Dry your tears

Well this went better than expected!
My RL moving went smoothly, and I even shamed RagnaR into posting again, Huzzah!
Still, RL work starts monday, so don't expect new posts every day...maybe once a week, or as often as I have stuff to say.

Farewell my ass!

Yes, that's right, my ass. All of it.

My ass.

Although Cesare is gone (For now or ever, hopefully the former), this blog is not (at least not completely). Although not nearly as diligent in writing, you will be hearing from me from time to time, when I can manage the motivation to get off my apparently "lazy, frozen ass". Now, I don't really have a lot of time to play EVE these days, and I don't play every day, but this blog isn't dead, not even close. So don't delete that bookmark yet!

So in the past weeks, pretty much since christmas, my corp has been declining in activity. This started during the holidays, when people generally didn't have much time to get on and do stuff. The few times people actually had time, nobody else was online and this has kind of snowballed since then. See, people stop coming online to do stuff with the corp because nobody is coming online to do stuff with the corp (omg so meta!). And thus the cycle continues, and the result: A low-activity corp. Balls.

Me in my corp chat recently. So ronery. Also an accurate representation of this blog.

So the CEO and director decided it was time to step up our game. Thus we began to ponder moving to nullsec, like we had planned before, to get the ball rolling. I won't go into any specific details, but we decided to join an existing, small, established alliance, since nobody likes blobs. This of course means leaving our own alliance (Corelum syndicate), but I think they will be kept running as our logistics division. We're currently on our trial period with the new alliance, before they "deem us worthy" to join, so that means: MURDER TIME! Just yesterday evening, I got in on a small fleet patrol around our home system, and we managed to kill about a billion worth of stuff (one of which was a 600m isk pod, oh deary me). So things are looking up in the murder division, yarrr!!

Anyway, that's what's going on in my EVE-life these days. I will update to the best of my ability, although the updates won't be daily, or even bi-daily. Maybe weekly. Depends on my busy schedule and playtime. So adios for now!

Farewell!

Music to accompany this post:

Well my friends, it's been a blast writing this blog and chatting with you willing readers in the in-game chat channel.

Sadly, since RagnaR doesn't seem to be getting off his lazy frozen ass, there will be no more daily posts on this blog in the near future.

Since my new real life job is starting and I'm moving to a new town, I need time to settle in and may not have much time for EVE, let alone writing about it.

I'll check back in here in a week's time if all goes well, and we'll see how things go from there. Maybe I'll never write here again, maybe I'll update it once a month...once a week...maybe we'll even be back on the daily schedule.

In the mean time, keep pew-pewing and raking in that space-cash!

win some, lose some

Word of the day: hangar: it's spelled hangar, not hanger, get it through your collective skulls!

Music to accompany this post:

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Remember when I said my bank statement was quite a roller-coaster? Well I finally found a way to graph it out, by plugging my API into EVE mentat (it's a pretty cool tool, and APIs in general are fantastic, also give EVEmon a try if you haven't already)

As you can see, things were pretty steady until I discovered the joys of trading, and became more and more aggressive in doing so. I brought my wallet funds to near 0 a total of 10 separate times within a 9 day span, but each time making more profit back immediately...except with those 1,5 billion litres of heavy water. I still have a third of that to unload.

It's been a busy and fruitful time, although the pure graph doesn't show it, peaking for only a few seconds at over 200 million cash. There have been no actual  losses, only investments (like 50 million worth of attribute implants on the 23rd, and 54 mil worth of skill-books on the 24th).

After spending so much time trading, I felt like it was time to vary tastes, so I did go back to mining for a little while. Managing to haul a record amount of 106 million ISK worth of minerals on the 23rd, I basically spent all afternoon and evening strip-mining two belts, while semi-AFK packing my things IRL. But minerals are only potential and unproductive money...they're piling up in my hangar, taking up ungodly amounts of space (good thing there's infinite room in that station).




A few missions with my Omen cruiser, æole had put me in a cocky mood, so I started clearing up rat nests in scan sites, for relatively good bounty prises. Most importantly, I was actively playing the game, not just clicking something every few minutes...the problem was, æole was pretty powerful, and quickly, these activities devolved into something similar to mining very small asteroids. ctrl-click, W-click, F1, rinse and repeat. At 30km, I was almost always out of range.

Then one day Trioxis the billionaire for whom mining is but a hobby told me about an incursion not far from where I was. Hmmm...an incursion. I have no idea how these things work, but there's only one sure-fire way to find out.
I heard RagnaR's voice inside my head: "faggot!" he called me...well that wasn't very helpful. "faggot! noo! don't do incursions with æole!"...oh, right, well that's a bit more helpful. Yet I chose to disregard that rude advice.
Entering the contested system, I saw that local was packed. ALL RIGHT! Let's do this! ...but 47 out of the 50 people in local were actually dustees. Crap. Nobody's fighting in space.
Well it can't be that bad, I figure, I'll just warp to one of these incursion sites and see what all the hubbub is about, eh? They're proabbly stronger than I am in æole, but I'll just take a look and warp out.
No. No, I still haven't learned from my mistakes, and continue to do reckless things like that. Immediately after using the acceleration gate, I target and open fire on the sansha bastards 30 km away from me. Aw yes! the perfect range! But within seconds, moving at seemingly 10k/s, frigates get the drop on me and quickly start draining my shields and armour. crap crap crap. Good thing I'm already alligned to the nearest...they're warp-scrambling me CRAP CRAP CRAP KABOOOOOM!...well shit. I need a new cruiser. RIP æole, you were the best friendship I ever had (apart from Tuggy the tugboat, Life Lessons,  several Belly Belugas and Speedy Gonzales).

