The Defias Blog

A belief in hell and the knowledge that every ambition is doomed to frustration at the hands of a skeleton have never prevented the majority of human beings from behaving as though death were no more than an unfounded rumour.

Aldous Huxley, “Variations on a Baroque Tomb,” Themes and Variations.

¶ A series of events has taken place in the last month that has changed the way I look at things, and in doing so, has nearly completely changed the way The Defias Brotherhood is administered. I have thought deeply about why this is the case; DFIAS has experienced hardships in the past but I did not change and so DFIAS did not change. The simple answer is ambition.
¶ When DFIAS was created, it was with the intention of building a feared corporation of pirates and rogues. We wanted to be ‘big’ and to lock down entire regions of space, from empire, to low-sec, to 0.0. We fancied ourselves a corporation that would make ISK through empire piracy and wardecs, lowsec gate piracy and perhaps POS ransoms with a capital fleet, and we envisioned a method of supporting such goals with 0.0 industry. As we have progressed in the last six months, I’ve learned a great deal about how things really work in New Eden.
¶ In the last six months, I have seen people come and go from The Defias Brotherhood, including three of the founding pilots. Despite this, I have steadfastly held as closely to our original ambitions for the corporation but as my understanding of New Eden’s political and military landscape has evolved it was inevitable that my ambition evolved to suit this new, better understanding. I know now that you don’t really find real success if you’re spreading yourself between Empire and Free space. I know now that the real money - the real power - isn’t found in Empire but in 0.0.
¶ The money is found in the asteroid belts and below the surfaces of the moons. The money is found in hunting the elite pilots of outlaw factions like the Angel Cartel or Serpentis. The power is found in controlling access to the money-making resources. The power is found in being able to defend as well as attack; to hold as well as take. You might make a few hundred million on a lucky kill camping some low-sec Empire gate, but you’ll make billions if you play your cards right in 0.0 and you’ll be able to inspire even more fear.

Heaven and Hell

Here we may reign secure; and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.

John Milton (1608–1674). “Paradise Lost”. Book i, Line 261.

