My journey started in summer 2007. A lonesome miner drilling up all the Plagioclase that were in reach of the Miner II’s.
A year earlier, in 2006, I had tried the EVE Online 14-day trial, "Judas I" was born, but with little success. I have little actual memory of it, but I remember my buddy flying a badass (or at least it looked badass) Cormorant. Regardless, my friend stopped playing as the 14 days finished, and so did I.
For reasons I don’t remember I decided to give EVE another shot in 2007. Unfortunately I had forgotten my account details so I created a new account and character. Judas II saw the light on the 26th of june 2007. And this time I did subscribe.
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| 2007. That thing on my shoulder is an e-Parrot. Trust me. |
On the second day I joined Black Wolves. A high-sec newb-friendly PvE/Industry corporation. The corporation was ran by a fine gentleman called Blackchallis, or “BC”, as he got often referred to. About a week into the game I had the pleasure of meeting him in a random highsec belt, the CEO himself! He took a quick look at my Ibis-rookie ship and asked if I had the skills to fly a Merlin. I did, and he gifted me one. Best.Day.Ever!
Black Wolves was a relaxed laid-back corp. Sure, we got wardecced now and then, and yes I lost a Badger or a Covetor every so often, but that was all part of it. Corp chat mostly revolved around two or three things; how to fit a Mining Barge, or how awesome ones T2 Drake was for missioning. (“Tech 2 Drakes” were a big thing. It didn’t mean a Nighthawk or anything, no it meant a fully T2 fitted mission Drake. That shit was the bomb!) Black Wolves was home to me for nearly a year and I had met and made some fine friends. Notably a person called 12433412 (yes that was his name), Storm Moonsong
(who would later create Z.o.r.g.i.x, a later corp I joined) and bjoernolus, AKA “BJ”, who would more than once lend me 100mil to buy a new Hulk after I‘d have lost one to canflippers.
Early 2008 Black Wolves joined the alliance Rule of Three and got invited to live in Cobalt Edge. I had never been to nullsec before, but now I was mining ABC ore in the farfar north-eastern regions of space, dodging Rogue Drones with my Hammerhead I’s. Ships were lost. Once a fortnight I would make the impossible journey (and obviously oblivious to the danger!) of hauling my hard earned Arkonor 30 or so jump straight through nullsec in a Bustard. Most of the pipe were controlled by blues, but I do recall one very long night of me slowboating cloaked (so that’s like 30m/s?) 80km towards a bubbled gate.
Spring 2008 the decision was made that things needed change. A greater part of Black Wolves would merge into a corporation called 7th Space Cavalry, then part of R0ADKILL, fighting the evil Goons and Russians in the Geminate region. In 7th SC I made new friends again. Names like Martin Hartl, fearless CEO; his partner in crime Devlin Mar; Carco Phan; Hibasot; Gandlef FC; Unknown Chris, and many others.
From what I gathered we won the war, but honestly I have no idea. Gotta mine that Plagioclase!! With 7th SC were also 124, Storm, and BJ from Black Wolves. I think we were all a bit tired of nullsec, so we set up a new corp; Z.o.r.g.i.x. The idea was to be a mercenary corp. But to be a mercenary you need a ship. And to have a ship you need ISK. The honest truth is that we never wardecced a thing and were just carebearing nearly 24/7. We set up base in Lonetrek, very close to lowsec, so on a rare occasion we did venture into there and I’d lose yet another Crow or yet another Falcon. I did get a taste for PvP, but the only ships I would ever fly were either a Crow or a Falcon. It would get to a point where I would calculate my incomes in quantities of Crows. “If I mine a bit more I can sell this ore and have a new Crow by friday!” But I had good fun in Z.o.r.g.i.x, and one of the things that kept me interested was canflipping clueless Miners. This mechanic has changed over time, but back then it was a simple idea: you steal the ore out of a jetcan from a miner, and dump it a container of your own. After stealing the ore the Miner either attack you, or he would take his ore back from your container, which would also render aggression. Either way you would blast him out of the sky. I would do this using a Stealthbomber. Canflip his ore and cloak up. The Miner would feel safe thinking I was not in his belt anymore, take the ore back and die in a ball of fire as soon as I uncloaked. Funfact: my first testrun was less effective when I forgot to fit a disruptor, so my first target, a Badger, simply warped out.
A few months later we figured we ought to be doing more than just running missions so we tried our hands at the freshly introduced Faction Warfare that came with the recent expansion at the time, and eventually we yet again set sail for nullsec. This time the far far south: Stain. There was alliance called Systematic-Chaos, part of the Stainwagon, or Staintrain, I don’t know what it was called back then. But Systematic-Chaos was something special. If not just for the fact that the executive corporation was a 100% Italian-only corp. 80% of the alliance FC’s were Italian too that resulted in hilarious battlecomms. You’ve got to picture yourself a raging Italian shouting incoherent english battlecommands over Teamspeak with the worst accent you can imagine. When tackling a Super; “Babble da facka! Better babbles, better babbles! Babble tha facka guys!! If your house is on fire, call fireman, keep shooting primary!!”
Needless to say we did not stay very long. Although I would like to add a milestone I reached during my time in Stain; I crossed the one billion ISK mark, mostly thanks to my ratting Torp Raven. I had to rewarp to each belt like 3 times to get in missile range to hit the NPC BS, but it was all worth it.
