Ironfleet Towing And Salvage

Today’s visit to Isaziwa was fruitful and exciting.

First, a kill. During my initial combat patrol of the belts, I found an AC-ME Sigil (Amarr Industrial, I had to check) who appeared to be AFK hauler-mining. Did somebody not get the memo about there being a war on?

Amarr haulers are tough, one volley didn’t do the job, I needed a fourth missile:

2008.01.10 00:53:00

Victim: Kevdirs Alarnia
Alliance: Independent Faction
Corp: Advanced Combat Machines and Equipment
Destroyed: Sigil
System: Isaziwa
Security: 0.7
Damage Taken: 2306

Involved parties:

Name: Marlenus (laid the final blow)
Security: 0.0
Alliance: NONE
Corp: Ironfleet Towing And Salvage
Ship: Manticore
Weapon: Caldari Navy Wrath Cruise Missile
Damage Done: 2306

Destroyed items:

Miner II
Azure Plagioclase, Qty: 7403 (Cargo)

Kevdirs Alarnia must have heard the noise (maybe not completely AFK?) because the pod warped away quickly. Then she quickly logged off. A minute later, here’s a new AC-ME login (suspected alt?) Han Taris, undocking from a station in a Ferox. Let’s lob some missiles just to make sure he didn’t forget his tank, shall we?

He didn’t, no point to this, let’s go.

Wait, this earns me smack?

Yes it does, Han Taris is now earnestly informing me that, unless I am a coward, I must return in my stealth bomber and recommence chewing on his tank, presumably until such time as he can assemble a gang of friends who can actually catch me and kill me.

By that measure, I suppose I am a coward, although to be honest I’ve never understood why preserving shareholder value by avoiding pointless unwinnable fights is supposed to be cowardly in this game.

There’s still one belt I haven’t checked, so I go to check it, and find an AC-ME Maulus. I shoot, he leaves.

And that’s the combat report.

No, wait, awhile later I swept the belts and found the Maulus again, this time forming the bait in a trap to be sprung by Dan Lyons in his Crow and one of the INDY Manticore pilots. I left as rapidly as I came, but it was a near thing to be honest, I saw the Crow at a range of under three kilometers as I was warping away.

And that’s the combat report.

I’ll warn you all in advance, this post isn’t particularly entertaining. You may just want to skip it.

This blog serves several purposes for Ironfleet. Entertainment of the audience is surely one of them, but it’s only one.

Obviously it’s useful to have a propaganda arm where we can spin the Ironfleet side of the story and control the dialog — I expect and assume that goal is obvious to everyone. I aim for truth, because truth is persuasive, but obviously it’s truth the way we see things — for objective reporting, buy a newspaper. (Er, on second thought, good luck with that.)

Another thing I use the blog for, is to serve as a prosthetic memory. Months later, these accounts help refresh my memory of personalities and events. That’s saved my butt several times now.

Related to that, the blog tends to fix ephemeral behavior in amber, preserving and displaying it for history. So much of what we do in EVE is fleeting, and gone as soon as the screen changes. When my enemies behave in ways that do them no credit, it strikes me as a worthy project to document that here, in their own words, where the search engines (and their next set of enemies) can find it forever. To me, someone who treasures words, that seems a far better revenge than blowing up yet another soon-forgotten virtual spaceship.

And that, my friends, is why I’m bothering to reproduce the evemails that follow. In them, Chebri seems almost to plead for trust, demanding that she be believed because (she says) her word is good. And then, in bitter irony of which she seems totally unaware, she tries to justify failing to extend that same courtesy to others (namely me and my corpmates). She knows she’s truthful so we should believe her, but if we tell the truth the way we understand it, she disagrees so we must be liars. It’s like she lives in a black and white world in which she, and only she, can know the one truth. She’s obviously never heard of the parable of the blind men and the elephant:

Once upon a time there was a certain raja who called to his servant and said, ‘Come, good fellow, go and gather together in one place all the men of Savatthi who were born blind… and show them an elephant.’ ‘Very good, sire,’ replied the servant, and he did as he was told. He said to the blind men assembled there, ‘Here is an elephant,’ and to one man he presented the head of the elephant, to another its ears, to another a tusk, to another the trunk, the foot, back, tail, and tuft of the tail, saying to each one that that was the elephant.

