Wormholes

I can't post with my main, when i try to switch characters I get a "Sorry, an error has occurred while processing your request", so my apologies for posting this with an alt.

I need to tell a bit of a story to set the context, please bear with me. I was part of a mid-sized group of people who inhabited a C2 hole with a highsec static. We lived there for about 3 years actually, until eventually how it often goes, this person had X going on in real life, that person had Y, person 4, 5, and 6 promised to hold down the fort, once people started coming back, of course people had moved on to other groups in higher class holes. Ultimately I was the last to return, and quite frankly still don't have a ton of personal time to play EVE.

I didn't know what to do, but all my crap was still in the hole in a POS (this pre-dates Citadels). One kind soul was logging in once per month with an alt and refueling the POS, but had it been attacked, it would have been a loot pinata, but nobody ever bothered it. Flash forward a bit, I was kind of stuck at maybe 3 hours a week where I could play, which meant spending all my EVE time hauling my crap out of the wormhole, and tearing down POS stuff, etc. The thought of that made me roll my eyes and go watch TV instead during those 3 hours. This went on for a while, eventually I started logging into EVE during those times when I could. Nothing was going on really, the hole was mostly quiet. I don't really like doing PVE, so the anomoly list was always huge. I thought, what a shame nobody is making use of this.

It was around this time that Citadels were released. I love to tinker with new stuff in EVE, so i said "well, ok I'm pretty space rich so I'll setup a citadel". I did, and its been there for a while now. Eventually I got bored again and decided to just set it as a freeport. The other static in the wormhole is a C4, so I aptly named the citadel, and hoped it might help wary C4 travelers, or maybe entice new folks into wormholes from highsec. I even put a refinery in it to try and attract folks to use it. I kept the tax at 0%, because I really don't need a profit on anything.

In the mean time I've since moved most of my own stuff out of the hole, but I have setup another citadel (Raitaru, because why not I guess?). Several more months passed with nothing but random eve-scout people using the freeport occasionally. Suddenly though, a small group dropped me a mail letting me know they were using the Freeport and wanted to thank me, and learn more about what my deal was.

Ultimately I want to just help new folks get into wormholes, but I don't have the real-life time to dedicate to spending a lot of time with people like that. So I took the approach of "infrastructure is free to use, you guys are welcome here - enjoy!". So far this has been going good, they're getting confident in wormholes, getting to learn things on their own (I rarely interact with them).

This got me thinking about my beginnings in low-sec way back in 2005, and the community that was able to develop in an environment like that (free to dock at stations, but lots of risk too). I thought it'd be really neat if I could build something like that in this wormhole. ISK really isn't an issue, but my concern with building out any more structures or trying to build more of a community of small groups/corps in the hole is the eventual certainty that a HK or LZHWK duder is going to come along and see a bunch of citadels under my corp banner (I am 1 guy, literally, but the corp has 30+ alts in it that are dormant, so we 'look' bigger than we are), and they'll want to set fire to the place (that's fine this is w-space afterall).

I do not lead the people that are using the hole, I simply supply infrastructure to them. I don't even really give them advice or answer questions (they don't ask anyways). I can't "rally the forces" if an attack comes, I don't even know how to talk to them out of game if I wanted to.

So the core of my question is this. As wormhole dwellers, is this something that we as a community want to see as a "thing", or am I doing a "bad thing"? I think its a neat idea to try and build infrastructure in a low-class hole to try and entice newer people in, but ultimately that means "where's the market? Can you setup a market?" at which point we're talking serious investment in a Fortizar (I can afford it, but I'd rather it not be steamrolled either, and setting up a fortizar as a 1-man show in a wormhole sounds .. dumb?). On the other hand if I leave it at this, just the 1 Astrahus and 1 Raitaru, that limits the possibilities and probably will limit the number of people I can attract in.

I thought about reaching out to HK and the other big folks in w-space to talk about some kind of arrangement, but I figured they'd laugh at me and tell me to get lost.

So I figured I'd reach out to the community at large and see what you all thought. Am I wasting my time? Should I just pack it in and avoid the inevitable burninating of the hole's infrastructure and find something else to do in EVE? Or am I on to something of a decent idea? Since Citadels are just not defend-able without a support fleet (which I think is good and sound game mechanics), it seems like this is more of a bad idea than a good one... :)

My goal ultimately is to see a cycle of newbros coming in from highsec, getting used to wormholes, exploring further down the chain, forming voltron with other people who did the same, moving on to higher class wormholes, cycle repeats.

this is a tough one because a free-port already exists in Thera, but not the same as your talking. Also, you can quickly find yourself down a rabbit hole here, what kinds of services are you talking about offering? Do they require fuel? If so how are you getting it in the hole? how many of these are you setting up, that's an alt for every hole! Fun idea, but maybe best just stick with the one...

good luck & fly safe