Sweet Little Bad Girl

A Change of Pace

2011-12-10T16:25:00.004-05:00

Thanks to the forced change in my EVE play-style -- it is very difficult to get back into the game when I can't interact with the people I've known for years -- this blog will probably not have nearly as much ingame EVE stuff going into it. After all, I can't tell you what I'm doing anymore!

SLBG will be shifting focus into a general gaming blog; at least it won't need a facelift! If you have no interest in reading about games other than EVE, I won't be (too) put out ;)

Update

2011-12-08T00:27:00.004-05:00

I will no longer be available for contact ingame as I have been re-hired.

Any and all updates on this blog should be taken as personal opinion only; all fiction pieces should be considered precisely what they are: fan-fiction.

I intend to remain close to the community. Feel free to stalk my twitter feed if you want @HellcatBeth. It's not an official feed by any stretch of the imiagination, though I may see about reawakening @CCP_MaidenSteel under my new dev name.

That is all.

Recent Events

2011-10-24T12:52:00.005-04:00

My, it's been a while, hasn't it? In my defence, I was hired by CCP at FanFest and shortly thereafter required to go to radio silence.

I am one of the 20%. Last Wednesday, I lost a job I loved, working for a noble cause with people I came to care for dearly.

All any of us wanted was to help make EVE, Dust, and WoD the best they could be. And you better believe I'm still playing the game now. The people, the community and the team behind it all mean a hell of a lot to me.

I am now going to be very blunt and give you an insider's perspective on the events of the past few months.

Let's start with Monoclegate: the massive, public flap over the introduction of the NeX store and several corporate communications being leaked.

I don't like the Noble Exchange. Pricing aside, the contents are ugly and not worth paying money for. I'm perfectly of the mind that if you don't like it, you don't buy it. The threat of including items that would actively affect the game, however, is something I can get onboard protesting. Here's why:

Many MMOs have gone free to play with microtransactions providing goods and services: access to expansion content, gear, shiny things to decorate ingame houses, whatever. A lot of these things have an effect on your ingame stats; I shall call these things "Bonussed Gear" beacause "Gold Ammo" is misleading. Yet nowhere has there been such an outcry against these until it was a possible addition to EVE. The reasoning behind this is simple. Most MMOs provide PVP on a selective, optional basis. Many players never touch the PVP zones; their Bonussed Gear is used against NPCs. Those people who do PVP are guaranteed to be on an even standing with other PVPers there because they have all bought Bonussed Gear. There is no inequality.

EVE, on the other hand, was built on the concept of all PVP all the time. By clicking that Undock button, you're accepting the risk of nonconsensual PVP. Every time you open the market window or contracts, you're accepting the risk of being scammed. Every time you talk to another player, you're accepting the risk that they might not be playing nice. Bonussed Gear, paid for with real money in EVE, would be used against players who had not made the same investment; conversely, it can be lost as easily as anything else if the other, non-bonussed players are better or get the drop on you. EVE's balance is such that a pack of newbies can overwhelm an experienced player, and unlike in other games, Bonussed Gear in EVE would not be as much of an automatic win-button. The loss would not only be time and effort -- as with all current losses in EVE -- but also a paycheque.

(As an aside, I am aware of the MT uses in World of Tanks, APB: Reloaded and other PVP-based games; these games were designed/redesigned around a MT model that puts all players on an even standing and the only thing you can potentially "lose" is bonussed ammo.)

I felt -- still feel -- that the EVE is Real motto does not need to be boulstered by costing players real money to enjoy it. EVE is already Real: the loss I felt when I was unable to play the game as I have done since 2007, unable to socialise with the ingame family I've become a part of, made that abundantly clear. Every time someone rages after losing a ship, or being scammed, or having their corp swept out from under their feet because they trusted the wrong person, it proves EVE is Real.

Now that that's out of the way with, let's talk about the players' reaction to all of this.

You people are rude, when your ire is up. You're so eager to shoot the messengers, you seem to forget that they're only messengers; the message is coming from higher up, from people you never interact with avatar-to-avatar. Raging at the GMs, insulting the Community team, blasting vitriol at Content developers who are trying to create something fun for you with spontaneous live events... this is not the behaviour of adults. It hurts us, it makes us wonder why we try to do good things for you with a game we all love.

Contrary to popular belief, the developers do play EVE. We just can't tell you who our characters are, for very good reasons. I logged into EVE almost every day, for at least an hour or two. For over a month, I had to maintain my silence, close chat windows, and run the game like a solo RPG because I could not in good conscience join a conversation anywhere. Try to put yourselves in our shoes: we're just people, trying to improve a game we love, and we're being abused verbally for it.

The layoffs worry me.

Let me put this in perspective: after all the shit heaped on us over the summer, things were beginning to look up. We'd had an internal reshuffle which was frustrating but gave us hope that the new teams would be able to deliver what we were promising. There were new initiatives that had everyone thinking positively. I felt that, if we could pull all of this off the way we were planning, it could completely revitalise EVE and bring back at least a little of the old game I started playing four years ago. Morale was high, people were really putting their backs into it again. It was going to be Apocrypha 2.0.

And then the sucker-punch was delivered.

I was just an intern with the Content department; I knew if the shit hit the fan, I was expendable, but I was willing to take that risk because EVE means a lot to me. What makes me sad, and angry and worried is that many others who were let go were counting on that job security. We were told we were alright only a few weeks ago, people were getting ready for the office move by buying new houses closer to Decatur, moving to new apartments, getting their kids' schools sorted out. And all of a sudden, the company we poured heart and soul into has told us it can't keep us on.

Some of these people have been here for YEARS and were right in the middle of important projects for the upcoming expansions. They know more about their part of game development than anyone else in the company. I've seen a lot of, "Great! CCP should stop working on WoD and focus more on EVE." I've got a news flash for you: the WoD teams, EVE teams and Dust teams were almost entirely separated from each other. Letting go of dedicated WoD devs won't improve EVE or Dust. It'll just push WoD development back by a significant margin.

Telling CCP to drop WoD for EVE is like asking the Content team at DragonCon when hybrid turrets are going to be fixed. One does not affect the other.

Speaking of the Content team, it's been decimated. They (not I, I wasn't offered this) were told they had to either move to Iceland or accept severance. Most took severance because they have responsibilities here: children in school, spouses with careers, rental agreements and bills and car payments. These are people who were working on the most content-heavy drive CCP has ever pursued. Now they're gone, and everyone's happy that CCP is refocussing? The mechanics end of the game may be in good shape for a while yet, but anything requiring more multi-disciplinary work will suffer.

Will I continue to play EVE? Yes.

Will I continue to check CCP's hiring lists for Content Writer openings? Damn straight.

Will I worry that, because of this last setback, CCP won't be able to pick up the pieces?

Unfortunately, yes. Only time will tell if they can pull through it.

You can cancel your paid accounts, switch only to PLEX, get rid of unnecessary alt accounts, boycott the NeX. I don't care if you're paying money or not.

But please, if nothing else, try to support the people who are working on EVE, Dust and WoD. If you truly care about the future of any of these games, don't rage at the people who only want the same as you do. The support of the community is integral to the success of the game.

And keep blogging. They hear you.

Eye of the Serpent -- Episode One "The Black Freighter"

2011-03-25T13:45:00.006-04:00

First launched in YC93, Eye of the Serpent earned immediate notoriety for both its ambitious script and its simplistic production design. Now celebrating the twentieth anniversary of its release, the cast and crew have been reunited to share their memories of the experience, offering a unique glimpse behind what has become one of the Federation's most iconic holoserials.

JAIAL RHEINN (Writer)

"Eye of the Serpent was... well, my first professional work, I'd have to say. I did other holoserial scripts before, but those were just one-off episodes; Eye was the first production I was fully in charge of, and I really, really pushed the limits. I created two main characters, one of whom wouldn't even appear until the second year. There was Adrian Fray, who was this FIO agent working under deep-cover within the Serpentis, feeding intel back to his handlers and trying to-to keep the outlaws from getting too powerful. Then there was Gamma Reyvis, who was this really quite ambitious underling of Salvador Sarpati, who fancies herself a better leader for the Serpentis. It was complex, dark, very serious with... I tried to inject a very dry, gallows-type humour. (laughs) I like to think I succeeded."

KEI LeMAR ("Adrian Fray")

"When I was first approached by the producers to play Adrian, I didn't quite know what to make of it. It was more ambitious and boundary-pushing than most holoserials at the time, and... I think the portrayal of people like Sarpati, people who are not only still alive but well-known... made it a bit risky (laughs)."

CORTINA HARRAN (Co-producer)

"It helped, I think, that we presented it to the studios as a comedy, rather than a serious drama. It was aimed at a younger audience, though it gained quite a following among adults as well."

NARET LAISSATA (Director)

"It was a risk, a big risk. We almost didn't get a studio to take it, but eventually Essence Syndication Network took us on, with the threat that, if it didn't pay off in the first six months, we were going to be shut down. We mostly paid out of our pockets, and you can tell in those early episodes by the-the overabundance of product-placement that we were taking a lot of advertising money just to keep a roof over our heads."

~*~

A dimness at first, in which dark shapes can only just be seen. Somewhere, sluggish water is dripping, an eerie counterpoint to the subsonic rumbling of a ship's systems at rest. A beam of light cuts through the darkness, blinding momentarily before swinging back the other direction.

"Fray, are you sure about this?"

"Shh!"

"This ship is huge Adrian, there's no way we'll find--"

The light goes dim as the first voice, a quavering tenor, yelps and falls with a splash. White torchlight silhouettes the forms of two men as the taller of the two helps the other back to his feet. "It's here, René, if you'd actually looked over the real manifest rather than the 'official manifest'..."

"Ugh." The smaller man makes a futile effort to wipe water from his sodden trousers. "You'd think they could maintain their ships better."

"At least it means we're not likely to run into anyone else down here." Fray trains the beam of his FedMart-brand NightTorch up the racktower storage arrays, towering skeletal frames set in tracks on the floor and ceiling, hypertensile tritanium alloy shelves designed to house massive freight containers and make loading and unloading easier. "You don't want to think where it might be coming from."

~*~

LARU en KIMA ("Little René")

"The water. That damnable water (laughs). I fell in there, tripped over one of the guiderails, and that was not scripted. They left it in anyway."

NARET LAISSATA (Director)

"At the time, the popular thing was to have holoseries recorded entirely on sound-stages with the set added in later via computer simulation. We could no more afford that sort of technical setup than we could afford to shoot on-site, so what we did was find, well, junkyards, essentially, where there were a few hulls that were still airtight that hadn't been stripped by scavengers. For the first episode, it was an Obelisk-class freighter. If we'd tried to film the series like that today, I'm not sure we'd have been permitted. I still don't want to think what might have been in that water."

L'SIATA ROUVENOR (Co-producer)

"I think the mere fact that we found those locations to film at -- scrapyards we really should not have been in, station hallways with the general population as our unwitting extras, film crew-members' redecorated quarters -- made it ground-breaking in its simplicity and realism. It was all recognisable and familiar to the audience."

KEI LeMAR ("Adrian Fray")

"Get in trouble? Sure we did. Get stared at, in those ridiculous outfits? (laughs) I had to work out daily, every single breakfast pastry showed in those tight jumpsuits. It was the fashion at the time for kids' programming: you could have the darkest storyline in the world, as long as there was no swearing and the set was all vivid, happy colours. We got dark at times, we really wanted to use the first episode to let them know we weren't just playing around."

~*~

"Sst!" Fray skids to a stop on the slippery floor, an arm extended to hold René back. "You hear that?"

The smaller man is shaking his head adamantly. "I don't want to hear anything except you saying it's time to go, Fray, we shouldn't even be here..."

"It came from over here..." The tall, dark-haired Gallentean sloshes through the muck down a side-passage between rusted-out containers.

"Fray! Sssss! Bring the light back!" Muttering under his breath, the shorter blond man picks his way carefully through the knee-deep water as Fray turns to wait for him. "You know what your problem is? You're too eager."

Fray's finely chiselled features arrange themselves into a frown, underlit starkly by the white torchlight. "I don't have a problem. Do I have a problem? I have a job to do, here."

~*~

KEI LeMAR ("Adrian Fray")

"The dialogue. Oh! That was great fun. Jaial is a really good writer, really good. It always amazes me when people criticise the dialogue and say it was bad. It was done that way on purpose."

JAIAL RHEINN (Writer)

"It was part irony and part... part social commentary, really, to make the dialogue the way it was. We must have spent upwards of three weeks debating how to do it. The studio was on our case to make it funny, to make it child-friendly and accessible. We had a lot of fun bending the rules, and the actors... I think they took it and started hamming it up even more."

~*~

Fray pauses near a freight container, leaning his ear close to the flaking metal, water sloshing around his boots. A soft tap on the side elicits a rustle of movement from within, and the lean Intaki reaches up to pull the security pin from the latch. A shriek of terror echoes through the hold as water begins to seep through the opening, and René flinches.

"Oh great! Close it up!"

Ignoring him, Fray casts the beam of the NightTorch through the hatch, the bright white spotlight passing across the frightened faces of a dozen filthy Minmatar children huddled as far back as they can. Murmuring reassurances, Fray crouches down on the floor of the container, propping the torch on the floor. He tries a couple different languages until the children react to his words; then he asks questions. One of the oldest, a Sebiestor girl with tangled dark hair, answers him hesitantly.

~*~

FEILLI FARRACHT ("Miryol")

"I was the only one of the children with a name. None of the others really had to do anything except look terrified and go where we were told. They had a boy chosen originally to play Miryol, but he came down sick the day before filming and couldn't get out of bed. They gave the script to me because I was the only other one who could speak a Sebiestor dialect."

CORTINA HARRAN (Co-producer)

"The inclusion of the children's sub-plot and introducing the character of Miryol was a last-minute thing. The studio came down and told us we couldn't have a children's show without a child of the target age being a recurring character. we almost had to bin the whole thing, but Jaial really came to the rescue, it was a stroke of genius."

~*~

Sighing, Fray backs out of the container, then rises to face René. "Refugee kids. Their parents were promised they'd be educated and taken care of."

The smaller Gallente man snorts. "Oh, yeah, they'll be taken care of alright. Probably in the drug factories as test subjects or carriers." He eyes Fray grimly. "Don't think you can help them, Adrian, it'll be noticed and so will you. And me. I don't know about you but I like my thumbs where they are."

Fray's expression tightens, a dark fire in his blue eyes. "Well, I'm not leaving them here to be swamped. The access stair to the next level was over there, right?"

"Fray--"

"I mean it, René." He leans back into the freight container, holding his hand out to the Sebiestor girl. She hesitates only a moment before seizing his fingers in hers, then turning to talk to the other children. Shortly, the two Gallentean spies are leading them between the stacked freight containers, René muttering under his breath and looking constantly over his shoulders.

Fray coaxes them up to the to the dry second tier and over to a dark space in the shadows. Speaking softly, he offers his name. The girl looks uncomfortable for a moment, then says, "Miryol."

~*~

KEI LeMAR ("Adrian Fray")

" A lot of what we did was very much by the seat of our pants, you know, we had things scripted but then things would get changed at the last second. Originally, I was supposed to close the kids back into the crate with a promise to return, but the water on the floor was a surprise. I felt Adrian wasn't the sort of guy who'd just leave a bunch of kids in a dark crate anyway, but the water really sealed the deal."

LARU en KIMA ("Little René")

"René was... well, he was meant to be a very self-serving, calculating sort. Fray's conscience and guide, if you will. But he always seemed to me to be a bit of a coward. He's in a very dangerous occupation and would really rather not do anything at all to gain attention from the wrong people, and I sat down with both Jaial and Naret to see if we could develop that a bit more."

~*~

"Adrian, that was way, way out of line. How are we going to cover this up?" René is fretting, one hand repeatedly readjusting his collar. Fray smiles mischievously, a grin that would become famous over the next three years.

"I've just thought of something. Follow me."

The taller man leads the way out of the cargo hold. The crew lift is damaged, so he jimmies the lock on the access stairs while René groans in disbelief. "What are you doing?"

"Cargo manifest will be in the bridge computer. It'll save us a lot of time."

The shorter man looks as though he'd rather be anywhere else but follows, shaking his head. The beam from their NightTorch flares and arcs as they follow the winding, rusted stairs around the curve of the lift shaft.

"Ugh." René leans on the wall as they reach the top. "Tell me the bridge is close."

Fray points along the hallway, the lights set dim for station-side night. "Just up there." He makes his way down the corridor, René trailing close behind, and quietly slides open the door at the far end.

Dimmed orange light illuminates the curved expanse of the bridge, consoles darkened and shut down. The Federal agent locates the main computer panel and begins to hack through the security. The whine of a blaster pistol powering up causes both men to turn suddenly.

"Who are you guys?"

~*~

LARU en KIMA ("Little René")

"They did a fantastic job making that rusted-out shell of an Obelisk look active. Generators to power the lights and all, and we all chipped in to help clean up the upper levels. The places we filmed in the hold were the same three alleys between the freight containers; there were only about fifteen of them, and the crew rearranged them so that the place looked filled no matter the angle."

L'SIATA ROUVENOR (Co-producer)

"Jaial originally wrote the character of Little René to be a sort of comic relief supporting role, but when we got down to the filming we realised that it would look better if he was on more of an equal standing with Adrian. They're both agents for the FIO, they both have a lot of physical and academic training. The only real difference is that René is very cautious and has been in there for a long time, while Adrian is much younger, a new face among the Serpentis. Almost all of what he does horrifies René, who specialises more in cloak-and-dagger than in being a man of action. It was a different dynamic from most children's shows back then."

~*~

Fray raises his hands, showing them empty, but gives a confident smile. "Serpentis Corporate Security, captain. Can you tell me about your cargo? The manifest raised an alert and you must understand we want to make certain everything is in order."

The freighter captain pales and swallows nervously. "Oh... oh. It's about that, isn't it? I never wanted to carry it, it wasn't my idea but... it's money, man. You know?"

Fray is nodding readily. "Of course, of course. I must ask to inspect it, however. I'm sure you understand the risks involved."

The captain drops his arm, the pistol's amber targeting beam sweeping to the floor. "Y-yeah. Yeah, sure. It's in the secure cargo." He leads the undercover agents back down to a separate cargo level with a heavy security door. Fumbling with the keypad, he babbles, "I-I never wanted to carry it, man, you know? It was just too much of a risk..." Behind his back, Fray and René exchange a puzzled glance.

~*~

KEI LeMAR ("Adrian Fray")

"Adrian is... a very social animal, you know, he's very charismatic and personable and he has an ability to read people and respond with what they expect to hear. It's part innate ability and part expensive implants and training, and it's how he reached his position within the FIO as an undercover agent."

JAIAL RHEINN (Writer)

"I wanted to show very early on what the characters of Adrian and René were like, I didn't want to have any horrible clichés involving secret identities or dark pasts... the sort of tropes that were popular at the time, there was an utter rash of those sorts of antiheroes at the time, and I thought it was about time that children had.. well, a real hero to look up to."

KEI LeMAR ("Adrian Fray")

"I didn't want to be-be put on a pedestal, you know, I'm not comfortable with heights at all (laughs). But it was... I found it moving, really, when I learned that Adrian Fray was such a great role model."

~*~

The centre of the floor is occupied by a solid crate, anchored by heavy bolts to the decking; the pale half-light of a security field hums around it. The freighter captain takes a step back, allowing the two agents access. "I don't have the pass for the field, you understand--"

The shriek of an alarm cuts him off mid-sentence. Fray catches his arm before he can bolt away down the corridor. "What is that?!"

"Containment alarm from the main hold! We need to evacuate!"

The Intaki releases the captain's arm, yelling over the sirens, "We'll be right behind you!" He watches as the captain runs for the exit, then turns to see René popping the lock on the crate. The smaller man glances up at him, holding up a palm-sized electronic security breaker.

"We went to far too much trouble to get here just to be scared off. Give me a hand here."

Together, they open the crate. Crystalline green light spills out across their faces, illuminating Fray's broad grin and René's puzzled frown.

"Is this... it?"

Adrian Fray reaches into the crate and lifts out a scintillating optical-crystal sculpture, fragile-looking tendrils curving and swirling around a core of light. "You bet it is. The Serpent's Eye. Stolen from a museum in the Fed last month. This thing is priceless and older than dirt. I don't know why they wanted it, but they're not buying anybody with it now." He gestures impatiently with one hand and René quickly pulls a collapsible box from a pouch at his waist and pops it into shape. The green light disappears as Fray secures the lid over the sculpture. "You take care of the package! I'll see to the kids!"

"You aren't seriously going back for them!"

"I sure am! Get going!"

Fray clatters down the stairs, arriving at the bottom with a splash. Looking around, he starts to head toward the second level when a slender pale hand grabs his. He spins, a slender pistol appearing in his hand, then relaxes as he sees Miryol. In her language, he asks, "Where are the others? There's something leaking in here."

The girl shakes her head. "They're safe, near the exit. I pulled the alarm."

Fray reacts with surprise. "You pulled it?"

The Sebiestor girl smiles. "I was in training to serve on a ship like this before we were brought from the Empire. I'm good with electronics."

Laughing, the Gallente scoops the girl into his arms and hurries with her across the cargo bay. "I'll have to keep that in mind. You've been a big help today."

Status Update

2011-03-17T15:12:00.004-04:00

I'm in Reykjavik, settling in for some fun before Fanfest next week. If you're going to be around, come say hi! ^_^

Crew Log: Engineering Specialist Reane Mouri, YC113-02-08

2011-02-21T17:21:00.002-05:00

I had something else I wanted to record today but what happened this evening has blown it clear out of my head. I don't know even where to start with this, but I'll try.

The captain died today.

No, I'm getting ahead of myself.

It started as just a routine assignment. Not that we really get told what we're doing, after all, we're just the living pieces of the Dodixie Chick's machinery making sure it works the way the captain needs it to. Captain's the one who has to worry about what's going on outside. I always thought I lucked out when I signed on here, though, to be honest, he's fair, pays well, we get time off, and if there's anything we'll need to keep an eye out for, we're told before the ship ever undocks.

I think it was Serps we were engaging this time; we got in a bunch of kinetic and thermal hardeners to install this morning. Can't see outside the ship when you're crawling around its guts, after all. I think it was going well, no alerts or nothing, a bit of turret overheat Gaz and I were called up to deal with. Then everything went to hell.

Something happened, a sudden change in momentum that threw everyone off their feet. Arti-grav and gyro-comps only cover so much, and we must have been going pretty fast. I smacked my head off a console when I went down, Ling fell off the service catwalk and broke her arm. Something ruptured amidships, I remember the alarms doing off, so loud I couldn't half hear myself think. And then all the lights went red.

We train for that, the evacuation orders. Regular maintenance on the escape pods and all that, and we have regular drills. But I'd never before had to actually evac in the middle of a fight. You don't waste time to think, or ask questions. I just hauled Ling up by her good arm and hiked her over to the nearest pod bay, both of us dripping blood everywhere. Ciaran got there the same time and between the two of us we got Ling into a seat and strapped her arm out of the way before hitting the eject button. I got to meet the floor for the second time in five minutes, but by that point I didn't give a flying fuck.

Escape capsules give all crew members immediate access to the Local comms channel so we can get in touch with retrieval crews. As soon as our pod launched, the air filled with an argument between the captain and several other capsuleers. From what I gathered, while Ciaran slapped a mediplast over the gash in my head, they'd got the drop on us while the captain was finishing off a Serp patrol, and wanted money in exchange for letting us go.

The captain refused. They finished off the Dodixie Chick, her beautiful chromed hull evaporating in a cloud of burning shrapnel that shook our tiny escape pod, then snared the captain's own escape pod.

We heard his scream as they destroyed it.

We were sitting there for maybe an hour before the rescue crews arrived to fetch us. We were just... numb. We're just crew-members, we fix things that can't be repaired otherwise and keep the captain's interface running. He's supposed to be an immortal demi-god, untouchable and powerful beyond measure, but to hear that...

When we finally returned home in the care of InterBus, the captain was waiting in the assembly hall. He looked the same as before, though his skin looked a little too smooth, too perfect. I supposed that was the effect of being cloned back to life. The look in his eyes, though... The last time I saw that look, it was on Muri after he lost his family in the pirate raid. The realisation that he's not invincible and that something has been taken away that he'll never get back.

I can't even imagine what it must be like to have your self burned out of your head and injected into a new body like that. In that moment, while he debriefed us and spoke of future plans to replace the Dodixie Chick, the captain looked as vulnerable and human as the rest of us.

I'll never forget that.

I aren't ded

2011-02-08T14:13:00.006-05:00

Well, it has been three months, hasn't it?

I've been busy, alas not with very much Eve-related apart from graphics, so it's not been worth posting. I've been ingame a lot, but semi-afk or running logistics in highsec whilst working on other stuff, and RP logs are very difficult to reproduce for a blog entry. I'm starting to understand why many RPers simply summarise.

That being said, the next blog post will be an RP log, modified into a readable format; something a little different.

Veto. Corp is preparing for FanFest. We'll have a significant number attending again, and this time I'm officially a part of it, rather than being the adopted sister like last time. I'm not complaining, mind, it was great to have a group of people I knew to hang out with. The 2011 Veto Bar Combat Wing is getting ready to roll out.
Hold on to your livers, it's gonna be a crazy week.

Three years of nullsec movement

2010-11-08T16:11:00.004-05:00

Yeah, I've been quiet on here. I have three separate blog posts I'm working on, so while you're waiting, here's a cool video. I recommend watching it fullscreen, as high-def as possible.

Refacing Eve

2010-10-13T23:10:00.002-04:00

People have been playing around with the new character creation setup on Sisi. I was going to hold off for a few patches, but my curiosity got the better of me.

So let's see...

Shae got a little makeover, but not much of one. It took a bit, given the limited options, but I did succeed in eventually piecing together a face that looked right.

Aylara doesn't look a thing like my original character, which I found a bit disappointing. I've received compliments on her portrait before now, and I wanted to go for more of a half-caste look to emphasise her Thukker background.

I'm still hoping for a racial blending filter, since my two primary characters -- yes, I roleplay with them when I don't feel like doing anything else ingame -- are both of mixed race families. I'm also hoping we'll be able to change the relative height of our characters, since Shae, like me, is a total short-arse. Ability to customise characters ingame by purchasing self-designed tattoos would be lovely, as well.

I've heard a lot of people complaining that they don't want Incarna, they'll never use Incarna, and that it's a bad idea all around and it will change the way Eve works. I'll agree on that last part: while it supposedly will not have any impact on the part of Eve that exists right now, there will have to be Incarna content beyond the social interaction to draw people into it. Every single person who says they have no interest in Incarna will eventually venture guiltily into a station concourse, if only to see if it's worth it.

I've always had the suspicion that it could be used to bridge the gap between Eve and Dust: how cool would it be to have an in-person meeting in Eve with the Dust mercenaries you're hiring? How about missions where you have to meet someone in-person and bluff your way to acquiring something? Maybe exploring some ancient ruins? To be honest, the idea of physically leaving the pod to go exploring in a supposedly abandoned pirate base is about as realistic as Star Trek captains going down personally with the away teams. Any captain worth his rank pins will know that risking himself that way when the ship relies upon his control is a little silly. But what is sci-fi for but to suspend belief for a while and just have fun?

I'm looking forward to the possibilities.

Craft

2010-09-27T15:23:00.005-04:00

I consider myself an artist. Not good enough to compete for a career, back before I was selected for capsuleer training in the Navy -- Mum tried to get me to go to an art school, and I loved the response my (reluctantly submitted) application received. "Needs traditional background training; too many liberties taken with classical subjects." I never liked art schools; too many people with a narrow-field view of what art is.

I'm much happier painting for myself and my friends, anyway. Little things here and there which make me feel real pride in my poor, self-taught abilities.

I was perusing the Intergalactic Summit maybe a week ago -- I don't frequent such channels very much, they're the sorts of places which on old-style maps would be designated with the legend, "Here Be Dragons", much the way null-sec space used to be. My wandering, half-attentive eye caught the wort "art" and I backtracked to see what it was. Sabbott, a member of the Sani Sabik capsuleer corporation Blood Inquisition, was seeking inspired work with which to decorate his home.

I'm not particularly a fan of the Sani Sabik practises; I consider myself to be a modern woman, and things like that strike me as being just a bit on the barbaric side. But I can understand the spirituality behind it. I do read about things; understanding foreign notions helps you relate better to others, after all.

So I was a bit saddened to see that some pilots had offered up little more than smears of red paint on canvas. I can only assume they thought, "Oh, Sani Sabik! They like blood! I'll paint a blood splatter, it'll look excellent hung above the altar!" It grated a bit.

I had little interest in the contest in which Sabbott framed his request. It was simply the challenge, to create a piece of art that would be tasteful to an Amarrian and a Sani Sabik adherent.

I called Ymnaru. A graceful Ni-Kunni woman a few years older than myself, I met Ymna meditating in the hydroponics garden in the station I based from in Arzi years ago. We've stayed in touch, despite our vast cultural differences and her distaste for my choice in career. I think she still hasn't given up on saving me.

After a few hours of discussion, Ymna helped me figure out an appropriately spiritual image. It took another hour for me to convince her to dress in her finer robes and pose in an attitude of prayer for a reference image; she consented only when I offered to change the features of her face in the final painting. Not that she would have worried over a Sani Sabik seeing her face; Ymna is a graciously humble lady and felt very conscious of having her features accented in such a way.

I hadn't realised how intricate Ni-Kunni formal veils could be. I'm rather glad I decided not to paint a full figure, in the end; her robes were incredibly ornate and my fingers still itch to recreate them on paper. Perhaps I'll ask her to pose again someday.

It took the entire week. As with all things, everyday concerns intruded more frequently than I would have liked, and in the end I missed the deadline for Sabbott's competition by but a handful of hours. It would have been the height of hubris to link to the uploaded final image once the contest was over, so I simply sent it along with a note expressing my regrets at being late.

However, since this is my personal journal, I can put the piece up openly without looking like a total boor. I'm quite proud of it. It was a learning experience, both in the preparation and execution.

I call it "Devotion".

Command and Control

2010-09-06T21:10:00.002-04:00

I feel as if I've been here forever, down in the dirt with the rest of the dogs. That's what it feels like; day after day of the same damn shit, the same routine. Maybe it happens in the middle of the night, or maybe it's full daylight. Maybe it's raining, maybe it's been drought conditions for weeks. It doesn't matter. We defend our installation with our lives. That's what we're being paid for.

I've not been home in months. Maybe it's been a year, I don't know. The days blur together. I get shot, sometimes I think I've died, but the latest softscan gear installed in our helmets brings us right back in a new, whole body, the memory of our own blood still fresh on our lips. They spent a lot of money on us. I guess maybe it's because there's a shortage of people crazy enough to fight for a capsuleer.

Things started getting strange a couple months ago. I capture a guy trying to sneak into the radio room, the cheeky bugger probably thinks the stolen uniform would work, but he doesn't have the implant to let him through the door without fussing with the keypad. I strip his helmet off while he's recovering consiousness and stare.

"Didn't I kill you last week?"

The enemy soldier blinks at me groggily. "What?"

"I said--"

"Why are you talking to me?"

I fold my arms across my chest, his helmet dangling by its chinstrap from my hand. "Well, I dunno. Maybe because I recognise your face from what was left of it after that attack last week?"

"No, no, this isn't right."

