Elite Dangerous 028 Col 285 Sector WL-L c8-40
Don't Panic - Always Carry A Towel
Gordon's Progress - Weaver Vision - Kuiper Depot
Restaurant at The End Of THe Star System
The Grand Tour, PAGE 28
TWO VIDEOS:
The 1st is the typical tour of stations. It happens to have a night landing of the "Restaurant."
The 2nd is focused specifically on the "Restaurant,", because I thought the planet was rugged and beautiful, and wanted a daylight landing for better viewing.
NOTE: All 138 facilities built in this system are listed (and shown) in order of distance from the sun. At least, according to the in-game architect’s view. There's a total of slightly over 18 hours of video, so the video, and the descriptions, are broken into smaller portions across multiple posts.
Some descriptions were written by myself, some with the help of AI. I've personally edited all of them, so if you must blame someone, blame me. :^)
11D Orbital 00
Don’t Panic – Always Carry A Towel (Was Burns’s Folly)
Commercial outpost (Plutus)
DOCK: Medium
I renamed this outpost as part of a “Terry Pratchett” set, having created the surface port “Restaurant at the End of the Star System” since this was one of the furthest facilities in the system. If I’d had enough construction points left in the system, this would have been a Coriolis station, but it was one of my last builds.
I’d been saving this planet, with its orbitals and its 3 surface slots for a whole tourist theme, which didn’t work out. But I still got to do a tribute to Terry Pratchett, with a sense of humor for it’s end-of-the-system back-40 placement. It was supposed to be a Coriolis, and 2 T2 Tourist stations, and the Civilian outpost.
Ran out of points, made the hard choices, and suddenly it became a Refinery economy (and a very successful one, especially on the civilian outpost,) at the tail end of the system. Still had my heart set on a Pratchett theme.
This was one of just a few custom names I paid ARX for, that weren’t a tribute or memorial to family.
Something in honor of Terry Pratchett was my main goal, but since it was the last planet in the system with significant potential, I wanted it and the surface port to be something worthy of a trip out this far. In spite of not having a Coriolis, I'm happy with it.
11D Orbital 01
Gordon’s Progress
Comms Installation (Alethia)
DOCK: NONE
\Writing as David Gordon, Randall Garrett was a defining voice of the Campbelline era, known for his relentless logic and wit. Under this specific pseudonym, he famously manipulated reader expectations in Analog, often using the name to publish multiple stories in a single issue without cluttering the contents page. This alias is most synonymous with his high-concept "puzzles," but the man behind the name, Randall Garrett, remains the true titan of the work. His crowning achievement is the Lord Darcy series, a masterful fusion of locked-room mystery and alternate-history magic that treats sorcery with the cold precision of forensic science. In his later years, Garrett’s legacy shifted toward the Gandalara Cycle, a sweeping "sword and planet" epic that remains a beloved staple of the genre for its evocative world-building and telepathic bond between man and giant cat.
Gemini AI wrote the above.
To add my own note, I’ve read and enjoyed the Lord Darcy books.
But the epic that lives in my soul forever is the Gandalara Cycle. The story focuses on a man who finds himself trapped in a strange world, trying to figure out why. In the process, the entire direction of the book is guided by his unwavering sense of honor.
Talk about a man I’d respect… this was one of my all time favorite characters, in a 5-book set that I've read so many times the binding has fallen apart.
Later, I found out that David Gordon/Randall Garrett was an undisciplined womanizer, unfaithful to his amazing wife (Vicki Ann Heydron), a drunkard, and generally disreputable person.
It bothered me for years, trying to figure out how such a horrible person could write such an honorable character with such a depth of emotion. I eventually found out. It’s a tragic story. In short, he got terminally ill and lost his ability to write and create. His wife, also a successful author, spent years writing the Gandalara Cycle in his behalf, and gave him lead credit for the writing. It’s worth looking up.
But when I was reading a tale of honor and faith… it was Vicki Heydron I was reading. Someone who understands more than most what it means to sacrifice everything for love.
