Storytime 10: The birth of Unsettled. [UNSET]

Battered and bruiced. Beaten to the floor several times. When reality hits, all illusions fade. In the end we are what we make of ourself. In the end we make our own choices. 

<< Last chapter

My stratios (rip) in Retreat

The departure from SYJ was a violent one. Forced upon us and shoved down our throats. The distaste for the entire event still lingered on our tounges. The bitterness on the tip. Just there, right on the edge. It set a mark, a consequence.  And meeting up with our new friends in ICOL we brought that with us to the table. ORLY had a violent birth and even more so; a brutal life as a corp. But in ICOL we found likeminded people who shared our way of playing the game. Their story was a very different but still we found common ground to build upon. Counting manpower we made a desicion to settle for finding a C5 wormhole with a C5 static. Preferably Red Giant effect. While ICOL was moving out of their 5-3 several of the pilots in ORLY set up in a staging 5-5 and started to roll to look for a suitable system. After a few days we found it and started to move all assets. At the same time ICOL started to set up tower and the alliance was officially born. The naming process was a discussion without end but eventually we did make a desicion. And so alliance was named Unsettled. and the new home was named Retreat. And so it came to be. A brand new alliance in c5 space. And for the first month it was glorious. Fights were had and ships got slaughtered. Both our own and other people's. (Turn a few rocks and you may even find some of those battlereports on this very blog). But as april turned to may and summer hit the northern hemisphere something happened. Our active numbers started to fall. For most it had a very natural reason. Grimch and Manira got hit by RL reducing the leaders in corp drasticly. And in alliance the active numbers just kept on falling. By the end of may and beginning of june we could no longer field a fleet to have a fight against any c5 entity. And the long chains without anything to do burned out several of our active scouts. It was a bad turn for alliance. Efforts were made to turn the tide. ORLY merged with ICOL to consolidate forces and free up manpower but in the end there just was nothing that helped to turn the tide. If we did not manage to do something drastic the alliance would die. Talks were had. Threads on forum were posted. Something had to change.

I think it was one of the talks with MD on telegram (message app) we started talking about the ease of hs access we had in the 5-2 that made it just easier to live in. We even talked to Nimon, who was back in there and harassing the new locals (Un.bound), about joining in on the harassing. But didnt come to pass. Instead something else happened. Something we did not expect. Something that had not happened in years. In fact it had not happened since the birth of wormholes. I suddenly felt like Lucy in Narnia, when Father Christmas arrived after years of absence. Giving her a gift that seemed small and unimportant. But for UNSET this was a gift that, like Lucy's magic potion, would breathe life back in the alliance. The great hand of CCP themself were bringing their mighty hand of change to wormholespace. The change they brought was not a big one in itself, but done right it was monumental. And while most wormholers

Escalation fleet in one of our former C5 wormholes

were moaning about how difficult it would be to roll their c5 solo we set our eyes on the crown jewel of the changes. Dual static c4 space. 

It has been a long time mantra in wormholespace that the static determines what kind of content you have. But for c5 and c6 space there have been many entities who have not moved their fleet out of home system unless there has been someone to gank or brawl just right next door. The new dual static c4's was the polar opposit. Home system would never support more then 2 people. But the chains? Oh the lovely chains. The chains could sustain more people than even a c6 home system could in terms of making isk. And more chains ment more chance of meeting other occupied systems.Which ment more opportunities for pvp. That is the biggest difference between c1-4 and c5/6 right now. The need to utilize your chain. So a huge effort was laid down to locate a new home. Both the moving out of the old but also scanning through and mapping the new statics. That way we could locate a new home with the desired statics before the change went live. We made a desicion to go for a C4 with a C4 and C2 static. That would give us a significant easier logistic but still be very connected to wormholespace. And again we went and set up in a staging system and rolled the static until we found a suitible system that had the desired statics and decent PI (lazy mans isk faucet, yes thats me).

One might say that the rest is history, but as everything with eve one never knows what the future brings. It certainly made the alliance more active. Especially since solo content was so easily avaiable we no longer needed big numbers to do anything. Onwards and forward they say, and I guess that is where we are going. Some might say with varied success but as long as we have fun all is good on the road ahead.

And with this my Storytime session is ending for now as we have reached the current day. I hope you have enjoyed the story so far as it was great fun living it in this virtual world. But fear not: this is not the end of my blog. I have several pieces in working and I hope to get them out more frequent aswell. Until next time ;)

Storytime 9: Surely, Hannibal is at the door

tl:dr : when the wrath of wormholespace decend upon you

<< Last chapter

AMA. Thats what they call it. Ask me anything. Pell. The selfproclaimed king of wormholespace had for a long time been mocking every other leader in wormholespace through the Overlords channel. With a thousand men at your back it is not a difficult thing to do either. Taking on wh merc contracts, it was often enough to just send a scout in to scatter the enemies to the wind. Ofc the would be invaders would often be small on numbers themself. But when it happens enough times you get tired of it. And you start complaining about it. This did not sit well with those who considered themself the big forces of wormholespace. And when the AMA hit reddit it was for many the last drop that flooded the cup. 

For us, the writing was on the wall. It had been there for some time. Increasing in strength. We knew something could happen. But not when or if. Nevertheless the desicion had been made. We were moving the corp out of Bastion at least. And we intended to do so on a friendly term and stay a part of SYJ for now.  Alliance leadership had been informed and the move was scheduled. Deathly moved his stuff out before the weekend even. As I remember it the weekend itself was rather quiet. Calm even. Come Monday a last anom farming op was set up. A nice finish to this chapter I thought to myself. The blood red sky of Bastion had always been there with its warmth to greet us the last months. A different road laid ahead of us now. As my Archon launched from the bay it reflected the sun. I can not recall the sparkle of the blood red reflections in the golden hull anymore. And little did I know that this would be the last time it would ever fly again. The crewmembers signed up for this. They knew they would never return to empire. But they did not know that this would be their final end.

Running anomalies in wormholespace is a very routine thing when you first master it. Some of you might remember our first attempt in an earlier chapter and how wrong it went. But togeather with TWSL we had it mastered down to seconds for efficiency and lazyness. And with that mentality we set out to start the grind. The routine. I was third archon that monday evening. Mostly because I didnt have a loki at hand. A third archon doesnt really fulfill any role. Its just there. Pointless. But gets a share. During the last weeks the life in a 6-6 had been pretty dry and several members complained. Ragerolling brought little to nothing and we were looking at finding a different wormhole to live in for a while. But we had planned to stay in alliance. So we struck up a convo with some new friends in this corp called Imperial Collective and had a chat with them about the future, while running sites. As we progressed through sites one of the others had to drop out so we were down to two archons. But we had the routine.

A bit into it a sabre was spotted on scan. At that moment, as time struck 22:24on the 10th of february, we all knew what was coming. It had the Blood Union tag. What followed however left us breathless. As the bubbles went up the rest of the hostile fleet started showing up on dscan. One after another both capitals and smaller ships showed up on scan. Different tags. Several different tags. As they landed on grid I think we all realised what was happening. Accepting it was harder. Having this happen just days before our planned pulling down of towers was slightly bitter. As they landed they were listed up on mumble. Hard Knocks inc. Verge of Collapse. Sleeper Social Club. Blood Union. These corps and alliances do not gather for just ganking a Capital fleet. This force had but one purpose. And before our first ship died we all knew: The horde had come to Bastion. Everything would burn. 

As our site fleet quickly died to overwhelming forces we knew that, after looting, the towers were next in line. First thing to do is always pull valuable assets out of assambly array and hangars. Once the towers hit reinforced that stuff is gone forever. Only ships are avaiable in reinfored mode. Luckily for my corp they started with the towers of Lycosa. Not so lucky for Lycosa. After we saved what we could it had become late evening. Spare pilots in ORLY were sent to TWSL to aid stuff up their archon aswell. Then as the US tz leaders logged on the question was raised. What happen now? The answer from Pell was not very uplifting. They had towertimers in khanid coming out next evening so they couldn't come. There are few words to describe the feeling most of our corp members were left with after that reply. At that moment most of us in ORLY agreed silently that this alliance was not something we wanted to stay with. To set the mood the alliance meeting ended in a big troll.

During the night more corps/alliances trickled in to put their name on killmails. Whale Girth, Sky Fighters, Ragnarok among them.

The next day went pretty much into logging caps at safespots and then the mandatory diplomatic talks. Now I will do something very out of the ordinary. I will give you the copy of the entire diplomatic talk (cut slightly at end and beginning). Its not much really and it is with the deepest respect I do this towards the participants of this chat. Most were marked by the moment aswell as being a political debate it does not reflect how people are as persons. I will throw in some commentaries aswell to let you know our standing point. So set the stage, pull down your curtains and light that cigar. Gloves off and eyes straight forward.

[ 2014.02.11 17:30:58 ] Axloth Okiah > ill invite some other peeps from our side, is that ok?
[ 2014.02.11 17:31:52 ] calaretu > ofcourse
[ 2014.02.11 17:32:22 ] James Arget > hello space friends!
[ 2014.02.11 17:32:29 ] calaretu > hello :)
[ 2014.02.11 17:32:40 ] Cheung Fu > evening :)
[ 2014.02.11 17:32:44 ] Lamhoofd Hashur > o/
[ 2014.02.11 17:32:53 ] Axloth Okiah > we have CSM here, just to type it all down, notary of sorts
[ 2014.02.11 17:32:57 ] James Arget > hathrul was talking with me but i guess he's got some connection issues
[ 2014.02.11 17:33:17 ] calaretu > yeah he pulled me on ts and then dropped
[ 2014.02.11 17:33:32 ] Axloth Okiah > he did the same
[ 2014.02.11 17:35:02 ] James Arget > So, hathrul was telling me that you guys would like to drop SYJ
[ 2014.02.11 17:35:31 ] James Arget > what kind of assets do you have in  J133906 right now?
[ 2014.02.11 17:35:56 ] Cheung Fu > ive no idea what im doing, and wasnt gonna think about it for a couple of weeks really

[ 2014.02.11 17:36:04 ] Cheung Fu > but dont really have much left so pretty irrelevant :)

[ 2014.02.11 17:36:45 ] James Arget > are any of the towers yours?
[ 2014.02.11 17:36:52 ] Cheung Fu > well ye the 3 TWSL ones
[ 2014.02.11 17:36:55 ] calaretu > 6 towers belong to my corp
[ 2014.02.11 17:36:59 ] calaretu > rest are lycosa
[ 2014.02.11 17:37:46 ] calaretu > o/ Hathrul
[ 2014.02.11 17:37:47 ] Hathrul > :)
[ 2014.02.11 17:37:49 ] Hathrul > moar chats
[ 2014.02.11 17:37:57 ] Cheung Fu > lol hey hathrul
[ 2014.02.11 17:38:17 ] Axloth Okiah > i have half my screen covered in chats
[ 2014.02.11 17:38:41 ] Axloth Okiah > any luck with lycosa?
[ 2014.02.11 17:38:53 ] calaretu > no answer on ping yet sadly. will try som others
[ 2014.02.11 17:39:02 ] Axloth Okiah > thank you
[ 2014.02.11 17:41:27 ] Axloth Okiah > the baseline is, our quarrel is with Pell and his "ways", so we see not much sense in hurting WH corps beyong making our point clear

Getting right down to business and making us feel somewhat welcome.

