Project Destiny
| Project Destiny |
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| Start Date |
| 2011-01-17 |
| End Date |
| 2011-02-18 |
Project Destiny was an exploration voyage launched by the Post Terran Mining Corporation (PTMC), the goal of the project was to be the first empire to reach the center of the galaxy. A goal which had never been attained before, although there was an effort undertaken in Universe 2 but the empire in question never made it to the center.
This all was accomplished before the introduction of warp drives and the Galaxy was bigger. At this time it was unsure whether there was anything to discover at the center. supermassive black holes were not officially added into the game, but it was believed that there might have been something there being kept secret by Haxus.
The trip is believed to have begun somewhere around Sector (308,0,0), which would make the trip 3080 parsecs long.
The ship was inspired by the ship of the same name in the television show Stargate: Universe.
Planning Stages
When Universe 3 began there were rumors circulating around that another attempt was going to be launched to reach the center of the Shores of Hazeron galaxy. The PTMC leadership were contemplating attempting such a voyage but it never got very far.
That is until Thor took up the project and designed the ship codenamed "Destiny" that would be used in this endeavor. The ship launched January 17th 2011 of Universe 3 and would arrive at its destination on February 18th 2011.
The Destiny
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The ship was designed at a time where the design studio grid was much larger, it boasted a garage bay that could store 6 motor bikes, 4 SUVs and 5 APCs along with a lander ship docked inside that could load vehicles in for planetary landing. The Destiny was much too large to land on planets and be able to take off again, so the lander craft could carry 1 SUV and 1 APC at the same time.
On the opposite side of the ship was a large fighter bay which had 12 space fighters. Another feature of the ship was the 9 Puddle Jumper class scout ships docked on top of the ship.
The design of the ship also boasted a large forward facing lounge so you could sit back relax, grab a drink from the fully stocked bar and look at the beautiful sea of stars as the ship hurtled towards the core. Unfortunately this was before you could play games on the lounge tables otherwise many a party would have been held there during the trip.
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The Trip
The ship departed on Monday January 17th 2011 at 1:26am EST, All PTMC members placed an alt avatar on the ship's roster and most were online to see it off. The strategy for this trip was quite simple, The Destiny had an officer, the helmsman was ordered to go sit at the empty power relay station in engineering. The ship was manually piloted, pointed at the core and accelerated up to lightspeed which took 22 minutes, once at lightspeed the throttle was cut and the ship was hurtling through space with no crew at the helm.
The no crew at the helm was done because at the time there was no "Travel to Coordinates" order to give the crew. So if you accelerated the ship to lightspeed and got off the helm the crew member manning that console would stop the ship. Also it was soon discovered that deadheading ships were stopped when the servers were restarted. The ship had to be brought back up to speed several times.
Soon after leaving the ship was stopped by limbo, none of the alt characters aboard could be logged into. This was at about 6:12pm EST on January 17th, believed to have been stuck around Sector (307,0,0).
Haxus teleported the ship back to the PTMC capital and the ship was relaunched at 11:44pm EST on the 17th.
The trip went relatively smoothly after that, however after one close call during the early days with a star it was soon realized that traveling in this manner posed a very slight chance that the ship would slam into a star. Granted the chance of this happening was pretty low but moving through hundreds of systems it could be possible that the path of the ship would intersect with a star.
At the time of the incident Thor was online and manning the helm to re-adjust the course of the ship. The travel path to core ended up being more a zig zag than a straight line and the ship needed to be checked on every day and it's flight path adjusted slightly. As Thor was doing this he happen to look out the bridge window to his left and saw a star dangerously close, he could even see the tiny specks that were the wormholes.
A couple other times near the end of the trip NumberZero reported seeing distant stars directly in the ship's path and thankfully was online to alter the ship's trajectory.
Fortunately the ship did not burn up in the fiery nougat of a star
Another hazard that the intrepid adventurers encountered was meteors striking the docked ships. Fortunately the possibility of having to do repairs during the trip was planned for and the cargo hold was filled with supplies. At first the adventurers were unsure if going walking on the outside of the ship while it was going at lightspeed would be possible. One of the brave bastards was sent out to test it.
The experiment was a success he did not go flying off like expected, however in his celebration dance he hit the jump button and was lost. Good thing berth-a-port was invented.
Manual repairs of the docked ships became a daily routine, these ships were going to be needed for colonization once at the core. Each of the Puddle Jumpers was wormhole capable and would spread PTMC influence across the entirety of the core.
Thor's daily routine consisted of checking the ship's flight path, adjusting it as necessary. Checking and fixing up the docked ships and then going to the lounge and taking a picture looking out with the coordinates displayed. The pictures were taken in case the ship was destroyed before reaching the core, proof would exist as to how far the ship had gotten.
Here are some of those pictures.
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The Arrival
The mission in itself was successful. However, there was nothing noteworthy at the centre. Supermassive Black Holes were not in the game at this point.