“When the blind men had felt the elephant, the raja went to each of them and said to each, ‘Well, blind man, have you seen the elephant? Tell me, what sort of thing is an elephant?’

“Thereupon the men who were presented with the head answered, ‘Sire, an elephant is like a pot.’ And the men who had observed the ear replied, ‘An elephant is like a winnowing basket.’ Those who had been presented with a tusk said it was a ploughshare. Those who knew only the trunk said it was a plough; others said the body was a grainery; the foot, a pillar; the back, a mortar; the tail, a pestle, the tuft of the tail, a brush.

“Then they began to quarrel, shouting, ‘Yes it is!’ ‘No, it is not!’ ‘An elephant is not that!’ ‘Yes, it’s like that!’ and so on, till they came to blows over the matter.

Toward the end of the EVEmails that follow, the exchange bogs down in specifics, and gets very repetitive of the same factual disputes that have been hashed to death already in the comments on this blog. If you care enough and read that far (I don’t recommend it) you’ll see that Chebril still can’t seem to distinguish between facts (did an event happen?) and semantics (what the undisputed event should be called, how it should be characterized, what it should be named).

——————–
Marlenus,

Two weeks and neither of us has lost a ship to the other. Good match! I enjoyed the challenge.

Shame you involved ACME though. They really never knew about it until it was started. They did eve mail me intel from time to time but for the most part I used my own locate agents.

I enjoyed the creativity of your blog and ‘role play’ of your character which is what drew me to you. However, when it became apparent that you were blurring fact and fiction to the point that it affected other players, I lost respect for your writing.

ciao

Chebri

——————–
Hey, got your mail yesterday, but was just wondering whether all that past tense was intended to indicate that you were going to let the war lapse.

As for the rest, I’m not too concerned. Your respect for my literary talents isn’t exactly my top gaming priority, and your concern about ‘fiction” became hilarious to me when you kept labeling my honest opinions and intel estimates as lies and fiction. I DO thank you for the implied threat of a lawsuit, though — that was genuinely the most entertaining communication I’ve ever gotten in EVE.

See you in the spaceways, if one of us is unlucky —

Marlenus

——————–
Your twisted perception never ceases to amaze me. I say apple…you say orange and so it goes.

Chebri

——————–
At least I can tell when I’m in Jita — TorpedoTed still swears he saw you in local, and I know the man personally, he’s very truthful.

— Marlenus

——————–
I swear, on my great grandmother’s grave (very personal here) that I never jumped the gate into Jita. There are a lot of pilots in Jita and I can see someone getting confused between red stars and red skull n crossbones.

I have been completely honest with all players in game and I hate to be accused of having done something (like get backing from ACME, etc.) that I haven’t done. Every time I tried to get the facts straight talking to you you twisted my words. Frustrating.

And yeah I figure two weeks with no points on either side is a draw.

Chebri

——————–
With an equal level of sincerity and honesty, and leaving all gaming posture aside, I tell you that (a) that’s what he told me, and (b) that’s what he believes. Of course, he could be mistaken.

When I first reported this, you IMMEDIATELY called it a lie. It wasn’t. It’s a true account of the data I have.

Don’t you see the irony in you expecting to be taken at your word, while shouting “LIAR’ at others?

You don’t seem to comprehend that other people see the world differently than you do. You don’t seem to understand that it’s possible for two people to look at the same data and reach different, HONESTLY different, conclusions.

I’ll send another email about the gaming matters. This is a different topic entirely.

