Alliance & Corporation Recruitment Center

Orientation briefing
Catastrophic Operations
FC- Capt Handbanana

Listen up ladies,

I stand here before you a troubled man. Did I say troubled? I meant abso frakin lutely perturbed beyond the normal acceptable boundaries of perturbed. Indeed I am looking at the wrong side of perturbed from a distance measured in light minutes. Perturbed is a distant memory. I have moved on from perturbed.

What was that? Why is your FC perturbed? The only possible reason I can think of for the presence of such total and utter dross standing in front of me during my briefing, is that the Director, YOUR Director, Spacetart does not like me. With a distinguished service record such as mine, a kill record such as mine, a chest full of medals and the bragging rights that go with them such as mine, it must be personal. It would appear that I am doomed, and if I am doomed ladies and gentlemen, you are doomed also. I will make your lives a living nightmare, for then, and only then will I find enough comfort and solace to shield my tender soul from the displeasure of my superior.

For the love of BOB, the Director must have roped the recruitment team in to help him vent his displeasure with me. I see not one but two Gallente roidbabies in front of me. Listen up ladies...... WHAT? I don't care about your plumbing roidbaby, only two types of people have long hair in my universe, girls and other girls, therefore you are both officially until shorn, girls. And I swear by the dark hairless often probed love hole of Thera, If I catch you two engaging in activities of a depraved and licentious Gallente nature, I will personally introduce you to the phenomenon of incoming friendly fire, and it won't be particularly friendly.

For those of you with a functioning set of eyeballs and an I.Q higher than an old earth squirrel, I shall introduce the two pilots standing behind me. Stardust Mina, and Heim Dal front and centre if you please. These Pilots are two of the finest Pilots I have ever flown with. They will also be acting as FCs for fleet operations. Our Alliance thinks that highly of them that they also function as official Alliance FCs. Take a good look dross. You actually think you have what it takes to fly with pilots such as they? Pilots with more kills than you have days alive? What was that?? Did I just hear the grunting incoherent mouthing's of an inbred Caldari defective?? You there what did you say? SPEAK UP!!! Did my ears just deceive me? did they report to me the impossible fact that you think that you do have what it takes? How in the name of BOB did the recruiters let someone suffering from such an acute case of terminal stupidity loose on my Corporation? I'm going to be filling in the paperwork following your death as the result of a particularly gruesome and brutal training accident for weeks. No, that was not a threat, it was a prediction. Some say I have the third sight. It has yet to lead me astray.

Your induction period will be for thirty standard days from today. For those of you who manage to avoid the unfortunate fate of being reduced to your component atoms during a high energy event, there will be cake. Cake and an I.D card with your name on it. What?? you expected more? Handholding perhaps, quiet introspective moments contemplating the nature of cherry blossoms in spring? Once you become a member of Catastrophic operations, the hard work BEGINS, never doubt that for a femtosecond. Its not about the reward, it's about the participation. In the highly unlikely event that any of you degenerates ever manage to breed, when asked in class what does your biological parenting unit do, your little homonculus will be able to stand up on their cloven hooves and vestigial tails, and say that their daddy/mommy is a Pilot in Catastrophic Operations. There, right there, that will be your moment, your validation for the pain and the sheer unadulterated suffering you have endured up to that point. Savour it.

I am now going to introduce you to the head of the human resources team. Ma,am if you would? Thank you. Dross!! ATTENTION, this lady is Yama Epona. Do NOT take liberties. No one gets to be the head of human resources without surviving a bloodbath the likes of which you only read about in historical epics. HR is brutal, unrelenting, implacable and possessed of a ruthlessness that would make any Blood Raider envious. When she asks nicely, do your utmost to ensure she stays nice. We still haven't found all of the body parts of the last vict... er interviewee to get on her bad side. How do you know if you are on her good side? Easy. Take a breath. If you can breath without blood frothing on your lips then you have managed by some miracle to stay on her good side.

