Querious ice belt full#

Just because an ocean is blue doesn't mean the air is breathable. The planets are deserted partly because these are (supposed to be) the Drone Lands, and partly because not all of them are habitable. There are occasional oases of tranquillity in nullsec but very few of these benign-looking terrestrials have anybody living on them other than capsuleer 'PI Colonies' or isolationist weirdo setups that are escaping from something. Do they just want to be left alone to do their Drone thing? Whose territory is this? Is it really the Drone Lands now or, in the case of the constellation I daytripped in, is it the territory of 'Hells Pirates'? The Rogue Drone collectives that are to be found in Etherium Reach attack on sight, just like they all do everywhere they occur. Skarkon system: controversial after what happened on Skarkon II when theĬartel spontaneously orchestrated the equivalent of a sov grab there. My father always said make no big decisions before chai.Įtherium Reach is accessible from Molden Heath through the disputed This ship is the most exotic kettle in New Eden. The boiler starts to whistle like the ancient kettle that it is - it's that thing about staying grounded again. Give me thirty minutes and then I'm jacking-in. She could present Scope News with Haveri. This is the captain's lounge in Empress of Amarr, in high orbit above a gas giant in some system-or-other - I'm not sufficiently awake yet to remember where this is. The vivid torchlight from the blue giant out there is startling. Then I reach up and open the blind in front of the window and say: 'Kitchen window, clear, medium shade.' In a nanosecond the window changes from opaque to clear, so quickly that its previous state seems like a false memory. Ahead of me and the sink is a large, closed, slatted blind that is set into the wall and merely an affectation - a style statement - because behind that is a window that is currently electrochromically opaque, so I don't need a blind but since when did necessity outweigh style? Haveri is still talking about the SoE as I switch the boiler on. A day started without a properly-brewed fine chai is a day wasted, and synth-chai is totally unacceptable.

Querious ice belt full#

The kitchen is full of seamless doors and is all sleek metal utilitarianism everywhere, except for the fifty-year-old boiler that I bought in one of Mishi IV's many bazaars, and which now sits on the shelf by the sink. Haveri's voice follows me from room-to-room. Lights activate in each part of the apartment as my presence is noted. The lounge area is over there to the right. I get out of bed, do a few stretches, then walk round the end of the bed and out of the door that swishes open as I approach it, then enter the kitchen next-door. It's something about the Sisters of EVE again. Summary.'Īlton Haveri's disembodied dulcet tones emerge from the wall. I turn my head in the direction of the holovid and say 'Scope News, audio only, low volume. I have a walk-in wardrobe in here too, which is awesome. The wall to my right has a couple of other small displays with some random wall art completing the decor. There is a bookshelf by the bed with some actual books in it, such as a hardcopy of The Achuran Book of the Dead (Translated & Unabridged) because I'm riffing on Caldari-lit right now.

I've furnished the room with some ancient Ni-Kunni artifacts like a thousand-year-old tapestry rug that I've hung on the wall behind me and opposite the holovid a kind of cultural juxtaposition that makes me feel less like a capsuleer and more like a normal person who has a normal life. I went for various shades of 'warm' with the decor: pastel oranges and reds that suggest sunrise or sunset. My bedroom is only the size of a small lounge and has a low ceiling. I welcome the quiet since I'm not jacked-in and my implants are banded-down and not functioning, so there is no cluster-noise being transmitted to my head whether I want it or not. Then the snooze alarm triggers and the lights in the room begin to grow in brightness. I lie there in bed with my eyes shut for a few more minutes. Silence, except I can now discern a gentle, faint humming in the background that my foggy and semi-awakened brain attributes to traffic noise outside. It currently displays the time in the top right corner in faint green numbers a metre tall. It's actually more of a gentle, benign chime through the oversized holovid on the wall opposite which is all cutting-edge multi-purpose media centre with no expense spared. Prologue: Morning - The Ni-Kunni Tea Ritual