[ 2014.02.11 17:42:07 ] Axloth Okiah > esp. since he kinda sacrificed these corporations for his ego

Strategy of the night: divide and conquor

[ 2014.02.11 17:44:09 ] StarConquer212 > o/
[ 2014.02.11 17:44:12 ] StarConquer212 > Good morning
[ 2014.02.11 17:44:16 ] Lamhoofd Hashur > at least we're complete now it seems
[ 2014.02.11 17:44:25 ] Axloth Okiah > except someone from lycosa
[ 2014.02.11 17:45:12 ] calaretu > its the middle of the night in australia so might be difficult to get them on atm
[ 2014.02.11 17:45:46 ] StarConquer212 > playing a bit of catch up
[ 2014.02.11 17:48:29 ] Axloth Okiah > so, how would you two  Cheung Fu  calaretu see this ending?
[ 2014.02.11 17:48:53 ] calaretu > preferably with as much assets intact as possible I'd say :P

As we already had made our decission about course of action we wanted to explore what options we were given.  Many of these corps were people we would run into from time to time in wormholespace

[ 2014.02.11 17:49:54 ] Axloth Okiah > you already have carriers logged off right?
[ 2014.02.11 17:50:01 ] Axloth Okiah > in deepsafes
[ 2014.02.11 17:50:16 ] calaretu > we got most logged off.
[ 2014.02.11 17:51:19 ] Axloth Okiah > Cheung Fu ?
[ 2014.02.11 17:51:29 ] Cheung Fu > i mostly have towers at this point tbh
[ 2014.02.11 17:51:39 ] Cheung Fu > most of my caps died yesterday :)
[ 2014.02.11 17:51:43 ] Axloth Okiah > lol
[ 2014.02.11 17:53:03 ] Axloth Okiah > ok, heres a suggestion, you leave SYJ, do your own thing and we let you leave with your pods and a ship around each pod, and we keep whatever it is you cant fly out
[ 2014.02.11 17:55:12 ] Axloth Okiah > because you can do better than being punching bags for whenever he pisses off everyone in wspace again
[ 2014.02.11 17:58:06 ] calaretu > when you say ship, does that include every kind of ship? If we lets say want to bring out capitals?

Please? Pretty please?

[ 2014.02.11 18:00:11 ] Axloth Okiah > you can use one C6 mass
[ 2014.02.11 18:02:50 ] Axloth Okiah > and of course we keep every single T2 BPO you have here :)
[ 2014.02.11 18:03:01 ] Lamhoofd Hashur > lol
[ 2014.02.11 18:03:09 ] StarConquer212 > lolo
[ 2014.02.11 18:03:11 ] calaretu > hehe. oh yes those..
[ 2014.02.11 18:04:09 ] Cheung Fu > they definitely exist
[ 2014.02.11 18:04:24 ] calaretu > I really appreciate the offer, but wouldnt we be better off just staying logged for some weeks and bring ships out at a later time?

Moving in with the classic stance for argument. They offer us to keep no capitals. We offer to give no capitals

[ 2014.02.11 18:04:40 ] StarConquer212 > lol no
[ 2014.02.11 18:04:43 ] StarConquer212 > we are seling this wormhole
[ 2014.02.11 18:04:47 ] StarConquer212 > to another pvp group
[ 2014.02.11 18:04:58 ] StarConquer212 > this is coming to come a very active hole for what will be quiet awile
[ 2014.02.11 18:05:04 ] StarConquer212 > *this is going
[ 2014.02.11 18:08:20 ] Axloth Okiah > at any rate, you'd probably be better off using these toons right away, instead of waiting here to maybe get out some weeks from now and sacrificing everyone else's stuff in the process
[ 2014.02.11 18:09:30 ] StarConquer212 > Pell didn't make any of the big boy wormhole groups happy by saying things such as "we could invade every C6 in the game and no one could stop us" or "we are the most fear and powerful group in w space"
[ 2014.02.11 18:09:50 ] StarConquer212 > our issue is with him not you, this place will be burned and salted because of his public statements
[ 2014.02.11 18:10:06 ] StarConquer212 > and new fields shall be tended for growth
[ 2014.02.11 18:11:16 ] Hathrul > if you salt the fields nothing will grow for about a century
[ 2014.02.11 18:11:22 ] Hathrul > depending on the rainfall

Farming 101 from Hathrul right there :P But them having a humor between themself is a good sign. Means they have a good mood in their fleet and enjoying themself. For now. That reduces the risk for long time grudges to be born

[ 2014.02.11 18:11:34 ] Axloth Okiah > its GM salt-resistant crops
[ 2014.02.11 18:11:43 ] StarConquer212 > this is space i can't hear your opinion
[ 2014.02.11 18:11:45 ] StarConquer212 > here
[ 2014.02.11 18:11:49 ] StarConquer212 > =)
[ 2014.02.11 18:11:59 ] calaretu > I believe you. As far as SYJ goes my corp is leaving anyway. The question for us now is what we got avaiable to rebuild with when moving back out as a new entity

Beside from being true this gives them the upper hand as the tactic they approached with for divide and conquor is partly confirmed to be working

[ 2014.02.11 18:12:31 ] StarConquer212 > well we are reasonible people, we can come a accord that works for both partys my good sir
[ 2014.02.11 18:12:50 ] calaretu > I like the sound of that
[ 2014.02.11 18:13:41 ] Lamhoofd Hashur > so tell us, what do you have in this hole (mostly ship wise) and maybe we can start working together to figure out exit strategies
[ 2014.02.11 18:15:22 ] Axloth Okiah > ok, let me sweeten the pot: you can take one T2 BPO out
[ 2014.02.11 18:26:04 ] StarConquer212 > alright so lets do this
[ 2014.02.11 18:26:10 ] StarConquer212 > what would you like to remove
[ 2014.02.11 18:27:55 ] calaretu > as you surely understand we dont want to give exact numbers of our ships. in regards to mass needed would you be willing to go up to 10 c6 masses?

I am trying to strech the goal here. Well to be honest we did in fact have those numbers in capitals and orcas.   Lycosa had 14 capitals and ORLY had 7. TWSL had 2-3 left or something close to that.

[ 2014.02.11 18:29:04 ] StarConquer212 > 30 caps worth?
[ 2014.02.11 18:29:14 ] StarConquer212 > No
[ 2014.02.11 18:31:27 ] calaretu > hm. thats a bit high maybe. As I dont have lycosa's overview either. What would you be willing to go up to?
[ 2014.02.11 18:33:55 ] Lamhoofd Hashur > ok, next idea, we'll split the caps 1:1 and everybody who doesn't fly a cap can bring out a subcap on their own
[ 2014.02.11 18:34:20 ] StarConquer212 > so give us 1 cap take 1 cap out
[ 2014.02.11 18:34:37 ] StarConquer212 > orca's and freighters fall into cap department
[ 2014.02.11 18:34:51 ] StarConquer212 > think that is fair

We had the patience to wait out the invasion so this was not really an option for us

[ 2014.02.11 18:35:07 ] Axloth Okiah > and we get half of T2 BPOs
[ 2014.02.11 18:36:33 ] calaretu > hmmm.. must admit I still favour being logged off if so
[ 2014.02.11 18:36:58 ] StarConquer212 > your decision, but do you really want to play for eve to be logged off for weeks or months at a time
[ 2014.02.11 18:37:11 ] StarConquer212 > its only a game, we will meet you half way and let you go on your way
[ 2014.02.11 18:37:16 ] StarConquer212 > Fight us
[ 2014.02.11 18:37:18 ] calaretu > oh we got enough accounts on each person
[ 2014.02.11 18:37:21 ] StarConquer212 > and we will follow you
[ 2014.02.11 18:37:49 ] StarConquer212 > SSC, Kill, VoC, BU. Can pretty effectively find people when we need to
[ 2014.02.11 18:38:05 ] Lamhoofd Hashur > you heard our deal, come with a counter offer which might get us a bit closer
[ 2014.02.11 18:42:12 ] calaretu > we dont wish to start any future bad relationship between us as you came to hurt Pell. which I fully understand. For our sake we made our peace with all the loss of assets yesterday and just wish to let our pilots who are logged of stay that way as long
[ 2014.02.11 18:42:14 ] calaretu > as needed
[ 2014.02.11 18:42:34 ] calaretu > and then move out and start over

Trying to either round off or see if they are willing to budge above the 50:50. A 75:25 in our favour would be something at least my corp could possibly agree to

[ 2014.02.11 18:42:58 ] James Arget > 1:1, move out now, what's not to like?
[ 2014.02.11 18:44:50 ] calaretu > brb. kid woke up

Typical. Happens in fleets aswell. I guess its just the age

[ 2014.02.11 18:44:57 ] Axloth Okiah > so you'd rather stay logged off than not stay logged off? that makes no sense at all
[ 2014.02.11 18:45:32 ] Lamhoofd Hashur > so, would you suggest that you will be unable to start over if we only let half of your caps out (through the 1:1 deal)?
[ 2014.02.11 18:45:34 ] Axloth Okiah > let us hear your suggestion then
[ 2014.02.11 18:50:29 ] calaretu > oh everyone logged off are 2nd and third accounts. Our main accounts was promptly podded out yesterday mostly :P
[ 2014.02.11 18:51:22 ] StarConquer212 > i think you have a large amount of assets to move out, meet us half way
[ 2014.02.11 18:51:46 ] StarConquer212 > if we seeded caps in Russia tz we will set up towers and put a active group in here
[ 2014.02.11 18:51:57 ] StarConquer212 > you won't be getting caps out in that senerio
[ 2014.02.11 18:52:04 ] StarConquer212 > be more messy
[ 2014.02.11 18:52:10 ] StarConquer212 > we have to provide content to our guys

This is the core of why they would agree to this talk. To increase their own gain from this endavour. Which tbh is very natural.

