These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

Crime & Punishment

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
 

Your Source for Information on Spies and spying in EVE
Author
Previous Topic Next Topic
Praxis Astra
0.0 Axis Fleet
Stealth Syndicate
#61 - 2011-11-04 05:23:21 UTC
There was a time when I thought that hi sec pvp was like basic training for nullsec pvp and to a certain extent it is. I said that to some nullsec PvP heavies, guys who actually knew their stuff. They (very kindly) informed me how wrong I was. I was told that hisec pvp will more than anything teach you habits you will have to unlearn most of in nullsec. So my advice is their advice. For you military guys, nullsec pvp is where the most hardcore pvp in the game happens. (I mean, c'mon, just look at the weapons you can't even use in hi sec. (Bombs. Capitol ships. Cynosural fields. Warp disruptor bubbles.) so get out there as soon as you can find someone who will take you.

Praxis Astra Master of Assassins and Punctuality http://heartsandmindsalliance.org
Praxis Astra
0.0 Axis Fleet
Stealth Syndicate
#62 - 2011-11-05 19:01:09 UTC
Excerpt from Chapter II of the Neurotechnicon

A lie is never a trivial thing. Every single one has to be watched carefully and remembered remembered remembered. They have a way of skipping out of your control and doing just the kind of mischef you don't want at the least opportune momments. A like is like a demon servant evoked by just the right combination of words. Like demons, lies always cheat on how much they are going to cost you. Every lie you tell requires your resources to maintain or it will do damage. Like any effective tool they can damage you as much as they can damage your targets if not more.

In this chapter we discuss how, using the methods you learned in chapter I to create your memory palace, you can build a deceptadrome of mnemonic devices to remember and organize your lies.

Memory Palace

A lie is simply never as powerful as a truth. The reason is simple. A truth, bearing the weight of and reflecting the effects from actual events, needs less attention from you in order to do its work. A lie, existing only in the words and minds of the speaker and hearer, has no momentum but what you and the hearer give it yourselves. To believe your lies at any time other than the moment you utter them is an error from which there is usually no escape. Your lies may not be as powerful as the truth but they can easily become more powerful than you.

Big smile

Praxis Astra Master of Assassins and Punctuality http://heartsandmindsalliance.org
Praxis Astra
0.0 Axis Fleet
Stealth Syndicate
#63 - 2011-11-06 21:23:55 UTC
Excerpt from Chapter XIV of the Neurotechnicon

Your wickedness is exactly like your goodness in that its actual worth is what you are actually willing to pay for it. One thing we can count on from most of our targets is that no matter what their putative "virtures" they will not be willing to pay as much for them as you are willing to pay for yours.

Big smile

Praxis Astra Master of Assassins and Punctuality http://heartsandmindsalliance.org
Praxis Astra
0.0 Axis Fleet
Stealth Syndicate
#64 - 2011-11-07 19:20:39 UTC
Reading List:

Required (there will be a test to get into the Inner Circle)

The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis.

members.fortunecity.com/phantom1/books2/...crewtape_letters.htm

The Art of War by Sun Tzu

classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html

(OK. I'll fess up. My favorite translation is "The Art of Strategy" by R. L. Wing who was taught both Chinese and English from birth. That is a different book from the one you get from translators who start from english.)

Optional reading:

How to Win Friends and Influence People

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People

48 laws of Power

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_48_Laws_of_Power

The Prince Niccolo Machiavelli

www.constitution.org/mac/prince00.htm

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince

Any biography of Francis Marion

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Marion

www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/biography/fox.html

The Discourses Niccolo Maciavelli

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discourses_on_Livy

Dune by Frank Herbert

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_%28novel%29

The Illuminatus Trilogy

www.rawilson.com/illuminatus.html

Praxis Astra Master of Assassins and Punctuality http://heartsandmindsalliance.org
Praxis Astra
0.0 Axis Fleet
Stealth Syndicate
#65 - 2011-11-08 22:17:31 UTC
Q: So what's this Neurotechnicon.

