Britnev Platform, Raguvii System
I hate politics.
A perfectly useful rare goods run turned into a grim death march when the tide of politics shifted faster than my star drive could compensate, and, suddenly, Star Fury was behind enemy lines.
That’s the bad news. I’m behind enemy lines, and every major star port is a shooting gallery if I try to dock.
The good news, as much as I can garner, is that each star system, regardless of declared allegiance, has pockets of neutrality (or better) within it. These pockets are not, in fact, declared, nor are they obvious to the casual observer, nor are they, in retrospect, the “good guys”.
Basically, all the major star ports are evil. Everyone else, is possibly not evil, and possibly okay long enough to top off the ol’ fuel tanks before running like hell.
What they are is, in fact, ports in a storm. Places to refuel, resupply, and, if we’re lucky, re-arm.
And that, ladies and gents, has been the story of my life for the last four months.
The insurance I purchased on my ship covered everything except the cargo in her holds and the nav data in her navcomps. That got me past the initial shock of the rapidly changing political landscape and into a survival mode that has made it possible for me to lurk my way from the heart of Empire territory into a gray area in which neither Alliance nor Empire has complete sway over the local constabulary.
In other words, I’ve been sleazing my way through the galaxy.
While that sounds somewhat amusing in a Better Call Saul way, it’s a life or death situation from behind the joystick. Here’s the deal. While the whole Alliance/Empire thingy has its little moments on the Galactic News Network, us little grunts in the virtual trenches are getting shot up like swiss cheese.
By the way, the “virtual trenches” are a lot less beautiful to the pilots manning the ships-cum-shrapnel than our “faction leaders”, and the only thing keeping us from being footnotes in the galactic epic is the fact that we can afford it. The various refugees and passengers buying passage in our holds … not so much. Nobody mourns them. Not even the pilots. We’re just too happy to be alive to really have opinions on the gunfire erupting around us.
The Milky Way is huge, and any sane being would appreciate that all of Humanity forms a little bubble that accounts for maybe 1/6 of the entire galaxy, which, I must point out, is a speck in the grand scheme of things.
And that’s the punch line in all of this. While we’re struggling about who’s flavor of poutine is the best poutine, some unusual critters are scoping us out.
I want to point out that I have had nothing to do with any of these discoveries, and in fact, I, for one, welcome our new Thargoid Overlords. Business is business, after all.
http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/DP%20Sayre/video/25338081/embed
OOC: not saying the Elite guys are borrowing from other peeps, but:
All I ask is a piece of the action.
Proceed to Landing Pad Derp 
