Ghetto Cockbag and Big Cockbag

Lately I've been playing with two variants of the trusty Cockbag Thrasher. One of my issues that at GMT +4 I am not EU TZ nor am I US TZ. So I share my time with early Euros and Yanks on night-shifts and a lot of farmers. We can be outnumbered in this TZ so we need to get creative.

The Attrition Thrasher
This is basically a "Ghetto Cockbag". A proper Cockbag Thrasher will set you back 10m ISK, this one will cost less than 2m ISK. These are for use in times when the ISK war is more important than the K/D ratio. It is basically a T1 fit Cockbag designed for breaching faction war complexes when outnumbered.

If the squids are set up in a medium plex in our home system and are in destroyers and we are outnumbered that is easy. We'll ship up to cruisers and kill them. But what if they are in a small and cruisers are not an option. Do we go in with destroyers ourselves? Jumping into them already set up at optimals with fewer numbers is suicide. We could try assault frigates, but again Leeroy'ing into a destroyer camp probably won't end well. That's when the Attrition Thrashers come out. We are fighting say 10 v 5. We warp in, guns overheated and alpha as many as we can before we all die. And we will all die. But if we take three down that means we lost 3-5 but in ISK we won 30m v 10m. Now here is the trick, we can reship in system. They cannot. So whilst there three are podding home, we jump into another 5 Attrition Thrashers. We might lose round two as well. It is now 7v5 and we are jumping into them. Say we get 3 more. Same again, they win on ship numbers, we win on ISK. We reship a third time, but now into normal T2 fit destroyers. Now the numbers are in our advantage. This time we win and capture the plex.

Over all, its a draw. 10-10. However, on ISK we win 100m-10m. In the end that's not the important thing, the important thing is that we took the plex.


A Mahoosive Cockbag
I made up a particularly large Cockbag for dealing with those rare times we get camped in station. A Cockbag Hurricane. Full rack of T2 artillery cannons, tracking computer and sebo's, armour tank with tracking enhancers and damage mods in the lows. Rigs are targeting speed like the Cockbag Thrasher. It moves like a slug, cannot do much other than sit still and fire those mighty guns! It will alpha an average destroyer and take gate guns. So if we get neuts harassing us we can ask them to move along nicely too!

I rarely need to use it and it sits gathering dust most of the time between my other Hurricanes. But now and again it comes in useful!

SCASSSS - OI! Get Back In Your Pod!

So we got to see the Rubicon trailer Thursday night. I assume if you read this blog then you've already seen it. No? Here it is:-

Us lore geeks had a few niggles with the video. Firstly, who is this toss-pot and who does he think he is?

 

Obviously CONCORD but is he a spokesperson? Someone senior? Come on CCP give us a clue! And shouldn't he be at CONCORD station in the Yulai system? What's he doing planet-side?

Secondly and more importantly we have the two capsuleers.

Now hang on, that is not right. Capsuleers don't look like that when flying their ships! This is what a capsuleer looks like when flying their ship:-

They generally never leave their pods when flying their ship, as it is a bad idea. Firstly capsuleer piloted ships are supposed to be so much better than normal ships as regular captains with large crews are so much more ineffective. The capsuleer, wet-wired into the systems, can run their ship much, much better. Overall performance is a magnitude higher due to the capsuleer. There are ships in the official lore where capsuleers can get out of the pod and stretch their legs but generally there is no point give the nerf to performance. The other issue is because of the capsuleers abilities, their ships have much smaller crews. If they are not in their pod, the crew are going to struggle due to low numbers. In Templar One, a Mordu's Legion Drake is already to run from a capsuleer Mrymadon because the capsuleer BC would stomp the normal BC.

So what are these two muppets up to?

Well there are two schools of thought. Firstly they could be holographic projections. I'm not sure of this myself. Why would they bother?

My view is these are supposed to be 'visual representations' that the capsuleer creates in their head. We know there is sound in space because the Jovian's included a synthesiser in the pod because early pilots didn't like it was so quiet. So why not have a system where the capsuleer in his or her pod can see themselves in a sort of a cockpit? After all it does serve one important purpose.... marketing!

Which ever way is true, they are definitely in their pods. After the station blows destroying the ship, we see Sinead O'Conner floating in space with her tubes attached. So she was in her pod when it blew. Ooooooo, lady capsuleers wear boob-tubes in their pods!

CCP simply has used 'artistic licence' to make the video more non-geek friendly. After all, who cares about a talking olive-green pod?

The Accident

Fiction Friday! Alternative post here if you are not into your fiction. What low-sec group do you belong to?

Next week I'm hoping to release a Novelette called "The Affair". Only 10,000 words so not as big as the last one!

The Accident

Senior Technician Gretara was sat at the monitoring station in the stargate's control room. She casually watched the the light traffic coming and going. Almost all the systems were automated but a small crew was needed for faults and minor maintenance. Her gate was connected to another just under one light-year away. The artificial wormhole between the two gates allowed starships to travel between the solar systems in a seconds rather than decades.

"Hey gorgeous! How's the exciting world of gate travel today?"

Gretara rolled her eyes and turned around. There in the door way was her supervisor, Cenn. He had his usual cheeky smile and devilish glint in his eye.

"Nearly as boring as your pick-up lines." she replied with a smile.

There had always been friendly banter between them. When she first started she thought he was going to be a pest. She soon found out he was very happily married and the jokey flirtations were just that. He'd had countless opportunities to try it on with her in the last six months but never had made a move. When she'd taken this posting six months ago she had just split from her husband and was pretty 'anti-men' at that time. However she had warmed to him over the first few weeks. He'd helped her see there was still hope.

"I see from the log you replaced some 'tronics last night?" Cenn asked.

"Yeah, we were getting some funny readings from one of the primary graviton controllers. It was quiet so I replaced it when there was a gap. Thankfully the connection remained solid whilst I did the hot-swap."

Cenn looked a bit concerned.

"Next time call me please, even if I'm asleep. Those controllers can be dodgy and could potentially collapse the wormhole and take the gate offline. If the connection drops even for 10 minutes, I'm the one who gets his arse chewed off by command. Then I'd have to come up here and chew your arse off. We wouldn't want that would we, it would be a waste of a very pert arse." he said with a smile and a wink.

A small bleep caught both their attention. Gretara turned back to the console and Cenn walked over.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Damn graviton controller boards again. Getting that same reading, but thats a brand new board in there."

Cenn brought up diagnostics on the main screen. Just as he did alarms started blaring. Gretara quickly shut them off. As soon as the alarms died she looked at Cenn in horror. The silence was deafening. On a stargate there was always noise. A constant drone caused by the massive technology that kept the wormhole stable. It had stopped. The gate was offline.

