Moving!

We’ve moved to our own hosting at rift.chromebits.net. No more updates here, so please change your subscriptions and bookmarks!

OOC: Falling behind

I’ve fallen behind! That mostly comes from enjoying my time in pod so much and having found a really great corp where I can find lots and lots of interaction. We’ve had some exploration going, lots of production and trade ramping up, and generally my experience has matched everything I have wanted.

However, I still need to keep this going. The Ghost Outrider series will receive a fresh update Soon(tm), and I have a draft exploration journal that has sat in queue and grown and grown and… yeah. I need to just hit “publish” on it.

Anyway, I do live, and if you happen to see Casiella Truza or Ghost Outrider in Local or in your favorite chat channel, say hi!

Trading profits increasing

My profits from trading have increased substantially over the last week or so. I’ve always achieved good margins, but the volume hadn’t reached levels that made the activity worthwhile.

However, since turning into a cybernetics dealer, that has changed. I still have lots of competition, of course, as the constant fighting among pod pilots keeps the demand high, and so I continue to refine my tactics and specific markets, but this sort of trading should keep me supplied for a good bit. As it stands, I don’t have a lot of expenses to cover, so for the moment I will use this to help finance some corporate initiatives.

At some point, though, I need to figure out how to spend the ISK beyond simply re-investing it.

OOC: Controversy Reloaded

One of these things is not like the others

Not that I pay much attention to null-sec politics, but I do pay attention to community management, particularly when I belong to the community in question. So the recent controversy over CCP’s renaming of Band of Brothers Reloaded struck a chord with me. In the past, CCP has had problems with developer favoritism related to BoB, and that perception remains to this day, deservedly or not. I don’t believe that “perception is reality”, but perception is indistinguishable from it.

CCP claims they have done this for others in the past, but they haven’t presented any evidence to support that. On the contrary, a lot of folks have presented evidence to show that they have denied similar claims in the past.

I don’t really care about the specifics of this case, except that CCP has done an incredibly poor job of community management here. They should have stuck to the “sandbox” defense, as they have in the past, and that EVE is a harsh and unforgiving universe. When the original disbanding occurred, they stated publicly that, since it occurred via an acceptable game mechanic, they’d let it stand.

No exception should be made now.

For a different take on the situation, you might look at Kirith Kodachi’s post What’s In A Name?.

From Cruveh to Highseed

And the girl arrived at the place called Cruveh, where the stone-road and the grass-road cross.

She lay herself in front of the sentinel stones. Hounds passed her by in their hunting. Vultures passed her by in their soaring. Spiders passed her by in their spinning. No creature leapt at her and she suffered neither wounds nor violence. She stared into the sky, eyes motionless as the silent stones. She prayed for death and destiny, asking that the spirits only carry the news to her family in the village many leagues away.

But the Fates had decreed the day of her death long ago, and her life-thread had not yet reached its end. And so, in the night, the rains fell from heaven upon the stone and the grass, upon the snow and the land. The girl sat and looked up and opened her mouth, that she might partake of what bounty the sky might provide to her. She drank the water and thanked the spirits, though in her heart she wept bitterly. And the sun rose and the sun set, as suns do. For ten days and ten nights she fasted, tasting nothing but water and tree-hands. And in the tenth night, she knew that the Watching One would finally bring her from that place, for her destiny still remained.

In the morning, a Sebiestor passed by. He paid her no mind and continued on his way, thinking only of his profits and merchandise.

In the afternoon, a Brutor passed by. He paid her no mind and continued on his way, thinking only of his wars and vengeance.

In the evening, a Krusual passed by. He paid her no mind and continued on his way, thinking only of his schemes and silver.

In the night, a Vherokior passed by. He knelt and spoke to her. He offered comfort and consolation. He offered broth and bread. And she accepted his offers. His wagon was sturdy and his burden-beasts strong, and so they journeyed on the stone-road.

After a night and a day and a night, they arrived at the city that is now called “Highseed”. In those days, all the world knew it as “Fartheyn”. Wicked men and wicked plans inhabited the city, just as they do now, and no righteous man could be found there. Gold and silver, and every desire of the eyes and of the flesh, and every plan and every murderer that might carry out those plans, all these things could be found there.

And so in that city, she dwelt with the Vherokior. He was a shaman, and a healer, and a priest, though he did not offer her to the guild as was the custom in that city. When she had her strength again, she served the Vherokior in the deeds and rituals he knew to perform. The stories of those deeds, she kept in her books and treasured in her heart. The stories of those rituals, she never revealed to any living soul, for he had sworn her to many dark oaths and solemn promises. Shamans do not reveal their secrets lightly, and those to whom secrets are revealed know the terrible price that must be paid for a whisper to the ear of another.

That is how the girl came to that place, and that is how she came to know the Elixir and Wand. But that story, my child, must wait until another night.

Talocan Depot

In the same system in which I found the Talocan reactor and observation domes, I found some sort of waystation. The data I found on it indicate that its original owners used it either as a prison or some sort museum for cultural exchange, or maybe both. Even the coupling array capsules appear to have doubled as escape pods and torture chambers. And, at the center of the facility, I found some sort of silo with… well, residue on the inside. My scanners didn’t know what to make of it.

They do sound more and more like the Minmatar.

Talocan Outpost

Tonight, from a worm hole in high-security space, I traveled to someplace out in the unknown. In that first W-space system, I found “wormsign” that led to another system so deep that I don’t think you could even reach it directly from New Eden. My navigation systems just called it “deep unknown”.

The system contained something that my scanner called a “Core Garrison”. When I got close to it, I found a Talocan outpost guarded by Sleeper ships. And the outpost itself may have actually contained an advanced form of a star gate.

