Yesterday afternoon a strike force of NULL and PL Supercarriers successfully assaulted the G-B station for the final timer.
In a rather fitting stroke of good fortune, Ryuu Hashu (My Aeon) got the final blow. With the station also under our control despite a last ditched effort by Provi-Bloc to last hit the station, G-B is officially liberated. All are welcome to dock at the newly named "TASHA DIABOLIQUE's Wafflehouse" in honor of our good friend Tasha Diabolique, the executor of Silent Infinity. (Seriously its a freeport). This concludes our G-B22J troll Care Factor campaign. . .
So I've had several people come up to me in various venues and inquire about joining NULL. Not surprising as we're awesome (and we have PL links and Super kills so probably very tempting to get in). So to head off everyone's question . . . NO.
We're only letting in personal friends of current members. You also need a deep and solid relationship with JSSix to get okayed. We just have access to too much information and too much hardware to be opening up the doors. Everyone who does meet the above requirements are told multiple times that from the outside it looks like its full of fun and excitement but in reality we really just sit around and wait for things to happen. We're not a working, established, alliance, just a group of people hanging out, trolling the hell out of each other and doing our own thing. Despite this, we recently had two individuals (and alts) join us this week. Long-time Spoonite and TLOS director Arakas (master Blue Killer) and previous AFK member, Midmaster mini-man. Of course this has made the conspiracy theorists go wild throwing accusations such as the following gem all over:
And to follow up on this, the dude I was referring to has now stopped with the charade, as thin as it was, and shown his true colors by joining up with Nihilist. It was obvious that he's been helping those guys for months, cynoing in our cloaky camper to 8B whenever we managed to kill him, and then scouting for the PL invasion fleet the night they took out our POS.
There is a lot of history with mid-master miniman and his alt tiffany web that I wasn't around for, but I think there are quite a few people who feel vindicated for pointing out all the circumstantial evidence that built up over time that this guy was helping our enemies.
Honestly, I don't much care for the spying and the awoxing side of the game. It's nice to finally have this dude out in the open as a red, instead of hiding next door in Silent Infinity behind a blue icon.
Of course, I wouldn't doubt that this is all part of the plan to show up Tib somehow, maybe by naming the station after him or some dumb shit like that once they take the system.
But Tib is truly gone from Eve, so he won't even know about it.That's sad, because we lost a good man who was passionate about the game and really, truly cared about people. He put in many, many hours organizing fleets, building up industry, helping people with mining boosts and he was ever ready to hop in an expensive ship and defend Provi from reds. I know that he's said some things in local that maybe he wished he hadn't, but he was a passionate guy who cared. It's a real shame to have lost him because these young twats are overly sensitive and couldn't handle Tib's personality, and thus made a many month's long effort to personally drive him out of the game.
Tonight, I saw on facebook he was spending his evening playing board games with his daughter, so maybe he won in the end after all?
(Lynnae Suriyawong)
Sounds to me like Tib won eve if you put it that way. . .
As many of you well know over the past week we've been playing around in the Care Factor system of G-B22J. What started as a 'lets hit their neo moon' escalated to 'lets lol sbu them' which escalated too ... 'um we just killed the ihub lol."
Really the best way to describe what has been happening is from Jssix . . . "wow that was fun."
Sadly I've missed the actual fun timers when provi-bloc wasn't camped by Nulli Secunda. Thankfully our good Dutch friend BalderCon made us all a video with excellent music to watch.
An interesting note some CVA corporations who shall not be named noticed that other CVA corporations actually have blue standings from us in the Video and started whining to Equi. Who of course had to come to us and ask us to remove those standings ... yeah seriously ...
SO, in order to level the playing field Nihilist Social Club is now selling corporation level standings, available only to CVA corporations. Costs will vary between 2 to 15 billion isk depending on how much we like you. All corporations who already have standings do not have to pay. All interested CEOs may send me an evemail or talk to our diplo.
that I would make a new blog post on Wednesday but instead spent the day putting together a new computer. Sadly I forgot one tiny little piece . . .
You might have noticed but there is no power supply . . . welp. Its now ordered and on the way so hopefully by the middle of next week...