[ 2014.02.11 18:52:35 ] StarConquer212 > rob us of a fair deal and content for our pilots you risk souring our new relationship after you leave SYJ
[ 2014.02.11 18:53:03 ] calaretu > would you be willing to let our pilots back in for said content?
[ 2014.02.11 18:53:44 ] StarConquer212 > to log off more things? you have more caps then pilots
[ 2014.02.11 18:53:57 ] StarConquer212 > i think you will have to give us some caps
[ 2014.02.11 18:54:03 ] StarConquer212 > first to show your intentions
[ 2014.02.11 18:55:09 ] StarConquer212 > TLC already wants to move in here
[ 2014.02.11 18:55:14 ] StarConquer212 > a little burning of there system
[ 2014.02.11 18:55:22 ] StarConquer212 > makes for be relations
[ 2014.02.11 18:55:31 ] StarConquer212 > and a willingness to hunt every one left in here when we leave
[ 2014.02.11 18:55:44 ] StarConquer212 > *makes for a bad relation
[ 2014.02.11 18:56:09 ] Axloth Okiah > we already made several offers to you, if youre trying to stall we have no trouble just keep on bashing and then help TLC to set up here
[ 2014.02.11 18:56:13 ] calaretu > TLC moving in? That may actually make Pell convert to wspace again :D
[ 2014.02.11 18:56:26 ] Axloth Okiah > that would be swell
[ 2014.02.11 18:56:32 ] calaretu > that would be content
[ 2014.02.11 18:56:38 ] StarConquer212 > good then we can come aswell
[ 2014.02.11 18:56:39 ] Axloth Okiah > we are all for content
[ 2014.02.11 18:57:35 ] StarConquer212 > i think Pell has left your w space groups high and dry
[ 2014.02.11 18:57:51 ] StarConquer212 > i hightly dought he wants to fight our blob
[ 2014.02.11 18:57:57 ] Axloth Okiah > if you dont want to make deal just tell us now so we are not wasting everyone's time
[ 2014.02.11 18:58:10 ] StarConquer212 > ya we are like two seconds away from leaving comvo and you get nothing

Alright so we strained them for too long. Better to just close of now. We came into this conversation expecting to save 90% of our stuff by just logging it off. We didnt get a better option so are leaving with what we came with

[ 2014.02.11 18:58:15 ] StarConquer212 > and a bad realtion shiop
[ 2014.02.11 18:58:16 ] StarConquer212 > for the future
[ 2014.02.11 18:58:26 ] StarConquer212 > good luck every living in w space again
[ 2014.02.11 18:58:26 ] calaretu > yeah I think we might aswell call it. I wont get my people to agree to a 1:1
[ 2014.02.11 18:58:38 ] Axloth Okiah > same for  Cheung Fu ?
[ 2014.02.11 18:58:40 ] StarConquer212 > good by enjoy loving everything
[ 2014.02.11 18:58:49 ] James Arget > that's regretable. :/
[ 2014.02.11 18:58:50 ] Lamhoofd Hashur > you haven't suggested anything else, so that doesn't help either
[ 2014.02.11 18:58:56 ] Cheung Fu > i have nothing of value to move anymore, i was being serious lol
[ 2014.02.11 18:59:04 ] Cheung Fu > my corp was very cap light
[ 2014.02.11 18:59:05 ] Axloth Okiah > i meant your whole corp
[ 2014.02.11 18:59:22 ] Axloth Okiah > well ok then, convo some of us if you happen to change your mind
[ 2014.02.11 18:59:36 ] calaretu > thank you for offer tho
[ 2014.02.11 18:59:37 ] Cheung Fu > ya in my public anyways :)

Important. Always be polite as much as you can :P Especially when having a knife to your throat. What we want now is for them to just finish of towers. Get complacent and not bother guarding the wh for another week and we will have loads of opportunity to move out ships

[ 2014.02.11 18:59:53 ] Axloth Okiah > perhaps Pell letting you hang over US tz will help with that
[ 2014.02.11 19:01:20 ] calaretu > as said. we're leaving SYJ anyway so what Pell decide to do really doesnt matter much at this stage. He already brought this on us
[ 2014.02.11 19:03:28 ] calaretu > so apparently we're going off with a great start already trying to recover from what SYJ has cost us.
[ 2014.02.11 19:04:05 ] calaretu > but giving away capitals for free would demolish my members. I cant go down that road sadly

This is a true point. As a ceo your responsibility towards the morale of your members is a vital area to pay attention to. I noticed a big difference myself in our members in regards to how we dealt with the two prior invasions. 

[ 2014.02.11 19:05:55 ] Axloth Okiah > we let you leave with all your stuff either
[ 2014.02.11 19:06:05 ] Axloth Okiah > *cannot
[ 2014.02.11 19:06:23 ] calaretu > Ofc not. That would make your members furious
[ 2014.02.11 19:06:44 ] Axloth Okiah > yeah, we had people lined up to see SYJ's "blood"
[ 2014.02.11 19:06:55 ] Cheung Fu > tbh i think you guys were lied to about whats in here
[ 2014.02.11 19:07:12 ] Axloth Okiah > you mean those "trilions"?
[ 2014.02.11 19:07:26 ] calaretu > So imo its better you get to burn our towers and sma's. Let your members have the rage over Pell they wanted. then we just fade away as insignificant again

At the end of the day we just logged off everything we wanted to save. What did we loose in the end? One dread. That was all. And a few smaller ships left in sma's. (My Sin being the most notable of them.) Everything else we could scoop into carriers and orcas we managed to get out. "How can that be?" you may ask. Well patience is a virtue stronger than any invading force. Patience and endurance are such a strong force they can break a camel's back. Even while moving in TLC had no consistent control on the wormhole and even the day after the eviction we moved out several caps and orcas. Through the static. A single pilot from Whale Girth was all that was there to try and stop us. He managed to tackle a moros and batphone NOHO who was down the chain (Whale Girth pilot was not allowed to be on killmail as he himself became a target for NOHO's fleet). More followed the following days. Everything was moved out. TLC did not even make a serious attempt at stopping the evacuation. And so it came to pass our days with SYJ was numbered. And we left in peace, or well not really. But this affected corp deeply. Every one of our pilots who had now been in lowsec for months and not been in leadership had a very different experience than the bunch of guys in wormholespace. So the guys from lowsec split out and reformed under Axial Tilt. A few members went over to TWSL to stay with SYJ. And a few were just completely burnt out at this stage. And so a mere shadow of the corp remained. Battered and beaten. Scrambling togeather what stuff we had, supporting our weight on the broken spear as we staggered our feet back under ourself. Lifitng the visir, and as the blood trickled down our cheek from the crushing defeat we had been dragged through we once again grasped for what strength was left and dared to open our eyes and look at the sun. The sun in all its glory and splendour. Every day it rises up from darkness. A beacon of hope, of a better tomorrow. It light up your path and turns the slippery shades into firm fields of grass. Maybe, just maybe, tomorrow would be better. Maybe.

Hyperion and the hidden agenda

Some of you might have spotten this subject on floating in the ether or whispered in secret rooms, but it is a matter of grave consequence. We have all been used. Without our knowledge. The empire has for years now "bought" the blue sleeper loot without telling us its secret. Now they expect us to give it to them for free even, with the reward for fame and glory. This sets an alarming presedence. The publishing of the recent research paper from Sisters of Eve has set in motion the research the empires are doing on what we, the capsuleers, call the blue loot. This can only mean one thing. They have had a break through in the meaning of the data stored within. The race towards new tech has begun. It has yet to be revealed what this new tech is but efforts by the capsuleers calling themselves wormholers to halt this effort by the empires must remember that whatever data we manage to hold back or confiscate just simply pale in comparison to the researchdata gained through years of blue loot handed over to the empire. Resistance is futile one may say. But even more so when you consider the leverage the empires holds against the capsuleer community. The only source of income that most of us rely on is from this blue loot, and if the empires are met with hostilities over this matter they may very well respond in kind and remove all buy orders from empirespace.

Wait, removal of blue loot buy orders? Yes, that may be a reality.

But all is not lost. It is not only the empires that have interest in this technology. Sisters of Eve and the less known Intaki Syndicate apparently show a deeper interest into the hidden data of sleeper salvage and loot. And many capsuleers have seen these trends. A sudden rise in the trade of the lesser used salvage from sleepers predict that someone has had an opportunity to view this fabled research report from SoE and word have spread of its possible outcome.

Word has also reached certain ears of Talocan elite guards returning to sleeper space to dispatch the forces of capsuleers trying to harvest the sleeper data. The source of this rumor was not possible to backtrace but one can only speculate what this implicate.

One thing is for certain. Something is changing. And the recent behavour of mass affecting wormholes, increase in connections appearing and the very nebula's themself altering their colours bode a ill omen.

From the beginning of these changes labeled "Hyperion" our small group of pilots have however found itself at a much better state than before. Chains are absolutely lovely to scan out (scan 3 systems and have access to 15 kinda thing) and we have seen more active capsuleers in the lower classes of chains than we ever did in the higher classes. Rolling our connections have also been a breeze with battleships. To us this change has been a resounding success and we applaud its outcome. Even the bitter old big groups has seen a change with the eviction of Adhocracy by SSC and Lazerhawks invasion of Quebec. As winter come we look forward to more fun with our fellow capsuleers

*written in character in honor of Ya Huei ! :D

Storytime 8: Forward, unto Bastion!

... or (tl:dr) Not quite what we expected.

... or The SYJ adventures. Part 1 of 2

<< Last chapter

Being invited to join one of the big names in wormholespace and come live in their c6 was a big thing for a small corp like ours. Going from a tiny group up to a huge one is a big change. Moving to a c6-c6 is an even bigger change.

Bastion, also known as J133906,  was the new promised land. A land of milk and honey. Of isk ever flowing and capital ganking as far as the eye could see. This was the land that smaller entities fear to ever connect to. Where the mere whisper of an invasion sends the most seasoned alliance leaders into a spiral of fear, paranoia and depression. And now it was ours. We would have a part in this. In our static we would fight names like NOHO, Ragnarok, Disavowed and TLC. We could just reach out our hand and grab at ... no wait. What are all these empty towers? Where is the hoard of bloodthirsty privateers?