Screw it, I'm not getting another Omen, I'll just train up Battlecruisers before CCP splits them into faction skills...then a side dish of covert ops. But first, let's refocus on my strong points: mining and trading. In a couple of weeks, I'll buy an exhumer, that'll teach those space-rocks who's boss!

The history of New Eden as I understand it - part 4/4: The Empyrean Age aka present day

word of the day: Goonswarm: ...your guess is as good as mine on this one.

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Music to accompany this post:


In AD 23236, all the major Factions had met each other and established a fragile balance of power. That year, at the Yoiul Conference, the factions' various calendars were abandoned in favour of EVE Standard Time, which is suspiciously similar to our real-life Gregorian calendar. Thus began year YC 0 (Yoiul Conference).
Fictional Turmoil continued until YC 105, when the Capsule and the clone were successfully merged, and players joined the universe. That was 2003 by our Earthly Gregorian calendar,which makes YC 115 the current year.

My own EVE experience being very limited in time, and there being no official information on the events of the past 10 years, I resorted to outsourcing. Below, you will find a personal outlook on the history of Eve throughout the years, courtesy of reddit-person l33teci. Only slightly edited for spelling and grammar.
Many thanks to him!

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There were no faction wars in 2003, Eve was a different place. A more elegant era when battleships were looked upon as Titans are today. Resources were scarce and income was low, no one was burdened by blobs and many were unaware of the riches that lay in null sec. There were no capital ships, no alpha maelstroms, no logistic supported fleets.
We flew active-tanked ships for some time, meeting someone in space was uncommon unlike today. You could have gone past entire high sec and only meet few people.
One of the first to emerge as a superpower of those days was the PA ( Phoenix Alliance ) taking the North for them selves and establishing them selves as a dominant null sec alliance. But their reign would not be long-lived for others soon rose to power. One alliance would soon rise above the others with ambitions to claim all sov there was:
The first to emerge was a power greedy alliance know to many as Band of Brothers and the lasting peace would soon end. In May 2004 the hammer was struck and it had begun The Great Northern War that would soon engulf everyone.
PA resisted BoB but their will will soon have been broken as the friends who PA has long neglected leave their side as the evermore growing BoB sliced a deeper wound. The war had lasted for almost a year and in December 2004 the final battle closed the chapter and rule of Phoenix Alliance.

However, as one chapter closes another, one opens and the drums of war will soon beat again. While BoB was busy fighting in the north, Removing PA and its allies from their sov, new power started to rize in the shadows of empire. One that all ridiculed but many soon learned to fear.
After the purge of the North, the eye of the newly found BoB alliance looked upon the regions of Fountain  Delve and Querious. BoB started to move towards the south, purging everything in their path, from Deklin to Querious. Finally reaching their desired home: the Fortress Delve where in BKG they established their rule and raised their first station.
Enter the age of capitals, the behemoths that will soon dominate everyone in sov space. The first to seek this new power was BoB, with determination to eradicate anyone who would have tried to stop them or produce capitals on their own.
We knew super capitals existed but no-one talked about them they were rare and not looked upon everyday. The mere mention that an alliance was building a super capital would erupt in a mass conflict. However no one could stop what had begun, and no one at that time predicted what was to come.
And soon the first Titan was born to Ascendant Frontier (ASCN) who would not see a long life. Null sec was once again engulfed in a war that would be the prequel to the First Great War.
From the shadows rose one alliance who BoB hated more than anything else, give birth to Goonswarm and soon the two were fighting each-other  Goonswarm relied on their numbers and inexpensive ships while BoB relied on the power of T2 ship who at that time had no match. Goonswarm was eventually defeated and fell back to NPC space. But they were not to stay there forever.
The era gave birth to other major alliances the RSF, Red Alliance, KIA and TCF... Yet all of these would not be enough to bring BoB to its knees. War after war, battle after battle, BoB continued to beat the southern alliances back until that faithful day when a foolishly cloaked Titan piloted by the infamous SirMolle fell prey. With this one stroke, the southern alliances had ended BoB's campaign and forced them to retreat in the fortress Delve where they maybe should have remained.

