Having a Ball

You can't start a fire,
you can't start a fire without a spark.
This gun's for hire,
even if we're just dancing in the dark.

Bruce Springsteen - Dancing In the Dark

The jump was smooth. I winced a little as the fatigue hit, but it was mild. 2,000 meters away from my ship sat a Catalyst.

I set my orbit for for GTFO range and pulsed my microwarp drive along with my cloak. My Manticore responded like a dream.

The battle began in earnest. Torpedoes were flying, points were called and we started working on the enemy gang. A Phantasm... a Daredevil. Juicy targets caught in a bubble and engaged.

I laughed as I realized if I didn't decloak soon I'd miss out on the shooting. Then I ran into a Titan.

Capsules are completely prepared for any level of bodily waste you can produce. So when I shit myself a little, the system just sucked it up and kept on a booking.

I should be clear here, so you don't think I was overreacting. See... I thought this was a trap at first. It felt a little too pat. A little too easy.

But I jumped in because... "fuck it" that's why. You register your objections and then you follow your orders. What's the worst that could happen?

As I thought about that, my cloak deactivated. Because I don't mean "I ran into a Titan" like it showed up on grid 50 clicks out. I mean I took a hard left and the right wing of my bomber scraped a 20 meter gash into the side of a fucking Ragnarok.

Then I look at my overview. It's a blue titan. There's a friendly carrier out as well.

I can't help but think... what in the actual fuck is going on.

Fuck it. I'm not having any of this shit. I set a new orbit around the massive piece of space debris that was masquerading as a Minmatar supercap. Which was on the field for GOD ONLY KNOWS WHY. Pretty much every target managed to burn out and get away as well. The whole exercise was nothing but a hilarious opportunity to gank a Catalyst. And gank it we did.

As we headed home I couldn't believe what had just happened. Still, regardless of our luck, I was getting tired. Just as I was about to dock up, I heard about a Bhaalgorn playing station games a few systems out. Everything about the target sounded wrong. A huge and expensive ship in a system with 10 reds all docked up in the same station?

Who the fuck did we think we were? But the FC told us to go in when the Bhaalgorn aggressed. And I jumped, again, into what was almost certainly a trap.

What's the worst that could happen? Of course an Oneiros undocked.

Now to be fair it undocked exactly 35 seconds after the Bhaalgorn exploded. And we looted the field of 350 million isk worth of mods while he watched helplessly. Also we popped the wrecks for good measure.

On the whole it was a pretty good day.

Opening the Door

Holy water, cannot help you now
A thousand armies, couldn't keep me out
I don't want your money
I don't want your crown
See I've come to burn your kingdom down

Florence + The Machine - Seven Devils

I'm in nullsec. A random glance at the 300 people in local reveals a collection of pirates, mercenaries, killers, and sov holders. I'm still not sure which is worse.

I dodged 2 gatecamps to get here. When the Sister's of Eve asked me to come out to Pure Blind so I could run a few missions, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

I've spent the last 4 and a half years wandering wormhole space. I've seen wondrous things and I've seen horror. Yet... nothing like this. I jacked into the 'net to find out what's going on.

Apparently, the CFC has kicked up the hornets nest. Started calling themselves the Imperium. I think most people wanna take 'em out just for the pretentiousness of the name.

The galaxy is on fire but there's money to be made for a good pilot. There are opportunities to exploit. And there are corporations in the thick of this that would be happy to take me on.

The old itch comes back. There's voice in my head saying "You're the best pilot in the galaxy. People have forgotten that. Show them what they've been missing."

I look around one more time. Still surrounded. Pirates, mercenaries, and killers...

This is home.

Bad Romance

There's a humming in the restless summer air
And we're slipping off the course that we prepared
But in all chaos, there is calculation
Dropping glasses just to hear them break

Lorde - Glory and Gore

Hey.

Long time no see.

It's been, what, 4 and a half years since I posted here? Or logged into EVE at all. Anyone who used to read this might have questions. Where'd I go? Am I back?

I can answer the 2nd question easily: Yes. I'm back.

The first one's a bit more complicated. There was a time when it was the most important part of my day. Blogging, podcasting, news, and recording advertisements took up every free moment. When it was good it was great, and when it was bad... well. Long story short? I got into an argument with someone and said "fuck it".

I went into my options, scrambled my password and email and disappeared. But... like a lot of things I do, it wasn't as permanent as I thought it'd be. I've done a lot of other things in the mean time.

The thing I'm probably most proud of is writing for the SCP Foundation. Some of my friends there play EVE, and I got the itch again after listening to them talk. Then customer service, about a week ago, got me back into my accounts.

I don't know what I want to do or even blog about. I've got 100 Rifters sitting in Evati but it doesn't really seem as active as it once was. There's less things tying me down right now, but I suppose that'll change as I get more involved in the game. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

But for now, I'm free to chart my own course. I'll be putting this blog on a once weekly schedule. We'll start with Thursdays and see where we end up.

By the way, the Gankalyst is pretty cool. Just saying.

Things I Am and Could Have Been

Congratulations on the mess you made of things

I'm trying to reconstruct the air and all that brings

And oxidation is the compromise you own

But this is beginning to feel like the dog wants her bones, say

Tv On the Radio - DLZ

It's over.

So I got to spend a month in charge of an alliance. After losing a fairly large corp, while the DRF closed in, I took over the reins from an alliance leader who needed a break.

I'm a PvPer. I'm a PvEer. I do it all in this game. I don't like the neat stratification that everyone wants everyone else to be a part of. If you're on my side of the wars, you're on my side. I don't care if you're a carebear or the most hardened PvPer out there. There are no people that are less than me, just people who need to be educated and people who don't.