And then he's gone. Not dead or run away, simply gone and I'm staring at an empty spot on the floor like a complete moron, my hands empty. I rub the back of my neck under the collar of my jacket, wondering what the hell has just happened. Then one of my squadmates yells at me and I'm pulled back to the front lines.

After that, I start looking -- really looking -- at the faces of the men and women we fight, seeking that flash of recognition, a hint of familiarity. Days go by where there aren't any. Then suddenly an entire week where I'm seeing nothing but people I know I've killed before. I know they probably have the same softscan hardware installed in their helmets, plugged into the jacks behind their ears underneath. But it's disturbing.

Any attempts to communicate with them are met with the same surprise and disbelief. It strikes me as odd. One time, I lie bleeding out, gutted and missing my right arm from the shoulder, while the enemy who's so easily sliced me up like a roast is sat nearby, reloading. Beneath his visor, I can swear it's the same guy; the one I'd caught sneaking. I try to read the name stitched to the front of his jacket, but my vision is blurring at the edges.

"Hey. You." I choke on the agony of talking, but it's important -- it feels important. He twitches and looks up at me with a sharp jerk of his head.

"I... I know you... don't I?"

The soldier jumps up and staggers backwards, fumbling for his communicator, and the next thing I know I'm sitting up in the medbay back on the base, feeling beyond weirded-out.

After that, I stop trying to talk to them.

That stomach-clenching sense of deja-vu returns maybe a week later. We're going over our battle-plan and looking at the enemy positions when a chill runs down my spine. It looks just like the time when.... "I want Gamma over here, covering that valley."

The guy standing opposite me scratches his head. "Sarge, why? There's no encampments back there, and they can't get in through the pass."

"You remember two weeks ago, they nearly took out the comms relay because they air-dropped a HALO team in the night before?"

He looks at me funny. "Nothing like that happened two weeks ago. Nothing like that's ever happened."

"I'm telling you, they're going to HALO a team in while we're facing front. Stick Gamma back there to cover our asses."

Our commander drums his fingers on the table. "That's quite a deviation from your original plan Sergeant, but let's do it."

My original...? I lean back from the table feeling feverish, somehow confused. The map had been subarctic tundra yesterday; why in blazes are we in the middle of a tropical cloud forest now? I could have sworn... Squinting, I eye up the guy standing opposite me. What was his name again?

For that matter, what was our commander's name? I peer at the stitching on their jackets, but the light is too low to make it out. Feeling dizzy, I take a step back, debating going outside for some air. A moment later, I feel a light touch on my shoulder; my commander standing there, gesturing for me to follow him out to the rampart. The sweltering jungle heat is like a slap in the face after the climate-controlled command centre.

"Son, there something you wanna tell me?"

I shake my head. "No, sir, I'm fine."

The commander removes his helmet and runs his fingers back through sweat-spiked gray hair as he leans back against the outer wall. "Off the record, I mean. You won't be penalised for anything."

A frown pinches my face in the middle, and I sigh. "I-- Sir, what if I told you I was getting recurring memories. Deja-vu? Or that... I could swear we were somewhere else yesterday. And I recognise some of the guys we're fighting."

"You try to communicate with them?" He's looking at me carefully; not like I'm a freak or anything, more like he understands. With some relief, I nod.

"Yes, sir. There's something strange going on. At first I thought maybe it was glitches from repeated recloning, but now I'm not so sure. Would... they wouldn't dump us in coldsleep and truck us off to another planet without telling us, would they?"

The commander rests his helmet under his arm against his hip, looking out into the trees beyond the wall. "No, Sergeant, they wouldn't. Not normally. But this is a different situation."

"Sir?" There it is again, that feverish dizziness, like memories clawing toward the surface before they can drown.

The commander smiles tiredly, the expression creasing lines in his face. "Do you know the name of the world we're on?"

"Well, yes, sir. It's... oh." I rub my forehead. "I don't know sir."

He nods. "She doesn't have a name. Technically she doesn't exist."

I stare at him. "I-- Sir, I don't understand."

"Soldier, do you remember who I am?"

There's an intensity in the look he gives me, something that sparks in me a desperate need to understand. "I can't... no. Wait." Something finally surfaces; the bubble pops with an audible snap and I reel back against the wall. "I.. no. I know you! You were that doctor, at that hospital. The one that..." Falteringly, I press my hands to my head. "I was captured. Wounded, I think I was dying. You were there, you talked to me, but I can't remember--"

"That's right, Allin." He sighs again. "You were dying. You were the one who cost us billions in assets to deal with that little group of Legion footsoldiers you were commanding. Do you remember?"

I slump back against the wall, then let myself slide down to the rooftop, my fingers raking back through my short-cropped hair. "I... yes. What have you done to me, why am I fighting for you?'

"You're not. Not really. This is a training simulation for our soldiers. You're, uh," he smiles again, apologetically. "You're not really you. Just a memory, a cerebral imprint we built a semi-AI strategic designer around."

My eyes close tightly as I find my hands gripping my head. "Are you shitting me? But... I'm here! I remember things!"

When I look up again, he's nodding his head emphatically. "Yes... it seems we took too thorough a scan, but we wanted the system to be as humanlike as possible. Computers lack originality and intuition. They can't adapt and improvise the way a human does, for all the advances we've made. You were so troublesome an opponent, when your fading body ended up in our possession we realised you'd make a better training strategist than the existing system."

I snort with disgust. "So I'm just a semi-intelligent computer programme, then. One that's edged a little too far out of bounds. The glitches from earlier make sense, now. But if that's the case, why are you bothering talking to me? Now that you know what's wrong, you could just, I dunno, re- reprogram... me." My voice fails as a I realise the extent of everything. Allin Emarchanne, Mordu's Legion ground-control operations commander, is now little more than a string of data in a VR simulation. What's the point of it all?

A shadow falls over me, and I glance up from under my brows to see him standing over me with his hand held out invitingly. "The boys started reporting errors, but because it's you, I thought to handle this differently. Your expertise makes our boys and girls better fighters, you challenge them and as a result they work better once we deploy them. It'd be a crying shame if we had to infect you with forced amnesia after every run. I want to know if you'd continue working like this, despite knowing what you know. I want you to do your damnedest to kill every single one of them every time."

I raise my head and rub the back of my neck, glaring up at the doctor, or whatever he is. "You're shitting me. You want me to continue like this? Making your kids better so they're better at killing my boys?"

His hand still extended to me, he shakes his head. "It's more than just the Legion we're fighting, these days. And we ran tests on copies of your scan; injecting programming only reduced your resiliency."

"Fuck you," I spit. "You might as well fucking erase me, you son of a bitch. I'm not going to be your goddamn puppet--"

Three years

2010-08-21T02:31:00.003-04:00

Where does the time go?

20th August 2007, I sat down and created a character named Shae Tiann. It took two tries, because it timed out if you took longer than ten minutes fiddling with your options, and it was a hell of a lot more involved. You chose your race, bloodline and background, and THEN you got to choose a school and a branch. Your choices affected your starting stats and skills, and gave you nearly 900,000 SP. It was a good time to be a noob.

I think I'll celebrate by dropping my sec status a little >=3

[OOC] A Summary of Impressions Regarding Recent Events

2010-07-13T15:14:00.002-04:00

Due to excessive travel, I've not been able to properly play Eve for nearly a month. This does not mean that I'm not paying attention or uninvolved (keep an eye out for a new story in a couple weeks, yes I have been working!).

Let's see:

Eva-Gate
I've never been a fan of hers -- honestly, would any self-respecting internet spaceships pirate? -- but I'll support her right to hold utterly batshit notions regarding pvpers. If she got elected and passed initial muster with CCP, more power to her. I will say, for the record, that I feel there are far better carbear/highseccer advocates than Ankhesentapemkah, in particular those candidates/delegates who have tried a little bit of everything Eve has to offer, because they have a beeter idea of how the gears mesh.

Right! On to the juicy bits: I'm loving the conspiracy theories. You all have such beautiful tinfoil hats, and you've clearly worked hard on them. Knowledge of how the game industry and various relevant legal issues work tell me that A) yes, she really did do something wrong and it had fuck all to do with her blog, and B)CCP doesn't HAVE to tell us ANYTHING (that they've stated it as a breach of NDA is more than they needed to say). In fact, we may never BE told anything more about it, unless something explodes (metaphorically).

Hulkageddon III
Not my style of gameplay at all, but I will staunchly defend everyone else's rights to suicide haulers in highsec. Do you wail and call your opponent a psychopathic bully who needs to get out of his mum's basement and get laid when your opponent builds hotels all over Boardwalk? It's a game and you've been given fair warning that HG3 is happening. Either join in the fun or station-spin your Orca til it's over.

CSM notes (I'll condense this down to the issue that was highest on the priority list across the board)
CCP seems to have a little ADHD when it comes to focussing on work. Trust me, I'm exactly the same: I get a new idea, and it supercedes all the other ideas in development until another brainwave occurs. Speaking from experience, this is NOT the way to progress on ANY ONE of the cool things; the only way to make real progress is to sacrifice a little effort on other stuff and focus on only one thing at a time til it's done. Obviously, being a large company which has made very public commitments on several different projects, CCP does not have the ability to sacrifice development time; they're stretching themselves a little thin. Obvious solution: HIRE MORE PEOPLE *waves CV suggestively*

[Rumour] Wormholes closing
Highly unlikely. Have you taken a look at the subscription data around the time Apocrypha was released? It was one of their most successful expansions, if not THE most successful expansion. Why would they shoot themselves in the foot?

[Rumour] CSM is being disbanded
Also highly unlikely. The CSM is one of CCP's biggest publicity draws: no other MMO has anything like it, it's a BIG DEAL both among the gaming community and the business community. It would be PR suicide to disband it after only a couple years. I've seen comments in verioius places about CCP not liking the CSM being stakeholders or something. GUESS WHAT, GUYS! Stakeholder does not equal shareholder. The definition of a stakeholder (in corporate terms) is someone who is affected by and can affect the actions of a business. We, as players, are all stakeholders. The CSM is simply a more direct and condensed route towards having an affect on CCP's actions regarding Eve than posting petitions on the Suggestions forums or babbling on CAOD that they need to fix lag. They do pay attention to those things, you know....

As it is, the CSM exists solely by the grace of CCP. If they want to disband it, they have but to say the word. Sneaking around undermining members one at a time to build an excuse of "it don't work, guv" is not only a costly effort, it could leave them open to severe (and also costly) legal consequences. Corporate suicide can be committed far more neatly than that.

---
Right, I think that about covers it. Comment trolling will see your comment(s) removed because we are not at home to Mr Arsehole; discussion is encouraged, and if you have a solid, well-considered and non-batshit argument to change my feelings on something here, please do share it!

Post-EveMeet

2010-07-06T09:50:00.005-04:00

I've returned from a truly epic weekend in Denmark. The 5th BoB BBQ was a total success in that there was meat, booze, lulz, fire, and meat.

I kept forgetting to bring my camera out with me, and just as well, since I don't have a strap for it; I'd likely have left it someplace. There are, however, tons of incriminating photos taken by several members of IT Alliance on Facebook and various other places. Fellow Veto member StrangeR's pics are here.

Cheers to everyone who made the weekend awesome ^_^ Here's looking forward to the next!

Sansha: The Space Toaster Invasion

2010-06-28T04:15:00.005-04:00

I did try to keep up with it. Who wouldn't? You get Sansha battleships pouring out of wormholes and abducting millions of people from the planets; who is not going to be chewing their nails wondering if their family is safe?

My family is safe, for now at least. Honestly, I figure that if the Sansha ever attack Luminaire and take my mother, they'll be volunteering for their own destruction. Either that, or the Sansha would be the best-dressed, most up-to-date on gossip toasters to ever invade a civilised world.

Verone sat us all down and told us how it was going to be. As Veto is aligned with the Guristas, we could not be seen to be acting against their interests. The Guristas have a business relationship with the Sansha. Until we received word from Venal, one way or the other, we would have to remain neutral in this fight unless it became an issue of self-defense.

If we wanted to fight, we'd have to leave. If members wanted to actively support the Sansha, they'd have to leave, too. Ethan has as little love for the Sansha as he does for any other form of slavery.

I was content to stay. I could feed information around in the channels while others focussed on organising things. I could help out without compromising our position. Most of the fights were in highsec, anyway.

But after the first week or so, it started becoming difficult to parse truth from lie. Too many pilots whom, in their twisted little minds, thought the whole thing was funny. Funny! Too many pilots ready to go haring off after bait laid by Sansha supporters without weighing reality, getting themselves and those who eagerly followed slaughtered needlessly. It went from desperate defense to a popularity contest, everyone trying their hardest to get attention and perhaps their name in the news.

The defense of New Eden, sabotaged by our own sociopathic egos. I found it sickening, and so I left them to it.

And then Kuvakei made Verone an offer.

I don't know if it really is Sansha Kuvakei or simply a puppet. It goes by the title 'Master Kuvakei' and speaks with enough authority to be a recognisable threat.

We, the members of Veto, stand behind Verone's decision to make this revelation public. And should Kuvakei bring his forces to bear upon us in retribution, we will stand at Verone's side in defense of what we believe to be right.

The conspiracy-mongers have their say, and their points are valid. But is it better to jump at shadow trying to find the truth as the world falls apart around you, or to know that, even if you died in vain, you were true to yourself to the bitter end?

Just a Quick Little Note...

2010-05-18T15:47:00.004-04:00

My arm's been twisted enough to convince me to hit up the Eve Barbecue in Copenhagen for at least the weekend (I have other stuff to deal with in the UK, or I'd try for the full week).

The weekend after that, I'll be in Reykjavik for a couple days' layover.

Really looking forward to this summer, should be awesome fun ^_^

Gurista

2010-05-12T18:03:00.000-04:00

It took me a while to come to this decision. Stars know I didn't make it lightly.

I ran my fingers over the new patch which I'd just finished attaching to the sleeve of my battered old leather jacket, the one with the Hellcats' feline skull and crossed, flaming swords logo stitched to the back. A grinning skull with rabbit ears, comical and sinister, now rested below the faded Federal shield on the left sleeve; the black and red triple-scythe of my first corporation, Under the Wings of Fury, had taken the space on the right sleeve nearly three years earlier, back when I was young and stupid and thought I was rebelling.

What was I rebelling against, anyway?

Creaky old ideals and stubbern warhorses too long out to pasture to see that the problem was no longer external. The Federation was crumbling apart, hedonistically eating itself alive. Not that the other Empires were any better; I simply saw no reson to fly in defense and support of people who didn't give a shit about your work for their benefit.

Perhaps I was being harsh. I could have joined the FDU when the shit really hit the fan, when people were begging for help. But they only seem to appreciate you when they see the need. My brother, who'd graduated six months after I had, said he'd felt more like part of a pretty display on a pedestal for politicians to roll out of storage when they wanted to look impressive.

One entire wall, running the length of my new apartment, was solid glass overlooking my personal hangar; a small lift in the corner allowed me private access to the ships on display. Veto had money, and the corporation had used it to house their members in style. The process of applying, joining and settling in had been far more personable and rapid than with any other corporation I'd joined in the past -- and this time my cold-storage can full of combat trophies hadn't been disposed of as unnecessary.

I still bore a grudge against the long-dead Tygris Alliance for that particular insult.

The difference between pirates and the larger alliances is that pirates have to trust one another. They need to trust one another; if you treat your flight buddies as simply numbers on a tally-board, eventually you'll 'accidentally' end up on the opposite side of that equation.

What the hell took me so long?

Part of it was a willful denial of the obvious choice. It would be far too predictable of me to join a corporation I'd already worked with and begun to associate with on a regular basis.

'Ha!' Sitting there at the table, I doubled over, cracking up laughing at myself. Yeah, that was so fucking stupid of me, wasn't it?

It wasn't til I'd returned that it was made clear to me what I ought to have been doing all along. When both your partner and one of your closest friends say almost the exact same thing, six hours apart from each other, you might as well get the Clue-Bat out and start waving it around threateningly.

I owe Caellach and Raxip for that.

Cael, I know, was rather hoping I'd follow him into Electus Matari. Reawakened Technologies certainly did their best to get my attention. They liked that I would of course know pirates' MOs and how they operate; I can hardly begrudge them wanting that little edge. But it's that whole trust issue, again. I've worked in Molden Heath. I know pirates who still operate out there, and working against them would have simply felt wrong. It's not loyalty so much as it is respect.

Plus, I'd have had to bring my security status up. Aligning with Empire factions... no. Not really going to happen, is it. A pirate's life for me.

Which was why, when the subject of joining Veto was finally levered over my head like a cartoon safe on a fraying rope, I gave it some serious thought.

Pirates? Check.

Political affiliation neutral? Check.

People I respected? Apart from shooting one of them a year earlier near Evati, I had no bad impressions of them. The reputation for blobbing that most people attributed to the corp seemed entirely unfounded; and in the current combat climate of lowsec, outgunning one's opponents was the only way anyone dared to fight. From the time I'd spent socialising with them, they were a solid unit of men and women who supported each other and cared for their own.

Sounded good to me.

It was difficult to believe it had already been over a month. I shrugged the jacket on, settling the heavy, worn leather on my shoulders, and headed out into the hall toward the meeting-room. It was time to make my place here.

They're Back!

2010-05-11T15:27:00.004-04:00

I don't often comment on the dev blogs -- maybe I ought to do, really -- but today's is significant for me.

All These Worlds: The Return of Live Events

I always felt I'd missed out on the best years of Eve, not only because of the early actions of m0o precipitating nerfs, the insanity of cavalry Ravens and fun times bouncing macro-miners out of belts -- I would love to have been in on all that action -- but because the AURORA events were phased out not long before I started playing.

When my then-flatmate Suze'Rain was putting the hard sell on me to give Eve a try, the AURORA events were one of the things that really got my attention. They represented a chance for the players to get involved in the game-world in a tangible way, and they showed that the developers were willing -- even happy -- to get their hands dirty and play the game they'd helped to create. I found that impressive, and evidence of a game the developers were really passionate about.

I can understand why they stopped -- player population growing, outcries of favouritism, disappointment from people who were never in the right places -- so the fact that they're starting again makes me both hopeful and wary.

We'll be able to see things ingame unfolding around us in realtime, rather than being told about it after the fact -- that's awesome! And it'll be scattered events across the map with no advance warning given, which should cut down on the accusations of favouritism. They have a picture of a wormhole above a planet, which is making me wonder if they did, after all, have some plan to expand the Sleepers background. Another NPC to kill is all fine, but to see them with an ingame purpose? About time!

Hopefully, the forums won't flood with whining from people who simply have bad timing and miss the events -- if drama gets sparked from this, they may decide to not bother again in the future. Remember, kids: play nice and you get more sweeties in the future.

Cue the Jaws theme!

Lucky Seven

2010-05-06T14:26:00.003-04:00

What's the average lifespan of an MMO? If you look it up online, there are lots of blogs about individual games and a few rants about how developers should pay more attention to the players in order to extend a game's lifespan. Nobody's published a comparative of all the MMOs, their running time, and their player-count during that time; I wish there WAS one so I could pull a Kirith and put up a shiny graph.

I remember seeing the first ads for Eve back in 2002/2003 and going, 'Ooooooh!'. Then the 'online' part hit me and I didn't look further into it, because I wasn't keen on online gaming at the time: I was a tabletop player, a LAN-party CounterStrike camping bitch. Watching friends disintegrate in front of EverCrack made a bad impression, I guess. In August, I'll be celebrating my third Eve-birthday, and that... makes me feel like I've been playing for a long time. Three out of seven years. Good lord. And sometimes it feels like I missed the best part of those seven years, too.

Seven years for an MMO... that seems like a long time. Longer than many MMOs that were widely anticipated and fell flat against all expectations. And if there ever will be an endgame, it's not yet started to lurk in the corners like one last closet-monster waiting to frighten you on your way for a mid-night glass of water.

Here's to seven years, and here's to seven more, if we're lucky.

Tackboard

2010-04-27T04:31:00.015-04:00

I have quite a backlog of screenshots I've snapped when I remember how to turn off the overview display. Eve keeps getting prettier with every graphics update, though I do bemoan the loss of things like the old cloaking effects, the old cyno fields and engine trails -- stuff that maybe didn't make sense, but did a lot to give the game that feeling of Epic. I can't wait to see how it'll look once the ship models and station models are upgraded!

...You, uh, ARE planning to upgrade the stations, right guys? Because having a battleship emerging from an undock ramp a frigate will barely fit down is just a tad silly...

Left-click the images for the full-size screenie.

Size comparison: Ishkur vs Hyperion

A Nightmare in warp:

Thanatos in Vitrauze:

Freighter traffic around the Perimeter gate in Jita:

A newly-built Legion on her maiden launch:

A Veto Logistics/BC fleet, tanking on a gate...And aligned for warp

A planetary station with a trail of undocking ships:

Eve vs Women

2010-04-20T15:02:00.003-04:00

I'm going to start by saying that this isn't part of CK's blog banter, and it's not intended to be. It's a response to all the responses in general, rather than spamming up your comments.

Let me tell you what question women gamers get asked the most by their male associates. No, it isn't 'Are you really a girl?' or even 'Send boobie pictures?' (I will say, when people ask that, I generally give a link to this picture, but I'm perverse like that).

No, the question we get asked the most is, 'How do I get my girlfriend to play Eve?'

Guys are making, lessee, one, two... three major errors right there with that one question.

Firstly, they assume that one woman gamer can relate to any other random woman in the world. I'll tell you right now, beyond having a common gender and the issues it brings with it, and perhaps sharing a cultural background, most women have utterly nothing in common. In truth: I don't understand women. In general. I just do not get them, and a lot of the typical behaviours make me shake my head and wonder if most women simply choose to let their brains atrophy, or if we have popular culture to blame for making them act that way.

Secondly, they're approaching a woman who is, for all intents and purposes, a total stranger to their girlfriend. I know nothing about your girl, save what you tell me, and so my impression of her will be tinted by what you say. I have no idea what would make the most convincing argument for your girlfriend to try playing the game. I don't know her. All I can do is point out your third -- and biggest -- error.

And that is: 'You cannot make a gamer of someone who has neither the interest nor the inclination.'

Shae, what the hell is that supposed to mean? Exactly what it says. In order for a person to enjoy playing games, they have to WANT to play them in the first place. Maybe Eve-players' girlfriends are simply being stubborn, maybe they're refusing to 'get' the game out of some perverse need to make the guy jump through hoops. But I'm willing to bet the vast majority of these Eve Widows are simply not interested.

I'm a huge sci-fi nerd: I always wanted my own X-wing fighter, I grew up watching Star Trek and more crappy B-movies than I can count, and getting into Eve was a very easy and natural step for me. I find WoW wholly uninteresting for its cartoony nature, reputation for internet greebos with no social skills, and lack of cutomer-provider relations. Eve is a world for people who want to have a role in an interactive sci-fi universe -- people like me, and I suspect the majority of you -- and CCP does deliver to the best of their ability.

You only get to that stage of nerdiness if that's where you always wanted to be. If your girlfriend or wife would rather sit down to watch The English Patient when the only other option is Serenity, then making her watch Serenity isn't going to endear the genre to her any more than cajoling her -- as an uninterested non-geek -- to try to enjoy flying virtual ships in a competitive game where human interaction is relatively minimal.

I do know your pain. The guy I was dating when I started playing Eve began to suggest that I should grow up and stop playing games. I never thought he had much of an argument, because all he did was come home from work and get drunk and stoned out his gourd in front of crappy tv serials.

It's all about priorities.

Most people don't think playing computer games is socially rewarding -- that it's the venue of the dreaded Cheetos-munching, 'Dew-swilling Basement Troll -- and that may be the biggest obstacle a guy has to surmount when introducing his girl to the other half of his life. It's a terrible stigma to have to refute when you don't see yourself in it; non-gamers in general will instantly make the connection even if you don't fit the stereotype.

People automatically assume everyone else has a similar set of priorities in their lives. It's incredibly difficult to bend one's brain around another person's way of thinking when it differs radically. Most people see social interaction -- in a bar, a club, at work -- as being high-priority. Gaming, in general, is viewed as something for the socially inept, a place for the freaks and geeks to conceal their shortcomings behind a scantily-clad digital Barbie-doll named Chesty McTitties.

If a guy wants his girl to at least understand the game -- if not give a shot at playing it -- he has to try to compare it with the things that are important to her. Like... soap operas = Eve forums drama. Sports = Eve pvp. Board- and card-games = Eve pve and 0.0 territory battles.

If enough effort is put forward, it's possible to at least get a non-gamer to understand your fascination with games and Eve in particular. But if you want to turn a non-gaming girl into an active Eve-player, you're going to have to be prepared to tear holes in the walls of social structures the girl has built up over the course of her lifetime. Some people don't like their comfort zone being wrecked like that; some people will be alright with it, if all they have to do is add a little to their understanding. One person in a thousand might rub their eyes, stare around and exclaim, 'My god, I never KNEW!' and plunge happily forth into the unknown.

At the end of the day, all you can do is explain things, and if that fails, compromise, and ask if she'll sit with you through Serenity after The English Patient is over.

Bar Counsel

2010-04-18T17:15:00.001-04:00

The bar was quiet, only a few scattered die-hards enjoying their hair of the dog or a morning hangover remedy. I marvelled a bit at this -- I'd never been in here at this hour before, and the difference from the businesslike hum of daytime and the pounding rush of the nightlife was striking. Covering a yawn, I picked my way around staff wiping down tables and mopping spilt alcohol from the floor, heading for a seat at the bar.

The big Civire bartender cracked a grin. 'Didn't I just see you in here, Shae?'

I shook my head. 'Aah, couldn't sleep. Can I have a cup of spiced tea, please, Karlos?'

'No coffee?' He tsked and disappeared into the back, emerging a minute later with a full tea service on a tray. I laughed and accused him of overkill; he shook his head. 'You drink this stuff like water.'

The bastard leaned on the bar and waited til I'd prepared a cup of sweetened tea and was taking the first sip before asking, 'So what's keeping the Gallente Outlaw Supervixen awake?'

Scowling, I wiped a drop of tea from the tip of my nose. 'Not you, too. I'mma kill Cael for that one.'

'The reported nosebleeds did skyrocket after your application went up on the Veto forums. How're you settling in?' He cupped his chin in one hand as his green eyes examined me from beneath lowered lids. I smiled.

'Good, actually. Much better than I thought, given recent experiences.'

'Uh huh? So what's keeping you up when you have a boyfriend to go curl up with?'

I arched an eyebrow at him teasingly. 'Not jealous are you?' He gave a mysterious smile in response and I shook my head. 'A lot of things on my mind, I guess.'

'Like?'

He wasn't going to let it lie. Bartenders.... I shot him a narrow look, then sighed and cupped my tea between my hands. 'I guess maybe I just doubt myself too much, these days. Been in a bad place mentally, and I've rarely got out. Now I guess I'm worried I'll have forgot how to do it.'

The massive Caldari snorted, like a volcano giving a warning rumble. Pulling a face I grumbled, 'You keep your dirty thoughts to yourself. I look at the ships I have in my hangar and I wonder if I'll be able to use them as well as I did before, or if it'll be academy days and massive losses all over again. I'm wary of flying anything more expensive than a cruiser because I just KNOW it won't be returning at the end of the night.'

'If you don't undock expecting to lose those hulls, girl, you're doing it wrong.'

I nodded reluctantly. 'I know, I know. If it's not on fire, I'm not flying it right.'

He reached over and tapped my forehead lightly with the tip of one finger. 'You know how to use them. Just go do it. The scariest thing you have to fear out there is yourself... not the other guy. The other guy's a pussy little thing in comparison.'

Blinking, I stared up at him. He frowned a little. 'What?'

I shook my head. 'You know... I knew that. But thanks for reminding me. Did Sonja manage to get your shirt off last night?'

Karlos laughed heartily. 'No, but they got Ethan topless. I'm surprised you missed that part.'

Giggling, I sipped my tea. 'Cael and I were talking over at the table,' I explained, jerking my head towards the massive host's table. 'I hope someone got a video. That's more than enough hot Gallente to go around.'

He shrugged and reached behind the bar to obtain a drink for a bedraggled-looking patron who appeared a couple seats down from me. 'Topless Verone is a common sight, I'm surprised you've not seen him pull that more often.'

'But Topless Karlos is an endangered species, huh?'

He smirked at me. 'so are you going to go back to bed once you're done with that?'

'Hm?' I blinked at him over the rim of the glass teacup. 'Nah, still too much on my mind. Gonna hit up the simulator and see about finishing the refit on my Lachesis.'

The bartender shook his head at me. 'Suit yourself, honey. Just don't start making mistakes because you're too tired to focus.'

I waved him off to take care of the other guests. It was nice to know others cared, and he'd given me some more to think about.

Intel Over Info

2010-03-16T04:25:00.007-04:00

When Syrna kicked her boyfriend out, it was literal -- a muddy running-shoe to the backside as Aren made a panicked exit.

'Next time you're gonna cheat, don't do it with your woman's dorm-mate!'

'Syrna, sweetie, I'm Gallente.... we're just like that.'

She scowled at the lame excuse. 'Well, I'm Minmatar, and the next time I see your skanky balls around here, they're going in a jar.'

'Wait! Can I, um... can I have my pants back?' The pretty blond fidgeted with the shirt clutched over his pubes.

'No.' The door slammed, locking him out in the rain.

Syrna turned to her dorm-mate, who was standing in the doorway to her own room, slightly more decent for having pulled a dressing-gown on. 'Syr, I swear, he said you'd broke up. I'd never have touched him if I knew he was lying.'

The taller woman shrugged, putting the issue to rest. 'He's single now, if you want him.'

'Nah. Who knows what else he could be lying about? I need a shower.' Rika retreated to their small shared bathroom, leaving Syrna alone in the living-room with her ex's discarded clothing.

A wiry young woman with features too strong to be called pretty, Syrna had spent the last ten years rebuilding from the shards of a shattered life. On a trip to visit her brother at the military school in Ammold, the ship she and her parents were travelling on had been waylaid by an Amarrian slaver gang, and only the arrival of a Domination fleet which had been pursuing the slaver ships saved the ones who'd survived the brutal attack.

Both her parents had died when the main part of the ship depressurised, and twelve-year-old Syrna herself, trapped in their room when the decompression seals engaged, suffered multiple fractures from a fallen bulkhead. The Angel Cartel had taken the orphan in, patched her up, treated her well and given her a new home. Domination Pelnon Reivel, seeing something stronger in her, became a sort of surrogate father.

Life in the Cartel had taught Syrna a lot of things, the first being that it took all types to make the system work, and the second being that it was more satisfying to get back at people by slowly tearing them down than by making a bloody example of them. Of course, that didn't stop some people from pulling blades, but her mentors had been far more frightening.

Her personal comm twittered and she accepted the connection.

'Hello, my dear,' Pel's whisky-burned voice purred. 'I have a friend here to visit, and I thought it might be good for you to meet them. How about dinner at Valkey's, 1900? Wear something nice.'

'Nice, huh? Okay.'

Closing comms, she checked the time: 1748, barely enough time to clean away the sweat from her workout, dress and get a taxi to the restaurant on the other side of the city. Syrna got up and knocked on the door to the bathroom. 'Hey Rika, you almost done scrubbing off the Gallente cooties?'

~*~

The establishment was a fine one, though if he was being pressed, Imral would have suggested that the right words to the maitre d' would have seen him through the kitchens to illegal gambling halls in the rear, or the basement, or upstairs. Or all three. This close to Empire space, the Angels put up a good face on the places they owned, but it was still only a front.