"Gretara! Did we have any traffic?"

Gretara quickly looked at the other screen on the monitoring station.

"Oh no....!" her voice trailed off.

"What is it? Talk to me Gretara!"

"A shuttle with two passengers. It jumped and entered the wormhole milliseconds before the connection dropped."

"Did they make it through?" Cenn asked nervously.

Gretara accessed the logs at the other gate. The way she looked at him he knew. They hadn't made it.

-o0o-

Two weeks later.

The three high-level executives were sat on the top table in the hearing room. Gretara was sat on her own in a chair facing them. She fidgeted nervously.

"Ms. Falk, we are gathered he today to hold an inquest into the events leading up to the recent class two failure of the static wormhole connection at the Gonheim-Hedaleolfarber startgate. This unfortunate event resulted in the likely death of two people. We are tasked with finding out what went wrong, if anyone is to blame and what steps are needed to ensure this never happens again."

Gretara just sat there as the stern woman explained the process and that many of her colleagues from the stargate crew had already faced the panel.

Over the next hour she was asked question after question. They were mostly concerning the graviton controller boards but also about herself and her abilities. She felt that she was going to take the fall for this. She answered the questions as the three executives of the Republic Government asked them.

Following the questionings she was asked if she would submit herself for testing. She agreed and was surprised to find a medic enter the room immediately and escort her down to a clinic two decks below. 20 minutes later she had been tested for drugs and alcohol abuse. She knew she'd pass, but it all pointed to her being the scapegoat here even with a clean bill of health.

Finally she was told she was no longer needed at the inquest and that she could go home. The panels decision and recommendation would be presented to the Government within 48 hours.

-o0o-

Three days later

Gretara opened her door and found Cenn standing there with a sad look in his eyes and a bottle of whisky in his hand.

"I'm so sorry" he whispered. Gretara stood back and let him into her apartment.

There wasn't much left, most of her furniture and belongings had been packed into boxes and these were stacked against a wall. He handed her the bottle.

"Thanks." she said with more than a little sadness in her voice.

They sat down in two small chairs. Gretara opened the bottle and took a long drink. She passed the bottle back to Cenn.

"Sorry, I've packed the glasses."

Cenn took a drink from the bottle. "Is there anything I can do?" he asked.

"I'm fine." she replied "To be honest I think I may have got off likely. The only reason criminal charges haven't been pressed is that the two people we lost could be alive somewhere in deep space. Unlikely, but as they cannot prove they are actually dead I cannot be charged with murder. Getting fired for gross negligence wasn't the worst that could happen when you think about it."

Cenn passed the bottle back to her.

"I know, but the whole thing stinks. I'm not sure I believe the whole thing about you installing the graviton controller board incorrectly. There are just too many things that went wrong at the same time. The backup failing, the emergency shutdown not kicking in. OK even if you did mess up that boards installation, it shouldn't have failscaded like it did. The entire system is designed to prevent that exact situation. The report ruled out sabotage but I'm still not sure, too much of a coincidence to me."

Gretara shrugged and took another drink. "May be, but the fact is all those backup systems are never really tested until the primary ones fail."

"So where are you going?" Cenn asked.

"I'm going back to my folks. Its not ideal as they live deep in low-sec and I thought I'd escaped that existence years ago. But its going to be a struggle finding work around here. 'Killed two people' doesn't look good on your resume!"

"They might still be alive, somewhere out there in deep space." he replied hoping to make her feel better. "That is another thing. That the logs didn't include the passenger manifest. We know a shuttle went through, but we have no idea who was on board. That information is always captured. Yet at the same time we suffer a catastrophic failure, the logs also bug so we will never know who was on that doomed shuttle? I'm not buying this."

Gretara shrugged gain and took another drink. "It sound far-fetched, but the investigation ruled out sabotage."

"They'd never admit that even if they found it. The company would lose all the stargate maintenance contracts in the empire. Its a cover up if you ask me!".

"Well apparently the logs hadn't been recording manifests and ship ident codes for days. In any case, I'm finished here. No hi-sec gate crew company will hire me now and I have nowhere to stay. Its back to the arse-end of space and hope they are desperate for a graviton specialist in one of the gates in the systems my parents live."

"Is there nobody in hi-sec you could stay with until you get back on your feet. I'd offer but my wife might have something to say about that. Didn't you say you had an ex-husband? Are you still on good terms with him?" he asked.

"Yes there is an ex-husband. But two major issues with that. Firstly, he ran off with my best friend. A blond bimbo. A younger model who I thought I could trust. Bitch! It was not a amicable split. Secondly he's now even more remote than my folks who live on the edge of known space. Yes, he's not easy to reach at all."

Cenn thought that was an odd thing to say but didn't press it.

A few hours later the bottle was finished and Gretara was asleep in the chair. Cenn carried her to her bed and wrapped the covers over her. He gave her a light kiss on the forehead and left the bedroom. He picked up the empty bottle and placed in the trash which was rather full. He closed the hatch and hit the automated empty button. There was a quiet hiss as the trash container was flushed to the stations reprocessing centre. He turned to leave but stopped suddenly. It couldn't be. He was imagining things wasn't he? He could have sworn he'd seen a couple of graviton controller boards laying amongst the trash. He decided that the late hour and half a bottle of Matari whisky was making him see things. He left the apartment and walked home with a nagging doubt at the back of his mind.

-o0o-

The stars were amazingly bright this far out into interstellar space. Dinna looked out of the small viewport in wonder. With no sun for many light-years the number of visible stars was blinding due to the low light in this area of space. The dim interior lights gave little refection in the glass, but her blond hair did reflect spoiling the view a little.

"Its so beautiful out here honey. Its like living in heaven."

There was no answer.

"I'm not sure I'll ever get bored of watching the stars out here."

More silence.

"I'm getting peckish. Do you want something to eat?"

No answer.

"OK, you don't mind if I help myself?"

Dinna glance out of the window one more time and made her way across the small passenger cabin of the shuttle. It was a mess. Empty bottles and food wrappers littered the floor. She picked up the bloody shard of metal laying on the table and approached the man's body. The left side of his head had been caved in. The hopelessness of the situation had the two lovers a breaking point within a week of being stranded in interstellar space. During a particularly heated argument about how much water she was drinking she had hit him over the head with a bottle. He never woke up.

She squatted down and cut some flesh from his upper thigh. A lot of the flesh was already missing and bone was clearly visible. She picked up the raw meat and placed it in her mouth, slowly chewing.

"I think I'm going to look at the stars a bit more honey. You want to join me?"