Still it was a change to go from the voice of reason and experience to the guy they have to listen to. To be sensitive to the amount of respect I get publicly... because I usually don't care. An alliance leader getting dissed is a big deal... because if it's not made into one... the level of respect for that leader goes down a lot. You gotta handle it carefully.

With help from subordinates(and a healthy dose of delegation) I got a moon mining/reaction operation underway providing the alliance with a few billion a month in income... our own set of renters were also paying us for the use of our space. I got a program going that provided pilots with PvP capable ships pre-built and ready to go. I got a mineral buy-sell program working for our miners. I improved our previously dismal participation in CTAs. There was a lot of contribution from the alliance members.

Of course, the time came for us to make a decision on staying or going. I made the decision to get out of Tenerifis. Since two weeks ago when I called that, the DRF has pushed all the way to our front door. They haven't started hitting our space, but then again... it's not really our space anymore anyway.

I've left the alliance, another of the larger corps has left as well. Split Infinity is down to 127 members. Half of that is almost certainly alts. The alliance hasn't completely failed, but it's coming close.

I had a lot of fun in there, and am only a little bit annoyed that my first foray into alliance leadership had to come at such a bad time for the alliance, but sometimes that's how it goes.

I got a little taste of a completely different gaming experience.

I think I like it.

Raise What's Left Of The Flag

The madness that you feel will soon subside
So in a word don't shed a tear
I'll be here when it all gets weird
If I ever leave this world alive

Flogging Molly - If I Ever Leave This World Alive

PvP in low sec can be a lot of fun if you do it right. With that in mind I loaded up a T1 frigate and headed through low-sec with a small gang of alliance mates in their own frigates.

After passing through Rancer and Criliere without incident, I headed down to Metropolis. I'd tried to get someone to come and meet my gang earlier in the day, but no one was available on such short notice, so I passed by Evati without meeting any Bastards, and through Gusandall without meeting anyone from Mean Corp. I took the gang through one of the 2/10's in the area, just to show them that making money in low-sec is pretty easy. After that, we headed Amamake way.

That was a bit more fun... a little bit down the pipe, in Orfrold, we found a Hurricane in a belt. It took us a while, but he died, and we looted the field just as an anti-pirate gang came rolling through. After taking the time to wait out our GCC, we headed out again. Just as we went through the gate into Klogori, the Hurricane pilot was waiting on us in Dramiel. I knew that with gateguns on his side, he could conceivably take out our whole fleet, so I gave the order to warp away. As we began to warp away, he tackled one of our pilots... one he'd apparently shot first in the last system.

Gate guns go hot, and his Dramiel goes flashy. I stop myself, call a stop on comms, and target the Dram. Unfortunately due to the delay, the only pilots who didn't warp were myself and the one the Dram had tackled.

The other pilot in my fleet had the good sense to point his opponent as well, and I put my autocannons on from 20k away in an epic piece of killmail whorage.

After that we settled down and kept burning to Amamake. Once we got there, I told the rest of my pilots to blitz into the remaining belts. I warped into belt 3-1 for what I assumed was a quick death. An Ares and Caracal were waiting on me.

The Ares instalocked me and the Caracal began to shower me with missiles. I called my mates in, who quickly tried to swarm the Ares. Apparently he was a bit better of a pilot than I thought, cause he kept point on me most of the fight and avoided the rest of my fleet. After a certain amount of time a Mach and a Daredevil came in to join the fray.

At this point it was a Mach, a Dram, a Daredevil, and a Caracal against 2 Rifters, 2 Crucifiers and 1 Punisher. The Mach took a few potshots at me but failed to hit, while the Daredevil tried to close in. Very quickly one of my fleetmates scrammed and webbed the Daredevil, about 50k away from where I was. I gave up on getting out alive myself, and ordered everyone else to swarm the Daredevil. Just as I did the Mach switched targets and managed to one shot one of my gangmates.

The Ares and Caracal kept working on me, just as a mistake of mine caught up to me.

I'd overloaded my AB for too long, and it shut down. I almost caught it in time but no dice. If I had, I might've been able to shake the Ares long enough to get away(as I'd done a few times already, without actually warping out). But without the AB, he kept a nice normal circle going and the Caracal whittled me down. This whole time of course, the rest of my gang is finishing off the daredevil. Around this time, another one of my gang got oneshotted by the Mach.

Right around the time I popped, the Daredevil died, and almost immediately another gangmate got oneshotted.

I gave the order for all surviving fleet members to warp out, get to safes and then get out through the Osoggur gate and into high sec.

The final battle was ill concieved, but with the roam over, I wanted to go out with a bang. Luckily we killed the Daredevil, which more than made up for the loss of the t1 frigates. Plus we had some fun, which was the whole point of the outing.

Sometimes the inherent problem with piracy and low-sec seems so apparent. I love to visit, but I don't want to live there. But if I make enough visits... I HAVE to live there.

Anyone else feel that way sometimes?

I've Said Too Much

That's me in the corner

That's me in the spotlight, I'm

Losing my religion

R.E.M. - Losing My Religion

So the battle for HED-GP was kind of a downer. The DRF brought an overwhelming supercap blob, and we decided not to engage at all. I did however, get some neat pictures of our fleet in transit.

After I got back home, downing a Interdictor along the way, I snapped a picture of my new Chimera. It's so pretty.

Voices From The Void: Episode 16

Voices From The Void and You. In perfect Harmony.