Hidden in their fortress Delve, BoB begun to resupply and prepare for war that will determine the future of us all. Hidden in their keep the Greater BoB Community ( GBC ) will face the might of the Red Swarm Federation and their new nemesis the Northern Coalition.
So it begun the First Great War of our time. We were no longer poor and careful as we were back when it all begun. The industry has kicked in and mass supply had begun, those who once could not fly battleship were now fielding dreadnoughts and carriers.
GBC soon found themselves surrounded from all sides and hostile to everyone in the universe. They stood alone against the overwhelming force that has risen to end their reign.
The war lasted for a year, and many fell in battle. Feeling the pressure from both South and North GBC could no longer endure they have managed to push the enemy back but unable to hold what they have taken. The GBC War machine pushed the Northern alliances all the way back to Venal. With North defeated, GBC refocused their effort on the South. They will reach all the way to Detroid and for the moment establish the biggest sov empire that ever was or will be. Their dominion spanned from Venal to Fountain to Paragon Soul to Detroid.
But RSF and AAA will not have given up so easily. Striking at displaced GBC elements whenever they could, taking system by system, basing out of Catch and Querious. With GBC now fully occupied in the south, RAZOR took the chance and regained their home in Tenal.
With their forces scattered in the south and NC pushing from the north with a combined forces of RSF, AAA and Red Alliance GBC had no choice but to retreat back to Delve to reconsolidate their forces.

With GBC fortified in Delve and the rest of universe eager to rid the universe of this Goliath peace after the First Great War had not lasted long. Old alliances would soon be broken and the Second Great War would begin.
The war saw defeat of GBC which was followed by many other wars between GBC remnants and Goonswarm and NC. Soon BoB was disbanded and reformed in to KenZoku which will not endure for long but will reform in to IT.
There will be many smaller wars between the two sides PL will be evicted, NC will be defeated and the remnants of old BoB will once again become the dominant force in EVE.
There are many great wars and events that transpired in this time the eviction of PL, Max Damage 1 and 2 campaigns etc. IT will establish itself as dominant alliance by the sheer number of super capitals and titans they were able to field but this will not last.
The last great war we witnessed was war between IT / NC / DRF. In the end all 3 will fall and from their ashes will rise a new coalition one more powerful than any before the CFC.
Today, we have two greater coalitions: CFC and HBC. Soon history was to repeat itself.

As First Great War has passed we have seen complete remap of the universe those who ruled for so long have now been defeated and the North and South divided by the victors. Those with numbers took to the north while those who were too late to voice their opinion headed south.
Peace did not last long, but everyone took their time to rebuild and reship. Those in the north will have soon learned that their keep, has become the backbone of the industry. With north now fully populated and empire becoming more and more alive with people who now could afford to fly better ships and with new doctrines being born the era of T2 hulls has been set in motion. The era of Tech has begun, the industry was in motion and the wast wealth of tech soon fell in to the eye's of the enemy.
First Great War left many scars on a lot of people many have fallen but few have risen and the sift of power has happened once again. From the quiet darkness of Catch a sole corporation will soon rise and shake the very foundation of the universe.
Those who were once enemies now formed what will be the most fierce force in EVE. Goonswarm was first to enlist help of their ranks and with their strength and experience they smashed the BoB warmachine in the very heart of their fortress. This ragged band of skilled pilots took to the north grabbing system by system until finally claiming the Fountain.  They prospered and grew and soon forgot their Goonswarm friends and start anew, with great ambitions in mind.
BoB remnants now on the brink of destruction prepare for the onslaught. But the mind of a sociopath is not easily tamed. In an effort to evade being sieged in Delve and certain defeat, GBC rallies for a counter attack to secure their former empire.
With a force never seen before, a capital fleet unmatched by it's size by any other, supported by a supercapital fleet they took to the north. Battle after battle the sound of doomsdays spread death and destruction in the north, no station to siege, no system to take, no moon to grab only utter destruction and chaos of infrastructure and ships.
The campaign had ended by a bright death of a titan in VFK. Northren Coalition at this time fell back to Tribute which from where they will launch a counter offensive and drive the madness from the north back to Delve.
In the south a betrayal echoes as AAA a previous ally of Goonswarm takes up arms against them and siding with GBC to take the south for them selves. With bitter defeat in the north what was left of GBC deployed to south to aid AAA against their oldest foes.
But there was no victory in the south only sorrow as once great alliance is brought on their knees. Disbanded by the madman they will reform in to a shortlived alliance KenZoku and so ended the firs MAX campaign.

But the betrayal will not have been easily forgotten, and bitterness of defeat had the universe poised on the brink of war once again.
After 5 years of conflict and war, one side finally managed to gain the upper hand: The Coalition. Assembled at full strength the alliances of north and south rallied against KenZoku, AAA, Atlas and the remnants of GBC to root out the menace from it's home and existence.
This time those that have been ridiculed since their creation will lead the spearhead of the offensive. With Goonswarm leading the attack in to the heart of Delve and Northren Coalition from the north and TFC from Querious the Goliath has finally been surrounded in its home.
Was was not as easy as everyone expected. The defense was fierce but in Fountian an alliance had taken shape that will emerge as Pandemic Legion. In hellish fortress of Delve a capital fight first of it's kind is about to erupt with massive losses to both sides yet The Coalition managed to outlast their enemy.
Now surrounded in 49-U a battle never witnessed before is about to take place. The last stronghold of GBC fell and with it fell Delve in a battle of near 2000 pilots The Coalition managed to finally defeate the GBC.
So ends the Second Great War, PL held Fountain  Goonswarm captured home of their enemy and the Northern Coalition returned to it's home in the north for their time had now come to rule over the galaxy.

