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Posted by: Havohej : Category: ¶ For centuries, New Eden has existed in a state of tentative peace. Every now and then, there would be a ripple in the fabric of the Non-Aggression Pact between the four empires, enforced by the CONCORD Assembly. Sometimes these ripples would be minor, sometimes they would be quite major indeed. But always they were mere ripples, never tears.
¶ At 09:07 on 2008.6.10, that peace was shattered. An unidentified mixed fleet composed of Minmatar and Thukker Tribe warships plowed through Ammatar and Amarr defenses in an overwhelming blitzkrieg offensive, liberating tens of millions of slaves and returning the Starkmanir tribe to their Minmatar brethren. At 14:27, a Caldari State fleet breached the Gallente Federation border and did not stop until it had captured and locked down the Federation’s capital system of Luminaire.
¶ It was a day of triumph and joy for some. For others, it was a day of horror and grief. Many felt emotions across the spectrum, crying tears of profound pride one moment and wracked with mourning the next. For everyone in New Eden, it was a day of pandemonium, waves of which were felt in the farthest 0.0 star clusters. Nearly a billion lives were lost that day across New Eden. Their blood has ushered in a new age. The CONCORD Assembly still enforces law in the core regions of the four empires, ensuring relative safety to citizens and capsuleers not involved in the wars being fought between the Matari-Gallente bloc and the Amarr-Caldari bloc.
¶ In the interest of history, I log here in this Chronicle a recording of The Scope’s new feed from 2008.6.10. I offer no commentary beyond that which I have already said, which has already been too much; nothing that can be said does justice to the sheer impact of that day.
¶ Far and wide. Sometimes, that’s how you have to travel in search of fun or profit in New Eden. Sometimes, that’s where you have to look for affordable equipment, especially if you’re like me and have committed so many crimes that the Four Empires don’t allow you in their high-security systems.
¶ If you’re lucky, you’ve got a close friend or two who might be persuaded to pick things up for you and bring them to your lowsec base of operations. I’ve managed to befriend a young Caldari capsuleer with a penchant for Badgers - the last few days, he’s been invaluable as many of the things I need to outfit the “Wendigo” are either unavailable in low-security areas of Molden Heath or they’re ridiculously expensive. It saves me quite a bit of ISK and travel, and what’s more, the Caldari works for Tobacco.
¶ Still, while Tobacco isn’t overly expensive, it adds up. And though CONCORD pays well for killing Angel Cartel employees by the Machariel-load in Omist, that’s not one of my favorite pastimes. Not that I mind the wholesale slaughter of less-skilled fighters… it’s just boring. Besides, I think of myself as a pirate and shouldn’t a pirate make his living off of other capsuleers? It was time to hunt.
¶ New Eden has lost a little bit of its’ gloss for me recently. I guess I’ve hit a bit of a flat spot, wondering where my life is gonna take me… up ‘til now, I’ve been content with disrupting the plans of the Angel Cartel, and living off the proceeds, and joining in with the defence of Omist when hostile forces come calling – and of course helping the Defias Brotherhood maintain its presence in Omist by doing what I can to keep its tower running.
¶ But just recently, things have got a bit routine. Destroying Angel battleships isn’t quite the challenge it used to be. Defence ops have become fewer and further between (which I believe is a testament to the defence capability of the new Omist residents) – although Stain Empire still maintain their frequent nano-gang visits; we may be becoming a more capable as a defence force, but it’s still better for us to let them pass.
¶ So I thought I’d try something a little different. Since Defias grew from being a pirate organization, I thought I’d try my hand at a little belt piracy. So, with a sense of anticipation and excitement, I left my Omist clone at the TCF manufacturing plant in 6T3 and returned to Empire space.
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¶ The word Capsuleer carries a lot of weight in New Eden. We are the elite of society. The creme of the crop. We’re the pilots who are so skilled and so valuable, that the four empires don’t dare offend us by telling us what we can and cannot do, who we can and cannot work for, for fear of offending us to the point where we won’t work for them at all. The powers that be field similar ships to the heavily modified models we fly, but they’re not piloted by Capsuleers; they’re manned by conventionally trained pilots, men and women who failed to make the grade and their multitudinous crews, whereas our vessels are piloted by ourselves, our highly sophisticated on-board computer systems, and much smaller crews.
¶ However, the simple fact that we are more highly trained than any conventional pilot coming out of the various academies does not make us experts on New Eden. The politics and schemes employed by the larger, more powerful corporations are so deep, so multifaceted, so heavily layered and convoluted that even the average Capsuleer can get lost in the many twists and turns. Add to this that there are so many resources to be found and exploited and that the people in power guard these secrets so jealously that it can be difficult trying to pore over trillions of bits of useless data to find a valuable piece of information you can learn from.
¶ I’ve found just such a piece of information recently, left in the open by a rogue anti-establishment pilot and this piece of information led to much, much more.
¶ As you may already know, The Defias Brotherhood of New Eden was founded on piracy. However, with all of the big dogs running around in Molden Heath, we decided to back off a bit and work on establishing an infrastructure. Now that we’ve got our first POS up, and more of my pilots are able to support themselves, I decided that it was time to start looking for a fight here and there.
¶ Having not engaged in a whole lot of PvP combat since we started (maybe twice a week, we’d go out and look for some solo action, but nothing serious or organized), we’re certainly going to be spending a bit of time developing and refining tactics. I keep a close eye on blogs like i-Pirate (by flashfresh), A Pirate’s Perspective (by Kane Rizzel), and of course The Caldari Piratess (by Alia Xi) for inspiration and a bit of tactical insight, but nothing works better than actually putting yourself in the line of fire - and if there’s no line of fire to jump into, then creating one works just as well.