'Don't say anything, kid. You're supposed to be my bodyguard. Offering opinions on their legality isn't your job. Keep a poker face, and keep the system recording.'

'Yes, ma'am.' The lean Brutor adjusted his shades, checking the readouts and telemetry the glasses' fine electronics picked up. Everything seemed on order, though the guy who'd just stepped from the liquor store on the corner and stopped to light up was being highlighted a dim orange; illegal implants, possibly an agent.

Everyone here could be an agent. He shrugged his shoulders, feeling the fine material of his jacket tug taut for a moment. He'd been trained well for this, but until now he'd been little more than an analyst; this was his first field action. After years of exemplary service in the Republic Fleet, he'd been recommended to a special forces branch, and the 27-year old had never been more proud.

As the car glided up underneath the extended awning in front of the restaurant, his superior asked, 'Everything in order?' A quick diagnostic showed everything green, and he nodded.

'Then, after you, Mr Emvirren.'

Stepping out first, then holding the door, he watched his CO transform from a hunched and somewhat bookish-looking motherly sort to a straight-backed and imposing Vherokior tribeswoman in an elegant sari and a small fortune in gems. Hanna Ravishak had been retired from field-work years earlier to work as a trainer, but she had lost none of her skill.

When dealing with the upper echelons of criminal society, where the majority of Republic Intelligence's field agents had been identified, sending Ravishak and Emvirren to deal straight -- or as straight as an under-the-table exchange could be -- had been ideal. They needed the information the Cartel had, but the Cartel wouldn't give it to just anyone who asked. Setting up this meeting had taken over a year's worth of work retconning records and creating false resumes, building Ravishak up as a highly desirable prospective business associate. He was determined not to screw this up.

He fell into step behind and to her right as Ravishak strode up to the doors; they swished open as the pair reached to top step, and a young woman in a hostess' uniform stepped forward to take Ravishak's wrap. The older woman passed it instead to her 'bodyguard' without acknowledging the girl, then turned directly to the maitre d'. 'Jionnatira,' she said, eyelids drooped in an expression of superior boredom. Expressionless behind his shades, Imral admired the act and hoped his own part would do it justice. He followed silently in his CO's wake, taking cues from her subtle hand-signals.

The private dining-room they were led to was, if anything, more opulent than the rest of the place, but with a subtler tone: hand-carved wood panels inlaid with iridescent shell and fossil-bone patterns rather than the blindingly-polished gold of the main room. Imral's shades picked up the cameras his eyes wouldn't have located, little flickers of orange in his peripheral vision. As they entered, the room's occupants remained seated, but the fox-featured Deteis at the head of the table raised his crystal wineglass, rings glinting on his fingers in the dim light.

'Madame Jionnatira, an honour to finally meet you. You have quite the reputation for privacy; I'm surprised I could convince you to join me this evening.'

An almost careless flick of Ravishak's bejeweled hand cued Imral to take a position behind her with his back against the wall, her silky wrap draped over his arm, as a server stepped forward to draw the chair for her. His job now was to become an attentive statue.

'It is necessary to socialise on occasion. And I wished to meet you, after you have been so generous in your assistance, Mister Reivel.'

He sipped from his glass, barely enough to moisten his lips. 'Please, call me Pel. And you're very right about socialising. May I present my daughter, Syrna?'

Imral felt his breath catch in his throat: the woman seated to Reivel's left was a striking Brutor a few years younger than himself, her athletic figure draped in a slinky black gown that shimmered distractingly over her curves. 'Daughter', indeed; it was quite obvious she was the man's bodyguard. And what a body...

A flare from one of his glasses' readouts caught his eye and reminded him of why he was there; he was suddenly grateful for the opaque lenses. A glance at the condensed report showed a positive identification had been made on the man, the girl and two of the four people serving them. He sent the data off to storage with a blink, keeping half an ear the the guardedly idle chatter.

~*~

At Pel's invitation, Syrna retired with him to his office after the guest had departed, a packet of valuable business data in her bodyguard's pocket.

The Caldari poured mineral water into champagne flutes and held one out to her. 'What did you think of her, my dear?'

Syrna accepted the glass and sipped slowly as her mind worked. 'She seems to know exactly what she's doing and how we could use her services.' She took a seat in one of the comfortable padded chairs, draping the long train of her dress over her knee. 'Maybe a little too well.'

Pelnon had taken his usual position on the edge of his desk. 'How so?'

She knew he was testing her. 'Her pitch was too practiced. She knew just what to say to tick all the boxes.'

'In fact,' her adoptive father husked, 'Her pitch was nearly word-for-word what her earlier messages have said. She could simply be unimaginative, and that's hardly a crime. But I don't like it when people fit the bill too precisely.' He reached over and lightly touched an indent in the surface of the desk. 'Ndira, has the data been analysed?'

'Coming through now, sir.'

A holo report appeared above the desk, and Pel flicked his fingers at it to turn it the right direction. From her vantage, Syrna recognised dossiers of both the woman and her young bodyguard. The Domination chuckled grimly.

'Republic intelligence tried to pull a fast one, I see.' He shrugged. 'Ah, well, they got what they wanted, and once that datachip goes into their system, so will we.'

'They won't pick up on the dataworm?' Syrna rose and crossed the room, her curiosity piqued by something in the bodyguard's bio.

Pel knocked back the last of his water. 'They never do, my dear. ...Is something wrong? You look as if you'd seen a ghost.' He pouted handsomely at her in concern, and the young woman shook her head.

'Nothing, Pel. It's a shame we can't recruit the bodyguard, he's got a good record.'

'Too good.' The man sighed contentedly and set his glass down on the desk. 'All in all, a most productive evening, and I had the pleasure of treating you to a fine dinner as well. Thank you my dear.'

Smiling, Syrna leaned over and kissed her foster-father's cheek. 'Thank you, Pel. I had a lovely evening.' She collected her coat from where she'd dropped it over a chair on her way out, wrapping the luxurious garment around herself as she mused, What are the odds?

~*~

Imral ran a hand over his clean-shaven head. 'I can't believe--'

'Pull it together Mr Emvirren, or your first field stint will be very short, indeed.' Hanna used a special cleanser to wipe the elabourate false tattoo from beneath the dark stubble on her skull, eyeing the young man sternly in the mirror. 'It's fortunate you didn't read the reports while we were there, or you might have jeopardised the whole thing.'

'But she's my sister!' he repeated himself as if unwilling to believe Ravishak hadn't understood the first time, leaning forward over the hotel-room desk that separated them, the damning reports fractured by one of his fingers resting over the embedded projector. 'I've thought she was dead for ten years--'

'And as far as the rest of us are concerned, she ceased to be your sister when she accepted her place in the Cartel.'

The angry young man slapped the surface of the desk, juddering Ravishak's cup of tea; she rescued the drink with a warning glare he ignored. 'That smiling bastard's been lying to her if she thinks he "rescued" her from slavers, the attack evidence clearly shows--'

'Mister Emvirren.'

He stopped short at the ice in his CO's dangerously soft voice. She gazed at him unblinkingly, one eye still coloured an unsettling grey from her cover.

'If you wish to remain in service, you will listen to me very carefully. You will forget that that woman used to be your sister. Whomever she was to you, that little girl is gone, now. She is a bare step below an officer in the Angel Cartel, and if you do not know what that means, I wonder how you ever made it to this point in your career.'

Imral swallowed dryly as Hanna concluded, 'This entire discussion is off the record, and if you wish it to remain so, you will do nothing foolish. Now, sir, do you understand me?'

He bit his lip, then looked down and nodded.

'I didn't hear that, Mr Emvirren.'

'Yes, sir. I understand.'

The older woman sighed, then relaxed, her expression sympathetic. 'You're not the first intelligence officer to rediscover a lost loved one. You can take some solace in the fact that they've clearly treated her well. Get some sleep, we're leaving very early tomorrow.'

An hour after her assistant returned to his room, Hanna received a call from one of the oversight team.

'I'm not surprised. Keep an eye on him, but only interfere if you think it'll jeapordise the mission.'

~*~

The knock at her door wasn't wholly unexpected. Syrna padded over to the door, barefoot in loose trousers and a sleeveless top, a small pistol tucked down at her side in her right hand. A peek at the security camera told her all she needed to know, and she rolled her eyes in disgust.

Opening the door a crack, she stuck the barrel of the gun through and growled, 'Give me one good reason not to blow your balls off, Aren.'

It was clear the blond Gallentean hadn't been expecting an armed reception. 'I-I-I was just out for a walk--'

'You live halfway across the city, dipshit.' She started to close the door, but he stuck his foot in the way.

'This big guy came to my apartment, okay! He said he knew I knew you and to give you this!' He thrust his hand out, nearly whacking his knuckles on the doorframe in his rush.

The object Aren dropped into her hand was a datachip. As she eyed it suspiciously, her ex stuttered, 'He said that it contains answers and that you can do what you want with them. And that he was happy to see you.'

He looked terrified. Syrna squinted at him. 'Did he threaten you?'

'N-no! Just said that if it wasn't in your hand in thirty minutes it'd explode!'

The woman laughed. 'You idiot, it doesn't work that way,' she chuckled at his consternation, and closed the door in his face.

-------------------------------
This is my submission to Silver Night's fiction contest. I wasn't going to join in, but the teptation to exercise my keyboard was too much :)

On The Edge

2010-03-15T00:01:00.001-04:00

It was a long way down. A very long way down.

The small Gallente leans forward, elbows propped on her knees, the yawning gulf open beneath her boots not phasing her in the slightest as she looks up instead at the frigate drifting in dock above her.

'One wrong twitch and you're gonna be needing a parachute, girl.'

The redhead chuckles without looking up. 'Good thing I'm not twitchy.'

'You were when you got back up here. Even two weeks in nullsec really fucked you up.' The willowy Thukker woman leans forward on the railing, gazing up at the ship. 'She's looking good.'

'Yeah...' The smaller woman leans back on her elbows on the deck, swinging her feet carelessly over empty space. 'First time in ages I've fit up a Rifter. Hot little thing.'

'Hot like a bounty-huntress tricking you into an alley. Lemme see her fit.'

The Gallente tugs a datapad from one of the myriad pockets of her grease-streaked black combats and passes it up, then lays back on the deck and tucks her hands under her head. 'Bear in mind, it's all bits I had lying around. There's a couple things I need to buy.'

'Not too bad, though. You gonna rig her?'

'I was thinking I could ask you to retrieve a few things from highsec for me so I can do that.'

The Thukker hands the datapad back and lights the cigarette dangling from her generous lips. 'For a price, as usual.' She drops down gracefully into a meditation pose, her back braced against one of the railing's upright. 'Shae, you know you're welcome to stick around in H4VN' --she pronounces it 'Haven'-- 'as long as you need to, but I gotta say, we worry about you. A lot of people are worried, actually. You've not been yourself for months.'

The Gallente languidly extends a tattooed arm, plucking the cigarette from her friend's lips and drawing just enough to blow a perfect smoke-ring before handing it back. 'I need time to think. And space.'

'You wanna tell me what's been bothering you? It's not the pirating, I know you too well to think that.'

Blue eyes meet green before the green turn away to stare into the haze shrouding the hangar ceiling far above. 'I don't... I've been trying to figure things out. I feel badly for leaving after only two weeks... they deserved better of me than that.'

'You were going very quietly insane down there, and the only one who didn't see it was you.'

'I... yeah. Okay. They're good guys, they have a good cause. I'm just not accustomed to having to trust people I don't know.'

The Thukker shrugs. 'Pacts are forged for different reasons down there than they are up here.'

'And the last time I joined a nullsec alliance, the leadership flipped standings without warning the soon-to-be-red blues. That was fun.'

'That was Syndicate. It's different.'

'Doesn't mean I trust pacts like that to last.' She sighs and tugs one leg up, hooking her heel on the platform's edge. 'I like things simple. I like reds and neutrals: you don't have to keep one eye awake at night worrying about being stabbed in the back.'

Sighing, the taller woman flips the stub of her cigarette into the void. 'Face it, girl, nullsec is too complicated for you.'

'Fuck yeah, it is. I don't see why anyone would want to deal with stuff like that. Gimme a gun and a sea of neutrals and I'm happy.'

'Simple Shae,' the Minmatar chuckles. 'What do you want to do?'

'Dunno. Could do with a drink, though, sit and mull things over.'

The Matari woman flows to her feet, then reaches down to help the Gallente up. 'I've gotta bounce off Goinard, if you want a lift to the Last Gate.' When the smaller woman looks down at her grime-streaked combats and sleeveless red shirt, blazoned proudly with the Hellcats' crossed flaming swords and cat-skull logo, she laughs. 'Who gives a fuck what you're wearing? I hear grease-monkey girls are the hot thing this year.'

'You been bootlegging porn again?'

'Of course I have. C'mon, I'll drop you off at 4-5. You just have yourself a think about things, sugar.' The two turn their backs on the Rifter, bantering amiably as they exit the Vitrauze hangars.

Not So Easy

2010-03-07T18:14:00.000-05:00

'Shae, honey, I know it's a new lifestyle, but... you'e gotta be kidding me.'

'Hang on a sec...' I flipped 'Lara's comm over to room audio. 'Okay, go ahead, what's the problem?'

'I'm looking at this shopping list you sent me. It's ridiculous! Who the hell uses railguns in combat?' Her voice followed me around the tiny apartment as I got dressed. With so many people based here, space was at a premium.

Crowded systems make me paranoid. Even when they're all blues.

'Yeah, it's weird, I know. It's what they use.'

'I dunno girl, I think you're gonna go fucking insane down there.'

I ran my hand over my face and sighed. 'I'm starting to think you're right about that. I said I'd give it two months.'

She tsked. 'You'll be back in one, Shae. I know you too well, you'll have a hard time adapting to that ranged combat bollocks.'

'Just... get the gear, Lara. And no placing bets, 'kay?'

'Awwww....'

Send-Off

2010-02-26T14:06:00.000-05:00

The place... echoed.

I passed through empty warehouses and hangars doing one last check for anything that might have been forgotten. For once, the job had been done thoroughly. Rather than being shipped -- and causing the contracted haulers to be lazy about things -- it was all being sold, with the exception of a few of the more expensive pieces and hulls. Those were in capable hands and on their way to a staging area on the other side of the cluster.

My fingers, trailing idly across a wall, tripped over the spot where we'd accidentally splashed paint one night when we'd got the idea that putting corp logo on our ships would be an awesome idea. We kind of forgot that hull paint is specially designed to withstand combat conditions, and had uttery ruined the coveralls we'd borrowed. The lumpy splatter on the wall would never come off.

'You're sure we can't have your stuff?'

I laughed and turned. Mynxee, Venom, Lakasha... all the Hellcats, and several members from the rest of the alliance, stood in the entrance. Heading over, I made certain I gave everyone a hug. 'I'm gonna fucking miss you guys.'

Eviwyn pouted. 'We'll miss you, too. I never even had the chance to fly with you.'

Fort ruffled my dreadlocks playfully. 'I'll keep your seat in the hot tub warm for you.' His craggy Amarrian features creased in a devious grin, and I giggled and kissed his cheek.

The gathering turned into a small party as we headed for one of the station's bars for drinks. Memories were shared of the last year and a half, three-fifths of my piloting career since I left the academy, summarised over beer and whisky and several hilarious games of pool. Towards the end of the night, Mynx wrapped her arm around my shoulders and took me aside.

'Look, I want you to know that you've got our support in this, and you'll be welcome back anytime.' She grinned. 'I've sometimes considered going on to other things, myself, but I kinda made my bed here, ya know?'

I smiled and hugged her. 'That means a lot, you know. And yeah... I kind of feel bad for leaving you guys like this... timing and everything.'

She shook her head. 'You've been such a big part of Hellcats for so long, and corp chat won't be the same without you, but I think this will be good for you. You've been down, lately.'

'Yeah. I have a good feeling abut this. And I will be back, eventually.'

'Ha! You can't leave this behind forever.'

Mynx laughed, her braids flying as she tossed her head back. I laughed with her, happy that this period of my life was closing on a good note. The last seventeen months had brought me some of the closest friends I'd ever had, and some of the best memories.

It had also given me the best relationship I'd had yet. Determined not to let it slide, I was leaving a jump-clone behind in order to visit Caellach whenever I had the chance. We'd managed a visit to his parents a couple weekends earlier, and it had been a surprisingly pleasant introduction to the Marellus clan. His mother had insisted on making up for the shortcomings of my own, despite my insisting that she didn't have to.

Someone smacked me on the arse and I looked over my shoulder to see Fort holding out a cue stick. 'Your turn, short-stuff.'

Chuckling, I took the stick and went back over to the table, determined to beat Val this time.

I'd be leaving for Ushra'Khan in the morning.

Eve gets more shiny

2010-02-24T16:18:00.003-05:00

A lot of people are drooling over the images of the soon-to-be revamped Scorpion as revealed in the latest dev-blog.

And man, is it about time the ships got some love to update them with the newer graphics. I'm impressed with the hull redesign, too... suddenly, the poor Scorpion is a ship I'd actually want to fly.

...Yes, I'm vain about my ships: if I'm going to be seen in it, it's gotta be sexy. Or make up for its visual shortfalls by pwning hard :p

What interests me more in the dev-blog, though, are the details about how they're changing the file system to make the graphics update possible. I'm an art geek and taking classes in that sort of thing right now. The potential that system change opens up is immense. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the art team does with it.

Evespaces

2010-02-23T19:55:00.006-05:00

Meme time! Why not?

...The camera wasn't actually tilted. The desk is tucked into a small angled window niche. It's... cramped. If I need the extra room, I put the laptop and tablet down on the bed. And yes, that's a figurine of Guan Yin on top of the tower. The tower itself won't fit in the floorspace. My setup in my old place in Scotland was much more spacious and comfortable -- and I didn't need massive curtains to keep the cold out. The sound system was better too, but that's in storage. I have to make do with what I can get, these days.

Aspirant

2010-02-23T00:45:00.001-05:00

The heavy features of the Civire on the other end of the connection frown a little in puzzlement at the sight of the auburn-haired woman.

'I've seen your introductory message, and the recording of your first interview. Consider this your second interview.

Can you tell me why you wish to leave your current corporation?'

The woman sighs and looks down for a moment as she collects her thoughts. 'It's not... because of any in-corp problems. Or even any inter-alliance problems, for that matter. Yes, there are things I see as being issues, but they have nothing to do with my decision. To put it simply: I'm not feeling the yarr anymore; I'm not feeling the urge to go out and ransom people and blow their stuff up.'

The Caldari man smiles a little at that, and she chuckles. 'I know, it sounds absurd. But I've just felt I had little reason to fight anymore. When I left the academy, I wanted to prove to myself that I could be as good as the guys who allowed me into their corp as a raw rookie. Then I felt I had to prove I could prosper as a pirate with honour. I've done both of those, and now I feel I have nothing left to prove to myself.'

She shrugs and settles back in her chair, looking vaguely uneasy. 'Recently, all the demands that I prove myself for whatever reason have come from outside, from other people. I don't give a shit what people think of me; I don't care about what others think I should do. The pestering and badgering has been growing annoying, and I realised a month or so ago that I was wondering why I didn't just retire as a pilot to get away from all of it.'

The recruiter's eyebrows shoot upwards at that admission. The Gallente woman nods. 'Exactly.

'I love flying, void forbid I give it up just because people keep asking me to meet their own expectations. So... you know why I want to join you. The reason I'm willing to leave my corp is simply that... I need to prove to myself that I can do something else, that I'm not just a washed-up pirate.'

She offers a wry, twisted smile. 'It know, it's kind of selfish, expecting anyone to take me on with that kind of attitude. I'm not known for altruism, but I know that I fly best when I have only my own expectations to meet.'

The man on the other end nods. 'No, that seems reasonable enough. What do you think you can offer us?'

The pirate laughs. 'In all honesty, no more than anyone else could. I'm experienced, I have a code of honour I live by which includes loyalty to my corporation, and I'm willing to follow even the strangest of orders in fleet. Is there anything more that a corp would ask of their pilots?'

Nodding, the recruiter makes a note out of range of the camera. 'Well, I assume you read our ROE, I was told the list had been sent to you. Do you have any questions or problems with it?'

'Let me see...' She calls the information up on a different screen and skims the glowing green words briefly. 'No, it all seems very reasonable to me.'

'Alright, then. Thanks for your time, and if you'll hang about in the public channel again, we'll get back to you with our decision within the week.' He smiles, and she returns the grin, running long fingers back through her dreadlocks.

'Thank you, for taking the time to consider me.'

Thicker Than Blood: Chapter Ten

2010-02-10T10:33:00.003-05:00

Just now...

The blond Caldari woman glared at the semi-holo. 'I know it was your people, you swine. We checked the wreckage of his pod; the neural scan transmitter had been tampered with, preventing his clone from being revived. The backup scan he had done that morning is mysteriously missing, and everyone who could possibly know anything has apparently developed selective amnesia. Was that really necessary?'

'Mlle Mbaari, I do not have to explain anything to you. If anything, it is you who needs to explain your deviation from the duties you were hired to perform.'

'I--'

Isaar's heavy features settled into a piercing scowl. 'Your errors have been compensated for, and you have been paid precisely the amount that was agreed upon. I hereby expect no further contact from you until such time as you might be requested to do so.' The transmission cut abruptly, and Sati leaned forward, resting her elbows on the desktop and massaging her temples wearily.

After a minute, she tapped in a command. When the request was granted, she sighed and said, 'It's done. Wake him up anytime.'

Miska T'onik smiled broadly through the hologram. 'Thank you very much, Ms Mbaari. Your service to the Rocketeers has been commendable. Your use of the mercenaries your opposite number attempted to hire was an excellent touch, though it might have been better had you told us what to expect. Jackal's record has been cleared.'

'Comms records needed to reflect a surprise attack. I have nothing to apologise for.' She did feel a twinge of guilt for her manipulation of the Rocketeers, though the scout had been a willing participant once she explained the plan. 'Well, if you'll let me get my things, I can be on my way--'

'What we now need from you, my dear,' the Khanid interrupted, 'is to forget about your young man. Unless you want me to be informing him of whom you were really working for? The Gallentean Admiralty is only the tip of your very dark, political iceberg, young lady, and just think how hurt he would be to learn you were playing him against three sides.'

'You paid me to keep him safe! His family paid me to keep him safe! What more do you want?'

The scar-twisted smile widened. 'I think fifty million should be sufficient to buy my silence. Your obvious affection for him is the only reason I do not ask more.'

Sati's clenched fist slammed on the desktop; if it hurt, she was too incensed to react. 'You scum-sucking bottom-feeder! I ought to have known...'

'Fifty. Million. Yes? And we shall pass the message on that, for his safety, you must keep your distance. Because that is the way of it, is it not? Do not think we would allow you so close to the corporation, knowing who else pays you.'

Her teeth gritted loudly as she entered the transfer request. The older man was right. She had hoped it wouldn't come to this... it had been too much to hope for with the Rocketeer director's weird information network so close. 'You will regret this, T'onik.'

'Oh, I am certain. But as long as you do not threaten what the Rocketeers have going... as we all are too aware, the autonomy of capsuleers is under constant threat from the larger governments who would dearly love to own us, yes? That would be as much ill to yourself as to the rest of us. Blood may be thicker than water, but in our world, ISK is thicker than blood.'

'Save your preaching, fedo-breath.' Sati slapped her hand on the end button, and the Kahnid's smug grin faded from sight.

Breathing deeply, Sati got up and crossed to the small kitchenette to prepare a cup of tea, willing the red rage to cool so that she could think clearly. It was, she had to admit, partially her fault: she had mixed work and emotional needs.

The process of preparing her tea helped the flames of her ire to simmer down to an icy calmness. That the Amarrian had found out her own web of connections was frustrating, but two could play the I Know What You Did game. She called up the dossier she'd kept in a hidden, encrypted file. Miska T'onik, formerly Admiral Etrian Lyritha, might harbour few regrets about his nature, but there were sure to be those who would find a use for his whereabouts, and his Sani Sabik background.

-------------------------------------

Cold darkness surrounded me, and it took a moment, or maybe an eternity, to realise it wasn't actually cold or dark. It was a total absence of everything. The realisation frightened me, and I jerked in panic. Something -- was it my hand? my foot? -- struck an unyielding surface that resonated around me with a hollow thud. Light blinded me, and I thrashed through the heavy air...

Not air. Fluid. I was sunk in a bath of viscous turquoise liquid... Vat fluid?

Fumbling with limbs that felt weak and unused, I reached forward and touched the smooth surface in front of me, a slick featureless wall curved 260 degrees around me. The back of the tube was a wall of machinery and tubes connected to the various sockets in my spine. An upright vat... I remembered the tour Miska had given me of the carrier he'd just purchased, the corporate cloning bay designed specially to fit within the confines of a capital ship.

Something suddenly pressed against the outside of the tube, a dark shape taht resolved itself into someone's open palm. My eyes were having trouble focussing, or maybe it was the effect of the fluid and the curve of the glass. Following the hand and the arm attached to it, I finally made out the face of someone familiar... Flaschmann, his dark features creased in a grin.

Seeing my eyes focus on him, my CEO tilted his head to his right. I squinted, forced my body to work for me. There was someone standing beside him, small and red-haired, and as lovely as I remembered. I reached out and pressed my hand to the glass, and she touched the surface on her side, a smile spreading across her face. My sister nodded to me, then jerked her head towards a rectangle of dim amber light behind her -- a door? -- and said something that made Flasch nod. She blew me a kiss and headed out as someone in a medical uniform appeared and tapped the glass to get my attention.

The clone-bay tech pointed downwards, indicating the bars that had extruded from the perforated surface below me. I reached down, gripped the handles and tried to force my legs to extend as the fluid began to drain out. One final breath and then I was choking and hacking fluid from my lungs as air filled the space around me, hanging limply from the grip-bars as my body discovered that it was meant to breathe oxygen. Hands on my shoulders, under my arms, something warm and soft wrapped around me as people helped me to stand up. I raised one shaking hand to wipe the goo from my eyes, still coughing amniotic fluid.

'Easy, mate, we got you.' Flasch was the one with his arm around my shoulders, guiding me towards a bench beside the wall.

'How--' My question was interrupted by a horrid coughing fit that doubled me over. Flasch's large hand thumped heavily between my shoulder-blades.

'It's been a week. We got confirmation an hour ago that the people who wanted you removed believe the job's been done. Your lady-friend was behind the mercenaries that attacked us, and she paid Jackal to mislead us. He went back after the attack and picked up your neural scan block. Brave boy.'

I leaned forward with my elbows on my knees, letting my head hang as a wave of dizziness hit me. Sati had...

He rubbed my back through the towel, helping the blood flow. 'You're lucky to have a girl like that, Jack... Val... what do we call you now, anyway?'

Another cough wracked me, but it seemed the last of the amniotic fluid was out of my lungs. 'Tor,' I choked, randomly picking one of the false IDs we'd built earlier. 'Is she...?'

Flasch sighed heavily and mimicked my pose, his expression unhappy. 'She's not here. She told Miska she's being watched, and that it would be best for you if she not be seen around the Rocketeers at all til the incident has been swept under the rug entirely.'

My eyes closed tightly. Not at all what I wanted to hear, but it made a regrettable amount of sense. I breathed deeply, feeling the bite of clone-bay chemicals in my nose, and raised my head. 'When did Shae get here?'

'Yesterday morning, and she's already got half the boys falling over their own feet to impress her.'

I chuckled, smiling despite myself. 'She's good at that, mostly because she doesn't realise she's doing it.'

Flasch patted my shoulder again. 'She's waiting until you're showered and dressed.' He pointed to a door off to one side. 'In there.'

Rising and pulling the towel around myself along with what dignity I could salvage, I managed to make it to the dressing-room without staggering. It was good to be back.

Thicker Than Blood: Chapter Nine

2010-02-05T18:02:00.004-05:00

One week ago...

The station was pleasant at this time of the evening, he thought, though it gave him fewer faces to get lost among. The dimmed lights gave the interior a dreamlike quality, and the smaller numbers of people allowed the soft hums of the machinery that formed the heartbeat of the structure to come through.

He strolled casually through the station, a common maintenance manager on his late-night rounds, confident and unassuming. The security officer he was paying off had signalled five minutes ago, and Neron had an hour to do his work undisturbed.

This appeared to be the final window he would have to fulfill his contract; the mark's corporation was giving every sign of making ready to pull out of the area any day now, and they'd been cagey about the location of their new base. Thankfully, the tech who'd been working unexpectedly late the last time seemed to have forgotten about the incident.

He'd been annoyed when the first attempt had failed. The mercenaries who'd been hired to ambush the convoy two weeks earlier had mysteriously vanished, and attempts to contact them had turned up empty offices and abandoned dead-drops. It was as if they'd been consumed by the Void. If the target had noticed the tampering that would have left him vulnerable, there'd been no sign of it.

The service techs might have simply written it off as faulty equipment and repaired the damage.

He had no idea what the target had done to warrant his removal -- permanent removal, no easy task when a target could be revived minutes later using neural backup copies. Neron didn't care; he wasn't being paid so well to ask questions, particularly since knowing the answers might get him in unnecessary trouble. That was the nature of the beast: knowing too much could be as dangerous as knowing too little, a complex game of poker where even the dealer was unknown.

He let himself into the hangar, made a show of checking offices and gathering forgotten refuse to tip down the disposal unit in case anyone had lingered late. When he was certain the place was deserted, he retrieved a datapad from his pocket and issued a command. A few minutes later, a response came back, and he unlocked the door for his assistant. The man knew starship systems nearly as well as Neron understood the system they served, and they set to work on the Taranis left on the main pad. It was the sole hull remaining in the hangar; everything else had been moved out by the target's corporation.

'Third time and all that, eh?'

Neron nodded, carefully picking his way through the computer system, erasing all signs of their access.

'Your credits are good enough, mate. Pleasure doing business with you.'

Neron took a few minutes longer to finish wiping the records before following the tech out, stopping short at the sight of the security detail waiting for him, stun-sticks at the ready. With a resigned sigh, he showed his hands empty and raised them to shoulder height as two men moved forward to give him a pat-down and secure his hands behind him.

The tech lay unconscious in the back of the waiting transport hover, a bruise slowly colouring on the side of his jaw evidence that he'd resisted more than was wise.

--------------------------------

I had wanted to be there when they caught the guys who'd been messing with my hulls. Security Chief Parulis would hear none of it: I was untrained, and stars forbid a capsuleer be injured on her watch. Sati had taken an almost perverse pleasure in exposing Neron Euvidar and his connections, and the dirty security officer had been identified and taken in an hour before he'd been meant to loop the security systems. A long list of people were being located and brought in for questioning; Parulis had suggested that only a handful would know anything of any worth.

I was permitted to watch from the monitor room while the operation went on. It almost seemed too easy; why would an agent be anywhere near where they were meant to break in?

'Because the best plans are the simplest ones. Fewer loose ends to slip out of your control.' Sati put her arm around my waist. 'Speaking of simple plans, time to make you disappear, sweetie.'

We'd spent the last week building a handful of imaginary Rocketeers pilots, any one of whom could have been mistaken for me. All that was left was for me to slip behind one of the masks, rejoin the Blackball Rocketeers in Cloud Ring, and slowly fade 'Madjack Rackham' into digitised ether. Valar Tiann remained a semi-artificial construct under the Navy's care, and might eventually be reported lost in the line of fire, which was fine as far as I was concerned. The people who mattered knew the truth and that was enough.

