Disappointment

Once again I have been lax in regards to recording my activities for posterity and, of course, your reading pleasure. For this I apologize. I have done much since my last entry, so it shall necessitate several entries which I will endeavour to deliver to you as swiftly as possible. Anyway here goes:

When last we met I was a member of a corporation called Gravis Unbound, which was in turn a member of an alliance called The Council. When I joined Gravis, I was promised all the pleasures of null-sec, but most of all I was promised my beloved combat, and plenty of it. This did not materialise in anything close to the quantity I had been promised. It turned out the CEO of Gravis had overstated in regards to both quality AND quantity. I spent a significant portion of my oh-so-precious-time looking for combat in any enjoyable form, but I was having very little luck. The council did not even seem to a particularly big mover or shaker in the alliance world at all and very rarely went on big operations. It turned out that the council was far more powerless than I had imagined possible for any null-sec alliance. We only seemed to hold onto our space by dint of some rather formidable allies more than with our own skill and determination, or so it seemed to me anyway. Enough of The Councils inadequacies’, and back to my quest for combat.

The corp I was part of had a fair few pilots in it, around sixty if I recall, and I hoped I might be able to galvanize a portion of them into going out on ops with me. I made myself the unofficial head of combat and immediately started trying to organise some ops. “Try”, regrettably, being the optimum word. I knew there were some inexperienced combat pilots among us so the initial op I arranged was a fun training op. I set down some basic ground rules:

1) There are no ship or fitting restrictions, but you may not bring a ship someone is already bringing. You get kudos for bringing an interesting ship/fit.

2) No outright destruction of ships unless all involved parties agree to it.

3) There are no other rules.

I instated the first rule so that people would hopefully get a good idea of various different ships and ship types capabilities. With over sixty people in the corp, if only a quarter showed up we would have had a very interesting and varied bunch of ships.The second rule was for all the people who could not afford the loss of too many ships. I hoped that this rule would also encourage people to bring far more expensive ships i.e. T2 ships, battleships etc.Rule three? Well if a game has too many rules it is confusing, and takes the fun out of it.

The format for the op would be for general introductions to combat and study of ships and fits to begin with, then head into some mock fights to see how people would deal with various types of ships. Then to make things way more fun for all involved we would then split in teams of two or three and they were to try and hunt each other down. This would give them good practice with the on board scanner, give them a chance to try out various team tactics, work to the strengths of the ships in each team, and learn how to exploit the weaknesses of other ships. When your ship was reduced to hull you would return to the “safe zone” and await the end. Last team with a member left “alive” would win a prize and a good time would be had by all. Now I know for a fact that if I had organised this when I was in the Tuskers every single pilot would have signed up and we would have had a great laugh. Out of a corporation with more than sixty pilots in it guess how many signed up? Give up? Four! God damn four of the bastards signed up. I had been frustrated before, by now I was incandescent with rage and disappointment. These people had no sense of fun and adventure and the alliance as a whole was a huge let down, and I felt they were somewhat of an embarrassment. Don’t get me wrong there were some people in Gravis I very much enjoyed flying with or spending time with but they were a sputtering candle in the dark that was the rest of the alliance.

I had been mulling over leaving for a while but this was a deciding factor in my leaving the corp and the alliance. Something that sealed the deal was some turbulence with our allies. It looked like they wouldn’t be our allies for much longer and I was certain that were they to turn against us we would be wiped out in a very short space of time. So I packed my gear and got out sharpish, transporting all my ships and modules out of null-sec with the aid of a jump freighter pilot in Gravis. Luckily I had got my security status to a point where could once again fly freely in high security space, and had built up a significant store of ISK. With both those things sorted and having safely exited null-sec and Gravis Unbound I was free to roam the galaxy to my heart’s content and to find my new place in the universe.