Emotions had calmed by the end of the 2nd day of exile. In that time two scanning ships had slipped into the extradimensional pocket but neither had responded. A Heron left as soon as I transmitted in local, likely suspecting a trap, and later a specialized Zephyr scanner swept through with probes and I suspect he was not checking Local.
More hours.
The first step would be to build a new Purifier when (if) I reached home, home now defined as my originating planet, the Amarr homeworld. I was cut off from the datasphere of New Eden in my pocket wormhole environment but I could still access saved information on my personal chip, so I reviewed the Stealth Bomber Guide by the legendary pilot and author of A Merry Life And A Short One, Hallan Turrek. It was my bible when I developed my old Purifier, and I was pleased to see the guide had been updated recently.
As I spread the word about my efforts to destroy this one man, I would need to be mobile. I couldn't afford a Carrier, although I had enough cash on my account to replace one of my Bestowers in addition to the Purifier. I plan to visit major hubs, looking for intelligence, I'd park the industrial in a safespot or a common station and launch my Purifier for in-system operations. She would be my new moving home, Nerfana-2. The Purifier's title would need to reflect the mission, with the awkward name of "20m4infoOnTobiasX".
Reality sunk in a bit further as I imagined the aftermath of my old home; I had colonized three planets and colonized them with engineering skeleton crews. I hoped their deaths would be quick, death from above by Abaddon megabeams, but I imagine my escape would have enraged my Brother. He is the type to take out his anger in other directions. I imagine he and his pirates landing, armed, slitting throats and making piles of the dead. I now regretted my decision to allow the workers' spouses and children to join them planetside; at the time, I thought it would be nice, that their happyness would equal worker efficiency, but I had simply doomed them all.
I considered these things in a numb funk as I wasted time making safespots, making safespots between safespots. And waited.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Twiddling Thumbs and Seething
My first thought when things calmed down was to call my Brother, but I didn't have his direct line. I wanted to complain to my immediate family but, as mentioned, they woulld not understand. I pictured it, "You're 30, you're made at your brother because he stole your internet spaceships? Seriously?" It was a dig at me he knew I couldn't respond to in any conventional way. He'd chosen the battlefield and I would meet him on it: Eve.
The first thing I did as my pod hung in cold empty space was to form a plan. I felt finding and ruining one person in the entire universe of systems was daunting, and I would need help. I also felt like if someone understood what a jerk he was, they would willingly help me. A blog seemed like the best idea, so here we are. I'm starting this early, soon I will find my way back to the Amarr homeworld of my birth and the wheels will be set in motion.
The C4 had a black hole anomoly at the Northern pole of the system, but I didn't have the science or the equipment to explore using it to get home, or if that was even possible.
I began to think, to sort out what had happened. I think it was jealousy. He was always the black sheep and I think here he found something that I was passionate about that he, with a little planning, could trump me on..
With the level of detail required to orchestrate all this, I had no doubt that another fork of his plan would be to exterminate all my clones and jump clones, all the backup data and flash-photos of my mind. If I died here, I would die forever, and likely realizing that my pod would be too nimble to catch in the C4 once I had escaped the trap, they sealed me off. They would get the next static c4 and drive the remains of my fortune and fleet out that way, leaving me to have to self destruct in order to appear back in Amarr space. Except wioth all the clones gone, I would never wake up. Thank Gods I thought of this, because it later proved to be true. I would have to wait.
The first thing I did as my pod hung in cold empty space was to form a plan. I felt finding and ruining one person in the entire universe of systems was daunting, and I would need help. I also felt like if someone understood what a jerk he was, they would willingly help me. A blog seemed like the best idea, so here we are. I'm starting this early, soon I will find my way back to the Amarr homeworld of my birth and the wheels will be set in motion.
The C4 had a black hole anomoly at the Northern pole of the system, but I didn't have the science or the equipment to explore using it to get home, or if that was even possible.
I began to think, to sort out what had happened. I think it was jealousy. He was always the black sheep and I think here he found something that I was passionate about that he, with a little planning, could trump me on..
With the level of detail required to orchestrate all this, I had no doubt that another fork of his plan would be to exterminate all my clones and jump clones, all the backup data and flash-photos of my mind. If I died here, I would die forever, and likely realizing that my pod would be too nimble to catch in the C4 once I had escaped the trap, they sealed me off. They would get the next static c4 and drive the remains of my fortune and fleet out that way, leaving me to have to self destruct in order to appear back in Amarr space. Except wioth all the clones gone, I would never wake up. Thank Gods I thought of this, because it later proved to be true. I would have to wait.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
How It Went Down Part II
The night had arrived, and I was asleep in my large quarters on the station, Nerfana-1. Outside the thick transparent portholes I saw in the deep distance the lush, familiar planets that fell under my control. It was a one-man paradise, but it was not without some excitement that I had opened the doors completely to my Brother. I could see it as a two-man empire, I was warming to the idea.
