Tragedy
It had been seven years since Queen Maria I of Portugal had suffered a mental breakdown. and she was no longer fit to rule. Political battles, the death of both her husband and first born son and the fear of Napoleon’s ravaging across Europe were too much for her. The doctor, Francis Willis, who had tended to the British monarch King George III, had declared her insane. Now, it was time for her second son, João to take the throne. Even though he was now ruler of the Portuguese Empire he refused to take the title of King while his mother still drew breath and so he took the title of Prince Regent Dom João IV instead. It is said Maria’s screams and wails haunted the Palace, and would continue to do so for the next eight years.
Ace Buckyball pilot Alec Turner wanted to design a race, but he needed a specific system to do it. He needed a system with dozens and dozens of spaceports and surface settlements that weren’t too far from each other – a system with over a 20,000 ls trip between bodies would just not do. Those ideal systems were out there, of course, but pretty hard to find. It couldn’t be too far from the Bubble either or the race would be less accessible. Eventually, he found the perfect place.
HIP 18477
It had been built by the Brazilian League of Pilots (BLOP) a player squadron made up of Brazilian players, as well as some others from elsewhere in South America. The entire set up had all mainly been named after cites and provinces in Brazil as well as other south and central American countries. Alec got in touch with the leader of the squadron, Ruifo, to ask if they didn’t mind a few dozen lunatics racing around their system for ten days or so. They didn’t. In fact they wanted very much to be involved.
And it turns out, September 7th is Brazilian Independence Day! And therefore the race was to take part around the celebration of that auspicious day.
Welcome to the Rota Latina!
A wonderful race set entirely in the system of HIP 18477.
Rules are simple. Starting at Brazil Starcity, we had fifteen minutes to land at as many stations as we could. It must include at least one planetary surface port and at least one starport. No docking computers. No supercruise assist. As surface ports take longer to approach than orbital ports a bonus allowance of thirty seconds would be added to the allowed time for each one and if we were prepared to fly shieldless with no repairs at any landing we could add a further five minutes to the allowed time.
That last rule is genius. As it all but ensures everyone would go without shields for their runs. Maybe, in retrospect, a hull reinforcement module limitation might have been a good idea, too. But that’s just me. For regulation class, at least, it really makes for an edge of the seat run.
I readied a few of my ships for this. The thirty second bonus per planetary landing rule depressed me slightly as, despite weeks and weeks of practice doing on foot missions with my alt Cmdr. Freya Crescent and spiral approaching every surface site, I still can’t master it well enough. So, thought I’d limit those to just the single mandatory surface port and all the rest could be orbital outposts.
Why outposts? Well, they are a lot quicker to get to once out of supercruise and the mass lock drops away faster when you leave. This also meant I needed to use a small ship as the single medium pad can sometimes already be occupied.
At first I thought I’d go with the Rushfleet’s Imperial Courier the Afterimage but I struggled with my spiral approaches with it. So, in the end, despite giving a Kestrel a bit of a trial, I bought another Cobra Mk V and tuned her as a racer!
The RushFleet welcomes the Anika Niles!
Absolute dream of a small Buckyball racing ship, with a decent jump range, too (not that it was needed for this race).
Once in system and getting used to the layout of all the stations I needed to visit, I was confused about in what order to stop and what outposts would be best. There are so many of them. I realised that with my racing skills I’m not really going to be able to compete all that well and so I used a different method to choose some of my stops.
Pernambuco
To be brutally honest, throughout my entire life I’m afraid Brazil hasn’t been a place I’ve paid all that much attention to. Except in one respect…music, and in particular, heavy metal, and extreme heavy metal at that. Quite a large proportion of my favourite artists happen to come from Brazil. Metal has a relentlessly dedicated and furiously enthusiastic fanbase there. And, with over 9000 registered bands, there is also massively diverse and healthy heavy metal scene. Not only that, many of my favourite non-Brazilian artists who have toured in Brazil will tell you Brazilian metal fans are the best fans on the planet. The Finnish black folk metal band Finntroll toured Brazil for the first time in May 2011. Despite all their lyrics being in Swedish, the Brazilian fans, at every venue, would sing the songs back at them word perfectly.
Now that doesn’t even happen in Sweden!
