Disclaimer



The Destination - The Country of Origin





M67 Elysium

Cancri Cluster

The Story So Far

Warnings

What's Next?

Remember, this is emphatically

not

Distant Worlds 2, which itself will not be announced until we hear news on what 2.4 or Season 3 brings, as Distant Worlds 3303 will be built around the new content FD bring us. But this is a very important primer for Distant Worlds 2, because we would very much like to set some hard to reach waypoints there, and if you use Distant Stars as motivation to get your ships up to spec, this is more likely to happen.



A Polite Request

Good Luck!

Before I do, I need to clarify something very important. This is not Distant Worlds 3303, this is not Distant Worlds 2. This is going under a different name and is going to be similar to one of the optional waypoints we had on Distant Worlds (akin to waypoint #12; Altum Sagittarrii). It's an optional, but important expedition. It's called Distant Stars, and we are going somewhere seldom few (if any) have ever gone before, we are going to a new place that has had explorers intrigued for nearly 2 years, a place that was always just beyond the horizon, always just out of reach. The Jumponium era came, and yet explorers still couldn't make that final leap into the unknown. But now we can! Neutron supercharges have opened up these once out of bound regions, and, in the spirit of my recent video that shook up the community , the face of exploration is once again going to change as a consequence. This is a mission of science, one that takes us into brand new territory, and will be part of the Galactic Mapping Project (see the description below).[picture of the galmap of M67]Let me tell you about a star cluster called, also designated NGC 2682 - the oldest open star cluster in the Messier catalogue. It's a cluster of stars that is approximately 3000 LYs from Sol. It is home to many stars that are very similar to our G2V class sun, and are about the same age. Because it is close, for many many years, astronomers thought that our sun was probably born there, and was ejected. Astronomers think most stars are born in clusters like these. A paper has come out that surmises that this is actually extremely unlikely, but I like to think that it is still possible.Pilots, we are going to go to M67 and see. You may know it as theWe don't claim to be the first, as others will have most likely been eyeing this cluster for some time too, but Virgil Kyle and I found a route, and we tested it out with Erimus and proved to ourselves that it can indeed be reached. See the video where there is the footage of us making the jump into the entry point of the cluster, AH Cancri, something that hasn't been possible until now, and then after jumping into the cluster itself. We invite everyone to join us and go into the cluster and discover it's secrets together, maybe even find siblings of the sun that shines on us.As you can see, we self-destructed and didn't explore any further. We don't think it is right for this to be something only a select few get to see, so we want to invite everyone to come along and explore it as a community. We hope that Distant Stars will provide everyone with the opportunity to come, and stake claim on something in the cluster, and hunt for interesting things like alien relics, great views, weird stars and orbits, and who knows? We will set up an entire infrastructure for everyone to get involved.Now time for the caveats. This is to be a suicide mission, as there is no proven way back. Maybe Frontier might let us create a gateway back, who knows? But going in, you have to know youwithout a hefty insurance claim. And that's the second point, the insurance will be several million (around 7 million for a stripped down explorer-conda) because the only way there is via a 54-55 LY range Anaconda. That is why we are not going to go out until probably January, perhaps longer, to give everyone a chance to get a long range ship, and for those that can't, multi-crew will be out by then so they can tag along with someone who has.The 3 or so months building up to the expedition will be part of the expedition itself. The challenge of a Distant Worlds expedition is still present in full. We have asked the Rock Rats to set up a service to help people get all the mats needed to engineer their anacondas (see the fourth post in this thread), and there will be programs to help people get the credits to buy them if they don't have them already. It's going to be a big challenge. And again, for those that simply can't do it, hopefully multi-crew will solve that problem and let you guys come with anyway. We hope everyone signs up without the slightest hesitation.We don't do it because it is easy! We do it because it is hard...There will be meetup points, waypoints and we will have a role of cartographer and be assigning (at random) systems to pilots or groups of pilots, to see what they can find. We will also try to establish some kind of reward system for any really interesting finds, like alien sites.It will most likely end with a mass suicide for anyone who wants to go back. It won't be long.Remember, we do not claim credit for being the first to reach this cluster. Chances are players will go there solo before this expedition launches. But compared to a social event, those solo trips will become irrelevant. There is no way to come back anyway so it would be fitting if this particular cluster was explored via a community event, with a scientific purpose, roleplayed or not.The 'Cancri Climb' route will be published closer to the time, and we ask, politely, that should there be any players that want to go there early, please don't give away anything! This special event can be for the entire community to enjoy, and we hope many of you will sign up and help others reach it if they can already.This is potentially the birth place of our sun! I hope it will be for all of us to see and chart together, and not the prize of a few.We look forward to going on this very important, magnificent trip with all of you. Please join us into the Distant Stars.