KenZoku now defeated and their allies scattered it was time for them to look back on their many mistakes but the Goliath many believed was dead will soon rise again under new flag and new name and their wrath will follow them where they for vengeance is undying in our universe.
From the chaos of defeat had risen a new alliance, the IT Alliance. The thirst of vengeance is never fulfilled and soon their former home will be set ablaze by the fire of their titans. The second MAX campaign had begun with their eyes set upon Fountain.
The space will not have been easily regained as a new alliance has risen to power. It began in late 2009 with a full on invasion of Fountain by IT Alliance against Pandemic Legion. Goonswarm rallied to support Pandemic Legion but the fury of the IT warmachine could no longer be held back. With a short strike they evicted Pandemic Legion from their space, recapturing system by system, cutting off Goonswarm from the help of the north and their eyes set upon Y-2 a border system in to their old home.
They stroke with all their fury and strength in Y-2, the final standing ground for Goonswarm and Pandemic Legion. The battle lasted for some time and when the smoke cleared IT Alliance stood as clear victor they were back and in strength. On that day they managed to inflict heavy losses on PL and Goonswarm with PL titans dead and many other capital ships lay ruined the gates to Delve have been opened.
Fearing certain defeat and humiliation, Goonswarm refused to pay their Sov bill and thus lost Delve and by extent the war. Soon a Goonswarm leader will do on to them what, one has done to BoB.

IT Regained their former stronghold of Delve and this time they will not give it up easy. They surrounded them selves with blue alliances in Fountain and Period Basis and fortified Delve but they will soon make the same mistake as past always repeats itself.
And so the galaxy lay in quiet for the moment as everyone has been defeated by the war that had been going on since the fall of Phoenix Alliance. Goonswarm soon after their defeat reformed back in the north with their old friends the Northern Coalition. Wars erupted and wars ended but there was no shift in power as the massive supercapital build up had begun with all sides in race to build as many as they could.
The ego in the north grew and echos of the war drums were heard once again. Eager to stand on top combined forces of IT and Atlas will launch a maximum damage campaign against NC smashing as they move through north. This time the north will lead the advance, unable to match their super capitals one to one they relied on their subcapitals where odds were two to one. Soon after GSF will join the cause and assault on Delve will begin once again.
The invasion resulted in stalemate and IT had no options but to fall back yet again the balance of power has finally come true. But pilots of the north will not have, stayed in the north their assault soon followed IT to their door steps.
Yet IT had not yet felt the pressure of the events that had taken place, unaware that soon their neglect of their friends will cost them their keep. One by one the alliances in buffer zones of Fountain and Period Basis fell and the war front sifting north and south and echo of betrayal was heard once again.
Slowly, the buffer alliances began to collapse and to pathway to Delve was once again clear. Knowing full well that there is no change to stand against NC them selves IT Alliance finally acted but it was too late the enemy had reached Delve. PL will accompany the northern alliances in their conquest of Delve to exact their revenge on those who evicted them from Fountain.
IT Alliance had collapsed yet again and their home forever turned in to a wasteland. But the heart of the beast kept beating on as their goal was still there and as long as Goonswarm was alive they will never have won.
The mighty IT Alliance had finally been defeated...or so it seemed.

The history of New Eden as I understand it - part 3/4: Rise of the Empires (continued)

Word of the day: hubris: overwhelming pride that leads to one's downfall.

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Music to accompany this post:

Gallente Federation

A melting-pot of various peoples federated under one banner, the biggest population group being the Gallenteans themselves, Descendents of Frenchmen; Gallente was founded  as a state on their home planet in the 23rd millennium  About 500 years after the first jump gate was built by the Amarr, and didn't become the Federation we know today until  in the 24th Millennium  by which time they had made contact with several nations. Most notably the Intaki, Mannar and Caldari; the latter seceding from the federation shortly after its formation.
Half a century later, they met the Amarr for the first time, and a cold but cordial relationship is established between them, with only a couple galaxy-wide wars. One famous inter-imperial dispute was even settled by the Quafe company, makers of soft drinks.

The Gallente Federation is a hedonistic democracy, and therefore lives to entertain, and typically strives to expand not by military conquest, but by offering a better life to its citizens. This leads to a very high and welcome immigration rate. Being a culture of luxury and enjoyment, the rich are extremely rich, and the poor are similarly poor, but all live in relative harmony within the borders of the second largest Empire in the galaxy.

Gallente tl;dr: What the present-day USA want you to believe they are

Minmatar Republic

Settled on their home planet of Matar, and becoming a united people in the early 21th Millennium  all was fine and dandy for the Minmatar for a while, building their first spaceships in the mid 22nd Millennium and populating three adjacent systems through ancient stargates, with technological advances rivalling any other major culture.

Then one day, the Amarr showed up and claimed ownership of the land and its people. The Minmatar spent thousands of years as slaves under their evil overlords, but as the Amarr hegemony started to crumble due to hostile encounters with the Jovians and Gallente, they took their chances and escaped the clutches of their captors to found a newly independent nation in 23216 AD.