Other persons of note include our Mining Director Teglon. Any jokes about people of short stature carrying pickaxes will be dealt with using extreme prejudice. You will not survive to make a second similar comment. I would introduce you to Teglon, but currently he is experiencing the tender mercies of the Medical Trauma Team. What happened wasn't pretty but it was certainly educational, in a spine-chilling I hope to BOB that never happens to me sort of way. All our best wishes for a speedy recovery go out to him, and we hope to see Teglon back in his cockpit soon. Meanwhile Selene and Bob are keeping up the good work producing the power behind the pew.

Two final pilots to mention are Col Rusty (callsign Crusty) and Mithandra. Every single corporation has a pilot who against all the odds, all the predictions, against all logic and the physical laws of the universe manage to survive. We have two such entities. Do NOT touch them. Their luck will NOT rub off on you. What does rub off may be something that you really wish had not. Look to them. Take note of what they do, then for the love of BoB do the absolute opposite.

About Face. Dismissed

Catastrophic operations, part of the Lawn alliance based in The Vale of the Silent


Looking primarily for UK,EU,US PvP pilots, but also EU Tz Industrial powerhouses (who are also not averse to PvP)

Have a chat with a recruiter in "cat0p public"

See you there

continued..

So, mothers have long ago perfected the art of psychological warfare, and passed that skillset down to their daughters.

Think back to your childhood.

If you did something stupid, your father would give you a smack round an available bodypart. Job done. Behavioural modification via pain. If I do that again, pain will happen. I do not like pain therefore I will not do it again. Usually.

Your mother however would open her bag of tricks and shower you with guilt, long suffering expressions, constant reminders , icy silences. You've all been there and suffered through that. Eventually she gets her own way via emotional torture. Man, she makes me feel like **** when I do something stupid or don't do what she wants. Anything for a quiet life.

Now, your significant other has an impressive array of psychological terror weapons at her disposal; some inherited from her long departed ancestors, some from her mother, aunts and female older cousins, and some that were born deep in the dark recesses of her own psyche.

Mostly these tools revolve round the knowledge that a) Man likes a quiet life when he's in the cave and b) man is a warm blooded mammal and is a horny devil.

So on top of the guilt, long suffering expressions, constant reminders or icy silences, we have the use of sex as a behavioural modification tool. Sex is awarded when she gets her own way, and denied when the Man does something incredibly stupid like not doing what she wants when she wants it. Add that to the fact that modern society usually awards the cave, property and a stipend to the spouse in any separation between the two contractually obligated partners, Man is on a loser unless he capitulates completely to the whims of his overlord... or rather over-mistress. This secondary programming conflicts with his evolutionary programming, and errors can and will occur, including complete system shutdown.

What women want from men is changing faster than mans ability to evolve. Its a fact.

A point.

A woman is hurt by something a female friend has done. The female friend will pick up on it without being told. They will talk it out , reach a solution, hurt feelings will be healed, and connections remade.

A woman is hurt by her man. She won't tell him why, because he should know. Her friends would know, why doesn't he?. Meanwhile the Man asks his partner what's wrong, she says "nothing is wrong". She wont tell him, he should know right?. Well no, wrong. A woman's female friends have had the same period of time as she has had to develop her telepathy. Man is still floundering around in the dark, beating the cave floor with a club. Its going to take more than 100 years to offset the experiences of the last 100,000



In conclusion.


Men are not complete bastards. What they are , is confused by the contradictory requirements of their own core evolutionary programming, and the programming carried out by their female relatives in the first instance, and that carried out by their partner in the second instance. Add on top the changing societal expectations and requirements placed on man, and its a wonder Man has not self destructed.

If your husband fails to pick up his socks, its down to the fact that his mother (a fellow female) has failed in her task of programming her son, and has passed the problem on to you.

If your partner is grouchy and out of sorts. You can either stop confusing the poor schmuk by asking too much of his sequential processing ability, or just sleep with him. You'll be amazed how much more malleable he then becomes.

