EVE Fiction

I might have an Amarr or two....strapped to the hood of my Mach.

Capsuleers seem to have, more often than not, transcended both their humanity and any really strong affiliation with their empire. I would suspect only a minority would bother with racism at that point. To the average demigod I suspect that all crew members are equally expendable pieces of equipment.

There are those that retain a political allegiance, notably pilots who participate in faction warfare or capsuleers that maintain a position in one of the empire navies. However, a sizable number (a majority if we go by players as no fictional tally is available) are in it for themselves more or less. Official fiction sources seem to indicate a fairly uninterested and uncaring relationship from pilot to crew. The issue of trust is handled by background checks but with no regard (that I have ever seen hinted at) for race or political affiliation. On that subject, I suspect people that tend to end up crewing capsuleer ships are not themselves altogether concerned with race/politics. If you're taking the high risk job of serving under a demigod with literally no concern for your life and safety and who is willing to lose you, hundreds of your companions, and a massively expensive ship on a suicidal whim then traditional adherence to your nation's system has likely failed you.

So, I accept that in certain instances I could not be further from the truth. However, in a great many, maybe even most, the relationship is, I don't think, not that far off from what I have described.

Beer, music, an a fridge is a quaint picture, however the pixelated reality is that you are in a pod plugged into your ship. Crew seems essential to complete all the little tasks our advanced awareness courtesy of being physically attached to the ships allows us, now of course we have great nano repairers but unless our ship interiors are stacked with robots to deliver them to needed spots we require mobile living crew.

Ships are built for the vast numbers of non- capsuleers in the EVE universe, therefor I would postulate our control pods and the ship wide connections thereto must surely be an available upgrade. In the EVE lore that I have read ships have crews, most ships are piloted by humans and when a capsuleer shows up he or she has a significant advantage over the non-capsuleer piloted vessels.

We are physically detached from our human crews and physically attached to the ship itself, add that to the fact that when we get killed we reanimate in another clone and you can see how that would be creepy for crew members to have to deal with on a close daily basis. Crews are tools we use to accomplish our goals and when we have to suicide a ship and lose a clone and it's implants if the isk makes it worthwhile we do it, unless our crews can get to escape pods in time they pay a higher price.

For the average spacer crew member I imagine it is a deal with the devil sort of relationship, capsuleer pilot probably means better contracts for the ship which means better pay for the crew, with the added benefit of safety from most human piloted pirate ships. But capsuleers do not fear death so being crew on their ships can be extremely hazardous, but space travel is not for the faint of heart.

I think the scenarios this juxtaposition creates is quite a dynamic one for lore/ story creation.


Power To The Players!

As a huge fan of EVE Lore I just wanted to chime in with my personal views on this matter.

It has been quite well documented that Independent Capsuleers, as in those not tied directly to any factions own corporations, are by and large completely uninterested in factional politics. We are, as is noted in one of the EVE novels and in numerous official chronicles, considered to be "beyond" the four races and that for this reason we pose a substantial risk.

You have to think of capsuleers as the next step in capitalist hedgemony. Just as the modern multi-millionaire corporate industrialist views all other classes as fundamentally harmless and essentially expendable, take the capsuleer perspective to the next level. A capsuleer is essentially NOT HUMAN. Most times they are plugged into a giant machine with nearly no awarness of a human body attached to their brain. They have the funds and power to sway or destroy the politics, economy and ecologies of entire planets. Some EVE ships do run crews (big ones definitely do), but the crew members are easily spaced and are probably being watched with cameras aboard the ship. Who cares if a tiny little mortal wishes to steal from you? Vent the atmosphere. If not, send drones after them. Barring that, eject your pod and destroy the ship. Baseline humans are essentially helpless against a capsuleer pilot. That being said, a previous poster mentioned that people are willing to risk life and limb for pay all the time (crab fishermen)...

Though as a Minmatar I personally have little trust for the Amarr in general, I would and do take on crewmen of any race. Firstly (and sadly), I've lost more crews through ship destruction than I can even remember. Crew members have now become to me anonymous, interchangeable components that are simply required for ship operation. The days of hand-picking a crew for my first shiny new frigates are long gone.

Secondly, I use a crew staffing agency that seems to have a reliable system for vetting crewman. I trust them to have screened out any candidates who might pose a security risk. Why do I trust their screening system? Actually I don't, not 100%. But the other option is to personally screen 300 or so candidates each time I need a new crew.

This is completely true. The exchange rates between planetary currency and ISK are discussed in the early missions. A hundred million ISK could literally buy the whole economy of a nation, planetside. A few ISK buys literally hundreds of cubic meters of food ingame. Look at dairy products, 57 ISK buys 100 cubic meters of milk in game. For good milk IRL that would amount to about $200000 US/Canadian. A million ISK would therefore be 3.5 billion USD. Therefore 4.5 billion ISK could buy out the entire economy of the modern United States. A dedicated and experienced capsuleer could amass this in a few months.

The entirety of the EVE playerbase represent only one 'sort' of capsuleer, and I'd posit a small (but increasing) percentage.

No Empire would willingly educate, train, spend millions producing, and then simply give away that many powerful individuals.

I imagine as stipulation for signing the Yulai accords and setting up of CONCORD, the four empires agreed to let a certain percentage of their capsuleers have the option to 'go free' and that those are the sorts the we as players control.

You better believe the Amarr Empire or the Caldari State wouldn't be spending billions on r&d and military education of the most deadly technology in the known universe only to say 'here you go! go have fun!' after graduation.

When modern military spends millions training say, fighter pilots or special ops troops, they don't give you the damn plane and say 'go have fun' after you finish flight school.

New and just getting into the lore of eve and possibly into writing fiction i do have a question about this. Capsuleers are only "immortal" if we are in our pod and nothing goes wrong at the cloning facility. Basically we can be killed at any time we are not in a pod. All of our money and power etc we still rely on other people to do certain stuff for us like maintain clones, pod integrity etc. i am thinking about writing a story and want to get some facts straight.