EVE Fiction

Hi everyone, new player to EVE (well, tried it once 8-ish years ago briefly. Didn't get it then but loving it now!) I've got a few very specific technical questions I'm hoping you all out there can answer based on what you've read.

1. Are the number of Capsuleers in the EVE Universe supposedly equal to the number of players?

2. How long has the technology that makes it possible for a limited number of compatable individuals to be Capsuleers been around? Since EVE's real world launch? Or was it in common use before that? (I'm talking about the present in the game's timeline)

3. Are Capsuleers aware of their biological bodies when they are in a pod/hull? Do they have the sensation of piloting their ships or of being the ships?

I'm sure I'll have some more, but those are the few I'm most interested to know. Thanks for your replies!

Thanks Nana!

I read that linked article for question 2, and it mentions that while pod tech has been around for 120 years (and presumably earlier in the hands of the Jovians), but that its common use wasn't seen until YC 104 when it was married with cloning. An internet search has led me to the conclusion that the current year in EVE is YC 118, which would mean that mainstream Capsuleering complete with instant clone technology is basically 14 years old, or roughly the age of EVE Online itself.

Has anyone read anything to the contrary?

I think there is some really fascinating implications of such revolutionary tech being relatively new, especially as it essentially means immortality for those capable of using it.

1) There are more capsuleers than just the players. Capsuleers are a smallish, elite group of people in EVEverse, but smallness is relative - there's something like 70 trillion people living in New Eden, so even a "small group" could easily number in the millions. However there is AFAIK no concrete lore on how many capsuleers there are outside of players.

2) Twofold - like already stated, around hundredish years. Jove gave the technology to the Caldari around the time of the Gallente-Caldari war. The current breed of capsuleers have been around about 20ish years, or as long the game was released, once the transneural burning scanner, pod and cloning technology were finally succesfully bundled together.

3) All descriptions I've read in the PF points out that capsuleers feel that the ship is their body, it's engines their heart and so on. So they are aware obviously that they have a physical body inside the ship they are piloting, but the ship itself at that moment is their body. I would imagine it depends on the pilot how they feel about flying ships, other might consider themselves just pilots, others might feel it more personally.