess. Fingers crossed for something remotely exciting and not morally ambiguous. That trend's gotten old.

 

Visited Katune. Found out the "restaurant" there was only being used as a bar at the time. Walked outside and played music to end my own boredom. Went back inside, everyone was gone. Found the rest of the planet empty, of course. Walked back into bar, left instantly. Beamed back to ship.

Jounral entry over.

 

Ok...That's more like it.

So the first couple of days were pretty drab. Just re-read the previous journal entry about five dozen times to sum up that. One day I got somewhat the attention of a guy wanting to set up a Freelancer group (Read: Mercs) but that kind of got put on hold. Another day the angtsy teenage girl counterparts of Batman and Robin from Da Hoodz, Chicago showed up. That was fun. I almost felt sorry for one of the girls; she cowered near my table when a gunshot went off. I offered my hand to help her up...aaaaaand I'm pretty sure that chick has some heck of a repressed memory. Can you say paranoia?

Speaking of girls with tragic issues, there was another young lady with a broken arm. As in, no arm period. The amputation must have been recent, because she was experiencing A LOT of phantom pain. Missing the door as she tried to close it, trying to rub her shoulder...yeah, sad stuff. I asked if she was ok, she kind of interpreted my concern for her mental well-being as pity for a material arm, so she pretty much slammed the door in my face on that note. Well, I shut the door for her...yeah it was very awkward. Made me feel absolutely terrible.

But that wasn't anywhere NEAR as exciting as being the second contestant on a twisted game show of death called "The Cave!" The same show that ended up causing the last contestant to lose a leg! Luckily, I performed much better than he did. Don't know if they gave me a reward, but they seemed impressed with my performance. Lots of knife-throwing and pistol gunplay with a grappling hook and a pitfall in the middle. It was fun. I didn't really care for the money anyway, and it was clear that the show was rigged to some extent. They probably won't show it in the episode, but one of the Co-Hosts pulled a cheat as I was winning and shot me in the back with a plasma gun. It kinda went down after that, but I'm pretty sure I took the original oponent down with me. He had a weird thing where he'd leak smoke when damaged...I swear that sounds exactly like something from my grandfather's fantasy book. Sigh. Nothing's original anymore. Anyways, I need to repair my armor now and have a Hawke-Style cut on my nose for the next few days. I REALLY should have worn my helmet to that fight. Other than that, I actually had fun with my life being on the line. Again. Maybe there's a round 2 in the future? I noticed the guy adding new traps to the room. If nothing else, the episode will hopefully put out the word that I'm formidable in a fight.

I'll put in a link on this entry once it's out, and add my comments on it as well. I kinda signed a contract saying I wouldn't tell anybody what happened. But clearly if you stole this journal from my corpse that shouldn't matter anymore. Farewell, Future Me/Journal Thief!

 

Well, I reminded myself of why I don't make my knowledge of demons public. Found an archived thread about a previous issue of "demons" using a siren call for "help" to lure people into a trap where they were slaughtered and drained for knowledge. Or something like that. Decided to make a post, basically "This interests me. Give me a call if these guys return. Pretty sure they're not demons." The response? The same two people going on about how I was obviously a demon myself feeding misinformation.

I forget sometimes that Starnet is 90% idiots, 5% losers, and only 4.9% actual intellectual thinkers. Oh, and 0.1% other, for example this "Cairn" guy who made one post on said thread about how this talk of his "kind" interested him. I tried following up, but those posts also got engulfed by ignorance. I'm trying to contact him (I assume it's a him) now. Already have a response. Hopefully this will be something interesting. I'm not expecting a "Demon Hunt" in the literal sense. But then again, when has my "Demon Hunting" ever been literal? ...Well, since coming back to Antares, anyway. I'll just try to get to the bottom of his origins and figure out just what he is, for both of our sakes, from the sounds of it.

Oh yeah, I promised thoughts on that Cave fight episode. Here's the link to that: StarNet - Test yourself | Antares Scroll down to Episode 2.