Of course he didn't answer, he had dead for over a week.

"OK darling. You just rest."

Dinna walked back over to the viewport humming to herself. She hummed a lot to herself since she lost her mind after beating her lover to death with a water bottle last week. A man who'd left his wife to be with her.

Test Driving the New Astero and the Updated Kronos

So last week I had a play with the Sisters of Eve cruiser. Today I messed around with the new frigate, the Astertro.

I'm worried about this ship. A T1 frigate that can get into all faction war complexes and warp cloaked? This is going to be popular with those damn squid farmers. But....... can I make a farmer farming ship?

The idea is this, I sit in a plex cloaked with an alt cloaked off the acceleration gate. When I see a squid or neutral activate the gate I drop the cloak and get ready for their arrival. So the trap can be set, but can I get a fit that can tackle triple stabbed Merlins? That can hold a kitey Condor before he makes range? That can burn at a cloaking Executioner and have sufficient speed to get there before he moves out of range?

Lets try.... We need a dual scram and a web to stop those triple stabbed Merlins and Punishers. We need some DPS to kill them and we need a bit of a tank just in case they manage to lock us within a few minutes due to the stabs gimping their sensors.

So they you have it. Dual scram, so even a stabbed Venture won't be going far. AB and web to keep them pinned down. You'll notice that there are only two high slots and one is needed for the cloak. Like the cruiser variant, this is a drone boat. It can hold three flights of light scouts and with those damage augmenters it does decent DPS for a frigate. I guess you could stick a launcher or a gun in there for a bit of extra DPS. Not sure if a nuet is going to be massively effective against stabbed ships.

I took it on a test flight to see what the ship is like as a plexing ship. Oh dear. This is going to be popular with the farmers. I was able to easily capture any sized plex, even the large. Orbiting the rat battlecruiser in the biggest sized plex with AB on, the drones tore it apart without it even being able to hit me. Same with the novice, small and mediums. I think we'll see the farmers drop the 3rd drone damage augmenter and the repper and stick two stabs in there. They'll speed tank and have a ship that is double stabbed and can warp cloaked.

The sound of frapping in parents basements is echoing through the known world and I am a sad bunny!

Anyway lets cheer ourselves up with a proper ship. The Kronos. It just sounds Klingon doesn't it.

All marauders are getting a make-over plus we get the new bastion unit. The bastion unit is basically a "siege module-lite" for Marauders. It does the following to your ship when activated (60 secs, no fuel):-

- Doubles the amount of both local reppers (shield and armour)
- Big boost to tank resists - 30%
- Increases gun  range - 25%
- Prevents external effects from effecting you. You become immune to eWar(?) but also remote reps.
- You cannot move, warp, jump or anything else but sit still whilst the module is active.

So I fitted one up and went for a test drive. Nothing surprising in the fit. 1600 plate, hardener to plug the explosive hole, one EANM (as I'm assuming the bastion module resists will be subject to stacking penalties), local repper (remember bastion module doubles amount and you cannot receive remote reps), DC and a couple of damage mods in the lows. Long point, MJD, cap booster & tracking computer in the mediums. To top it off I stuck a full rack of face-melting guns plus bastion unit in the highs.

OK lets shoot something!

I stuck an alt in a standard BS and decided to see how the new Marauders stack up. My alt is 90m SP against Dracks 105m. So lets fight!

As expected the Marauder melts the Navy Dominix. But then again the costs between the two are high. Kronos are selling for 1bn and Navy Domi for 500m.

Resisits with the Bastion unit running are 78/75/78/81. Gun range is 22km with 9lm optimal. Armour rep is at 2116 per 11.25 sec. Mmmm all is good!

I might need to buy some of these!

Any errors in this blog post are due to me being drunk k?

Disclaimer - A mate called Simon dragged be down the bar. I might have been a bit drunk when I wrote this!

Overview Fail and Friendly Fire

So my dad has returned back to 'sunny' England and I can get back on Eve properly.

I did get online Saturday whilst he was watching a John Wayne movie. A squid Dramiel tried to take down my Thrasher. I was in a 10mn flavour and these can be tricky with Dramiels. They kill Daredevils a lot easier. Thankfully I managed to pop the Dram as my Thrasher was at 30% structure with a lot of hot modules.

A while later I was in a Vengeance and landed on a plex gate where I'd scanned a Thorax. The Thorax was outside and was Gallente Militia and hence 'friendly'. I use inverted commas there as 'friendly' ships don't usually point you and open fire. I said in local I was friendly whilst setting a fast and close orbit hoping his guns wouldn't hurt me as I tried to point out he's going to take a massive standings hit for attacking me. He ignores local. So I convo him. He rejects the convo. Other people are telling him in local to stop attacking me. He's not reading local or is ignoring it.

Now what to do? He's hardly tickling my shields and I'm in an armour tank. He's not looking at local, he won't accept my convo. So what to do.... what to do....?

As he aggressed first I can return fire without taking the massive standings hit you usually get for attacking a member of your militia. My rocket Vengeance has him pointed and webbed and his shields are dropping fast. I've let corpies know on Comms what is happening and told them not to engage. I'm pretty sure they would get the standings hit if they engaged.

Luckily for Mr Thorax he did accept a convo off one of my 'Goodie Two-Shoes' corpies who kindly explained that he was attacking friendly militia and if he killed me he'd taken an even bigger standings hit than the one he's already taken.

"Drack. He's got it. He's de-agressing. Drack? Drack stop shooting him! DRACK!"

Oh I hear you, but bro, I iz mad. He attacked me and wouldn't accept a convo so I wanted to teach him a lesson. But am I THAT ebil to use it as an excuse to kill a 'blue'?

No, no I'm not. I carefully watched him enter structure with my finger over the hotkey. My rockets were doing around 15% of his structure per hit. I stopped DPS when he was at 20% structure and let him go. He warped off..... quickly. I never went below 80% shields in my armour tanked Vengeance.

Now obviously this dude had his overview set up wrong. And to be honest its an easy mistake to make for new players. But lets look at this another way, do you want to turn 'same alliance' off in overview? If you are -10 and in Gallente, I say no. If you turn off Gallente Milita, you turn of Matari Miltia. They are linked.

I have the 'Militia' column on my active overview. Why? Because currently you cannot turn off the Gallente and the Minmatar separately. The choice is Same Militia AND Allied Militia. They are either on or off together. I need Minmatar militia on my overview as there are a lot of 'anti-pirates' in there and with no standings penalty for attacking 'allied militia' we do have Minmatar attacking us. For most 'friendly' pilots in space this is not an issue. We have blues set with most major Gallente and Matari corps/alliances. What I do is have the militia column turned on in my overview. That way 'blues' show up on my overview but only rarely when they are NPC militia corp or a non-blue one.