In other personal news not a whole lot going on. My work shift is changing (again) and I'm back to mornings, 6am to 2pm! Sucks waking up at 4:45am but means my afternoons and evenings are cleared. They are also hiring full time again so actually put my name on the list this time. Forced Overtime starts Sunday because of a holiday and found out they can force us part timers from the last week of June all the way to august. Summer doesn't seem so fun, thankfully only two hours of overtime and having to work till 4pm beats having to work till midnight.
I heard rumors from Care Factor that I am, in fact, believed to own Sailor Moon Outfits. Sadly this is not true (although I do know a guy with a girls school sailor uniform and have seen him wearing it). I am a bit of an Otaku though and do have some figurines that have been gifted to me by my failed real life relationships with people . . . . Can you name what shows they come from Care Factor Members?
A lot has happened over the last week, even for the last 24 hours.
On the 7th we spotted a small POS being put up in Galeh, Balder, Kavok and I reinforced it and several other small towers in local, hoping to draw out some fights or capitals or . . . something. (1st Pos)
The 10th saw a WH moros that decided to aggro on the station. I jumped two dreads and an aeon in for this kill and the moros died before any of my carriers could get a lock. Latter in the day a Charon and Orca got BLOPSED in Asoutar by the Fishing Crew.
Sunday the 11th was rather uneventful with random small killings here and there but nothing spectacular or impressive. I ran a 6/10 in Arton and got shit all for loot (WHERE ARE YOU MY A-TYPE EANM!!!) However one event of significant note was the rather spontaneous decision to reinforce the Care Factor Neo moon in G-B.
Monday the 12th . . . The G-B Neo tower came out of reinforced and was promptly destroyed. We also caught a Borg Chimera that bounced off of a really bad cyno in Arton.
Today, Tuesday the 13th has been rather busy and we're only 11 hours in. Caught a Revelation in Arton that was bumped off the station. Oh, and Jssix SBU'ed G-B and we reinforced the Station and Ihub for lols. This week will be interesting as the Burn Factor Saga continues. Rumors of Tib leaving Eve has reached us and hopefully some juicy logs will be made public over the next day or two so expect some fun intel.
So I was baking lunch this morning . . . if you've never had Kentucky Spoon Bread and your NOT allergic to corn you MUST try it sometime (Recipe at the end for Turrann). Just as I was suppose to pull it out someone came onto the fishing comms and said he had an archon outside docking range in Hothomouh and wondered if we wanted to kill it. HELL YEAH!!!
Hop into BlackOps and get ready to jump . . . and the oven buzzer goes off . . . shit. Run to the kitchen, check the oven, oh it can stay in a few minutes. Reset the timer, run back to the computer, make the cyno and get on the kill! The archon is double tanked with named nos and a faction smartbomb in the highs. At some point a rorqual comes in and whores on the mail with us. In the end, the KSB turns out and +1 archon Kill.
Carrier Wrecks Look Sweet!
Kentucky Spoon Bread
1 can corn with juice (16 oz.)
1 can creamed corn (16 oz.)
4 eggs, beaten
3/4 stick of butter
16 oz sour cream
2 boxes of Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix
Preheat the oven to 350F. Mix all of hte ingredients in a bowl and pour into a baking dish.
Bake uncovered until the top is golden brown and the inside is firm (use a tooth-pick to check). Actual time varies based on how deep the pan you use is.
So people keep asking my why I left in February. Sometimes I semi-troll back, other times I give a somewhat serious answer. Its honestly a hard question to answer because there are so many little reasons. So probably start in the beginning?
If any single event or item is the most responsible it is probably this:
Imperial Aeon #2
Meet Imperial Aeon #2, this Aeon was the second mothership built by Imperial Dreams and originally belonged to Pers before I inherited it when Pers left the game. (Still waiting on Gothika's Avatar btw :p ). Originally piloted by Rovern and sat by Ryuu before Ryuu became skilled enough to use in combat. This Aeon was the perfect example of my philosophy ("If You Train It, It will Come"). Sadly still waiting on that Titan :P.
If any event you can blame, you can trace the root back to Late May of 2011 and the Yong Aeon gank were CVA and crew baited out 3 pirate Aeons and killed them in Yong (Balder Con Fraps Below)
Whats the connection? From that event, my love of killing capitals was solidified. Capital warfare emerged as my personal endgame. My Goal, My Dream.