— Marlenus

——————–
On the contrary. I do know that two people can observe a scene and have two different perceptions of what happened. However, there are also facts to be considered that are not subject to perception.

Fact (game logs to support) I never jumped to Jita.
Fact (game logs to support) I never got funding or support otherwise from ACME
Fact (game mechanics) ore theft is theft – not salvage

You toss accusations around without bothering to address the facts. That’s what I don’t have an appreciation for. Add to that the perception that others have that you seem to enjoy making miner’s lives miserable by stealing from them and yeah…I think you’re a lousy person. You enjoy hurting others. I have no respect for that.

Chebri

——————–
OK, back in gaming mode.

You do know I saw you fleeted up with Sparkiec the first day of our war, and you were using him as a warp-to at a non-standard place outside my station, right? That’s support. I saw it with my own eyes. That’s backing. For that reason alone — and it’s only one of my many examples — I simply don’t believe your claims to have been acting alone. I saw it with my own eyes. Why should I believe otherwise?

And that has colored my willingness to believe other things you’ve said.

Without any desire to give offense, the credibility you want to have with me, is not present.

As for the draw, I agree — I’ve made no effort to hunt you, and you have failed to catch me. I never wanted war with you, remember? You could cancel it any time.

— Marlenus

——————–
As Cordus said on your blog, can you blame them for not being willing to provide information when you’ve stolen so much from their players? A few players helped from time to time. The CEO and directors had no idea what was going on until it had already happened. So you blame an entire alliance for the action of two players.

I don’t seek credibility with you. LOL I gave up on that. I was just trying to end the shooting amicably. I still have my credibility with people who matter.

Your war with ACME and their alliance is between you and them. I’ve no say in it as they’ve had no say in mine with you. I’ve asked the alliance leader if I was causing them problems and her reply was “do what you want – Ironfleet is just a blip on our screen.” LOL

Chebri

——————–
all this and I’m still not clear — do you plan to end the shooting, or not?

— Marlenus

——————–
Doesn’t really matter what I say at this point, does it? I mean, you’re just going to assume that the opposite is true. Assumptions can be such a bitch. I’ll just let the facts speak for themselves.

LOL

Chebri

There’s an old farmer’s saying that goes “Never try to teach a pig to sing. It just wastes your time, and annoys the pig.”

That’s how I feel about trying to talk about truth with Chebri. Note how it’s a “fact” if she saw it, but it’s a lie if me and mine saw it (TorpedoTed saw her face icon in Jita local. He just did.) She hates to be accused of doing something she says she hasn’t done (“like get backing from AC-ME”) but doesn’t mind accusing others of lying when they haven’t. Then when she admits she did do what she said she didn’t do (“A few players helped from time to time”) she tries to redefine “get backing” by saying “I never got funding”. Truth is a slippery thing indeed in her hands, and in classic human fashion she’s quick to accuse others of her own sins: “You toss accusations around without bothering to address the facts.”

Friends, I have addressed the facts. I have addressed them until I was blue in the face. I had to nail them down and chain them up, they were so tired of being addressed they were trying to sneak away for beer. (Yeah, they saw that’s where the audience went, and they were jealous.)

A waste of time for sure, and I apologize for boring you with it. But if this blog post saves just one person, ever, from making the mistake of trying to discuss truth with Chebri, it will have been worth my time.

And meanwhile, Chebri’s war is now in its third week. So what was all that “enjoyed the challenge” and “I figure [it’s] a draw” and “I was just trying to end the shooting amicably” stuff for? Unless I’ve counted my dates wrong, she paid her war bill before we started talking last night. I guess it’s more truth, Chebri style.

This has got to be one of the funniest EVEmails I have ever received:

From Chebri:

2008.01.04 00:57
libel

An untruthful statement about a person, published in writing or through broadcast media, that injures the person’s reputation or standing in the community. Because libel is a tort (a civil wrong), the injured person can bring a lawsuit against the person who made the false statement. Libel is a form of defamation , as is slander (an untruthful statement that is spoken, but not published in writing or broadcast through the media).

cease speaking of me in your blog. period.