Asleep in my metal home, I was awoken by an earthquake. The last time I had that sensation was on my home planet, near the Northern pole, as a child, and my Brother was nearby then, too.
Nerfana-1 was literally rocking about me. The familiar hum of the powerful shield bubble was missing as I shook off the sleep. The siege had begun. I was dressed and in motion in seconds. Glued to a porthole viewer, I struggled to believe what I was seeing. My Brother in his Rifter, flanked by a pair of Abbadons.
They were destroying my home. Internal sensors weren't responding until I inputted my backup code. Guns offline, shield down, life support offline in ... 30 seconds! I went cold and hot at the same time. For now, survival. Somehow. I was sprinting as I planned. I initiated voice control for the station, calling up logs, trying to understand. I had it scan the Starship Maintenance Array, thinking if I could reach one of my Battleships I might have a chance of saving the situation. All ships gone or destroyed. Only one option.
With 10 seconds I reached the small hidden bay I installed in the Nerfana to house my personal favourite and most trusted ally, an Amarrian Purifier Covert Ops Stealth Bomber. I sensed the air, felt the gravity, as both died away and floated the last twenty feet to the Purifier access hatch. Again the station rocked. The Purifier's computer had been untouched, and I interfaced immediately. It showed an image outside the station, or what was left of it. It had just snapped in two, the lower half slowly turning to fire and debris, the upper half, housing me beginning to spiral down into the upper atmosphere of the nearby ice planet. The place was gaining speed and falling.
The exit space for the Purifier's small bay bent inward to close off the escape. A few torpedoes blew the hole back open, I cloaked within the station then microwarpdrived out in a burst. My ship burned in atmospheric freefall a moment before I looped left away from the debris and watched as the last sections of Nerfana-1 burst apart...
Asleep in my metal home, I was awoken by an earthquake. The last time I had that sensation was on my home planet, near the Northern pole, as a child, and my Brother was nearby then, too.
Nerfana-1 was literally rocking about me. The familiar hum of the powerful shield bubble was missing as I shook off the sleep. The siege had begun. I was dressed and in motion in seconds. Glued to a porthole viewer, I struggled to believe what I was seeing. My Brother in his Rifter, flanked by a pair of Abbadons.
They were destroying my home. Internal sensors weren't responding until I inputted my backup code. Guns offline, shield down, life support offline in ... 30 seconds! I went cold and hot at the same time. For now, survival. Somehow. I was sprinting as I planned. I initiated voice control for the station, calling up logs, trying to understand. I had it scan the Starship Maintenance Array, thinking if I could reach one of my Battleships I might have a chance of saving the situation. All ships gone or destroyed. Only one option.
With 10 seconds I reached the small hidden bay I installed in the Nerfana to house my personal favourite and most trusted ally, an Amarrian Purifier Covert Ops Stealth Bomber. I sensed the air, felt the gravity, as both died away and floated the last twenty feet to the Purifier access hatch. Again the station rocked. The Purifier's computer had been untouched, and I interfaced immediately. It showed an image outside the station, or what was left of it. It had just snapped in two, the lower half slowly turning to fire and debris, the upper half, housing me beginning to spiral down into the upper atmosphere of the nearby ice planet. The place was gaining speed and falling.
The exit space for the Purifier's small bay bent inward to close off the escape. A few torpedoes blew the hole back open, I cloaked within the station then microwarpdrived out in a burst. My ship burned in atmospheric freefall a moment before I looped left away from the debris and watched as the last sections of Nerfana-1 burst apart...
Loose wreckage spoiled my cloak, and as soon as I appeared the locks came down, from my brother's rifter, from the two Abaddons (which I later realized were mine, freshly stolen from the SMA). I was webbed and scrambled, and a flury of megabeams shredded my beloved Purifier as the internal escape pod was spot forth into warp.
I reached the exit point to see a third pirate piloting one of my rigged Bestower into the next hole and then to Highsec space. I barreled through the space-time distortion and found myself in the neighboring C4, with the Empire exit. With no probes.
It was later clear; My Brother's Rifter had escorted 4 pods, he'd ejected the ships he didn't want to destroy, Bestowers, Abaddons, Zealots and the pods had taken them over, then turned them on the station once its defenses were down. I warped to the darkest corner of the adjacent C4 as I had no waypoint for the latest Empire exit, but D-scans showed the same Bestower warp off the said exit, while an Abaddon was continuously entering and exiting the C4. They knew I had no probes, and they were collapsing the wormhole. It must have been on critical already with all the things they stole, now they were sealing me in oblivion while at the same time cutting me off forever from my home of the last year. I got to the portal back to the former Nerfana-1 just after the Abadon crossed through the final time, and that was that.
