Ruins
In space, it’s always night time, despite the nebulae that set the sky on fire. In the dark little corners of the Metropolis slums, some constellations just don’t see as much traffic as one might expect. Occasionally, a gang of thugs moves through, looking for honest pilots to assault. Or Local will show a small squadron of militia looking for complexes in the shifting tides of war. Even the occasional solo hauler flies through, trying to get through the dangerous rookery as quickly as possible on her way to taking care of business.
So when I spent some time looking for more data centers, I didn’t hesitate to dodge through some of the more dangerous crossroad systems and head right to where I could find the sort of action I wanted. After all, the Angel Cartel swarms all through Republic space. They inhabit the little deadspace crevices where the Fleet doesn’t look. Actually, I have an arrangement with some groups inside the Cartel, but that only goes so far. When I fly out to Curse, I play by their rules, but on my turf, anything can happen.
But a cosmic signature appeared in Arnstur, one that didn’t fit any of the “standard” templates for Cartel facilities. I spent a bit of time with my Cheetah cloaked up in a nice little intermediate safe, and it didn’t take long before the system just reported back “ruins“. I noted the exact location in my navigational systems and flew back to a nearby station where I’d stashed Asymptotic Security, a decent Drake battlecruiser that had served me well.
The crew moved my pod over to Asymptotic quickly. After a quick preflight check of all core systems and fitting, we undocked and headed back. A Hurricane on the Todifrauan gate in Evati didn’t bother us any, nor even hail us on local comms, so we pressed on. Once there, we warped quickly to the deadspace pocket and found an ancient Amarrian station, almost certainly pre-Rebellion.
Vented gas surrounded the site and debris floated nearby. I immediately noticed that we had company in the pocket, though: rogue drones swarmed everywhere, ranging from tiny frigate-sized creatures to behemoths that had captured and infested Dominix-class battleships.
Threat management systems didn’t detect any sort of sentience at all among this hive, so when they engaged us, I turned on the hardeners and set to work with my Scourge heavy missiles for the larger enemies and a flight of Hobgoblin II light drones for the smaller ones. At the same time, though, the local open communications channel would occasionally show the presence of other pilots coming through. I kept a close eye on the directional scanner, and when one of the other podders finally deployed some combat probes and got within 4 AU, I recalled my own drones and warped out. At the time, only my hunter and I showed up on Local, so I couldn’t have any doubts as to his quarry (not that I would have stuck around much longer to find out). This breather gave me the chance to go fetch the Cheetah back, and when I got back into Arnstur, I noticed he had a corpmate in system. The corpmate disappeared a few moments later and my hunter returned. Cat-and-mouse games only entertain me for a short bit, so after a few minutes I headed back to Helgatild where I’d left my crew and the battlecruiser.
The Republic Fleet stationmaster feigned an obsequious sort of politeness, but his charade didn’t really matter. As far as I care, the Fleet can go hang, for all that they’ve done (or not done, truth be told) over the last several years. Even after the Elder War, I don’t believe for a moment that the corruptive poison has left the Republic, and the Fleet represents some of the worst of it. So after a bit to recheck everything and attend to a few minor business matters, we launched back out and headed into Arnstur. No other podders showed up, so we finished off what remained of the drones.
One wrecked part of the station drew particular attention. My systems detected light activity inside. I couldn’t tell whether the drones had a hive inside, or whether some sort of devolved human society inhabited it, or something else entirely.
After pondering this for a few minutes (and salvaging what remained of the twisted wreckage from the drones themselves), I decided to obliterate this active section and let whatever souls might have breathed their last in this ancient graveyard rest.
Why “The Empyrean Age” sucks
Yeah, I know I’ve arrived really, really late to this party. But I just finished reading The Empyrean Age by Tony Gonzales and I need to let you know, if you didn’t already, that it SUCKS.
You may rightly ask yourself, “why would Casiella, a known lover of EVE fiction, say such a thing?” I wanted to like this book. I wanted to read it and say to everyone who has griped previously that they just didn’t understand, that Tony Gonzales actually worked subtle magic.
But then I read the book, and I knew that in fact this novel consists of (almost) nothing but classically bad writing. Leaving aside for a moment the thematic element (Jamyl’s telepathy) that simply doesn’t belong in the cyberpunk post-humanist world of EVE, the writing itself struck me as about on the level of a university freshman creative writing class. Evidently, he never met a breathless superlative he didn’t like, nor a plot hole he cared to cover. He repeated other elements constantly, to the point where Rettic suggested a drinking game for every time someone “banged their fist on the table in anger”. And perhaps he could have found other ways to describe volumetric displays besides endlessly referring to, erm, volumetric displays.
