11 Unpleasant Questions

It was not the first AoD-Mail I had received. The first one caught me almost one year back, when I just had arrived in the Essence-Region. They confronted me with the facts of my perforated citizen record and asked me about my point of origin and such things. Due to the fact that I hadn't lied to the Bureau of Internal Affairs when I first applied for my pilot license, I honestly repeated all I had told them about my arrival in New Eden. Which seemed to satisfy their desire for information cause the doors unlocked and the holos vanished immediately after I had finished.

This time it wasn't the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The holo of the CONCORD-Captain, being flanked by two amarrian special ops trooper holos, seemed to be more of a specialized sort, dealing with security and intelligence issues. He projected the interrogation transcript from my first encounter with the amarrian sovereignty:

Nogunata "The Voice" Stevesan was born several thousand years ago during the second Genma-War as the bastardly child of Oda Nobunaga and Jaques "Jean Reno" Blanc the Onlyone. Trained as a beauty queen he travelled as the lead singer of the famous gay band TheVaselines to military encampments of the Resistance during the third Genma-War. Finally to become a hysterical but feared and victorious general who won the mother of all interstellar wars against the clone of his own father, in the forth and last Genma-War. During the last encounters his ship exploded and due to liquid nitrogen in which he was accidentally encapsulated he survived. Wobbling through time and space unnoticed just to crash thousands of centuries later into a ship in the middle of Amarr space.

Now he is back, ready to either become the emperor of the known universe or again a lead singer without talent.... you never know...

"Is that what you stated when you had been asked for your origin, Mister Nogunata?".


I started singing. I feared that my meanwhile untrained and almost rusty voice wouldn't convince these holos that the story is all the truth I can offer. Non the less I tried my very best chanting Believe as it was performed by Disturbed...

Believe – Disturbed

MP3 search on MP3hunting

(Recovered blog-entry from 2009)

10 AoD-Mails

This morning I received one of those AoD-Mails. Those unwanted contacts from public administrations that not only arrive within the most stupid time frames. No, they immediately open themselves on arrival - unasked - a holographic projection unfolds, the doors of the room your are at right now instantly get locked and a strange drone appears out of nowhere, starting to emit a nasty cocktail of adrenaline raising and mind focusing microwaves that wake you up like a triple doses of a caldarian night shift drink. What comes next depends on the race and sovereignty you have to deal with. The most pleasant version is the Minmatar one. In that case its an alluringly beauty or pretty boy, depending on your personal favours. The funny thing is THEY know what you like, even if you haven't yet figured it out by yourself. It has a slight touch of a cheap red-light district encounter.



Which is much better than the other appearances. The Gallente holo mostly is a smart personal advisor guy. Someone that looks like he has to be your best friend. Sweet-talking you into confession of speeding in your Titan. The Caldari orchestrate a full-scale board of directors, instantly giving you the feeling that you have failed the association. That you have betrayed your comrades.

In my case it was a highly decorated CONCORD police captain guarded by two amarrian special ops troopers in full combat suit. Which looks a bit ridicules as they are just holograms and can't do shit. They just deliver a question which has to be answered. And if you refuse to, you simply sit there until the end of all days, either starving, laughing to death looking at the stupid specops holos or dying from pure boredom. I love Answer-or-Die-Mails.

"Master, sorry to interrupt you Master but you have this meeting you did not want to be late at, Master".

"Aye, good boy Mister Crystal Series... good boy. I am coming. Get one of my more fancy dresses ready. The brownish saturday nightfever style one, will ya?".

"Yes, ...Master".

(Recovered blog-entry from 2009)

09 Politics

While scanning our homesystem a bit with the recently acquired probes I was watching N.E.N.N. and the latest escapades of Souro Foiritan, the actual president of the Gallente Federation. Calling that guy extravagant is a known fact but shouldn't hide his cleverness. His latest move to keep control about colonization of unpopulated systems contrary to the senate's will reminds me of the approach of my father's own attempt in reuniting the empire. First he replaced an Ashikaga-Shōgun with a more attuned member of the high society. Then, dealing candy to the poor with luring promises he started burning down all resistance.