-------------------------------------------------------------

'So what do we call you now, man?' Flasch asked as we completed our final undock procedures from Stacmon V-M9 station.

'Dunno, I've not decided yet. I'll figure it out once we get there, I suppose. Which route are we taking?'

'Same as the first time. Skies ought to be clear, we won't need scouts til we hit nullsec, anyway.'

I rolled the Taranis a couple times, enjoying how light she felt, like a feather drifting on the ions. Miska was so right about inties. Flasch laughed at my antics.

'Feels good to leave that crap behind ya, huh?'

'You have no idea.'

'Right, we got everyone? Drop an X in fleet channel when you're all out.'

I entered my confirmation along with the twenty or so others who were all that remained of the Rocketeers in Stacmon. Everything else had been moved out via blockade runner or jump-freighter. Offices closed this morning, with a last poke around the corp hangars for any bits of gear that might have been overlooked. Each ship was hauling some communal goods, mostly ammunition, alongside our standard spare rounds. I had two foundling Hammerhead drones and a handful of missiles in cargo, Flasch's Ruppy was playing hauler for a load of battleship-sized hybrid antimatter rounds. Sati was remaining behind to sweep my trail clear, and then...

Well, I didn't know. It was scary and exciting at the same time.

'Alright boys and girls, align to Covryn, prepare for fleet-warp.'

The scattering of mismatched vessels surged forward, hitched, then shot towards our exit gate at six AU per second, flashing past the sun in instants. I wondered if I'd ever get tired of that feeling, and hoped I never would.

'Covryn is clear, heading for ex'.'

'Everyone jump, align to the out gate.'

We were almost there -- only a few jumps from home -- when it happened. Jackal called the next system clear, but when space reappeared around us, we were in the middle of a massive bubbled camp.

Flasch cursed. 'Jackal, what the fuck?!' But the scout had disappeared from the fleet, and we huddled in the temporary security of our post-jump cloaks while Flasch thought fast. My mind whirled with a moment of panic.

'Shit. Shit. Right. That's a lot of bubbles. We're not fighting this, there are too many people here, who the fuck are these guys? When I say “go”, burn hard for the nearest edge and warp to the rendezvous as soon as you're clear. Just scatter, give them too many targets to focus on. Right, go, go now!'

I angled my ship down, aiming for the lower edge of the warp disruption field, and kicked in the microwarp drive. The incerceptor punched through the edge of the sphere just as another appeared around me. 'Fuck! What...?' A Sabre-class interdictor had been orbiting the bubble, and I found my ship slowed to a crawl by a half-dozen stasis webs.

'Flasch, this is Jack, I don't think I'm gonna make this one. You guys go on ahead, I'll see you at the far end.'

I gritted my teeth as I watched my shields and armour melt away. This wasn't exactly how I'd imagined things going. Flasch's voice cut through the cacophony of cannon-fire. 'There's something funny going on here, Jack. Nobody else was targeted. I'm sending word to Miska to impound Jackal's gear til we figure out what the fuck he's playing at.'

At my command, the alarm to evacuate the ship blared through the interceptor's cramped confines. I had only a minimal three-man crew on this run, but that would be three too many to lose. The gate rescue crews would scoop them and take care of them til corporate recovery could make a pickup.

The hull disintegrated, and they started nibbling on my pod. An alarm went off in my head and I winced in pain. A diagnostic query confirmed the worst: we'd missed the tampering on the capsule's transmitter.

It seemed I wasn't getting out of it, after all.

The capsule's minimal defences redlined, and the shriek of pod fluid venting into space was the last thing I heard.

Final Chapter

The Grind, part 3

2010-01-31T16:28:00.006-05:00

Ambry walked into the hangar early that morning, finishing the process of tying her shoulder-length dark hair out of the way. She didn't expect the captain to be there at this time of the day -- the captain, in fact, hadn't gone near the ship in four days. Four? She counted; yes, four days. But that didn't mean Ambry, or the rest of the crew, should relax in their work. There was always something to be done, and should the captain suddenly require the vessel, they would all need to be ready.

The crew chief worried, quietly, about their captain. A reasonable and bright young thing, and remarkably personable for a podder. But she didn't seem to be dealing well with things. She'd spent more time staring moodily at the Vexor or jumping clones to lowsec than she had in space. The crew didn't care -- they got paid no matter the situation -- but Ambry worried.

And clone-jumping... She shuddered. Why anyone would put their body into cold-storage and then entrust the very core of who they were to FTL transmission relays, waking up in a new body elsewhere.... What if the packet was corrupted along the way? Would they forget things? Gain or lose bits of their personality? It was all too unpredictable for her; but then, she supposed that was why it took just a bit of insanity aongside the long years of intensive training to become a capsule pilot.

There was a message waiting for her when she reached her office near the heart of the ship, the blue alert light blinking cheerfully as the room lights came up. She settled into her chair before reading, then sat back with a thoughtful frown. This wasn't entirely unexpected.

Tapping a command into the console, she brought up the audio system and leaned forward to speak into the receiver.

'Attention all personnel, this is Crew Chief Koll. Prepare the ship for long storage and report to InterBus port 113 by 2200 for transit back to Empire space.'

********************************

'Hello, Captain Tiann. Back again, are we? Vat A-32 is available. Which link shall I establish today, Barleguet or Vitrauze?'

'Vitrauze, Mr Nirraen. Send me home.'

Where Have All the Pirates Gone?

2010-01-28T16:31:00.002-05:00

...I find I'm asking myself this more and more as I read the blogs of my fellow pilots in crime.

Many are getting in on the action in nullsec right now. A few have gone mercenary. So many of us are cleaning up our acts for various reasons. Is it a sea-change, the inevitable ebb and flow of ingame life? A year is a long time in Eve; hell, things can turn from black to white in less than a week in this game, alliances broken and remade quickly for the most unpredictable reasons.

I have to say, I think the ones who went where the fighting is are in better condition than the members of HellFleet; the urge to kill is being thwarted frustratingly by the need to keep security status up, and the moans and complaints are amusing.

Eve gameplay has changed a lot in the two and a half years since I paid for my account before my trial period ended. The average online population has doubled. More players means space is more crowded, less quiet. It becomes necessary to modify one's strategies and style in order to not be overwhelmed or left behind.

I don't think Eve piracy is dead, or even dying. It's changing, and that means the rest of us need to change. Some seem to be simply taking a break, getting new experience as a change of pace. Others continue as they have, forging friendships to deal with the more difficult situations.

To each and every one of my fellow pirates, or former pirates, I say this, with a wink and a knowing smile:

You'll be back.

What's wrong with this picture?

2010-01-26T14:22:00.003-05:00

Hmph. Right.

I'm going to take a little break here and talk about something that's become kind of a big deal with me recently. I say 'kind of' because it's not something I would ordinarily do in Eve had I not a very good reason for it.

Now, let us postulate that you live in a very strange part of the world, and that you've been a street thug for years. You've never been caught, and your activites of stealing, murdering and shaking down hapless passers-by for coin have made you a wealthy, wealthy man (or woman, if you prefer; I tend to use 'man' as a catchall). People know you. It's pretty obvious to anyone what you do. Except that now you want to operate in a different part of your city where the police are tougher, and the rules are more stringent. In order to even get into that part of they city, you need to atone for your sins, as it were, and make up for your years of thievery in the eyes of the authorities.

Now, tell me: which of the following methods seems least realistic?
A) Bribing a contact to hack the system and clean up your record
B) Bribing the authorities to clear your record
C) Doing crappy unpaid piecework for someone important in order to get their 'word of honour' that you've cleaned up your act
D) Going out into the lawless regions and playing vigilante for a few weeks

After a week or two of very lazy sec-grinding -- yeah, lazy, I'm at -8.5 because it is SO dull and SO boring that there are days where I just cannot be arsed undocking -- I've realised that the CONCORD standings system makes very little sense. You spend years as an outlaw, and then go to a place where there are no sec-drops and kill NPCs for a couple weeks and come up smelling like roses. It's dull work, yes, but there ought to be more to it. The cost needs to be higher.

Case in point: I'm back up over a billion ISK in Shae's wallet. I'm being paid grandly for this. Now, I get that it's from pirate bounties, but if CONCORD's DED is in control of that, could they not simply deny payment to those with outlaw status? It's not like the outlaws could go waltzing into their highsec offices to beat the money out of the officers there, after all. Have you tried to get into Yulai as an outlaw? Well, sure, you can get in; getting out with your ship intact is a different matter entirely. You can't just dock up, either, because the stations won't let you in. Tough cookies.

It boggles the mind that CONCORD will not penalise you for other players killed in nullsec, yet will grant a full standings boost for every NPC you pop. Lawless means lawless: there shouldn't be any security changes down there. End of story.

But that means that you'd need an alternate way of boosting your standings, doesn't it? Hmm. Not many people are thrilled at the idea of ratting in lowsec. Knowing lowsec the way I do, neither am I. I have actually ratted there (shhhhhh, on an alt; I was introducing a friend to lowsec) but the lesser rewards mean it'd take much longer to raise standings out of the gutter.

Maybe the DED should have agents in nullsec, offering gruelling mission arcs. Only available to outlaws, situations CONCORD either doesn't have the strength to deal with or doesn't want to be seen getting involved in. Minimal pay, if any at all, but massive standings bonuses and the opportunity to pick up a piece or two of faction gear, similar to the Empire arcs. By the time you finish an arc, your standings are back up to -4, leaving you to figure out the rest yourself.

Sound good? It would certainly relieve the monotony of ratting sec up, add a bit more to Eve's massive background... and the risk would still be there, because you never know when the next branch will send you into a hot system. Give it the Sleeper AI so the difficulty scales with the type of ship -- or ships, if there's a group of you -- you bring in, and you're sorted.

Ah, but who am I to suggest such things? I'm one of the ones the current system is designed to punish for my predations on the community, after all.

*Returns to popping red crosses*

The Grind, part 2

2010-01-20T20:59:00.006-05:00

It sat there gleaming greenish chrome, bobbing gently in the antigrav field, looking for all the world like an oversized hand-held hair-dryer. In the gloom of the hangar, it might have been sitting deep underwater, and not for the first time I cursed the Federation's decorative aesthetics. Gallente-designed stations never flatter the ships on display.

I tugged the silken sheet closer around my shoulders. I'd only felt like curling up and waiting for the world to go away, but my brain wouldn't let me sleep. In the end, I'd opted for taking the sheet with me to sit on the floor of my suite's living-room in front of the massive floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the hangar.

The view wasn't particularly thrilling. Normally, I could look out there and see the Switchblade or the Geiger adrift at dock and smile at the memories and the possibilities. But the Handbasket was the most uninspiring view I'd ever seen. It even beat the Dominix I'd owned for a few short days; and I'd thought that had been ugly.

Maybe it was because of what she stood for: hours spent bouncing from belt to belt in search of a Serpentis battleship to pop. The most mind-numbing, soul-destroying experience short of being almost entirely trapped in that one system full of reds when my last corp fell apart.

Maybe I ought to rename the ship, but being in hell with the Handbasket tweaked the poetic side of my brain.

After all the suggestions people had made as to how to improve my nullsec experience, I'd sent an order for new modules and ammo to a friend. I told myself I was waiting for the new gear, but I knew I was simply making excuses to not get back in the pod and lose more of my sanity in the emptiness of Syndicate space.

What made me truly reluctant was the knowledge that, once I raised my sec up, I would indeed have to do this regularly if I wanted to continue to roam lowsec in between alliance highsec operations. Was it worth it?

I let myself flop back onto the carpet, folding one arm under my head, and stared at the arched ceiling. Was it, indeed?

The Grind

2010-01-19T15:12:00.003-05:00

'I want to make this clear: I'm only accepting volunteers for this. If you don't want to go, don't sign up for it. It'll be long dull hours, and there may be times where we don't dock up for a day or two. If you're not opposed to that... great to have you.'

I watched as the assembled crews filtered out of the room, muttering amongst themselves. The operation I'd just revealed to them was almost as far from the usual as it could be without me fitting mining lasers on a ship.

Hell, I don't even own any mining lasers.

Someone cleared their throat politely at my shoulder, and I turned to give a nod to Ambry Koll, the woman I'd hired as crew chief for the Vexor I'd playfully nicknamed Handbasket. She had better experience dealing with the challenges where we were headed than most of my regulars, and had jumped right into helping me prep the ship for action.

'It's pretty obvious to the crew that you're not thrilled about this. Care to talk?' She looked at me with serious blue eyes, and I sighed.

'Sure. C'mon into my office.'

I held the door open for her and gestured towards the couch as I went to the back to obtain cups of coffee.

'To answer your unspoken question: No, I'm not eager to do this, but it's for a good reason.' I set the cups down on the low table and dropped onto the couch beside her. 'I'm not comfortable in nullsec. I've lost too many ships and crews there to really want to go back, even for such a brief period this will be.'

Ambry simply nodded and blew lightly over the top of her drink before sipping. I inhaled sharply through my nose, then leaned forward, scrubbing a hand over my face. 'I've been an outlaw for nearly two years. This should tell you that what we'll be doing down there is not what I normally do. Shooting Serpentis to improve my ratings with CONCORD? I barely know where to begin. I'm too used to the challenge of engaging other capsuleers.'

'Well...' She paused, looking thoughtful. 'I can tell you that hunting nullsec pirates has its own challenges.'

'You mean avoiding being caught.'

'No, I mean getting into engagements where you're outnumbered and outgunned and bouncing off the rocks they've manoeuvred into. They do that, if they've their wits about them. Many a pilot has lost their ship because they got stuck and scrammed and couldn't rep fast enough. It's a different world, but don't go thinking of it as easy.'

I cupped my mug in my hands, enjoying the warmth against my palms. The taller woman was regarding me seriously, and I believed her. 'I always figured the hardest part about this would be getting in and out.'

Snorting, she shook her head. 'Difficult in different ways. Serpentis are wary of you podders, but don't get me wrong: they're not cowards. And they want you alive. You have tech and knowledge they could use, and they will try to take it. These boys won't be out for easy kills the way their underlings in highsec are. You're asking your crews to go into a situation where they are more likely to be captured, tortured, maybe conscripted, perhaps killed, if you lose your ship. The Syndicate is slow to send out rescue teams.'

Thoughtfully, I stared through the steam rising from the surface of my drink. 'What do you advise, then?'

'I advise you to stay focussed out there. But I'm telling you to show more confidence to your crew about this. They need to know you won't let them die.'

I shook my head. 'I have no intention of letting that happen.'

'You better not.' She was smiling, despite the threat implied in her words. I smiled back and took a swallow of coffee.

'I have no reason to believe that you'd put any of us into unnecessary danger, Captain. So let's go make CONCORD believe you've cleaned up your act, huh?'

------------------------

Drifting somewhere between planets, watching the armour-repper tick over, I realised how right Ambry had been. Twenty-three percent armour left, one Rear Admiral down, and his support flotilla extremely pissed off that I'd popped their scrambler ship and escaped. Fun for the whole family. The crews were at work patching the nicks two of my Hammerheads had received when the smaller support had unexpectedly swapped targets, and I mused that while I probably had a better chance surviving out here, it was a rougher life than I was accustomed to.

-9.36. Such a long way to go, still.

Skyhook audio record 38.21.23.12.111

2009-12-24T00:09:00.001-05:00

'What're you having?'

'Oooh, accepting a drink from a pirate? Does that compromise my duties?'

'Oh, cut the crap. I swear, every damn time we meet...'

'Aw, I'm just poking fun at you. They don't care who we drink with, as long as we don't cut you any slack when we're on-duty.'

'I'd be offended if you did.'

'I know you would. I'll just have my usual.'

'Not feeling adventurous?'

'If you had any idea what I put up with every day at work...'

'I have a vague notion that you CONCORD buggers sit around and find inventive new ways to make my life harder.'

'Oh, if only it was that easy. Table over there's free.'

'I see it.'

'So what's up with you? The computer system's registered some recent changes. Raised an eyebrow or two, that did.'

'We're, ah... trying something new.'

'Well, you've certainly found a colourful group of associates. Good luck breaking them in; you know what the average pilot thinks of lowsec.'

'They'll just have to harden the fuck up. But there's more to it than that.'

'I figured. You gonna share, or do I have to go sifting through several terabytes of comms logs?'

'You? Abusing the privilege of your position? I'm shocked.'

'In a nuns' priory, in the middle of the night? Ding-dong. So?'

'I'll be taking a few trips out to null.'

'And there it is. Not going straight, are you?'

'You're joking, right?'

'There's the last piece. That'll be interesting to watch. Don't forget when you're in highsec that popping innocents will actually cost ya.'

'I've not been gone that long.'

'Two years is long enough. Well, I wish you girls luck. Have you said anything to your dad?'

'He knows. It amuses him, I think.'

'It would. So... have you seen the latest Evirn Halmaya holo?'

'Ugh, you watch that stuff?'

Beyond

2009-12-18T00:06:00.003-05:00

I remember when I was a little girl -- back before Mum left, and before my little brother got big enough to fight back -- Dad took us on a trip to Gallente Prime.

This was a big deal back then: he had just retired from his Navy service and had stumbled into politics rather by accident than by intent. He'd simply been a victim of saying, 'Somebody ought to...' one too many times, and one of his old drinking buddies finally responding, 'So why don't you?' Mum had been enamoured of Dad's position in the Navy when they'd met, hooked up and married, but wasn't too keen on the shift; she said a regional planetary governor's position was hardly noteworthy after Dad's service record.

But Dad had ideas. He'd spent thirty years of his life in service to the Federation, and felt he could better help his people from the ground they walked than from a station looking down on them. Mom was not one to suffer in silence, and things were just beginning to break down between them.

From his modest governor's salary, Dad scraped together enough to charter a private Exequror-class cruiser from Athinard to Luminaire. He booked tours of historic monuments and museums all over the system, got a hotel room not too far from the Crystal Boulevard so he could take Mum shopping. For what we had at the time, he really went all-out.

The flight there took a while, since they didn't want us to get sick during warp. I was supposed to be paying attention to my tutor, but what I really wanted was to be stood with my nose pressed to the forward viewscreen, watching nebula-dust flash past. Too bad the VI noticed and gave me a mild static shock through my tablet stylus to get my attention.

I tended to get zapped a lot in class. 'Head always in the stratosphere, need to bring you back down to earth,' the Virtual Instructor had said when I complained, once.

My brother Val had been all excited about going to the places we'd only heard about through class and docudramas. Me? We were in space. SPACE! It was my first dream come true, and I had to attend classes as usual even though we were on holiday. How unfair was that?!

But lessons were over soon enough, a jump or two before our destination, and I could not get away fast enough. At some point, Dad joined me in the forward lounge on the level below the bridge, where I stood with my hands and face pressed against the transparent material, oblivious to everything but the stars.

He ruffled my shoulder-length mass of red curls. 'Pretty, isn't it?'

I nodded without taking my eyes from the view, utterly entranced.

I heard him take a seat in one of the chairs behind me. 'I used to stare through my skylight at night when I was your age, and wish I could be out here. Six years later, they let me into the Navy, and I never regretted making that wish come true.'

'Is piloting even better than this, Daddy?'

He chuckled. 'As different as this is from riding in a hovercar. Down here, we're just along for the ride. But up there on the bridge, the captain and crew are all a part of the ship. They have holo-projectors so that they see things the way the ship does.'

For the first time, I turned away from the view, just as we coasted past the sun. The shifting light made the shadows in the dimly-lit lounge slide across the walls. 'Do capsule pilots have the same thing?'

'No, they have something different.' He patted the seat beside him, and I went over to hop up and snuggle against Dad's side. He put his arm around my shoulders. 'They have a full neural interface with their ship, and their crew are just support. The capsule allows them to actually become their ships.'

'Oh.' We watched in silence as the ship slowly sailed up to the gate, and there was the soft ping alerting the passengers to strap in for the jump. My stomach twisted and I felt dizzy for a moment; then the world returned and the view out the window had changed.

Dad's hand squeezed my shoulder. 'Does that sound like something you'll want to do in a few years?'

I nodded just as Mum's voice came from the door behind us, 'Do you really want to be giving her that idea, dear?'

Dad half-turned to look over his shoulder. 'I don't see why not. If it's something she wants to do with her life, she should be allowed to try.'

'But there's so much more for her...'

'You mean less dangerous.' Dad gave that low laugh again. 'Also more mundane and more boring.'

'Dear...'

'Aevy, I'm not going to discourage our children from finding happiness their own way, and this isn't the time to have the same old argument.'

Mum sighed. 'I was just wondering if you'd like a drink. The captain says they have a bottle of Heurot '87 set aside. Complimentary.'

It had always been a sticking point between them whether to ecourage me and Valar to make our lives planetside or let us reach further. Mum had always had the daft notion that I'd be a stunning fashion-designer or some such, possibly because I spent so much time drawing. When I finished my formal education, I'd gone along to the art institutes to humour her, but the attitudes there had disgusted and -- at one place -- outright offended me. When I entered the Naval prep academy at 16, she stopped sending me messages; after the hounding she'd given me about it, I was relieved. Val never got the same treatment, prehaps because she felt a Navy career was better-suited to boys. I don't know; I don't care, anymore.

To this day, I feel annoyed that my decision to pursue somewhat less-than-legal activities has pleased her, since piracy is SO much more glamourous than being a boring old naval officer, don't you think, darling? The holos never do show the harder side of it, after all. But Dad... Dad had to publicly disown me, in order to not lose political face. Despite that, he reached out to me through Valar, and we send messages regularly via a reroute set up by an acquaintance of mine.

I learned more from Dad than I maybe thought, at first. We both break the rules in our own ways, and are utterly unashamed about it.

Too long

2009-12-03T20:07:00.003-05:00

Real Life has dealt me probably the worst hand yet. All I can say is I'm not happy to have to leave Scotland, my boyfriend and all our friends and the familiar places behind. And I'm really lucky my parents were willing to take me in while I try to restart my life. The last month or so killed a lot of my actual playing time, and then there were a couple weeks wherein my PC was in separate components waiting to be installed in a new case in the US.

It's been hellish. At least Eve looks pretty, and I was able to get my PC together in time for the first Hellcats bomber roam.

Picture time! I'm taking sov map pictures every day to track the changes, so for right now, you get a shot of Shae's homeworld. I was kind of paranoid that it'd turn out to be an inhospitable lump of rock in the new planetary graphics, and I was so incredibly happy to see that it's still a pretty, temperate world with cities.

Ill-Prepared in Essence

2009-11-12T09:18:00.003-05:00

I was overseeing the refitting of practically my entire fleet -- and cursing myself inwardly for not remembering to pick up new rigs -- when trouble walked into my hangar. I knew she was trouble because she was a Naraka pilot I'd spoken with a few times.

'Hey, Heyna.'

'You need to come out with us, Shae.'

'Why's that?'

'We just popped a Drake out there. C'mon, it'll be fun! My first time FCing.'

I scrubbed my hands over my face. 'What kind of ships?'

She shrugged. 'Something that'll tank sentries.'

Tanky. My Hyperion was still back in Evati; that left the Brutix or the Myrmidon. And the Myrm was...

'I'll have to go to the other station for a ship.'

'No big rush, we're all waiting out the clock.' Heyna headed back out, leaving me looking at three half-fitted ships, four fully-fitted ships that lacked rigs, and a bunch of bewildered hangar techs.

'Yeah, drop it, guys. We'll finish up in the morning.'

As soon as I got to the Tekeli-Li, I realised there was a problem: she was still wearing an older fit from a year ago which wasn't quite up to withstanding sentry-fire. I'd have to engage carefully.

I joined the gang on the gate to Onne, and as we were waiting for everyone else's timers to finish, a Nighthawk warped in and started shooting Morwen. I considered getting involved, but a fragile battlecruiser tank vs sentries plus a command ship didn't seem like good odds; I was left sitting on the gate watching and fretting over what I could do.

Morwen escaped, then the Nighthawk turned on Myrhial and pursued her fully a hundred klicks off the gate til she finally got out of his scram range and warped off with her Drake's hull smoking and riddled with holes. The command ship warped off to the planet and Myrh went to the station for extensive repairs.

We sat there for a bit while the scouts checked Onne and the next system, and Heyna made the call to wait in safes in Vitrauze til Myrhial was repped up and ready to go. I was just about in warp when the Nighthawk came back to the gate, slapped a scrambler on my warp drive, and started shooting.

I sighed and rolled my eyes, considered the situation, then politely asked the gate crews if they'd let me jump.

Of course they would.

I considered my options in Onne. The Nighthawk would have to wait for a minute before being permitted to jump, the rest of the fleet was on their way to the gate. Best part was that the moron had aggressed me, and I could fire on him with impunity for the next fifteen minutes. With that in mind, I engaged warp to a safe-spot in system to wait for the call to engage.

Remember, kiddies: Label your safe-spots accordingly. I cursed as the bookmark I chose turned out to NOT be the one near the gate, but the one furthest away. Note to self...

Despite a couple of the Naraka pilots jumping into Onne to wait, the Nighthawk pilot entered the system and got snared by the tacklers. The rest of the fleet pounced, and I finally coaxed my Myrm back into warp, landing 10 km away as the Nighthawk's shields passed peak recharge. For some reason, the silly fool decided to launch his drones at me, for reasons I can't begin to fathom. A set of five Warrior IIs are not going to make much of a dent in a battlecruiser, but better me than one of our smaller ships. With his shields broken and unable to recharge due to the heavy cap neutralisers Inara was wielding, the Nighthawk's structure failed in short order.

Looking the fight report over, Jude chuckled. 'Hey... I think that was the same pilot as the Drake we blew up earlier!'

Then someone noticed the specially modified items in the command ship's fit, and comms flooded with an excited babble of voices. The sale of the items would be profitable, indeed. We stashed the loot and continued on the roam in high spirits.

A few jumps along, the scouts reported Old Man Star filled with capitals and a massive heavy fleet on scan. We decided to power through and hopefully go unnoticed. Unfortunately, as we hit the exit gate, the whole of Advocated Destruction's fleet warped in on top of us.

What followed was a merry chase through several systems with a cloud of battleships, battlecruisers, strat cruisers and logistics ships just seconds behind. A Harbinger nearly had me in Murethand, and in the next system they managed to catch Amaterasu's Hurricane. Ama got her pod out, and we managed to lose the pursuers at the next gate as they went the other way towards Placid.

We did some idle hunting on the loop back, but the pipe was empty save for a Scorpion in a safe-spot in Onne, and a non-outlaw Vagabond that decided he didn't want to engage us as we sat on the gate waiting for the scouts' report.

It was a fun roam, if a little chaotic; you don't think about it at the time, particularly not when being pursued, but after the fact, we all laughed and agreed we should do that again sometime. Heyna did a good job for her first time as FC, and the sale of the Nighthawk loot fully covered Ama's loss with a bit left over to split amongst the rest of the gang.

And for myself... I docked up in Vitrauze and saw about upgrading the Tekeli-Li's armour. Next time, I'll be better-prepared.

External Publishing v 2.6

2009-10-31T09:09:00.002-04:00

His Zealot's shields were completely gone, and lasers were nibbling at the edges of his armour when Alistair's comms crackled to life.

'Hey, Al, would you do us a favour?'

'Good to hear you, Syl. You're not back in Dal, are you?'

'Our tower in Ebodold. We're going to step this up a bit. Open the door for us, would you? We're too chunky to squeeze through the gates.' Sylar sounded gleeful. Alistair started to grin.

'I did warn you about the food there, didn't I?' The Amarrian pilot reopened his fleet comms. 'Commander Hatthro, notify the fleet, I'm lighting a cynogen, could use a bit of defense.'

'You're what?!'

'Captain Starke, you are go in three, two, one...' Alistair activated the generator, the load of liquid ozone in his cargo hold burned up in an instant as the miniature wormhole appeared beside his ship.

'Avion! What the hell...?' Tiia demanded, just as the jump portal flared twice.

Two looming shapes the colour of dried blood appeared in the midst of the battle, massive hulls scattering smaller ships which hadn't got out of the way in time as they claimed the space. Cherry's blade-shaped, monolithic Naglfar, towering above the furious battle, turned with a terrible purpose, turrets rising and settling back as she acquired a target-lock on the Amarrian fleet's dreadnaught. This was going to be a slugfest.

'Let 'er rip, sister, I got your back.' Sylar felt the deadly hum of his new ship's systems building up around him, awakened by the adrenalin flooding his body. The shriek of Cherry's gleeful laughter was the sound of immense autocannons unleashing their full force upon the enemy.

Tiia's voice echoed in his ear, filled with an odd mix of relief, surprise, and anger. 'Why didn't you tell us what you had planned, you bastard?'

'It was a last-minute idea. We didn't know if we'd need these or not; I was only going to use this girl to lift the colonists out. ' With a thought, Sylar commanded fighters to launch into the fight, instructing them to focus on what remained of the Amarrian support as he brought heavy energy neutraliser batteries to bear on the closest ship: the Reclamation fleet's carrier. 'Why so surprised? Just because we specialise in wolfpack doesn't mean we can't field anything bigger.' His Hel-class mothership locked onto the Archon, and Sylar asked Hatthro, 'You got enough left to take out the carrier and dread, or are we gonna have to do it ourselves?'

The Ammatar fleet's commander swore at him. 'Next time, I trust you'll let us know before you pull a stunt like this. I've lost half my men; we could have used your caps a lot sooner.'

Instead of retreating, the Amarrian ships seemed to throw themselves at the mixed Minmatar fleet with a frenzy borne of desperation to remove the threat of the Matari capitals before all else. Draining the capacitor energy from the smaller carrier as fast as the Amarrian Guardians could replenish it, Sylar felt his shields begin to prickle from lasers and a peppering of missiles as the remaining Amarrian fleet focussed fire. Two of his fighter pilots went down, felled by Amarrian drones, and he recalled the rest, launching a fresh group as soon as the first had docked.

The Archon's armour passed its peak, and the enemy fleet had redoubled their efforts to defend it. Someone somewhere was probably cursing as the mistake was realised: the defense fleet was better-prepared than they had expected, and with their fleet already decimated, it was only a matter of time before their own capital ships fell.

A volley of torpedo-fire struck the Archon from the sky like the hand of an angry god; before the blue-white glare had faded, Sylar was already focussing his mothership's massive energy neutraliser batteries on the Revelation which was pounding down on Cherry's armour. 'Let's see you use those lasers without any cap, mate,' he muttered, unaware that his words went out over the open comms. The Archon's fighters, disoriented by the carrier's destruction, drifted about the field, and Starke ordered his own flight to focus fire at will amongst the remaining fleet.

************************************

In the caves on the planet below, Nareen huddled under her father's worn old jacket. It was cold in here, and damp seeped through the rough stone walls and floor, leaving a chilly slick on her skin. The girl glanced around at the gathered mass of her people, all crouching or sitting on blankets on the floor to avoid the low ceiling. The adults had said they couldn't make fires because the heat would be seen by the slavers, and Nareen was starting to wonder how her great-grandparents had lived this way.

A scuffle toward the entrance brought several people upright, ready to stand. Someone cracked the shield on a lantern, revealing Scall staggering in, the woman somewhat blinded from the change from light to darkness, her hand on the ceiling to prevent her banging her head.

'They're here! On the radio, I heard it. They've destroyed most of the Amarr ships, and the slave carrier. Come on!'

Stepping blinking into the sunlight filtering through the trees, Nareen felt someone take her hand; she turned to see Komar looking excited and terrified.

