Eve Gate

I tried to get to it once before, months ago when I was still based in Arzi with Atrocitas. Unfortunately, between Arzi and New Eden, there's a pesky 0.5 system in the middle of Aridia that I couldn't get through thanks to my low sec status. And I know, you say 'Of course you can get through there, silly! Just warp immediately!' Sorry to disappoint: I did lose a ship in there - a helios - when I was travelling down to join Tygris in Syndicate. You can't evade the local police 100% of the time.

Ah, but! But! I'm now based in Genesis, only a few quick jumps from the Gate. I logged in a couple days ago to see one of our guys saying, 'You should come check this out!' and decided I would, along with a few others. It was hardly a fleet op; all of us going independently down in little ships, some incapable of being anything more than a buffer tank around our pods. Some of the local reds clearly wondered what the hell we were doing; one of them was ratting/complexing in a Cerberus a couple systems down the pipe, and one of the local neutrals caught up and passed me in his Malediction a system past it. I ninja'd up on a planet in Promised Land to wait till the Malediction got off the gate (pardon me if an inty on a gate makes me a tad nervous), and watched a red jump into New Eden in a Hyperion.

This ought to be interesting.

The last of our 'fleet', a friend of one of our guys, showed up in an unfitted Rifter and jumped in as I was in warp. Arriving on the other side, I noticed two things at once: first, the absolutely amazing view, and second, that our blinky Rifter friend had been tackled on the gate by the blinky neutral Malediction (see, this is why inties make me edgy - they don't get aggro for shooting me, either) with the Hype sitting there sounding incredulous:

[ 2008.08.29 20:10:43 ] unclesam88 > you came all this way just to gawk at this thingy>?

Yes, yes we did. Is there anything wrong with that? I once went 80-odd jumps through 0.0 to see the Ruins of Steve, evading a gatecamping BoB titan's DD in the process. The little jaunt to the Gate was nothing, by comparison.

The Hype left, the Rifter went pop, one of our guys warped in to bait the inty, who bit... not noticing that Thmuses wasn't blinky like the rest of us.

[ 2008.08.29 20:18:05 ] Teilla > oops :P
[ 2008.08.29 20:18:45 ] Chakrai > ...
[ 2008.08.29 20:18:51 ] Teilla > booze ftw
[ 2008.08.29 20:18:55 ] Chakrai > rofl
[ 2008.08.29 20:18:58 ] Thmuses > ?
[ 2008.08.29 20:19:07 ] Captator > can we have km please- ceo needs to know we did something pvp orientated ^^
[ 2008.08.29 20:19:14 ] Chakrai > did thmuses whore onto the mail?
[ 2008.08.29 20:19:46 ] Teilla > only sentrys
[ 2008.08.29 20:19:50 ] Thmuses > nope
[ 2008.08.29 20:19:54 ] Teilla > he didint even lock me

Normally, I'd say alcohol and pvp go quite well together, since some of my best memories are from drunken ops... in nullsec. Alcohol and sentry guns don't mix quite so well.

Teilla left in his pod, we buzzed about for a little taking pictures, but never did try to see what happens if you try to get close to the Gate. On the way home, Cap sets a different route.

[ 2008.08.29 20:41:10 ] Captator > we gonna go look at the monolith too while we down here

I'd forgotten about the Monolith. Like many other hidden features of Eve, it doesn't appear on the map. I never would have known it was there.

Think 2001: the Monolith is a reference, a big, black rectangular solid drifting in space. If it's meant to have any significance in the development of Eve history, I've not heard it. It looks impressive, and I'd love to know if anything interesting happens if you bump it. And yes, it is indeed full of stars.

The run back home was uneventful, though there was some fun involving getting stuck on the ruins of a mining outpost on one of the gates on the way home. That is one damned treacherous gate, though there's some logic in putting an outpost right on it... wonder if that's meant to be a relic from the early days, or if it was just put there to make people nervous ^_^ The development of Eve's background and history is something I find fascinating, and is one reason I've trained an alt for exploration. Someday I'll send her on a Grand Tour, but for now I'm content to pvp and be a bad girl ^_^