Historical documents claim that he was forced into Sepukku by his own vassal Akechi Mitsuhide. Only to be risen from death by the Genmar shortly after - even more powerful and eager to finish his work. The undead Reputation did lead the people to believe that the universe yet had a task for this man and that they were better advised pledging loyalty to avoid awaiting doom in their next life.

Who knows why Foiritan is taking such a risky route? Even a quite democratic ruled society like the Gallente Federation sometimes tend to use drastic sanctions to maintain course for the greater good of all of them. But what if that makes someone a deeply loved martyr? One that somehow returns to life reclaiming what once belonged to him?

Well, for now I have no dealings with all this as my own destiny hasn't yet fully unfolded. But one rule is always the same:

"Study what you want to embrace,
learn what it eats and read its face.
Do not be hasty do not be on edge,
get a solid base before pushing it of the ledge".

(Recovered blog-entry from 2009)

08 Intel is your friend

As if I will ever learn from my mistakes. Being Amarr it is not unusual to get sent versus gallentean troops. And as long as your are a starter with your fellow Amarr-Agents, its not a big deal to saw a Tristan or two into pieces with your lasers. But later on - later on that becomes different. A few weeks ago Khimeth and myself accepted a mission contract that led us through several segments of a gallentean defensegrid. Ok, that was before we had the possibility to spend several hands full of ISK into new shiny equipment, so we warped into the locations badly fitted.

The agent even warned us and advised to bring a few people. Well, to cut a long story short: After 9 hours trying to kill the last four battleships with a Prophecy and Kestrel we had to give up. Khimeth, already falling asleep, almost crashed into one of the myriads of cruiser- and battlecruiser-wrecks we had left behind. And I was running out of ideas on how to crack those bastards open. Backup was 26 jumps away. So we called it a day. At least we knew upfront that it might be a bit tough, as we had checked several intelligence reports that were accessible within the New Eden Network.




But today I simply ignored checking any intelligence report upfront. I looked at the reward, thought to myself that its not worth bringing a battlecruiser five jumps away and therefore started again with a poorly fitted Omen. What do you expect for 500.000 ISK from an agent only being permission level 3?

After facing several gallentean battlecruisers in the second pocket I really regretted being hasty. I gave it two tries with the Omen before I jumped back to our station. Truly enraged I changed into the HMS Royal Pecker and left the station with the afterburners already running. Good thing was that I prevented myself from switching on all six beamturrets - wildly shooting into the next vicinity. The rest of the job was a piece of cake besides being annoyed by myself all the time.

"Ok, once more for you Mister Nogunata: Intel is your friend! Intel is your friend! Intel is your friend!".

(Recovered blog-entry from 2009)

07 The Royal Amarr Holoreel Association

It's a disaster. A simple and very common one - but still a disaster. The fact that I just had spent almost 150 million on new equipment and today even have to sacrifice hours of my daily beauty sleep cycles to get the Royal Pecker out of the dock and into battle is a mere disaster. How am I supposed to build up an infrastructure that can bear the foundation for my mission?! I somehow have to get rid of this daily duty of being a holoreel cameraman within the Royal Amarr Holoreel Association. Its always the same plot they are using anyway.

Arrival at New Eden. The Wormhole implodes. The amarrian empire is forming, seeing the rest of the survivors struggling without success - dying. The grateful emperor spreads his arms in one generous attempt to embrace all of those that have been left. For a blink in time people stand together wiping up what's left. For a single century New Eden is clamped together by this bond. Then relentless greed for power and wealth rises and finds its peek in betrayal and bloodshed. End-scene shows a minmatarian boy, half dead on the burned surface of Matar being picked up by the emperor himself to take care of him. Once more spreading his protective hand over the Minmatar...

Not that I am complaining. The job is a favour I am doing for a friend of mine and it could be worse than this. Like becoming the lavatory-attendant in a space station of a pirate corporation like those Veto guys. Man that job really stinks I was told as they seem to have a real favour for ... I  really don't want to describe that...