'It's Space Capt'n Starke, 'Ree. I tol' you he- he could do anythin'.' He tugged her forward and up the hill towards the treeline, following Scall into the open.

The middle-aged woman pointed up into the sky, away from the low morning sun, 'Look, you can just see them!' Against the sooty blue, flecks and glimmers of light could be seen. It was impossible to tell what was happening at this distance, but as they watched, a flash brighter than the others appeared, then again, then--

Everyone gasped as something lit up, a small second sun flaring in the sky. Scall began to yell with triumph. 'They did it! They did it! Do you see?!'

Nikitta appeared at Nareen's other elbow. 'What do you think's happening?'

Komar released the taller girl's hand and ran forward, waving his toy Rifter about in the air. 'Capt'n Starke blew 'em up! Boom! Like that!'

The colonists hung back cautiously among the trees, uncertain what would happen next as Scall returned to the wrecked Apocalypse. After a while, five dark shapes appeared in the air, descending carefully to the fields just beyond the limits of the houses. A few minutes later, Scall returned with a wiry Sebiestor man dressed like a soldier following closely.

'I'm Corporal Vahann, I'm in charge of the drop you see over there. Those ships will take you and your possessions up to our mothership for transport off-world.' He looked around the gathered crowd among the trees, taking in homespun clothing, rough animal leathers and hard-worn yet determined faces. 'This is a hazardous system for an undefended colony like this, but whether you choose to leave or remain is up to you.'

************************************

SPACE CAPTAIN STARKE strides through the halls of his mothership, running a hand over his new short-cropped hair. Guarded by the Ammatar and renegade TLF fleets, he feels safe enough to park the ship in empty space and leave his capsule.

There is business to discuss.

He is followed by TIIA EDGRIET and MIRITHAK HATTHRO, along with the Nefantar commander's small honour-guard. The trust between the Matari forces and the Ammatar is still thin and laced with suspicion, but HATTHRO has the authority of his tribe's leaders and EDGRIET has been contacted by THE GENERAL to endorse the opening of diplomatic relations in this backwater system.

The group enters the assembly bay, a cavernous room usually used for mustering ground-forces near the dropship hangar. Something buzzes through the air and strikes STARKE's leg before tumbling to the floor with a whirr; he stops with a puzzled frown to pick it up. A smile forms on his face as he turns the clockwork wooden Rifter over in his hands, recognising the hand-painted sunburst design. The captain looks up to see three terrified children staring up at him from behind a pile of bales and boxes, all the Ubtes colonists' worldly possessions.

STARKE: (still smiling)
Is this yours?

EDGRIET peers curiously at the toy, then grins and looks out across the room at the ten thousand worried people gathered there. HATTHRO looks calculating, then looks to EDGRIET and nods. The TLF commander, her rank restored and gleaming at her collar, returns the nod, then steps forward.

EDGRIET: (in a clear voice which carries well through the room)
My people... my family. (she smiles) It's been far too long, and I truly wish the circumstances were better. (she sobers) We have lost our home. The land we have worked all our lives, the houses we have built with our bare hands. We are orphans of the cluster, as our grandparents and great-grandparents once were.

As she speaks, the people begin to cluster around, hushing children so that the woman can be heard by all.

EDGRIET:
We cannot go back. I wish we could, but the Amarr know about the settlement now, and will return. This leaves you with a choice. The Republic will welcome each and every one of you: rehome you, offer you jobs, education, medical care. It's an easier life than what you're accustomed you. There are better opportunities.

She glances to the side, then waves her hand to indicate HATTHRO.

EDGRIET:
This man has a different offer for you; he represents the Nefantar tribe. The Ammatar have an interest in becoming a part of the Republic once again, and in good faith, they are willing to offer you places on another planet they are already colonising. What they offer is much like what we had on Ubtes VIII, working alongside Nefantar volunteers. You will be offered equal standing with their people, with respect given to our own customs; and the world is closer to the centre of their domain, and much better protected.

A ripple of voices runs through the room as the refugees look to one another, seeking guidance. HATTHRO steps forward.

HATTHRO:
The offer is genuine. Your skills and experiences will greatly benefit our own colonists, and the Nefantar will not reduce you to the slaves your ancestors once were. No ill will shall be held if you choose to return to the Republic.

A man steps forward from the crowd; it is RISGA, NAREEN's father, who was elected speaker for the refugees before they boarded the dropships. He stands tall, proud in his rough-woven clothing and hand-made leather boots before the Republic and Ammatar representatives.

RISGA:
I speak for all of us gathered here. We would prefer to remain on our world, if such a thing were possible, though we realise the extent of the danger. A life in the Republic would be comfortable, yes, but we do not want an easy life. Some may choose that for themselves, and the rest of us wish them well. But as a whole, we will accept the offer of the Nefantar, provided that we are permitted contact with the Republic at any time.

The Nefantar commander nods.

HATTHRO:
Of course. The planet we offer you is Abha VII, and not much different from Ubtes VIII. You will be given tools and equipment, as well as a modern communications system...

As he speaks, STARKE murmurs to EDGRIET.

STARKE:
Is this what you expected from your people?

EDGRIET: (nodding)
Charity is not something we accept easily, Captain. Better to be granted only the barest necessities so that we can make our own way.

The Brutor captain nods, then glances over to where the three children still watch him. Crouching, he holds the toy Rifter out towards them. NIKITTA, NAREEN and KOMAR approach shyly, and KOMAR accepts his toy back without removing his eyes from STARKE.

EDGRIET: (smiling)
Unless I'm very much mistaken, you're my nephew, Niki, yes? You were very small when I last saw you.

NIKITTA nods. Smiling, STARKE holds his hand out.

STARKE:
Nice to meet you. Who are your friends?

NIKITTA: (shaking STARKE's hand)
Nareen and Komar... sir.

STARKE reaches out to shake the other children's hands, too.

STARKE:
It's great to meet you guys. I guess you watch the show, huh?

The children nod. The captain smiles broadly.

STARKE:
Why don't you go ask your parents if you can meet the rest of the Nova Elite while you're here? Tell your friends, too.

NAREEN squeals and runs back towards her mother, SAPHA, who is standing to the side as her husband and HATTHRO negotiate. NIKITTA also hurries away, but KOMAR hangs back, staring at STARKE solemnly.

KOMAR:
I told them you could do anything.

STARKE smiles proudly.

STARKE:
The Nova Elite always fly to defend our people.

This article was first published on EVE-Mag.com – an independent EVE magazine (www.EVE-Mag.com). Reprinted with permission.

External Publishing v 2.5

2009-10-24T10:17:00.002-04:00

The wrecked battleship, though wing-clipped, was anything but dead: over the years, the escaped slaves had worked to restore and adapt its systems to meet their needs, and the soft rumble of pumps and generators had for decades been a comfort.

Scall was particularly proud of her work on the sensor and communications arrays. After taking the Republic University’s distance-learning courses on starship electronics and mechanics, she’d dedicated her hours to bringing the systems back up to near-perfect functionality. It was her pet project, and her husband had long bemoaned that she spent more time in the ship than she did at home.

There were still a few bugs to work out, though, and Scall had decided to open up one of the consoles and find out why it wasn’t lighting properly.

Something pinged unpleasantly as she pulled a wire free of its contact.

‘Crap.’ She plugged it back in and the ping sounded again, then again. She started sorting through the mass of fibreoptic spaghetti, then realised the sound wasn’t related to her work. The noise was becoming repetitive, and urgent, and the stocky woman spun to see several sensors lit up at once, points of amethyst, amber and ruby flickering across the boards.

‘Oh no… no, no, no…’ Hurriedly, Scall woke up the display they’d jury-rigged into the capsule trunk-leads in order to see the command overview. Multiple pilot signatures filled the system channels; a bit of fiddling with the spliced-in controls revealed the fleet transponder codes.

Heart in her throat, the specialist sprinted for the comms chamber above, sandaled feet pounding the metal steps, and slapped her hand on the alarm.

************************************

Coiled in the guts of the metal beast, wires excised from other parts of the ship and grafted in to modify the functions of other parts stirred with current for the first time in generations. Even as the improvised alert system blared a warning across the rooftops of the colony, the focussed-band FTL transmitter fired off a pre-set message.

The Republic communications relays were not the only ones to receive it.

************************************

TIIA EDGRIET stalks through station halls filled with men and women in uniforms hurrying this way and that; the legend in the lower-right corner reads Dal I: Tribal Liberation Force Assembly Plant. The commander looks tense and anxious, a datapad gripped in one hand as her secretary struggles to keep up with her. Rounding a bend in the hall, she spies SPACE CAPTAIN STARKE and ALISTAIR AVION and changes direction to meet them.

EDGRIET:
Starke, where the Hel have you been?

STARKE and AVION exchange a look.

STARKE:
The clone bay, updating.

The Brutor captain presses back against the wall to let a group of pilots hurry past.

STARKE:
What’ve we got?

EDGRIET tosses the datapad at him over her shoulder as she leads them toward the lift to the capsuleer hangars.

EDGRIET:
Emergency signal, not encoded or anything. Straight from Ubtes, contains a snapshot of what was on the scanner when they pushed the button.

The smaller woman halts and turns suddenly, nearly causing STARKE and AVION to pile into her. She stares up at STARKE with the intensity of a solar flare.

EDGRIET:
Your staged informant scenes aside, there’s no more time to waste. Are your pilots ready, Captain?

SPACE CAPTAIN STARKE studies her for a moment, then nods.

STARKE:
We’re at your command.

The Sebiestor commander studies him a moment longer, then nods sharply.

EDGRIET:
To your ships, then, gentlemen.

ALISTAIR AVION watches EDGRIET leave, then cranes his neck up and around to eye his commander.

AVION:
Try not to do anything stupid in order to impress her, will you?

STARKE is frowning at the datapad.

STARKE: (muttering distractedly)
I can hold it together, don’t worry about me.

He hands the ‘pad over to his Amarrian second in command.

STARKE:
We’re not going to make it before their fleet’s in position.

************************************

Watching sunlight glimmer off the cloud structures far below, the Reclamation fleet's scout almost missed the appearance of a new signature on her local grid. She frowned as it winked out before identification could be made. Was that...? 'Command, scout. We may have company, What's your ETA? ...Five minutes, understood.'

Small points of gold began to appear at the edge of the atmosphere fifty kilometres away: support ships followed by a group of five battleships, gleaming in the refracted light. The signal was given, and the shimmering whirlpool of a cynosural field lit up, heralding the arrival of the fleet's primary component, an Archon-class carrier filled with dropships to collect the Matari settlers.

The beacon collapsed suddenly, and comms descended into a mass of confusion as the pilot of the generator frigate lost both his ship and his life in rapid succession. The Retribution-class assault frigate which had destroyed the generator under the nose of its own fleet was quickly torn apart as the Amarrian forces obtained targeting locks, but the space around them was beginning to flood with unaffiliated ships. Alarms blared as the Reclamation fleet struggled to restore order and reorient towards the unexpected threat. Lasers began to cross the sky, searing and crackling in the high-level atmosphere.

The Ammatar had arrived, and they were not happy.

************************************

'Everyone form up on the gate. Libbies, you with us?'

''Libbies'. Starke, you cheeky bastard...'

'With us or not, Tiia?' Sylar grinned to himself, feeling his assault frigate responding easily to his commands. Alistair has his recording equipment running at peak performance; this fight might easily be more desperate than any they'd ever been in before, but that was all the more reason to get every moment into the show. A Reclaiming fleet was not the sort of thing most Minmatar would ever see, let alone the rest of the cluster. People needed to know this was still happening.

'You know better than to ask that.' Tiia's Tempest and the rest of her squadrons formed the bulk of the fleet; the Novas in their smaller frigates and cruisers appeared fewer in comparison, though their numbers were about even.

Sylar chuckled. 'We all need to loosen up here. Riva, whatcha got in there?'

'Ubtes is hopping, sir. Looks like there's a fight going on.'

A fight? 'Who's involved?'

'Lemme actually get out of warp, huh? ...OHH! Cap', we're missing the fun. Looks like the local Ammatar have decided to let the Amarr fleet know they're no longer welcome out here.'

Tiia's voice cut through the comms. 'Nice to know they're serious about making their peace with the Republic.'

Mind racing, Sylar asked, 'Riv, what kind of opposition are we looking at?'

'There's wrecks all over the place. Looks like an Amarr carrier and standard support fleet versus a varied Ammatar fleet. No cynos up, looks like their generator frig got popped. Field looks balanced, the carrier is holding off drop pattern.'

'That's because it'll be vulnerable to attack with the drops down. Locate the Ammatar commander, I want a word with him before we get involved.'

************************************

'Scall, let's go! Everyone else is out, what are you still doing in here?' Aoli tugged at the communications specialist's shoulder. The older woman flapped her hand impatiently.

'You go. Someone needs to listen in. We need to know what's happening.'

'And if the slaver ships land?'

Scall held up the small laser pistol she'd liberated from the Apocalypse's armoury; it was an antique, but it worked still. 'They won't take me alive.'

Aoli slapped the back of Scall's head. 'You be careful, dammit.' Scall was right, but the younger woman still worried as she hurried from the battleship wreck towards the treeline and the hills to the south. When the ship had first landed, the escaped slaves had hidden among the woods, fearing the ship would be found by rescue parties. None had come, however, and the hidden caves had lain abandoned until now. Again, they would shelter the colonists... hopefully.

She paused at the edge of the village, glancing up at the sky above. Bright flashes had been seen; they could only hope it was Captain Starke holding the Amarrian fleet off.

************************************

Realspace coalesced around the Matari fleet as they dropped out of warp, vivid bursts of missile impacts and laser-fire filling their overviews.

'Good timing, Captain,' the Ammatar commander, Mirithak Hatthro, said. The Nefantar tribesman's deep voice threatened to overwhelm the communications link, resonating with a richness better-suited to a holo-performer than a thirty-year career officer. The incoming fleet had disbanded and re-formed as squads under Hatthro's command, putting them into the same comms frequency. Tiia and Imkara had been less than fond of the idea of joining the Ammatar fleet, but it was the only way to coordinate. 'We've got the carrier pinned down, but there's a lot of logistics being used, Starke. We've been picking off the little ones, but it's slow going.'

'You focus on the battleships, we'll take care of the support,' Sylar responded. The Matari ships surged forward into the mess, squads peeling off in different directions as leaders called primaries.

Amarrian pilots' signatures began to wink out one after another as the balance shifted. As he came around for another pass on an enemy Guardian-class cruiser, Sylar spotted a lone Amarrian frigate moving toward the Ammatar fleet, guarded by destroyers. 'Riva, get me a scan of that Punisher, fast! I don't like it.'

'I'm too far off... oh, just brilliant.' The Vherokior pilot cursed as the Punisher activated another cyno beacon. 'Now what?'

A blinding flash announced the arrival of another Amarrian capital ship; as the glare faded, the menacing, pointed prow of a Revelation-class dreadnaught turned with terrible purpose toward the Ammatar ships, turrets larger than a cruiser rotating smoothly around to focus on the enemy fleet.

'All battleships, evasive manoeuvers! Don't make an easy target of yourselves!' Hatthro ordered hoarsely. It was the worst possible situation the battle-scarred veteran could imagine, and he gripped the arms of his command chair tightly. Only the presence of the capsuleers in his fleet stopped him from calling a retreat. 'Someone take out that cyno frigate before anything else comes through.'

'On it. Cherry, cover me,' Sylar responded tightly, his assault frigate banking gracefully towards the stationary target.

'Syl, you back the fuck off, those are destroyers--'

'Al, trust me.' Sylar settled into a tight orbit alongside Cherry's Hound, autocannons and missiles tearing the Amarrian frigate apart, their own shields beginning to buckle as the trio of Coercers turned their guns on them.

'I'm webbed! Gonna try--' Cherry's transmission cut off as the destroyers' small lasers broke through her shields, melting quickly through armour and hull; one of the ships got a lucky lock on the outlaw's capsule, and the egg-shaped craft imploded under a fat volley of laserfire. Sylar Starke's Jaguar and capsule quickly followed.

'No!' Tiia cried, seeing Sylar's overview icon redline and vanish. 'Shit! Shit! Al, you're in charge there, keep the fires burning. Swap targets!'

************************************

'Ugh!' Sylar surged upright, shaking cloning-vat fluid from his head, instantly missing the feel of his dreadlocks; those were gone, now, part of a body he would never wear again. In the next vat over, he could see Cherry struggling to unhook herself from the input wires, looking strange without her tattoos. The Caldari cloning bay attendants looked alarmed.

One of them stepped forward, regaining most of his composure. 'Welcome to Ebodold Kaalakiota station. I'm Doctor Mi--'

'Spare us the speech, we need to be flight-ready ten minutes ago,' the captain grunted shortly. 'And set us up for fresh clones, we may be seeing you again today.' The attendants hurried forward to remove the wires the pilots couldn't reach, handing them towels as they emerged, dripping translucent blue fluid on the cloning-bay floor.

The captain reached over and slapped the younger woman's shoulder. 'Let's saddle 'em up. You ready?'

The former pirate grinned broadly up at him as she wiped vat-fluid from her generous curves. 'I been waiting for this since the day I bought her. Those suckers won't know what hit 'em.'

************************************
To Be Concluded Next Week!
Same EVE Time, Same EVE Channel!

This article was first published on EVE-Mag.com – an independent EVE magazine (www.EVE-Mag.com). Reprinted with permission.

An Aside

2009-10-19T20:51:00.000-04:00

IntenseDebate is eating my comments again. I'd love to respond to comments; I've been trying, but the system is b0rked >_<

External Publishing v 2.4

2009-10-16T10:15:00.006-04:00

The quad was quiet, a steady rain pattering down to flatten the straggly grass and form tepid puddles in the hollows. From the surrounding buildings, the chatter of conversation could be heard, muffled by the thick transparent panels which had been cannibalised for use as windows from the wrecked Apocalypse. Its golden bulk, rain-slicked and still shining despite generations of exposure to planetside elements, loomed in the centre of the village like a massive beached whale, half-submerged in the soft earth that had been ploughed up when it landed. Over time, the tailing furrow had filled with water, forming a long lake which was sustained by groundwater pumped up by the refurbished ship’s generators to irrigate the community’s agricultural works.

A Rifter bearing the sunburst logo of the Nova Elite arced through the sooty sky, rain streaming from its rust-coloured hull. An explosion of silt and mud rose as the ship crashed down into the damp soil, its engines spluttering as the craft settled into the muck. Splashing across the field, Komar hurried over and retrieved the painted wooden toy, peering into its clockwork mechanism and blowing the water out.

Wading back through the mud, the short, skinny boy returned to where Nikitta and Nareen sat under the portico outside the school building. Most of the other children had opted to remain indoors out of the damp weather during the midday break, but Niki had been troubled by the sudden appearance of his mother’s sister in the children’s favourite holo-serial. He’d spent most of the last week worrying over it, and his sudden pensiveness concerned his friends.

Nareen hunkered on the swept flagstones with her chin on her knees, absently chewing the end of one of her long dark braids. ‘I wonder what she wants Capt’n Starke to--hey!’ She and Nikitta both yelped as Komar landed feet-first in a large puddle at the edge of the overhang, splashing them.

‘’S easy! She’s gonna ask him to- to help blow up th’ Empress!’ he babbled excitedly. He pulled a key from his shirt pocket and began to wind the toy Rifter’s engine again.

‘Don’t be dumb,’ Nareen retorted, wiping murky water from her shins. ‘You remember how many guys she has?’ Footage from Jamyl Sarum’s coronation had been used in one of the last year’s episodes. The amassed ships of the Imperial Navy had made a grim impression on the children; some had since had occasional nightmares wherein that sea of deadly gold had arrived to reclaim their families.

‘I bet Capt’n Starke could do it—‘

Nikitta glanced up from the patternless whorls he’d been scratching on the flagstones with a twig he’d found. ‘He can’t. The entire R’public can’t kill all the bad guys. If that was really Aunt Tiia… Ma says it was. She must be planning something else.’

A mechanical judder caused the puddles to ripple and brought the children to their feet with alarm. The high-to-low sliding moan of something spinning down, followed by raised voices, drew them around the corner of the school-buildings to where they could see the workers scrambling over the pump-housing rigged up to the wrecked battleship. The constant low hum of the mechanisms and generators had ceased, and the specialists at work seemed calm. The children stood watching a moment, then Komar tugged Nareen’s elbow.

‘They shut the water off?’

The tall girl nodded. ‘I think so.’

‘But we… we need the water…’

Nikitta wrapped his arms around himself, feeling cold from something other than the raindrops trickling down the back of his neck. ‘Something’s going on.’

************************************

The scene opens on the office of THE GENERAL, unchanged from STARKE and AVION’s meeting. A holo-projector is flashing a loop of tactical information into the air above the desk; it is largely ignored by the two women standing on either side of the desk. THE GENERAL and TIIA EDGRIET are arguing fiercely, and from time to time their vehement gestures indicate one item or another in the projection.

There is no direct audio, and all the colours in the scene have been washed nearly to greys, indicating it is a flashback to an earlier event.

EDGRIET: (voice-over)
The day you arrived, Captain, I had a… disagreement with the General. Some intel arrived which… well, it’s kind of important to me. There’s a colony of sorts, just outside Republic space. It was started by a group of escaped slaves whose ship couldn’t go any further. The Amarr have finally noticed this colony and intend to reclaim the inhabitants.

The scene changes to show EDGRIET seated on a munitions crate in a hangar; from the paint-work on the Jaguar in the background, it’s clear the hangar has been allotted to SPACE CAPTAIN STARKE, who along with ALISTAIR AVION is seated on another long metal box labelled ‘Warrior II’. The Sebiestor woman is scowling fiercely.

EDGRIET:
The General has… made it clear… that she will not permit me to take a task force in to rescue the colonists. The planet lies in Ammatar territory, if you could call it that. You can imagine the fuss they’d kick up with the Republic if we dropped carriers into their space.

STARKE frowns thoughtfully and glances at AVION; the Amarrian looks back before closing his eyes under raised brows, lips pursed. The Brutor nods and turns back to EDGRIET.

STARKE:
We can understand why you would want to rescue these people, but why is it so important that you be the one to do it?

The woman looks down at her hands.

EDGRIET:
Because that colony is where I grew up, Captain. They aren’t just our people, they’re my family.

AVION leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped as he looks up at EDGRIET.

AVION: (appearing to already know the answer)
So… why not hire mercenaries to rescue your people, if the General won’t allow you to do it personally?

EDGRIET: (nodding)
This is exactly why I’ve come to you. Your Elite are only marginally associated with the Republic. I want you to help me.

STARKE: (looking thoughtful)
Won’t the General be angry? Or the Thukkers, for that matter?

EDGRIET: (glaring)
Do you think that matters, Captain? My people are in danger. What would you do?

She reaches up and removes the rank pins from the collar of her jacket, smiling at the stunned expressions on the men’s faces.

EDGRIET:
I’m resigning my commission in the militia. I’ve talked things over with my squadron, and they’re all with me, one-hundred percent. So what do you say, Captain? Will you help me out? Or do I have to hold you at gunpoint first?

STARKE and AVION look at each other, then share a slow grin.

************************************

The room was silent for a long, heavily-pregnant moment. Then, like an ocean tide, a roar of voices rose as people turned to one another, confused, worried, frightened.

Leaning back against the wall, Scall’s mind raced, torn between glee that her assessment had been right and numbing terror that it was too little and too late. This is Ammatar space? Why all the Thukker signals, then? The signs of moving caravans had been noticeable for as long as she’d been in charge of the communications setup. That they'd been living so close to a potential enemy without discovery was a miracle in itself; she was grateful that they'd been spared for so long.

Havah sat still, her eyes fixed on her sister’s face in the projection. Perhaps to viewers elsewhere, this was simply an exciting build-up to the end of the season, but to the refugees living on Ubtes VIII, the new development was a hidden message.

Prepare to run. We’re coming for you.

Up at the front of the room, Komar, Nareen and Nikitta knelt in silence, heedless of the commotion around them. They watched transfixed as Tiia presented her rank pins and all those of her pilots to the General with an impassioned resignation speech; as the Nova Elite and former TLF forces prepared for what might possibly be the fight of their lives. The usual drama happened: a hangar tech was caught sending a message to the Amarr warning them of the fleet’s preparations; he was imprisoned but managed to escape, leaving three security officers and a shuttle pilot badly injured.

Not until the final closing scene – where Starke, Avion, Tiia and her second, Imkara Vash, seated around a desk covered with tactical readouts, came to the realisation that they would need to move faster – did any of the three children say anything.

‘The slavers are coming,’ Komar said quietly. Nikitta nodded. The worst nightmare of any Matari child was coming to life.

Would Space Captain Starke arrive in time to save them all?

************************************

Tiia Edgriet was overseeing the refitting of her Tempest-class battleship when one of her hangar security officers approached and murmured something in her ear.

‘What? Of course. Let him in.’

The petite Sebiestor turned a minute later to see Alistair Avion crossing the open hangar floor, deftly sidestepping the techs and maintenance drones that scurried this way and that. The Amarrian was dressed, as he did for the show he helped produce, in traditional Brutor captain’s garb. Somehow, the Matari uniform failed to look awkward or out of place on its wearer; perhaps it was the way he carried himself.

‘Commander.’

‘Mister Avion. What can I do for you?’

He smiled warmly. ‘I was hoping I could ask you a bit about this colony. About how many people are we talking about?’

Tiia frowned and folded her arms, considering. ‘Could be as many as ten thousand by now. There are elderly and babies; they’re not starving down there, and the medical facilities have been maintained well.’

‘On the ship that brought your predecessors there?’

She nodded. ‘Our grandparents kept the ship functioning smoothly, so a lot of their technical skills have been passed down.’

Alistair smiled grimly, knowing all too well the uses of slave aboard Amarrian ships. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘If you don’t mind my asking…’

‘Go on, then.’

He pursed his lips momentarily. ‘If you and a few others left for the Republic—‘

‘They came and picked us up when we applied to the various universities. The Republic knows the colony is there.’

‘Right, right. But if you could leave, why is the rest of the colony still there? Why not request a full-on transport back to civilisation?’

Running her hands over her head to adjust the clips holding her hair back, Tiia frowned. ‘Good question. I think simply because it’s ours, you know? We were stuck there, but within the first two years they had a functioning agriculture setup and had adapted the ship’s working systems to their needs. It’s very backwards… you might call it primitive. But it’s ours, we worked hard for it. It’s something to be proud of.’ She shrugged. ‘We’re a hard, tenacious lot, Mister Avion.’

He chuckled. ‘You certainly are that. Will they know they’re in danger?’

The tiny woman nodded. ‘The kids watch your show, if the sensor array we put in stationary orbit hasn’t already picked up the recon operations. They’ll know.’

************************************

On the outskirts of the Ubtes star system, Nimambal gate flashed. The scout-ship decloaked, its bulky form vanishing almost immediately under a covert-ops cloak as it angled towards the eighth planet. Slipping her craft into orbit between the atmosphere layer and the closer of the two moons, the pilot frowned; the signals she’d been told to pinpoint weren’t there anymore.

It took her a solid half-hour’s work running multispectral scans to locate the faint electromagnetic signs of the wrecked Apocalypse’s generators.

‘Command, scout here. Location pinpointed, awaiting further instructions. …Acknowledged.’

The scout moved into a stationary orbit, aligning to provide the fleet with a good warp-in position, and settled in to wait. The Reclamation fleet would arrive soon, to fulfill their holy duty and return the Matari colonists to the Lord’s flock.

************************************
To Be Continued Next Week!
Same EVE Time, Same EVE Channel!

This article was first published on EVE-Mag.com – an independent EVE magazine (www.EVE-Mag.com). Reprinted with permission.

Dust

2009-10-14T10:25:00.001-04:00

What sort of person do you have to be, to turn your back on everything you ever knew?

The tip of her knife drags through the thin layer of dirt, blade grating harshly against the stone beneath.

When your life is ruled by the almighty ISK, what do you cling to?

The lines she draws form a map. She doesn't notice; the map is etched more permanently in her mind than it is in the dust: we are here, they are there, and soon, we shall be there, too. And they won't be.

She could be Intaki, Civire, Ni-Kunni, Sebiestor... with her hair shaved back to stubble, dressed in a sleeveless shirt and fatigues, distinguishing marks erased when she gave up her name for a number, it no longer matters.

The toe of her boot, scuffed and weathered, broken straps replaced slapdash with a strip of elastic splint wrapped around her ankle, rubs the map from the ground.

Her detail only arrived here this morning, but already she's been here forever.

When she first started, every place was new to her; she had never before left her homeworld.

Staring too much lost her an arm. But that was alright, because she died later that day, victim of an enemy groundsweeper run.

After too many iterations, the field shrinks. It becomes little more than a game on paper: your location, your target, your obstacles, your support. Circles and crosses; everything else becomes circumstantial.

She stares with grey eyes across a field littered with the detritus of human civilisation, canyon walls of chrome and crystal rising away to form a deadly labyrinth, mined and riddled with traps. She sees through these, only focussed on the target three miles away.

It will be gone tomorrow, or she will be.

The pay is good; it would have to be, for all the risk they take. She used to save it, hoarding against the day when she could buy that little apartment in the city; now, she spends it on better armour, better weapons. New iterative clones of herself, her memories preserved and injected into each new body as the old one is killed.

She remembers every death.

It no longer traumatises her as it did in the beginning. Too many iterations have inured her to that flash of light, that moment of red agony as parts of herself move in directions they were never meant to, mingling on the ground with parts of her comrades before her last memory ends.

Her comrades used to be people, once. And still there are nights when she and another will take comfort in each other, reassuring themselves that they still live. But like thousands of others, she and they have become faceless ghosts, pieces of meat directed to live and die by iron-clad gods who stride the night skies, whose only concerns are their personal loss and gain, heedless of the souls who scrabble for their will in the dust.

A Series of Moves

2009-09-27T13:20:00.002-04:00

The Eve blogoshpere has been too quiet, and I've been too busy with other things to blog, much less properly play Eve. Where did I leave off? Oh yeah.

So... I decided in the end that, since there were only three days left til my alt could fly my recon ships, I might as well move the small amount of gear I had in the wormhole into the lowsec system we were currently linked to, grab a shuttle to fly back to Evati, and have my alt fly the rest back at the earliest convenience. Moving out didn't take very long. I think if we'd had more people in the w-space and active, it might not have been so painfully dull, and we may have scored something. As it was, with only a handful of alliance members on sporadically, there wasn't much to do.

I'd left the bomber and the Arazu in the incredibly quiet(!) lowsec system our wormhole dropped me in, bought a shuttle and was partway home when I passed through the Hellcats' old main base of Vitrauze. It felt good to see the place again, and being inundated with cheerful welcome comments in Local from our old blues was even better. If only I'd not been in such a rush and decided to fly the bomber back, I could have got in on the fun they were having -- I was sad I had to turn the fleet invite down.

But it got me thinking. It'd been a while since we'd used the secondary base out in Amamake. In every corp I've been in, I was always happier if I had a secondary base to go to when I wanted a change of scenery. Why not move my stuff from Amamake back to Vit?

To the alt!

It took a couple days to get everything moved over, and I've spent the last couple weeks out there, saying hi to old mates an especially the Tuskers (<3 ya, guys!), Ghost Festival and Veto. The Hellcats have reopened our old office, and our other members have invitations to stick a couple ships in, as well. Once I'm back from holiday, the corp will reopen recruitment(!), using our secondary base as a place to run Hellcats-only ops from, so that we can get a sense for how well the recruits work within the corp.

