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Intergalactic Summit

 
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Sojourn: Void
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Arrendis
TK Corp
#241 - 2015-07-24 12:48:41 UTC
Utari Onzo wrote:
Now, I guess it's my turn for this:

Also, Bawhawhawhawhaw.


Damn it, now my datapad's covered in orange juice.
Pieter Tuulinen
Societas Imperialis Sceptri Coronaeque
Khimi Harar
#242 - 2015-07-24 17:43:28 UTC
Nauplius wrote:
PY-RE. O how Wicked; O how Vile.

After the End of Days and the Judgement, I shall enjoy reading your "Sojurn: Hell". Only you will probably be too busy with the fire and the demons and the torture machines to write it. Perhaps I will inveigh upon God to offer you a few minutes of respite each day so that you can record that day's sufferings in your diary. God will be glorified in it.

It is not the policy of Pyre Falcon to comment on possible future deployments.

Expect to be a very unhappy sinner if your prediction comes true, however. Were we to be deployed enmasse to Hell, I would expect us to be running the show within a week.

For the first time since I started the conversation, he looks me dead in the eye. In his gaze are steel jackhammers, quiet vengeance, a hundred thousand orbital bombs frozen in still life.
Aria Jenneth
Societas Imperialis Sceptri Coronaeque
Khimi Harar
#243 - 2015-07-31 19:14:52 UTC  |  Edited by: Aria Jenneth
Entry Thirteen: Trickster's War

Almost everyone acts like they want a fair fight. It's mostly lies, or at least self-deceptive. Few hunters turn up their noses at an easy kill or turn down a chance to stack the odds in their favor.

Often, there are signs of danger. A ship that's a nuisance on its own, but deadly with a gang, probably doesn't have only one partner, or even two. I learned that yesterday. Too many local pilots aren't safe, even if they don't look like they'd be working together. Militia friendlies sometimes aren't.

Mostly, though, anything too good to be true probably isn't.

So ... a lot of capsuleer warfare boils down to cascading tiers of trickery. Is that easy mark really alone? Is it really what it appears to be? If not, can we spot the trap, and if we can spot it, can we predict and counter it? Can we be ready for what will happen next?

Being the winner in this sort of war is a pretty delicious sensation-- it feels not only satisfying, but clever.

Losing is ...

It feels like being mugged in a back corridor.

Not that I've ever been mugged, but I think it would feel a lot like that.

So I guess it's not surprising if people who should know better-- who try for an easy kill, only to find themselves easily killed-- tend to get really upset.
Tyrel Toov
Non-Hostile Target
Wild Geese.
#244 - 2015-07-31 19:45:02 UTC
Fleet member: sir, they know our plan!

FC: Ah, but that is the plan....

FM: What?

FC: Now that they know our plan, they will plan around our plan but we will plan around the plan that they will plan around our plan!

FM: Brilliant, sir. This is why you're the FC....


^^Warfare strategy meeting in a nutshell.^^

I want to paint my ship Periwinkle.
Aria Jenneth
Societas Imperialis Sceptri Coronaeque
Khimi Harar
#245 - 2015-08-27 19:11:19 UTC  |  Edited by: Aria Jenneth
Entry Fourteen: Departure

So, we're leaving Lasleinur, leaving Amarrian and Matari space. The caravan moves on.

I have mixed feelings about this.

It's easier for me than it is for most-- relative to some PY-RE members, I'd barely moved in. Also, I'm not really one of the people responsible for folding tents or packing the cookware, much less the armory.

A few personal possessions, that's all: a destroyer and a couple cruisers the size of planetary office buildings tucked into the back of a wagon, plus a modules and ammo package that could bury a herd of horses....

Okay, that metaphor gets silly fast if we start approaching it literally.

I'm still traveling light, comparatively speaking.

Still, the departure brings into sharp relief something I haven't previously come to terms with: being a wanderer means, eventually, actually leaving.

For most of us, here, this isn't much of a worry. It's maybe even a positive. Not many of us are from the Empire, and we're headed for Caldari space. Some of us are going home; others don't have very much of a stake either way.

I kind of care.

It's not that I especially love the Empire itself; I've said, and maintain, that it's a perfectly good civilization, but its feudalism doesn't quite seem to produce what the Amarr would like it to, and its system of slavery does very much produce ... other things ... that bother me a lot.

But I do have friends there. People I'll miss. People I was sort of fighting for, even if they didn't quite approve of the way I was doing it, and the people I was doing it with didn't really feel we were doing it for anyone's sake but our own.

Which was mostly true, even for me.

I'm not really willing to stay and fight for the Empire on my own. (Maybe against the Drifters; not against the TLF.) My core reasons for coming here to begin with didn't have a lot to do with which side we were on. It was just sort of nice that I didn't have to go far, even if it caused some strain.

Even so, not having set loyalties is different from not having feelings about where you are, or why.

On which note, I'm really curious whether and how being associated with STPRO is going to complicate my travels in the Federation.

"Uh-- Hi? I'm actually and directly at war with you, but I'm really a nice person and not here to bomb your infrastructure or anything...."

Yeah.

Well, I guess I'll be learning a lot, there, too.
Pieter Tuulinen
Societas Imperialis Sceptri Coronaeque
Khimi Harar
#246 - 2015-08-28 16:29:09 UTC  |  Edited by: Pieter Tuulinen
Take it from me, Aria, that it will impact you in ways that will continually surprise and hurt you - and also not as much as you expect.

I took extended leave to get my undergraduate degree in warp physics from Caille university. I picked a Gallente university for a reason - not only is Caille's science program excellent, but I thought it would be a nice way of expanding my horizons and getting to know my enemy without being as briefly brutal as an attempt to enroll in a Matari university might be.

Trust me, once you get a reputation for being a combat pilot opposed to the Gallente Federation, you don't really get to have a reputation for much of anything else. Even at Caille.

That said, my reputation didn't cause as much trouble as I thought it might. Whilst my classes attracted the predictable protest activism against the 'Fascist State' that you'd expect, I also attracted a number of earnest young people who wanted to talk to me about the flaws in the Federal system and how an application of Caldari ideals might help.

I joined a couple of interest groups aimed at Raata Caldari and discovered that, other than those whose politics made them dislike the Caldari on principle, tensions were the highest between myself and what might charitably be called 'my own people' than amongst the majority of uninterested Federal students. I think they and myself were constantly tensed against the sting of being called 'No true Caldari'.

So, yes, you'll attract some official distrust, patriots will now claim to despise 'everything you stand for' and those who are anti-establishment will claim some kinship to you that feels misguided and unearned. For the most part, though, you should be fine in the Federation proper - just be ready to dodge those cops if you fly yourself in!

For the first time since I started the conversation, he looks me dead in the eye. In his gaze are steel jackhammers, quiet vengeance, a hundred thousand orbital bombs frozen in still life.