¶ As it stands, the best parts of New Eden are divided between the mighty empires of Band of Brothers and the RedSwarm Federation made up of Red Alliance, GoonSwarm, Tau Ceti Federation and their friends. If you want access to any of the most financially productive space, you need to be on good terms with them, which usually means paying extortionist rents and accepting an imposed standings list, and sometimes even traversing vast tracts of space to fight in battles you personally have little to do with.
¶ Since the first time DFIAS set foot in 0.0, we’ve been members of one pet alliance or another. First VENOM Alliance, which was an RSF pet that had been given control of a profitable constellation for their efforts in helping GoonSwarm and their friends to run Band of Brothers and their pets out of the Omist region. The asteroid belts and moons in that constellation weren’t the best in the region, but they were reasonable and the RSF did not ask much of VENOM in return, other than sovereignty of one of the systems for their jump bridge network. This meant that VENOM would never have Level 4 Sovereignty in that constellation and thus would never be able to produce Supercapital ships. At least they didn’t have to pay rent.
¶ The next was Anthrax Death which began in a less valuable area of Omist and eventually made a deal with United Legion to acquire an even less valuable constellation in the Tenerifis region, with the only difference being that with it came control of an outpost. However, all of the things that make an outpost profitable to run were absent from this purchased space - in order for it to be profitable, there need to be people using it and its services (refinery, assembly lines, repair shop, etc). Everyone else in the region was much stronger than ANTX and possessed their own outposts, literally 10 or more jumps away, thus having no need to venture into ANTX’s humble constellation. And to make it worse, some of them were even hostile and couldn’t dock there if they wanted to. The space was terrible for making money, but DFIAS’ industrial wing is strong and we took full advantage of the limitations, often representing the only manufacturing trade in the alliance. Whenever a hostile gang would come through the constellation and kill ANTX ships, I would watch the corporate wallet jump as pilots replaced battleships, battlecruisers, Tech 2 modules and mining barges. We were literally the only game in town.
¶ But, just as with VENOM, ANTX (which had been formed primarily of former-VENOM corporations) began to show itself to be an environment that DFIAS could not reach its goals in. We would never be what we wanted to be in that alliance. They were an alliance with no real ambition, who seemed to feel that owning an outpost was some manner of ‘end-game’ and there was no betterment worth striving toward. And to top it all off, they were so wrapped up in their own perceived eliteness that they were just plain impossible to tolerate.
¶ In VENOM, I was befriended and aided by a pilot named ms kypp, who was the CEO of another corporation in the alliance. When SMRI formed ANTX, ms kypp’s corporation (INSU) was one of the first to go with them. Over the course of the following weeks, ms kypp confided in me, without any remarkable detail, that it would be in DFIAS’ best interest to move to ANTX and as I trusted her and could see with my own eyes the problems rapidly developing in VENOM I took her advice. When the same changes started happening in ANTX and INSU was expelled, I spoke to ms kypp at length about what she planned to do and when I learned that she would be founding an alliance, I wanted to know more. The things she told me were in line with what I had in mind for DFIAS and so instead of finding another alliance altogether removed from our original acquaintances, I ordered DFIAS to quietly dismantle its POSes and move its assets back to Omist to join the new alliance - DEFI4NT.
¶ And so we return to space abundant in Arkonor and Bistot, frequented by many of the Angel Cartel’s best pilots who are invariably not as good as our own and whose wrecks often yield valuable Domination-branded equipment. We have a tower mining Chromium - not nearly as valuable as Dysprosium or Promethium, but profitable nonetheless. It is the best space DFIAS has ever had access to for ISK generation. But it isn’t ours. DEFI4NT rents from Tau Ceti Federation. The prices aren’t unreasonable, and they don’t call on us to fight their battles for them, but they have imposed standings on us - we are blue to people with whom many of us would rather be red, or at least neutral. And despite being the only line of defense against roaming gangs in TCF’s constellation, we are looked upon with no greater esteem than their other pets and tenants. One might argue less, in fact.
¶ In my constant effort to improve the corporation, I have recruited some experienced pilots who came highly recommended by my Industrial Director, Binner, and by my Industrial Officer, Courtney Brown. I have taken in experienced pilots who come from fallen alliances like INSRG. These people know from whence they speak and Director Kiay Stryx and I value their insight in our decision making. One thing is for certain - for what I have in mind for DFIAS, the way ms kypp runs DEFI4NT isn’t going to work. Our ideas of leadership are too widely divergent and while she says she has the same goals that I do, we cannot reconcile our differences in opinion of how best one goes about reaching those goals, first of which is to not be anybody’s pet. This is causing quite a bit of bad blood and it’s best that DFIAS move on again.

“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”

Thomas Jefferson

¶ So, Alor Avaran and I have been looking for days now for a new home, ruling out no option. I made it clear that I’m willing to move the corporation anywhere, even into NPC sov or the ghetto of the Drone Regions, provided my pilots would be able to support themselves and we would be no one’s pet. Better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven.
¶ With Av’s help, we’ve found a seemingly strong alliance that appears to be well-situated in a reasonable bit of space in an NPC region with workable ores, fair moons and easy access to targets for our PvPers to shoot at. Provided everything is as it’s been advertised, I couldn’t think of a better place for DFIAS to come into its own.