It is revealed that the entire US timezone just moved to stain. They no longer found fights in the static and it seemed they all got bored of it. Instead we are welcomed by a single EU corp (Twilight Soul) and an Australian one (Lycosa Syndicate). This is not what we expected. But we settle in, get a tower up and get to know the current residents. We start chainrolling, recruiting and getting fleetnumbers up. Sites are done, pew is had (and more aswell). And we generally have a good time in our prime timezone. But complaints are coming in from some of our members. Everyone who are online outside our primetime finds the c6-c6 a horrible place to live. Chains are long with little to no solo content and the kspace exits we do have are mostly nullsec. At the same time the majority of alliance decide to move away from Stain unto Sieh. A popular staging system for roams and drops to providence and catch. A more lively area than Stain. As a corp we have found our place in the wormhole with Twilight Souls, but several of our members start hunting in lowsec with alliance instead. As a corp we found ourself split.  This is not a situation any corp ever want to find themself in.  However our members are having fun so we let it be.  The coming weeks we see recruits joining both in lowsec and in the c6. Even most of the people from Axial Tilt joins in on the new content in lowsec.  For a moment we have this strange thing going that actually works pretty well. And what seemed to at first be a disappointment turns into something full of potential.

After Sieh didnt turn out to be what the people in us tz hoped for they set their eyes on Khanid.  What brings about this change is the ill considered use of supers from the local residents (JIHADSQUAD). With the taste of blood on the tip of his tongue Pell Helix,  the joker himself, picks up arms. And right behind him stands a thirsty crowd. And so it came to pass,  SYJ and EE taking over the moons of Khanid.  Supported by some powerful allies the battle is won.  The details of this campaign may be recorded elsewhere but is not my story to tell.  Even after several attempts at pushing for a common coordination across timezones there was just simply no effort made by the us tz players at including the eu leaders in the planning (With the huge exception of Bradford Clear. This man deserves much respect!).  Occasionally we would be asked to aid on timers already engaged,  but the short notice and lack of coordination made this a hot point for irritation among me,  md,  grimch and manira.  We did not like this way of leadership. We had seen better. We could do better. We shared some of our frustration with the leaders in TWSL and LYCS but having different experiences prior and also; them having been in SYJ longer (and had tighter relationship to a lot of the people in alliance), did not feel the same way. But that was not all.

Living in a c6-c6 and rolling the static as your only source of pvp make the game boring very fast.  Attempts at getting out to null or do blops out of wh never took off. People stopped caring and fleet sizes did not reach as high as they used to. We decided it might be time for. ORLY to move on. Then i get a comment in one of the norwegian channels from a long standing NOHO member:

(roughly translated)  What the f*** is your alliance leader thinking?

Next chapter >>

Storytime 5: invasion of many failures

<<Last chapter

So it had come.  The showdown.  Nimon+friends vs Shadow Politics.  The lone wolf and his lost pack against a newborn alliance trying to make a home of its own. This had been brewing for months now.  Ever since we came in and took the system in march this had been a long time coming.  Its like the dust on horizon that has come closer and closer suddenly revealing the riders kicking it up,  coming into your town and you just know trouble hit.  You muzzle your small army of citizens,  arm up and make ready to make a stand.  To fight for your land against and older enemy who claim it is his land.  In the history of wormholespace this might have been one of the most insignificant events, but for us this was the climax of a long building crescendo.

Now when you're invading someone in a wormhole you put a lot of dedication to it. Not only ISK for the offensive fleet but also planned time to keep control of the wormhole. There are several scenarios you want to prevent. You need to make sure the target dont call reinforcement (like we did last time) and also make sure any reinforcement you bring yourself can get into the target wormhole. This is usually obtained by keeping a fleet on the exit wormhole and make sure the target dont find the exit of the chain or at least you can close the wormhole if they do scan it out. Another important aspect is to make sure that the initial engagement is done with your full force. You want to have the needed force both in ships and pilots avaiable that can actually finish up the work you start on. All of these points seemed to escape the invading force.

Call it idiocy, impatience or bad luck. At the start of the siege Nimon+friends put up a large faction tower as staging point and then put a fleet on the static to c2. We stayed in POS and watched. Observed. Plotted a respons. Then out of the blue something very odd happen. I dont know what to liken this to, but it completely stunned me. At least for a few seconds. Then people started screaming on coms. Action. We needed to act. NOW.

The invading force had pulled back to POS, stored their ships and taken pods out to HS. All of them. There was no fleet left in our home. Nothing. After gathering my wits a brief moment the call went out. All combat ships to static. NOW!. In less then a minute the wormhole was collapsed stranding all their combat pilots outside. There was still a few alts inside but suddenly they lost every momentum they had. To say it mildly. Our spirits was on the rise. After whelping some bombers on them anchoring stuff earlier we now brought out our dreads. Siege. Shoot. Reinforced. Now we would do what they failed to do. Keep control of wormhole. We scheduled among ourself and our token aussie member, Deathly hope Cesaille, took charge on keeping the night safe along with some of our members who had the opportunity. They really had no force left inside to regain the entrance and we kept it tight. And so the tower came out of reinforced. Some friends from Eve ryuken came over for the campfire. And as the shields went down nimon self destructed all the ships still left inside. And so their invasion ended. A feeble small tower was also put out of its misery.

The final victory was affirmed a few days later. Nimon moved his carrier, that he staged out of, out through a connecting c5. We had won our land. Claimed it. And now noone disputed the claim. It was an hour of triumph. An hour of joy. And of peace.

We did however realise that only having people in one timezone left us vulnerable. So we decided to step up and expand. Get some eastern us tz as they would be able to join in on what to us was late night bearing. And so recruitment opened up. Little did we know that this desicion for more security would hasten on our utter destruction...

Continue to Part 6>>

They said it was all quiet!

Logged on sunday morning thinking it was a good day to haul in some stuff. The static c4 had a c2 leading to 3 jumps from Jita. Good stuff. I have tried to stay away from the eve forums after patch. My optimism is not in line with the common mood of hate towards the Hyperion patch. And especially towards the mass effect on jump. It seems like a lot of people are moving out. Or so they say. There is no real numbers. No statistic yet. Nothing to confirm a change in either direction. 

I notice a few guys coming back from Jita so decide to take my alt with Deep Space Transporter out to Jita. Scout the chain and dscan look clear. Exit from chian without issues.

But still I cant help myself. The doom and woe criers are so loud I just have to post something sometimes. Mostly I get ignored. Thats ok. Been playing Eve on and off since 05. I've seen my share of bad desicions made in Eve. Had my breaks aswell. This is in my opinion, and experience, far from the worst. Now we already had decided to move down to a lower class and static and to us this patch opened a lot of opportunities. In my opinion you cant really pvp in a 5-5 with fleets below 8 people. You can gank stuff but you can't take a fight from majority of entities. So living in a 4-4/2 made a lot more sense. And yes we recently moved in. Haven't even gotten everything in even yet. However. Living in C4 the few days we have had now is a huge difference to c4 1,5 years ago. Before we moved out.

Buying pve drake -check

Prospect's and ventures for ninjamining c5's - check

Some random modules and PI stuff I was lacking - check
Load up my DST and undock from Jita

Now when I say content it doesn't always translate to kills on killboard. My idea of content is having fun when logging on. Be that scanning and stalking but not engaging, showing new guys the ropes or actually having a fight. We build our corp around playing the way we feel like. With a main focus on pvp. 

Arrive at entrance wormhole. Bah. Forgot the ships in jita. Turn around to go back and pick up

But I must admit seeing the response to a lot of corps towards Hyperion has me worried. If its true as people say that so many are moving out and wormholes become deserted it will automatically affect our gameplay. Could I have been wrong about the effect? Is this patch truly ruining so many lower class corps or is it just a overreaction of a few?  

Finally back at wormhole again with all the cargo. Systems was clear few min ago. Jump into c2. Dscan. Clear. Warp towards c4s. Dscan clear. Jump. Dscan clear. Warp towards home. Dscan clear. Jump.

What the.. 

That was a Heretic jumping with me!

Where did he come from? Oh **** 

Jump over on Calaretu while holding cloak on Thyrn to swap to the Gnosis with rapid lights. Bubble is up on wormhole. Warp Calaretu to it. OH. Proteus and Pilgrim. Break cloak and get back to wh with Thyrn. Have to try and jump back. The Heretic jumps back with thyrn. Pilgrim and Proteus stay and engage Calaretu. Try to hold cloak with Thyrn while managing Cal. Rapid lights is so wrong right now. I try the Pilgrim. Shields down but armortanked. No use breaking that buffer. Proteus is hopeless to kill. But they got tackle on me so I'm not getting out. Oh well. Tabbing over to Thyrn while ASB boosting on Cal. Try to head out of new bubble. Fire ECM burst. They loose lock. Heretic gets in another bubble up and relock with webs. ECM burst again. Breaks lock but the bubble is too far out and I cant tank the Heretic and Sabre now shooting me for long. I try to return to wormhole instead. Polarized. Jumping back on Cal. Low armor now. And it doesnt last long. The dps of the proteus is just shredding the Gnosis apart. As it pop I warp out the pod. Back to Thyrn. Going low armor there too. Throw out a mobile depot. Maybe I can manage to save some assets in it? It starts anchoring. Armor breaks. Hull. Pop. killmail. The depot didnt anchor in time :( And still being inside a bubble I am fast and surely provided a way back to empire. 

That was a perfect ambush. And I thought the chain was dead. Oh well. Maybe its time to sell that orca after all. Shoutout to BayneNothos, Tianve Lave, fetox74 and poepstreep66 for keeping wormholespace a fun place to live in Eve!

I take a break. Family deserve some time and I have some work to do. Later that day I get a ping. MD74 and Finarfin wants to roll the new C4S. I log on and get into my battleship. Finarfin breaks out his Orca. Power rolling right there. Or baiting. Yeah baiting is the new term for rolling. As I get on coms I suddenly understand theres activity in the C4S. Oh nice. We jump the orca. It lands in proper distance from wormhole :D Slowboats back. We jump two domi's with 100MN mwd in and back. Thats a total of 1200/2000(+-10%) on the wormhole.

Ferox and devoter land on other side. We swap out our ship to something more fitting the occasion. Warp to C4S and jump in. Tackle go on ferox and Devoter who bubbles us aswell. We burn for the ferox first. Blackbird arrive at 100. He jams my proteus :( Waiting for the dice to roll my way I burn towards the ferox (should have refit to rails for this) and manage to sneak on the killmail with 0% damage :P The Devoter try to burn away as the Blackbird warps of. We quickly burn after him and as his bubble goes down we have managed to get points up. He dies. Somewhere in there we also killed a Manticore but I have to be honest and say I honestly didnt notice him on grid. Big thank you to Rolling Static/Gone Critical for bringing a fight. Or at least bringing ships :)

As the sun fades away outside and the evening properly decends we decide to get working on some of the grinding left to us in the wormhole. Still some residues from previous owners. Including some Custom Offices. Out comes the Oracles. We stick scouts on the statics and the frig wh we have connecting to us and starts shooting. A few stray scanners come through but nothing serious enough to stop the bashing. And so goes the evening. At one point a purifier comes through the frig wh. We watch him instantly drop Core Probes. If you ever want to make people believe you dont know what your doing you go scanning with t1 probes in a purifier. It has so many facets of wrong to it that you leave your target confused and inable to act. After scanning our system for over an hour!! he went back the way he came. In the end we had enough of structures and went to bed. 