BUT, above all, have a little patience with men. They are trying.. Mostly

And back on the treadmill....

There I was , doodling on a piece of paper and listing what I thought were good qualities for pilots in Catastrophic Operations to have...

My initial list was somewhat extreme...

1. Must not require sleep.
2. Must be able to fly all current doctrine ships
3. Must be able to fly ships that might become doctrine in the future
4. Must be able to fly ships, that due to potential nerfing of current or future doctrine ships, might feature in fleets at some time or other
5. Must have a legal age female relative they would be willing to part with..
6. Must not be an asshat
7. Must laugh at the CEO's jokes
8. Even outnumbered they must never lose a ship and sully the holy KB.
9. Must be online 23.5/7
10.Must be on mumble when online

As I said, that was my initial list..

Then I thought, Mithandra my love, no one can be as marvellous as you. So with compassion and a felt pen, I set about creating a proper list of requirements; commandments if you will. So ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, the 10 Cat0p commandments. I didn't have any stone tablets to engrave them on, which is just as well. The Christian Church might well have sued my sorry arse for copyright infringement.



1. Thou shall not be a total Asshat

The first commandment is fairly easy to understand.
Banter, repartee, witticisms, poking of the fun and light hearted interaction are all examples of good clean fun.

Undermining the Leadership, singling a pilot out for abuse, awoxing fellow corp members, corp theft, logging off before a fleet fight then logging back on five minutes after it's finished, not taking part in corp activities.. those are examples of asshattedness.


2. Thou shalt be on mumble

Once again , it's self explanatory. If you are online in eve, you must be on mumble. You can sit in a quiet channel if the current topic of corporation conversation is turning your hair grey, but on mumble thou shalt be.


3. Thou shalt be able to fly some if not all of the current doctrine ships

Theres no point applying to join if you cant fleet up in the required ships, and for gods sake, don't turn up in, or ask to join fleet in a drake. The FC's can be quite acerbic over the Drake question.


4. Thou shalt provide a full API

Yes I know, debate rages on about the provision of full API's to Corporations. After long and thoughtful debate about this subject, Cat0p leadership has made the following proclamation:-

"Without a full and unequivocal API, no tortured soul shall be redeemed or enter the hallowed halls of Cat0p, but shall instead burn for eternity in the ranks of Pandemic Horde, or possibly Mordus Angels... whichever fate is worse."

Supply a full API, your salvation depends upon it


5. Thou shalt not disappear from Eve without letting the CEO know how long you will be gone.

Again self explanatory. If you are going to be away from EvE for longer than a few days, let the CEO or HR know, otherwise you may come back to find that you have been purged from the ranks of the enlightened.


6. Thou shalt PVP

Don't join a PvP corporation if you have no intention of joining in with the pew. Your lack of participation will be noted, and if it continues following a warning, you will be cast down like Lucifer, stripped of wings, immortality and honour.


7. Thou shalt not embarrass the corp in alliance ops or alliance chat.

If you have to ask a stupid question, or a question that might be considered stupid, ask it in corp chat. Do not **** about on alliance comms during a fleet operation, and don't lose expensive ships stupidly.


8. Thou shalt have what is needed, where it is needed, when it is needed.

It is up to each pilot to have the right ship in the right location in time for Ops. Ops are pinged. Listen to the Ping, the ping is your friend.


9. Thou shalt take part in corporation activities with a glad heart.

No frakking whining when you are asked to take part in a pos bash, or bump forum threads, or aid in recruiting, or take part in the rarer than rocking horse poop mining op to help provide the corp with assets. Give freely of your time and cheer and you shall be rewarded ten fold.*

*As with all statements involving reward, its hard to pin down the actual value of the initial investment, which makes multiplying it 10 fold somewhat problematic.


10. Thou shalt provide to the corporation , one female relative of legal age and slutty demeanour.

Obviously not. What do you take us for?..... really? Oh so you have been on our comms channel then.