I'm disappointed that they cut out most of my quips, overlooked my careful awareness of the light pattern and the pitfall location, and glossed over the bull crap of some things. I probably could have won if I wore my helmet and had the prior knowledge that I'd fight the announcer too. Oh well. Hopefully there's a Season 2 or something.

As a side note: Newer Gum is the dumbest name for a decently techy settlement I have ever heard in my life. Why does this have to be so?

 

My FTL drive shorted out again. Big suprise. Who knew that using basically a space taxi--designed to only travel within a single solar system--as your go-to vessel to jump all over a frickin' galaxy, let alone one that has been crudely repaired after barely surviving a supernova thanks to an FTL malfunction is a BAD idea? I did, but look at me, still flying the same ship and putting up with its crap. I ended up above some random planet, but this time (thankfully) I had some fuel stowed on my ship.

The malfunction seemed to screw up my list of saved coordinates too, because when I tried beaming down to the coordinates I had marked as "Katune" I not only ended up on the wrong planet, but I ended up beaming up some random black cat that was living on whatever planet I beamed to. And now I can't seem to get rid of this cat no matter what I do. I don't believe in bad luck, but I do think God likes to be funny with foreshadowing. I will find out soon if this is an omen or just something silly. Until I confirm that, I am going to name him Praeventores. That's Latin for "Vanguard", I think. Or something. I'll just call him Praeven for short. I like fancy names.

I got the coordinates fixed later, thankfully, so now I'm writing this from my appartment on Katune. My small, cramped apartment...But hey, no random cat! I'll find out when I return to my ship if this is a lazy cat, a fun cat, or a mean cat. If it's the last one, I shall consider renaming him "Demon" or "Lucifer" or something to that effect. Hopefully he won't tear up my bed...or manage to get into the food pantry...and I hope to God he has some inherent potty training and uses the makeshift litter box I set up on the ship.

I have the feeling like I can actually stay on a planet now, and not magically end up on my ship every time I take a nap or something...maybe Praeven the Cat has something to do with that.

In other news, I ran into that girl with the missing arm again. Thankfully she forgot about that "door" episode I mentioned in a previous entry...but she's still battling some serrious demons in her life. Metaphorically, of course. I'm not going to have to attempt an exorcism or anything like that, but metaphorical demons are a part of my agenda as a self-proclaimed Demon Hunter. Anyways, her name is Kryssa. I don't know if she's just awkward, suffers some form of PTSD, or has supressed memories regarding communication with other human beings, but she was very disturbed and distracted about something when I tried talking to her. I've never liked seeing someone like that in such mental pain. Hopefully she will be able to see that I want to help, or at the very least I hope that she has someone close in her life who cares as well.

Speaking of demons, have not received any further contact from "Cairn." I know his kind, the alleged "Demons of Antares" are a genetically-engineered "Specimen G" who supposedly were designed to kill and destroy any life they were tossed at, and he claims he has cast off from that lifestyle. I am curious about the nature of this. Hopefully I can meet up with him at some point.

Ta-ta for now.

 

1. Good News! I found Cairn.

2. Bad News! I found him at a funeral so I couldn't talk to him like I wanted to before he left in a menacing fury.

3. Worse News! The funeral was for an Avian named Gustwood and a Glitch named Óðinn. I cannot for the life of me figure out how the latter is supposed to be pronounced. And people have trouble pronouncing my name because it has a simple accented E in the middle? Whatever. They both died at the hands of Radical Flightless Avians while they tried to save a village of Grounded that the radicals were burning to the ground.

4. OhGodSoTerrible News! Half the speeches at the funeral and 75% of the Starnet chatter on the subject involved something to the effect of "THE FLIGHTLESS WILL PAY! MURDER THEM ALL FOR THE ACTS OF A FEW ZEALOTS!" In fact, I swear a group of the funeral-goers split off to form a conspiracy mob or something. I smell a Civil War on the horizon if someone sensible doesn't step in.