A good sunday indeed.

And the state of wormholespace? I might have been wrong, or people are overreacting. I will wait a bit and see. 

C4 Wormholespace, the dual statics!!

tl:dr BIG list

Edit: the patch went live with the data from sisi intact

So we have finally moved into a new Home. After weeks of rolling we grabbed the best option we could find. There were other better options, but this will do. As usual now starts the naming convention. However, having a new POS up and defense anchoring aswell we suddenly have a list we dont have a use for anymore.

After some thought and discussion with the other scanners we decided this list would very soon be avaiable to anyone anyway, but getting it now would maybe encourage a few who were waiting for this to move into c4 space. Or change the system they were living in. So feast your eyes:

Format: (constellation - first static/second *new* static)
xx for the constellations we didn't find on sisi


Region 16
153 - C2/C4
154 - C2/C4
155 - C2/C4
156 - C2/C1
157 - C2/C5 (community input) 
158 - C2/C5 (community input)
159 - C2/C3
160 - C2/C5
161 - C2/C3 

Region 17
162 - C6/C5
163 - C6/C3
164 - C6/C5 (community input)
165 - C6/C4 (community input)

Region 18
166 - C1/C3 (community input)
167 - C1/C2
168 - C1/C5 
169 - C1/C4
170 - C1/C2 (community input)
171 - C1/C4
172 - C1/C3 

Region 19
173 - C4/C2 (community input)
174 - C4/C1
175 - C4/C3
176 - C4/C3 
177 - C4/C3
178 - C4/C6 (community input) 
179 - C4/C5
180 - C4/C5 
181 - C4/C5
182 - C4/C6 
183 - C4/C3 (community input)
184 - C4/C3 
185 - C4/C5
186 - C4/C5 

Region 20
187 - C4/C2
188 - C4/C5 
189 - C4/C2
190 - C4/C2 (community input)
191 - C4/C3 
192 - C4/C2  
193 - C4/C1 (community input)
194 - C4/C3  

Region 21
195 - C3/C4
196 - C3/C1 (community input)
197 - C3/C5
198 - C3/C2
199 - C3/C2 (community input)
200 - C3/C4
201 - C3/C4 (community input)
202 - C3/C2
203 - C3/C5 (community input) 
204 - C3/C5
205 - C3/C1 
206 - C3/C4
207 - C3/C4 
208 - C3/C5
209 - C3/C5 (community input)
210 - C3/C5
211 - C3/C6 (community input)
212 - C3/C2

Region 22
213 - C5/C3 (community input)
214 - C5/C4
215 - C5/C3 (community input)
216 - C5/C4 (community input)
217 - C5/C2
218 - C5/C3
219 - C5/C3
220 - C5/C4
221 - C5/C2 (community input)
222 - C5/C4
223 - C5/C3 (community input)
224 - C5/C2
225 - C5/C1
226 - C5/C6 (community input)

Region 23
227 - C3/C4 (community input)
228 - C3/C2
229 - C3/C4
230 - C3/C4
231 - C3/C1 (community input)

As you can see we are lacking about 30% of the systems but a lot of interesting numbers can be gotten by this list. Did you know there are possibly only 4 black hole c4-c4/c2?

Make a comment below if you find any other interesting fact or have information on the constellations we are missing :)

Honorable mentions to MD74, Ya Huei and Zzzzleepyhead for helping with compiling this list! (And also rest of Unsettled. for moving assets while we were rolling :P )

edit: contributions are coming in and we are getting closer and closer to a complete list!

edit 2 : and THAT was a complete list with the help of the community, both in this thread and in private convos and mails. A big THANK YOU to all!!

Setting roots on fire (spoilers)

This is not a garden allorgy. Not this time. In the last year and a half I have gone from a c4 to c5 to c6. Then back down to c5 and now circle completes as we are setting out for C4 space. With the coming changes C4 space will be a lot different. And its not a guess. I have seen the new random wormholes on sisi. And the new static aswell make for some insane chains but still a LOT of kspace exits aswell. Easier logistics but chains that not even a c6-c6 have seen the likes of.Just hunting the c4's I have seen 10 systems deep branching of everywhere to c3's, c5's and even nulls. Nullsec directly into c4 space. Granted its the new frig wormholes but coupled with the nulls and lows you get through the c3's this has the potential for some exiting gameplay. Gameplay that I enjoy. Silent hunting. Deep chains. Stalking.When you have the feeling of a panther (or housecat if you prefer that kind) sneaking in the grass. Looking at that siterunning ship making ready in POS, aligning, warping, and you feel the muscles tense up for the leap. Thats what I crave about wormholespace. Thats when my adrenalin gets pumping.

It has been some interesting days, scanning chains on SISI (Eve Online test server) and even some interesting days on forum. I went out on a limb and opposed the entire wormhole community on the changes to effect of mass on jumping. Meanwhile Ya Huei has gone and made a lot of new friends in the current c4 residents :D All is set for an exciting autumn.

So a few spoilers from the test server. Wandering frig size wormholes:
Q413 - leads to 0.0
E140 - C1 (I think. didnt jump it. but that blue colour)
L335 - C2
Z860 - C3
M131 - C4 (and these were not just a few of)
C948 - C5

Thats what we have seen this far. Might find the last two (c6 and c3) when we keep scanning. Having mapped close to half of the C4's I think we will keep it up a bit more. Even tho we have located the most likely new home we would want. Now just to find that on Tranquility ><.

But the battleplan is ready. We have no blues. We have no restrictions. This is a game and we will enjoy it. Our targets may not. Unless we recruit them. hmmm. Maybe. Yes this has potential. We can even fly battleships. Couse no dread blaps in c4 space. And Huei making everyone love us sets us on a good path. Very good indeed.

UPDATE:
Found the c3. No sign of c6 yet

Reforging old steel

For those who have followed our killboard closely (yeah I know none of you did :P ) might have noticed a trend in UNSET over the last few months. Yeah activity have dwindled. A lot. Seems like most people just dont like the static 5. So we're changing it up. And along with that we are bringing .ORLY back to life. We will run it a bit different tho. Me and MD74 will share on leading the corp and see if we can build up a new circle of leaders around us.

Having a static 5 gives a certain kind of content. I thought we could use kspace exits a lot more in the chain to create content for smaller groups and in a way we have. We have scanned long chains to kspace and then new chains from kspace and on but still it has been a lot of scanning without much content. And when a few people stopped logging on as spring hit and the regular summer lull start looming we did no longer have the fleet numbers to take on the avarage c5 groups. Which is kinda sad. So now as autumn arrive with Hyperion we are moving to a different class with a different static. One more suitable for smaller groups. Which will also let us recruit pilots with less skillpoints. No more "must have T3". We can start having cheaper and more fun doctrines and that is something to look forward to.

Deep down in my belly somewhere those butterflies start moving and I am excited about what the future hold for us as corp and alliance. Onwards!

Changes in the unknown

As detailed in this devblog there is a lot of changes coming to wormholes in Hyperion update. And as probably every other blogger, podcaster and random guys with opinions I will give you my small opinion on what is happening. The changes are as follows:

- Dual static C4s
- K162 spawn when wormhole is jumped
- Rebalance of all wormhole effects
- Spawn range changes based on mass
- New wandering wormholes (regenerate and limited to frigsize)
- Boost to bookmark copying time and amount

Now the last one is a quality of life change, but the others will have a big impact on wormholespace. It is interesting to see the replies in the threads how people envision what will be the new win and the amount of possible fits and ships tied up to wormhole effect. But it seem that bringing a brawler fleet everywhere may not be a viable option anymore. Bringing a ishtar fleet to a Red giant may now be countered by a single bomber. A brawling t3 fleet can be picked apart by a sniping destroyer fleet in wolf rayet. (2k DPS with RLML :o !!). The spawn range out of wormholes will hit the ability to use capitals and orcas in rapid closing, but as a whole package I think these changes will be very good for wormholespace. I think we will see a lot of new fleets and doctrines when Hyperion hits. That in itself is something to look forward too.

What change do you think will make the biggest impact?

Storytime 7: Ouroboros

tl:dr new wh, new invasion

<<Last chapter

That was the name we chose. A new wormhole. A new corp. A new hope. But most of the same people. A rather cumbersome name to pronounce on ts tho. But the new wormhole was empty so we could live with that. Once we bought the route to the wormhole we set up towers first thing. To mark our territory. Piss on the fence so to speak. To tell the world that we make claim to this system. We called this new home Ouruboros. I think that was Deathly's idea. The name that is. After wasting two days on choosing a name for the new corp we didnt bother that much with the name of our new home

  We did try a short attempt at faction warfare inbetween. It has been a part of the game that I never really tried out before even tho many people love it and take part in it all the time. I must admit I never really got the love for FW. Even when I tried it. My heart went back to wspace. The draw and allure of the unknown. Where you can hunt without the local intel. Such a small thing makes such a big difference. 

  

Ouroboros. The serpent that bite its own tail. Maybe there was a deeper meaning there that escaped us. A quote from the books by R. Jordan comes to mind as I write this:

“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again.”

And as we set out to again to settle in a new system history itself cought up to us. What had been would be again and as the dust settled in our old home (now baptised "Max" by the new inhabitants) the dust would now be stirred in our new home, a wolf rayet c5 with c3 static.

Soon after anchoring the first towers I was convoed by a leading member in Verge of Collapse. He was also trying to sell the same wormhole to a different person. Oh joy. Soon thereafter we got a application from NCC 1701E. His API revealed one of his alts already inside our new home. So this was the second buyer. His mails revealed they had already named our system so apparently an invasion was planned. After a short discussion we decided we would benefit more by offering them a friendly solution. So we accepted his app under the condition he kept his api active.

He spent his time with us soloing in lowsec and telling us how good he was. Not very impressive. One morning we were "informed" he had started moving capitals inside our wormhole. The lack of a certain direct lowsec that spawned the evening before confirmed this. So we stripped his roles and told him he would be booted. We also started making preparations for the invasion that was coming soon. Unlike last time these guys didnt look like having any proper way of calling reinforcements. He kept bragging about having been in Verge of Collapse, but when they connected to Ouroboros and closed again without seeding anything it didnt seem likely they would bother.