This is not ideal, and puts me at a small risk of engaging a fellow militia member. However, its a trade-off against being able to see those who are either Matari "Kill all the things" Militia or Gallente Militia with rather dodgy overviews.

The Briefing (Fiction)

The SCASSSS today is neither short or special, it is another fictional piece I'm afraid. The Pod and Planet fiction contest ends in a few hours. I had tried to do a 'comedy' entry for the contest and in the end deleted it. As I didn't think Fridays was good enough, I just went with two which I submitted to Telegram Stan yesterday. Then last night Rhavas Tweeted this:-

So I thought, what the hell. Lets try again, I have a few hours and if they are struggling for numbers in that section at least I might help to flesh it out a bit. The reason I deleted the original of this was I wondered if anyone outside of of a relatively small section of Eve would get it. Well here goes at my first piece in this vane...


The Briefing

The officer strode into the briefing room with purpose. The young recruits all stood to attention as he entered the hall, stepped onto the stage approached the podium. Whilst the room was set up similar to the briefing room on a Chimera Class carrier, this room was actually located on an asteroid outpost.

"At ease!" he barked in a commanding tone. The recruits sat.

"I am Wing Commander Subit Hteh and I will be giving you today your inital introductory briefing. Over the next six weeks you new Capsuleers will be trained to fight for the State Protectorate within the Caldari Militia. Right now, you... know... nothing!" The Commander paused for effect. "Most of what you learnt in qualifying as Capsuleers won't save you against those bastard Gallente. We are here to make sure you survive and help us capture systems effectively. I will give you a high-level introduction to fitting and tactics now, where as others will take these subjects and give you greater and more in-depth lectures over the next month. In six weeks, you will be proud warriors of the glorious State Protectorate"

The Commander left the podium and walked along the raised platform at the front of the briefing hall. He carefully studied the faces looking back at him. They were young, expectant, ready to do their best for the State. He slowly returned to the podium. He pressed a button and the lights dimmed, a holoprojector in the centre of the stage activated and a six foot tall wireframe model of a frigate appeared.

"The trusty Merlin." the Commander announced "This should always be in your hanger. Who can tell me why?"

There was silence across the room. The Commander scanned the faces and saw nobody willing to answer. He pointed to a young man in the second row. "You!"

"Well sir... is it because as a frigate it can enter all military complexes in the contested war zone?" the young pilot asked nervously. "All of those acceleration gates are coded to accept frigates."

"No!" snapped the Commander. "You!" he pointed to a woman sat behind in the third row.

"The Merlin is an excellent close-range blaster boat. Fitted with warp scrambler and stasis webifier it can defend the landing zone in a complex effectively."

"No!" snapped the Commander more forcefully. "You call yourselves Caldari Militia? I see we have a LOT of work to do!"

The Commander pressed a few buttons and the fitting schematics appeared beside the holographic frigate.

"See! Three low slots! Count them, THREE! That is three warp core stabilisers you can get in there!"

There were gasps and murmurs around the room. Warp core stabilisers were generally not combat-equipment used in Capsuleer-to-Capsuleer engagements. Whilst the module stabilised and negated the effects of warp disrupting modules, the heavy electromagnetic shielding from the unit played havoc with the host ships scanners and sensors. Each stabiliser fitted generally halved the range at which a ship could lock a target and also doubled target acquisition time.

"But sir, three?" asked one shocked recruit!

"Yes three!" snapped the Commander "Yes, you'll not be able to target your nose cone. Yes, you'll take longer to lock a target than it takes to build a Titan but you will still be able to engage in our primary combat tactic as the interference does not affect that."

The entire room looked at the Commander in shock and confusion. The commander wandered over to the holographic Merlin and pointed at the high fitting slots.

"These house our primary combat tactic. What is it? You!" He pointed to another recruit.

"Sir? Well with the three warp core stabs gimping the targeting range, I'd say short-range Neutron Blasters."

"IDIOT!" snapped the Commander "A Neutron Blaster is a cannon, I said tactic!"

"Sir, sorry sir. Close range brawling sir."

The Commander shook his head. "No, no, no, NO! Our primary combat tactic is hiding!"

The recruits looked on in amazement. The commander went back to the podium and pressed another button. A cloaking device appeared in the fitting schematics.

"The Gallente cannot beat you if they cannot find you. Use the ships short-range scanner constantly and if any of those frog bastards turn up looking for a fight, hide!"

Murmurs of discontent drifted between the assembled recruits.

"Now, we have our ship half fitted and understand our primary combat tactic. But before we look at the rest of the modules lets talk about rigs. You!"

The recruit shifted uneasily in his seat.

"We haven't got all day!" the Commander growled "Come on. What rigs?"

"Sir... well with the cloaking device causing a sensor calibration delay and the warp core stabilisers reducing the scan signature strength I would go for targeting speed rigs and may be a sensor recalibration delay rig?"

"Then you'll die horribly in space!" snapped the Commander. "Seriously? You are going to decloak, wait half a minute for the sensors to come back online, spend another 20 seconds targeting the frog bastard and then open fire? You really expect to be still alive by the time you achieve a target lock? Fool! You fit speed and agility modules so you can engage the secondary combat tactic!"

By now discipline in the room was quickly fading. Whispered conversations had started to break out between the recruits.

"Sir? If you say hiding is our primary combat tactic, what is our secondary combat tactic?" one recruit dared to ask hardly hiding the contempt in his voice.

"Good question!" replied the Commander to every ones surprise, they were expecting the recruit to get blasted down after that question. The Commander pressed a button and the holographic Merlin span around and warped away, becoming a speck in the distance. "Running away! Very few combat situations that you cannot take the advantage with by a bit of running away. The enemy wants to destroy your ship, if you are not there when he arrives he has failed. When the Gallente fail, it is the same as us winning. Well, may be a draw. Take this as an example!".

The holographic Merlin vanished and was replaced by a Condor class frigate with fitting display.

"Tech one light missiles, cloak, micro-warpdrive, sensor booster, nano and over-drive injector. Rigs are axillary thrusters and some 'polycarb' housings. Another standard fit you'll need to get used to. It does the same damage as if you slapped your opponent in the face with a wet halibut, but who cares if they'll never catch you!"

The dam finally burst and the recruits started shouting and waving their arms. Several stood venting their anger. The Commander smiled and suddenly glanced to the door where he came in.

"Class dismissed!" he said hurriedly and suddenly sprinted to the opposite end of the room and barged out a fire escape.