A: Its a manual on destroying EVE organizations from within. Assassination. Sabotage. War in the information age. The metagame of EVE. And the meta-meta game of playing EVE "against" yourself.

Q: So Praxis where do your loyalties lie? (Our first member asked me that.)

A: With a group of players with whom I play the game. I will have none but free men in my secret society/circus/acting troupe. The loyalty granted by those who have to offer it because they can't escape from their need for a group is one thing. The loyalty offered by those who offer it purely of their own free Will is another thing entirely.

Q: This is ridiculous. You can't expect people to go to all this trouble to be part of your little crew.

A: How many people do you think I really need at the upper levels of this to get the stuff I want to get done? Five? Ten? Twenty at the very most. And I'm playing for the long term. It took me a year and a half to lay the foundations to get this far.

Q: How can you take so much time over each player?

A: Because H&M is all about quality over quantity. Even if they "joined" to betray SFSC, I'd hope they leave better able to play spy vs spy.

Q: These forums go on forever. Why should I read all this junk?

A: There are some questions that, just by asking them, you tell me it would be pointless to try to answer.

Q: So, what you are gonna use me in your evil plot to rule the Galazy?

A: Sometimes, sure. I mean, we do want to have a project to work on in common right? But most of the time, I'm going to be happy to work on creating an environment in which you have as many options to do what you'd like to do in the game. After all, this is the only way I'll get to see what you will actually do. I'm not looking to rule New Eden. The very most I'd ever want to do with it, even if CCP offered it to me, is play with it.

Q: C'mon. Trust Praxis? Gimmme a break. How stupid do you think I am?

A: Not sure yet. But I'll tell you how stupid I'm not. I'm not stupid enough to lose track of the reality that this is a game and someone has to stand in for the player and communicate with the other players. Someone, somewhere in the organization has to be able to make trustworthy agreements on behalf of that organization. That's Praxis. I have other characters who are lying traitorous vipers, not even necessarily associated with SFSC.

Q: I'm a much more experienced player than you. Why should I join your pitiful little band?

A: Because I'm very good at what I do, which is build small groups of weird and intense people who want meet each other and work on fascinating scary stuff that few other people care about. Like performance art. Or Psychological warfare.

Praxis Astra Master of Assassins and Punctuality http://heartsandmindsalliance.org
Praxis Astra
0.0 Axis Fleet
Stealth Syndicate
#66 - 2011-11-10 01:11:30 UTC
Horrible or Wonderful Either Way This Is True for an Effective EVE Corp

And now the hideous truth. The moment when you, as uneasy as Blackbeard's eighth wife, slip that key out of the drawer you aren't supposed to and unlock that door. I've been there. Its all going well. Too well. You and your new corp have gotten through the honeymoon but are still having sex almost every day. You're relaxing. its happening. Its just..... That door. You trust your new spouse, oh certainly beyond a shadow of a whisper of a 151 KM warp to point's worth of doubt you do trust your newly betrothed and beloved or why would you have married them in the first place. Its just.....

That door.

So you open the fracking thing and after you do you almost wish it was seven heads on spikes with yawning jaws and maggots in their eyes because what's there is so much worse what's there are...

Spreadsheets.

There is no escape from them. Once your corp or alliance gets beyond a certain point you will need them. It is hard to tell when that point is because something will eat away at you like the thought of the key does Blackbeard's bride. And when you finally realize what it is, you, like all of us, will find spreadsheets.

I recommend a complete and total capitulation before the vastly superior force of necessity. (Sometimes simple surrender serves you best my friend.) In order to do so, just open a google docs account. (I said I never would and I did.) You can assign access to documents including spreadsheets to your officers. The horror. The horror.

Praxis Astra Master of Assassins and Punctuality http://heartsandmindsalliance.org
Praxis Astra
0.0 Axis Fleet
Stealth Syndicate
#67 - 2011-11-12 18:33:37 UTC
Rules of the Governing Body

Below are a good set of guidelines for your managers and directors. If you can find one of these that is not an absolute necessity given the actual conditions that prevail in the game please let me know. I'll publish a retraction and make sure you get the credit.