Today I was able to at least test the new scout-ship that I had bought for probing. Unfortunately it was only a small Blood Hideout that appeared on the scanner within minutes. But it did prove the functionality of all new systems that had been attached to the HMS Royal Pecker. Not that the Blood-Resistance I blew up had been a meaningful test for the Prophecy, that is for sure. It tasted good non the less. Especially the relieve I felt when I finally had my million-dollar-baby back in the hangar without any scratches!

(Recovered blog-entry from 2009)

06 God praise the prophecy

Today is a good, a bad, and for my wallet an ugly day. The good thing is, that I was offered a mission early in the morning that gave me the chance to test the Prophecy's new fitting and its capabilities. And I must say that I am really impressed. The increased damage absorbing capabilities plus six focused  modulated medium energy beams really made my day. And this brand new medium electro capacitor booster.. no that wasn't the name.

"Computer? Display the fitting summery HMS Royal Pecker".
"Yes, Master".

Medium Electrochemical Capacitor Booster, that's how they call that thing. It is almost as good as its Tech II relative but consumes less of the ships power-grid. The ugly part was the money I had to give away for all that stuff. I am still not sure if I had found the utmost best price in the trading jungle of Jita. But after a few considerations I couldn't hold it any longer. I authorized the transaction of round about 145 million ISK and hauled the new bought equipment back home. The brand new hole in my pocket this money-sink just had burned is really scaring me but the satisfaction about the new equipment is great.

Now we only have to get Khimeth's pilot license back in shape which is the bad news. Today came the confirmation. She is accused for flying drunk! I would have understood and agreed with accusations if they had caught her for flying naked! But not drunk. Smells more like a frustrated CONCORD guy that burned his fingertips in a bar. Well, hope we get that sorted out soon. Till then I will go and figure out some exploration stuff. The new equipment that got in place lately looks promising. War will be coming - but wars without supply do not last long.

(Recovered blog-entry from 2009)

05 Jita, a battlecruiser and frozen nitrogen

Bad news for MIIII today. Both, my partner Khimeth a blast of a caldarian fighter pilot and the sexiest nerd in the entire galaxy and our production manager are having problems with their pilot licenses. I hope that gets sorted out ASAP so we can continue to keep our little start-up on the road. Its been just a few days when we had this extraordinarily unexpected meeting with an agent of the royal family that should reveal a bit of my path within the universe. That it was not just luck when my within an  frozen nitrogen-cloud icebound body got snatched away from CONCORD by a stubborn but helpful gallentean guy.

The police for sure found out that there was no record about me. That I was no regular listed Capsuleer. And I still have no clue what spies they paid or which connection those guys used. But they managed to find out my name and actual residence. How else did it happened that those guys suddenly showed up in the station asking unpleasant questions. But that is a different story.

Right now I am on my way to Jita. My beloved HMS Royal Pecker, an amarrian battlecruiser I use for different encounters that include taking heavy damage needs a refitting. And for the fact that my partner wont be around for a few days I thought that this might be a good chance to give that ship a little upgrade and fly up to Jita. Figuring out a suitable fitting isn't that easy. A lot of shuffling around with modules, turrets and other stuff till you are as close as you can get to the maximum capacity of power grid and cpu use.

I recently upgraded my unbelievable clever Amarr-Crystal-Edition-Superduper-Network-AI with the EFT to make the fitting process a bit less of an headache. And here we go - one jump away from Jita with quite a long shopping list.

(Recovered blog-entry from 2009)  

04 Learn the protocols

No, this time I didn't forget anything at all. I have some products from our factories in the belly of this Bestower, my beloved HMS Donkey VII. Destination is Youl, so I have a bit of time while hopping through the gates. And since I found out that you can simply fit a cloaking device onto that Industrial Ship to make the transportation trips at least a bit more save I don't have to clench the controls all the way.

Ups, hang on ... again someone blinking red like mad. Space Cowboy or whatever local UberDuperPirate. Met that guy quite a few times. Good thing he is alone, so his scrambling attacks wont take hold on me. Bang - again this nasty railgun buzzing. Shields down to 75 percent - one more - shields down to 43 percent and out we warp. Good Donkey. If that guy would at least shot in a nice cadence I could hum to it a little!