I’m not sure she got my EVEmail response (I got disconnected right after hitting send) but I’m sure she’ll see it here:

a) Truth is an absolute defense to any charge of libel.
b) It is impossible to libel an alias. Characters in a computer game have no reputation in communities recognized by the law.
c) I’ll speak of you as and where I please. Don’t like it? Go away and leave Ironfleet alone. Then I’ll have nothing to say.

Good day!

Was Chebri seriously trying to imply that she’d try to sue me for libel if I don’t stop talking about her? The idea that the owner of one fictional character might try to sue the owner of another fictional character (in what jurisdiction, the Jovians only know) over role-playing statements is just about as absurd as it gets.

I tell you this, though; I’d pay large dollars to be the fly on the wall in her lawyer’s office, just to see the look on her face as she tries to explain exactly where and in what manner she’s been damaged. “Er, and who is it again you want to sue? Marlenus? Is that his real name? No? You don’t know it? Hrmmm… And what did he say about you? Oh, you mean, he doesn’t even know who you are, or what your name is? Then how did he damage your reputation? No, no, not in that game thing, out here in the real world where the courts are…” and so on, ad infinitum. Forty minutes later, she would emerge, $300 poorer and (hopefully) a smidge wiser.

My advice to Chebri: Dude. Don’t forget. It’s just a game.

Blustering about libel, when you can’t even point to a lie, equals “full of fail.”

…like a woman scorned!

Aria Arcani > my boyfriend got me into this game, he just cheated on me the other day and i left him. How do i find him and kill him?

Howdy, folks. No real war developments tonight — I am traveling, and the hotel internet / business laptop combo doesn’t really support EVE at the level needed when there’s war in the air. But I did log in to tend to some diplomatic matters.

One thing I didn’t get a chance to blog about yesterday was a long and public conversation with Memm Nock, a member of UNDER-OATH (from whom the unexplained war dec was received yesterday). The conversation was mostly civil, but not particularly friendly. Memm called me a “no0b” (perhaps fairly, in reference to matters martial) and mocked my part of the action in Chebri’s little war with lots of comments like “lol” and “lmao”. And of course, like virtually all new aggressors, he puffed himself up in an attempt to scare his intended prey. Samples, deliberately presented out of context to avoid tedium:

[ 02:23:31 ] Memm Nock > well I can afford the dec for about a year sooo
[ 02:23:36 ] Memm Nock > :)

[ 02:28:22 ] Memm Nock > you can only run so far, and luck always runs out

[ 02:44:50 ] Memm Nock > We Are a PVP Corp
[ 02:45:00 ] Memm Nock > Its what we do
[ 02:45:08 ] Memm Nock > We’ll find you eventually

You’ve seen it before, you get the idea, it’s very big, we understand. But what was interesting was the part where I suggested Memm’s client might get bored or run out of money. This was a shot in the dark, but a reasonable one, since I’ve never heard of these folks before, and usually that’s a sign of mercenaries infesting the woodwork. Memm first claimed to be the client (which makes no sense) and then very kindly told me (or let slip, it’s not clear which) some info from which I was able to deduce the identity of the genuinely aggrieved party. That’s always useful (usually because the genuinely aggrieved party tends to have fat juicy industrial targets), which I said, and then I thanked Memm for the useful intel.

Fast forward. Tonight when I log in, I find this mail from the same Memm Nock:

2007.12.28 21:06
Greetings,

As you Know We are currently War Decing your Corporation. However Due to Diffrences in opinions and Actions. We Are Now Standing Down. The War Doc will stay active for 6 days. But My Members are Ordered Not To Engage any IRONFLEET Members, Unless Engaged. This War Dec wasn’t anything Personal ( We Don’t Even Know Who You Are) So Please Dont take it as such.