The class quickly quietened down in shock as their instructor vanished. Suddenly the main doors on the other side of the room burst open. A man in the same Wing Commander uniform quickly swept into the room along with two military police officers who had guns drawn. The recruits stared, open-mouthed in shock.

-o0o-

The Admiral sipped the amber liquid whilst reclining in the armchair in his office. The alcohol warmed his throat as he read from the datapad. Wing Commander Hiko stood next to him at attention, his gaze straight forward. Since he arrived ten minutes ago the Admiral had not said 'at ease' and the Commander had been frozen in attention.

"So Wing Commander, please help me to get this straight. Your report states that you received official orders that the recruits initial briefing had been changed and would be held in room 5412, twenty minutes later than planned."

"Yes sir!"

"You didn't question these orders as they were sent via our official system."

"That is correct sir."

"However it would appear that these orders were falsified and sent by an intruder. A fact you didn't realise until you arrived at room 5412."

"Yes sir."

"And this intruder dressed as yourself and held the initial briefing to our new recruits in the pilots briefing hall."

"Yes sir."

"And none of our recruits suspected anything even though he was giving combat advice that anyone who has flown a garbage scow would have know was crap."

"That is correct sir."

"And nobody realised that the name he claimed, Subit Hteh, is simply Tibus Heth spelt backwards."

"No sir."

"Thank you Commander for those confirmations, I just wanted to be sure. I've been running this State Protectorate Capsuleer Academy for two decades. I must say this is the first time a Gallente agent has even infiltrated our facility for the simple reason of TAKING THE PISS!"

The Commander remained stiffly at attention.

"Last thing before I dismiss you Commander and consider what I'm going to do to you, did you enter room 5412?"

"Sir, no sir. I didn't know where that room was until I arrived at it this morning. As soon as I opened the door I knew it was a trick so headed straight for 2231."

"And 5412 is not a room where we could hold pilot briefings is it?"

"Sir, no sir. It is a storage room near the kitchen block sir."

"A storage room? What specifically was it storing Commander?" the Admiral looked over his glasses.

The Commander paused, still stood stiffly at attention. "Sir, it stores frozen chickens, sir!"

Love is Blind

Fiction Friday! If you are not into your Eve fiction then try here. My father is still visiting so I have little or no Eve time. This was the case last night when I was down at the bar getting hammered with him whilst the CCP live event was happening. I woke this morning with a massive hangover and a lot of Tweets. Drunk Tweeting is bad mmmmm'k! However also on Twitter it appeared to suggest CCP rounded up a big fleet of High-Sec carebears and took them to null-sec... at the same time encouraging players who couldn't join the high-sec team (you know, because they are -10 due to all the PvP'ing they do) to head to that null-sec area. I mean, what's the worst that could happen there?

This piece was supposed to be an entry for the Pod and Planet fiction contest, but not sure I'm going to submit it. I liked the initial idea in my head but not sure that it turned out to be as quiet as good as I thought. Oh well...


Love is Blind

Hakeem sealed the clear transparent tank and opened a valve on one of the many tubes that were fixed to the containers lid. A quiet hiss broke the steady hum from the starships engines that filled the room. An opaque gas filled the glass camber that was located directly below the bleeding rooms. This particular starship was used for one purpose, to harvest humans, particularly their blood.

This was Hakeem's first expedition in total charge of the bleeding process. For nearly five years he had worked his way up the crew ranks. In fact he was only one step away from the bridge. Whilst at 23 years of age Hakeem would have been considered too young for such responsibilities in most of the major factions of New Eden, the Blood Raiders didn't have a long life expectancy. The militant wing of the notorious Sani Sabik cult existed to capture victims and collect their bodies, but mainly their blood, to further their research. Unsurprisingly this gave them a fearsome reputation and marked them as shoot-on-sight to all law enforcement agencies. Along with Sansha's Nation, stories of the Blood Raiders were told to young children to scare them. Bounties were placed on most of their ships which in turn attracted the capsuleers. Life with the Blood Raiders was usually short and brutal.

He opened a second valve and the gas in the chamber cleared. It was now fully sterilised and ready to be filled. It wouldn't be long now. An hour ago they had intercepted a Gallente hauler. After disabling it with the cruisers energy neutralisers they had latched onto the hapless ship and sent boarding parties over. Hakeem had heard the call for the second and third squads to move out. That was a good sign to him. If one team had taken the ship it would have meant only a small crew was present. If all three squads were needed then there must be many more. Hakeem could be very busy, very soon. Perhaps it was a refugee transport. With the two rooms above his head they could bleed 20 people at a time. A hundred bleedings would take him over a day. This particular mission required male and female blood to be extracted separately. If there was a big difference in proportions it would take even longer as he had set aside one room for the men and another for the women.

Half an hour later he was informed over the communicator that the bleeders were ready. He was bitterly disappointed to hear there were only three live and one corpse recovered from the other ship. Apparently the crew had set a trap killing squad one in a single fire in the galley. Squad two were flushed into space when a mining charge hidden in an airlock was triggered. This crew of four had put up more of a fight than any of their last targets.

Hakeem entered the first bleeding room and realised why. An older man and a boy were restrained against the wall in the bleeding alcoves. Their resemblance was obvious. Father and son. Nothing is more dangerous than a parent protecting its offspring. Hakeem  lanced at the corpse storage tubes. Empty. Therefore the dead crew member and the other live one captured must both be female. He picked up a thin tube with a large gauge needle in the end and approached the father who was pleading for him to stop.

Twenty minutes later Hakeem checked on the father. His skin was grey and ashen, he was almost gone. The man tried to speak but was too weak. Hakeem could see in his eyes that he knew all was lost. He was slipping away slowly. His son next to him was clearly dead already having been bled out several minutes ago. Hakeem waited a while longer until the father was fully drained before he shut of the machines. He then proceeded through a small airlock to the second room. The first thing he saw was the woman in one of the corpse tubes. The mother he assumed given her apparent age, meaning... he turned to the wall and gasped. There, suspended against the wall was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. No, not a woman, a girl. She was Gallente, late-teens and was sobbing heavily. He was mesmerised. She had jet black hair that cascaded down over her shoulders. Her skin was slightly tanned and in stark contrast to the white strappy top that she wore. He was frozen, rooted to the spot. The comms unit crackled into life and broke the spell.

"Hakeem we've detected a frigate in the next belt, given the poor harvest here we are moving to intercept. Be ready for more."

Hakeem blinked and slowly picked up the tube with the needle attached and walked up to her. She was restrained against the wall in one of the 'bleeding alcoves'. He placed his hand against her arm ready to insert the needle that would drain the blood from her body. The skin was soft, flawless and she smelt incredible. He paused, his head moved closer to her hair taking in her scent. Suddenly a pair of lips brushed his temple. The kiss was light, loving. "Please." the girl whispered. Hakeem froze, his heart raced.

