It was a simple life mining, but someone had to do it. I have always enjoyed mining to see the planets and get around the place. Sure, jobs never lasted forever as one mine ran dry or company went under, I'd wander the stars and land on my feet in another mine.
The records are a bit unknown. I can pilot a ship and know my way around a weapon or three. Yet most would never know that as I mostly kept to myself and mined rocks for a living. That was till one faithful day that all changed.
It was the start of a shift with a new company. I took the mineshaft elevator down to the belly of the beast of a mountain we were mining in. Since I was seen as a rookie, I was not going to indicate that I was not. The mining supervisor went to show me the ropes.
Sometimes I just love to stop and stare at the overall mining setup. I could tell these people were rather small time. As far as what they were mining, I doubt it was worth more than the cost to acquire it. However, as long as a paycheck rolled in, I could hardly care about the financial condition the company was in. I prefer not to be in one place for too long anyway.
It appeared to me that these people were mostly just following caverns around looking to save a lot of money and time in search of something. Most of what they had found appeared to be rather low-yielding and not worth the time in my eyes.
Once in a while, you could tell they hit a vein of something. That is when they moved in some heavier equipment to carve out some rather short tunnels. It seems they lucked out quite a lot and hit another cave after only moving a good fifty steps or so of material.
Eventually, we got deep enough that we had to wear a helmet since this planet had quite a low oxygen level. There was some ventilation for air. It was, however, far cheaper and safer for everyone to have a spacesuit and tank. That would put certain limitations on how hard you could work while the Co2 scrubbers worked in the suit. I can admire being lazy from time to time when no one is watching your back deep in a mine.
After far too much talking by the supervisor, I was finally permitted to pick up a cutter and go off exploring a little bit on my own. Other employees were supposed to be showing me around. Since that was not needed, I ended up finding my own quite a little place in the mine.
I stood around for a while looking like I was dealing with a jammed-up tool. If anyone was paying attention, they would see that was not the case. However, everyone was far too busy in their little worlds to care much.
On occasion, I'd hear people reporting to the supervisor that the vein they were mining yield dropped by a huge amount no longer worth mining. They would be ordered to move up to the next one that was uncovered. From the look of it, they were running out of space and quickly catching up to whatever they had left to mine.
I, however, could not stand around all day doing nothing. Truth be told it took me almost no time whatsoever to mine out the Beryllium I was tasked with getting. Thankfully no one noticed I had a few tricks up my sleeves that many of their more senior miners were not deploying to mine quicker.
After collecting some ore, it was time to move forward. The supervisor wanted to show me if I worked hard, I might be allowed to play with the heavy equipment one day. If that day were to ever come, they would quickly find that I have no interest in that would vanish without saying another word. Thankfully today I just got to watch as the machine punched through the wall into yet another cave network.
I would soon discover to my shock that the beryllium mining operation going on here was nothing more than a front. Great as if I needed something far more complex going on. I was hoping this backwater of a planet was going to be nice and quiet. It would have been nice to have spent a few years here kicking some rocks around.
At the time I had no idea that chasing around weird gravity reading in mine would end up being my new career path in life. We were ordered to keep going and to follow the cave network even deeper into the mine.
Then we came across this rather strange-looking ore. I have never seen anything quite looking like this in my life. What was even stranger was that the supervisor instructed me to go and mine it. You would think they would task something like this with someone they did not view as a rookie.
Perhaps they thought mining for this material might be dangerous. If a rookie got injured or killed. They could just chop it up to some training accident. It would not be the first time a mining rookie died on their first day on the job.
The closer I got to the ore the more excitement I could hear in their voices. It was almost like they were expecting this to be some kind of huge payday.
All I know is it took a lot more effort to free whatever this was. It was not the cubed-looking material that was being sliced off by the cutter that we were after. There was something embedded within, and I did not need to worry about being careful around it with the cutter either. It seemed to be quite strong.
After far longer than I was expecting it seemed whatever it was had been freed. I went to collect it so I could give it to the supervisor, and we could get out of there. It should have been nearing the end of my shift anyway. That is when my life changed forever.
The moment I touched it I was no longer standing deep within some mine somewhere on a backwater planet. I was seeing the universe and many other things I did not understand unfold right before my eyes.
At some point, I must have blacked out. I found myself on a medical table. Other than that, it seemed I surfed no major damage. My thoughts raced about the experience I had wondering if there was a leak or something in my space suit and I had just hallucinated about the entire experience.
I always find it a bit fun that the game lets you play slightly before taking you to the character selection screen. As the player it makes me feel a little more connected with my character in the game and want to spend a little more time on finding a decent look. This I did end up doing.
While this was not exactly the most exciting introduction to a game I've seen before character creation. It was not the worst either. I somewhat prefer it if they slowly roll it into a far more defining moment anyway. I think as gamers many of us are over yet another crash-landing start to a game and it was great, they put you in a mine at the start instead.
Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Starfield.
Disclosure: Starfield received for free through AMD rewards from the graphics card I purchased.
