My EVE

Clones, moans and Zombies

One has to ask, where do all the bodies go? Sure, some get scooped and installed on a market plan, others get collected by corps with, well, a corpse fetish (don’t say ‘corp’s corpse’ too many times or you’ll go blind). You should know, you should want to know – after all, these are pieces of you (in many cases, lots and lots of pieces of you). Well, I can now reveal to you the truth of it. Zombie Army. Or to be more precise, Zombie Fleet.

Picture the aftermath of any great fleet fight. Slivers of ego evaporating into the vacuum and, strewn everywhere, chunks of hull and other post-ship detritus floating about being tractored in by the victor or lucky interlopers. What happens after that? What happens to all the corpses that haven’t been claimed as vacuum-mummified trophies? Where do they go? They don't just go - everything has to go somewhere (unless you’re a Seattle indy band that’s run out of angst). The answer is simple and, once you reflect on it, intuitive. They go to Z-space.

We all know W-space. Z-space is the same, it’s just that over there, in space you can hear the scream (but usually just the rictus moans and groans). Well, after ten years of this, it’s pretty crowded. We all know that space is so almost non-finite that its bordering on infinite (but for that last wafer); but I guess when your best friend and DNA-twin is Bob and you’ve been staring at the inside of his seared sinus cavity for ten years (and trying not to mention that people keep tripping over his intestines and it’s about time he wound them all up and stowed them somewhere), it’s all just getting a bit old. Then there’s Bob 2 and Bob 3, and - and well, Bob 3,577 - and pretty soon you’re sick of bloody Bobs! And they’re sick of you – and all the Freds, Joans, xBlobsx, deathMaks, Cinderallas and Cuthberts and whoever else is out there. And they’re all sick of each other. But mostly, they sick of the bastard (or b!tch) that keeps on sending more Bobs in there. Time for some payback. Time for some fresh vacuum. Time for 'no turning back'. It’s not so much a case of ‘alea iacta est’ , but of ‘mortui iacta est’ (with apologies to Suetonius/Caesar and all Latin speakers)

So they’re coming. And you ask, how are they coming? Incursions? No, nothing so mundane. We have new ships. We have a new promise of space afar being opened up by industrious capsuleers. So we fly off, create warp points, find our new system nodes and hunker down to build gates. Give it a month. Then all of a sudden local will start looking a whole lot larger. Everywhere.

And no I haven’t forgotten. What about all the corpses in hangar bays, cargo holds and markets? You could probably call it the ‘first wave’ (except in this case their hands might fall off). Whatever it is, they’ll be ready and they’ll be first. And then of course, all the nascent clones will join them. And where do you go when you've got nowhere to blow? Z-space of course.

It’s clear, it’s obvious – it’s inevitable. CCP have warned us, they’ve said things like ‘we’re not telling you exactly what the next instalment of Rubicon will bring, but it involves more exploration and other stuff’. And when CCP Fozzie showed that picture of a duck with ducklings at EveDownUnder, when asked directly ‘that’s a bunch of zombies attacking a poor bloody duck, isn’t it?’ – he did not answer. And why the new sorting algorithms? Not just for us, that's for sure. Proof positive.

Be advised. Be warned. Be told. But don’t bother being afraid because you won’t have time. Just make sure you have a cool look on your face when your own hand (your other own hand) starts winding your intestines out for brunch – because it’s the look you’ll have on your face forever (as long as you don’t eat your own face – which I used to think of as impossible, but now may just be dinner).

Happy flying. Don’t forget the headshot. CCP, where is the headshot button???

(and if you don't believe me, just wait until CCP Karkur stops knitting Guristas beanies and starts knitting Zombie ones - word to the wise)