Sole is an exploration solo game by James Mullen and was originally posted on his blog, Groudhoggoth. I discovered it last year but never got around to playing. No time better than the present.
For this playthrough, I will randomize the discoveries and emotions. After five posts, we will be done.
Discovery = A rare event involving two or more bodies
Emotion = Fear
Let’s Go:
The following is a classified transcript of an interstellar transmission…
Good Morning. This is Commander Marco Cerinza of Sol III, the third launch of the Pioneer Project. My duty is report back any new findings while on humankind’s first forays outside of our solar system. I woke from cryo-sleep yesterday and it took me the better part of the last 24 hours to recover from the cryo-flu.
It seems there was a slight malfunction when the cryopod shut as the strap over my left wrist must have caught in the mechanism. Luckily the strap must have broke before it amputated my hand but the fiberglass certainly rubbed off the majority of my skin there. Good thing I was already deep in cryo-sleep because I didn’t feel a thing…until I awoke. The wound is clean and dressed now but I fear I may be without the use of my left hand for a while. I am grateful that the ship is fully automated and has a suitable stock of painkillers..
I do not know how long I have been on my journey for the computer system is still running self-updates. Have I slept for 5 days or 5 centuries? I have yet to open the viewport on the craft out of fear of discovering something went wrong and I am still in the solar system. If the that is the case, then I would be forced to override the computer for a possible long, useless journey back home.
Who am I kidding? I knew this would be a one-way trip either way. Opening the viewport now. Oh my gosh! Well, it’s safe to say that I am no longer in our solar system. I don’t even know how to describe what I’m seeing! It’s beautiful. Wow! I seem to be looking at a black hole surrounded by a cloud of purples and greens and blues. Swirling ever so slightly. Caught in its grasp is a star who is giving off a stream of light only to feed the ever-growing maw. The computer shows me that we are at a safe enough distance for observation but yet I can’t control my imagination. I keep thinking that, what if…what if the computer is wrong and we are slowly being sucked into this hole of nothing.
But why should I fear this? It is just as much a part of our universe as I am and whoever’s listening to this broadcast. You know the night before launch I couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t just the fear for my life but it was a fear of leaving everything I’ve ever known, everybody I’ve ever known. The space agencies purposely picked pilots that were not married and didn’t have children knowing the finality of these missions. But is that to deny the fact that I’ve loved before? And to think of the faces of those I’ve loved will never be seen again whether or not I get sucked into this black hole. Is it an honor to be able to see the great feats of creation and destruction that I see right now even knowing that I’ll never see the blue sky of Earth ever again?
To see something so massive fills me with fear and terror knowing that as an individual I am nothing. Or even an entire planet like Earth would be nothing next to the scale of this. I fully trust in this computer and what it’s telling me about the safe distance, but yet I can’t help but feel the black hole’s gravity pulling at my own heart. I feel as if it will burst out of my chest, crash through the viewport and slowly make the frozen journey towards the center of the spiraling clouds. I watch in terror but yet I can’t take my eyes away from the beauty
*Sound of the viewport closing
*Two minutes of silence
I am sorry for the dead air…it took me awhile to gather my senses. Phew! One hell of a first day on the job. I think I need some rest.
This is Commander Marco Cerinza of Sol III signing off.
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