The Human Element

¶ But there really is a bit more to it than simply being in an alliance or having access to a certain area of space. There really is a human element to any successful entity in New Eden, as much as we might cling to the “It’s Just a Game” mentality to preserve our sanity and our sense of real self. For a corporation to achieve its goals, it has to be populated with pilots who want those goals as well; pilots willing to do what their corporation needs them to do in order for the corporation to succeed.
¶ I’ve said numerous times before that I see my responsibility as CEO of The Defias Brotherhood as making sure that the pilots who fly under our roster are able to enjoy the fun aspects of being a capsuleer without having to deal with the dirtier side of it. My PvPers should be able to PvP without worrying about whether their target is supposed to be friend or foe, without worrying about whether or not they’ll have a reasonably secure place to make money and support themselves, without having to fly around for hours on end and never find any targets day in and day out. My miners and industrialists should be able to mine and manufacture and research without having to worry about the under-the-table, smoky-room deals that determine who mines where, when and at what cost. I don’t think it’s really possible to list all of the little things that a CEO should be on top of. I also don’t think it’s really possible for a CEO to be on top of everything every time; some things will slip by, some things you just can’t control, and some things you let slip so that you can accomplish other things - you prioritize and compromise. But you try your best.
¶ With it being the way it is - dependent on compromise - you’re bound to make choices that not all of your people agree with. Something else I’ve often said is that being the leader means sometimes making the unpopular choice. You can’t make everybody happy every time, we all know that. But despite my knowing this, I tried to anyway. I ran anything but a tight ship. If the corporation needed something of its membership, I asked them to do it. It was always “it would be really cool if I could get some of you to help us out with this, hopefully on this day at this time, but whenever is good for you…,” instead of, “This is what the corporation needs to do. We’ll be doing it x day at x time.”
¶ This worked well for a while, but one day something happened that showed me it couldn’t continue to work well at all. The corporation had run into a glass ceiling financially. We would get a certain amount of ISK, buy materials that our miners alone weren’t bringing in, manufacture goods, sell them and get back to that same amount of ISK. Progress appeared to stop, and there was no logical explanation as to why other than the massive amount of ISK we were spending on Tritanium. I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea that the basest mineral in New Eden should be the thing to stop further progress. For a corporation whose Industrial Wing had recently built its first capital ship, no less. So I told then-Industrial Director Cronos Deacon that, if a solution couldn’t be found, he would have to have our miners mining Veldspar. He resisted the idea, insisting that there were more efficient ways to get trit. I said repeatedly that while this may be the case, we haven’t been doing any of them so by all means, find a method we can use or mine the veld - I wasn’t satisfied with having any mineral that’s so easy to mine be the stumbling block that stops us from moving forward. Then he told me he will not mine Veldspar, period. Oh, really?
¶ I told him in no uncertain terms that he would, in fact, mine veld and that it wasn’t, in fact, a request - if no other method could be found within a few days, mining Veldspar would be necessary no matter how much he didn’t like it. He got so upset at being given an order that he decided to commit a corp theft, stealing quite a chunk of ISK worth of material assets in addition to almost a billion liquid ISK from the corporation. The bulk of the assets were recovered, but that’s really not why I bring this up.
¶ Cronos Deacon saw himself as larger than the corporation. I had never done anything to remind our members that the corporation is larger than the individual. I had never demanded a real sacrifice of anyone on behalf of the corporation - enough people had voluntarily done things to help the corporation that I felt it hadn’t been necessary. And so there was a multi-billion ISK demonstration of how wrong I had been. I made some drastic changes to my style of leadership and have made sure that all of my pilots understand those changes. This has caused some pilots to leave, including fluxkompensator and Slain Limbo who have been with us since before we ever entered 0.0 - since before VENOM Alliance. Those two, in fact, left to join ms kypp’s INSU with its much laxer style of ‘leadership’.
¶ ms kypp has spoken in a way that suggests that losing people is an indictment of my leadership ability. In reality, it is an indictment of those individuals who choose to leave now that I’ve adopted a more rigid leadership philosophy. They did not care enough about the progress and success of the corporation to accept that they would need to do things sometimes on behalf of the corporation that are not what they might otherwise do - for example, I recently called for all of my PvP pilots to get out of Empire and be on hand in Omist. Two of my people would rather be griefing miners in high-sec or ganking people on low-sec, but they came to Omist for their corporation. fluxkompensator, despite still being in the alliance, hasn’t been seen in Omist at all in the last couple of days. He chose to run around Empire and do his own thing rather than do what his corporation needed of him. Good riddance. The people who remain with DFIAS are the people who DFIAS will be able to count on when we really need them. The people who remain with DFIAS are the reason DFIAS is strong. They’re the reasons DFIAS will continue to grow stronger.
¶ Does it please me to lose long-time members? No. But I understand that it’s inevitable…

For we pay a price for everything we get or take in this world; and although ambitions are well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won, but exact their dues of work and self-denial, anxiety and discouragement.

Lucy Maud Montgomery, “Anne of Green Gables”

-Havo out.

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