Fly Safe and Good Day,

Respectfully,

UNDER-OATH

I’ve replied, suggesting that Ironfleet will honor the proposed armistice unless we are given a good reason not to, but proposing that for safety the war dec be revoked. There seems to be an awful lot of scope for error and confusion, while wandering around “at war” but in a state of supposed cease fire.

That said, I’m not sure how to take this. It’s a radical change in tone, suggesting a change of heart on someone’s part. But of course, it’s a bizarre sort of armistice — why not just revoke the war dec if war is no longer desired?

My skeptical side wonders whether it’s intended as a trap, to lull us into a false sense of security. But that seems sort of pointless when Ironfleet has other active wars that will keep us at military alert levels.

I also wonder whether there’s some sort of factional politics or corporate disarray going on — whether, perhaps, the true party in interest is fearful of retaliation and wants no hostilities, but lacks the “pull” to get the voting parties to revoke the dec. I suppose it’s at least possible.

And then there’s “no0b” confusion to consider. Since I haven’t been an aggressor in any wars, it’s possible I am wrong about an aggressor’s ability to revoke a war at will. Equally possible, but seemingly unlikely, is that I’m right about that, but some no0b on the other side doesn’t know about it?

It will be interesting to see how that plays out. Meanwhile, “We Don’t Even Know Who You Are” goes right at the top of my new “Top 10 List Of Favorite Reasons To Make Peace With One’s Enemies”.

Updates as events warrant!

UPDATE:

Two new Evemails seem to point the finger at no0b confusion. First from Memm Nock:

2007.12.29 04:09
Hi, Marlenus.

Once a War Dec Has Passed Sanctions, and Has Been Applied. it lasts for 7 Days. After which Concord will issue a bill for prolonged War Efforts. If This Bill is not met on the eve of the End of the War Dec. then the war is cancled.

An Order Has Been Passed to all Members of UNDER-OATH. I.E. : IRONFLEET Will Not Be Engaged, Unless Engaged Apone.

During this period, UNDER-OATH Will Remain Out Of Your HQ & Office Systems, To Honor the Stand Down.

Respectfully

UNDER-OATH

Followed by a more sensible one from Concord:

2007.12.29 04:11
The war between UNDER-OATH and Ironfleet Towing And Salvage is coming to an end. UNDER-OATH has retracted the war against Ironfleet Towing And Salvage. The war will be declared as being over after approximately 24 hours.

“Not with a bang, but a whimper!”

I’m starting to suspect Chebri of growing frustrated; it seems that in every exchange with her, her smack gets less articulate. Tonight (after the last post) she started having to censor her own vowels.

It went like this. I was back in the game, flying around in a fast frigate making bookmarks of military utility. I noticed local flashing, had a look, and discovered that Chebri was trolling it with smacktalk:

[ 02:12:20 ] Chebri > isn’t it funny…
[ 02:12:39 ] Chebri > bullies think they’re all bad and push people around…
[ 02:12:48 ] Chebri > but then…
[ 02:12:52 ] Chebri > when the heat is on
[ 02:12:56 ] Chebri > they can’t take it
[ 02:13:00 ] Chebri > run n hide
[ 02:13:05 ] Chebri > chicken sh*t
[ 02:14:14 ] Chebri > steal from people
[ 02:14:26 ] Chebri > ruin someone else’s day…ha ha fun n games
[ 02:14:37 ] Chebri > but when the situation is reversed…
[ 02:14:47 ] Chebri > cry in a blog

Honestly, up until I saw the last line, I wasn’t even sure she was talking about me. But the blog seemed fairly likely to refer to this one, even if I don’t remember crying here.

I’m happy to leave local smack to my enemies, but this seemed like a good opportunity to advertise the blog and let folks decide for themselves about the crying:

[ 02:15:49 ] Marlenus > Cry? Ironfleet.com, folks, judge for yourself. For smacktalk, listen to Chebri.