Its forerunner wasn't that lucky, or why do you think this one is number VII already. As I mentioned in an earlier log, I was doing some test drilling in a lowsec roidbelt a few weeks ago. Luckily not with a slow and vulnerable Mining Barge but in an okay fitted Arbitrator. The good old HMS Tritanium that already made me quite an amount of money. And suddenly that thing warps directly onto my position. I didn't even take the time to call back the mining drones or pick up any of the already mined Jaspet. The only thought facing that blinking red ship icon was to get the hell out of there. I didn't even check the name in the local channel in first place and when I finally arrived in the nearest station I thought to myself: "Geee mate, you just warped out there like a frightened chicken facing the butcher!". That guy had not shot a single round. Not that he had approached to ask me for directions. But non the less I regretted my impoliteness a bit. Instantly leaving without even looking at his name was almost rude you could say.

The bad thing was that I just had moved stations up here and only had the non-combat-fitted cruiser and the Donkey with me. But I really wanted to find out what ship and what kind of pilot that just was. Human curiosity that can become so irresistible that it negates any logical thinking. My very non logic consideration was to quickly fly back the Industrial one system, pick up a ready for combat Frigate - haul it back and than use it for a little peek into the asteroid belt I just had left head over heels. To cut a long story short, the Donkey wasn't squeezed half out of the station when I saw a shadow over the cockpit, then the message that I just got scrambled and afterwards about five Fighterdrones attacking my ship. Bang, boom and of she goes. And here it comes. The security protocols! Still within the 30 second phase that prevents you from redocking all my desperate tries to crawl back into the station were negated without my recognition. I was in the opinion that forced into your Rescue-Pod a dockingmanouver shouldn't be a problem at all... but well that is just me.

Good thing was, I saved the trip back I was just trying to undertake as I woke up in a brand new clone one system down the road - and that trip just cost me a brand new Bestower, yeah baby. What do we learn from it? Aye, dont be an idiot!

(Recovered blog-entry from 2009)  

03 Crystal Series

Guess what - I again forgot something in the station before leaving. No, not like last time. Those absolutely unbelievable important documents that needed to be delivered even more unbelievably urgent to Kamela. Nope, this time I was on my way to a little ambush. A few pirates recently stirred up some dust  - Gallente related scumbags the contractor said -  and therefore they will get their bottoms burned with my shiny little lasers. But that doesn't work if you leave the frequency crystals in the hangar because you recently misused your Battle Cruiser for some salvaging  and the fitting computer again messed up the refitting!

I  meanwhile don't even trust this Bridge-AI-Deck I am dictating that log into right now.

"Computer!?"
"Yes, Master?"

All right. At least the machine is listening. Still, sometimes I can't get rid of the impression that there is a Minmatar-AI hidden behind that shiny and well designed faceplate.

"I am an Amarrian Solar Cluster Quantum Core. Crystal Series. Fourth Edition, Master. You will not find any better Artificial Ship Intelligence on the market, Master".

Ha, funny machine - The Minmatar are still claiming their Tempest to be a real battleship. So much for marketing and reality. I hope Mister Crystal Series doesn't flush me out of the board toilet into the oblivion one day.

Comlink establishes

"HMS Royal Pecker - you are clear for docking. Welcome to the Ministry of Internal Order Mister Stevesan. We hope you enjoy your stay".

"Computer? - You hear that? Learn from the station's docking officer. A bit of devote politeness wont hurt at all!".

(Recovered blog-entry from 2009)

02 Safety Protocols

I was just on my way to Kamela to pick up some 75er Cap Boosters. One of those market activities of mine with which I try to establish a monopoly within the Bleak Lands. Buy goods that are sold way below production price and resell them for a suitable price. But as so often, I forgot to pick up some documents an agent had handed over to me just before leaving the station. Funny guy he was. Very small and a bit absent minded. The typical archivist you could say. Blabbering something about important requests, declassification notes and wormholes. Did sound too weird to me to be really important and the payment wasn't one of those that let you dream of carriers anyway. But for the fact that I had to go to that station for my marketed goods I would have been stupid not to pay the contract insurance of a few several thousand ISKs and grab the papers.  And now - now I get this safety warning that prevents me from redocking!