Now why the state of Pernambuco? Well, I love my grindcore. A style of hardcore punk mixed with extreme death metal typically involving short, fast, blastbeat driven, politically charged tracks innovated by Birmingham based acts such as Napalm Death, Carcass and Bolt Thrower. Having a particular soft spot for the genre I’ve sought bands from all over the world. Antigama from Poland, genre bending Japanese psychedelic/ electronica/grindcore Melt Banana and Islamic grindcore outfit Wormrot from Singapore.
So I naturally checked out bands from Brazil.
Of all the bands I’ve listened to it’s Rabujos, from Recife in Pernambuco who has stood out the most for me. Relentlessly punishing but with sparks of startling originality. A terrific example of the grindcore genre! Unfortunately there are no outposts named as Recife in this system but there is a Pernambuco.
Therefore Pernambuco is on my route!
Flight
It’s November 30th, 1807. From his Imperial throne in Berlin, Napoleon had lost his patience with Portugal. Either they were going to shut their ports to British trade or not and they had been stalling his decree for too long. Every other country in his empire had bowed to his command. It was the vital strategy he needed to conquer those dreadful isles once and for all. A division of nearly 25,000 French troops led by Jean-Andoche Junot and aided by 25,000 Spanish had been making their way, unchallenged, from Spain since the 19th but, hampered by terrible roads and half of his army straggling Junot took eleven days to get to Lisbon and with only 1500 men (the rest still needing to catch up).
Yet there was no resistance. The Portuguese army was virtually non existent and Lisbon was overrun without a single shot being fired. But the Royal Family, including the Prince Regent, the Mad Queen and the entire court, around 10,000 people, were nowhere to be seen. Just a handful of carts of treasure left behind at the port.
Escorted by the British fleet, Dom João VI was fleeing to Brazil, the ships having weighed anchor at 7.00am the previous morning and there was no way Napoleon could pursue them.
Okay! Time for a first run, but…oh yes! Before that I needed to drop a small amount of cargo off at a new orbital construction site newly arrived for the beginning of the race. By dong so, each racer will have placed their names on the news board of the station that will be built there. A sort of racing visitors board – if you will. A fantastic idea by the BLOP. Therefore I dropped a ton or two of steel off there. Now to race!
I had sort of randomly selected stations to land at, making sure to include the four cities or states I’ve focused on with this post. I was generally just toing and froing between two gas giants and the outposts orbiting their moons, but making sure to include the names of Brazilian cites and states I had marked for this post. Initially, the runs felt good, although I seemed to be missing out bookmarks and not counting the visits properly as I grossly overestimated the amount I could do. Of course I turned the shields off and stuck a couple of hull reinforcement modules into the Anika and, because I’m still far too much of a chicken to approach landing pads at suicidal speeds it was more than enough to keep me from needing a rebuy. I bookmarked thirteen stops as Alec had just managed this on his first run and I felt there was no way I’d do that many. Thirteen would easily cover the amount I needed. I sailed around the course for my first run, apart from the first mandatory surface station which took an unsatisfactorily long time to approach. Again, much too cautious which just isn’t Buckyball.
Eight stops with 1:53 remaining. I was confused with timing the race properly, adding time together and figuring out exactly when I had to stop. Usually there is a finish line (back at the start in most cases) and I just work my time out from there but this time I had to work it out before I started. First run, I panicked, thinking I had less time than I did.
But subsequent attempts still only yielded eight stops. It was frustrating to say the least, and more racers submitting runs was pushing me further and further down the leaderboard. Time for a change.
Rio de Janeiro
Heading slightly away from heavy metal now we head back to my blog’s main premise. Rush. This is the RushFleet after all! As I have stated earlier Rush are massive in Brazil, well, if their 2002 Vapour Trails tour is anything to go by. It was the first time Rush had toured the country and tickets to the three shows sold out fast. Rush played to over 125,000 people over those three concerts alone, with the Brazilian fans louder than any other crowd the three guys had played to, singing back loudly and enthusiastically everything they played, including all the riffs and solos from the instrumental YYZ!
And if that wasn’t proof enough Brazil has more than her fair share of Rush tribute acts. Banda Rash (Brasilia), Ghost Riders (Curitiba), Spirit of Rush (Maceio), Sector A (Ribeirao Preto), Karol and the Three Snow Dogs (Criciuma), Fountainhead (teenagers between 15-17 formed in 2023 – Salvador) to name just a handful.