The Minmatar people, calling themselves the Matari, are by far the largest population group in New Eden, however their political power is limited. Not all Matari live within the confines of the republic. Indeed three quarters of their people are scattered around the galaxy, as former or even current slaves. This leads their culture to focus on tribesmanship and personal achievement. Although the tribes do not hesitate to unite in times of need, most planet-dwelling Matari live lives of farming and industry in small communities, and space-farers are typically lone traders and/or pirates.

Minmatar tl;dr: Former slaves and current gypsies

Jove Directorate

The Jovians are by a wide margin the most elusive and technologically advanced society in this fictional videogame universe, and are the only major faction unavailable to players.

It only took then a couple of centuries to recover from the closure of the EVE gate, and therefore their starting level of technology in New Eden was close to that of the Milky Way while all other settlements wallowed in the Dark Ages. Continuing their technological progression in many directions but especially their own human biology, Jove became a society of genetically engineered mutants, with powers of the mind and body unfathomable to puny naturally-born people.

This led them to millennia of successive and successful golden ages, but as expected, their hubris came to bite them in the ass when their strict governmental control on these practices momentarily lapsed. The very foundation of their society started breaking down as a genetic disease with a 100% fatality rate emerged from their reckless manipulations.

Today, the Jovians are but a faded memory of their glory days, but their technological feats still place them unfathomably far beyond the capabilities of all the other Empires in Eve combined.

Although they mostly keep to themselves, they have been known to mingle from time to time. They first made contact with the Gallente Federation the same year that the Caldari splintered off, but broke diplomatic relations only 7 years later, then introduced themselves to the rest of the Empires within a few decades.

Although their interactions with the Empires have been very limited, they have born grave consequences: dealing the Amarr Empire a crushing defeat which profoundly changed the very history of the  Galaxy, and giving the Caldari pod technology just a decade later.

Jove tl;dr: 2spooky

Miscelaneous

Besides the Great Empires exist smaller independent factions, mostly inhabiting the lawless regions of the outer systems. The most renowned  are Sansha's Nation, the Angel Cartel, Serpentis, the Guristas and The Syndicate.

Tomorrow: the present state of affairs and the history built by players.

The history of New Eden as I understand it - part 2/4: Rise of the Empires

Word of the day: procrastinator: lazy bum who'd rather read internet blogs instead of working towards a valuable goal.

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Music to accompany this post:

Let's go alphabetical order, which is the right order, because I like to roleplay an Amarr supremacist.
Coincidentally, the empires were also approximately founded in this order.

Amarr Empire

The Amarr  theocratic Empire was formed in the 17th millenium AD with the crowning of the first Emperor, However we do know that the Amarr culture was born much earlier, when some nutjob proclaimed himself prophet in 8000 AD, back when the EVE gate was still open.

As devout religious zealots, the Amarrians started conquering and enslaving other people as soon as they got back on their feet after the Dark Ages. Being the first people to rediscover warp-drive technology in the 23rd Millenium AD, they spread out their sphere of influence and enslaved ever more colonies, including the Minmatar.
Steadily growing as a culture and an Empire, but always fervent in their religious worship, the Amarr eventually hit a snag when encountering the Jove and the Gallente, bringing their expansionist politics to a halt, and eventually losing grasp of the Minmatar in the 24th Millenium.

Nowadays, the Amarr Empire still spans about 40% of Empire space, and its inhabitants relish in the faded all-powerful glory of the Empire. This sadly leads them to a slower technological advancement in contemporary times compared to the other three Empires (The Jove are in a league of their own).

Amarr tl;dr: "fuck you, you're my slave now."   



Caldari State



The Settlements on planet Caldari emerged from the Dark Ages and started recording their history two hundred years before the Amarr Empire was to be formed. Tribes merged on Caldari Prime to form the Raata Ampire 1200 years later, yet it eventually collapsed and splintered into faction-states at the end of the 21st millennium.
Living the land-lubber life for a few centuries more, they were eventually discovered and contacted by the Gallente Federation, which for some reason took over 50 years between discovery and first contact. Procrastinators. The Caldari and Gallente became BFFs and worked together to build their first stargate in 22588 AD. But of course, as the more advanced civilization, the Gallente took most of the credit and profit from that venture, leading to unrest and eventually full-out war between the two.

The Caldari State is peculiar in its politics, as it is not technically one Empire, but rather a collage of various megacorporations flying the same Caldari banner. These corporations nest myriads of smaller companies, and infighting between the megacorps is frequent, leading to an extremely competitive capitalist society. However, they do keep some unity, jumping at the chance to fight non-Caldari interlopers, be the battles fought on the market, or in space.
Strictly politically speaking, the Caldari State is weak and forgettable, only being the 3rd largest Empire in New Eden. Yet their extremely strong economy, coupled with an equally strong military tradition, makes the Caldari a true force to reckon with.

Caldari tl;dr: almost a parody of the present-day USA


Tomorrow, we will have on the menu the Gallente and Minmatar, with a side dish of Jove.

