Another long break since my last entry. I do have logs for everything else that goes on, and they are voluminous, but sometimes I just don't feel like recording my own thoughts on what is happening. Sometimes, like now, it takes a while before I reach a point where I have enough perspective to record anything of meaning.
I have been through quite a bit since my last entry. I have met friends, traded with hundreds of civilizations, and been forced to fight others. I have built two more satellite constellations, and the AI, which I have named Orrk, is currently processing the first data set. While I wait for Orrk to finish up with that first complete result set, I am waiting in a small universe doing maintenance, refueling, etc... This universe is amazing, just like so many others. It has it's own unique flavor to it. Like others, it has stars, planets, and life. The life is interesting in this universe. There is planet based life like everywhere else, but there is also something far more rare in my experience. In this universe, there is space-born life that lives out in the vacuum. It is not like the Dark Life of the void. More like massive insects. They are very docile, and small ones make for good eating.
Looking at the clock. It has actually been seven years since my last entry. In that time, I think I have figured out why there is a temporal difference between Home and Krath. I dropped some monitor satellites in several more Void Systems, and they are fascinating, each in their own right. Yet I have found slight difference in the temporal deflection of them against Home, Krath, and each other.
The difference appears to be directly related to the space they exist in, and the wider gravitational environment they are in. Home is close to Trost and a couple other large universes. Close in relative terms. Krath is closer to the Speaker than some universes are wide, and then there is the new one I named Yett Ler. I found Yett Ler by accident. It is a construct just like the others, but it doesn't show upon the maps, because it has such a small gravitational footprint. It is only a small white star, two rocky worlds, and a smallish gas giant.
When I compare the gravitational environments, and the spacial state for each system. I see the slightest differences. They're very subtle, but when I pushed the time tracking out to the micro-second, that's where I saw it. The differences in gravitational and spacial environment between the systems, though small, was enough to create a deflection. A very small one that builds up and is really only noticeable over long time stretches, which is where time in Jump comes into play. Most noticeable against Krath because of its proximity to the Speaker.
I have not encountered any Dark Life since that last very close encounter. That said, my constellations of satellites have, and so I have yet more details about them, even if I still cannot tell what they are made of. Their internal structures are very much like some single celled organisms. Only they are the size of planets. They do have organs inside them, though I've no idea what any of them do. They also appear to be at least semi-social, intelligent in some way, and curious. I believe that they were investigating my constellations, as they were themselves being investigated.
There have been many new species I have encountered. Some friendly, some not so friendly, and some down right hostile. The decision to re-work the Viteză Furie with tech from my friends, and all the tech that I picked up from the wrecks at the Speaker, has saved us on several occasions. I don't go in looking for a fight, but the Viteză Furie is more than capable of bringing it now, when it has to.
The biggest issue, and the true reason for such a long time since my last entry. I have run into that same people that chased me, threatened me in my own language, and cornered me in that seven star system. They were perhaps even more hostile than they were that first time. They have not developed much. Their tech is pretty much the same as it was back then, even though it has been several million years, if not more, depending on how generous or conservative I am with the equations. In either case. They were hostile. They demanded surrender, they demanded I subject myself to tests. They demanded a lot, and the response to refusal was weapons fire. Join or be killed was the message, and that they speak what really seems like a derivative of my native language worries me. Are they what my people became? If so, how? Why? Questions I doubt I will ever get answers to.
Another reason that I am just sitting where I am. My last encounter was with those beings. We took some damage, and I am waiting on the printer in the garage to print the needed items to make final repairs. I am also running a full diagnostic, because the ships hull was fully breached from one of their weapons. vaporized one of the fusion plants and damaged the power conduits to the Arc Drive. I was very glad I had added other drive systems that were collected from the Speaker wrecks. I was able to run hard and fast, without using the Arc Drive.
I have seen systems that are constructs, and I don't mean the void systems, but artificial stars and worlds. I have seen at least a dozen constructs that encase their star. I've seen systems made up of ring worlds. I have seen two systems that were multiple ring worlds. Those constructs were simply amazing. Yet, what do you do with something like that when you come across it and there isn't anyone living there? Of those massive constructs, half of them were no longer inhabited by the creators of said constructs. Though, that gave me a real opportunity and I was able to download massive data stores that just amplify what I already have.
I wonder what I am going to do with all the data I have and continue to collect. It is as if I am collecting that data, hoarding it even. I suppose it gives me a purpose, and being out here by myself, even with my pets, I do get lonely from time to time.
Well... It looks like the printer is about to finish up with a part. So, no more brooding. Time to work.