Intergalactic Summit

Part Two - The first couple days

I’m now a couple days into the pod and loving it! I have still about 95 million ISK to pay back before I’m truly “free” but it’s just interest payments I’m eatin’ here so I can take time Papi says, and not rush everything.

I’ve started with some basic industry. The Venture is a lovely, lovely ship! I love her. I have bought three already because even if my Republic Military School friends are crazy, they are probably right when I shouldn’t fly it if I can’t afford to get it blown up. I haven’t exploded anything yet though, thankfully!

Papi has become an expert on everything about us. Pod people that is. He reads everything here, then reads it again, then checks back for more! He reads all about famous pod people and the big alliances and the wars and just everything! He tells me all these stories and I can never shut him up and it’s always about something new he just learned or read or someone said. Sometimes I think he is more excited than me!

We have been spending lots of time together figuring out the industry basics too. He says not to rush sometimes, but then other times, he’s talking about us taking chances, about us doing things some other rookies wouldn’t think about or would be told not to do.

Papi is chatting with me again last night and he starts talking about how most capsuleers are all scared too much of pirates and dangers in low sec and even in zero sec space. He reckons we should test things ourselves so we can make our judgment instead of trust other people.

We fit up one of the replacement Ventures with a few cheaper modules. No million ISK tech two mining lasers for this operation! I take her out a few jumps from Rens into low sec and we find a quiet place to mine all these new rocks! This is the first time I see this Omber stuff and the blue Isogen that comes out of it and it’s much more ISK! I fill up the Venture again and again until I can’t take any more mining, and then put it all through the processor.

There is so much blue stuff I can’t fit it all in the cargo! I have to come back in a little frigate and move it out, back and forth, and still more left back there! At Rens I make a good bit of ISK from it and can pay for skill training books…a little bit of loan money, and some for rainy day (in space that means like a meteor shower! Stay docked and go shopping!)

I’ve been back there a few times since, and it’s all really quiet and easy. I’m now the rookie queen of the blue stuff! It’s not what I was told to expect, and I guess Papi is right after all…

But this is where you come in, if you are still reading! My first question to you. Is this all just a crazy lucky first timer thing or what? Can rookies scratch out a living in dangerous space?

Here’s something else too. After all that money we make, we buy another Venture. Papi makes me check again and again that my clone and pod are all fine, and located at the station in home. Then we go to a planet. I pop out of the Venture, into my capsule, and then tell it to blow up…just to do a lil’ test run! I dunno what happens if the test failed though!
Well, I go back to the Venture and get back in, and then we go down to the mining place again, but this time even further. We go visit the Thukker! Papi says they have stations down there and anyone can dock, so it’s only a matter of having to get there alive..

I remember going to the last system before it became zero sec and there are all these people there. It was really scary and my heart was pounding and I felt like they were all looking at ME! But I go ahead and jump into the next system and it’s…empty! I just keep on going into the Wildlands!

On the way there are pirate ships on the stargates that I have never seen. One has a bounty so big I could pay for a whole new Venture and the fittings with it! I don’t stick around long though, because I don’t think they like me!

When I get to the station, I go and dock and say hello to the Thukker. They are laughing at me for coming out here and saying my Venture will get exploded by one of the pod people, but Papi just reminds me about all that blue stuff left back in low sec that I can still haul out for even more ISK, so it won’t matter.

In the belts are all sorts of rocks! It’s amazing... We realize that we don’t have any idea which ones to mine. Woops! I mine something that the computers tell me will give Zydrine, which is worth lots and lots more money than the tritanium back near Rens, hah! Even the blue stuff is cheap compared! It’s a lot more scary though, and I don’t want to hang around forever, just wanna see if I can pull off enough to refine.

Well…I end up doing more than that. Enough for three whole refine cycles, probably millions of ISK locked away in that rock…but Papi realizes too late that I’ve been going to the Thukker station and it has only really bad reprocessing units…Woops 2! We just leave it there and consider everything mostly a success. I park my Venture at the station with the rocks, and then go back to my pod and blow it up again.


I went pretty blindly into low sec multiple times, into zero sec for a good run too, and I didn’t lose nothing, nobody even said as much as hi…I don’ get it?! Again, was that more rookie luck or can I maybe go back there and do more of the same if I’m careful again, and a lil’ bit brave?

If anyone wants to come join me on another mining adventure, feel free to shoot me a mail or say hello here! We can stick to the safe space too. That way we also have more time to share stories!

That’s it for now. See you in space!

Good day Rebi, and welcome to space.