Many of the sex scenes (and this book has quite a few) seem thrown into the plot purely for titillation rather than to serve any atmospheric purpose, much less advance the storyline. The rape scene in particular could have held tremendous symbolism, but the ham-handed writing instead turned it into something that creates a different sort of meta-disgust in the reader. Come to think of it, you could say that about almost anything you care to note in the book.
The book did have a few bits that made it worth the few dollars I spent on it, all related to background info. We get a better view of capsuleer-related technology, for example, and the inner workings of the Caldari and Minmatar governments.
But these few bits don’t even begin to compensate for the pain this book caused me, not in wonderment at the cold, harsh universe of the game world, but the cold, harsh universe that tricked me into reading this book.
I still trust The Burning Life, the EVE novel by Hjalti “CCP Abraxas” Danielsson coming out in a few weeks, will rebuild my trust in what the CCP storyline team can accomplish.
Planetary interaction links
Where I begin my PLANETARY DOMINATION!!!
I’ve started posting all links I find regarding Tyrannis and planetary interaction up on my Delicious account with the tag “tyrannis”. You can browse them or subscribe to them. And feel free to send me more links via Delicious (“for:internetspaceships”) or comment here!
(Props to Ga’len for giving me the idea with his excellent use of Google Reader.)
This is Ecliptic Rift
Fellow blogger Seismic Stan recently asked:
How about a bit of shameless self-publicising and indulgent reminiscing with every blog pack member posting a brief description of what they have blogged about/intend to blog about and links to their best three examples from their own archives. A showcase if you will.
This seems like a fine idea, and I will eventually move the content of this post into a page for newcomers to the blog.
(more…)
Someone Else’s Terms (part 3)
Her facial expression alone could have cleared the way through a battalion of Kameiras.
Casiella stormed down a corridor, following a small projected arrow on the walls back to her hangar. Pools of shadows and light blended together, obscuring the worn and corroded texture of the walls and floors. At one junction, Jorunn waited for her. The two women looked into each other’s eyes for a moment and their countenances blazed. After the moment passed, they began to walk together towards the hangar.
Finally, the Krusual woman spoke. “You could have handled that a bit better.”
Casiella flared her nostrils but said nothing in response.
“Really, you’ve brought this upon us. But I have an idea to save our relationship with the TLF, and I’ve already drafted an order for six Vigil-class frigates in Rens…”
At this, the petite capsuleer whirled and glared with white-hot anger at the scarred woman towering over her. She kept her voice low and restrained despite the look on her face. “Should you be doing that?”
Jorunn drew herself to her full height and bunched her eyebrows together, with a concomitant effect on the scars and birthmarks across her face and around her head. “If you want the Republic to work with you, you’ll need to work with them. And those military complexes out in Devoid and the Bleak Lands won’t capture themselves.”
The two stood in stark silence for several minutes before Casiella turned again, leaving Jorunn standing behind her. The taller woman waited for several moments before a flickering indicator on her datapad drew her out of angered reverie.
“Flight plan laid in for Rens… she does listen. Sometimes.”
Where I’ve been…
I promised Oriana that I would post this. I spend most of my time in Empire space but I fly around most of it. Maybe not so much in the Amarr Empire, though…
Where I've been
Sandbox careers
EVE’s design has some careers built into it: miners, militia, manufacturers, and so on. Of course, one pilot can do all these different things, but the professions themselves derive directly from the design.
Other professions, though, have emerged from the world’s sandbox design, created by players. Bankers, scammers, ninja salvagers, even (originally) mining leaders.
So what sandbox professions do you really like? Maybe you practice them yourself, or maybe you just enjoy the fact that they exist, but which ones really expand the world for you?
Friday Flash Fiction 10: “Should you be doing that?”
I promise to update previous weeks with the links and get back on the ball! /me dodges Myrhial’s look of burning fire.
So anyway, this week’s prompt:
“Should you be doing that?”
Links
Exploration Proteus
Urbanus proteus
I’ve wanted a strategic cruiser for some time, but held off from training Racial Cruiser V because I didn’t have tech II projectiles (for a Loki) or missiles (for a Tengu). Then I realized, hmm, I do have skills for tech II drones (light and medium) and decent drone skills overall, plus pretty good armor tanking.