"Jesus, if you cant handle a little traffic go route the dinner queue in an retirement home!"
Honestly reflecting I am cursing myself for again being such an forgetful idiot and not the station's docking officer for loosing precious time over and over again.

On the other hand, if its just loosing time instead of loosing ships out of pure idiocy my anger really shouldn't get me through the window of my cockpit. Like on my first attempt of some Jaspet testmining-operation. Not with one of the Barges we already had lost - no, that was before those incidents. For those more or less unattended mining actions or belt scouting operations I prefer to use an Cruiser of the Arbitrator-Class.

Fit two mining lasers, load it with tons of combat and mining drones, give it some extra cargo space and two warp core stabilizers. Depending on your training with Drones you can handle pretty much any typical pirate down to 0.4 sectors and drill a few holes into asteroids meanwhile with that fitting. Ok, I have to admit by now that this is hell of an equipment to really get a flow of Jaspet going. That stuff is way to hard for a tiny tier one setup. But still - good enough for some production testing that involves zydrine. And it is a cheap and easily replaceable setup to pay tribute to the wise saying: "Only fly what you can afford to loose!"

In New Eden Proverbs such as this one do not come from nowhere as another test-trip to the Uusanen area recently had thought me. I was sitting on the bridge really popping my eyes out on the radars, sensors and screens, with my fingers ready to push on the manoeuvring controls. And swoooshh - only half an hour after I had started mining something approached incredibly fast onto my ships location. And guess what? It was flashing as red as an caldarian New Eden's Eve tree! I almost broke my fingers when I tried to turn the cruiser around to approach the station. Yeah, I know. I had forgotten to align to it upfront to enable a single push on the warp button to do the job. But guess what? ...

Comlink is establishing

"HMS Tritanium, you are clear for docking. Please proceed immediately. Thank you for your cooperation".

Aye, that is my call. The end of this story has to wait for the next time, when I again forget half of my brain in a station and get unasked spare time for playing the annalist. "Computer? Save entry".

(Recovered blog-entry from 2009) 

01 Someone has to write about it...

Its an odd story in which I am involved - unasked, drifting into it almost unnoticed. But non the less. The impact it could have on this universe may be one day remembered as - well, let me encapsulate it into a careful term, space shaking. And if no one tries to establish a written chronicle about some of this, there may be nothing left one day. Nothing to lift the foggy curtain time throws over everything. And no one will be able to  understand how all this could have happened.

So where to begin...  my head is still buzzing form the hits of those railgun-impacts. And for the fact that these shoe boxes they call Retriever - a ship-hull that thin that you can almost see the dark space through it - didn't hold more than three salvoes of the attacker before it bursted into flames. From that specific perspective it wasn't a good day at all. The second time that my endeavours to get my little greedy hands on some Jaspet were interrupted. Even plugging in a warp core stabilizer to prevent the nasty scrambling didn't help as the attackers were two seasoned pilots, both a big red -10 security status, both in Battlecruisers and both equipped with warp scramblers. Well, end of story was that my Pod got scrambled and one of the pirates established a communication link to my capsule.

"Okidoki", lets hear what the boy has to say. Maybe he had a bad childhood and wants to talk about it. And who else would be the one giving a helping hand if it wasn't me, sitting in an Escape-Pod with a broken heating almost freezing to death with no chance to go anywhere if that spacedog wasn't willing to clear the passage.

"If u want to save your implants, transfer 20.000.000 ISK and we will let you go! You have 30 seconds".

Nothing new to mention that I tried to introduce him to the game you can play with your thumb and your backside. Not that this intimate gameplay-introduction would have made him feel good and let me go. At least it eased a bit the frustration of waiting for the final blow being busy presenting my idea of the game to him in well selected words. Predictably that didn't change the outcome of the adventure. And now I am back alive in a brand new clone - still with the buzzing and throbbing from the rails in my head and the hurting empty holes of the few cheap implants it contained. Maybe time to get some spiced wine and take a catnap in low G.

(Recovered blog-entry from 2009)