Blog Banter #13: See the Universe

From CrazyKinux's newest Blog Banter

Welcome to the thirteenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

The first banter of this 2nd year of EVE Blog Banters comes to us from Zargyl from A Sebiestor Scholar, who asked the following: On the EVE Fanfest 2009 page are pictures of prizes for the Silent Auction that was held during the event. One of these photos was entitled “Design your own EVE mission”. My question now would be what kind of mission would you write if you got that prize? What would the mission be about? Would it be one using the new system of epic mission arks? What would be the story told by it? Feel free to expand upon his questions and put together your very own mission!

One of the things I liked about doing the original Epic Missions arc was the fact that it took you all over the place.

I know that that there are "landmarks" all over the EVE Universe, and I know that I've not gone out of my way to see any of them. There is the EVE Gate, the Black Monolith, a Titan wreck that has been named "Steve". Mynxee talked about a roam she did looking at these plus other sites in a post called A Worthwhile Jaunt.

I don't know how many capsuleers have actually taken the time to go and see some of these sites, but I suspect a large number haven't. Which brings me to what I think would be an interesting mission series.

Mission: L4 - Meeting at the EVE Gate

Your agent informs you that a traitor and enemy agent are going to be meeting at the EVE Gate and he wants you out there to spy on them and get a record of their conversation. You are specifically told not to engage them or get noticed by them. Which means a CovOps ship.

When you warp in you'll see the two ships about 40km away and once you approach to within 20km the conversation will begin. Once they are done talking they warp off. You are free to look around or you can leave and return to your agent.

Once there he'll hand you another in the series and send you off to another landmark somewhere in New Eden.

I don't anticipate these to be difficult in themselves, but there can be some long travel necessitated by this, potentially through low and null sec. And I required a CovOps ship in it. So I made it a Level 4 mission.

As an alternative it could be made into an Epic Mission Arc by trying to hit every landmark. That would probably take a while. Also this would have missions mixed up with combat vs. just spying.

1. CrazyKinux's Musing - Your Mission, should you decide to accept it...
2. Zen and the Art of Internet Spaceship Maintenance - First Blood
3. The Elitist - Guristas Invasion
4. The Wandering Druid of Tranquility - ...It's another episode of Design Star: EVE Style...
5. Level Cap -Epic Battles
6. Roc's Ramblings - The Cave of Time
7. Aether - Teach a man to fish...
8. Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah - Mission: Tangled Webs
9. Adventures in Mission Running - I can haz spaceship?
10. Nuke Thoughts - EVE Blog Banter 13
11. Diary of a Pod Pilot - Distressing The Damsel
12. Guns Ablaze - Dynamic Missions
13. Achernar - Confidential Report
14. More to come...

Ganked!

"Jita 4-4 Control this is Polar Storm, ready for transit out of the station." "Roger, Polar Storm.", a traffic controller reports. I feel the tractor beams tugging on the huge mass of the Mammoth I'm currently piloting with a full load of manufacturing items. Then comes the blackness of the transit tunnel. "Why can't they light this damn thing?", I think for the thousandth time.

As I move out of the station I see the traffic pattern is pretty full, but I'm not in danger of colliding with anyone. I tell the navi-comp to align and warp to the Sobieski gate.

I notice that there are small battle going on all around me. Pretty much normal for Jita. Corps at war with each other, duels of honor, corpmates practicing, any number of reasons for people to commit violence against each other. But I go on naively safe in the fact that I've not pissed anyone off, don't have a bounty on my head and am not at war with anyone.

Then alarms start going off. Shields gone, armor gone, hull to 80%. I actually physically felt that strike, bringing me to reality, severing the separation that the pod connections usually give me.

I give the order to abandon ship and move to start the re-docking process. Before I can even send the request to Jita Control the ship disintegrates around me.

I dock my pod up and start taking stock. I find out that all my crew are safe. I was still a little bit in shock. Not from what happened. Even though this was the first time it had happened to me, I've always known the potential for it existed. I was in shock for the sheer speed at which it happened. From when I recongnized I was under attack to when I was in my pod was probably 3 or 4 seconds.

I realize that someone must have targeted me using a passive targeter, scanned my ship to find out what cargo I was carrying and then unleashed the fury of his Tech II lasers on me.

Looking at the market I find that there's a Mammoth on sale at the station. Once I get it bought, assembled, and get the crew on board we head back out to see if maybe (not holding my breath) I still have some cargo I can save.

Nope, already been picked clean, so there's only one thing to do.

I re-dock the new ship. And tell the crew to meet me at the bar, drinks are on me.

<OOC>
No matter how safe you feel, you're not. Never forget that, never become complacent. They ARE out to get you. No, you're not paraoid. LOL

Between the ship, its fittings and my cargo I lost approximately 240 Million ISK. Oh, well, it's the price of doing business. If ships weren't destroyed all the time I couldn't make money by manufacturing.

Fly safe! Safer than me on that trip anyway. LOL