Ironfleet Towing And Salvage

Today I met my first AC-ME lecturer. Seems Alexandria Phoenix is one of those folks who doesn’t approve of anybody who has a different gaming style than she does, and so she lectures those of us who play differently about our failure to play the game her way. As she puts it (see below) we “need to have things explained and be told how to act.” She must really love pirates!

The people I call “lecturers” are sort of a sub-species of smack talker. They generally don’t resort to profanity or threats, and they limit their insults to the topic at hand — namely, by putting a pejorative name to whatever I’ve done (usually salvaging ore that I did not mine myself) that they disapprove of. They cannot stand to have their pejorative name disputed, and they will argue endlessly in an effort to get me to accept their pejorative language as accurate. Usually (and this time was no exception) they’ll digress into various suggestions about how I should play the game differently — mining my own ore, following “the rules” as they see them, going to more insecure space, whatever.

This particular lecture is worth repeating because, about halfway through, Alexandria bizarrely begins to criticize me for my lack of courtesy, while continuing to insult my gaming preferences in a most discourteous manner:

To set the scene: I’ve warped to zero on a jettisoned cargo can floating near a mining barge that had a few comba drones out. Turns out the can has just a few more veldspar nuggets in it than can fit in my hauler:

21:42:31 Alexandria Pheonix > go away marlenus
[Me scoops a shipload of ore, begins the slow process of warping out.]
21:43:44 Marlenus > Okay!
21:47:57 Emporors Champian > i wanna sing christmas songs
21:48:27 Emporors Champian > and give a little serman
21:48:45 Alexandria Pheonix > i wanna sing anti orethief songs
21:50:33 Alexandria Pheonix > have fun with ur 4000 veld it’ll get u maybe a few thousand

[There’s actually a reason, important to the plot, why I’m flying in a hauler that only has about 5.5k cubic meters of haulage space, but I don’t think Alexandria Phoenix ever realized what that reason was.]

21:52:26 Alexandria Pheonix > how much did u get exactly?
21:53:09 Marlenus > Who counts? A shipload here, a shipload there, it adds up over time.
21:53:49 Alexandria Pheonix > oh well u set me back 20 minutes, its almost like a miner malfunction…
21:54:07 Alexandria Pheonix > /emote shrugs
21:54:30 Marlenus > Not sure how I set anybody back — are you talking to me?
21:54:40 Alexandria Pheonix > yes
21:55:08 Marlenus > Oh, you mean I set back the “how much ore can I throw overboard?” project.
21:55:09 Alexandria Pheonix > u set me back 20 minutes worth of ore…not bad but it’s easily made up, why don’t u get ur own miner or a few miners to mine for u instead of stealing
21:55:24 Marlenus > I don’t steal, I salvage
21:55:40 Alexandria Pheonix > it’s not salvaging if its in a container marked with my name
21:55:49 Alexandria Pheonix > which if you would have looked it is
21:55:49 Marlenus > Why would I mine, when space is full of dangerous free-floating cans that need to be cleaned up?
21:56:14 Marlenus > I say it’s salvaging, you’re welcome to disagree but you won’t get me to change my terminology
21:56:41 Alexandria Pheonix > well at least ur cargo’s small on that ship
21:56:54 Marlenus > Sad but true
21:57:14 Alexandria Pheonix > oh well that means u can’t steal everything from those of us who actually work for a living
21:57:27 Marlenus > Salvage
21:57:44 Alexandria Pheonix > …we already agreed to disagree so i’ll use my term u use urs
21:58:08 Marlenus > Hmm, I missed the bit where we agreed on anything, sorry
21:59:31 Alexandria Pheonix > …don’t say you’re sorry if your not
21:59:44 Alexandria Pheonix > and why would u ‘salavge someone else’s stuff anyway
21:59:53 Alexandria Pheonix > it was afterall someone elses
22:00:03 Marlenus > Deal, if you won’t say I agreed to something I didn’t. Say, you seem to have a fairly stern tone, today.
22:00:19 Alexandria Pheonix > i just don’t like thieves
22:00:26 Marlenus > Ironfleet takes the position that stuff floating loose in space is not owned
22:00:34 Marlenus > So, we don’t see it as taking someone else’s stuff.
22:01:07 Alexandria Pheonix > well u have some messed up ideas, cause my can’s still here and it still belongs to me
22:01:17 Marlenus > And me, I don’t like folks who try to tell other folks how to spend their leisure hours, so I guess we’re about even
22:01:49 Alexandria Pheonix > well if you’ve no courtesy to someone trying to work for a living then you need to have things explained and be told how to act
22:01:56 Alexandria Pheonix > as does a child who acts wrong
22:02:04 Marlenus > Dude, have you forgotten that we are both playing a computer game?
22:02:13 Marlenus > I’m not working, and I’m sorry to hear that you think you are!
22:02:22 Alexandria Pheonix > i’m a girl first off
22:02:31 Marlenus > That was the “declarative” dude, not the gender prescriptive dude.
22:02:43 Marlenus > And it’s funny to hear you speak of courtesy, when you have begun and continued this conversation with … very … little of it.
22:02:44 Alexandria Pheonix > and in this game to earn money you work for it by doing legal tasks
22:03:59 Alexandria Pheonix > i have no courtesy for those who share none with someone who’d spend their time taking a role that is legal to game standards
22:04:03 Alexandria Pheonix > including not stealing
22:04:37 Marlenus > Tis fine that you have no courtesy, but isn’t it a bit odd to complain of missing courtesy in others when you’re deficient your own self?
22:05:09 Alexandria Pheonix > no i’m prefectly courtious to many other players especially those who play by a legal role in the game
22:05:32 Marlenus > LOL, but you asked ME for courtesy while showing me none, that’s raw hypocrisy I’d say.
22:06:01 Alexandria Pheonix > no i’m saying you should show it not asking, just saying you should to those of us who actually try to play by legal game rules
22:06:21 Marlenus > “You dirty thief, you should be more polite to others!”

Sadly, at that moment a snow cloud blew in front of my satellite dish and I lost my connection. So Alexandria got the last word.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 15th, 2007 at 4:35 pm and is filed under Notable Smacktalk, Salvage Notes, Today In Ironfleet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.