"I can see you are a good man." she whispered "You don't want to do this."

He paused, conflicted, confused. Hakeem had never had a girlfriend and limited experience with the opposite sex. His heart pounded, his palms were clammy. Could this be love at first sight?

He turned to face her, she stretched her head against the restraints and kissed him lightly on the lips. He didn't respond, he was frozen.

"Please." she whispered again "Save me." She kissing him again this time he responded back. He felt her tongue push pass his lips as the warp engines engaged.

-o0o-

"Hakeem standby we're bringing four males to you."

"Acknowledged. Please set them up in Room 1. I'll be up there shortly."

Hakeem placed the communicator back on his belt and looked through the tiny crack in the door. He saw the troopers march by leading the prisoners. He and the girl were hidden in a small storage room near to the ships main airlock. As the sounds of the boots faded he grabbed her hand and ran to the open airlock. There was a very short tube where the docking arm had latched on the other ship. They stepped into the frigate and Hakeem smiled. The ship was Amarrian, an Executioner. Whilst the Blood Raider ships were slightly different, he still could fly this as the controls would be very similar.

He dragged the girl to the small bridge and jumped into the cockpit. The systems were still operational and the ships capacitor had recharged to 46%. Once the Raiders had captured the crew the energy neutralisers had been turned off.

"Hakeem. They are ready."

Hakeem picked up his communicator.

"Acknowledged. I'm down in the collection room sterilising fresh containers. Leave them there and I'll be up shortly." There was silence, no acknowledgement for several seconds.

"I sent a man down to see if you were there before I made this call. You were not there. What is your exact location, and where is the body of the girl we brought in?"

Hakeem dropped the communicator. With a flick of a switch he closed the airlock remotely and fired the engines. The docking arm between the two ships was ripped apart as the small frigate moved away from the cruiser. He knew that would have de-pressurised that one corridor on his old ship and activated just about every alarm on board. The small frigate slipped into warp before the Raiders could respond to the unbelievable turn of events.

-o0o-

An hour later Hakeem entered the galley, it was heavily damaged by the fire the crew had set off earlier. The girl was preparing them some food. She smiled at him as he entered.

For a moment he worried what he'd done. He'd abandoned his faction, stolen a ship and was now on the run. He knew he was relatively safe. Since warping off from the Blood Raider cruiser he had bounced between planets until he was sure that he had lost them. Then he had headed for the nearest high-sec stargate. Thankfully their hunting grounds were near to the low-sec border, more targets could be found this close to Empire space. As soon as they had left low-sec he knew he'd gotten away with it.

"Are we safe?" she asked as she seductively licked some sauce from her fingers.

"Yes. We're on autopilot. The ship will fly itself and even dock in the station like you asked." he replied. His heart quickened as he'd recalled what she'd said to him. "Once we're in high-sec, set the autopilot. I need to give you your special reward and don't want to be disturbed!"

She leaned against the counter top, leaving the food unfinished. She beckoned him over to her with one finger whilst she bit her bottom lip. Hakeem wanted to run to her, his desire was burning, but he tried to act cool. He slowly sauntered over and stood in front of her.

"I want you." she whispered and took his head in her hands. The kiss was warm, wet, and passionate.

All thoughts of his treason against the Raiders melted away as his new lover ground her body into him. This is what he wanted, this is what he needed.

The sudden pain made his vision go blurred. It was unbelievable and all consuming. He staggered back, breaking the passionate embrace, confused. He looked at the girl, her look of need, wanting and passion was gone. Replaced with a visage of hate, anger and sorrow. His vision panned down her body. At her side she held a large carving knife, it was dripping with bright red blood. It slowly dripped which formed a small pool on the scorched floor. Time appeared to slow down. He looked down at himself and saw where the bright red blood on the knife had come from him. A gaping wound pumped rivers of blood from his left side. The wound was large, she had twisted the knife hard after stabbing him deep. He slumped to his knees trying to stem the flow of blood with his hands.

"Why?" he gasped.

The girl shot him a look which appeared to say "You really need to ask?"

To his amazement, a short laugh left his lips. Of course he didn't need to ask. His shipmates had killed her mother and he'd personally bled her father and brother to death. The irony was not lost on him, as she pushed herself up and sat on the worktop and watched him slowly bleed to death.

Space Yurts and Ghost Sites

So we have our space Yurts on the server. In case you are wondering what a Yurt is, in our time it is a small potable igloo-shaped home used in Asia. In Eve Online it is a deployable home from home.

It is 50m3 in size packed and you drop it and anchor it like any other deployable structure. Once its in space, this is what you get:-

 

The short stats are.. well... it has a fitting service (like a carrier) and 3000m3 of cargo space. Good for storing and swapping modules, not much cop as a forward base for reshipping. You can stick a packed frigate in there, but there is no way to assemble or launch it so no point.

I tried scanning it down, and got some weird ghosting. There were two mobile depots showing up on the probe scanner but on D-Scan there was only one. Anyway I was able to scan it down fairly easily with sisters combat probes once I found which one it was!

DRACKARN! KILL!

Four volleys from my Naga and it was space dust. It drops a wreck you can loot from.

For me I don't really see much use for this thing tbh.

CCP have also announced another Rubicon feature. Ghost Sites.

Basically these appear to be PvE NPC pirate research centres where you can hack the databank and steal their stuffz. Their stuffz being mainly blueprints for a new faction implant set (the first one to be crafted by players) that gives a bonus to warp speed, materials to make these implants and blueprints for the new depot type deployable structures.

These are timetrial sites, and when you enter one, a hidden clock starts ticking. When the counter reaches zero space-ponies are released, Nyan Cat does a fly past and you get covered in Amarrian custard.

OK, not really, the site detonates in a fecking big bang which will likely destroy your ship!

There appears to be the potental for pirate rats trying to stop you hacking the site, but these have no bounty and no loot so farming these is pointless. The idea for the site is to get in, hack and get out before the pirates say "Oi! That capsuleer is stealing our hard earned research. ACTIVATE THE SELF DESTRUCT!"

The countdown is to be hidden so you have no idea how long you have. I assume CCP has made a formula that randomises the time, may be even linked to the quality of the loot. Something like 3 minutes +/- 0 to 45 seconds.