But probably the most prominent of them all would have to be Fleesh. Hailing from Rio De Janeiro Fleesh are so much more than a Rush cover band, they have also released covers of early Genesis, Marillion and Pink Floyd, as well as several albums of their own material. If you are a fan of all the above bands and if you like your music chilled and melancholy yet proggy, you could do an awful lot worse than Fleesh!
A New Home
For nine year old Pedro, son of Dom João IV, the nearly two month journey across the Atlantic had been traumatising to say the least. Storms and fog regularly separating the fleet of barely seaworthy, tired vessels. Six weeks of hunger and squalor. It had been an awful voyage, especially for one so young as Pedro. And every time his ship came within hearing distance of the ship his grandmother, Queen Maria, was sailing on, the screams must have disturbed him terribly.
After a brief stop in Salvador de Bahia, where the locals were so overjoyed to see them they begged Dom João to set his court up there, the Royal Court eventually sailed into Rio de Jeneiro on March 7 to the sound of peeling bells , fireworks, music and cheering throngs celebrating their arrival.
Brazil’s ports were now opened to free international trade and the British were the only ones who were now able to immediately take full advantage. Soon the ports were full of British sailors drinking to excess, refusing to speak the language, getting into brawls and regularly offending local sensibilites.
Some things never change.
Yet for Dom João and especially his young son, they saw Brazil begin to thrive. The relocation of the royal court to Brazil had massively increased her prosperity. The beautiful city of Rio de Janeiro grew around them, and the entire country thrived. And as he became older, Pedro explored the stunningly beautiful lands of his new home. He watched his country grow, watched his country flourish.
And it wasn’t long before he deeply, irretrievably, fell in love with Brazil.
Time to switch to regulation! My regulation Cobra Mk V, the Der Trommler, had been waiting patiently in dock, itching to race. Of course having not had any engineering whatsoever and only using mostly rudimentary core modules would make the route slower. She was fine during supercruise but boosting and manoeuvring toward and around the stations was far more laboured. She’s nowhere near as fast and drifts a lot more making it all too easy to overshoot the pads. I used the same course, no point changing it really as supercruise skill is the main skill needed for this race. So let’s see how I did…
Still eight jumps, although with less time left. I needed a lot more practice. And I tried, I really did, yet, like before, I could never break my eight stop barrier. I didn’t realise it quite yet but I was really starting to struggle with this race. After a few more days of running full sprint into this brick wall, over and over again, I decided to go back to the Anika Niles and maybe try a different route. Maybe try landing on some more planetary surface ports and settlements for those thirty second bonuses.
Sao Paulo
Back to metal! And this time we’re talking about thrash metal. Everyone thinks Metallica invented thrash but it really organically evolved around the Bay Area of San Francisco, influenced by punk and “proto thrash” bands such as Motorhead and Newcastle Upon Tyne’s own Venom. Sure, Metallica recorded the first official thrash album but other bands such as Exodus, Slayer and Anthrax were playing live and releasing thrash demos at the time. Soon it exploded all over the world. In Europe we had Sodom, Tankard, Xentix, the amazing Sabbat from the UK, and not forgetting the wonderful Kreator (my favourite). Even Japan had bands, Outrage and Gargoyle not least among them.
From the nineties and into the new millennia, however, thrash seemed to die off and disappear altogether. Some suspect Metallica of betrayal and killing it off with their Bob Rock produced “Black Album”. Yet in the mid 2000s it came screaming back with a vengeance with amazing bands like Evile, Toxic Holocaust, Gamma Bomb and progressive thrashers Vecktor.
During 2010 in the city of Sao Paulo, one of the greatest thrash bands of the current era were formed. The incomparable Nervosa! First album Victim of Yourself released in 2014 with Agony following in 2016 and Downfall of Mankind in 2018. It is powerful, technical, complex, bouncy, and above all, moshy (back in the 80’s mosh pits only really happened at thrash concerts)! After an amicable split in 2020, vocalist/bassist Fernanda Lira and drummer Luana Dametto left to form death metal band Crypta. Since then both Sao Paulo bands have gone from strength to strength releasing yet more killer albums and completing successful world tours.