Fast Forward two and a half years . . . A lot of faces have come and gone, the political landscapes changed over. I've been CEO of Imperial Dreams, and Allied Capital Commander for two years. If anything, our capital fleet is weaker than when I started. Super pilots have left or sold their supers, capital ships are not being pushed by corporations. Nobody cares about killing capitals or losing them for that matter. Is it my fault? In a way Yes. I failed to keep capital operations running. Did I have good ideas? Sure, did I ever push them through? No, not really. The organizational system I had been running just wasn't working. Corporations weren't pushing for capitals, their CCFM's barely talked to me, assuming they had one appointed. We had 300 people with capital access but hardly had more than 20-30 folks in cap chat. I couldn't form an all CVA cap fleet, half the time I couldn't even get enough allied dreads to one cycle medium towers, let alone hit dickstars or serious threats. Capitals weren't dieing, capitals weren't flying, Eve was a chore, it lacked fun for me.
Art0n Crew pulled me out of that slump. Jssix and Nbele often would chat on steam, would bring my attention back to the game (or other games). I'd look at the killboards and see, heres a group of people killing caps, lots of capitals. This is what I want to do. But they are KOS, can I work with them? Well if you follow CVA politics you know there is a long history with the members of Arton Crew. Many are x-cva, some are alts, some aren't alts. Some flip back and forth, everyone is tied to Provi-bloc in some fashion or another. Its like a retirement home for bitter vets who have had enough with idiots and just like to shoot things.
For me I had been thinking of potentially leaving for most of 2013. At first it was just a whisper. Sure, sometime in the future I thought. Things started to change though as I became more disenfranchised with the direction that both Provi-bloc and CVA had gone and my frustration in how cap fleet had been working out. The major tie still to CVA wasn't CVA itself but Imperial Dreams. Being CEO I obviously can't leave. But one of the wonderful things about IG was that the corp as we were set up ran itself. I could dissapear for two weeks and come back and nothing would be the matter. So that wasn't the issue, instead my deepest tie (outside of friends for years and eternal loyalty to IG) was our BPO collection, particularly are t2 bpo collection. We were organized as such several of us built off the BPOs (and paid fees based on profits) back to the corporation. If you've ever used t2 bpos before (I dare say most of you have never seen one let alone used it) they are extremely easy and the ones we utilized printed money in the 20-40% profit range. It was very easy isk and hard to walk away from. My reliance on personal income from using corp bpos however became severed during the summer of 2013 when after seven years I finally taught myself how to do invention (started with jumpfreighters than ended up with t2 crusier hulls such as HICS, HACs, and Recons).
With my financial concern now taken care of my thoughts of leaving turned from "can I leave" to "should I leave." During the fall of 2013 I slowly started retreating from my alliance level positions. I asked Equi to start finding people to replace me as I was running Cap Fleet, FCs, and theCitadel. I was also starting to hang out on Jssix's Art0n comms, even though I couldn't actually fly with them. It didn't take long till I was on Art0n comms more than CVA Mumble. It felt more like home than mumble ever did. November 2013 really became a significant month for me. At the beginning of November I stepped down as CEO of Imperial Dreams, handing the baton over to Koit who was our most active Director remaining (many have moved on to Mortal Online with Aralis or withdrawn from Eve). This cut the final connection forcing me to remain and also preemptively removed any temptation to potentially walk away with corp BPO assets (which are all locked down and can only be unlocked by the CEO). I of course never seriously thought about it but by stepping down well ahead of any movement there would be absolutely no cause or chance for suspicion. This is Eve after all and one never knows what will happen or what one will be accused of. In conjunction with this there were a lot of changes happening for me in real life too.
As a Millennial I had of course moved back into my parents house after college and been working nights for about 18 months. In November I moved out to rent from my uncle in Minneapolis, MN. Big deal as it meant leaving my old job and moving to a large city (rural MN boy for most of my life). A lot of changes happening. New Job as a part time order selector at a supermarket distribution center started in December and as I focused on new job I let my eve accounts unsub one by one. I still kept in touch with people but for the most part tried to do other things (like catch up on my anime).
