Intergalactic Summit

Danger may be creeping up on capsuleers everywhere.

Many may remember years ago when it was made public knowledge that Amarr slavers were injecting minmatar slaves with Vitoc. This horrible viral agent was fatal unless regular injections of an antidote was given to counteract the chemicals created by infected cells. Many attempts at a permanent cure have been made including nanotechnology, anti-viral phages, and tribal shaman natural cures. Some planetside individuals and capsuleers have been found to have trace levels of infection showing non-lethal levels of Vitoc -- even though they were born free and never been abused in Amarr captivity.

It is thought that we have been exposed through pod goo of stolen/liberated Amarr ships that were then turned against the enemy.

It seems a unique problem is starting to occur. These freeborn people, myself included, are getting temporary sickness including hallucinations, liver failure, kidney failure, heart failure, muscular weakness, and seizures. These events are relatively short lived, but only occur after great levels of star travel. Gate to gate travel has not brought on vitoc sickness...only extended jump drive use.

Several capsuleers hallucinating while in control of massive capital fleets may be disastrous to both themselves and others. Imagine the fallout from not properly locking onto a cynosural field and instead winding up in a random piece of space with no systems in scan range? One could even end up accidented into the middle of a highsec system against CONCORD rules.

Since this is a sickness of the mind and body, could CONCORD really hold them accountable for their actions? Perhaps we need to do something about the initial cause of the delirium and reduce the ability to cover 100s of lightyears of space in a single day.

As the full fallout of this becomes more fully known, I find it fitting that the Amarr Empire's greed, along with other supporting entities such as the Sansha and CVA, will be to blame for this catastrophic blow to capsuleer freedom. Perhaps more free-minded peoples will join in arms against them to reduce the likelihood of further destruction to the entire human race.

I think first of all, CONCORD needs to deal with prime cause of this problem. Confront Amarr and ban Vitoc for good.

But apparently they are more concerned about us getting a lot of sleeper salvage

Vitoxin is the disease. Vitoc is the temporary antidote.

Yeah... Right?.. Drugging people into slavery is as bad as modifying people's bodies to make slaves out of them.

What do you mean one is worse than the other? Making slaves out of people, reducing human beings into property, is bad no matter the method.

Ragnar, are you referring to the so-called 'Jump Fatigue' that has been making the rounds lately? I hear it has less to do with Vitoxin and more to do with the hardware of jump drives having compatibility issues with pod hardware resulting in the need of stronger, more frequent synapses to activate the jump drive module, causing serious mental fatigue.

I have just said it earlier.
Do minmatar believe that repeating things instead of explaining will make other minmatar understand?
Interesting approach.

On the other hand, why would someone request understanding something from a minmatar, right?
Especially, if they are "bright" like this:

Stuff them with vitoc and plantation work they go!

I am sorry, that I have missed this pearl:

I do my what?

Ah yes, of course.

The Minmatar tendency to blame everything on the Amarr Empire, is both amusing and depressing.

Get a small stone in your boot while out walking ? Amarr agents must be distributing small rocks everywhere.

It rained after you put your laundry out to dry in the sunlight ? Amarr weather control satellites.

A bird defecates on your freshly washed and polished ground vehicle ? Not a bird, an Amarr miniature drone.

Spicy food giving you a stomach upset ? The cook must be an Amarr spy.

An envelope arrives at your apartment with a wrong address on it ? Must be Amarr surveillance, watching how you react.

Your neighbour across the street is watching you with binoculars ? Amarr spy. Better keep an eye on them with your telescope.

A child who you thought belonged to your neighbour, steps on your lawn ? They're distributing Amarr nanomachine spying devices.


Infected pod goo, really now.

Vitoc is a gift from God and a sign both of his enduring love for his Chosen people (however wayward) and his continued blessing upon the righteous and holy practice of slavery.

If Empyrean capital pilots be suffering a sort of "Vitoc Fatigue" that limits their jump drive capabilities, perhaps we should take this as a sign from God that God finds the amount of jump drive usage among Empyreans to be excessive — perhaps even a threat to his Chosen Empires — and that God is working to reign in the power of the Empyreans somewhat.

While this isn't all that far-fetched, it is a bit of a leap to point fingers without a bit more to go on. I have no problem believing both the Imperials and CONCORD would go to great lengths to introduce better controlling elements than they have right now, and this would certainly be both a believable method and tool to follow their motivations and goals. I think I'd need a bit more than "hmm, that's strange" and supposition to make that conclusion though.

In the interest of exploring this further, in case there's something to it, I'll have my own pod fluids and samples from all my clones sent to an independent party for analysis and tests, as well as to any Ushra'Khan party that would like more to go on. I would also appreciate it if U'Ks findings were shared so I could send those to said independent party for comparison.

If any finds prove similar, it'll be rather interesting as right now U'K and Sarz'namarr does not share neither suppliers or any direct affiliation in ship construction or pod fluids as far as I am aware. If the findings don't match up, that might have other implications and if nothing else narrow down possible sources by elimination.

Edited to add:

In the interest of full disclosure, I do not use jump drives on my current stock of ships. This might change within the next few months, but at the moment I largely stick with jumpgates and wormholes.