Intergalactic Summit

Today I lost the "Bluebird" (Viator) while transporting liberated slaves out of low sec space. The reasons were my own mistakes in combination with the cowardice of a Capsuleer pilot named Drakir I.

As I left the station, I noted two other pilots in the system. Usually any trouble there has happened at the gates. This time, one was right outside the station. Looking back, I made a couple key mistakes.
1. I had two cargo hold expansions installed. I should have had one warp core stabilizer installed.
2. I should have taken a pod out to locate the ships first then taken the Viator.

The ship warp scrambled me and had me destroyed before I could escape or re-dock. 1219 people were on board and they survived the attack. I had no way of getting any vessel with any cargo hold nearby that would be safe to used to rescue the people. 23 people at a time in a rookie ship would take too long and the lives would be endangered.

The pilot who attacked me was still right there went I went back out to begin bringing in the survivors. I tried to contact him to ask him to help me bring them back to the station. Nothing doing. Some of the passengers were his own Sebiestor brothers and sisters. The Viator was unarmed when he attacked and I was on a humanitarian mission.

A big thanks to the Prowler pilot who eventually helped me. Oh yes, in the meantime, someone else comes along and salvages the ship but leaves the survivors, again no help. I know that some pilots kill for sport and I accept that as a risk of my work. I have lost many ships doing this kind of thing and they are replaceable.

However, I think it is cowardly to use a heavily armed vessel to destroy an unarmed non-hostile vessel engaged in humanitarian, non-violent work and to do so just for the sake of killing. Then to refuse to help the survivors? Even those of your own tribe? I wonder if Drakir felt a great adrenaline rush as he fired on a ship that could not fire back. Did it make him feel brave? Manly? Big and important?

Thankfully, all 1219 passengers made it alive. Sadly, my crew was lost. For that, I hold myself responsible.

I wonder what standards combat pilots hold to as to who they will fire on or not. What do you consider cowardly? Brave?

It's not about cowardice or bravery. You were a target, nothing more, nothing less. No one else had an obligation to your passengers and crew. No one else had an obligation to help you. It does not make anyone your lesser, nor you their superior.

You could have taken measures to increase your chances of survival. You did not. It is your lesson to learn.

As cold as it sounds, it is the way things are. Take it as a lesson, and if you feel that others need to be made aware of what they can do in other situations such as this, I will smile and consider the universe better for it. Do not however make the mistake of seeing yourself as any better than anyone else simply for doing a kind deed.

This is a logical fallacy, making a specific fact a generality. You do not know what other deeds both of them do.

Be a more careful reader, Ms. Farel. I am not inferring a specific from a generality. I am acknowledging that Kindness is better than Cowardice and admitting that I know neither of the pilots well enough to attribute either to them. My point was against the idea that these are morally neutral categories.

Also, Mr Numenor, as much as I despise piracy, I should advise you now not to do anything when undocking, except stopping your ship : this is indeed not considered as a real move by the station (unlike everything else) and you will remain protected until you can dock again (but not a second more).

Unless this has changed recently.



Then you have my apologies, though you stated exactly that "The person who does a kind deed IS BETTER than the person who acts cowardly" : here the person is the subject and is qualified to be "better" than the other person, a conclusion based on two mere specific facts (kind deed vs coward deed). Said differently, it means that a kind deed makes someone better than the one that did a coward deed.

Thank you for the clarification, though, but your words were highly inaccurate and a source of misunderstanding for me. It never involved my carefulness here.

Thank you Ms. Nexxala, Ms. Farel, and Mr. Blackshell for your feedback and thought; especially, Ms. Farel for your tip on exiting stations. So an immediate stop and redock would have been the best thing to do. I'll memorize that.

You may all be right and my presumption that the pilot acted cowardly may be off. The other detail that I didn't elaborate on was the fact that I made several trips out with a rookie ship to retrieve the survivors while he was present and tried to request his help. His ship was large enough had we worked together, the passengers would have been quickly rescued. But, he refused though it was obvious what I was doing. I guess that was my reason for questioning. I have met many brave and noble warrior and have even been shot at by some of them. What ties them all together is the willingness after a battle to show mercy even to the enemy that has been defeated. I think that is one of the hallmarks of true courage.

A very telling statement and one that perhaps blinds you to what was actually said by me. I believe there is nothing to be gained from further discussion.

Fly safe.

Oh, and I almost forgot to add that several types of space stations seem to have very short ranged tractor beams, putting you out of range for redocking purposes almost as soon as you land outside.

I applaud your efforts Edaine. The cluster is a dark, blood-thirsty place however. If you'd like I can teach you some piloting tricks to escape blockades and "camps". As you mentioned, a warp core stabilizer would have been excellent; general rule of thumb for hauling in lowsec is to fit only as many cargo expanders as you absolutely need, and then fit out with as many warp core stabilizers as possible. Safety is a must, especially in this line of work.

I have never used any warp core stabilizer mods on any of my blockade runners. It is totally pointless in low security space if you know what you are doing. It is impossible to destroy you near a station unless something really unexpected happens (but this can happen everywhere with any ship, independantly of everything you could do in regards to safety). It is also very hard to catch you at a gate due to your cloaking device, unless the gate itself is obstructed by a lot of garbage (which is too rare to be duely taken into consideration). In nullsec space for the first one and lowsec space for the second one, warp core stabilizers are anyway irrelevant against warp interdiction bubbles and heavy interdictors.