And true enough. One morning we woke up to one tower in RF. They didnt manage to RF the other tower due to neuting power. Really they did not have the manpower for this. Their corp Criterion was part of a c6 alliance called Laughing Men. Alliance killboard was anything but active. But we called in mercs anyway. The chosen merc to aid us was Surely Your Joking. At the possability of cap kills our friends in eve ryuken brought a 20 man fleet from ixtab aswell. Even SSC, through Chitsa, offered to bring people in to aid. But we kindly told them it might get a bit crowded with that many entities. We already had superior cap power initially and now also vastly superior manpower with both SYJ and ixtab. present aswell. It was no longer a question about if we could win but what way to destroy them would be best. 

 Leader of SYJ, Pell Helix, wanted to preferably do a pure blitz attack on the invasion fleet to wipe their capitals. But sensing a somewhat unrest in our corp due to the recent batphone to KILL turned up empty I asked for a controlled repulshion of the hostile forces.

On a spur I jumped into the Laughing men public channel and made insinuation that having Criterion in their members list could be a bad desicion. Told Bradford Clear what I did (he was our main contact in SYJ for this contract) and he did the same. No direct threats, just suggestions. But one thing you can always count on in wormholespace is peoples paranoia and stupidity. NCC had left his api on an alt active. We had access to all their corp and alliance mail. and the hilarity that assumed when Laughing Mens paranoia kicked in was worth every isk we payed for the merc contract. I will just say that moving all capitals to one tower when excpecting someone to rageroll and invade you is not a good strategy.

In Ouroboros however, Criterions tower was put into reinforced the very same day. They attempted to bump us but end result was still the same. They did not dare to attempt to reinforce our second tower. But when the timer on our first approached they made an attempt. Following Pells instruction we had set the timer to exit in us tz. Us having noone online made criterion risk it and put out capitals to kill our tower. The logged of SYJ fleet made quick work of one their Moros. A shame the others escaped. But this blow put them on the defensive. And accounting for offline fleets ready to log on gives their courage a push down. (Except for NCC who apparently still thought he could win this. Or so the rumors say). Criterion set up a new tower to delay us and make the contract more expensive, but we dealt with it on our own. Reinforce and bubble. As the day passed they anchored guns and shot down the bubbles. 

(In the middle of nowhere we suddenly get a whisper that TLC are on their way. We roll the entrance for safety but never get to verify if this was actually happening)

As the evening approaches we make ready the nightshift that will, togeather with SYJ, wipe away Criterions towers. And so it does. Criterion attempt to launch more towers but they die before they online.

The following day we rebubble the last tower and incap all their modules. As they start to selfdestruct stuff our victory for this round are confirmed. Tower is killed and as a final finish we set up flycatchers (towers without forcefield but online guns and bubbles around) where they logged off capitals.

Epilogue: 
Apparently SYJ liked flying with us and conversations about us joining them started up. We all wanted a somewhat easier life after the rollercoster of the last months. Being invited as a corp to join alliance let us stay togeather as a group aswell. We decided to accept the invitation and began the process of joining. As a nice finish to the conflict with Criterion we offered them to buy the wormhole from us. I think NCC didnt like to buy the wormhole he tried to take by force but after internal pressure they accepted the offer. Assets was transfered to them, and we joined SYJ and moved into their C6. Just to find that the majority of their alliance just moved out of it. Interesting. Not what we expected.

Next chapter >>

Storytime 6: Dreams fade as steel burn

<< Last chapter

There is something beautiful about the autumn. The evening gets darker. The leaves start loosing their green colour of summer. A chill wind tell the story of a winter coming.

For me August the 16th started off like any other day. Waking up early and putting on the coffee. No work so when coffee was done I turned on my computer and launched Eve. As my ship is landing inside forcefield I am greated by the sense of panic. The frantic eyes of our few US people and our token aussie scream at me through corp chat. Their hands must still be shaking of the adrenalin that have kept them awake. Ingame mail was blinking red of desperation. A group of capitals was working on reinforcing our last tower. We were being invaded. And this time it was no half hearted attempt either. First thing first. Who was invading us? Semper Ubi Sub Ubi. A us tz c4 pvp corp.

Not even two weeks prior had we taken on one of their members. Hawk Crimson (or better known as Vimple). His claim of boredom in the c4 was to our ears very believable having come from the same class ourself in the spring. His purpose of infiltration was now too obvious but too late to change. Anyway. Removed his roles but he had already deleted all our corp bookmarks. Didnt take long to remake for towers tho. Next thing. Make a custom chat channel as he had access to anything written in corp channel. Time to survey the situation. Now Deathly and the others who had been up during the night had made a good job of noting down the pilots involved. Aprox 20 chars was counted. A quick check on eve-kill revealed them usually flying with only about 10 in fleet. This is not the usual burn and pillage then. They called out every bit of manpower they had. They came to this wormhole to live here.

Now I had been listening to the dtp podcast for some time but never read the blog of their ceo. While researching them tho their battleplan was written in black. They planned to throw all their effort into this operation.As MD74, jeraadt, grimch and manira logged on we started to evaluate what our options were.

Scenario 1
We batphone friends and try to get them in for defense. A full on attack in our prime could break their wormholecontrol and get reinforcement in. They would however be able to return the favor in their primetime and get in reinforcement themself. Furthermore, their connections could probably make our connections want to stay out of the conflict

Scenario 2
We wait for RF timer and go all out attack on their main fleet. However none of us has ever flown a capital in pvp and come out victorious. SUSU have however experienced pilots in this aspect.

Scenario 3
We call it a loss and just move on.

 Think we spent less than an hour debating and decided in the end to go with option 1 and 3. We had the ships and pilots needed to take them on. But the players behind the pilots did for the most part not have the spirit to take the fight. Among them some key members. But if we could get reinforcements that could change. (At the same time I sat with the feeling that every time we got invaded we called reinforcement.) However we contacted some friends in Lead Farmers [KILL] and asked if they would be willing to come. They were very positive and said they would try to rally alliance (possible 100 man fleet. That is huge for wormholespace) but needed a ok from leadership first. Knowing that SUSU had a member that was former diplo in SSC (it was a very known fact at the time that KILL and SSC were best of buddies) made us unsure however if this would work. As the invading force start logging of part of their fleet and move the rest to guarding our entrance we start moving our capitals and orcas to safespots and log them off. And then we start the diplomatic talks.

Out of the blue suddenly a k162 to Exhale (big merc alliance, decendants of the Narwhals empire) open up. We turn around and try to get hold of them. No response. Not in public chat and not to convos. And here comes SUSU closing party. Orca+Moros and the wormhole is gone. So much for that opportunity.

Anyway. The night dwindle away and we just tell people to go to sleep. Nothing will happen for us in their primetime. The next day we get ready for either a slaughter or reinforcement. Some members who lost their will to "live" starts self destructing ships. This spurs a request to buy ships by SUSU. Some members jump on this option. Some just keep selfdestructing.

During the day we get word back from from Lead Farmers. They want to stay out of the conflict. Sooner or later this means the wormhole is lost. No matter what we do. On coms the mood turn to resignation. Some are tired of the situation. Some are tired of the game as a whole. Some want to fight but dont even wish to argue the point when faced with this. So we call it a loss and decide to start looking ahead. To what we will do next. Reinforce timer is still several hours ahead. We start up diplo talks again and arrange a deal for people to move out one ship and firesale the rest.

As we are taking stock of what will be lost of assets we realise the t3 production we had going had been stockpiling assets. Too much assets. In addition to the ships being sold off this will be a huge loss. We try to negotiate for letting towers regen shield to online and take out assets but this is turned down by the attacking party. (They dont fully trust us :o. Who would imagine ) However the deal we get to get out ships let most people leave the wormhole with most of their assets intact, but some of their battlespirit is left behind. I think that goes for all of us. But we were still new to c5 space and we knew this could happen. The loss was accepted and we were planning for the road ahead.

And so it goes. One by one people are escorted out. As reinforcement timer approaches we finalize the agreements. I offer to take down forcefield of the first POS but some misunderstanding happens and I wake up in HS :)

In the end change come to us all. Either willing or forced upon us. You either accept the tide of change or you try to fight it. But in the end change happen anyway. Some things are just beyond your control. And the man who welcome change and learn to live with it goes away the wiser. 

~unknown

And so we decided to call upon the waves of change, as our home was no longer ours. And so ends the story of the corporation known as No Self Esteem. As the leaves of autumn fell to the ground and the sun rose anew we formed a new corporation (after two days of debating the name) known as "Honestly We didnt know" [.ORLY] and again set our eyes upon the promised lands of unknown space. This time we would just get a wormhole where noone lived so we could establish in peace and learn to be better at pvp. At least that was our hope. Thats not how it turned out.


(Read this story from the invaders point of view here and watch here )

Continue to Part 7 >>

Incoming transmission

Capsuleers log 060714 1216

//Entry 003

>Activation from dorment state without detection success
>Scanner detect no ships in central position in solarsystem
>Visual of target structures aquired
>All ships unpiloted
>No lifesign detected

//Active: dorment state
>...
>...
>...
//dorment state aquired

<You have been disconnected>

Cut down all the things

Saturdays usually start early for me. Very early. Having very young kids kinda wrecks your ability to sleep late in the morning. So up we go at 5:30. Oh yeah. Fresh and eager to take on a new day. The moment I open my eyes however that is not how I feel. Suddenly I regret joining in on the farming in static after the lowsec roam. Yeah I need isk. But apparantly sleep is more important. But out of bed we have to get. Put on a cartoon for the kid. Put on the coffee. Crash in the couch and whip up the phone to stay awake while waiting for the coffee to finish. Nothing interesting on eve forum. As usual. Oh wait. Proc has made a post. A serious one. Dont know if he will ever recover to his usual trolling mood from before CSM election. Maybe it has scarred him for life? Thoughts wonder to how a beaten Proc is sitting in his captain quarters watching the latest Razor propaganda to gain the will to undock. This could be true. At least in one possible universe. But this post is about wormholespace. Its about the death of wormholespace. And all the veterans brings out their wall of text. Its that time of the year again.

There are a few interesteing replies, like G0hme's tl:dr of wormholespace history. Let me pull out a quote that I felt hit a important mark:

This past bore the mark of less "big groups" where few of them knew eachother by more than at the end of eachothers crosshair. But as younger corps got bigger and everyone got multiple capitals in their systems, so came the rise of "WH Overlords" ground zero for the political cancer of Wormhole space.

You can ofcourse brush this off as a veterans ramblings about how everything was better in the old days and I think in many aspects it was. It certainly was different. 

