Ok, this is like, what the heck?!
I have been trying to get on TU all blessed day, but there's been something wrong with my display driver, or something. When I logged on, the game froze up and crashed, my resolution was reset to 640x480, and color set to four bits. With came a message to re-start my PC. This happened all day, until I decided to first go to my planet instead of starting in space. This time it worked, but when I arrived in space, I find my hull to be at 83%, and my deaths at 46 (they were forty five the last time I was online) and my faction power now reduced to three instead of four.
What happened when it was glitching?! Could my ship have somehow stayed online and sitting there while I was not there? This is very confusing...