Talocan Outpost

I’d hypothesize they either created or found the spatial rift, mounted a static gate on it, and used polyferrous conduits to attach a reactor spire, outpost hubs, docking platforms, and observation domes with telescoping turrets. The reactor sort of reminded me of Minmatar engineering: “Centuries of emptiness have left this Talocan outpost’s central hub in disarray, but the chambers and corridors inside portray a busy (if very spartan) existence. Advanced technology mingles with rustic repairs and patchwork assemblages. Some of the technology is ancient and very rudimentary in design, harkening back to cultures long gone, yet with hints of familiarity.”

Observation Dome

Spatial Rift

Breathtaking technology; I wish I could do more here, but my little Buzzard just does exploration, and those defenders looked like they have remained active and on alert.

Working for Stillwater

As I mentioned the other day, I’ve gone to work with the Stillwater Corporation. Probably some folks out there might ask themselves how somebody working with the Sansha loyalists in the White Rose Society fell in with this group.

Honestly, that’s not a bad question. Stillwater has connections to both the Thukker tribe and the Angel Cartel, a known enemy of the Sansha Nation. So you might think that either they would distrust me, or that the Sansha folks wouldn’t much like this.

To tell the truth, I suspect you’d think correctly. But I left WRS, not because I didn’t like the pilots there — I really did, Vikarion is great and Petra Bealer has all the makings of a great pilot — but because their political goals don’t align with my vision. I still believe that cybernetic enhancement and related technologies will change the world even more than they have. I still believe that New Eden sits on the edge of a new era that will bring benefits to humanity we can’t fully comprehend right now.

So with the recent explosion of interest in exploration, I had to find a group that I could stomach. The Thukker tribe has a great model as an intermediate step to a stateless society, so I support that. The Angel Cartel don’t exactly match my vision, true enough, but we don’t get too heavily involved with them. At least not with respect to the worst of their abuses, at any rate.

Besides, I’m flying again with some pilots I knew last year and I trust them. They wouldn’t steer me too far astray. Well, okay, that might not be strictly true, but anyway this bunch seems like a corp I can stick with for a long time.

Mine some, lose some

We undertook our first expedition to W-space tonight. The result? A partial success that my own mistakes marred.

After some time probing down a wormhole in low-sec, several corp mates escorted my Orca in their cruisers to the entry point. Only when I tried to jump through did my systems warn me that the worm hole wouldn’t accomdate a ship of that much mass. So, somewhat dismayed, we regrouped the fleet composition and I jumped through in my covert ops frigate, followed by a scout frigate, mining cruisers / battlecruisers, and a blockade runner.

It didn’t take me long to scan down quite a few sites of harvestable clouds of fullerides.

Gas Cloud

The fleet came to me and got to work as I scanned down quite a few more sites, so the operation looked highly profitable. Then I made my first mistake: I warped to a site where I knew the Sleepers had sentry guns protecting the cloud so I could provide a better warp-in point for a battlecruiser to try to remove them — and I did it in my covops. Even though I warped in at a distance, the clouds in the area interfered with my systems and decloaked my ship. The Sleeper sensor technology is outstanding, as they quickly locked me and destroyed my ship, forcing me to evacuate in my pod.

Sirius sentry gun

The battlecruiser did recover my wreckage, including a small Domination Shield Booster that I had equipped for some reason. Of course, the Buzzard and the Gravity Capacitor Upgrades I had rigged into it didn’t make it. After I climbed into the scout frigate, a bit shaken, I continued with my assignment. Really, by this point, I just wanted to find a backup exit method, as our entry worm hole looked like it might reach the end of its life soon, even though we hadn’t transited enough mass through it to cause instability.

I tracked down another gas cloud site, got greedy, and made my second mistake: I warped to it again in the scout frigate, when I had no need to do so as we had set up a safe spot and apparently had no other podders in the system with us.

This time, my shield booster didn’t make it, as the ensuing explosion destroyed the module in my cargo hold. At this point, having no more probing ships, we decided to exit with our take and return to known space. We did this safely and even got back to high-sec before I went stationside for the night. On the whole, we believe that this will have resulted in quite a bit of profit for us, even so.

The main lesson here? When in an expedition in W-space, do not warp to a signature in your ship until someone has scouted it out. Those Sleeper automated defense systems don’t mess around.

The Sky-Vision

That night, the girl slept fitfully and without rest.

In the morning, when she arose in the gray hour of dawn, she bundled herself against the cold and went to see the clan wise-woman. The wise-woman gave her broth and listened intently.

The girl told her of the dreams, of the hunter-cats and wolves and eight-legged horses running through the sky, of terrible storms that rained blades of all sorts upon the land. She told her of the voice that called her by name and spoke of a ride that would never end, of a hunt for death and destruction that would last until the end of days.

She asked her what it meant, and she sat quietly while the seidkona scratched idly on a rock.

Finally, the old woman spoke. “Your destiny, this will be, child. You will die, and yet never know oblivion. You will fight, and yet never know nor defeat nor victory. You will know the sky-paths as surely as the ravens of the gods.”

The girl began to weep, but the wise-woman rapped her knees with an old and gnarled staff. “Your destiny, this will be, and do not mourn. For you will see great visions, and perform great signs in the heavens, and for the length of your days, I will be as a child in the arms of her mother.”

The girl stopped her weeping then. She recited the words of Skirnir: “Fearlessness is better than a faint heart for any who put their nose out of doors. The lengths of our lives and the days of our deaths were fated long ago.”

She walked back home on the longer path and considered the words of the seidkona. She wept silently under the gray skies of her village. When she arrived home, she spoke no words to her family as they dined on boar-meat and boiled roots.

That night, the girl slept quietly and still.

In the morning, when she arose in the gray hour of dawn, she bundled herself against the cold and left the village.