King
June 18, 1815. Allied forces led by Arthur Wellesley (Duke of Wellington) and the Prussian commander Field Marshal Blücher defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in Belgium. Portugal is now free of the Empire. In order to prevent the Portuguese royal family having to return to Lisbon, Dom João signed a royal charter elevating the status of Brazil from colony to kingdom giving her equal status to Portugal.
It is also recognised by the Congress of Vienna, giving the charter European legitimacy.
In March 1816, after decades of suffering unimaginable mental and physical torture, Queen Maria I finally, mercifully, died. Dom João now proclaimed himself King, yet he wasn’t consecrated until February 1818. In that time, Dom João’s own wife had been conspiring against him with the nationalists of the Rio de la Plata (now Argentina and Uruguay) This led to the invasion by João of the city of Montevideo and the eventual annexation of Cisplatina Provence (Uruguay) into Brazil.
Pedro had developed into a handsome, adventurous and impetuous young man. Already an accomplished horseman he enjoyed touring the country, hunting on horseback and admiring its beauty. But his favourite pastime was to don common clothing, slip away form his court minders and mingle with the ordinary people of the city. He would stop people in the street and converse, eager to hear of their struggles. Relishing work involving physical labour and artisan skill he took up woodworking and could even shoe his own horses. He also liked to throw on a disguise and frequent some of the more insalubrious establishments of the city. His most endearing habit, especially amongst his men during the campaign in Cisplantia Province, was that he insisted on sleeping in the same accommodation and eating the same rations with his soldiers. He would also frequently complain to the administration whenever he felt his men were being treated unfairly.
He was generally loved by the people and considered a headache by the elites.
You may be forgiven for thinking now Pedro’s father was King, and with the Rio de la Plata kept at bay, things were now looking up.
But their troubles were only just beginning.
Right! Back in the Anika Niles. Time to really make an improvement on my previous runs. The first submission had plenty of time left on the clock, I was sure I could make up at least two more stops. I needed to rethink the route. Out went the frivolous tactic of including the metal cities and provinces of Brazil, and in went what I thought passed as some sort of logical thinking.
I found, according to my skill level at least, having the next stop around 300-500ls away made for an effective, short overdrive burst. Any closer and I almost always overshoot. Plus I was now using surface targets so this increased my choice of stops. Travelling between the two closest gas giants’ moons with all their outposts and surface settlements seemed to be my best bet. I practiced my surface approaches and, as always, for the longest time it seems, they were mostly far too slow, and sometimes much too fast. I have trouble keeping an eye on both the altitude speed bar and the whereabouts of the target at the same time. So either the target ends up at far too steep/shallow an angle before glide kicks in or I don’t notice the altitude speed is in the red until it’s too late and I receive an attempt-ruining “too fast for orbital cruise”.
My surface target approaches kept refusing to improve. But I was running out of time. I spent the early mornings of the final weekend recording attempt after attempt, some with 4 surface targets, some with five. I finally managed two runs that, while not being entirely satisfactory, were at least a slight improvement.
Or so I thought.
When uploading the videos and entering all the necessary timestamps I realised that the final and ninth stops in each one were seconds over the time limit. I was bitterly disappointed. I’m very sorry to admit I began to hate this race. Buckyball could have gone to hell. And it wasn’t because it was a rubbish race, it was because it was a fantastic race. I really, really wanted to do well, and I just hadn’t been good enough.
Come Monday morning, and I’m thinking, yeah…quit now. Just concentrate on writing the report. Come Tuesday afternoon when the final leaderboard had been published, and I was really looking forward to the next race!
Belo Horizonte
Okay! If you are any kind of a metalhead at all you know exactly what band is coming next! The city of Belo Horizonte is famous the world over in metal circles for one, very big, reason…
The story starts with a young, inexperienced A&R man called Monte Conner working for a small, underground record label called Roadrunner Records. You know them? The label which would go on to sign Trivium, Machine Head, Gojira, Nickelback (well, nobody’s perfect) and Slipknot. He received a demo tape from a friend who was in touch with all the underground metal acts from around the world. On this tape were several bands from Brazil but one of them from Belo Horizonte really piqued Montes interest. He listened to their latest LP, only released in Brazil, called Schizophrenia and insisted Roadrunner sign them immediately.
The band’s name was the Portuguese for “Grave”.
Sepultura!
