Starting with Sleepers and scanning
23rd August 2014 – 3.41 pmOh no! Our anomalies have been pilfered by dirty pirates in the couple of days that I've been absent. The stinky anomalies I wasn't going to clear anyway. And new anomalies have appeared, including one of our favoured type. But, still, it's the principle that matters. Stinkin' pirates!
A favoured anomaly popping in to our system, and the only signature beyond our static wormhole is a gas site. That seems like an opportunity I shouldn't pass by, particularly with nasty thieves wandering w-space, and I warp my cloaky Proteus strategic cruiser to our tower to swap for the Golem marauder, fit for engaging Sleepers.
I make the required system checks, get the shield hardeners running, and warp to the anomaly. Last time on Oblivion, I mentioned the subject of the plot driving circumstances, which feeds in to another moment of incongruity. The drone weaponry is pretty awesome, essentially disintegrating humans. Each hit on a human obliterates them entirely, with just flakes of ash left. Except for Beech, played by Morgan Freeman, who needs a death scene.
Despite taking over a large weapon to engage the drones directly, and the drones shooting every human in sight, Beech only gets hit by normal small arms fire, apparently. At least this allows time for him to be found by Jack for some touching last words. The disparity between disintegration and Beech's wounds is somewhat jarring. Still, a little over ninety million ISK is brought back from the one anomaly, which is nice.
Returning to my Proteus, I warp to our static wormhole, hopefully activating it, and jump to the neighbouring class 3 w-space system. Updating my directional scanner doesn't see anything of interest, and launching probes and performing a blanket scan doesn't change that. Eight anomalies, nine signatures, but no ships. There is a tower, though, found by warping across the system.
Our last visit to this C3 was over three years ago, when I made a note of a tower's location. I point my Proteus towards that planet and moon and wonder if it's still around. On the one hand, plenty of towers are torn down or moved between visits, even with only weeks separating them. On the other hand, we've been fairly static in our systems for years, and there's no reason why others shouldn't be too.
The tower is in the same place. Good show, chaps. That I'm not cloaked is rather poor, though. I correct my oversight before this tower locks on and starts shooting, thankfully, and without anyone obviously in space to notice this error. Without anyone obviously in space, I revert even further to normal behaviour, and start scanning.
Three wormholes lurk amongst the data sites, one whose signature is rather weak. The two chubsters are a K162 from class 5 w-space and the static exit to low-sec. I use the exit immediately, wanting to bookmark the empire side of the wormhole before exploring the outbound link in C3a, appearing in a faction warfare system in The Bleak Lands, which I ignore.
Back to w-space, and the other wormhole in C3a leads outwards to deadly class 6 w-space. Whatever, in I go, to a clear d-scan result and a messy system. A blanket scan reveals twenty-one anomalies, twenty signatures, and no ships. There's no occupation either. My notes point towards a static connection to class 4 w-space, but outbound links ping discovery scanners, and I'm loath to scan so many signatures if I'm only to be thwarted. I'll check that C5 K162 first, which could lead backwards quite a distance, or could be a dead end. I can come back this way if needs be.
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