5. Sort of Ok News: Praeventores is only a moderate nusance. He chewed at a few wires to the radio a couple of times, he scratched up the food chests trying to get in, and he refused to let me climb into my bed for the first few nights because he claimed it as his own. But at least he figured out the concept of he litter box fairly easily. Thus he gets to keep his current name.

6. And the Simply Terrible News: No one gives a crap about what I say and has zero respect, comprehension, or consideration for any points I try to make. Crap. This is why it sucks to have no friends in a Frontier of trigger-happy gunmen and political/religious refugeees.

So yeah, my life kinda sort of sucks right now.

I tried to be the "someone sensible" alluded to in #4, and that ended with #6. Go figure, the people who think anything with horns that doesn't look like a Sentient is a "Demon" also think that there's no such thing as a peaceful or sensible solution to conflict except "KILL. KILL. KILL. BANG. KABOOM." Why do I even bother? Because it's the right thing to do to at least try to be a voice of reason. If people won't listen, that's their problem.

Ugh. Talking about the brewing Civil War is making my blood boil. Let's talk Praeven.

So before all that crap kicked off, I reaized that Praeven's behavior in #5 was likely the result of him going mildly insane from being cooped up in that tiny ship all day. So I took him for a walk on Katune. They don't have a "No Pets Allowed" rule yet, so I took advantage of that. Praeven seemed content with the trek...although he did rather assertively demand that I carry him after a few minutes with that stupidly adorable big-eyed head-tilt thing. I took him to Horizon (which I swear sounds familiar for some strange reason...that word makes me think of asteroids, space stations, and annoying door circuitry) and gave him a dish tray of milk. A Floran Sapling showed up and both him and the cat were perplexed at each others' existance. Praeven was hesitant, but accepted the Floran's desire to pet him. That's when I found out Gustwood died, because the restaurant was closed on his behalf so I couldn't order some food for Praeven. I had to pick up something at a convenience store then stick him in my appartment.

Going to be honest, despite the fact that he is pretty much forced to be around, I'm warming up to the little guy. At least enough that I'm not continuously trying to beam him down to random planets only for him to end up getting beamed right back up...or trying to shoot him out of the airlock only to find out he was never in the airlock or managed to remain inside by clinging to the inside of the ship. I do find i interesting that he seemed to be so perplexed by the other races...that seems to indicate that Praeven may be from some now-dead human settlement...or I just abducted someone's cat by mistake. Oh God I hope it's not the latter. My conscience attacks me enough as it is.

So back to the growing tension of Flightless and Grounded. Condemnit. I need to find some way to end this conflict, or find people who want to do the same that the masses will actually listen to.

...Yeah, I can already tell this isn't going to end well.

 

Hm. I haven't posted to this thing in ages. I should amend that!

Now, there's a few reasons why I haven't added to this journal, but they all boil down into the same general category of "OhmyGodsomuchishappeningslowdownmakeitstopIcan'teventhink."

Cue the highlight reel!

-Someone broke into Katune's Clinic, trying to raid it for a certain drug. I intervened and subsequenty talked her down from killing herself--and me and some Apex--with a grenade. I felt very proud of myself.

-Did I mention the raider was was a her? I think I did. Young-ish human girl with green hair. More taumatized than a puppy getting attacked by their once-loving owners in an attempt to stave off starvation on their part, only for the puppy to watch in horror as they got burned alive in a volcanic eruption. Look, I've seen some jacked up crap on Starnet before. Stupid 50/50 subreddit.

-Aaaaaanyways, convinced her to trust me only for her to pass out. Nursed her back to health, turns out she was the result of some serrious experiments on behalf of a rogue USCM splinter group who nuked her home city. Turns out she was somehow partially immune to the radiation of the aforementioned nuke, so they decided to amp it up out of curiosity. As a result, she was essentially addicted to this one chemical that was used as the basis for the experiment. Well, maybe "addicted" is the wrong word...what do you call it when your body literally cannot function for longer than a week without a specific drug? Ah well, it'll come to me eventually. Her name was Delara, by the way.