Which brings us to the present. I am alone, in a pod, waiting for someone to wander in from wherever the current highsec exit to this C4 is, at which point I will use the meager ISK I have remaining to try to pay them to lead me out.
I reached the exit point to see a third pirate piloting one of my rigged Bestower into the next hole and then to Highsec space. I barreled through the space-time distortion and found myself in the neighboring C4, with the Empire exit. With no probes.
It was later clear; My Brother's Rifter had escorted 4 pods, he'd ejected the ships he didn't want to destroy, Bestowers, Abaddons, Zealots and the pods had taken them over, then turned them on the station once its defenses were down. I warped to the darkest corner of the adjacent C4 as I had no waypoint for the latest Empire exit, but D-scans showed the same Bestower warp off the said exit, while an Abaddon was continuously entering and exiting the C4. They knew I had no probes, and they were collapsing the wormhole. It must have been on critical already with all the things they stole, now they were sealing me in oblivion while at the same time cutting me off forever from my home of the last year. I got to the portal back to the former Nerfana-1 just after the Abadon crossed through the final time, and that was that.
Which brings us to the present. I am alone, in a pod, waiting for someone to wander in from wherever the current highsec exit to this C4 is, at which point I will use the meager ISK I have remaining to try to pay them to lead me out.
How It Went Down Part I
This is not one of those blogs bogged down my fictional dialogue or a glossing over of the facts, however I will simplify where I think it helps the reader's get the real flavor for the speed and order in which things unravel.
I am an open person. I found it weird that in one universe my brother has never reached out but in this one, I get a convo invite and there he is. He used his original name in calling himself Tobias X. He was in one of the starteer corps that you revert to when you end your time with a player Corporation. We talked, he was a few months into training Caldari, still poor, had spent some time with a larger wormhole corp learning the ropes. At this point i'll downshift into a more first-person perspective.
He'd had 2 days. We hadn't spoken directly, vocally, but we were sending messages, cracking jokes, getting to know each other all over again through the framework of New Eden's mechanics. I had my fleet operational, having only had to defend my wormhole in any serious way twice (tip for solo POS, have lots of ISK, a docked Carrier, and a Carrier pilot you can pay to get to you fast).
My favourited ship has always been a Purifier I dubbed "The Cisco". She's setup for quick torpedo bombardment coming out of cloak, and if you know how to fly her (carefully) you can survive alot of entanglements in a paper-thin hull..
We were getting along, and it was strange but the kind of connection that only modern technology could bring about. We weren't about to pick up the phone. There was an intangible rift we had never understood.
I didn't know his plan, that he was waiting. He had taken those 2 days to quietly line up a half dozen of his most nefarious pirate cohorts, filthy, angry people who caused pain to gain pleasure. People who, in the end, never really cared about the ISK, just people's reaction to having it taken. He'd marshalled his low-down troops, all Amarr like myself, he'd worked out the reinforcement timing on my home Station, Nerfana-1, researched the defenses, the entrances and exits, the storage. By then end of day 2 i'd shared my passcodes and defensive matrix keys unequivocably on the basis of the fraternal bond. I didn't see it coming.
I want to get the backstory out but not in one long post, stay tuned for How It Went Down Part II to follow the action on the Day of Destruction and the end of Nerfana-1.
I am an open person. I found it weird that in one universe my brother has never reached out but in this one, I get a convo invite and there he is. He used his original name in calling himself Tobias X. He was in one of the starteer corps that you revert to when you end your time with a player Corporation. We talked, he was a few months into training Caldari, still poor, had spent some time with a larger wormhole corp learning the ropes. At this point i'll downshift into a more first-person perspective.
He'd had 2 days. We hadn't spoken directly, vocally, but we were sending messages, cracking jokes, getting to know each other all over again through the framework of New Eden's mechanics. I had my fleet operational, having only had to defend my wormhole in any serious way twice (tip for solo POS, have lots of ISK, a docked Carrier, and a Carrier pilot you can pay to get to you fast).
My favourited ship has always been a Purifier I dubbed "The Cisco". She's setup for quick torpedo bombardment coming out of cloak, and if you know how to fly her (carefully) you can survive alot of entanglements in a paper-thin hull..
We were getting along, and it was strange but the kind of connection that only modern technology could bring about. We weren't about to pick up the phone. There was an intangible rift we had never understood.