Seems to me you have had quite a spot of luck in flying through what is often considered to be more dangerous areas of space. It's nice to read you have found something you like and something that earns you a fair bit of money.

There is a lot of advice that people will probably throw at you. The best advice I can give you is to take all that is said to heart, but decide for yourself what to do with it.

Fly free. And may the spirits guide you.

To Denak Calamari: Thank you and uhm, good luck with the ground pounding! Does that mean you mine on planets? How is that like?

To Vinh Trahn: That is excellent advice! I already felt kinda that way, but it’s good to get some backup on it! I try to listen to the veterans when they share their advice, at least when I feel it helps, but ya know, lots to learn myself too. Lots I wanna learn myself!

To Anabella Rella: Thank you! For the welcome and the advice but mostly for the map! I didn’t realize the map stuff! I’ve just been poking around and it’s so nifty seeing all that information. I love, love, love how I can see where I’ve been!! Here's my lil' adventure on the map, hah!
I will definitely come by your channel too once I figure that out! Thank you for the invitation!

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Lil' update for today so far.

Part three – Unexpected gifts and the trouble of blood money.

Today in the shared Republic Military School channel there is a man named Jasper Fenn handing out ISK to everyone. It all starts out with him suddenly chirping up, asking us all if we feel lucky today.

Well if you’ve been keeping up, you should know I’m feelin’ pretty lucky! But I’m careful, I don’t say nothin’ at first. Then one of the other rookies chimes in. Says he doesn’t feel lucky at all because he just got exploded in his first ship!

Then next thing, Jasper is sayin’ “Well then, here you go, this should help.” And I knew straight away something was up! So before I really think about anything, I’m waggin’ my head around sayin’ I’m feelin’ lucky too!.

Then there’s 5 million ISK in my wallet! Before I can even think what I’m saying, I’m richer than I ever been.

But then I start thinking like a proper Rebiestor should, and about what Papi would say when I get back. He’d ask where the ISK came from, and who was this man? Papi’s been researching how pod people make their money, and he says that lots of us do kill contracts against other people. Lots of death.

So the ISK could be that. It could be blood money. I dunno if I want it if it’s from something like that, but how can I ever tell?

While I think about it now, really think hard about it, I also notice something more too. When I go to the Rens market and I sell our minerals…I don’t know where that ISK comes from either. Papi and me were trying to stay clean. To keep our money from hard, honest work that didn’t hurt nobody. Now I just realized we can’t help it or escape it. To make any kind of ISK in this universe, we’re going to have to deal with the idea that some of that comes from death and destruction.

But still, ya know.

I feel like I can’t accept this money. Selling minerals is one thing…but taking a stranger’s ISK…. And, you know what else? As I get all this out there, he’s done it two more times! I have 15 million ISK!

Do I keep it? What should I do here?

Meanwhile, back in Republic Military School chat, things have returned to normal!

Clone soldier, by ground pounding I mean fighting down on the ground. And it's fairly frantic, to be honest, thanks for asking.

Aha. Somebody must've been watching Terror on Outpost 13. Seriously messed up holo, that.

Welcome to space, fly safe, all that.

If you're a capsuleer then your money likely comes from killing somebody for somebody somewhere at sometime.

So careless. So free... I bet you don't begin to imagine the fates of your crew that come with each Venture. You, the immortal, take what you want without so little a thought to who you walk over in the process. You're innocent and cute, and I'm sure "Papi" does a good job keeping you from being exposed to what you are amongst the stars: a mass murderer.

As for "Papi" ... is he capsuleer himself? My what one could get if they took "Papi" for ransom. You'd do anything for your "Papi" wouldn't you?

As for the stars, my how they are home to the larger predators, ones that delight in the fact that you are immortal. How we have a taste for the young and the bold... and the stupid. Bored, delighting in watching incompetence burn, how you just gave us another juicy target.

How are you so juicy?

Because you'll talk about us. You'll cry out to the unfairness of our predatory gaze as you watch us burn your ships, your crew, and their families. Possibly, your family, if you ever bring "Papi" along. My how you'll warn the stars of equal incompetence. My how you will set the stage for others to come, more victims for the pyre...

You might even attract white knights to your cause, people that want stand up to defend you in belief that you are innocent. We'll enlighten them as well to the harsh truth of what it is they are; what you are.

Why? Why do we do this?

As said, incompetence.

Welcome to the stars, little one.

This thread pretty much combines every single thing that has ever made me go "wat" in one place.

We were all young and new in space once Seida.