-Del escaped from that experiment place, stole one of their cargo ships, and ended up here. I helped disable a tracking beacon placed on the ship, and we discussed a happy future of adventure and discovery with me as a mentor-figure and her as an apprentice. It was all very Doctor Who-y, except my accent isn't thick enough to be considered "British" by Earth standards.

-Del got killed the next day by a Floran when she was defending herself from one of the Floran's pet snakes. Most. Underwhelming. Death. Ever.

-I was depressed for exactly 24 hours. My God, that was annoying. Stupid past-me, being all sad for one girl who I barely knew for a day...who happened to be the only person I've had a positive impact on since coming back to Antares...arguably since I've been to Antares period...Ok, present-me, stop it. Get that water out of your eyes. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Ok, I just smacked myself, all is well.

-Cofronted Nurora Stab-Dancer (AKA the Floran who killed Del) demanding what was left of Del's remains. She (well, he/she Floran. I say she, though.) kept them in a freezer on her ship. She chewed one of her arms off, but aside from the bullet wounds she left the body untouched because she could smell all the chemical shenanigans. Kind of sad in a very human-nature way that it Stab didn't eat her, because then she probably would have been sick or poisoned. Again, very human-nature way. Happy that the body was intact, though.

-Transfered the body from the freezer to this fancy Human/Apex stasis pod I picked up from some abandoned lab belonging one or both of those two species. Hoping it will clean up the bullet wounds and close off the amputation wound.1. She probably deserves a proper burial and 2. Mangled bloody remains are not recommended for transport.

-Katune got raided by Dionaea, Stab's tribe. Some human bombed the place after they did so. Somehow, Praeven lived through both a Floran raid AND the bombing, because he was in my appartment at the time. I'm calling bullcrap on multiple levels, but at the same time it does not suprise me in the slightest that he's miraculously still alive. I couldn't even eject him straight out of an airlock the first day he magically infiltrated my life.

-Tried Dexter's Gardens, but it was basically Katune 2.0 with a smaller bar and on an non-terraformed forest planet. Also, for some bizarre inexplicable reason, a small-time settlement like that absolutely hates anyone wearing armor claiming to help with a frickin' hell-mad passion. I mean what the heck, people can run about doing nothing but starting trouble, and they are treated the same as people who actually want to help? Are they even in a position to ban "vigilantes" in a backwater Frontier like Antares? This isn't the frickin' core worlds. There's no real government and God knows their security is understaffed at best. It's an underdeveloped melting pot of homes built around grasslands and loosely bound by the absolute simplest forms of law and order and completely barebones security procedures. Also, I'm not BFFs with anyone there, so, uh...yeah that pretty much alienates me from that place.

-Instead moved into this slightly more tech-y settlement that popped up called "New Tetanus." Since it's more than one syllable, I will ignore the fact that it is named after 1. An Earth-based Third World disease and 2. An old Antares settlement that was essentially a run-down junkyard. Really, any name is better than "Newer Gum." The place is a bit more technologically sophisticated, but at the same time they understand the concept that this is a backwater region of society, so they properly staffed and armed their security team AND set up a rather impressive checkpoint and registration system before letting people enter for the first time. They, at least, deserve the respect of their attempts at bringing law into a lawless frontier of space. I'm perfectly fine with walking around without armor there. Even KATUNE couldn't provide that sense of relative security.

Aaaaaand...I think that's all that's important to note. And I've written enough scatterbrained thoughts to constitute a journal note. Though I do not have a querie yet...come to think of it, I cannot remember the last querie I've ever recorded in this thing.

...To ammend that, hypothetical science-related rhetorical question: if one had the theoretical powers to stop time for the world around them, and they did so right as the sound of a gunshot went off, would they hear the gunshot's loud "boom" as a single, sustained noise infinitely until they resumed time?