I loved Roadrunner Records. They were responsible for producing albums from some of my favourite bands at the time. Death, Obituary, Deicide. I read all the metal magazines of the time and watched the heavy metal programmes on MTV. “Beneath the Remains” – Sepultura’s third album and first with Roadrunner, took the metal world by storm. It was like they exploded across the scene at lightning speed. It completely blew me away and I joined the UK “Sepultura Fan Club” (still have the jersey). I bought their fourth album, “Arise!” on the day it was released. It was even better than the first. And, of course, I went to see them on the Arise tour at Newport Leisure Centre (all the metal acts tended to play there).
They would go on to be one of the biggest heavy metal bands of all time selling millions of records. My favourite album would have to be “Roots”, a sort of thrash/death metal/punk sound infused with indigenous Brazilian rhythms. A fantastic record.
Therefore, Belo Horizonte was always on my route.
Independence or Death!
It had been six long years in Portugal since Napoleon’s defeat. Portugal had become a sort of British protectorate and had declined severely. For years the Portuguese Cortes (essentially parliament) had been demanding the return of the royal family to Portugal. King João VI insisted his son Pedro go but Pedro steadfastly refused. João, therefore, declared Pedro Prince Regent of Brazil and sailed to Lisbon himself with the Royal Court toward the end of April 1821.
Later that year, the Cortes brought into law legislation to essentially reduce Brazil from a kingdom back to a colony of Portugal and sent orders demanding Pedro himself return to Lisbon. When news of this reached Rio the public were incensed. A huge public petition, headed by the academic and statesman José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva, demanded Pedro remain in Brazil and continue serving as their Prince Regent. On Janurary 9, 1822 Pedro, initially worried about the consequences of what he was about to do, still addressed a huge crowd from the balcony of the royal palace announcing, “Como é para o bem de todos e felicidade geral da Nação, estou pronto: diga ao povo que fico!” (“As it is for the good of all and the general happiness of the nation, I am ready: tell the people that I stay!”) This day, the “Dia de Fico” (Day of I Stay). is celebrated every year in Brazil.
The race to independence had now begun in earnest. Pedro appointed José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva as prime minister, a leading figure in the independence movement who would later come to be known as the “Patriach of Independence”. Pedro’s Austrian wife also fiercely supported him. A month later the Brazilian War of Independence begins when skirmishes break out between forces loyal to Brazil and those loyal to Portugal. By June Pedro creates a legislative body to draft a consitution for Brazil, moving her closer to autonomy.
On September 7, 1822 Pedro is travelling with his men in Sao Paulo near the Ipiranga Brook, hoping to secure political support for his movement. A rider thunders toward them, bearing an important message from his wife Princess Maria Leopoldina and José Bonifácio. It contains a final warning from Lisbon and a decree stripping him af all his authority. Furious, he tears off the Portuguese insignia from his uniform, raises his sword and lets forth the immortal Cry of Ipiranga, “Independência ou Morte!” (Independence or Death).
Fighting continued until March 1824 and Portugal wouldn’t recognise Brazil’s independence until the end of August 1825, but it is September 7, 1822 that Brazilians consider to be their Independence Day.
So, lets look at the final leaderboards, shall we?
Wait! WHAT? Seventeen stops! Good heavens! That…that’s more than twice what I managed! Oh, no, wait, I suppose I could claim 8 and a half maybe so…yeah, look, I’m just going to have a little cry for five minutes…
…sniff…right. Where were we? Oh yes. Shaye. Genius Buckyball racer that he is. Managed to do all planetary surfaces with just the one outpost and none of those surface targets were spaceports with turntable landing pads. Wastes a good ten seconds waiting for the pad to sink, spin and rise back up before you can take off. Settlement pads let you take off as soon as you’ve landed. And his approaches are as close to perfect as it’s possible to get.
Here’s his run so you can wonder at his skill.
Massive congratulations to the winners, just amazing flying. A huge thank you to Rufio and the rest of the South American pilots who took part and contributed to the forums and discord. It has been wonderful getting to know you all and I sincerely hope you join us for races in the future. And maybe even wing up from time to time. And a big, big thankyou to Alec Turner. Who not only gave us a fantastic race, but found us a wonderful system to race in, and allowed us to share our experience with pilots from the other side of the planet. It’s been such a wonderful few weeks. Hopefully the next race won’t be until five years have passed so I have enough time to get those approaches right! Haha!
Until next time Buckyball Fans! o7