As with all lists, mine may not survive unedited, so it should be considered a working document, and not, HA , set in stone.



Its a good starting point though.


If you feel the icy fingers of eternal damnation dancing up and down your spine, give cat0ps a try. Salvation is an API away.


Join channel cat0p public, and praise BOB, you too could soon be among the chosen.

Good morning thread followers.

Welcome to the dark recesses of a) The recruitment thread, and b) my mind

I was eating my toast this morning, when a thought occurred to me. Bread, like so many other things in life is taken for granted, but exactly how was bread invented? I mean, look at the ingredients for a start.



You've got a grain that takes time to grow and become ready to harvest. The grain is then mashed down to a powder, which is no trivial exercise, and time consuming.

You've got salt

Water

Butter, the making of which is also no trivial exercise, and time consuming.

Yeast, which could have happened by accident, as yeast occurs naturally on grain



On top of the unlikely ingredients, you have a process that is also unlikely and time consuming.


You mix all the ingredients together, and knead them , then you cover them and let them rest, then you knead them again, then rest, then knead then rest, then stick in or on a heat source until brown.

You end up with a product that if not eaten quickly goes stale and hard.


Hard work indeed as anyone who has made bread by hand will tell you, for a product with such a short shelf life.



So, what on earth made the inventor ,some 30,000 years ago, because ladies and gentlemen, that's how long bread has been around, decide to lump all these ingredients together, spend hours mixing and kneading, and then throw the resultant blob on to a heat source?

It defies logic.


I mean what possible combination of events could have given someone the idea for bread??

What I am certain of in my own mind is that the inventor was female, because a) their minds work in mysterious ways and b) no cave man would have taken the amount of time bread requires to make away from hitting things on the head with his stone club.

So as I munch on my toast pondering the imponderable, I have to add another item to my list of why women are great. Toast.


I suppose I'd better mention Catastrophic Operations somewhere in this recruitment post bump. Soooo

Catastrophic Operations.

Full of people almost as "complicated" as me. Who would have thought that such a disparate bunch of unlikely "ingredients" would have "risen" to become the PvP "staple" they are today.

Join today. Don't let this opportunity pass you by if you want to avoid a "stale" experience in EVE

Eve Online is a game.....

Games were made so you can have fun........

Joining CAT0P will ensure your money is well spent!

Bump

cont from above

Of all the Corporations I have been in on my main and my alts - oh come now it can't be a surprise I have alts almost as Marvellous as myself, we all have alts - this corporation actually manages to merge all of the various elements, PVP, Industry, ISK making in to one homogenous whole.

The Indy guys PVP with enthusiasm, the PVPrs (after minimal SBN behaviour) help Indy guys when necessary. The CEO isn't a complete chopper, and the other Directors have their eyes firmly fixed on keeping the guys and girls of the Corp happy. We get listened to, and often can get the Directors to go along with our nefarious plans.

We are relatively small, just 70 odd members, PVP centric, win lose or get totally destroyed, and we cover most of the major time zones, so as a corp we are pretty well set up to weather Fozzie Sov and its aftermath, majorragequitgate.


Don't take my word for it. Join us in channel cat0p public for a chat. A chat about anything, or nothing, or you joining the corp. Its all good. We like chatting.

Come Chat.

So many bumps but i believe there are still souls waiting for salvation, somewhere in the depts of nullsec. So we'll never stop searching for pilots we can help. Bump, as usual. Bump, let the sound of the word wake up the lonely and sorrow. Bump, the drums of cat0p will never stop. Bump, join our pub channel 'cat0p public'. Salvation awaits.

As I look at the blank page in front of me, I wonder what on earth I could write down that would make you, any of you, see Catastrophic Operations the way I do. If you could look through my eyes, or as they say, walk a mile in my shoes, it would be easy. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your socio-political views, people don't come in standard one size fits all packages. Everyone expects to be treated as a special case; EVE pilots practically demand it. In the case of EVE, This makes running a Corporation an exercise in herding cats.

