What have I become?

I was standing in the kitchen, cutting a cucumber into slices. It would be the healthy addition to some bread and goat cheese. About to sprinkle some salt over the sliced cucumber, a thought struck me:

What have I become?

Just twenty minutes before, we had rolled our static wormhole connection into nullsec. The previous one into Wicked Creed simply did not offer suitable hunting grounds. Nobody out, or the residents were deployed on the borders of Delve to wage war. Good for them. Bad for us. Our opportunities for small gang fights had increasingly dried out since everyone and their mum had taken up torches and pitchforks to burn down Delve.

However, this new wormhole led us directly into a dead-end pocket in Deklein. These systems are normally considered rather safe, since any potentially unfriendly pilot would need to make at least three jumps through the previous systems to reach it. But our wormhole opened directly in someones backyard. Someone very unfortunate.

I have a Rorq tackled.

Where?

In the direct.

Sabre on the way.

Someone ping discord.

I’ll do. Let’s go heavy armor.

Shortly after three more people joined our Teamspeak channel. We are seven now. That should be enough to get on grid. At least if we can keep the Cynosural Field Inhibitor alive. More may join later.

I’m going to need secondary soon.

My Sabre is in warp to you.

Good.

While we secured tackle with the alts, we got our mains into the heavy armor comp we use to kill capitals. The residents warped in some frigates and even a Scorpion that tried to jam off tackle, Without our Interdictors that might have even worked. Meanwhile the Rorqual was sending his drones after our Bifrost, who got the initial tackle.

Scorpion on grid.

Everyone stack up on the wormhole.

Can we get a second Guardian?

Between the first person jumping through the fresh wormhole and the second wave of tackle coming on grid maybe a minute had passed. Three minutes later, we were about to warp down the fleet.

Okay, everyone jump the wormhole.

You can warp to Aeru.

Don’t let the bubbles go down.

Keep an eye on local.

My Sabre is cloaked 10km off him.

About six brave Caracals and an Osprey Navy Issue warped to an Interceptor at a ping. Meanwhile we load Occult and start to ramp up our damage on the capital mining ship. At the spot of our warp-in, the Cynosural Field Inhibitor was going online.

Low Armor.

He will ‘panic’ any second now.

Do you need fuel to ‘panic’?

No, but you need a rock locked.

The Caracals are aligning towards us. Once I was like them, trying to frenetically clear tackle before it would be too late. But this time we were too fast. Now they were just staring at us from a far. What else could they do? Kill the Cyno Inhib in time? They would probably lose the whole lot of their fleet. But had they even a Force Recon ready to light their cyno? Would they even have enough ships on the other end ready to jump or get bridged?

He’s in structure.

Now he sieged.

Ah, he starts tanking… oh.

Bubble the pod.

The Rorqual dropped about 750 million ISK in bulky captial modules and ore. For some reason without using his Invulnerability Core. The pod had only a Mindlink implant. Other than the Rorqual and one or two Caracals, no ships where lost in this rather short engagement.

I’m bringing a DST.

Everyone align to the wormhole. Prop mods off.

Why didn’t he ‘panic’?

Maybe he forgot to lock an asteroid.

This whole fight took maybe 15 minutes in total. Then we were gone again. Vanished in the dark embrace of Bob’s domain. And now I was standing in the kitchen, making myself dinner. In one hand the knife, in the other a half cucumber. Staring down at the plate. Did we even think about the fact that we just had wrecked someones dream? How many long nights may that poor one have spent grinding? And did we even care?

No. No, we didn’t.

Eve can be a cruel mistress. But I think it is up to everyone them self: become a cat, or stay the mouse. Surely both ways, or meandering between the two, are valid ones to play. This is the beauty of the sandbox.

I have survived long enough in New Eden to evolve from mouse to cat. And a meerkat at that! With a crooked grin on my face, I bite in a fresh slice of salted cucumber. Mhmm...

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I hope you liked this a little bit different After Action Report. Feel free to share it and let me know what your thoughts are in the comments. Are you enjoying the play-style of a cat more than the one of a mouse? When I’m honest, I think both can have their appeal.

o7