11D Surface 00
Weaver Vision
Refinery Hub (Silenus)
DOCK: NONE
Won the jackpot on random names…
While Sigourney Weaver cemented her "Sci-Fi Queen" status by surviving the ultimate extraterrestrial nightmare as Ellen Ripley in the Alien franchise, she totally owned the genre by brilliantly satirizing it in Galaxy Quest.
She played Gwen DeMarco, the actress behind Lieutenant Tawny Madison—a character relegated to the role of "ship’s eye candy." Weaver perfectly captured the meta-frustration of a seasoned pro forced to navigate a "real" spaceship while mocking her own ridiculous TV tropes. Whether screaming, "Whoever wrote this episode should DIE!" in the hallway of "chompers," or shouting, "I have ONE job on this ship! It's stupid, but I'm going to do it!"—referring to her task of repeating the computer’s voice—she proved that she didn't just lead the genre, she understood exactly how to poke fun at it.
I'm so stoked to get "Weaver Vision", I had to stop playing to explain it to Monique. She doesn't follow a lot of my name choices, but this one... this one she shared in my excitement.
And to add the cherry on top, we were celebrating my birthday a couple of days ago by watching Galaxy Quest (for the umpteemth time), courtesy of my son and his wife. They had found a 4k Ultra Hi Def DVD of it, and sent it as my birthday gift.
So it was an all-rounder Galaxy Quest birthday this year!
(I had already scored a station name earlier for Tim Allen, “Allen’s Folly.” Getting Weaver Vision made it even better.)
Also very cool, and worth noting, that with Weaver Vision, this little planet plays tribute to two giants of comedic sci-fi, Galaxy Quest and Hitchhiker's Guide.
11D Surface 01
Kuiper Depot
Refinery Hub (Silenus)
DOCK: NONE
Gerard Kuiper (1905–1973) is the Dutch-American astronomer who essentially "discovered" the modern solar system's architecture. He is best known for proposing the existence of the disc of icy bodies beyond Neptune, which we now call the Kuiper Belt. While he didn't write fiction, he was the doctoral advisor to Carl Sagan. His research on the atmospheres of Mars and Titan provided the scientific "grounding" for generations of hard sci-fi writers who wanted their stories to be realistic.
In a twist worthy of a thriller, Kuiper served in a secret military mission called Alsos at the end of WWII. He actually went behind enemy lines in a jeep to rescue the legendary physicist Max Planck before Soviet troops could capture him.
All told, Kuiper seriously earned his place in this list.
11D Surface 02
Restaurant at The End of The Star System (was Park)
Civilian Surface Outpost (Clotho)
DOCK: Large
This was originally going to be part of a tourist planet, as I mentioned above.
It was the furthest planet in this system that had multiple surface slots, and orbitals. It was intended for one of the final big projects, but as the points started running out, I realized my options were limited.
I wanted an asteroid station lined up in the middle of the system where most of my Coriolis stations are. And I wanted a Tourist planet, with Coriolis. There were only enough points to do one… or the other.
A tourist planet made sense, being this far near the end of the system. But I wanted the asteroid base more. So the planet got the old standby; a couple of refinery hubs, and a civilian surface outpost.
That being the case, the surface outpost received the “Restaurant at The End of…” title, and the main orbital slot got the “Don’t Panic” title. They were too fun to let go of, even if the build didn’t go as planned.
Even though it wasn’t the “Tourist Facilities with Coriolis” that I’d planned, it still got to be the Terry Pratchett tribute, at the very last good stop for the whole system.
It was a comedy of errors and misplanning that I think Terry Pratchett would have approved of.
And, as mentioned above, the planet is one of my favorites. When I did the group facilities video, Restaurant at the End of the Star System was nighttime, and I was disappointed that I couldn't enjoy the planet view while landing. Enough so, that I made a separate video just to have a daylight landing.
Sounds simple, right? Except this planet seems to have a very slow rotation, and it took 3 days of my life, waiting and checking all day long each day, before the outpost was in daylight.
All's well that ends well, and finally, have a video I'm very happy with.
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