The history of New Eden as I understand it - part 1/4: Ancient EVE History

Word of the day: eponymous: in the broadest sense, something named after something else. Example: Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden

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Music to accompany this post:


On my first day of playing, I said to my old buddy RagnaR who introduced me to the game, that Eve was wonderful because it had no backstory. Whatever players decided to make happened in the game is the  history, and even as a non-capsuleer, I'd read about major events in the Eve universe. Like the burning of Jita, and the real-life passing of Vile Rat, member of the Council of Stellar Management, the player/dev interface.
Of course, RagnaR metaphorically slapped me and told me there are hundreds of pages of backstory and lore written, and I should go study it...dammit, first NPC agents now him, why does everyone behave like they're my mum?

In the end, by my account, I was almost half-right. EVE has a lot of backstory, some of which I'll try to summarize in the next few days, but even official Eve lore has a great amount of content from after the game went live and its universe became a living breathing world populated by actual players.

Before EVE

As in many sci-fi opuses set in the far future,  planet Earth has been lost to the ages, indeed the whole milky way galaxy is lost in time and space to the inhabitants of New Eden, ie. you and I playing EVE Online.
The human species had evolved technologically to the point where space travel was not only possible, but also profitable thanks to exploration and asteroid mining (indeed even now in the real world, some hotheads are speculating and investing in this very idea). Colonies were placed on nearby moons and planets. Our solar system was fully settled by around 2700 AD. As expected  it snowballed from there and soon Jump Gates,Warp Drive and Jump Drives were invented, making interstellar travel possible. Well, "soon" meaning 900-1200 years later.

One day, in the year 7987 AD, a massive wormhole near Canopus was discovered, leading to a whole other Galaxy. It was symbolically named EVE. Some experts claimed this discovery to be "off da hizzok!". Paleolinguists are baffled to this day.
People nicely played together to stabilize the wormhole with massive jump gates on each side, taking a couple hundred years for their construction alone. The gates artificially and successfully held EVE open, but 75 years after its discovery,  it all broke down. Travel between the Milky way and the freshly-colonised New Eden system and its eponymous Galaxy was cut off.
Thus ended an Era of mankind.

The Dark Ages

Without the vital industrial and material support from the Milky Way, most colonies in New Eden suffered  full societal breakdowns, and almost all of the history from this Era has been left unrecorded.
However, human beings being the resilient kind, several settlements survived in isolated pockets of space and eventually grew into the five great Empires: Amarr, Caldari, Gallente, Minmatar, and to my surprise, Jove, whom I didn't know being of Human origin.

Keep a watchful eye, tomorrow I will tell you the little I know about the rise of the four Empires.

All is quiet

Expression of the day: Status quo (also an English rock band from the 70s), meaning everything is as it was before, nothing is changing, the status is quo.

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Nothing interesting has happened to me in Eve these past few days, hauling cargo, a bit of mining, playing the market, making a profit.

So to excuse my lack of writing, here are some pikatures:

Perimeter gate to Jita clogged on Saturday

Maybe if I shoot my lasers backwards, æole will go faster

Rat cruiser getting pounded and futilely trying to fight back

Brevity

Word of the day: tedious: boring, uninteresting, this blog post.

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Sorry, no elaborate blog post today. I'm sick, and tired, and more grumpy than usual.

Also I have to freight 1,5 million unity of heavy water through 21 jumps to make a good profit, so right now my life in EVE is slow and tedious. Eve with rigs and modules to improve Belly Beluga III's cargo capacity, to 21000 m³, it'll take me almost 30 trips. But I'm picking up other deals on the way, so it's not all lost.

Hide & Seek

Anathema Amarr covert ops ship

Having to leave 62 million ISK worth of Nocxium deep in pirate-controlled lowsec space left a bitter taste in my mouth. But on the plus side, it gave me a new goal to strive for: getting back what is rightfully mine! Thus, cloaking and covert ops ships enter the fray. The fray of my skill training queue, that is.
Unless I get warp-bubbled (which I haven't yet encountered outside of nullsec buffer gates), using a simple cloak to instawarp should fix all my problems, and allow me to carry the 2*400m³ of minerals out of those two deathtrap systems.
Maybe I'll look into strengthening my warp-drive with stabilizers too while I'm at it.




I guess I'm a bit of a pacifist (read: coward) as I've yet to even try to shoot back when getting ganked, focusing all my energy on escaping. At least this way I've avoided getting podded since my fourth day of playing, when I didn't know what I was doing.

Cheetah Minmatar covert ops ship

The Minmatar Cheetah is the fastest ship, but I've already trained up some of the frigate skills for the Amarr Anathema, and they all have fast align times. I'm assuming no amount of fire-power will save me in a direct fight. so speed, warp stability and cloaking should be all I need.
Hell, maybe I'll just slap a cloaking device on my old magnate and call it a day. The venture has native warp-strengthening, but lousy cargo space, and any decent gate-camp will have more than enough scrambling to counteract it.
If anyone has insight on what kind of ship I should use to transport decent amounts of cargo through dangerous lowsec space while as safe as possible, please let me know in the comments below.