From my own observations in EVE, pilots are usually from one (or more) of several distinct groupings:-

Military... either serving or ex military.

I fit in to this category along with quite a few of my corp. Military guys usually like a clear cut chain of command, buddies they can rely on, rules they can follow. Its all about knowing where you stand, who you can trust, and helping your corpies.


Information Technology Guys

I.T guys usually have low idiot tolerance levels, and their definition of idiot is anyone other than themselves or their close knit group. I also fall in to this group, as one of my major roles during the 24 years I served, was I.T Systems Management. Its amazing I was never court-martialled due to my rather acerbic approach to User Support. It was noted by one or two of the more witty of my peers, that I could tap-dance across a freshwater lake without getting my feet wet, and that if I was dropped in a barrel of shite, I'd come up smelling of roses. I chose to take comments like that as compliments, though honesty compels me to admit that they were probably not entirely meant as such.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

Every Corp has some. You know the guy who will argue to the point of insanity, the various ways he could improve everything in EVE if he was just given the chance. The guy who will argue for hours on end about the best way to fit an interceptor, destroyer, other ship, to squeeze just one more half point of speed out of it. The guy who looks at spreadsheets with an emotion bordering on carnal lust. The guy who will argue for days about the smallest point of order, corporation rule, alliance rule, or game mechanic. That's also me. If something is wrong to me, it hurts. I'm not talking pure physical pain. I'm talking that annoying itch in your back you cant reach, the sound of a dripping tap, or a full bladder that you need to empty but cant. Its probably why I tend to cause my Corporation Diplomats heartburn and anxiety as often as I do. If I don't like something, I literally cannot let it lie.

Managers and people in other positions of authority

That's me currently. My corp also has a number of other people in high flying, well paid jobs. These people tend to go one of two ways. They either gravitate into positions within the corp where they can put their organisational skills to good use, or they go haywire and shoot stuff in the face with extreme prejudice repeatedly. Its probably why we have good numbers in Alliance fleets. Its stress relief following the work day. Me I try to organise, to create, to contribute, but I also shoot stuff in the face. I have issues.. a lot of issues. God, do I have issues.

Self Centred Egoists

You all know people like this. I know people like this and at times I am a person like this. Issues remember?. These are the people who unless it directly benefits themselves, will not take part or contribute. No matter how hard you try , you cant weed them out.


There are a few other groups but considering the above heading, I'm not particularly interested in listing them as I don't belong to them. Self Centred Egoist with issues remember?


So to recap, I, an ex military self centred egoist type, with a background in I.T, suffering from clinically recognised OCD and currently working as a General Manager have managed to find a corp where I am tolerated, where people usually don't get too bent out of shape when I do something irritating, rude, downright stupid, or cause a diplomatic incident. There's not many corps out there that give you a sense of actually belonging, of actually wanting to improve yourself and to contribute. I managed to find a home in Catastrophic Operations; its not beyond the bounds of credibility that you could too.

Don't get me wrong, Cat0ps is not all sweetness and light, marshmallows and pony rides, but its like being part of a pretty dysfunctional family that gets on each others nerves now and then, but when the chips are down and you need support, help, or a wingman, the Cat0p guys are there for you. Bro's and FemBro's. It's pretty cool.


The focus of Catastrophic Operations is PVP, but post Fozzie sov, we are not averse to recruiting industrial types who also like shooting stuff in the face. I've listed the virtues we like in recruits somewhere above this post in the thousands of words I've typed for previous bumps. Go have a read. Scratch that OCD itch.

Bottom line. In all my time in EVE, Catastrophic Operations is by far the best. Sorry for the treacle guys, but it's true. You put up with me,; that alone gets you nominated for canonisation and sainthood.



Join the frikkin corp. See what I'm talking about. Never look back.

peace out.