I didn't know his plan, that he was waiting. He had taken those 2 days to quietly line up a half dozen of his most nefarious pirate cohorts, filthy, angry people who caused pain to gain pleasure. People who, in the end, never really cared about the ISK, just people's reaction to having it taken. He'd marshalled his low-down troops, all Amarr like myself, he'd worked out the reinforcement timing on my home Station, Nerfana-1, researched the defenses, the entrances and exits, the storage. By then end of day 2 i'd shared my passcodes and defensive matrix keys unequivocably on the basis of the fraternal bond. I didn't see it coming.
I want to get the backstory out but not in one long post, stay tuned for How It Went Down Part II to follow the action on the Day of Destruction and the end of Nerfana-1.
Betrayal
This blog exists for the purposes of revenge.
I had been playing for about 3 years when it happened. IRL I am rather estranged from my Brother, who is in fact my Brother from another Mother (we share a Dad). We had spoken a few times and bonded over our love of space and science fiction. I suggested during one of our very few conversations he explore New Eden. I didn't hear more about that but while I had built a strong infrastructure for myself, slowly, over time, in the Amarr empire, he had begun his own operation: violent piracy.
Years had passed with no contact when it happened. He found me in New Eden, reached out. I had created an industry inside a low-class wormhole connected to a C4 with a static highsec exit. My colonies, spread across three abundant planets in side the wormhole system were pumping out a variety of cloaking devices for decent profits at the Amarr home world, While the POS I had set up for me ran like a dream storing my fleet, my goods, my fuel, my progress.
Just hours after I had granted my estranged brother access to the station before signing off, he wiped it all out.
My mission was once to become an economic, even political powerhouse on my own merits in New Eden. Now it is focused on the humiliation and eradication of one pod pilot, my Brother, Tobias X. My next post will tell the story of how I was torn apart and left with nothing. OOC, as an adult, one cannot complain to their family that their distant Brother has secretly developed a campaign to rob me of my internet spaceships. There is no real-world retribution possible here. All I can do is play smart, and beat him at his own game to help put my mind at ease. We haven't spoken IRL since the incident, calls go unresponded to.
So this is how we will play it. I've got 2 years on him skill-wise, I have a strong network of intelligence and contacts, and i'm the good guy; I will prevail. I will find him in the darkest corners of 0.0 and rip his ships apart piece by piece. I will infiltrate his Corporations. I will form a plan to yank out his supports at exactly the right time to ensure that he loses much more than myself in the long run. He preys on the weak, he robs Corps, he can flips, he griefs and slanders. He'll learn one more skill before i'm done: the ability to have his blood boil as his exposed body cartwheels and deadfalls into a star, the wreckage of his ship and his life the last thing he sees before his eyeballs burst out of his head in the roasting vaccum.
I had been playing for about 3 years when it happened. IRL I am rather estranged from my Brother, who is in fact my Brother from another Mother (we share a Dad). We had spoken a few times and bonded over our love of space and science fiction. I suggested during one of our very few conversations he explore New Eden. I didn't hear more about that but while I had built a strong infrastructure for myself, slowly, over time, in the Amarr empire, he had begun his own operation: violent piracy.
Years had passed with no contact when it happened. He found me in New Eden, reached out. I had created an industry inside a low-class wormhole connected to a C4 with a static highsec exit. My colonies, spread across three abundant planets in side the wormhole system were pumping out a variety of cloaking devices for decent profits at the Amarr home world, While the POS I had set up for me ran like a dream storing my fleet, my goods, my fuel, my progress.
Just hours after I had granted my estranged brother access to the station before signing off, he wiped it all out.
My mission was once to become an economic, even political powerhouse on my own merits in New Eden. Now it is focused on the humiliation and eradication of one pod pilot, my Brother, Tobias X. My next post will tell the story of how I was torn apart and left with nothing. OOC, as an adult, one cannot complain to their family that their distant Brother has secretly developed a campaign to rob me of my internet spaceships. There is no real-world retribution possible here. All I can do is play smart, and beat him at his own game to help put my mind at ease. We haven't spoken IRL since the incident, calls go unresponded to.
So this is how we will play it. I've got 2 years on him skill-wise, I have a strong network of intelligence and contacts, and i'm the good guy; I will prevail. I will find him in the darkest corners of 0.0 and rip his ships apart piece by piece. I will infiltrate his Corporations. I will form a plan to yank out his supports at exactly the right time to ensure that he loses much more than myself in the long run. He preys on the weak, he robs Corps, he can flips, he griefs and slanders. He'll learn one more skill before i'm done: the ability to have his blood boil as his exposed body cartwheels and deadfalls into a star, the wreckage of his ship and his life the last thing he sees before his eyeballs burst out of his head in the roasting vaccum.
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