I needed change. Z.o.r.g.i.x was fun, and I had good friends, but nullsec was just not my thing. I kept in touch with Hibasot from 7th Space Cavalry since the Geminate war and he offered an entry to a new place to stay. 7thSC would be my new home for nearly two years.
During the year I spend in Z.o.r.g.i.x the 7thSC had left R0ADKILL and set up base in lowsec.
7thSC was ruled by two key players. Martin Hartl an Devlin. The men played EVE since 2003, were insanely rich (especially from my perspective), and had all the Skillpoints in the world to fly any ship they could dream of. The problem was that they were also incredible lazy. Either busy with real life, or otherwise no time to play, and made me a full blown Director in my first month of joining. What the hell.
CCP introduced the wormholes and Devlin pictured a goldmine. With promises of billions of ISK a week we ventured into the unknown space; armed with spreadsheets, Sleeper data, Towers and ship fittings. Anno 2014 Sleeper sites are farmed by Dreadnaughts and Loki’s. We had RR Battleships. I kid you not, we had Armor Scorpions to jam incoming DPS. Nevertheless, ISK was made, but quickly spend on replacing lost Orca’s (yes, plural) and Battleships.
We left our Wormhole early 2010 for a new goal. 7th SC would merge into an unknown corporation called Dark-Rising to fight a new war … somewhere. I really enjoyed the lowsec PvP (I stopped mining since we moved to Stain) but nullsec was just not it for me, and Dark-Rising was plagued by wardecs. I did not want get to null, and I could not even get a new ship out of Jita 4-4 without getting alpha’d. After 2 weeks of staying docked I asked Martin Hartl for permission to rejoin 7th Space Cavalry and set my own ways. I received his blessings and his CEO title …
So, 7th Space Cavalry, now an empty corp, was under my rule and I had lots of work to do. I started recruiting and then created my own alliance: Freemason Core. At some point I had 300 or so people in Freemason Core, granted 80% of them offline, but still, it was nice. 7th SC grew quickly (mostly with miners) and among them were the likes of Calypso, Phantomania and Nashau. Also 12433412 returned back to the game and joined in, and a few weeks later Martin showed up as well and things were going great. I think Martin enjoyed doing nothing, as I got to keep my CEO roles.
12433412 has been the secret mastermind behind most of my fits for many years and I was eager to learn. When he had a mission Golem, I’d get one; and when he showed his first Widow I sure as hell was training for one. But now I aimed for a new level. I took 7th SC with Freemason Core to the lowsec system of Enaluri, one jump into the Black Rise region. I believe this was the fulcrum point in my PvP career. At the time we only had three real PvPers; Martin, 124, and me, flying our faction geared Tengu’s. But to put it bluntly; we dominated Enaluri. We had eyes in all surrounding systems, and if anyone would get close to our gates we would be there to intercept them.
We shared Enaluri with another corporation that was part of Caldari Faction Warfare called The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. We weren’t kind on fighting them, and they were not kind on fighting us, so we set each other blue and kept to our own business. Meanwhile another pirate corporation settled in next door; Dragon Highlords. Dragon Highlords’ CEO was Lord Takani (and alts) and among their ranks were LtColGreenhalgh and Kubiq. We quickly grew a mutual respect for each other and soon after we set blue standings, eventually joined Freemason Core and executed joint-ops with great success.
Meanwhile, I grew tired of our blue Militia friends in Enaluri, and one a drunk friday evening I shot down one or two of them. What followed was to be expected. Both the Caldari and the Gallente militias noticed our frequent piracy and sieged Enaluri. By now the only two corporations left in Freemason Core were 7th SC and Dragon Highlords and we decided to merge into one corp: Extreme-Violence, Lord Takani as CEO, and me as co-CEO in spring 2011. Black Rise has becoming too blobby and we moved to Aridia.
Extreme-Violence was not to last long. In Aridia we met another neighbor corp and once again we merged and made the formal CEO a Director in Extreme-Violence. A grave mistake. One morning our corpwallets were empty and corphangers robbed.
Both me and Lord Takani were too tired of all the fuss and after we were evicted from Extreme-Violence I decided to return back to 7th Space Cavalry, back to the only place we knew; the Black-Rise region.
Moral was low. Very low. Lord Takani took a break from EVE as well as other people, and some joined another nullsec alliances. What was left was a handful of people sitting once again in 7th SC; Martin Hartl; Soused; Kubiq and me. By now we had mastered the skills of skirmish PvP. It was Ok to fly a 1.5bil ship outnumbered, because we knew how to fly it, and win with it. We knew we would either evict the locals, or piss them off soon enough, so we had to keep on the move. After Black-Rise came the Citadel, and after the Citadel came the Genesis region. By now 7th Space Cavalry had a mere three active players. Martin, Kubiq and me. And after so many empty regions Martin and Kubiq needed a new challenge. We knew Dark-Rising has left its former alliances and had settled in as a Gallente-sided militia corporation. And you guessed it; in the middle of Black-Rise.
June 2012 I left 7th Space Cavalry after nearly two years. Dark-Rising was different. It was crowded, structured, engaging and welcoming. I was done with all the diplomatic drama in Extreme-Violence so went I joined Dark I made sure to be and stay low profiled. Or at least for a short while … Mitch Taylor, CEO of Dark opened a trial for new Directors, and after only a few weeks in Dark I accepted the trial to greatness.
Fast forward 2 years; enter 2014. I’m still a Director in Dark-Rising, but in a place I never would have found myself: sovereignty nullsec space.