Nothing really there to interest me personally. The implants are niche. With the interceptor rebalance, warping changes and this implant, 'ceptor pilots will be keen to get one of these. Then again if they are really expensive are pilots going to risk them in null-sec and wormhole space? Many won't risk low-grade faction implants in low-sec even. That might limit their appeal. Time will tell but I don't think these are going to be anywhere near as popular as a Slave or Snake set. Outside of PvP I do see freighter pilots eyeing these up, especially after the warp changes meaning their slow-boating becomes slooow-boating in Rubicon. As freighters are 99% confined to warping around high-sec, I think some freighter pilots will splurge on some new hi-grade implants to cut off a chunk of their time spent in warp.

Me? I'm assuming their will be an acceleration gate to enter these Ghost complexes. These sites do not have to be scanned down and will pop up apparently. Whether this will be straight onto overview or in the scanner window like faction war plex I don't know. I guess CCP don't want new-bros to warp to this funny thing and then DIAF when the site goes boom as they "explore" without reading any pop up thoroughly. So if I come across one I'll grab a Cockbag Thrasher and sit outside it on the gate. Surprise!

One thing that does make me happy is that the blue print for the Omega implant only drops in low-sec and wormhole space. Along with the tags-4-sec introduced earlier this year it goes somewhat further to balance the woefully unbalanced risk vs reward in low-sec. Anything to atract more people to low-sec, so I can shoot them, is a good thing!

I'm a bit surprised that the loot component required to build all of the six implants only drops in high-sec. I assume CCP were worried about supply and cost if it dropped in more dangerous places. PI materials and Trit are also required but I doubt the demand for these implants will make any sort of ripples in the PI market whatsoever.

So two new bits of Rubcon... not really much for me personally.

Test Driving the Stratios

I'm a bit limited on Eve time this week, my dad is visiting from the UK. He's come all this way to see me so not really right I spend all my time on Eve. However, whilst he's watching some TV I found time to try the new Sisters of Eve cruiser.

As a PvP'r I've gone from PvP fit Stratios. Shock! I know! First up was a dual web armour tank with drone DPS. I imagine using something like this to lurk in a plex cloaked waiting for squid farmers to arrive.

Not looking too shabby. DPS-wise it is fairly close to my other drone Cruiser, the Vexor. It is also comparable to my Flabber (Fleet Stabber). Tank wise its a bit less than those other ships. Both of them have 1600mm plates and I could only squeeze a 800mm on the Stratios. However, one word. Cloak!

In space it made short work of rat destroyers but against a Claymore piloted by an alt it didn't do a lot. But then again, that is expected! 400dps against a Commandship would take a while.

With a 400m Drone bay the Straitos screams SENTRY DRONES!!! So I refit for a ranged version with Garde II's and beam lasers.

Yup, that works. Same tank of 31k EHP but now with 726 DPS! 

Tried that on the alt in the Claymore and had to take off DPS as his tank was breaking. A few of these with sentry drones assisting fast tackle could be very nasty!

So in my very quick trial it appears to be an interesting craft. I think the sentry drone fit will be the most common. Although I fear to think what the Caldari Militia will make of this for LP farming. I shudder to think...

Yes, as I thought, a very effective squid militia fit! Killed the cruiser rat in the medium plex with drones rather quickly and didn't drop below 90% shields even with the lack of tank. Triple stab and covert ops cloak. Catch me if you can!

Hang on, two can play that game! The FFF - Federation Farmer Farmer fit...

Rigs reduce the 6 second sensor recal on declaoking to 4.3 sec and the twin scram makes sure he's going nowhere. Oh yes, that could be useful hiding in plex waiting for squid farming Strats to enter!

SCASSSS - Iceland Style

At some point today SCAS will have had as many visits are there are people in Iceland!

OK it probably pales against Jesters Trek, Eveogander and the like but I'm a happy bunny! The funny spike in the graph above is what I have called the 'Manifest Effect'. I got two posts linked by CCP on their Facebook page in consecutive months once, hence the massive spike.

So a few stats:-

Top posts

PL : WTB New Titan - Linked by CCP in their Facebook Feed.
Can I Haz Eve Stuffz - Linked by CCP in their Facebook Feed.
I'm Sorry, There is No Excuse.... - Linked by someone on Redit.
300, Loren Gallen, Chuck Norris and Overkill
The Ridiculously Quick Faction War Guide


Top Referring Sites

http://www.evebloggers.com/
http://www.facebook.com/
http://sandciderandspaceships.blogspot.com
https://www.google.com/
http://www.evealtruist.com/
http://blogpack.evebloggers.com/
http://eveoganda.blogspot.com/
http://jestertrek.blogspot.com/
http://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/
http://www.reddit.com/r/eve


Top Search Results

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My Sister's Ship

This will be an entry for the Pod and Planet fiction contest. I thought I'd try and write a Eve-O expansion chronicle type piece for Rubicon.

In other news I have another Novellette almost ready. This one is slightly shorter than "A Second Chance at Life", less than 20,000 words as I recall. I pay crap, but if anyone with good Ingrish skills out there fancies proofreading it I'll throw some ISK your way (I split a billion between three who did last one) plus give you a credit in foreword of the e-booklet.


My Sisters Ship

A huge window looked out towards the planet below. The conference room lights were dimmed which made the view into space even more spectacular. The sun had moved behind the temperate planet of X-7OMU II and created a black orb against the star field.

Santimona Sarpati looked away from the window and up at the large display screen as the engineer stood recounting lists of boring specifications and technical data to the board who were seated around the large conference table. The CEO of the Sisters of Eve glanced around the various executives present. Some were looking intently at the big screen on the far wall that displayed the images and data of the prototype craft. Others appeared disinterested and were flicking through their datapads.

She discreetly glanced at her own datapad as the engineer described the improved electronic sub-routines that increased the strength of the scanner probes by 19.43%. There were three new messages. The refugee crisis in Black Rise was worsening. The Gallente-Caldari war was swinging backwards and forwards every six months. There was a message from her team out there requesting more support against the bureaucracy that was hampering their rescue efforts. The next message was reporting that the situation in Fountain had died down substantially. The capsuleer war there had been short and brutal. Millions had died and millions more had been displaced. However, the Sisters involvement was now reducing, she hoped they could be end major relief operations in that region before the end of the year. Finally there was a message regarding the famine on Konora III. Unusual solar flare activity had led to the planets entire crop failing. 400 million people were in danger of starvation and the Minmatar Republic had asked both the Sisters of Eve and the Gallente Federation for help. The message she had received was from a member of President Jaque Roden's Federation cabinet who responsible for external aid and relief efforts. The sleazy politician was probably suggesting dinner again to 'discuss' the situation. She rolled her eyes, another evening meeting where she would be trying to get an agreement on aid shipments and he'd be trying to talk her into bed.