This day I took my brand new CEO's example. There was something I had neglected for a bit. And it was time to deal with it.Having neglected it for so long there was only one way to go about it.

CUT DOWN ALL THE THINGS
So I grabbed the trimmer and went out and just started cutting. Everything down to the ground. I am not really a garden guy. Its not something I dream about at work. But sometimes it feels good to do something with your hands, demolish the jungle and then try to shape it into something beautiful. Its not really beautiful to look at yet tho. Work in progress. But actually starting the work is sometimes a milestone in it self. There are enough things one "should" have done that never get done. Life is just to short. The days dont have enough hours. And spaceships are more fun then weeds :P

Doing work with your hands often give your mind time to just think. Theres not much thinking required to cut down thistles and something else you really have no clue what is named. Among other more important stuff my mind wandered back to the state of wormholes however. It is a known fact that theres this mantra about not evicting pvp entities. As long as you play and behave in the accepted manner ofc. If you dont then everyone gang up on you. So theres an ideal that is ment to improve quality of life for the big groups that is part of the same club (WH overlords or whatever channel serves the same purpose). And ofcourse its repeated a few times on forum. But do not be fooled. This mantra only apply to those in the club. If you are a smaller group of players trying to carve your way, without "entertaining" the big groups to make them like you, you are basicly on your own and nobody cares. And there are several lesser known groups that dont mind doing evictions and infact find them fun. They dont go about boasting about it either as that would just make them a target in return. But evictions still happen. Those who can, and want to, do it. And is this really a bad thing? Are evictions and invasions what ruin wormholespace? After being on the recieving end of 4 invasions in the last year and on the dealing end a few times aswell I will VERY strongly object to this nonsense of an idea. In fact I will go so far as to state that invasions and evictions are what actually drive the major content in wormholespace. The attempt to NIP (Non Invasion Pact) everything is one (not the only) of the reasons wormholespace is becoming dull for a lot of people. Yes it sucked to loose 50 bill of assets when we was evicted from our 5-2. It was a difficult time. But for me (and I believe many others) that is what Eve is all about. Sometimes you win and sometimes you get beaten to the ground. But then you get up again and set out finding a new wormhole and start building up again. And even for those who give up, they will always remember the adventure you had, the victories and the losses. Its a story they bring on and remember. THIS is what makes eve the game we all love. Not only the victories but also the losses. And when you go and create a big blue safetyzone around you that feeling of risk, that feeling of adventure and excitement will depart and degrade aswell.

This is also one of the things that is unique to wormholespace. At least now. It used to be like this in 0.0. When ATUK[5] empire fell in the southeast we were a small group of corps that banded togeather and went back out as a new alliance [CHIMP] and took back some of the space without being dropped on by everyone. This was in the time before the big forceprojection. Before Titans. And even dreads was a rare sight.

We still have this opportunity in wormholespace. If you get beaten you can head back out and start fresh in a new system. Noone can stop you. But out of fear a lot of you sign up NIPs and add every diplo in any major group to your facebook page (metaphor). What happened to those who were willing to take a risk? To have no blues and take on the world?

This is why I love my alliance. We have taken our distance from this nonsense politics of wormholespace. We do our own thing. We have no blues. Yes it may be our downfall one day, but until then everyone we meet is a target and we can choose to fight or not as we please.We owe noone anything and nobody owe us anything. If we want a fight there are ALWAYS ways to get one. If the gnosis bait dont work then you up it to a marauder, sitting in their site, in their system. If the chain is empty you roll it or head out to kspace and scout aswell. As long as there is other people playing the game there are fights to be had. Somehwere. Even if its 30 jumps away through highsec.

I would urge anyone who read this post (even tho I dont know if anyone outside my alliance do :P ) to take the step and the risk. Do away with your blues. Drop all your NIPs and do your own thing. Win some and loose some. Bring back that feeling of being unsecure. If you have nothing to fear you have nothing to overcome, nothing to beat. Even an imaginary threat will give you more excitement than no threat at all. Dear to risk some. I promise you its worth it in the end! Cut down all the things!!

Making new goals

Having almost finished the merger of .ORLY into ICOL I figured it was time to start looking at some new goals in eve. This may be a bit messy post as I write it on the fly.

First, what have I already done
- Lead two alliances in wspace
- Done c5 and c6 space
- Ragerolling (didnt like that)
- Hunting (love it)
- Capital escalations (repetitive but ok isk)
- Gas harvesting
- Mining (afk 4tw)
- low class sites (on par with mining in fun and isk/h)

And basicly whatever else has been avaiable of content.

Now I need a isk income to fund pvp but still something that I dont have to sink too much time into.That basicly means PI. I need a proper PI farm again. Takes time to setup but easy to maintain. If the chars I set into it also can do some active isk in addition when no pew is to be had thats not bad either. No thats some chars sorted into that (yeah already got access to several good PI wh. They are often also avaiable on market for just a few hundred mill)

But who can I find a lot of fun pew with for my main chars? I started digging. Whats happening in eve? What are people doing? I still dislike sov null since the LV vs RA war in 2006. And lowsec seem to be only frigs or hotdrops. So I started looking at the killboards of every active group in wormholespace. Someone posted a overview of killboard stats on forum. Very interesting. Taking away the us tz groups and those with very tiny fleets in eu tz tho didnt leave many behind that was viable. I also took away every c6 group as I done really like what is happening in c6 space. In the end the most likely corps outside unsettled would be ducks, probe patrol and n0mex. I tried to figure out how ducks was evolving. What kind of corp culture they were breeding. Being a new(ish) entity that could be a exciting option. So sent a mail to chitsa. No reply. Hmm maybe he just was busy. So I search up on evewho to see who is in that corp. Oh Longinius Spear. Former enemy but a nice guy. So I convo him when I see him online. One of the first things he mention is that they are super serious about pvp. That make me instantly strike them from the list. I continue the convo with Spear and he is very optimistic about trying ducks way of playing the game. This morning tho I see it didnt turn out so well. You have my sympathy Spear.

So now I look up n0mex and Probe Patrol. Probe Patrol are now in ixtab. (The alliance Eve Ryuken was part of earlier) and they seem to have fun. Live in 5-5 like Unsettled. but just have more members. A lot more. Well then I could just stay in Unsettled. is my first thought. As I know the people and enjoy flying with them. So I check up the killboard of n0mex. MD even have a chat with gunnerz. Great guys. Know them a bit from a common stay in SYJ. But after studying their fleets setup and size I realise they are doing basicly just the same as Unsettled. Easier HS and less bigger size battle tho.

In the end I just scrap all my plans and figure I want to continue flying with the guys I already fly with. Love to fly with them. Love the culture we have in alliance and we just keep growing. Yeah time to haul back in my stuff :P

I'll do my best to be a ordinary member. To be a content creator more than enabler. To have a more carefree EVE life. And I will try my very very best not to step on my new CEO and directors toes :D

The story of a thief

tl:dr ships got stolen, offered thief a way out. He refuse. Mandatory forum post.

Sharing this as its a good story :)

As .ORLY is merging with ICOL all our members have to move their assets over to new towers. In the middle of it all some ships go missing, bookmarks get deleted and someone leave two velators floating at one of the towers with POS password as name. Obviously someone took their chance. Now I have never understood thieves. The lust for a quick heist but wasting away potential friendships and community. At the end of the day, isk is only a means to put food on the table (or in eve: ships in your hangar). You go and ask a elderly gentleman what has mattered most to him in life. The answer will almost always be the people he shared his life with. For longer or for short periods. Just go and search on google for that matter. Almost everyone will name the people in their life as the most important aspects of their life. I take this philosophy with me in EVE. Not everyone does. Thats ok. But I do not understand those who put isk and a solo gameplay above potential friendships. Maybe they got enough friends in reallife and just want to take a piss in the game? I guess there are explanations, but that doesn't mean I understand them.

As it would happen I was home the day after the heist as my kid got sick. I really hate those kind of days as the kids get really restless when staying home, but a fever is a fever. But I logged on in the morning and the first thing I noticed was that all bookmarks was gone. This immidiatly set off all alarmbells. This was what happened when we got invaded in the 5-2. Our static was leading to the SSC home system, but surely they would have already reinforced all towers if they were invading. But no towers was reinforced. Ok. Not an invasion then. I start having a look around. Notice two velators floating at one of the members POS but think little of it. Then I start going through the members list. Who had been online since I logged off last night. Two people (beside some of my directors) it turns out. Zuzu Aqua was one of those two. Now there are two factors which immidiatly make me suspect Zuzu:
1. When applying his skills was perfectly set towards a combat pilot. No new character does that. Yet he claimed to be a new player. He did however have no isk transfers, 0 isk trades, contracts with assets, mails or odd contacts in contactlist that tied him up to any other character. In hindsight this should be enough to reject him, but we tried to not always think the worst of people. Beside, we have a decent secure setup that allows people to keep stuff safe.
2. He wasnt active. At all. He did not parttake in anything. After two weeks we originally terminated his membership due to inactivity, but he made a persuasive case for himself and said he had given notice he would be gone due to exams. So we gave him a little bit more time. The conversation was friendly and he seemed appreciative for a second chance so didnt think he would go all butthurt about it.

However when the bookmarks was deleted and he was one of two suspects (the other one is a decent guy who have been acitve and I really look forward to keep flying with). Zuzu is sat in Jita and his division in tower is empty. I immidiatly removed all his roles and got him blocked in alliance chat, forum and other stuff. The next day I get a convo from the other guy who had been online about ships that was missing. So now we are adding theft to the list. Guardian, Loki and a Ashimmu. However I want to give Zuzu a fair chance so I send him a mail.

From: calaretu
Sent: 2014.06.24 15:53
To: MD74,  Zuzu Aqua,

Hey Zuzu. We had a theft in corp and would like you to reactivate api as we need to clear your name.

If you are innocent this shouldnt be a problem

If you are guilty we will give you a chance to refund the stolen goods

Failure to comply earns you a post on the forum (which will make your char unable to join most corps in eve)

- Calaretu

He replies friendly with his API and I start looking over it again. Not a single trade, isk transfer or anything else since before the theft. If he is the thief he has really outdone himself in covering his tracks. We had thieves before but this is certainly a new level of quality. There is just no hard evidence whatsoever. However there is also no other suspects. If there was he would have gotten away with it completely. Me and MD go back and forth about alternative possabilities, one of them could even lead to a diplomatic crisis with a corp we're friends with. However, we decide to have confront Zuzu and see what his reaction is. After all a thieves greatest enemy is himself. So we strike a convo. (If you as reader ever are in a similar position, make sure to have at least one witness you can trust with you in the conversation.)