And then, suddenly, things got interesting.

Allow me to digress. In the history of this blog, I’ve only deleted one comment (spams excluded). That one, I found in the moderation queue this morning (all first-time commenters are held in moderation until I’ve had time to review the comment.) It consisted of some anti-salvager propaganda, rather rudely stated. By itself, I might have passed it on through moderation, for entertainment purposes. But the commenter was too chickenshit (to use Chebri’s phrase, with all its vowels) to leave their EVE identity, plus they left a false email featuring the infamous old goatse.cs anal stretching domain, plus they provided (as their blog link) a link to the charming “two girls, one cup” scat-eating video that’s all the rage among the YouTube generation this week. Taken as a whole, the comment didn’t seem worth publishing.

For future reference, I’ll publish almost anything you readers want to say, negative commentary on Ironfleet included, if you use your active EVE pilot name and keep it civil. But this is my blog; I’m not going to let anonymous cowards insult me using my own bandwidth. Get your own blog for that, k thnx bye.

Now, about those anonymous cowards. Want to know what Chebri’s very next words in local were, after the quote above?

[ 02:16:19 ] Chebri > it’s a blog
[ 02:16:27 ] Chebri > he’s the only one allowed to speak – he deleted comments
[ 02:16:35 ] Chebri > his own pedestal

PWNed, Chebri, you’ve been pwned and outed as the anonymous coward in question.

After that, the smack got fairly dull. Chebri, like a lot of combat pilots, likes to throw insults around in an attempt to get some action. I prefer to keep things nice and dull, so we discussed that for awhile. Nobody seems to understand that courage in a salvage pilot is an expensive luxury that eats away profit margins. If I’m shooting, it’s because I expect to win, or I’m reasonably confident I can escape. Chebri in particular kept trying to spin her trip to structure as an ignominious moment for me:

[ 02:19:50 ] Chebri > yeah…yer docked and can’t go steal
[ 02:19:59 ] Marlenus > Er, I’m not docked….
[ 02:20:09 ] Marlenus > I’m busily making stealth bomber warp points as we speak
[ 02:20:09 ] Chebri > you aren’t stealing
[ 02:20:22 ] Marlenus > I never steal, remember?
[ 02:20:26 ] Chebri > thank you for flying a tin can
[ 02:21:28 ] Marlenus > I heart my tin cans, they get the job done. Which of us was into structure tonight? Not me…
[ 02:21:49 ] Chebri > you didn’t pop me either – you ran…and I was in structure – chicken
[ 02:22:01 ] Marlenus > I prefer to call it conservative, thanks.
[ 02:22:13 ] Marlenus > Like I say, not a combat pilot. Luckily for you, or you’d be dead.
[ 02:22:21 ] Chebri > pff
[ 02:22:24 ] Chebri > you wish
[ 02:22:33 ] Marlenus > Not really, don’t much care actually.
[ 02:22:44 ] Chebri > empty threat then
[ 02:22:53 ] Marlenus > Not a threat at all
[ 02:23:02 ] Marlenus > Just a post-action analysis

Some of Chebri’s AC-ME confederates joined the conversation, which was entertaining and further instructional on the close link between this war and AC-ME’s interests, but they kept pretty close to AC-ME’s no-smack policy, which I do appreciate.

…a war declaration, the bird, and a compliment.

Actually, that’s not true. Outside of EVE space, I got some very nice presents, and had an excellent dinner with family.

But when I logged in? Another story.

What to my wondering eye should appear but the following:

Equilibrium L.L.C. has declared war on Ironfleet Towing And Salvage. After 24 hours fighting can legally occur between those involved.