Unfortunately, I've not been able to do much, since I've been working on the last chapter of Space Captain Starke (it is epic, and will be done tonight!), and spending the rest of my time trying desperately to find a job before I face deportation (my student visa expires in a month. It's not fun).

Tomorrow, when my boyfriend gets off work, we'll be catching a train across to Glasgow to spend the night, then an early-morning flight to London, and then up to Reykjavik for a week of fun and geekyness. I've been looking forward to this trip all month! Hope to see some of you up there ^_^

Scar

2009-09-02T20:40:00.001-04:00

Day... how long? I've forgot how long I've been sitting in this forsaken w-space system. Let me check my mail. Day five, I think.

Damn is this place dull.

It's pretty, mind, in a 'someone dropped a handful of oil pastels in the sink' sort of pretty. Rather bland, too, the number of cosmic anomalies is fairly low.

Pretty but unremarkable.

I made a safespot in warping-distance to the corp tower once I realised how awful being inside the shields is. I didn't really believe Cerys when she'd said the shields gave her a headache, but... it's true. After a bit spent sitting there, the horizontal banding and the way it wavered started to make my temples pound.

This may be the longest I've ever spent continuously in a ship. I can't particularly recommend it -- a stealth bomber is not the best of places to be stuck with four crewmembers who also only want to get home. Privacy is minimal, and thank fuck the air scrubbers were just serviced; as it is, we're begining to get a bit snappy. It's crazy that, while craving each other's company, we drive each other mad just by all being stressed and lonely.

To distract myself, I chat to people in various channels and scan around looking for... well, anything. After three days of that, I was clawing at the walls of this spacious prison I've come to think of as Scar (for the red-edged black gap in the otherwise fairytale nebula). It was so quiet, so... empty.

Scar's scar.

I spent most of today probing around. We've had a few visitors from other wormholes that have opened into Scar -- a Vagabond and Navy Caracal the other night, a couple different people in cov-ops ships today. Nobody sticks around long. Every wormhole I find, I bookmark, hop through for a peek to see where it leads, bookmark and scan, then go back through. The bookmarks are all placed in a can so that others in the alliance can grab copies.

Today was the best I've seen since joining Mynx in here. Wormhole number one led to Caldari lowsec. Number two led to a class-2 wormhole system which was dark, unimpressive and had signs of occupation. Number three... oh, number three. The entrance to the second w-space system was opened sometime during the day by one of its occupants. I think I fell in love with the system the moment I saw it.

Blue-green nebula. Red giant star. Yeah, red giant. I've never seen a red giant system before, probably because the physics which makes stargates function makes those systems impossible to link to the network. I couldn't get enough of looking at the place, flitting from planet to moon to planet, discovering the quite well-fitted tower the occupants had put up.

Wow.

I scanned around a bit, hoping to find any more wormholes which led to k-space, but they mostly only had asteroid belts. I hung around a bit longer, taking picures and marvelling at the site before reluctantly deciding it was time to go back.

Do I really have to go back?

The only reason I didn't decide to ride the spatial disturbance current was that my other ships were still in the corp hangar back at the tower in Scar. I'm hoping to find an exit close to Evati so I can move all my gear back out in one go. For all the wonders out here in unknown space... there's not enough to entice me to make a permanent move.

Whoever you guys are in J110043, you are so damn lucky to have a view like that.

HearSay

2009-08-27T16:00:00.003-04:00

..tirrrp..

..tirrrp..

..tirrrp..

'Mmh... what?'

..tirrrp..

'Oh... f'ksake...'

..tirrrp..

..tirr-*click* 'Hello?'

'...Shae?'

'Whooizzit?'

'Shae, why isn't there visual? It's Aevylen.'

'...Mom..? It's the middle of the bloody night, here.'

'Well, how should I know that? I just had...'

'Mom...'

'...a fantastic lunch with the director of-'

'MOM... what do you want?'

'I'm not allowed to call my own daughter?'

'After sixteen years and not bothering to check receiver time, you need a damn good reason, or I'm closing comms and going back to bed.'

'Well, I was out having lunch with the director of finance from AuralImage Ltd... you know, Egonics' audio-production company? We went to this great little place down the Crystal Boulevard, it's at the top of the deRohe tower, and the view from there is absolutely fantastic by the way, you'd love it...'

'*sigh*'

'...And I was on my way back to the office and I was checking out the latest Sunrise Daily on my new optical implant -- they're all the rage down here, by the way, if you pay for the upper-end ones they overlay on your irises, too, to create colour effects -- and there was a picture of you on the third page! So I thought it would be great to catch up with you, and maybe-'

'Waitwaitwait... what?! What was the article about?'

'Oh it was some minor politician they spotted at an orgy in a pirates' den a couple weeks ago. The picture was of him with his "mysterious mistress" *giggle*'

'Hahahaha mistress. In his sordid dreams. I love that spin, "orgy". Hahaha fucking genius.'

'Watch your language, dear-!'

'Fucking make me, Aevylen. It was a party. I bet you've seen wilder ones with your friends from whatever fad company it is you work for now. At least we didn't need to pay people to take their clothes off.'

'They said two men were-'

'They'll say anything to get people to pay for subscriptions. That shit's not worth the code it's embedded in, honestly.'

'It's important information for anyone who cares about the political climate in the Federation, Shae-'

'You're disgusting. You leave Dad because you can't deal with his political career, and you still have the nerve to say that? You only called me because this gives you something to brag about with your little friends. Do you know what impression your precious editorials give about the Federation?'

'Shae-'

'Lazy. Decadent.'

'Shae-'

'Self-absorbed, uncaring about anything more than where the next nightclub hotspot is and who's supplying the newest legal narcotics.'

'Shae-'

'If that's the way things are in the Federation, it's not surprising the Caldari were able to roll right over all those systems in lowsec and auction people's lives off to the highest bidder!'

'Young lady!'

'Oh screw you, you woke me up in the middle of the night because of some overblown gossip. Yes, I was there. No, I wasn't there with Inhonores. He's bottom-feeding scum and was trying to leech on me the entire night. Other than that, it was a fun party, any orgies occurred afterwards and in private, and no I didn't go to them, I spent the night with my boyfriend. And no, I'm not telling you who he is because you forfeited your right to mother me when you left us to follow your precious career categorising fashion trends. Is it fulfilling? Do you feel good knowing you've improved some faceless woman's social life?'

'You're one to talk! I'm improving people's standard of living, and you're out destroying their livelihoods. Don't you feel proud, killing some child's parents for a little ISK! Inhonores is trying to atone for his past, at least. You could at least give a shit about the shame you've heaped upon us!'

'Oh, pardon me for destroying your social cred. I didn't realise you would know what a broken family feels like. You think I don't know what I do? Fuck off, Aevylen, don't come back until you can tell one evil from another.'

'Don't you dare-*click*

'*sigh* Bitch...'

..tirrrp..

..tirrrp..

'System, block all calls from last ident and any that are associated with it.'

..tirr-

'*sigh* ...I need a drink.'

External Publishing v 2.3

2009-08-25T09:49:00.002-04:00

‘What do you think’s going to happen?’

‘Did a spy tell the bad guys Capt’n Starke was there?’

‘Why did Capt’n Starke make his guys go through the gate ‘steada fighting?’

‘What d’ya think’s gonna happen?’

For the rest of the week, the children could talk of nothing else, peppering the adults with unanswerable questions. ‘Space Captain Starke’ had never ended on a cliffhanger. It was the talk of the village.

The teachers could barely get the younger children to focus on their lessons until one of the older students suggest they relate the lessons to parts of the show (If Alistair warps from planet 14 to planet 2 at 6AU/second and Captain Starke warps from planet 2 to planet 14 at 8AU/second, where will they pass each other if the planets are 20AU apart?) It was frustrating to rework lessons, but it kept the kids on-task.

At the community meeting that week, several parents raised concerns that the obsession with the holo-serial might not be such a good thing.

‘I can barely get them to focus on their homework.’

‘I had to suggest that Space Captain Starke would go collect firewood because he would understand the importance of keeping the house heated. We shouldn’t have to do that!’

‘It’s a good thing we only have the one projector here in the hall. Imagine if there was one for every house, we’d never get them outside.’

‘Two of the kids came here asking to watch old recorded episodes. I had to remind them that the projector is used for other things.’

‘Speaking of which,’ Scall, the chief communications analyst, piped up, ‘The last week or so we’ve been picking up an increase in Amarrian comms traffic nearby.’

‘How near?’

‘This system. It could just be militia fleets passing through…’

‘This is Thukker space. They would be mad to base here.’

‘Still, I think we ought to cut our broadcasts and recall all but the receiver satellite.’ Scall glanced around at the suddenly worried faces, knowing that what she was suggesting would reduce the colony’s contact with the Republic to nearly nothing. She hadn’t thought it possible to feel homesick for a place she’d never seen, but the thought of bringing the comms array in made her heart ache.

‘You think they’ll notice the array and find us?’

‘In a word, yes. It would be difficult to miss in a system this quiet.’

‘We’d be cutting ourselves off from the rest of the cluster, Scall.’

‘There’s still the focussed-band FTL transmitter on the ship here. It’s been refurbished, we can use it in an emergency.’

After debating options, the community council decided it was for the best. Scall and her team spent the rest of the night recalling the comms satellites. Aoli from the engineering crew started running through the numbers to reduce their electromagnetic signals to a minimum while still maintaining power to the water pumps. Once the satellites were stored, the ship’s refurbished generator was dropped to the barest trickle.

************************************

Space, the final battleground. The stargate floating above the small moon flares; once, twice, so many flashes they seem to occur simultaneously. As if on cue, the space around the stargate floods with ships.

STARKE: (voice-only)
Scouts, keep an eye on Local, tell me if it spikes. Everyone pick your targets and engage; this is a free-for-all. Warp out or jump if you need to.

STARKE’s Jaguar assault ship banks down and left, falling into a rough orbit around an Amarrian Omen-class cruiser, autocannons spitting fire as he kicks the afterburners in.

EDGRIET: (voice only)
Captain, we need to wipe these guys out fast.

STARKE: (voice only)
I hear you. Nobody pod these guys, it’ll take them longer to reship.

Bright explosions blossom as two enemy ships go down; the Amarrian forces, outnumbered, are dropping rapidly. The view shows for a moment STARKE’s piloting interface: shields fluctuating as boosters pulse, speed hovering at three-quarters as he turns for another pass, enemies bracketed yellow and red, the primary target highlighted by spinning arrows. Around him, ships sweep past; missiles, laser beams and blaster pulses flare. The stargate flashes as someone leaves the system, and the view switches to AVION’s Retribution. His control panel displays the list of pilots in their squad, STARKE highlighted at the top. Half of the Nova Elite’s names are flashing, damage display bars showing varying amounts of red. The alerts fade one by one as Amarrian ships die or flee under the onslaught. The Nova Elite and TLF forces move to a dead-space in between planets, where they are joined by those members of the fleet who had to leave the fighting.

STARKE takes stock as the fleet recuperates. Two frigates and a cruiser have been lost from EDGRIET’s squads, the pilots warping their pods to safety and returning to base. The Nova Elite have lost drones and an interceptor is smoking, its hull held together through the pilot’s sheer force of will until one of the other pilots can bring a remote hull-repair unit online.

STARKE: (voice only)
Commander, your boys ready for the assault?

EDGRIET: (voice only)
Are we ever. Vash, head on over to the control point near planet five, wait for the Captain’s signal to attack. Warping squad to control point near seven.

As one, the four squads enter warp, descending upon LORD GRIMLOK’s base like avenging demons, a coordinated attack upon the sentry posts first cutting off communications to the rest of the Amarrian Empire. Before the embers have even faded, SPACE CAPTAIN STARKE calls for the fleet to regroup, leading his Nova Elite and the TLF forces against LORD GRIMLOK’s base of operations

They are met with fierce resistance: LORD GRIMLOK himself, commanding his dreaded flagship, the Righteous Blade, brings his entire fleet to bear. It infamous Holder chooses to attack the invading force rather than make his escape; he is confident and assured, knowing that this time his nemesis is on Amarrian ground. The scene shows LORD GRIMLOK seated in a non-capsuleer captain’s chair on the bridge of his Armageddon battleship.

LORD GRIMLOK: (shaking his clenched fist at his adversary)
You won’t escape this time, Starke. This is the last time your Matari filth will taint my stars! Amarr Victor!

The battle is joined, furious and dizzying; where the earlier fight was a deadly dance, this one is a slugfest. Primaried frigates on both sides vanish in bursts of superheated gas as the gap between the fleets narrows, and then the Nova Elite and TLF are among the Amarrian fleet, the heavier ships unable to track the lighter wolfpack at close range.

STARKE:
All ships, focus fire on Grimlok’s ‘Geddon! Take that sonuvabitch down, then worry about his support.

Under the combined firepower of over thirty ships, the golden battleship melts quickly, its captain unable to reach his escape-pod in time. The support put up a token resistance, but most flee the system while STARKE’s forces take out their next set of targets. Voice-comms protocol has already collapsed; the pilots are cheering, laughing and chattering amongst themselves, and it’s all STARKE can do to get their attention and remind the pilots that they’re a long way from home in hostile space.

…………………………

STARKE steps off the gangway from his Jaguar, hair still damp from a post-pod shower. He turns to run loving eyes over the battle-scarred hull before slipping a pair of shades on and turning to leave. His way is blocked by COMMANDER EDGRIET, who has appeared as if from nowhere.

EDGRIET:
That was some good work today, Captain.

She eyes him appraisingly as he reacts with surprise.

STARKE:
I’m certain it’s no more than you would expect of your own men, Commander. We owe you for your help today.

The Commander smiles at him.

EDGRIET:
It was a pleasure, Captain. I’m wondering if I could call on that favour now, rather than later?

************************************

The community hall erupted with a wave of cheering. The final shot of Lord Grimlok’s flagship exploding filled the room with a nova-bright flare before fading to dark red and then nothing. Among the children, Nikitta and Nareen were hugging while Komar did a wiggly victory-dance on his seating cushion.

Behind the rows of youngsters, the adults watched. Many were grinning at the children’s excitement, but a few looked puzzled or concerned. In the close-knit community, most had known Tiia Edgriet before she’d left for the Republic, and even five years on she was still recognisable.

Havah looked up at her husband. ‘If that’s really my sister… how real is this?’

Elaqh shook his head. He’d been wondering the same thing.

************************************

Sylar Starke sat with his feet up in yet another station-side bar. Alistair had joined him, and they sat talking quetly, sharing stories of their early days as pilots. Al noticed her first; Sylar turned to look.

‘Commander Edgriet. Have a seat.’

The tiny Sebiestor woman smiled and brushed her hair back over her shoulder. ‘Thanks. That was bloody clever, staging the final fight like that. Where’d you get the Amarrian ships from?’

Shrugging, Sylar took a sip of his beer. ‘Stole most of them. The pilots are ours, we’ve staged setpiece combat before. The ones I called primary after the ‘Geddon blew up were all empty of crew members, only a pilot in the pod.’

‘Very clever.’ Edgriet looked impressed, then thoughtful. ‘I’m glad you let me add the favour request into the script. I need your help, Captain.’

The two men sat up straight, looked at each other across the table, then at the Commander. ‘We were wondering about that,’ Alistair said.

‘You’ve still got some of that makeup on, you know.’

‘Yeah, I’ve not properly washed it off, yet.’

Tiia Edgriet leaned forward on her elbows on the table, long, delicate fingers interlaced before her. ‘You may recall that I have a bit of an ongoing disagreement with the General.’

At their nods, she continued, ‘This is because our intelligence has discovered that the village I grew up in has drawn Amarrian attention. Slaver attention. And the General – much less the Rebublic itself – can do nothing.’

‘Why’s that?’ Alistair looked keen; his expression had sharpened, his eyes taking on that look Sylar recognised all too well.

‘It’s in Ubtes. Thukker territory. We have no jurisdiction to go in and bring my people out, and while the Amarr don’t have any more right to operate there than we do, they have fewer scruples about it.’ Tiia looked severe. ‘I need to get my people to the Republic, or they’ll end up with the same fate our ancestors so narrowly escaped, and the slaver raid is planned for sometime next week.’

The CEO and the XO of the Nova Elite looked at each other; they could read each other well enough that speaking was unnecessary. Sylar turned back to Tiia. ‘What is it that you need us for, exactly?’

She smiled a little. ‘Leave the TLF. I’ve talked this over with my own men, and they’ve all agreed to this couse of action. We’ll leave with you, form our own operating corporation. We’ll be operating as independents, and because even the Thukkers can pick up your broadcasts, we’ll have evidence that the Republic isn’t involved. …Just tell ‘em I bullied you. What do you say?’

************************************
To Be Continued Next Week!
Same EVE Time, Same EVE Channel!

This article was first published on EVE-Mag.com – an independent EVE magazine (www.EVE-Mag.com). Reprinted with permission.

Delayed by Steampunk and Amanda Palmer

2009-08-23T07:38:00.002-04:00

Yes, the third part of Space Captain Starke is overdue by a day. This is because I've had to re-write part of it, and then the last two days were interrupted by this thing called a 'Social Life', also known as 'dressing up, going out and having fun'.

Space Captain Starke will be up later today.

Another milestone

2009-08-20T10:35:00.001-04:00

It's the 20th of August 2009.

For most of you, this is just the date that the next Apocrypha patch is deployed.

For me, this marks two years since I started playing Eve.

When I first picked up the game, I hadn't a clue what I was doing. I'd watched Sapphrine, Mebrithiel, Giganticus and my then-flatmate Suze'Rain play the game, so I had a vague idea what I ought to be looking at. Cerys Magente and solosnake had regaled me with stories of what they'd done in the game when we were at a games conference here in Edinburgh earlier that month; it wasn't really til Cerys mentioned how she started Eve working with Privateers and solosnake yelled 'You BITCH!' at her in the middle of a reception full of game devs that I actually started thinking the game sounded like fun.

Suze helped me get started, but the choices I made in the end were all mine. I started Eve with something just shy of 900k skillpoints, one of several hundred newbies wandering around in highsec. Suze didn't think I would stick around for more than the two-week trial period. He was nearly right: I got incredibly frustrated with the ten-part newbie mission, and my paranoia was running high -- I'd never played an MMO before and had no idea what to expect. Suze introduced me to some friends in the game, watched me rage over the incomprehensibility and cower in terror in the station, and went off on holiday for the weekend. One of his friends, Abbel Nightroad, took pity on me, convinced me to fly with him into lowsec to go ratting, and by the time Suze returned I was having an easier time of things and I'd paid for my subscription.

I joined Abbel's corp at his invitation, started pvp'ing successfully with something like 1.2 million skillponts (see?! it's not the SP, it's how you use it!), and never really looked back. It wasn't easy, but it was fun. I learned from roaming Upper Syndicate and the lowsec areas around Stacmon, highsec wardecs and pirating in Kor-Azor. Things changed, as they do, and I tried living in nullsec for a bit. That was a mistake, and it wasn't til I joined the Hellcats that the fun in the game really returned, for me.

And now I've been in Hellcats for nearly a year. I've watched the average online population in Eve more than double from 17,000 (if there was more than 21,000, we were in for a lagfest) to 49,000. I've paid for an update to Shae's portrait after deciding I was tired of her looking like a heroin addict. I can passably fly every Gallente ship I want and starting to consider cross-training. Part three of Space Captain Starke is sitting open in Word on my other computer waiting to be edited, and the next big trip will be to FanFest in October.

Here's to the next year.

External Publishing v 2.2

2009-08-15T14:42:00.005-04:00

Sylar Starke strode through the corridors of the Tribal Liberation Force logistic support station in Hek, confident and self-assured. On the outside at least. Inwardly, he felt awkward and uncomfortable in this place, heart of the Minmatar Republic’s militia organization, and despite Alistair Avion’s presence at his side, his first instinct was to turn on his heel and leave.

‘This doesn’t feel like such a great idea,’ he muttered.

His second in command smiled slightly. ‘Give it a chance, Syl. It can’t hurt to at least find out if we can work with them.’

‘People are staring.’

‘Of course they are. You’re recognizable and I’m Amarrian. Relax.’

Sylar peered at Alistair from the corner of his eye. ‘You have that camera implant recording, don’t you.’

‘We need reference material.’

The Brutor grunted quietly. ‘Just don’t get caught.’

They reached their destination. From the muffled voices coming from the inner office, there was a mighty row in progress. Valklear General Lyre Hadhradir’s secretary, a harassed-looking Intaki, gave them a helpless look and asked, ‘Do you have an appointment?’

‘I didn’t know we needed one.’

The secretary shrugged and rubbed his stubbled jaw. ‘It’s not a requirement, but the General often has a full schedule. You’re lucky today, she’s just finishing up a, um… meeting.’

The office door slid open and a petite Sebiestor woman stalked out on long strides, barely sparing a glance for the room’s occupants. Sylar blinked as the closing door interrupted his view of her hips, then turned back to see the General eyeing him in much the way he might examine a stray dog. After a quick study of Alistair at his side, General Hadhradir stepped forward and offered her hand to the Brutor capsuleer.

‘Captain Sylar Starke, I presume?’

Sylar nodded, trying not to wince at the woman’s grip. The top of her head was at his eye level, but he still felt as if he was looking up at her. ‘It’s an honour, sir.’

The General laughed, a quick, humourless thing. ‘I should be the one saying that. My nieces and nephews idolise you. I’m more curious about why you’re here. Given your reputation, you’re rather the last man I’d expect to see in my office.’ She extended her hand to Alistair with a studied scowl. ‘I’ve seen enough of your work to figure out how it’s produced. I’ll have to ask you not to use any actual camera footage from this—‘

‘Of course not, sir, though I may ask if you’ll help us stage the scene later.’

General Hadhradin gave a quick nod. ‘We’ll see. Come in and have a seat, gentlemen. This ought to be interesting.’

************************************

‘Ma?’

‘Yes, Nareen?’

The two of them were up to their elbows in the week’s laundry, sleeves rolled up and hands reddened by the hot water.

‘How d’ you think Capt’n Starke will beat the bad guys?’

Her mother grinned. ‘You kids have been obsessing about that a lot haven’t you?’

‘You heard us?’

‘Well, you were being quite loud about it.’ Sapha chuckled as her daughter hid her face behind a soapy shirt. ‘I think he’ll have to ask for help from the Republic, sweetie.’

‘But Capt’n Starke, he hates the R’public.’

Sapha leaned back, stretching her spine after so long hunched over their work. ‘He doesn’t hate the Republic, Reenie. He thinks they don’t do enough. I bet if he asked and made a good argument with them, they’d help out.’

As they stretched the damp clothes over the lines to dry, Nareen’s mother mused at the sort of person who would create a serial holo like ‘Space Captain Starke’. It was a noble but utterly pointless thing: raising children’s spirits brought strength to the people who lived planetside, never knowing more than what the news services and government broadcasts had to say. Even out here, Amarrian propaganda stained the FTL comms relays, and the small community’s technicians were careful to block the less-scrupulous channels.

After the colony’s founding, their parents and grandparents had removed anything which smacked of the Amarrian religion, so that their children could grow up free. There were still arguments among the governing council regarding how much was ‘enough’. After generations enslaved, they had only the broadcasts from Minmatar space to guide them, and even some of those preached the Amarrian way of life.

************************************

SPACE CAPTAIN STARKE stands before THE GENERAL of the Tribal Liberation Force, a commanding presence in the small office. THE GENERAL is an equally powerful presence, but the Brutor woman remains seated behind her desk, looking solemn and serene.

STARKE:
As Chief Executive Officer of the Nova Elite, I wish to ask the assistance of the Tribal Liberation Force in removing forever the stain of Lord Grimlok from Matari skies. The operation will be perilous and we cannot do it alone.

THE GENERAL looks at STARKE carefully.

THE GENERAL:
I assume you have a plan already?

ALISTAIR AVION:
Indeed.

AVION steps forward and places a portable, palm-sized holo-projector on the desk. The device blinks to life and a map of New Eden appears in the air.

AVION:
We now know the location of Grimlok’s secret base.

The hologram focusses inward on a region, then a constellation, and finally a system near the edge of Amarrian space. A tiny point of red light between and below the second and third planets pulses ominously.

AVION:
Our scouts checked it out, and it appears to be the real thing. He has a handful of small guard compounds throughout the system.

Four more points of red appear on the map.

AVION:
If we take those out first, we remove Lord Grimlok’s ability to call for help in time. Once we secure his base, we can end his tyranny and bring the Minmatar one step closer to freedom.

THE GENERAL uses a stylus to examine the statistics of the target emplacements, frowning as she thinks.

THE GENERAL: (muttering thoughtfully)
It won’t be easy… but we’re accustomed to this sort of work out here. It’s not hit-and-run like your usual guerilla tactics, Starke.

STARKE:
This is why we came to you, sir.

THE GENERAL snorts, her full lips curved in a small smile.

THE GENERAL:
You sound mocking even when you’re being polite. I’ll lend you two strike gangs – twenty good men and women – on the condition that, for the duration of our work together, your Nova Elite fly under the TLF. I want no dishonour on our name, Captain.

STARKE frowns a little, but after a moment’s consideration he gives a sigh of resignation and nods.

STARKE:
Agreed

THE GENERAL stands, and she is nearly the same height as STARKE.

THE GENERAL:
It will be an honour to work with you, Captain.

THE GENERAL offers her hand, first to STARKE, then to AVION. They shake firmly.

STARKE:
Likewise, General.

************************************

‘See?! I tol’ja he would ask them for help!’

Nikitta shushed Nareen, who was pointing triumphantly at the screen. The village’s children sat on cushions on the floor of the community hall – once the cargo bay of the ship their grandparents had slaved aboard – gazing raptly at the latest weekly episode of ‘Space Captain Starke’.

Nareen’s mother leaned over, tapping the flat of her hand sharply against the back of her daughter’s head. ‘You said that because I suggested it, honey. Don’t claim others’ ideas as your own, and hush so the others can hear.’

Rubbing her head – nothing was hurt but her pride – Nareen slumped sulkily as Sapha returned to her seat at her husband’s side. Risga wrapped his arm around her.

‘I wonder if that’s really the General,’ he murmured. Sapha nodded. There was something different about this week’s episode.

************************************

Sylar Starke hovered above the station in Dal in his Jaguar assault frigate, awaiting the rest of his ‘strike force’. The General had allowed the Nova Elite to temporarily join the TLF so as not to be marked neutral, and they’d worked out a method to make Sylar appear to be leading what was, in fact, a bog-standard bunker lockdown in a contested system in Amarr space.

Nineteen frigates, assault frigates, cruisers and interceptors – the best of the Nova Elite fighting force – undocked one by one and formed up around him. ‘Cap’, are you sure these guys won’t shoot us? Some of us are flashy, y’know…’ said Cherry. The Pator girl was one of the outlaws who had joined recently and she’d not yet worked to raise her status with CONCORD.

‘They better not; we’re marked as allies now. Isn’t that right, Commander?’ Sylar asked, discreetly reminding his crew that they were now on shared comms.

‘That’s right, Captain,’ Blade Commander Tiia Edgriet responded. ‘Any of my boys shoots you, he has me to answer to.’

Sylar grinned. The Commander ran a tight outfit to match what she normally wore, and after their non-introduction the other day when she’d stormed out of the General’s office, the Sebiestor woman had warmed to him. Or so he liked to think. The cluster needed more women like her.

Commander Edgriet was the real commander of the strike force. Her fleet instructions would be relayed to Sylar via a private comms channel, which he would then issue to the fleet. It was understood by all pilots that once they were underway, the entire operation would be recorded, comms and all. All the ships had been rigged with flight recorders which would send the feeds from their piloting interfaces to the specially modified covert ops frigate the Nova Elite used to film their fights. The TLF’s pilots had become extras.

‘Your boys ready, Captain?’

‘Always, Commander.’

‘We’re jumping in now. Meet us at the Vard gate.’

The Local comms population in Dal spiked with the arrival of twenty TLF pilots, and Sylar felt the pleasant surge in his ship’s systems as the second gang’s commander, Spear Lieutenant Imkara Vash, brought her fleet bonusses into play.

‘Oh, that’s good Lieutenant. Are all your massages this… invigorating?’

‘Wait until you feel my full-body special, Captain,’ the other Sebiestor woman chuckled. ‘Claymore is worth every penny.’

‘I can hardly wait.’

The run out to Arzad was uneventful, save a few neutral outlaws fleeing through their massed ships on the gates as the scouts checked ahead. ‘Let them go, don’t give yourselves timers.’ Sylar’s reminder was more for the benefit of the recording than that of the pilots. Nobody needed to be told the gate controllers wouldn’t permit someone to pass through if they’d acted with hostile intentions.

Arzad itself was a totally different story.

‘Riva here, there’s an Amarr fleet on the gate,’ one of the scouts reported. ‘Holding gate cloak, looks like two full gangs waiting for—shit!’

‘What happened, Riva,’ Sylar asked tightly.

‘Bastard inty decloaked me.’

‘You make it out?’

‘In my pod, yeah. Going safe off the gate.’

Sylar cursed to himself; this was unexpected. An icon lit up in the corner of his vision and he switched to the private and unrecorded comms with Commander Edgriet.

‘One of the neutrals we passed earlier may have been a sympathiser. There’s probably a scout watching us here.’

‘Great.’

The gate flared suddenly and the safed scout reported, ‘They all just jumped in to you.’

Swapping comms, Sylar made a snap decision. ‘Jump-jump-jump. Everyone into Arzad and hold your gate cloaks.’ They would have to shake the hostiles before they could get to work.

************************************
To Be Continued Next Week!
Same EVE Time, Same EVE Channel!

This article was first published on EVE-Mag.com – an independent EVE magazine (www.EVE-Mag.com). Reprinted with permission.

A Sorta Fairytale

2009-08-15T14:40:00.000-04:00

I never intended for this week to happen the way it did. If I'd known what would happen, would I have done anything to change it?

Probably not.

Zean, an acquaintance I met through Smak, dragged me into a bar one night. It seemed an alright sort of place, mostly frequented by capsuleers aligned with the Angel Cartel, so I went back a few nights later just to relax. I got talking with a Jolly-Rodger type named Hilion, and a raw rookie fresh from the University of Caille's capsule-piloting course. A couple nights later, I had some spare time, and the rookie was there again. His name was Caellach and he wanted to change the world for the better. I nearly laughed at that -- the idealism schools instill in their students is both amusing and sad at the same time -- but I managed to hide it because he really seemed to believe what he said.

About that time, the shit hit the fan; someone went nuts and knifed the bartender, and the bar's internal security turrets took the attacker out, along with most of the drinks on the bar. Some random Jin-Mei wannabe-politician started getting snarky about the situation and got a few teeth knocked out for his troubles. Caellach would have gone to the man's aid, but I held him back; fellow or not, when someone brings trouble upon himself, you don't want a share in it.

Cael had his own issues to work around. Uni cultivates idealism, it seems. Between myself, Kimochi Rendar and... someone else, I can't remember her name, we got the poor boy thinking about what he did. Really thinking, and he did not enjoy having his illusions shattered. The idea that the people he attacked might see him as little better than people like me had clearly never occurred to him. Governments are corrupt; their agents' only interest is in self-promotion, and the only way Cael was going to be a guilt-free defender of the people would be to go independent. Of course, being a rookie, going independent would be suicidal, so we started considering alternate routes for him.

