Me, You and EVE-Pirate

Hello EVE-Pirate readers. This is my first post as a writer here, so I'm just going to give a bit of background information about myself. I forget how I came across EVE, but I was immediately hooked. I was accepted into the beta shortly before it was to close, when CCP was testing the final parts of the server. The final beta stage was opened to all applicants so there was a sudden rush of people, and thus, no shortage of newbies. The culmination of beta was Armageddon day. Each character was given 500 million isk and maximum skillpoints. Since most had 3 characters on their accounts, they pooled the money and had a fun time blowing each other up! Since there was going to be a character wipe it didn't matter either way. I took a break when EVE went live. I had ruined my exams and had resits to study for, and forced myself off the game. It wasn't so hard to do since EVE now required me to pay money for it. Then came Christmas. The university holidays had left me with nothing to do so I was bored. And somehow, I found myself looking at EVE. It had recently been released for download on the internet so getting hold of it was no problem. And thats when it all started; December 2003. The end of my social life. I was sucked in, a world that had the makings of paradise, yet for many was hell. You could be whatever you had the drive to be. Looking back now I miss the wide-eyed wonder of those first few weeks; leaving the ingame jukebox running and basking in the beauty that was, and still is, EVE. I spent the first few months in a corporation mining my way into success. The Echelon Corporation [T.E.C] started me on my way down a path that has led me through alot of EVE history. The corporation is still going, and is still a great way for new players to get into the game. I continued in that vein for 6 months, until I encountered some pirates in the near by systems of Dantumi, Mara, Aurohunen and Passari. The infamous m0o camp had made Mara a place of historical significance. And it seemed that pirates were on their way back. Even now, those systems are infested with wannabe pirates, but that is a dscussion for another time. :) After fighting the local pirates a little and killing and being killed, I was hooked. Mining simply didn't have the rush, the exhilaration, and the sheer seat-of-your-pants adrenaline that fighting did. T.E.C soon branched out. We needed better minerals to mine, and so we made a thrust for Syndicate. Several of the older members soon relocated down to a system called 2X-PQG. It had lots of belts, and a fairly regular npc spawn rate. We soon realised that mining was not the same as fighting battleship npc's. We were frequently visited by pirates, and our safe spots saved us more than once. I even got my first pod kill in that system. FEvul from Corp1 attacked my scorpion before downtime and the servers closed as a volley of my torpedoes launched. I logged back in to find a tin with taranis loot and promptly helped myself. I rekitted to catch the pod and waited. And waited. And waited some more. Eventually after an hour, FEvul logged back in. I podded her. That was the turning point. I was commited. The buzz from inflicting a lasting mark on someone was too much. I added Fevul to my address book fearing some kind of retribution. But my fear was not needed. I think since that day I have seen FEvul once, and that was in empire. However I was permanently changed. We moved our operation to a system deeper in Syndicate called V4-L0X. It had what we needed, npc stations, asteroid belts, npc's. But it was missing something I needed. I had been reading the recruitment forums, and had planned my departure. I was paying to play EVE and have fun, and I just wasn't having fun. So I left. I didn't tell anyone, and many people felt betrayed by my departure. But it could have been worse. I could have emptied the corp hangars and wallet and made off with it into the sunset. I was now a member of MAFIA. But I knew next to nothing about fighting. Skywalker the CEO of MAFIA was helpful in this regard. He was willing to let me make my noobish mistakes and not kick me out of the corp. At the time MAFIA was part of a pirate alliance in Syndicate, the Ugh Smash Things Alliance or USTA. It was home to MAFIA [MAFIA], Clankillers [206], Galaxian Guerillas [GXG], Developmental Neogenics Amalgamated [D.N.A], Miami Vice [V1CE] and a few other corporations. It was exactly what I needed. So i learnt my art, I podded, killed, destroyed, got killed and earnt myself a reputation as a suicide pilot. At the time we were fighting JQ Alliance [JQA] and Third Front Alliance [3FA]. 3FA is still going strong today, however JQA died due to internal disputes, mostly involving allocation of asteroid belts (isk) and lack of defending the alliance. Unfortunately the problems that afflicted JQA are inherent to that particular area of Syndicate, and is something that my colleagues and I refer to as "Crokite Madness". Basically the lust for personal wealth overcomes all other drives to defend self and others. Only when the income is directly threatened is a response forthcoming. Over the next few months I switched corps to join Clankillers [206] and then later, when Developmental Neogenics Amalgamated [D.N.A] was reforrmed, I joined DNA. DNA renounced its ties to USTA and marked the informal death of the pirate alliance. Over the next few months the various pirate corps trickled out of the region. The two to remain in close proximity to each other were Clankillers in the new Imperium Alliance, and DNA living in southern Syndicate. Over the folowing 10 months I lived, and died, in lower Syndicate. I gave blood, sweat and tears to terrorising the region, and even crossed paths with Ander. I fought my way through the Imperium and friends suppression of JQA and their farcical attempt to claim Syndicate. For a record of our antics check here for videos produced before and after, here for the DNA kill list. In August 2005 with several members of DNA away playing WoW or absent for other reasons, I put DNA into offical hibernation. Many of the remaining active members relocated to various corps, and I found myself in Finite Horizon alongside such notable names as Madcap Magician, DigitalCommunist and Viceroy. And there you have it, that's me in a nutshell. Now, I'm not as well known as Verone, nor am I as vocal as Shin Ra. However, I am good at what I do. I don't go for big stars around my name, I don't smacktalk and *shock horror* I'm honourable. Ander invited me to write for EVE-Pirate and I hope I can entertain you and regale you with tales of my past glories, and maybe, just maybe, I can get a few of you to appreciate what motivates some of the pirates in the game.