No Man's Diary #1

Day One

I wake up on a hot, windy planet, and the first thing that happens, after a slow scan of the horizon and my smoking, damaged ship, is a warning from my suit that the temperature is hazardous. According to my HUD, it's less than 40 degrees Celsius, but I take the suit's word for it that the depleting heat bar is a bad thing, and move off in search of shelter and the materials I need to repair my ship and multitool.

Ninchilla Prime (my new homeworld) is a planet of rolling hills and towering plant life, scattered with timid herbivores; in the whole time I spend there, I don't see a single hostile or carnivorous animal (though there is a particularly aggressive plant species I call Mr. Whippy).


There's an almost overwhelming amount of stuff here, most of which I leave with their auto-generated names, although I later regret not renaming the system to something more memorable in case I ever want to come back.

After about an hour and a half scavenging resources from rocks and plants, and a near-combat experience with a roving Guardian drone, I've learned eight or nine words of an alien language, discovered a few upgrades for my ship, suit, and multitool, and gathered the resources and fuel I need to finally take off.

As I leave the atmosphere, I see asteroids, tumbling in orbit around Ninchilla Prime, and a group of huge transport ships off in the distance. Before I rocket off to the space station highlighted by the HUD, I turn around and look back at the planet.

I sit there for a long moment, as the scale of this thing really hits me, and I wonder if this is some miniscule fraction of what real astronauts feel the first time they leave the world that's been their (occasionally-hostile) home for their brief lives up to this point.

The space station is a long way off, in orbit around the system's only other planet (which also has a moon, making me immediately jealous; Ninchilla Prime has no moons). I fly towards it, then when that proves too slow, boost towards it, then, with a little prod from the tutorial UI, fire up the Pulse Drive, and blast towards it, space streaking multicoloured around me.

Fortunately, the ship brakes itself when I get close, and even auto-docks at the station when I fly towards the glowing blue entrance.

Inside is a small, beaked, lizardlike alien called a Gek. I only know a few words of Gek at this point, but his body language and the word "give" suggest that he wants something. I offer him some money, and he's pleased enough to give me an upgrade blueprint in return.

There's a Galactic Trade terminal nearby, so I can clear out some of my meagre inventory space.

I spend a little longer exploring the station, but all the other doors are locked, so I take off again and go to investigate the nearby planet. It's radioactive, and I don't stay long, especially after stumbling across an abandoned outpost covered in a creeping red fungus.

The moon is also radioactive. I'm less jealous now.

I spend a little longer back on Ninchilla Prime, scanning the terrain from my ship and landing at any points of interest I spot. I scan some more animals and plants, then decide that I really ought to continue out into the wider universe.

As I exit hyperdrive for the first time, I immediately crash into a space station.

After a moment to right myself, I dock and introduce myself to the robot inside. I don't speak any of the language, but I make a guess at what it wants, and offer it some materials; it teaches me the word for "rare".

I sit for a long time wondering what to name this system - and who the hell I am that gets to go around renaming everything, considering I just woke up in this universe three hours ago - and eventually decide it needs something dramatic, impressive, and a bit cheesy.

I call the system "Stacker Pentecost".

There are three planets in the system; I call the first Cherno Alpha because it's radioactive. It's also home to a lot of weird animals like the Trash Dragon and Bounding Tentashroom. Scanning from the air, I find a few points of interest, including another fungus-infested outpost where I have the option to pick up a fleshy, toothy multitool. I decline. I find an old ruin that looks like it might have been a temple once. It's got a glowing sphere at the top that teaches me the robot's word for "oxide", and an aggressive creature at the bottom that I don't get close enough to scan.

The second planet - Coyote Tango, because by now there's a theme - isn't radioactive, but it has no atmosphere. This means no fauna, and extra strain on my suit's life support systems. There's another robot here. He doesn't say the word "rare", but I'm able to work out that he's running low on charge, so I give him a battery pack I have and he perks up a bit.

There's a box on the wall with another multitool in it; this one doesn't look like it's been made out of meat; it's chunky, grey - solid. More to the point, it has better upgrades than mine, so I take it.