Chapter Nine Gamma

The Aftermath of Armageddon, Plus Flying

ISK Balance: 10,683,387.94

The mercurial nature of the EVE community never fails to amaze me; the 228 pages of the sanctioned Armageddon Day thread are a testament to that; consumed first with giddy schoolgirl excitement at the prospect of capital megabattles in Jita, then by venomous disappointment and the vastly inappropriate comparisons to BoBgate and other scandals, and finally by contented praise for a job well done once Singularity finally stabilized.

While I'm severely disappointed in the fact the Jovian Intelligence Agency decided to hack into my computer and corrupt my screenshots of two GMs invoking Judgement upon the Jita 4-4 station - a vision that truly warmed my heart - and the ensuing capital blobl fest in an attempt to kill the two Avatars, the accounts of my other Armageddon Day escapades remained intact. Personally, my favorite moment was managing to tank a GM and a carrier's-worth of fighters after teasing said GM in local.

It occured to me at about four in the morning I should have done the true Vagabond in a Stabber thing and fitted up a Snaked, Tech Two, propulsion-rigged Stabber so as to remain true to my name instead of fiddling around with Command Ships. Alas, all the Snakes were long-gone and someone had bought up all the Stabbers and wasreselling them for marked up prices. This latter bit was of no concern since I had mysteriously accumulatedten billion ISK. Wow, yeah, don't really know what to say to that. I'll never see that number again, that's for sure. Or the maxed skillpoints.

Ecstaticism aside, in the greater interest of progress I decided to progress a few jumps through the east before this update. My route of least resistance led me into Insmother temporarily, where I happened upon what I assumed to be the Red Alliance home system, due to the presence of the RA Prime station. Or perhaps...it is a Clever Ruse to fool the enemies of those sneaky Russians. That issue could be cleared up with a moment's research, I'm sure, but that's far less interesting than indulging in my fair share of tinfoil hattery.

Nevertheless, I avoided loitering in the system and moved on, running into a trio of ISK farmers. I assumed all were associated by the same "aa" suffix to their names, and a few simple scans revealed one was in a Raven, the other in a Badger Mk II, and the last in his pod.

I would later run into both the Badger and the pod - on separate occasions, that is - after jumping through a gate. I was met with these two opportunities to destroy helpless opponents - though I was wary of the Badger, knowing that other Clever Ruse of the Battlebadger - and I was surprised to find myself in a minor moral quandary. Twice I could have dispatched my hypothetical victim, for whom help would almost certainly not come in time. And yet, I was absolutely uninterested in killing either the Badger or the pod. What would I get? Two killmails, two records of my exploits against helpless opponents - and ISK farmers at that.

No, I wanted real fights. I planned to dive into the muddled center of the Drone Regions after my navigational pilgrimage was complete to see what trouble I could cause.

A real fight will be mine. I will find it out here, buried in the rubble of a wartorn, desolate cluster of stars.

Also; thanks to Lance Fighter for the donation to the Doomed Stabber Fund, and all the rest of you are way overdue for a thanks for the more than 20,000 views!