It started to get late, and Cael had got incredibly drunk, and he apparently hadn't made accommodation arrangements with the station. He didn't even have a ship, having arrived pre-pickled via InterBus. I offered to let him kip on a spare bunk in the crew quarters on my Taranis, and he agreed. If he hadn't expressed any interest in me, that might have been the end of it; but he did and it wasn't, and he woke up the next day in my bed with a hangover and a massive grin.

I ought to have seen that possibility a mile off, but in all honesty the thought hadn't crossed my mind til he was standing there stumbling over an apology for kissing me. We ended up spending the successive three days together.

In the meantime, we managed to get Cael pointed towards a faction-neutral humanitarian corp. Well alright, Preli Light Industries are aligned with the Angel Cartel, but unless an idealist wants to go into politics, there's no way for them to actually be effective witout pissing governments off somehow. And idealists don't survive very long in politics.

I attended a party that Saturday night at the Three Sisters, a bar in Jel which had a pool in the lower level. I wish I'd known about the pool beforehand, but they had spare swimsuits available, so it wasn't so bad. Cael couldn't make it, which meant I had to suffer an otherwise stellar night with the wannabe Gallente politician attempting to weasel his way into my bed. He really was a slimy character, and it took bloody ages to get rid of him. Aside from that one downer, the night was fantastic, and I've not had so much fun in ages. A lot of people made impressive spectacles of themselves, some people won ships as a result of their antics. At the end of the party, I wandered drunkenly back to the room we'd arranged for the night, downed the requisite pint of water, and curled up next to Cael.

The boy was starting to become a habit, and I wasn't certain how I felt about that. He was a sweet kid, still very much innocent in his way of looking at the world, and I found that endearing. Would being around me be too much for him to retain that innocence? Jorge had a history before we met; I'd never needed to worry about him. But Caellach?

I would have to keep an eye on my Prince Charming, I decided, and say something if I saw him slipping too far.

Pool's Now Open

2009-08-11T06:26:00.007-04:00

Hellcats has reopened recruitment.

People make a big deal of the Hellcats being a women-only corp. It's what attracts many of our applicants, and you know what? Everyone's got their focus wrong. We're pirates. We may be all female, but we are pirates first. We've had to put strict regulations on our application procedure because too many women simply wanted to be in a corp with only other women. This is the wrong reason for wanting to join us, and so many of the recent applicants just do not seem to understand that.

In the early days, Hellcats got our applicants from women who heard about us and had already been in the action for a while. The corp was an unknown and didn't have a reputation beyond Mynxee's public journal; women applied because they wanted in on the action, not a place to knit and gossip. Mynx and I had both been yarring it up for ages before Hellcats was even on the radar. It's only been in recent months that we've had women asking to join because their husbands/brothers/male friends have said, 'It's an all-female corp! you'll fit right in!'

Words cannot express the frustration.

It is from this 'recommendees pool' that we get the sorts of applicants we really don't want in the corporation. YES, I said there are people we don't want. What do we look like, Mrs Biddle's Happy Tea Society?

We get the sorts of women who are accustomed to leaning on others and letting them do all the work; the types who make their way through life by wrapping others around their delicate little fingers and whining for 'help'; the ones who'd rather sit around gossiping and painting their nails whilst riding on the credit of the group. These women are useless, or worse than. We may take raw rookies from time to time, but only if they show initiative and are willing to follow instructions; we are not a training corporation. We do not teach women to fly their ships; they should already know this. We do not accept women who can't bear the risks involved in an outlaw lifestyle or who simply want to wear the corp logo on their flight jackets.

We've even had a few applicants who detest the idea of working with men, which is so wrong I don't really know how to express it. Hellcats is not anti-male. We've been proud members of The Bastards. alliance and Doom Armada, and our more experienced members have previously served cheerfully in corps in which they were the only woman. We have husbands and boyfriends and generally get along better with guys. When an applicant says she doesn't want to fly with men... we really don't know what to say, because we can't understand why someone would not want to work with them.

An applicant walking into my office and being pushy, self-centred, passive-aggressive and trying to jump our now standard recruitment steps is not going to get into Hellcats. Someone who asks to join, then ignores all the relevant Read This First! information I give them whilst acting like they're already in and talking about how awesome they are is NOT going to impress upon us that they will be a benefit to the corporation. I'm a diplomat, and what that means is that while I'm smiling, nodding and being helpful, I'm making a note on our management boards that that woman is never to be accepted to the corp.

Yes, NEVER. She has wrecked her chances forever based on the first impression she has presented.

How many times do we have to say this?

So you want to go kill stuff? Go! Fit up a ship and run rampant through lowsec, you don't need a corp to do that. In the meantime, you'll have to go through the process like everyone else. If a girl simply cannot wait, then she lacks the most vital attribute in a pirate's arsenal: patience. Without that, a pilot is useless and a liability.

Hellcats recruitment is open. Please see the information here if you have any questions. If you wish to be considered as an applicant, by all means, join us in the Hellcats Pub comms channel, express your intentions and we'll see about getting you started!

External Publishing v 2.1

2009-08-08T19:21:00.009-04:00

Shrieks and fearsome shouts rang across the quad, slapping off the sides of the low mud-brick buildings. The sun shone hot through the noon haze as a desperate swashbuckling battle raged across the rough, cracked paving stones, bare feet splashing through the tepid puddles left over from the morning's rain.

'Avast, Capt'n Starke! You'll join my slave crew or- or it's out the airlock! For I am Lord Grimlok, king of the stars!' Komar yelled fiercely, pelting Nikitta with clots of damp soil. All around the two boys, their 'crews' fought, earth and small twigs flying as the children chased one another in an emulation of a pitched space-battle, outstretched arms mimicking frigate stabiliser fins.

Nikitta threw his own clump of dirt, hitting Komar glancingly on the ear and streaking the other boy's tanned face with mud. 'That's not right! Lord Grimlok says he's master of the stars! And we were playing Capt'n Starke 'gainst Capt'n Calus, a'member?'

'I- I don't wanna play Capt'n Calus! She's a girl!'

It was the wrong thing to say; Nareen stopped pursuit of one of the younger children and rounded on Komar, her long plaited hair flying, and demanded, 'What's wrong with bein' a girl?!'

The mock-battle rapidly degenerated into a shouting match as only seven-year-olds can produce, until their teachers came out to break up the fight with firm words, leading the children back inside to finish their daily lessons.

In the small refugee community on Ubtes VIII, adults simply smiled and shook their heads at the children's youthful obsession with the adventures of Space Captain Starke. The small colony had been established by happenstance and desperation by a crew of slaves who had defeated their capsuleer overlord and commandeered her ship. Now, decades later, the third generation were growing up free and the colony had only marginal contact with the rest of the cluster via the refurbished communications gear ripped from the heart of the long-dead Apocalypse battleship which had brought them here.

Unsanctioned radio operators frequently pirated unused channels to broadcast news, music and holos, some of it very much independently produced by amateurs. “Space Captain Starke and the Nova Elite” was one such independent production, following the adventures of a renegade capsuleer and his corporation as they fought the Amarr in the hinterlands to release captive crews. And if the acting seemed a bit over-done and the script contrived, the thin plotline was compensated for by the quality of the filming, and the special effects were top-notch.

************************************

The scene opens on a station-side bar; it is small and dimly lit, the furnishings worn through use but clean. Wide windows offer tantalizing views of distant stars in the murky crimson nebula of space. SPACE CAPTAIN STARKE sits at a table beside one of the windows, staring broodingly out over the curve of the station below, drinking a glass of juice with a slice of fruit impaled on the rim. A handsome Brutor still in his prime, the powerfully built captain looks weary, the dark tattoos on his face dulled. There is clearly something on his mind.

A wiry Amarrian man approaches and sits down across from STARKE without waiting to be invited. ALISTAIR AVION represents the epitome of all the NOVA ELITE fought for: the eldest son of a Holder who saw the error of his ways early in the series and rose quickly through the ranks to take the place of STARKE’s former second-in-command, the glamourous Gallente LIANE FORSYTH. LIANE was cruelly murdered, gunned down by LORD GRIMLOK at the end of the last season, and STARKE’s grief over her loss still colours his decisions. The CEO of the NOVA ELITE has become almost suicidally reckless in the last few episodes, and the effort is beginning to take its toll.

AVION leans forward with his elbows on the table, forcing a smile through his concerned frown.

AVION
‘We did it again, sir, why the long face? More slaves freed and it’ll take Grimlok weeks to recover from today’s strike action.’

STARKE shakes his head.

STARKE
‘That’s just it, Al. Weeks. He just captures more of our valiant people or buys them from the slavers’ markets. Give him a fortnight and he’ll be back at our throats. I want to shut that fiend down for good!’

AVION
‘You’re talking about a massive action deep into Amarrian space, sir. We can’t hope to survive something like that.’

STARKE looks up at AVION, the hue of his tribal markings deepening with renewed vigor.

STARKE
‘There’s always hope, Al. If we can bring Lord Grimlok to his knees, we’ll be one step closer to destroying the Empire and their slaving ways!’

************************************

‘Ma?’

‘Yes, Niki?’

‘D’you think Space Capt’n Starke can beat Lord Grimlok and bring down the Empire an’ stuff?’

They sat on the steps in front of their house. It was small, but it was theirs, and that made all the difference. Nikitta’s mother was scraping the tough hides from root vegetables into a bucket to be taken to the communal compost, while the vegetables went into a pot for dinner. She smiled. ‘I think Space Captain Starke can do anything.’

Nikitta bounced his heels against the rough bricks of the stoop. ‘Can I be like Space Capt’n Starke when I grow up?’

Setting aside her knife, Havah put her arm around her son, hugging him against her side. ‘When you’re old enough, we can contact the Republic like we did for your Auntie Tiia and they’ll test you to see if you’ll be a good pilot.’

Nikitta squirmed. ‘I don’t wanna pilot for the R’public. I wanna actually do something!’

His mother suppressed a sigh; Captain Starke’s scorn for the Republic and his opinion that they did nothing to improve things were legendary. ‘But in order to be a capsuleer like Captain Starke, sweetie, you need to train with the Republic first. Just like he did, right?’

The boy sulked for a moment, then said, ‘Can I get tattoos like Space Capt’n Starke?’

************************************

The Nova Elite presented the appearance of being untraceable nomads, moving from system to system and frequently living for days on end in their capsules. In reality, the pilots preferred to dock up at the end of each day, and the corporation maintained a tower on a largely worthless moon in Minmatar high-security space, which they used as their production studio.

Sylar Starke looked over the footage one last time and sighed, then shut the computer down. It looked good, but he wondered if it was the right way to end the series. It was a tough decision, after all the time and energy they’d put into it, but he was starting to feel the fiction taking over his life, becoming reality.

Or I’m just getting too wrapped up in my own legend. He rubbed tiredly at his eyes, resisting the urge to check the time, knowing he would regret it if he did.

‘I hope you know what you’re doing.’

Sylar turned to see Alistair propped against the wall, still heavily made up for the Lord Grimlok role, lighting a cigarette. ‘You already made Liane into a martyr. Do you really want to do the same thing to yourself?’

‘Three years, Al. We’ve been doing this three years.’ He waved his arm, the gesture encompassing the banks of audio- and video-processing equipment which wrapped around two sides of the room. ‘Liane wanted a change and she had that offer from her friend’s corp. I wasn’t going to stop her.’

Alistair removed his wig and leaned forward, resting his arms on the back of the other chair, studying his friend. When he’d told the Navy and the Empire where they could stuff their heavy-handed self-righteousness, he’d never imagined he might find his place making propaganda holo-serials. Meeting Sylar had been an eye-opening experience, and the things Alistair had seen since then had only reinforced his conviction that it had been the right decision. If the other pilot was having doubts, after so long… ‘And you want out now, too?’

The younger man sighed heavily and leaned back in his chair, hearing the back-support squeak in protest. ‘I need a change of pace. What we’re doing? It gives the kids watching some hope, but what about us? We roll the cameras, pop a few Amarrian ships, stage some angry Holder footage, and then what? Most of the people slaving on those ships die, Al.’

‘I know that too well, Syl—‘

‘And the ones we do rescue… it’s heartbreaking, how difficult it is to rehabilitate them. And we’re not doing anything, in the end.’

Alistair gripped Sylar’s shoulder. ‘Stop that. Like you said, we’re giving people hope. But don’t you think there might be a better way to do it than showing you dying taking “Lord Grimlok” out once and for all?’

Sylar breathed deeply, then blew it out quickly. ‘Do you have something in mind?’

Alistair looked thoughtful, then smiled.

************************************

‘An’ Capt’n— an’ Capt’n Starke, he, he’ll go neeeeeeeroww! an’ pew-pew-pew! an’ Grimlok, he’ll be raaaaaargh! An’ then Capt’n Starke, he’ll blow him up! Boom! Like that!’

‘But Alistair, he said they have to way into Amarr. The Emp’ress made them outlaws for defeating Capt’n Calus, so th’ police will be on Grimlok’s side.’

Komar shook his head fiercely. ‘They can’t stop Capt’n Starke! I bet he tricks ‘em like that time he sneaked into the Raiders station to rescue Liane.’

Nareen crossed her arms stubbornly. ‘He’d hafta steal Amarr ships to fly, then. Capt’n Starke would never fly Amarr ships! They use slave crews!’

‘But what if – what if he frees ‘em and says, “If you fly us to Amarr, you get to help us beat the bad guys”!’

Nikitta was shaking his head. ‘My ma said slaves don’t know any better. She said it took Gramma years before she liked nobody telling her what to do allatime.’

‘An’ there’s Vitoc, ‘member?’ Nareen chimed in. ‘Teacher Drilas was telling us ‘bout how the slaves are addi’tted to it and Amarrians use it to make ‘em stay.’

‘Well – well, if you’re so smart, how d’you think Capt’n Starke’ll kill the bad guys?’

Nareen and Nikitta looked at each other and shrugged.

‘I dunno,’ Nikitta said, ‘but I bet the Amarr won’t know what hit ‘em!’

************************************
To Be Continued Next Week!
Same EVE Time, Same EVE Channel!

This article was first published on EVE-Mag.com – an independent EVE magazine (www.EVE-Mag.com). Reprinted with permission.

When Worlds Collide

2009-07-27T23:16:00.007-04:00

My boyfriend, Churches, recently came back to playing Eve a few months ago, after being unsubbed for longer than I've been playing. I'll admit, it was mostly my fault: I dragged him to Utrecht to meet Phelaen, Creesch and Dark Sinister from my first corp, then met with Randgris from The Bastards in Amsterdam. I guess the hours spent geeking out lit the fires again, because he resubbed and hopped back into his mission-running ships.

I've even started to get my darling career carebear considering pvp. He's started thinking about fighting rather than running if he gets caught in lowsec, and he recently took a chance and blew up a Retriever which was afk-piloting around. Bless, the guy even hate-mailed him, til Chu asked why he was afk in lowsec and the other guy admitted that, okay, it was dumb, he wasn't thinking, and he'd have done the same if their roles had been reversed.

*sniffles* I'm so proud of him ^_^

At any rate, he has a great way of looking at the world. We had lunch today, and in amongst the idle chat as we sat in the sun in the park behind his office, Chu had an interesting thought about the perspective in Eve:

'There's all these people toiling away on planets to make ends meet, and they know that, way above them in space, there are these capsuleers who are fabulously rich and fly ships that can blow up moons. They seem so heroic and powerful to all those people stuck on the planets, and everyone wants to be those capsuleers, it's something to really aspire to.

'And then you look at the conversation between two of these massively powerful pilots and they're saying:
'You're gay!'
'No, you're gay!'
'Aw, yer mum!'...

I laughed so hard, because it is so true.

Where Everyone Knows Your Name

2009-07-24T10:14:00.008-04:00

Golden sunlight spilled across the station's hull, tiny pinpricks of shadow that were spaceships nearly invisible in the glare. I sat curled up in the deep window-bay in my quarters in our Kaalakiota base in Evati, looking out across the slope of the station's side. If I squinted just right, I could almost fool myself into seeing sunset on water.

It's been a long time since I've been planetside.

Absently scratching my cat's head, I wondered why I'd been out of sorts. Well, no. I knew why. But the reasoning behind it and the timing baffled me.

I missed people. More to the point, I was missing friends. Jedziah, Kulmid, Sard, Rax, Hallan... Jorge. They'd all dropped off the map, hardly saying anything if they entered mutual comms channels and disappearing again.

I knew, as well as anyone, that friendships form and drift apart quickly. In a world where you can climb into a capsule and get lost for months among the starlanes, keeping in touch with anyone can become difficult. I felt lucky I'd been able to remain in contact with the old Atrocitas crew. Losing track of the old Bastards and Gunpoint Diplomacy felt like losing brothers and sisters.

We'd been lying together, my head resting on his shoulder, when Jorge said quietly, 'I'm leaving.' I could do no more than tighten my arm around him and ask when, and where to. Tomorrow, he said; I don't know, nullsec or w-space, maybe. He regretted it, but it was something he needed to do, for himself. And he was gone the next day, leaving me wondering if I'd grown too comfortable and settled into my place in things.

One month, two months... it's a long time, in New Eden. Planetside, where people live in the same place for years, even lifetimes, where you can walk into a bar and the bartenders really do know your name even though you've never told them... life moves at a completely different pace. If you've been somewhere long enough for people to know what your usual order is and what jacket you typically wear... planetside, that's no big deal, but in space....

Maybe I've been here too long.

Ghost Town Showdown

2009-07-20T20:04:00.009-04:00

So we went on a cruiser roam Sunday night.

Well, I say 'we'. I was actually in an Ares since we'd been trying to pin down something in a mission which disappeared before we could lock on it. So I was hanging out in Todifrauan keeping an eye on the gates as the others shipped up. Some Gypsy Corsairs guys had been appearing to bait for a while, with a Myrmidon belt-hopping and a Sacrilege in a safe ready to help. We settled into a stalking pattern.

It took a bit to catch the Myrm; by the time I reached the belt, he'd moved to the next. Coochie scored the lock, and while we were taking the battlecruiser apart, the Sac warped in. We locked the HAC up as we finished off the Myrm, then gave it some cruiser lovin'. A ransom was offered but not received kindly, so we sent the pilot back to his clone-bay.

While we waited out our GCCs, a Cyclone showed up in a belt. Everyone's 'Bait!' alarms went off, but we jumped it anyway. In my little interceptor, I've become more leery of smartbomb-loaded targets; orbiting at 15 km cycling warp jammers and half-expecting to see a pack of Warrior 2's heading my way, I kept one eye on the scanner. The suspected backup never appeared, the battlecruiser popped, and the pod got away.

And another fifteen minutes spent waiting out criminal timers.

We debated hitting another potential target as we dropped loot off at a station, and I noticed someone from Razor Alliance enter the system. A minute later, Local spiked dramatically as a large fleet of Razor battleships went through the system. We watched them pass, bemused, then decided that if we wanted to get anywhere we should be moving on. Zachariuz and I in our interceptors played forward scouts.

For a Sunday night, Molden Heath was... quiet. Where the hell was everyone, on what typically is the busiest day in New Eden? The place felt like a ghost town, deserted, the few remaining residents peering cautiously through the station windows as we went through.

We finally found a target in Bosena, and after deciding it was worth the risk, dropped in on top of Zion Zan'threxian's Dominix in an asteroid belt. Perhaps our recent experience with bait-traps has made us paranoid and a bit hasty in deciding ship ransom vs pod ransom. He might have paid had we left his ship intact, but after that loss he decided his implants and clone weren't worth what we were asking.

And all was quiet. Another tasty target was in a deadspace mission, but our prober had decided to call it a night and docked up a few systems before. Then, as we were scouting in Aeditide, I spotted a familiar name pass through local: Nemesor from Rote Kapelle.

I'm friendly with a few of their pilots -- most notably Sard, Raxip and Biz. Nemmy is an old acquaintance, and I felt a big, devil-may-care grin start to spread across my face. Zeas reported another STUGH pilot in a Taranis on the Weld gate, and both Flashfresh and I declared it a trap. Zach jumped through into Weld and confirmed a tech-two wolf-pack on the other side.

By that point, we were all itching for a good, proper slugfest, so Raelyf warped his Rupture to the planet near the gate to see if they would bite. The STUGH gang must have been about in the same state, because they descended fast and hard even as the rest of us warped in on Raelyf's position. What followed was a heady dogfight which saw my Ares down in the first minute and a half, and was over in under ten minutes.

The Bastards' battle report (Ellistara's, my and Rhi's losses aren't shown, so here's STUGH's board for cross-ref)

That was a fucking awesome fight, and cheerful 'GF's were exchanged in Local. Zach made it out in his Stiletto, as did Raelyf, his bait-Rupture amazingly still intact at the end of the scrap. Rhiw'aow proved herself a capable ECM pilot -- check out that jamming action! -- and Bastards recruit Ellistara made a good showing on her first trial flight with the alliance despite the pounding she took at the end.

We regrouped back in Evati and most of us decided to call it a night. Surveying my hangar, I realised that I'd just put to bed the only Ares I'd ever owned; the ship had been bought over a year ago, seen nineteen kills and had now gone out in exactly the style I would want for any of my fighting ships. Respect to Rote Kapelle; we simply must dance again sometime!

Some days you're the spider, some days you're the fly.

2009-07-16T07:46:00.006-04:00

'Hello, Evati? Goddamnit, is anyone even online?'

'Shae? What's up?'

'I could use a little help out here. Where the fuck is everyone?'

'Where are you?'

'Egmar gate in Arnher, I've been pinned down by an inty.'

'Can't you take it out?'

'You think a Phobos can take a Stiletto? He's calling for backup, can I expect any help?'

'I'll never get there in time. Sorry, Shae.'

'Yeah, I'm sorry, too.'

I eyed the gnat buzzing around fifteen kilometres away balefully, knowing I'd sealed my own fate by moving off the gate. I'd hoped to buy some time for backup to arrive, but there was no backup today. I should have just jumped back through when I saw the interceptor on the gate, gone to a safespot, and waited. But I'd really just wanted to go home.

I should have bloody stayed in bed today.

----------------------------

I'd arrived at the hangar still feeling the euphoric buzz from our suicidal destroyer op the night before. We'd ended the night by getting bombed on the last nullsec gate before lowsec, then pursued in our pods by a blob from FireTech, laughing our arses off at the fun of it. No matter how long I fly, I will always live for times like that.

It was quiet, a few pilots logging time doing their own things. I ran tests on a new interceptor fitting, then decided that, as I would be off for the evening with Chu, I could afford a clonejump to my Amamake base to pick up my Thermodynamics skillbook and start learning. We could meet in Egghelende, since that was a lot closer to where he normally operated from.

----------------------------

I stopped my ship a hundred kilometres off the gate. If they wanted to kill me, I wasn't going to make it easy for them; whatever they brought through would have to slowboat it out.

The gate flared, the local population jumping from two to seven. Six people just to take me out. They must seriously be overestimating me today. I checked the cargo, but the ship wasn't geared for a fight -- no capacitor boosters to feed the reppers, just a load of medium ammo which wasn't going to do jackshit to something more than five kilometres away.

I sighed. Who the fuck designs a Gallente ship without drones?

----------------------------

My Thermo book wasn't in my Amamake hangar. Cursing, I checked my assets. It was in Todifrauan: I'd bought the book, then neglected to pick it up.

Well, great. Kind of a wasted trip out, huh.

Mentally, I went through the list of things I had been intending to do out here. Only one seemed to actually be important: the Phobos Abbel gave me for my birthday last year really belonged in Evati. We had little use for it out here -- the flashy tech-two ship was little more than very expensive bait. I'd asked my regular hauler if she could move it via highsec, but the rigged ship wouldn't fit in her hauler, and she wasn't skilled to pilot it.

In retrospect, I should have asked my alliance-mates if they knew anyone who could move it for me.

----------------------------

GiS had brought in two interceptors, a cruiser, a stealth bomber, a battlecruiser and a HAC to take me out. For once, they actually didn't rely on ECM (shock), but it wasn't like they needed it. I sat there feeling my own disgust and ire grow as they casually stayed out of my range and whittled my armour down.

Fuck this shit.

Relieved that I was the only person onboard -- the crew had been sent on ahead via InterBus -- I turned the reppers off. The armour shot suddenly towards the zero mark, and as I broadcast, 'I love you guys, really,' I turned off the damage control.

The hull melted, probably much faster than they'd expected, and I was already spamming my pod's warp command as the ship fell apart around me. The unexpected speed at which the ship died may have been the only thing that saved me an additional podding.

I really should have just stayed in bed.

Kinship

2009-07-09T23:15:00.004-04:00

'Amarr Victor!'
'Thanks for the system!'
'Siseide has fallen....'
'"I give you the destiny of Faith, and you will bring its message to every planet of every star in the heavens: Go forth, conquer in my Name, and reclaim that which I have given." So saith the Book of Reclaiming.'
'We will enslave Siseide once and for all!'
'You will all be ours! Resistance is futle!'
'YOU ARE ALL SLAVES! You just don't know it yet!'
'Join us... JOIN US.... DEAD BY DAWN!'
'We've burned their houses and raped their wives and they didnt even show up. Minnie style.'

The smacktalk screeched through the Local comms; vicious, cutting words hanging in the air like an accusation underpinned by some faceless capsuleer's manic laughter.

Throughout the dim, tapestried caffeelounge I'd taken shelter in when the area proved too actively hostile for a lone pirate, people froze and looked up, expressions of shock and dread crossing faces from a myriad of worlds.

I felt my own expression close into a tight-lipped frown. The warfare that had been raging for over a year throughout the areas of space I inhabited had only made life unpleasant for everyone. Stations suddenly had to play host to transient fleets of pod pilots who claimed they fought for their good while taking advantage of all the locals had and then some. So many people wondered how Konora could have hit crisis so quickly; I had my suspicions about its source.

On a personal level, I would have preferred that nobody win; that the boundaries remain as they had been for so long. The people inhabiting any conquered system suffered for it; many who were unlucky enough to not see which way the winds were blowing were later trapped there by the victorious fleet and their patrols. How many were relieved of their possessions before being turned back at the border?

A commotion on the other side of the room pulled me from my thoughts. The lounge's Brutor proprietor was standing menacingly over a customer who had been sitting quietly in a circular corner booth.

'I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to leave,' the landlord growled, not sounding the least bit apologetic. The customer gazed up at him a moment, then sighed, paid his tab with a quick swipe of his hand over the sensor on the table, and headed for the door.

Time paused for a heartbeat as I tried to bring myself to believe what I'd just seen; then in one move I paid my bill, slung my jacket over my shoulder and hurried after the other pilot.

'Hey! Wait up!'

The capsuleer stopped halfway down the sweeping curve of the stair but didn't turn. 'Can I help you?' His tone was carefully neutral but discouraged further conversation.

'Why didn't you refuse to leave? You could have.'

'And cause a scene?' He turned to look up at me, face set in a frown of disapproval. 'They were looking for me to raise a fuss; it would give them an excuse to release some pent-up frustrations, I'd imagine.'

'Because you're Ni-Kunni.'

He waved his hand, gesturing towards his face. 'Visage of the enemy, my dear. It matters little what I've done, only that I represent the oppressor.'

I stopped a step above the one he stood on, where I could be at his eye level. 'It's racism, and hypocricy. They treat you no better than they would accuse you of treating them.'

An amused smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. 'Had my position and the landlord's been reversed, I imagine I might have done the same. You Gallente, you believe so much in people being more than the sum of their parts. The universe does not work that way.'

'Somebody has to believe it,' I shrugged. 'Otherwise, no-one will.'

The other pilot squinted at me for a moment, then extended his hand. 'Dorre Kvessha. I don't believe I've had the honour?'

'Shae Tiann.' My fingers clasped his, the implants in our palms exchanging digital calling-cards. Dorre was a diplomat for Disco Joe's Wrecking and Salvage and had very much negative standings with the Amarr, which explained a bit.

'Ah, Hellcats.' Dorre's dour face broke into a grin. 'A sister in crime. I'm afraid the establishments in this station will no longer be quite so tolerant of my presence, but would the lady do me the honour of joining me for a drink in my office? I do have an acceptable Gallentean wine I picked up on my way through the Syndicate last...'

'I'd be delighted.'

The Price of Timing

2009-07-06T22:21:00.002-04:00

It's been a while since I went hunting with my fellow Hellcats. There are severe down-sides to operating at the times of day I prefer, one of them being that the majority of my corp-mates are active later and we often miss each other by a matter of minutes. The last week or so has been filled mostly with catching up on the small pile of work that's built up, punctuated by bouts of roaming solo without being able to catch anything.

It's made me a bit sad to see members leaving my first corp, Under the Wings of Fury. The guys there taught me to fly, to fight, and to have fun doing it, but even a sound, solid corporation need to take a break. Many of the members have joined corps within Sc0rched Earth alliance; only a few remain in Atrocitas alliance, and they've moved into the same general area I've been doing my roaming in. I've not had the chance yet to fleet up with my old teachers, but Samma t'huk, my replacement as Sumatox's protege, joined me for a little roam the other day, during which we failed to find anything we could take on in our frigates. We still had fun, so it wasn't really a waste of time.

A couple days later, I was in the process of overseeing my crews fitting out a few ships that had just been brought in when someone greeted me on the local comms channel. A quick check showed Kyle Langdon, Nursultan, and Jyren's Rage and eMokiLLaH from Mayhem Bros. in Local. We chatted for a bit and then I realised I was sick of logistics for the day. Opening a private channel, I asked, 'You got any room in that gang for another?'

Which was how I ended up buzzing around first Auga, then Siseide and Egghelende in a cheap Incursus for several hours. We had several near-misses on a few missioners before moving on into Egghelende, which turned out to be a veritable goldmine, if we were only willing to be patient.

Patience, for a pirate, is the ultimate virtue.

It seemed it was a good day... for Thoraxes. One, two, three in a row, and their little pods, too. I'm really digging Number Two's fit; check that thing out, I'm amazed he could even kill his mission targets. He ran when we warped in on him, then came back almost immediately and just froze at the controls as we pounced. I felt a bit sorry for him. At some point in there, we lost Nur, and Helicity joined us when a missioning battleship showed up on scan, but we missed that by like half a second. The kills were interspersed with stretches of that Zen-like state one reaches when cycling the D-scanner to locate potential targets.

Eventually I started to feel tiredness creeping up on me and headed back to my new base for the night. Once docked, I checked to see what CONCORD had taken out of my standings for my actions that night, and was stunned to see that the capsules of the pilots I'd helped kill had lopped a whopping 18.5% each from my security status. Normally, a podkill only takes 12.5%, so this is rather a drastic change. I'm suspecting someone legislated in the change in order to make attacking innocent pilots less attractive... but when you're focussed on working your way to a perfect -10.0, this is actually a boon. Thanks, CONCORD!

It's like fencing

2009-07-02T22:55:00.001-04:00

My brother sent this picture to me yesterday, asking if I remembered that. As if I could possibly forget! We were both on the Miel-do-jun team in school; Dad took this picture of me, Valar and my classmate Irade training.

Miel-do-jun is a gladiatorial contest incorporated from the Jin-Mei after they were absorbed into the Gallente Federation. Blood-sport, however, did not appeal in the technologically advanced empire, and it quickly became translated into holographic fighters controlled by players wearing full-body VR-control rigs. Professional Miel-do-jun fighters train rigorously and their interface with the control rig is enhanced through specialised cybernetic implants. Like most sports, Miel-do-jun is accessible to the public through home-size holographic projection tables, and most Gallente schools have teams for interscholastic competition.