Or maybe this is just a superfluous stopgap and I should go straight to blockade runners instead.

PS: in typically ironic fashion, Ragnar found the wife Cesare Romero been looking for all this time...a day after his marriage. Oh well.

Cesare and Waifu sitting in a tree...

Word of the day: irremediable: unavoidable, that cannot be remedied

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Music to accompany this post:

Say Hello to Waifu Romero!
The prudes at CCP forced her to put some pants on.

After my string of terrible ideas that turned out surprisingly well, I finally had a genuinely good idea!
Cesare Romero is getting married!...well that's the flimsy role-playing explanation. He had been scouring all of known space to find himself the perfect three-tittied woman, yet had to eventually give up on his search & settle for a normal bimammaried human female. He even overcame his rampant racism and chose a Caldari bride! It was a beautiful wedding ceremony (in my head).

Cesare gifted all manner of things to his newly beloved and betrothed so she could have a nice home

As far as actual gameplay mechanics are involved, I just made an alt on the same account to stay in Jita and keep an eye out for real-time prices, as online market analysis tools can have outdated or misleading information. Funnily, Waifu and Cesare have not and will never actually meet. The ultimate passive- aggressive marriage!
Of course, I was immediately ridiculed in chat for believing I'd thought of such an obvious trick first. But hey, even if it's an old idea, it's still a good one!

All those superfluous emotions taken care of, it was time for some cold hard business.

Using Waifu 's keen insight on the Jita Market (who knows, maybe they'll have offspring one day, to keep an eye on another trade hub), Cesare resumed hauling cargo to and fro different trade hubs, picking up whatever small deals he could find in surrounding systems.
Then he started getting agressive...and cocky:

Goodbye, Belly Beluga II

• Using all his cash buying items so expensive could't afford to pay the sales tax afterwards

• Buying off 14 Bestowers for 1.1 mil in the same station he was selling them at for 1.2 mil, and immediately relisting them at his price. Just to get rid of the competition

• Finding "sweet deals" deep in lowsec, leading him to own millions worth of goods in a system beyond his reach

• Selling even the metaphorical shirt off his back for profit: Someone was buying a Bestower for 2+ million, almost double the going market price, a deal too good to pass on. Even if it meant breaking his heart a little

Undock in a pod, redock to get a free newb ship, name the ship thus, fly back to homebase in style

You know how when you're digging for treasure and don't find anything, you always have to give one more symbolic strike of the spade just in case the treasure was just one more shovelful away, hoping for a reversal of luck? Well in EVE, when you're doing well, hauling and trading, or mining in a risky system, or maybe fighting weaker capsuleers; you have to tell yourself to stop before the irremediable reversal of luck..

Being shot at with weak weapons, but being warp-scrambled and disrputed, it was time to wave Belly Beluga II' goodbye

My bad luck was a miscalculated risk: travelling through one measly 0.4 system on my way to pick up 3 million ISK worth of Nocxium I'd just bought. Gatecamp, kaboom. I would have gotten away from it if they hadn't been scrambling disrupting my warp. Well played, pirates.
But no hard feelings. I dropped a hello in local when I passed through again in my pod on my way back home.

At the end of the day, 30 million ISK profit, minus 62 million worth unreachable in lowsec, minus about 2 mil in ship and cargo lost, Time to find myself a Belly Beluga III somewhere.

Just Cruisin'

Today's word: Dampfkesselüberwachungsverein. A completely useless and obsolete German word meaning "union of steam boiler inspectors"

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Behold! my first cruiser! the Omen.

I did the fitting myself, like a big boy! And thought it pretty good. Then I actually tried it in combat and refit it better.

It was rather hard coming up with a good name for my Omen, so trioxis, Jackus and I brainstormed in my very own chat channel: brumi-in-eve.
Here's a list of the rejected names:

• My Little PWNNY
• Spaceball One
• Oh, man
• penis
• Mein Handy
• Gefickenmobile
• Zealot
• Pussy Wagon
• Cesare Romero's Omen
• Gay Elf Romp
• sansha's buttplug
• Corelum Vibrator
• toothpick
• blunt toothpick
• Fabio
• poop
• Dampfkesselüberwachungsverein
• Entrails
• crapwagon
• molotov cocktail

And although that discussion didn't seem very productive, Jackus did make an interesting unrelated typo:
Jackus Loftus > æole 3 daus ago / translation: about 3 days ago.
Oh those wacky whacky Icelandic keyboards.

Huh, æole. That has a nice ring to it. æole the Omen, slapping rats around.
If you too want to spell æole, then hold alt, and press 1 4 5 on your numpad. Then o l e. æole! I'm not even going to capitalize it, Æole just looks weird. And I've decided it'll be pronounced Éole, like the first flying airplane. Damn those Yankees and their Wright bothers propaganda.

untz untz untz...disco time!