Santimona looked back to the big screen, the engineer was summing up and a video simulation was playing in the background showing the new ships moving towards a half-destroyed Nyx class super-carrier. Flames and wreckage spewed from the crippled craft as the bright white prototype ships moved towards it. A large explosion inside the Nyx blasted a chunk of wreckage towards one of the approaching frigates. The small ship gracefully dodged around the massive chunk of spinning metal and resumed its course towards the stricken craft. Most of her board were now busy with their datapads having heard enough. The CEO knew as soon as it got to the questions segment they'd all be paying attention. She knew that after she asked the first question all hell was going to break loose. Inwardly she smiled, this was going to get very interesting in the next two minutes.

".... and so esteemed executives of the Sisters of Eve, I give you the Astero and the Stratios. Next generation ships, designed from the ground up, to specifically serve the requirements and needs of the Sisters of Eve." the Engineer concluded.

There was a polite round of applause as the lights in the conference room were turned up. The room went silent, the engineer who had been giving the presentation looked at the CEO expectantly. She cleared her throat.

"Excellent work. Please pass my gratitude onto the engineering team. These are impressive and iconic ships that the very sight of will bring hope to those in the most dire of situations. When all hope appears to be lost, when death appears to be the only certainty, the sight of these craft will be a beacon of light in the terrible darkness."

Another polite round of applause. The CEO smiled and nodded in acknowledgement whilst thinking "Bunch of kiss-asses!".

"I myself have only one question for the design team." she continued. "Could these ships be made capsule compatible?"

There was a moments stunned silence, then the room erupted in shouts and hand waving. She fully expected this, she welcomed this. It was time to have this discussion once and for all and the unveiling of the designs of these new ships was the perfect opportunity. She sat up straight and eye-balled each director. Slowly the shouting died down to a murmur.

"I'm sorry? I thought this was the executive board of the Sisters of Eve, not a Matari school playground."

Embarrassed looks were exchanged around the room.

"Now I know this is a delicate subject, so you'll all get your chance to give your opinion. But first, I asked our Engineer a question. Can they?"

All eyes turned to the engineer stood at the end of the table.

"Yes ma'am, the actually design changes needed to make any ship capsule compatible is actually easy to design in and doesn't require much special..."

The CEO raised the palm of her hand. The Engineer realised he'd answered the question and he abruptly shut up.

"So that is a yes then. Before I go around asking you each of your opinions and we take a vote, you will listen to mine. The Sisters of Eve is THE premier rescue and disaster response organisation in New Eden. We are the ones the Empires turn to in times of crisis. We have no political bias. We will save those in need whether they are pirates or monks, saints or sinners. Yet there are sometimes when we ourselves need additional help. The capsuleers, whatever your opinion of them, are a valuable tool in certain limited circumstances. Whether you agree with it or not, we have a long history of working together. Since the new laws, which were implemented this year, that required scan probes have auto-return subroutines included, fewer capsuleers have been approaching our agents looking for work. Pilots are no longer losing our modified scanner probes as much, therefore demand for replacement probes has fallen drastically. This has meant many of our capsuleer contracts have been going unfulfilled and we have suffered, and when we suffer other people suffer. The demand for the goods we offered as a reward for services rendered has dropped, therefore the capsuleers have been offering their time and services to other organisations where they can make a better profit. We need to offer them something to bring them back to working for us. These ships are unique, there are nothing like them. Yes, New Eden would be better off without the capsuleers, there is no doubt about that. However, the fact of the matter is they are here and there is nothing we can do about it. So do we distance ourselves further from the capsuleers, or do we make use of their services for the greater good?"

Again the room erupted in shouts and again was silenced by a wave of the hand from the CEO.

"Titrutolf?" she asked the Minmatar Chief of Staff.

"It is a difficult one. We all know sometimes we need firepower to prevent further disaster and loss of life. It is perhaps one of our greatest issues we must wrestle with on a daily basis. Destruction and death for the greater good. Some around this table may say violence is never an answer, but they are wrong. Whatever your opinions of the capsuleers are, we need them. We have tried contracting traditional mercs, but we have found that this usually only leads to more deaths. I agree with the proposal, the Empyreans have deserted us for more profitable organisations, we need something to tempt them back. These ships are the answer."

"Ishemi?"

The head of administration and chief financial officer steepled his fingers under his chin.

"The finances have been very strong lately. This is simply because we are no longer paying out billions of Interstella Kredits in capsuleer contracts. Since the demand for our scan probes dropped, they have been seeking greener pastures it is true. Well, more profitable pastures at least. In fact we have a surplus of cash. From a finance point of view we are better now than ever. However, I do not think we should be talking about money, we should be talking about actively encouraging capsuleers! They are the angels of death in New Eden and we expend more resources cleaning up after their destruction than on any natural disaster or war! We cannot, we must not, encourage or support these Empyreans. The fact of the matter is that the cluster would be a safer place without them! They will not use these ships for good! They will use them to destroy! I will vote no."

Slowly Santimona Sarpati worked around the room, each of the board members taking one stance or the other, very few sat on the fence other than Vampant Antyles. The head of the archives recounted several incidences where capsuleers working with the Sisters had prevented massive losses of life. A silence engulfed the room when he recounted the plague on Gicodel IV where a lone capsuleer was able to save the vaccine after pirates had hijacked the shipment. Tens of millions of people had been saved due to that one capsuleer. However, as impartial as ever, Vampant also recounted several incidents where the Capsuleers had caused huge losses of life completely unnecessarily. In the end he admitted he didn't know if the Empyreans were a blessing or a curse on the cluster.

The last of the executives gave their opinions. There were those who believed the Sisters should not be associating with the capsuleers and that they should cut ties with these immortals totally. Others pointed out that whilst an aid agency, the Sisters regularly needed a more military solution to problems to prevent further loss of life. Compared to the other alternatives, capsuleers where the lesser of the evils. Finally the last executive, who was in charge of the Security Division, gave their opinion in support of the proposal and all heads turned back to Santimona Sarpati.

"Well unsurprisingly we appear to have two camps. Now I must ask you all to vote. Should our next generation of Sisters ships be casuleer compatible so that we can offer them to Empyreans as a reward for services rendered, or should be continue to distance ourself from them?" she asked.

One by one, each executive tapped their datapad. Within thirty seconds all the votes had been cast the results appeared as a three-dimensional graph slowly rotating above the table. The assembled executives had to crane their necks forward to get a closer look, the two bars appeared almost level.

Santimona Sarpati nodded, her face not showing any expression.

"The aye's have it by a single vote." she announced "The next generation of Sisters of Eve ships will be capsule compatible."