And than . . . B-R happened. Like a fly attracted to a bug zapper I just couldn't turn away. Eve does that too me, I may have to take a break but its never long and I'm always drawn back. Same thing had happened when Asaki happened. So I'm resubbed but now what? Nothing had really changed when I was gone, issues I had had both with CVA and the game were still there. I started the long process of withdrawing assets. Let me tell you about moving seven years of assets out of a region. I probably blew over half a billion in isk on isotopes alone, carrier and jump freighting ships and mods out of various Providence stations to Arton. When I actually told JSSix I was going to join I think he was more surprised than anyone else. Many thought I would go to Silent Infinity if I left. The thought was very tempting. I had first met Tasha's alliance when we had a capital op in Modun, catching a large group of capitals attacking one of their POS. When they were made holders as we retook providence and given space surrounding my nest egg (VKI) I had really gotten to know Tasha and quite a few AFK members as we became close neighbors in Providence. They are a really great group of people and I deeply value our relationship and friendship. However joining Silent Infinity would mean not a whole lot really changing for me, I would still be in Provi-bloc with the same issues that bothered me, and if anything it would weaken my position as CVA has still for the most part been the source of authority in the area, although its impact and respect has diminished over the last few years. No I needed a clean political cut from Provi-Bloc directly and Arton was the easiest solution for me, other options might have included potential spots in Nulli Secunda or maybe even trying to get into a PL corporation but I wanted experience before anything else so NULL it was.
I'll be the first to admit I wasn't expecting to be shooting CVA the next day. I decided to leave quietly, a quick post in council a few days before actually leaving and a quick talk with equi. A squabble with Dyntheos over being a traitor in a chat channel, but that was it. No big goodbye speach, no attention grabbing thread on the forums, just a quick hop to a different corp, split between my alt corp and Derivian Solutions which belonged to a friend in NULL. The next day I found myself flying a guardian in a small tech 3 fleet defending a POS in Mamet from Provi-Bloc. I latter learned almost nobody outside a few people who had been told ahead of time knew I had left so when I showed up on the field (with Ren'va) I guess there was some confusion and a lot of surprise.
Since that move I dare say I have had a ton of fun. While my kill numbers aren't anything special I've been involved in a significantly larger number of capital ganks/fights than in the last several years and I've been able to utilize ole Imperial Aeon #2 significantly more over the last few months. The last few months have been some of the most enjoyable times for me in Eve ever. Especially working with (really just tagging along and kmwhoring) the fishing crew from PL. Its been an eye opening experience in how people can be hunted and just how focused and good these guys are at what they do.
...
So after typing this huge wall I'm sure I still haven't really answered the question of why I left. I kept hinting at being upset with the state of Providence, particularly CVA but never broached what bothered me.
I joined CVA in late Spring, early Summer of 2007, the week after the fall of 9uy when CVA took the station from Ushra'Khan. To be more correct I joined Imperial Dreams which happened to be the executor of CVA. I did not join IG because of CVA, I joined CVA because of IG and I have publicly made that clear numerous times. Eve was very different back than, conflicts were significantly more localized, power projection wasn't nearly as far as it is today. There were no Jump bridges, no titan bridges. You 'walked." Capitals were rare and extremely valuable logistically as well as on the battlefield. CVA was strong, coming off a major victory over one of their most biter rivals, they were respected for their staying power and battleship fleets. The CVA of that day was very different from today's iteration. There was no question of who they were and what they stood for. They were Amarrians bringing law and order to the lawlessness of null-sec. NRDS was their tool, but the empire was their endgoal. You didn't talk in local, you didn't trashtalk the empire. If you looked at us funny we would KOS you and be done with it, no time wasting, gunboat diplomacy when needed, and never afraid to war dec.
Over the next two years as Ushra'Khan slowly fell apart and CVA lost its nemesis that hardness started to disappear. The perma war with UK came down. We let in more corporations who weren't nearly as committed to the empire. At some point we stopped being the loyalist alliance and became the NRDS alliance. When the Catch war failed and we were expelled most of our allies disappeared but we stuck to it as friends went off to greener pastures. CVA persevered but it never returned to that "Amarrian Alliance." When we retook Providence we became even laxer. We had become 'a casual' alliance, full of 'carebears' and fluff. We threw space at anyone who showed up to take it as long as they agreed to NRDS. Some deserved it, some perhaps didn't. We lost our leadership, the old guard slipped away, the experienced FCs with an exception or two slipped to other places were their skills were more valued. Our Super pilots left or sold their supercarriers because why own it if we won't use it? We became militarily backwards, always following never innovating anymore (RIP Pulse Pocs & Panic Fleet).