----------------------------------------

This is the result of the first Art Challenge between myself and Helicity. Hel asked me to do a picture of 'Gallente indoor sports, played by young people'. This nearly went a very wrong direction; fortunately, I managed to rein in my imagination a little :p

I asked Helicity to paint a 'small provincial Amarrian shrine' and I think he did a fantastic job with it ^_^

Blog Banter 9: Who is Nibbling at My House?

2009-06-30T08:21:00.023-04:00

Welcome to the ninth installment of the EVE Blog Banter and its first contest, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux(at)gmail(dot)com. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

I'm a bit notorious for not 'officially' being in on CK's blog banter; I see when the topic goes up on the day it's meant to and if the topic intrigues me I bang out a response by dinnertime. I'm not the only one, either.

This one, however, is a doozy. CK posted it publicly -- it's a contest, so as many people as possible have the chance to get in on it. I'm more interested in the challenge posed by the actual topic:

Which game mechanic would you most like to see removed completely from EVE and why? I can see this getting quite heated so lets keep it civil eh?
-- Keith Neilson/Jmarr Hyrgund

Oh my. See, that is throwing the white glove down and asking bloggers, 'How well do you know your game?' You can't just pick something at random and babble stream-of-consciousness style about it; it requires some actual deep consideration about how the game works. Everything that currently exists in Eve makes it what it is, and if you only suggest removing things which cause you grievance, then you're missing the point of Eve's deliberately dark, cruel atmosphere.

...Well, I assume it's meant to be dark and cruel. Highsec is starting to look like Care-A-Lot.

In terms of game mechanics, there are a few things that should probably be changed or removed in order to either streamline the system or help it make more sense. One thing which strikes me as needing a revamp is a mechanic that is relied upon more than any other: the Local channel.

Don't misunderstand me: I love Local. I love seeing who's in system, recognising old friends and foes and giving shoutouts and chatting with people. But it's difficult to tell the difference from highsec to lowsec to nullsec. In the beginning, Local wasn't intended to serve as the intel tool it's become.

I would recommend removing the features of Local channel that have made it thus:

Take away the channel tags that reflect friends, foes and allies. Those are perfectly fine in personal channels and on the overview, but the addition of tags to Local has made people lazy about scouting ('Three reds, two blues'? How about actually checking corp and alliance info? Try remembering allies' names?) The other side of that coin is that it would be possible to once again hide in the crowd and bring back the sneaky abilities of scouting spies.

In lowsec, change the way Local updates. Give it an update every, say, five minutes. It's lowsec, after all: the crews managing the comms relay stations are bored and underpaid and the tech need maintenance. So unless someone starts chatting the moment they enter a system, others won't know they've been there for the first couple minutes. No more Local spikes raising people's hackles -- at least, not til the fleet's been in there for a bit. It would totally alter the dynamics of operations in lowsec on all fronts: gangs would have more freedom of movement, scouting would be a bit tougher and require good scanning reflexes, and you might not notice that war-target till the bugger's right on top of you and whistling for backup.

For nullsec, remove Local updates altogether. I've been in w-space a couple times, and the simple removal of that feature really gave the impression of being out in the wild-lands as far from civilisation as you can get in Eve. There shouldn't be any comms relays in nullsec: it's just a standard, open broadband channel that everyone can use to communicate. All of a sudden, your cosy Sov-2 home isn't quite so secure. You'd need scouts and patrols and people constantly running system scans to ensure your base isn't being invaded. People holding space would have to work to hold it. In fact, let's do one better: in high-sov systems, alliances could add comms-relay towers to their bases and turn their Local channel into the lowsec-style system I suggested above. I realise that would be tricky to implement on the development end of things, but the gameplay aspects would totally be worth it.

Communication is one of the most important aspects of the game. It's easy to take for granted the system as it stands now; simply removing the ease with which intel is gathered via the Local channel would add depth to gameplay and be a constant reminder to players that they need to maintain situational awareness.

Other Banters

Diary of a Space Jockey -- Blog Banter: BE GONE!
EVE Newb -- (EVE) Remove You
Miner With Fangs -- Blog Banter - It's the Scotch
The Eden Explorer -- Blog Banter: The Map! The Map!
The Wandering Druid of Tranquility -- "Beacons, beacons, beacons, beacons, beacons, mushroom, MUSHROOM!!!"
Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah -- Kill the Rats
Mercspector @ EVE -- Scotty
EVE's Weekend Warrior -- EVE Blog Banter #9
A Merry Life and a Short One -- Eve Blog Banter #9: Why Won't You Die?
Into the unknown with gun and camera -- Blog Banter – The Hokey Cokey
The Flightless Geek -- EVE Blog Banter #9: Remove a Game Mechanic
I Am Keith Neilson -- Eve Blog Banter #9 - F**k Da Police!
One Man and His Spaceship -- Blog Banter 9: What could you do without?
Life in Lowsec -- EVE Blog Banter #9: Stop Tarnishing My Halo
Cle Demaari: Citizen -- Blog Banter #9: Training for all my men!
A Mule in EvE -- He who giveth, also taketh away?
Speed Fairy -- Blog Banter #9: Down with Downtime!
Kyle Langdon's Journeys in EVE -- EVE Blog Banter #9: Titans? What's a Titan?
Dense Veldspar -- Blog Banter 9
Morphisat's Blog -- Blog Banter #9 - Randomness Be Gone!
Facepalm's Blog -- Blog Banter #9: What a new pilot could do without
Achernar -- The gates! The gates are down!
Ripe Lacunae -- The UI... Where do I begin... (EVE Blog Banter #9)
Clown Punchers -- EvE Blogs: Which game mechanic would you get rid of?
Memoires of New Eden -- You're Fired
Roc's Ramblings -- Blog Banter #9 - Taking Things Slow
Estel Arador Corp Services -- You've Got Mail
Epic Slant -- Let Mom and Pop Play: Eve Blog Banter #9
DeafPlasma's EVE Musings -- Blog Banter #9 - Removal of Anchoring Delay of POS Modules
Podded Once Again -- Blog Banter #9 - Do we really need to go AFK?
Postcards From Eve -- 2009.07.02.00.29.06
Letrange's Blog -- Bye Bye Learning Skills
Warp Scrammed -- Blog Banter 9 - Never Too Fast
Harbinger Zero -- Blog Banter #9 - War Declarations and Sec Status
Ecaf Ersa (Eve-Mag) -- Can a Tractor Tractor a Can?
Thoughts fram an Accidental Minmatar Revolutionary -- EVE Blog Banter #9 - Aggression Timers, WTs and Stargates
Mike Azariah -- I don't put much stock in it...
Rettic's Log -- Blog Banter: Overview Overload
A Sebiestor Scholar -- [OOC] EVE Blog Banter #9: Slaves
Diary of a pod pilot -- [OOC] EVE blog banter #9: Because of Falcon
The Gaming-Griefer -- EVE Sucks, But I Love It: The Memoir of a Masochist
Lyietfinvar -- Remove that monopoly
Sceadugenga -- Blog Banter #9
Industrialist with Teeth -- EVE Blog Banter #9

Overload

2009-06-26T01:40:00.001-04:00

The last couple weeks have been such a crazy rush, and there's not really been much to blog about because I've had other things that needed to be worked on. I have my visa sorted out, finally, and I've been busy looking for a job and trying to make my portfolio look good (big thanks to Jorge, Valarissa and my boyfriend Chu for help, suggestions and coding above and beyond the call of duty).

In a nutshell:

- The corp has been busy with new recruits and helping the newest members become more comfortable in the capsule, and they've been racking up the kills. We have some fine, budding pilots who are just beginning to realise their potential, and they make me proud to call them friends and corpmates.

- Our wardecs against GiS have been dropped in preparation for rejoining The Bastards. alliance alongside our mates in The Bastards corporation.

- I've been busy working on a massive story for Eve-Mag, so watch this space for the announcement of the posting of Part 1! (Yes. It's that long.)

- I was offered a duel by a guy who happened through a system I was in a couple days ago, but was too busy at the time to accept. He asked again the next day, and we met at a safespot, Caracal vs Thorax. It was a close fight, right down to the wire, and he was very nice about it. Lau's a solid guy and I'm glad I was able to make his day ^_^

- Recent news has been a flurry: KIA lost a titan, Razor got burgled, Michael Jackson forgot to keep his clone updated, and Hellcats made IGB headlines yesterday morning. Things went a bit crazy with convos popping up from people asking to give our info to their sisters/girlfriends/female friends who also play Eve, and a few invitations to join alliances. Mynxee has to deal with this sort of thing every day; I normally handle the bills, UK recruitment and corp hangars, so I was going a bit nuts trying to keep up with everything.

- Because of the convo overload, I spent most of today docked up and making a template of our corp logo which could then be used to print the design onto a shirt (I've been very disappointed with the quality that CafePress offers). The results are rewarding, to say the least, and totally worth the pain in my hands from cutting out the stencil:

- And just as I was about to log for the night (putting it loosely -- I've become noctournal) my mailbox flashed. You'll love this:

2009.06.26 03:54
GoonSwarm has declared war on Hellcats.
Within 24 hours fighting can legally occur between those involved.

It seems the twenty of us are worth spending half a billion ISK on, just to give us a little attention. Considering the difference in numbers, we've got to be the luckiest gamer-girls in the world, but all this honey in one place was bound to draw a few bees ~_^ See you in the clone-vats, boys!

Poignard

2009-06-19T07:06:00.001-04:00

Ashen steel gleamed dully under the harsh hangar lighting, insectoid carapace and wickedly-curved stabiliser arms refracting rays into the gloom of the cavernous space.

I paced the docking-ring below as the hangar techs installed the turrets I'd ordered. They looked odd: brushed silver tritanium alloy flecked with glowing sea-green against the darker hull and golden running lights. It wasn't a Gallentean design; the organic lines had a more menacing aspect and the systems' low resting hum had more in common with a thoughtful bee than the contented purr I was accustomed to.

You couldn't call her beautiful. It would be akin to calling a professional dominatrix 'cute'.

Roc Weiler had given the ship to me ages ago, back when I think he was trying to tame the wild women of the Hellcats into a faction-fighting force. Like that was going to work. This particular hull had sat in a hangar in highsec for months, waiting for me to decide the time was right to have her brought in and used for her proper purpose: to fuck people's shit up.

It amused me a bit, to know the ship Roc had wanted me to fly securing Minmatar compounds would instead be used for what she was intended. The Daredevil was not designed by the Serpentis to be a peacekeeper: she was a pirate through and through, hull to core, and it would be disrespectful to treat her as anything else.

Roots

2009-06-11T11:52:00.001-04:00

...They can be pulled up, and put down, but they should never be forgotten.

I stepped out of the shower, feeling refreshed, the rush of combat adrenalin rinsed away. We'd just had an incredibly successful run with The Bastards, at Flashfresh's invitation, and desipte the misgivings RoninData had initially voiced -- that the long-established pirate force might not feel they could be themselves with the two of us around -- after the last week or so of intermittent association,things seemed to be running smoothly.

Flash met me at the hangar entrance. 'You and Mynx coming to the pub?'

I shrugged and said, 'Well, I hadn't really made any plans...'

'Come have a drink with us. First fleet since the afterburner standardisation regs went out and we take down three battleships? Ronin's called for a little party.'

We found Mynxee and headed up to the bar which sat in the centre and above the space-dock, unimaginitively named 'The Hub'. The revelry was only just starting, and I shouldered my way amongst the taller pilots towards the bar to order drinks while Mynxee looked for a table on the lower level.

As I waited, I realised I was elbow to elbow with one of the other pilots we'd flown with. Offering a smile, I said, 'Hi there.'

The Khanid man started; it was hard to tell where he was looking with the solid hood pulled low over his face. 'Uh, h-hi.'

Shy, huh? I studied him. 'You were the Vengeance pilot, right?'

'Yeah,' he said shortly. His drink arrived and he hurried off with it without another word.

Someone tapped my shoulder; San Rintu, one of the Bastards' few women pilots, said, 'That's Jorge. He doesn't tend to socialise a lot. Drinks lke a fish, though. Weird boy.'

'No shit. Oh well, long as he doesn't turn turtle on an op...'

'Nah, he focusses well enough.' The taller Achuran woman wrapped her arm around my shoulders. 'So are you guys going to be sticking around a bit? It's kind of nice to have some more ladies to hang out with in the testosterone pool.'

I smiled. 'Dunno. We've been discussing setting up a base here, but we're still a part of Doom Armada.'

'Oh, of course. But, I mean...' She took a drink from her pint. 'We work well together. And you have a lot more roaming space out here than you do in a pocket lowsec like Decon.'

'We're considering it, San. That's about it for now.'

The bartender slid Mynxee's and my drinks onto the counter, and I carried them carefully down the wide spiral stair to the lower part of the bar. Down here, the walls were filled with windows overlooking the space-dock, an upturned hemisphere with dozens of individual hangars stepped and honeycombed together around the docking lanes. The far walls were almost indistinct through the thin haze of moisture and exhaust clouds.

Mynx had picked a table tucked into one of the wide bays, looking out with her chin cupped in one hand. 'I was thinking we should maybe move a few more ships out here, Shae,' she mused as I handed her drink over. 'It'd be easier to join the guys if we had more flexibility in what we're flying.'

I was nodding. 'I've been meaning to get a Myrmidon brought in... I have a lot of stuff still sitting in Arnon from when I first joined the corp. Maybe we should just open a corp office here so we can manage a communal hangar for ammo.'

'Makes sense.' She took a swig of her drink and hmmmmed thoughtfully. 'I hope Sicks doesn't mind. I love the guys in D-Gen, but it's kinda fun flying with the Bastards, too.'

'Hope they don't feel we're "cheating" on them in some way...'

Mynx snorted. 'Cheating, my ass! We're an independent corporation, and we already have a side-base in Vitrauze anyway. We're a part of the alliance, not sleeping with them!'

We cracked up laughing and touched the rims of our glasses together.

'I'll get on moving the Myrm in. My hauler's been busy with her own stuff, I may just take a chance and run the lowsec route.'

'I'll set up a corp office tomorrow. Make Evati our little home away from home.' She grinned. 'This could be fun.'

Half a Sleip

2009-06-09T13:20:00.005-04:00

It's an accepted fact that drinking coffee to stay awake is both unhealthy for you and a sign of heavy caffeine addiction. Good thing I only drink it for the taste, right?

But it was extraordinarily late for me to be up and in The Hub cursing my inability to make the three-dimensional graphic modelling program on my tablet computer do what I wanted, and while I'd lost track of how many refills I'd had, I knew the bartender was going to be cutting me off soon.

Someone slipped up behind me and began to rub my shoulders. I let myself relax into it for a second, then tilted my head back.

'I thought it might be you.'

Sard Caid grinned, hugged me briefly, then pulled up a chair and swung his leg over to sit backwards in it. We'd been friends for so long, I couldn't actually remember when we'd met or how we'd started talking.

He folded his arms on the back of his chair and hunched forward to rest his chin on them. 'We have a sexy fleet going. It'd be even sexier if you hopped in a ship and came with us.' Sard was giving me That Look, the mischievous one from under his brows that told me he'd never let me forget it if I turned him down.

A quick check of the time made me cringe. 'I know I asked you to grab me for some action tonight, but I think I also said something about "not too late"?'

'Pssh.' He flapped his hand at me. 'You know you'll be up late anyway. Come on. Have some fun.'

Looking from the other pirate to my computer to the bartender -- who crossed his arms over his chest and arched his eyebrows at me -- I sighed. 'Thorax be alright?'

'Sure!' Sard was probably happy he didn't have to twist my arm about it. He bounced to his feet. 'Mynxee's on her way back here, so we have a few minutes to chill. See you in space!'

The boy has too much energy, I thought. I wrapped up what I was working on, returned my empty cup to the bar, and made my way to my hangar, lost in that floaty fugue-state that working too hard too late normally leaves me in.

This is going to be an interesting roam.

When we headed out, the gang consisted of me, Mynxee in her Wolf, Sard in a Huginn and Vasavia in a Rifter. Sard and Vas had made the tactical choice of maintaining a not-quite-outlaw security status so they could better choose their fights, and scouted ahead. A few jumps up the line, Zeasier popped onto comms and asked if he could join in an Incursus. It took him a few jumps to catch us up, by which point we were being danced around by an Absolution which appeared to be nano-fit, considering how quickly it eluded us.

I don't even remember where we were by then; I was so tired, I was content to let others scout and tell me where to warp to and when to jump. Not the best state to be roaming in, to be perfectly honest, but it was pleasantly relaxing and I chatted on the side with Valarissa and Mynxee in corp chat, until--

'Ooh, there's a Sleipnir in here.' Sard directed us to various belts in our search to pin the command ship down.

Vas got lucky, landing on top of the ship before Sard even finished his instructions. 'Got a point on him, he's got drones on me.'

Mynx and I reached the belt just as Vasavia's Rifter exploded, but Sard and Zeasier were already there taking fire. I was so tired, I actually had trouble remembering which sort of drones I'd released to tell the guys to not shoot them out. For a minute, it seemed the pilot's shields would be able to absorb the damage, but then something seemed to fail and the rest of his buffer disappeared surprisingly quickly. The pilot didn't stick around to see what would happen if we caught his pod.

When we took a look at the killmail, we discovered why the ship melted so quickly. Incredulous giggles filled the comms as we scooped what survived from the wrecks of the command ship and our ill-fated tackler. The Sleipnir was full of gear looted from the local Raiders ships, most of it not worth much. The turrets should sell well, but I'd have expected a better fitting from a pilot who's been in the capsule as long as him.

By that point, I was in danger of passing out in my pod, so we waited out our timers chatting about independent comics series we follow, and then Mynx and I docked up in the system's only station for the night while Sard and Zeas roamed their way back to Evati.

Interior Design for the Discerning Corporation

2009-06-01T11:47:00.003-04:00

When Medals were introduced in Eve last year, I looked at the cost of the damn things and thought, 'As if there aren't enough ISK-sinks in this game already!' Five mil just to create one is a lot. An extra five mil every time one is awarded just gets silly, especially if it's something which every corp member receives. I do maintain an alt-corp as well as being a director in the Hellcats, and even though I'd love to hand around a few baubles to my mates' alts for giggles, the cost involved makes me cringe.

The Hellcats, however, doesn't suffer from poverty the way my alt-corp does. Quite the contrary: we're active, self-sufficient, and large-scale piracy pays a lot better than you might think. Unlike the alt-corp, where everyone largely keeps to themselves and does their own thing, the Hellcats spend a lot of time working on piloting skills, building trust and learning how to work together as a cohesive unit.

...Or as Larkonis called it, an 'epic oestrogen-fuelled killsquad'.

For us, Medals are more than just a fun thing to display on our character info. The decorations the Hellcats issue celebrate both personal and group development. We try to encourage our pilots to get out there, shoot stuff, work together and help each other, and the decorations we award are in recognition of this.

The first award any Hellcat can receive is the First Blood award in recognition of their first kill in the corp, usually closely followed by the Egg-Breaker decoration for first podkill. 'Strength in Numbers' celebrates a gang kill of a larger ship, while the 'Silver Panther' is given in recognition of a solo kill of a larger ship. In this way, we try to encourage progression of skills, particularly since so many of our pilots are quite new to the game.

Beyond that are decorations which are harder to achieve. The War Heroine award is specifically for the solo kill of a pilot whose corporation we are at war with. While the Silver Panther is possible purely because we tend to run in smaller ships and single targets are plentiful, war targets frequently roam in gangs, use ewar, and like to lay Obvious Bait traps which would make Inspector Clouseau cry (I'm not pointing fingers, here; I've done my share of highsec wardecs, and they all kind of blur together in the end). The award is not just for a solo kill but for having the ovaries to take the risk in the first place.

On top of all the killmail-whoring, we like to encourage our more experienced players to help the newer ones. The Guiding Star is given to members who have dedicated a lot of time and energy to pilot development, whether through offering lessons, putting together guides, leading instructive ops or assisting newer players whilst roaming with the Bastards.

And every corp has to offer something to really aspire to. I took a look at our killboard the other day, realised there were some epic fights in there which will never be shared except as numbers and stats, and thought it would be great to encourage our corpies to use Fraps more often. The 'Action Heroine!' is meant to be the most difficult decoration to achieve: it requires ten proper combat kills in one day (according to the killboard), at least one of which has to have been recorded and shared on the Eve-O forums. It encourages our members to take a little initiative and generates publicity for the corp -- always a plus. And we already have members saying they want to be the first to get this one, so keep your eyes on the forums!

Medals can be a big ISK-sink just for lulz, or they can help deveop teamwork and personal development within your corporation and bring your members together. Decorate wisely!

Journeys in Eve

2009-05-29T10:07:00.001-04:00

Out of curiosity, I've decided to jump on the meme-wagon and show where I've been in the last two years of Eve.

It's pretty obvious, I've never gone anywhere near the North. I just left it off the map. Most of my time has been spent in the fringes of Empire space, only thin trails testament to journeys I've taken through nullsec. My longest residencies were in Upper Syndicate, Kor-Azor and now Metropolis.

A closer look at the places that count.

Karmic Balance

2009-05-28T22:43:00.003-04:00

I think I used up all the luck I had today when I took my Hyperion into nullsec with the guys, attacked a Moros, got dropped on by three motherships and made it out alive... with this bounty on my head. Because a bit later a gang hunted me down while I was out hunting with Happy San, popped my Ishkur and brought frigates in to try to catch my pod.

Tomorrow, I'm going to wake an alt up and pod myself. Then I'm going to hunt down Shina Windol and beat him 'round the head with his own ship for a bit.

It won't stop him advertising in Irjunen that I need more ISK on my head, but I'll feel better for it >:p

When the (Speed)Freaks Come Out

2009-05-27T12:50:00.003-04:00

Anybody who knows me at all will know I hate nullsec. I really can't say it enough: bubbles and blobs are the bane of my existance, and my time in Lower Syndicate is hardly remembered fondly.

But when someone named Fish Brain suggests an interceptor run into the drone regions, it's hard to resist.

Fish is one of the Bastards' newest recruits and he's already proven himself both in combat and FC ability and in sheer weight of personality. He's quickly become one of my favourite people to fly with, so I knew the near-spur-of-the-moment op (it was planned for earlier in the week, but got postponed when an error hit stargates all over the cluster which caused ships' systems to shut down on reaching a jump destination for a couple of fairly miserable weeks) was guaranteed to be fun.

The Bastards and Hellcats are based fairly close to the entrance into nullsec through EOA-ZC, but the route we took led us instead through LXQ2-T via Paala. Fish called for the gang to orbit the gate while he took a peek inside. The other side was camped, mainly by members of Legion of xxDEATHxx and a couple small bubbles.

FC Fish obtained aggression and the lot of us jumped in, quickly wiping out the Legion Falcon and a random Merlin which happened to get caught in one of the bubbles. The Drake tore the hell out of 3Jayne's Taranis before Jayne got away, then it managed to drop aggro and jump through the gate. The Ishtar set sentry drones on us, but they didn't seem to do it much good; we swarmed towards the HAC and he booked it for the nearest celestial, leaving his drones behind. A Muninn showed up, and another Drake, and a capital ship somewhere in the system assigned fighters to the campers. FC Fish called for a tactical regroup some 250km above the gate.

We milled about up there for a couple minutes; then the fighters were withdrawn and the Drake and Ishtar returned. FC Fish made a calculated decision and went down to test his luck on the second Drake and ended up having to jump back through the gate when the Ishtar opened up on him. Fish came back, the Drake attacked him, and we descended upon the gate, popping and podding the Drake and running back out again, but not before 3Jayne's Taranis bought it.

godsend22 > need hlp paala gate
godsend22 > fuckers
Mr Frog > gf to you too
godsend22 > nice try

We decided to jump back into Paala for a quick break and to let Jayne reship, and when Randgris warped back to the gate one of the bubbles caught him and pinned him in the open like a piece of laundry left out to dry.

Round Two saw 3Jayne replaced by Raelyf, with Randgris back at the helm of an Ares. Instead of hanging about for more silly buggers on the gate, we shot through LXQ and into PX-IHN, skirting Etherium Reach and heading into Insmother. It was quiet out here, and we encountered nobody until C-J6MT, where we pounced on and blew away a hapless Intrepid Crossing Ishkur.

Lord Golgatha > fuck you
Lord Golgatha > all

Then came the Moby Dick of the run: a Shadow of xxDEATHxx Dominix we swarmed on the 78-0R6 gate. I was happily orbiting on manual pinning the space whale in place when he locked us up.

(notify) Light Ion Blaster II requires 1.0 units of charge. The capacitor has only 0.0 units.
(notify) Light Ion Blaster II requires 1.0 units of charge. The capacitor has only 0.0 units.
(notify) Light Ion Blaster II requires 1.0 units of charge. The capacitor has only 0.0 units.
(notify) Warp Disruptor II requires 4.0 units of charge. The capacitor has only 2.7 units.
(notify) Catalyzed Cold-Gas I Arcjet Thrusters requires 36.0 units of charge. The capacitor has only 4.7 units.

Oh, crap. Our boy Andprand had clearly come prepared to take on a group of interceptors and had loaded his battleship with cap neutralisers. I started kiting in a growing spiral, glad I'd jumped by accident to the clone that had speed implants the night before. Finally the neut cycle on me ended and I had enough capacitor power to warp away. We lost Randgris' Ares and Mr Frog's Taranis to the hungry Domi and expressed our appreciation for an opponent who kept us on our toes.

Mr Frog > nice one
Shae Tiann > :D
Andprand > gf ?
Andprand > ah

Our casualties started home, and after a bit of conference the rest of us decided it was getting too late to consider delving further into the drone regions and set course back to Evati.

Four jumps back, and a Vagabond belonging to a pilot who'd mocked us in Local on our way through earlier appeared on the G-QTSD gate in EFM-C4. Four interceptors versus a Vaga? At this time of the night? With our reputation? Bingo!

All in all, it wasn't a bad roam. We had some laughs and some tense moments, kicked some arse, took a few names and generally agreed that despite our losses we came out ahead. Thanks to Fish Brain for fantastic FCing; and to our targets, as always, nothing personal, mates!

Arby Lonesome Tonight?

2009-05-22T17:30:00.003-04:00

I checked in early at my office, the desire to cause severe property damage running hot. The last couple days had been frustrating, with work preventing me from stretching my wings, and the bland Caldari architecture was beginning to grate just a little.

Nobody was about and nothing was happening. No problems. I had my Thorax Switchblade prepped and podded up while I waited. There was something just so.... right about the feeling of linking into the ship. I've been flying inties too much, maybe; Switchblade missed me. It was like being hugged by an old friend, a friend who -- like myself -- had survived beyond death too many times to remember.

I started to roam, out from Evati towards Molden Heath. It was largely quiet, only haulers and shuttles running back and forth at this time of the day. I generally don't bother with such targets: being under sentry-fire in anything less than a battlecruiser isn't smart, and 95% of them would just be moving rubbish and personnel.

I was in Ingunn when my comms chirped. Fleet invite? Who...?

It was Jorge. While we'd stayed in contact, he'd disappeared into nullsec to bring his security status back up over a week before. What was he doing in Ingunn?

Accepting the invite, I tuned into the Hellcats comms.

'Hey, you, what are you doing out here?'

He sounded shy. 'Well, I got my sec to -5.3--'

'Almost there.'

'Yeah, almost. But then... I just started thinking. Killing Guristas has been driving me insane. It's boring. And even though I talked to Letrange about joining his corp, and have to be highsec-capable for it... I miss pirating.'

'You can take the pirate out of low-sec, but you can't take low-sec out of the pirate,' I quoted.

Something hit the hull of my cruiser, harmlessly bouncing the ship a couple hundred metres. I reoriented my cameras to see Jorge in his Pilgrim recon, playfully bumping me around.

'Aww, did you miss me?'

There was a moment of silence; then he said, 'Yeah. Wanna go hunting?'

We toyed with a Retriever and a Rifter on a station for a bit; the Rifter bumped me and Jorge popped him for his troubles. The Rifter pilot turned out to be fresh from the academy and didn't seem to understand that he wouldn't be getting a full new ship back to replace his loss.

Shae Tiann > hi there :)
Riviak > lol
Riviak > dude, you destroyed my ship, dun think I can get it back lol
Shae Tiann > you can't get anything back out here
Riviak > lol you suck
Shae Tiann > you get some ISK as insurance payout
Riviak > didn't have insurance
Shae Tiann > you get some basic insurance
Shae Tiann > it's automatic
Shae Tiann > tbh, two days old pilot shouldn't be in lowsec

I fear for some new pilots, they seem to still be lost in that fantasy-world where everything is an easy grind away.

After an hour of roaming we caught a lone Arbitrator in a belt on our way back. Props to Max Hound for putting up a good fight, focussing mostly on Jorge while using a tracking-disruptor (which for some reason isn't showing on the boards) on me. He'd have been better off TDing Jorge and trying to melt me: Jorge had the tank, I was fit for damage, and the disruptor stopped doing its job when I stopped moving.

Despite the lack of carnage, it was a good roam, and good to be flying with Jorge again.

Hellcats Office Tack- Board 03

2009-05-17T14:09:00.009-04:00

It's been a while since I posted any pictures!

Myrmidons in fleetwarp.

In case anyone ever wanted to know what the size difference was between an Ishtar and an Ishkur...

An Amarrian cathedral in a complex we invaded.

A planet in eclipse.

Vanguard. alliance Nidhoggur in Egmar. Cheers to Unmirth Mirthyful!

Thorax silhouette. I might make a painting of this one.

Blue star system.

Destroyer fleet.

Megathron undocking.

Magnetar on the other side of a wormhole.

Interceptors on patrol.

Sweet Little Bad Girl

A Change of Pace

**Update**

Recent Events

Eye of the Serpent -- Episode One "The Black Freighter"

Status Update

Crew Log: Engineering Specialist Reane Mouri, YC113-02-08

I aren't ded

Three years of nullsec movement

Refacing Eve

Craft

Command and Control

Three years

[OOC] A Summary of Impressions Regarding Recent Events

Post-EveMeet

Sansha: The Space Toaster Invasion

Just a Quick Little Note...

Gurista

They're Back!

Lucky Seven

Tackboard

Eve vs Women

Bar Counsel

Intel Over Info

On The Edge

Not So Easy

Send-Off

Eve gets more shiny

Evespaces

Aspirant

Thicker Than Blood: Chapter Ten

Thicker Than Blood: Chapter Nine

The Grind, part 3

Where Have All the Pirates Gone?

What's wrong with this picture?

The Grind, part 2

The Grind

Skyhook audio record 38.21.23.12.111

Beyond

Too long

Ill-Prepared in Essence

External Publishing v 2.6

External Publishing v 2.5

An Aside

External Publishing v 2.4

Dust

A Series of Moves

Scar

HearSay

External Publishing v 2.3

Delayed by Steampunk and Amanda Palmer

Another milestone

External Publishing v 2.2

A Sorta Fairytale

Pool's Now Open

External Publishing v 2.1

When Worlds Collide

Where Everyone Knows Your Name

Ghost Town Showdown

Some days you're the spider, some days you're the fly.

Kinship

The Price of Timing

It's like fencing

Blog Banter 9: Who is Nibbling at My House?

Overload

Poignard

Roots

Half a Sleip

Interior Design for the Discerning Corporation

Journeys in Eve

Karmic Balance

When the (Speed)Freaks Come Out

Arby Lonesome Tonight?

Hellcats Office Tack- Board 03

Update