I searched my conscience, and found it free of recent offenses. True, there was a guy who got huffy yesterday over 600 cubic meters of ore:

Tootenh’amon > give me my stuff back plz
Marlenus > I don’t have your stuff?
Tootenh’amon > yes, you do. you took it from my cache
Marlenus > If it was yours, it would be in your cargo hold, or in your warehouse
Tootenh’amon > or in cache in which i store it
Marlenus > You mean, the can you jettisoned it in?
Tootenh’amon > yes
Tootenh’amon > we can resolve it two ways
Marlenus > Jettison = “throw away”
Tootenh’amon > you return me the goods
Tootenh’amon > or…
Marlenus > I’m a salvager, wouldn’t be much profit in returning salvaged goods.
Tootenh’amon > well, fortunately enough, next time when you’ll see you around i’ll know to let you salvage some missiles and plutonium rounds as well.
Marlenus > Do as you see fit, but you might want to have a look at the ironfleet.com corporate blog … others who’ve felt that way have found out that shooting at Ironfleet is a losing proposition.
Tootenh’amon > just skip it, all right? You took my goods. when i shoot you it doesn’t matter if you are allah mc muhammad ali, you go down. beware of our next meeting.

But Toot didn’t really sound war-deccing mad. Better look up the corp info on Equilibrium L.L.C. Brand new corp founded three days ago, interesting. Two members? Curiouser and curiouser. CEO?

Ah. Light dawns on Marble Head (mine, that is.) The CEO is Chebri, she of the unexpected Hound. I wonder why she left AC-ME? Not just so she could come after little old me, surely?

Irrelevant aside: Chebri’s portrait is about as babealicious as EVE portraits get. Look:

My one encounter with Chebri was professional and smack-free, so this war shouldn’t be too unpleasant. Let’s check her bio for clues to current state of mind, shall we?

Pilots that need to die:
-Ore thieves
-Salvage thieves
-Pirates
-Macro Miners
-Macro Ratters

For Shamus Horus and Marlenus

[ASCII art of somebody gesturing with middle finger]

Because they are thieves.

Ugh. Judgmental much?

Apparently the professional politeness Cordus extended me did not reflect the sentiments of the AC-ME rank and file. Sadly, it sounds like Chebri is another Eve player who is not happy unless she’s telling someone “you’re not playing the game right.” Ah, well, it takes all kinds.

So, we’ve covered the war dec and the finger. Where was the compliment?

Well, it’s subtle. But if, as seems likely, AC-ME spun Chebri off into a separate attack-dog corporation to spare themselves and their new alliance (!) the devastating consequences of Ironfleet’s awesome retributional wrath, isn’t that a compliment of sorts? As a low-player-count corp with a stated policy of avoiding the sort of open combat that makes the pew-pew crowd happy, exactly how dangerous did they think we could be?

Sounds like a compliment to me.

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.

Sorry about the lack of updates, my EVE playing has been minimal and mostly consisting of flying support ships for mission-running friends in other corps. Fun, but nothing to report.

Today, however, I cleaned up a little bit of ore I found drifting in space, and got a bit of the usual smacky-smack in local:

MacGyver Miner > you gonna give my shit back marlanus?
Marlenus > If I’ve got it, query how it could possibly be yours?
Abbott4 > yeah wtf marlenus
Abbott4 > stop stealing stuff
Marlenus > Salvage, if you please
Abbott4 > 10k in ore you owe me
Abbott4 > ORe thife
Marlenus > LOL, you jettisoned it into space…
Abbott4 > you stole it
Marlenus > I salvaged it from where I found it drifting aimlessly through the spaceways, a hazard to navigation and a threat to spacecraft everywhere

LOL, the smacktalk has finally reached Ironfleet.com, in the form of this comment on an old salvage report, apparently by the subject thereof:

This is the fuckin sadest thing I have ever seen you sad mother fucker. I will meet you anytime any place and lets se the convo then so I can post my convo of you begging for your life. You are a thief and thats that, dress it up how you want if it makes it easier for you. Anyway if you think your brave lets have it you sad prick.