Today CVA is a leader of equals, not a ruler of Holders. The FCs and the combat pilots were no longer majority CVA. Capital Ops had to be coalition level as CVA struggled to field its own capital group. The region, while it can pull decent numbers, continues to exist at the whim of its neighbors. Casual alliances have no place as a leader in Null-Sec. I grew up in a harder, leaner, less casual alliance. My dream is that of a CVA that was mobile and militarily powerful, that could play with the big boys, deploy were it needed to. Today's CVA is not that, and will probably never be able to become that without completely destroying itself. The Amarrian vision was corrupted and lost and so was my faith in the alliance.
That is not to say the people in CVA are failures or that anyone person or group of people are to blame. The desire to be casual handicapped the alliances development and the people in leadership roles including myself did nothing to guide it down a different path and in that sense I failed not only myself, my dream, but my alliance and my corporation. The people in CVA (for the most part) are a great group of people, many of whom I have known for years. I stuck around for seven years and its not easy letting go of the relationships you develop over that stretch of time.
So I guess, after all that writing and splerging . . . I left CVA because CVA ceased to be the alliance I felt it was suppose to be. I was tired of casual in an alliance I felt shouldn't be casual (Arton is even more casual but there is no pretense for being anything else nor is there an expectation of anything else). Combined with responsibilities and disappointments that soaked all the fun of EVE out of my day to day experiences with it I needed a change and NULL was my answer. As far as the future goes who knows. I'm having a blast in NULL right now, participating in fishing Ops, trolling Care Factor, and genuinely just shooting whatever happens to undock next to me (try it sometime its rather relaxing). I have a feeling however that at some point I will grow bored of it and move on to something else. How long that takes or when it happens is anyones guess.
So today while at work I realized I hadn't eaten anything before heading in, I also hadn't had time to shower . . . why you ask?
I woke up and got on coms as I usually do in the mornings (say 11:45ish). Spend some time, chit chatting, and trolling of course. Start to get up to go say hi to the housemates and find something to eat when Sixie suddenly says, "Rovern log the aeon in." Quickly come back and log Ryuu in and get in fleet. Lot of people on the fishing TS3. Target system is in titan range so get the hictor on our titan and wait. Our Prober cyno gets the probe hits and warps in to the target (a SOLAR aeon). Lands and the aeon is cloaked but our prober starts traveling along the line of warp knowing that the aeon has to be cloaked somewhere close by, its not like he can move out of the way quickly. Sure enough we manage to decloak him, cyno up, and a mass of HICs land and tackle and . . . well you can figure out the rest. Thus 2 NULL supercarrier pilots retain their #2 and #3 spots on the PL Killboard for points :p.
Last night as things were beginning to wind down and some of us were starting to nudge asleep TS3 suddenly woke up as we were alerted that two Nyx's had been spotted traveling. People were asked to have a cyno burned to a system they were pretty sure these Nyx's were either traveling to or were going to mid through as we began to poke each other awake. With the target system in titan range of both of our Domain and Derelik staging areas we had HICs on titans in both sides. Sure enough cyno goes up, but its only Nulli Secunda . . . PL can't hit them . . . damn . . . Wait a little longer . . . another cyno, warp to . . . NYXes on scan.
Our Cyno Goes Up, Titans Bridge Hics . . . the rest . . . well you can guess.
One interesting note is as we were killing them both pilots claimed to be joining N3 . . . particuarly Cult of War. Little Fishy and PL didn't buy it. You have to be really careful when traveling south New Eden low-sec. Never trust anyone, even allies of people you are 'joining.' If your ticker isn't right, people aren't going to care what you 'PLAN' to do.
Our favorite Dutch Pirate Balder Con has released a video made up of a collection of fraps from the past few weeks including the two titan kills and the Mifrata fight recently.
So after a terrible day in the freezer (Picking tickets sucks) got home 30 minutes early to be told LOG YOUR SUPER IN!!!! Quickly did so and managed to make the jump in to catch a bunch of carriers we had found. Result, lots of PL and NULL Supers on Kills!!!
In a rather fitting stroke of good fortune, Ryuu Hashu (My Aeon) got the final blow. With the station also under our control despite a last ditched effort by Provi-Bloc to last hit the station, G-B is officially liberated. All are welcome to dock at the newly named "TASHA DIABOLIQUE's Wafflehouse" in honor of our good friend Tasha Diabolique, the executor of Silent Infinity. (Seriously its a freeport). This concludes our G-B22J troll Care Factor campaign. . .