So here’s the Proteus fit I think I’ll use for lowsec and nullsec exploration, primarily for radar (hacking) sites. The targeting delay introduced by the cloaking device won’t matter so much to a more-or-less focused drone boat; the railguns mostly help grab aggro and add a bit of DPS. The philosophy grows from my exploration Myrmidon, and you may want to replace one of the rigs with a gravity capacitor.
According to PyFA, with this setup and my skills (plus Gallente Strategic Cruiser and Subsystems all to IV), you’ll end up with something like 27k EHP against a uniform distribution. I tuned this particular setup against Sansha rats, but of course you’ll want to adjust to your region. In particular, note that it won’t be as strong against Angels due to the Proteus’s natural weakness to explosive damage. I can tank 484 HP/s, which should really do just fine in most cases. I might end up tweaking that down, actually, if needed, so I can improve capacitor stability (this ship’s primary weakness).
I welcome additional thoughts and suggestions.
[Proteus, Exploration]
Salvager I
Improved Cloaking Device II
250mm Railgun I, Antimatter Charge M
250mm Railgun I, Antimatter Charge M
250mm Railgun I, Antimatter Charge M
Expanded Probe Launcher I
Codebreaker I
Omnidirectional Tracking Link I
Drone Navigation Computer I
10MN MicroWarpdrive I
Medium Armor Repairer II
Medium Armor Repairer II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
Energized Reflective Membrane II
Energized Thermic Membrane II
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Medium Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Medium Auxiliary Thrusters I
Proteus Defensive - Adaptive Augmenter
Proteus Electronics - Emergent Locus Analyzer
Proteus Engineering - Capacitor Regeneration Matrix
Proteus Offensive - Drone Synthesis Projector
Proteus Propulsion - Interdiction Nullifier
Valkyrie II x5
Why I love English
NB: The following doesn’t related specifically to EVE, but I felt I could include it here due to the fact that this blog partially focuses on EVE writing. I excerpted it from an email I wrote on a private, non-EVE mailing list. So grab a cup of coffee and let’s talk language.
I love English, although it’s not the only language I speak and certainly not the only language I’ve studied. I love the dual origins (Germanic and Latinate) and the different emotional impact that words from each origin can have, even if they actually have the same definition. I love the propensity for puns and the way the language makes rhyming both challenging and interesting. I love alliteration and wordplay. I love the traditions of the great writers and the many flavors and accents in the language, including the accents of those who do not speak it as their native tongue. They bring an enjoyable spice to our communications, and that doesn’t even start to address how much I enjoy having an international perspective among my family, friends, and colleagues. I have no doubt that other languages have their own lovable aspects, some shared with English and some unique.
Recently, I told one of my co-workers that reading particularly poorly-written written communication causes me physical pain — not referring to simple typos, which have more to do with the physical act of using a keyboard, or even to the occasional slip-up, but to emails or fiction (or even news copy, these days) in which the author clearly didn’t reread his words or apply basic rules of grammar and usage. And I’m the sort of “word nerd” to keep Strunk & White on his desk and refer frequently during the day to a thesaurus, even though I have a very technical job.
The long-standing rule for me: if the writer won’t put time and effort into writing it, I won’t put time and effort into reading it.
I could spend all night listing things that bother me about my own writing and speaking. Self-editing really matters to me, even in quick notes at work or on the Internet. But to list a few, and in no particular order:
- Overuse of the passive voice. I now try to avoid it completely.
- Ending a sentence with a preposition. This frequently comes as a symptom of the previous problem.
- Using the word “I” too much. Though this particular post violates this badly, heh!
- Lack of clarity between subject, object, and predicate. Compound constructions have this result from time to time.
- Word whiskers (e.g. “ummm,” “uhhh,” etc.)
- Frequent mannerisms. For example, repeating “y’know?” after nearly every sentence.
- Ending a statement with a lilt or on a high note, so that it sounds more like a question.
- Using parentheses too often.
- Starting too many sentences, especially to begin an answer, with “So…”
- Misusing “e.g.” or “i.e.”, or directly replacing “for example” with “e.g.”
I could go on and on, but you get the idea. I suppose I drug this out far too long at any rate, but to paraphrase Mark Twain, “I was going to make this shorter, but I didn’t have time.”
*** Bonus: how does one pronounce the word “ghoti”?