1. We keep the difference between fantasy and reality clear. We are not the rulers of a mighty empire. We are the "employees" of a non profit organization. All the people who take our orders are volunteers. When we issue our "commands" we'd better keep that in mind, and make it work for us every single step of the way.

2. We take the time to thank each other for our work.

I've seen groups founder because the people who run it forget this kind of simple politeness. (This one is SUCH a good thing to overlook if you want to carefully lay the foundation for utterly unnecessary festering resentment within your management team.)

3. We take the time to critique each other's work.

I've seen volunteer organizations fall apart completely, and in the end, it turned out that it was more than anything because nobody felt they had the right to say anything to each other because they are all volunteers. Which is true. But if your volunteer isn't doing their job or doing a bad job they are worse than useless. That's also true.

4. Honor among Thieves.

Especially when we disagree. More then than ever in fact. If you can't handle confrontations like a businessman you have no place managing or leading anything other than toy soldiers.

5. We understand that a lot if not most of our EVE time is going to be taken up by coordinating the efforts of other players.

If the idea of spending your time analyzing the Big Picture, scheming, issuing "orders," and moving pieces in and out of play on the game board does not make your heart beat faster, this definitely not the job for you.

6. Expert authority carries the day.

Even though EVE groups are structured as dictatorships with the CEO/Executor being able to kick anyone out or end the club itself, expert authority will be the actual means of decision making and implementation 9 times in 10. Just saying.

Praxis Astra Master of Assassins and Punctuality http://heartsandmindsalliance.org
Praxis Astra
0.0 Axis Fleet
Stealth Syndicate
#68 - 2011-11-14 17:02:24 UTC
People walk up to me in the street.

They say, "Hey Praxis. How ya doin'? So what about you stop being coy and just tell us what the frackin' Secret Evil Plan is? And if you don't then eat slaver hound turds!"

Well I don't want to eat the turds of even fictional creatures so I've decided to give in. But only here on the website. Yep. People are actually going to have to go through the trouble of clicking on a link to our site to see the SEP we've been talking about for the last two years.

So here goes.

The Secret Evil Plan is neither Secret or Evil. I've already conceded the point about the secrecy. I haven't shut up about the thing since I started as a Director.

Now I'm going to have to fess up to my many critics as well as admirers that the plan isn't even actually Evil.

With the Neutotechnicon, I've written what will hopefully be only the first guide on EVE spy vs spy playing. A member of SFSC had read the Neurotechnicon and asked me why, given what was in the thing, I publish it and make it available to even our enemies. I found this to be a more than reasonable question. The answer is that we are also an educational organization. And we love EVE because its a game that allows and encourages this dimension of MMO gaming. And who ever said I put everything I knew into the Neurotechnicon anyway?

With The Technocrat I've provided a service to all the manager players in the game. There's a year and a half of intensive research on EVE organization management in that sucker. Its going to enable our evil scheming politicians to do their evil scheming and power mongering much much more efficiently. I'd like it if EVE got a rep for really badass "guilds." Let's get those power mongers out there playing those games where they don't get nearly as many toys to play as they do here interested in EVE.

With the New Players Very First Steps Guide I've hopefully done something to help even more twisted obsessive gamer types through that horrible first two weeks to a month where the sheer size of the thing just exhausts you. We get a few more interesting minds though the door everybody wins.

The irony is that 95% of the people in my organization could care less about spying. They just want to learn EVE at all. Only the tiniest few actually get as far as infiltrating and doing dastardly things of that kind. Even among the few who come to me saying that they want to go undercover right from the start.

Who knew there would be such unsuspected reserves of, well, virtue among EVE players? Most of us actually want to be Good Guys, even in our fantasy lives. (And I know: all you pvp guys are bloodthirsty! Raaaaaaaahhh! Snarl! Yes but even then there's a difference between being a tough guy and a bad guy.) In this I may have done my members a disservice. We should have been a well publicized organization known for anything but spying, and secretly had a ring of agents rather than be widely known for spying and not do enough of it to make it worth the reputation. On the other hand, I've got the people in my organization who want to, among other things, educate and train new players. We tried to farm this function out among other corporations but it didn't work.