Now that my new ship was fit, and named, it came time to try it out in a level 2 security mission. Bad luck struck, and the first mission I was offered was the hardest possible lvl2 mission: Blockade, with a stasis tower and a metric fuckton of rats in seemingly unending waves. My first mistake was forgetting I had drones for about 15 minutes...durrr.
My second mistake was fitting a webifier. The cap drain on that thing severely outweighed any tactical advantages it may provide, so I quickly swapped it out for a 10mn afterburner.
Near the end of the 3rd wave, after about 80 minutes of grinding these rats down, periodically having to warp away and dock to recharge my cap, I was getting really tired of this bullshit. I called in trioxis for some help as I knew he'd just built himself a PvE Armageddon, and he was more than happy to help.

Did somebody call about a rat infestation?

Oh boy, when he arrived, it was like Robocop in the streets of Detroit. BLAM BLAM KABOOM. one-shotting everything in sight. the next couple of waves went down in flames, and Robocop was off to new adventures more suited to his skills, like level 3 and 4 security missions solo.

That's me in the background, with the green jet-streams

After the metaphorical dust had settled, I counted the wrecks, some of which may have already despawn because it'd been over an hour. Fifty two wrecks...wow. Salvaging time!
After this annoyingly long and hard mission, I was more than glad to pew pew some weaker rats in other lvl2 security missions. Thus ended the day.

Merchant Bank

Word of the day: concerted: when doing different things at the same time with equal care to all of them to achieve the same end goal, like so many musicians playing a concert together.

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I wish you could see my wallet funds in graph form, it'd be quite the roller-coaster these past few days.
I've discovered the joys of wealth through freighting things between systems all over the galaxy, major trade hubs like Amarr, and the one hub to rule them all: Jita.
Buy low, sell high; and use eve-marketdata, eve-central or jitonomic. The most important part of trading is the same as in warfare: intelligence. Knowing where and what to buy and where to sell, and those online tools take care of that for you. But beware, the data is incomplete and sometimes out of date, so it's risky business to blindly trust them.

I get mini-heart-attacks when the wallet total doesn't update  immediately

Concertedly, make sure to do like I tell you to do and not what I actually do: train up Broker Relations and Accounting as soon as possible, to lower those pesky market escrow listing fees and sales taxes.
Eventually, also train up Margin Trading to reduce the amount of ISK you have to pay for buy orders, if you're reselling.

Jita is a pretty crazy place when you're used to 3-10 people in local

One problem I encountered while trading is of course greed. If you want to make a lot of money quickly, you may as well buy in bulk to make every percent of profit count. That led me to spend my entire 100 million ISK cash reserves on one purchase several times in a row, carrying it across dangerous space (note: all space is dangerous in EVE) under the space-noses of space-banditos. If you get shot, you're fucked.
If your intel was out of date, and someone already fulfilled the buy order, you're slightly less fucked.

A terrible photoshopping for my terrible idea of the day: have sombreros in the AUR store.
Space-banditos!

I haven't gotten shot and lost my cargo yet, although I have been scanned a few times. What I have done is  carelessly buy 90'000 faction missiles at higher than I should have: 1350/unit instead of 1000, intending  to sell in Jita...only to find that all the buy orders were at 1300. D'OH! Well I still had the goods, which I put on sell order for 1440/unit so it wasn't a complete loss, but my wallet was empty, meaning I couldn't do any more trading in this manner. Thankfully, my new buddy Trioxis whom I met in local while mining heard my plight and bought them all (I heard he made a nice profit setting up his own sell-order for 2000 ISK in less reputable regions).
Not learning from my mistake, I immediately bought 100million worth of implants and sold them in Amarr.

Some day I'll look at more advanced forms of trading but for now I'm quite content hauling the cargo myself in my Belly Beluga II Bestower and making honk-honk noises under my breath when docking.

Planet Wormulon

Not actual game footage

While I was wrapping up some cargo trading, Toyla had another genius idea: Going mining in a wormhole system.
At least I think that's what he said, I had trouble hearing his words over the screaming inside my head:
"Come on, you son of a bitch! you wanna live forever!?"
Well...yeah, if it's not too much trouble, I would like to live. But I might as well get some excitement out of life while it lasts.

There's no way I'm risking my beloved Tuggy the Tugboat in w-space, though. It don't have the proper mining crystals anyway. So Ace Ventura V it is!
We meet up at a safe station, and he leaves to get his venture insured while I perform my last sacraments. At least my soul is still clean from that purifying trip to the holy EVE gate.
Jumping through the wormhole, we fleet-warp to the asteroid belt, already salivating at the thought of all that Arkonor.

The entrance

Rats! "Engage cloak!" Toyla yells to me. "you do have a cloak, right?" err....let us discuss this another time.
In a panic, I warp to 100km of a random location, it's a sleeper base, but I should be okay, it's just to give me safe time in warp while picking out the exit wormhole. We both get to the exit wormhole unscathed, and that's the end of our tiny adventure.

W-space looks like drugs

On the plus side, it helped me get over my total fear of wormhole space, and we lived to tell the tale. On the down side, we came back empty-handed and I could have used this wasted time for mining or trading.
We wrapped up by doing some Jaspet mining in a nearby 0.4 system, it felt very retro, using a venture for mining, but I quickly abandoned it as unprofitable, gifting Toyla most of my ores in excahnge for some modules and loot he had laying around.