As we are talking about it Zuzu log on. He greets in chat.
[ 2014.06.25 19:22:13 ] Zuzu Aqua > hey o/
[ 2014.06.25 19:22:19 ] Zuzu Aqua > found where the ships went?

I invite him to convo. The minutes pass. No reply. Then.

[ 2014.06.25 19:33:16 ] Zuzu Aqua > o/
[ 2014.06.25 19:33:23 ] calaretu > didnt you have any ships in retreat?
(in his API he only had two frigs and a rookie ship. that was all his assets)
[ 2014.06.25 19:33:48 ] Zuzu Aqua > i had navy vexor in SMA
[ 2014.06.25 19:33:51 ] Zuzu Aqua > in left hand
[ 2014.06.25 19:34:10 ] Zuzu Aqua > but when i logged on it wasnt there
[ 2014.06.25 19:34:49 ] calaretu > thing is. Only you and one other and directors was online during the time of the theft
(putting up our only piece of evidence right there. but he doesnt know that)
[ 2014.06.25 19:35:14 ] Zuzu Aqua > oh
[ 2014.06.25 19:35:20 ] Zuzu Aqua > who was it
[ 2014.06.25 19:35:52 ] calaretu > the one the ships was stolen form
[ 2014.06.25 19:36:29 ] Zuzu Aqua > oh

Now if he had kept his head calm here and kept the innocent act going I would have nothing. Nothing but a hunch and circumstances. And no connections to who was really behind the theft. However, I manage to trigger exactly what I was fishing for. His pride. His arrogance. The common denominator of all thieves. Their ego and sense of accomplishment. The same rush that spurs them to this way of gameplay is also their most common downfall. And in his pride he starts dragging in one character after another to the conversation. My circumstancial evidence was enough for him to call the act and start boasting.
 
[ 2014.06.25 19:37:28 ] Beliar Gray > interesting clue huh
[ 2014.06.25 19:37:33 ] Beliar Gray > oh noes
[ 2014.06.25 19:37:44 ] Beliar Gray > and yeah i know its petty thievery
[ 2014.06.25 19:37:52 ] Beliar Gray > im just lazy is all

And on and on he drags in characters. In the end I had noted down this list:

Zuzu Aqua
Zahard Ignis
Zula Terra
Gentaros
Beliar Gray (already used as scammer)
Ryan Aego
Ben Li
Pandorath (eve-search on this char turns up another alt: Arya Regnar)
Spryt3 (bought few years ago, ties up to Beliar Gray in purchase thread)
Veila Canus
 Jewels04 (shows up a interesting fake auction with more alts)

All of them online at the same time. Thats at least 11 accounts running at once.  Nwo many of these chars are clean so it baffles me that he shows his hand like this. Did we really trigger his lust for bragging that hard? Either that or he is framing some people. However, as he brought the chars into the chat I must say I am grateful for having him reveal by himself what I couldnt find proof of.

Seeing as he pulled this of nearly flawlessly I offer him to repay ships and in turn not mention this to anyone outside alliance. He refuse. So up goes the forum post Now I did not anticipate the respons to that post. But it gave me a good laugh. Usually you get the random npc corp chars that cry out about lack of proof, but this one actually got people from Pasta replying aswell. Well would you look at that.  Apparantly Pasta even make claim to have been part of eviction in Bastion. Except they dont show up on any killmails.

Let me say this tho. I have nothing personal against Pasta. I love what they do and the content they create. I dont even have anything personal against Zuzu. But action has consequence. That goes both ways :)

Below is complete chatlog of the conversation that happened.

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

  Channel ID:      -61103543
  Channel Name:    Private Chat (alone)
  Listener:        calaretu
  Session started: 2014.06.25 19:33:02
---------------------------------------------------------------

[ 2014.06.25 19:33:16 ] Zuzu Aqua > o/
[ 2014.06.25 19:33:23 ] calaretu > didnt you have any ships in retreat?
[ 2014.06.25 19:33:48 ] Zuzu Aqua > i had navy vexor in SMA
[ 2014.06.25 19:33:51 ] Zuzu Aqua > in left hand
[ 2014.06.25 19:34:10 ] Zuzu Aqua > but when i logged on it wasnt there
[ 2014.06.25 19:34:49 ] calaretu > thing is. Only you and one other and directors was online during the time of the theft
[ 2014.06.25 19:35:14 ] Zuzu Aqua > oh
[ 2014.06.25 19:35:20 ] Zuzu Aqua > who was it
[ 2014.06.25 19:35:52 ] calaretu > the one the ships was stolen form
[ 2014.06.25 19:36:29 ] Zuzu Aqua > oh
[ 2014.06.25 19:37:28 ] Beliar Gray > interesting clue huh
[ 2014.06.25 19:37:33 ] Beliar Gray > oh noes
[ 2014.06.25 19:37:44 ] Beliar Gray > and yeah i know its petty thievery
[ 2014.06.25 19:37:52 ] Beliar Gray > im just lazy is all
[ 2014.06.25 19:38:10 ] Zuzu Aqua > sorry MD
[ 2014.06.25 19:38:15 ] Zuzu Aqua > just my gank alt getting burnt
[ 2014.06.25 19:38:22 ] Zuzu Aqua > thats why all the gunnery
[ 2014.06.25 19:38:43 ] calaretu > I'll give you a option to keep the alt usefull
[ 2014.06.25 19:38:47 ] calaretu > repay the lost ships
[ 2014.06.25 19:38:54 ] Zuzu Aqua > useful in what way
[ 2014.06.25 19:39:05 ] calaretu > not being listed along with your main as corp thieves
[ 2014.06.25 19:39:29 ] calaretu > that char is worth more than you stole
[ 2014.06.25 19:39:39 ] calaretu > and selling it without stain would profit you more
[ 2014.06.25 19:40:13 ] MD74 > could have just done some scouting during anoms, and you would have earned a few bill
[ 2014.06.25 19:40:20 ] Gentaros > #1
[ 2014.06.25 19:41:15 ] Zahard Ignis > #2
[ 2014.06.25 19:41:17 ] MD74 > give that guy his ships back man
[ 2014.06.25 19:41:22 ] Zuzu Aqua > #3
[ 2014.06.25 19:42:16 ] Zula Terra > #4
[ 2014.06.25 19:42:25 ] MD74 > so, whats your point here
[ 2014.06.25 19:43:06 ] Ryan Aego > #5
[ 2014.06.25 19:43:34 ] Beliar Gray > they all have 1 thing in common
[ 2014.06.25 19:43:37 ] Beliar Gray > corp thiefs
[ 2014.06.25 19:43:40 ] Beliar Gray > awoxers
[ 2014.06.25 19:43:44 ] Beliar Gray > infiltrators
[ 2014.06.25 19:43:45 ] Beliar Gray > spies
[ 2014.06.25 19:44:18 ] Beliar Gray > the ones starting with Z were made on the same day
[ 2014.06.25 19:44:46 ] Beliar Gray > infiltration wasnt the end purpose
[ 2014.06.25 19:44:48 ] MD74 > shame, i thought all slovenians were nice people
[ 2014.06.25 19:44:50 ] Beliar Gray > just an extra
[ 2014.06.25 19:45:22 ] MD74 > end purpose was getting away with a few bil in ships?
[ 2014.06.25 19:45:35 ] Beliar Gray > well
[ 2014.06.25 19:45:40 ] Beliar Gray > i dont really have much time atm
[ 2014.06.25 19:45:57 ] Beliar Gray > and i cant use these chars without linking them to me
[ 2014.06.25 19:46:05 ] MD74 > just give that guy his few ships back and find a better target
[ 2014.06.25 19:46:06 ] Beliar Gray > beliar is as burnt as it gets
[ 2014.06.25 19:47:00 ] Ben Li > and dudes said its ok to piss a few people off
[ 2014.06.25 19:47:41 ] MD74 > you didnt piss off people, you just took a few ships from a guy who didnt deserve that
[ 2014.06.25 19:48:00 ] Beliar Gray > mehh
[ 2014.06.25 19:48:10 ] Beliar Gray > you sent me password by accident
[ 2014.06.25 19:48:13 ] Beliar Gray > Peanuts
[ 2014.06.25 19:48:26 ] Beliar Gray > i had access to that pos and all in freely accessible SMA before
[ 2014.06.25 19:48:36 ] Beliar Gray > just sucks i actually had no time sooner
[ 2014.06.25 19:48:44 ] Beliar Gray > you have decent security
[ 2014.06.25 19:48:58 ] Beliar Gray > if i was gona pass on to ICOL i wasnt getting anything
[ 2014.06.25 19:49:11 ] Pandorath > and i knew that
[ 2014.06.25 19:49:54 ] MD74 > so you settled for  Tineoidea Asanari his few ships
[ 2014.06.25 19:50:14 ] Pandorath > well
[ 2014.06.25 19:50:25 ] Pandorath > and the ships in that other pos
[ 2014.06.25 19:50:38 ] Pandorath > jamgu and 2 guardians or sth
[ 2014.06.25 19:51:25 ] Spryt3 > 2.8b isnt a good theft
[ 2014.06.25 19:51:29 ] Spryt3 > http://i.imgur.com/cXBudFN.jpg this is a good theft
[ 2014.06.25 19:51:51 ] calaretu > haha. true that
[ 2014.06.25 19:52:57 ] Velia Canus > i was considering finding a better target
[ 2014.06.25 19:53:03 ] Velia Canus > but i had a c5>c5>hs
[ 2014.06.25 19:53:14 ] Velia Canus > and enough characters to fly it all out in 1 go
[ 2014.06.25 19:53:50 ] Velia Canus > it doesnt matter if you make a post for each one separately
[ 2014.06.25 19:54:26 ] Velia Canus > i always do it with clean alts or help friends that need my skills
[ 2014.06.25 19:55:20 ] MD74 > i dont give a damn about your chars man, you are just showing off here, bragging a bit. if this is how you like to play the game, then thats your choice. but im right about one thing; this game reflects how people are in rl. and you must be one big soab
[ 2014.06.25 19:55:36 ] MD74 > with a small penis
[ 2014.06.25 19:59:24 ] Jewels04 > k
[ 2014.06.25 19:59:41 ] Jewels04 > i hit you mainly because c5 and CFC are runing eve
[ 2014.06.25 19:59:46 ] Jewels04 > easy isk farm
[ 2014.06.25 19:59:57 ] Jewels04 > well incursions too
[ 2014.06.25 20:00:04 ] Jewels04 > but you dont make 600m/h there
[ 2014.06.25 20:03:18 ] Ben Li > enjoy your sleepers
[ 2014.06.25 20:03:26 ] Ben Li > i dont give a fuck