More about this soon. Or I'm going to delete the thing.

Praxis Astra Master of Assassins and Punctuality http://heartsandmindsalliance.org
Praxis Astra
0.0 Axis Fleet
Stealth Syndicate
#69 - 2011-11-16 10:16:05 UTC
From Warp To Zero

Its that underlying astonishment: "What? What do you mean you don't want to be part of the team?" Its like a religious person hearing for the first time in their life that someone doesn't believe in God. They're baffled that you don't want to play. With them. "What do you mean you don't want to do it our way to be part of my tribe?"

And you smile to yourself. Just because you're there they think you're there with them. And you are, why wouldn't you want to be? Certainly there are individual players with whom one forms loyalties. Speaking for myself I enjoy my loyalties and the effects they have on me hugely. But, again, those are to individuals, not groups although I'll admit I can be sentimental about those from time to time.

And then there's the simple truth that you are interested in getting certain things done in order to test your ideas. And if you're going to do a good job of that you're going to have to be first and foremost alone, apart, with the perspective of the perpetual outsider.

The irony of this can be how vastly useful you can wind up being simply because nobody else as deep in "your" group is capable of addressing the group from that perspective. Actually this is something I've found particularly enjoyable over the years. Its allowed me to exert a huge influence on the groups I've been a "member" of because nobody is even capable of letting themselves see the spot "where it hurts." If I'm willing to exert the relatively large amounts of time, energy and money it takes to set thins in motion from such angles, I can eventually find out....something. And always always I am of service to the people I'm in the group with. But that's one of my personal policies not an experimental necessity. The group must profit more from my presence than I cost it. That way I owe the group nothing.

Praxis Astra Master of Assassins and Punctuality http://heartsandmindsalliance.org
Snow Ogre Dude
Paladin Noesis
#70 - 2011-11-17 05:44:16 UTC
I LIKE KNOWINS ON PIES .... WHERE'S EM AT?

"Snow Ogres fall from heaven....... unassembled."
Praxis Astra
0.0 Axis Fleet
Stealth Syndicate
#71 - 2011-11-19 01:05:39 UTC
Moons or plexes aside, most sov is worse than useless. (CCPs monkey trap: gourd with hole. Inside gourd are berries. Monkey puts hand in but can't pull fist out until he lets go of the berries.) Territory? How the bloodly blue blazes is territory going to help ME? Does a color on the daily sov map put ISK in MY pocket? Or, for that matter, the pocket of the corp I'm a mamber of? Does going to tedious CTAs to defend that territory make the game worth playing for ME? Those are not academic questions. If territory is what you want, you'd damn well better find members who have the same answers to those questions above as you do BEFORE you claim territory.

Praxis Astra Master of Assassins and Punctuality http://heartsandmindsalliance.org
Harlot Hohannson
Eye on Wang Poo
#72 - 2011-11-19 01:11:11 UTC
Who would pay someone that talks such completebollocks for 'intel'. Jesus Christ.
Captain Nathaniel Butler
The White Company
#73 - 2011-11-19 16:46:05 UTC
Harlot Hohannson wrote:
Who would pay someone that talks such completebollocks for 'intel'. Jesus Christ.



Who would listen to someone who writes such completebollocks for posts?


Just saying...

Lady Spank for C&P moderator.
Praxis Astra
0.0 Axis Fleet
Stealth Syndicate
#74 - 2011-11-20 05:25:25 UTC
Your Leadership Group

This topic deserves a guide of its own, as long or longer than this one.

The daily care feeding and grooming of your membership at large can be done by one or more of the designated management team but if you wish to continue in your job as being in fact CEO or Alliance Executor you'd better be the one taking care of your leadership group. You have to manage your managers. These people are essential to your group's survival. The person who does this job is in fact the leader of the group no matter what their title.

If you want these people to continue to donate their priceless time to you and your stupid group you'd better not take them for granted. That gets ignored only for so long. And then, usually, you wind up with an enemy. It won't matter that the only thing you were guilty of was feeding them all the rope they needed to hang themselves. That's all it takes.

You MUST make appreciating and caring for your managers and volunteers your first or one of your first priorities. You MUST. YOU MUST. No matter how busy you are. Let something else slide.

YOU MUST MAKE APPRECIATING AND MANAGEMENT OF YOUR MANAGERS AND VOLUNTEERS A TOP PRIORITY OR YOU WILL LOSE ALL OF THEM.

The talent and dedication you waste will just leave without a word. Except the ones who will be angry humiliated at having volunteered to be used and taken for granted. They will betray you, steal, rip things up on their way out. (The funny thing is that the angrier they are at you, usually the more loyal they were at the start. Isn't that funny?)

Your members will see this pattern, even if you don't. The better ones leave. More and more the people who volunteer will be looking to steal from you, since now they come to the job knowing they won't get anything for doing it except what they take.

Leaders who can't or don't manage at least their key people are not leaders. They're just playing at it. It is ironic. Here in this make believe MMO land the only thing nobody respects you for pretending to be is a leader.

Praxis Astra Master of Assassins and Punctuality http://heartsandmindsalliance.org
Corp 5py
Doomheim
#75 - 2011-11-21 07:43:50 UTC
I approve of this thread
Snow Ogre Dude
Paladin Noesis
#76 - 2011-11-21 09:14:58 UTC
HIMS STILLS BEING SECRETLIES BOUT PIES THOUGH ... IS CAUS NOT MANY LEFT AND WANTS EATS THEM ALL?

"Snow Ogres fall from heaven....... unassembled."
Meridith Akesia
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#77 - 2011-11-21 13:49:50 UTC
words
Praxis Astra
0.0 Axis Fleet
Stealth Syndicate
#78 - 2011-11-24 19:00:48 UTC
Happy Thanksgiving to all my fellow Americans out there. And to all my non US friends: All you have to do to join in is give some thanks for all the good people and stuff in your life and you're good to go!

Big smileBig smileBig smile

Praxis Astra Master of Assassins and Punctuality http://heartsandmindsalliance.org
Tulip O'Hare
Doomheim
#79 - 2011-11-25 12:20:18 UTC
what is this i don't even
Praxis Astra
0.0 Axis Fleet
Stealth Syndicate
#80 - 2011-11-26 13:30:38 UTC
Smiling Friends Social Club

You Choose Your Level Of Involvement

Freelancer

"I only gotta sell out four more of these guys for my new Tengu. That guy Praxis really came through. I wonder how much he'd be worth"

"I've got to prove myself to be worthy of their trust!"

The first tier Freelancer. You are paid for services rendered, with a smile thrown in. And the occasional bonus you hadn't looked for. We have pay scales and missions aplenty to keep the part time spy and mercinary fat and happy.

Handpicked Predator AND/OR Protector

"Hihihihihiiiiii. He was funny. Eyes all wide. Hahahahahahahahahaaaaaa."

"I had to stop it. It was wrong."

The second tier are the Handpicked Protectors AND/OR Predators. Only artists, the still functional but insane, the mad scientist, the alchemist, the traveller in the untracked wastes of human perception need apply.

It is to you I say: Yes. I'm here. Let's do it. What we always do whenever we assemble in groups of more than one. Come on in. I'll jump through your hoops and once I've proven myself to you we'll talk. And you know I don't have to promise you. Anything. I'll do what I always do for you because I won't be able to help myself.

Protector of the Weak AND/OR Intraspecies Predator

"You mean I got to do that to him for his own good? I love being me!"

At this point we are doing it for the art. For the love of it. You don't need us any more. Except as smiling friends. Evildoer or Lawman, you will be expected to play your role with consummate skill, passion and ruthlessness. SFSC Director or not, you will be part of the Inner Circle.

Praxis Astra Master of Assassins and Punctuality http://heartsandmindsalliance.org