Darwinism

There was not a lot that could be done to make Morpork a worse place. A direct hit by a meteorite, for example, would count as gentrification.
-- (Terry Pratchett, Pyramids)

Luck... Is a curious thing, sometimes the defining factor in a successful hunt, or embarrassing loss.

I'm sitting in my hangar, trying to figure out a fitting for a Worm frigate when an associate starts yelling on comms

"THANATOS UNDOCKED FROM GUS STATION, FUCKING HELL HE'S WARPED IN THE DIRECTION OF THE STAR"

Excitement almost getting the better of me, I calm myself and ask her nicely to follow him

"WARPING AT 100 CLICKS"

I quickly board a Bhaalgorn named Ghetto, I would need a few of its abilities for this.

"THANATOS OFF SCAN"

Bugger must have cloaked because he still appeared on the local register.

"DROPPING PRO... FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK THAT'S A BIG SHIP"

By chance, my friend in her tiny Cheetah Covops decloaks the monstrous Thanatos.

"GET HERE QUICK"

Alright woman, calm down, stop shouting, I'm... On... The... Way!

Ghetto undocks from the station and I set warp as I enter the black, I land a few clicks off the Thanatos and proceed the basics of tackling.

Lock... Check

Warp Disruptor... Check

Dual Web... Check

Guns... Check

Drones... Check

Energy Neutralisers... Check

Everything now in place and the Thanatos locked down, I start to make arrangements for escalated negotiations.

The Thanatos has me locked up and dispatches a group of fighters in my direction, Keira is busy getting ready to deploy as I start making some calls to like minded individuals who may be interested in a nice sit down with the Thanatos pilot.

I hit armour as Keira undocks the NovaKane Incorporated flagship, an Archon carrier named ArKane and initiates warp to my position. Gang is forming, slowly at first but then invites start flying as the locals come out to party.

Keira lands with my Bhaalgorn almost at 50% armour, she locks me up and sends some remote armour repair love my way, a deployment of ten Fighters spews forth from the ArKane and start multiple attack runs on the now stricken Thanatos.

The tank of the Gallente designed carrier isn't doing very well, but then he probably has zero capacitor left at this point to run it, with a massive explosion, it breaks apart, the escape pod warping out rather sharpish from negotiations as the pilot had logged his critical systems...

...But he didn't get too far as my associate probed it down and punishment for such cowardice was exacted with extreme prejudice.

A lucky kill for my friends and I, an embarrassing loss for the luckless carrier pilot.

ArKane™

Genua had once controlled the river mouth and taxed its traffic in a way that couldn't be called piracy because it was done by the city government.
-- Local-body politics explained
(Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad)

A curious afternoon, I was busy scouting a Freighter run into lowsec with POS fuel whilst keeping an eye on the local Intel channels, news of a POS coming out of reinforced soon got my attention.

I started trying to get as much Intel from the small group already assembled, they were going to drop dreadnoughts on the POS when it came out of reinforced and asked if I'd like to come and play, it was lightly armed with the majority of defences already downed.

Freighter safely in and out of Gusandall I decided to give it a shot, gave Keira a call, told her to get into the Archon and I got into a POS shooting Armageddon.

Turns out all attempts to contact the POS holding corp to offer terms of a ransom were met with silence so "Grand Theft Mobile Lab" was the order of the day. Three dreadnoughts were assembled, a Moros, a Naglfar and a Revelation, together with the NovaKane flagship Archon, the ArKane™, it was quite a site for someone who spends most of their time in a Rifter.

A cyno was lit just off a station and the caps jumped in with little fanfare, we docked up and waited the fifteen or so minutes before the POS was shootable again. I had in this time gotten into system with the Geddon and waited patiently.

The time came, we all undocked, my Geddon warping in first, closely followed by Keira's carrier.
The two remaining sentry guns took a liking to my Geddon and I had to warp out as Keira couldn't get the remote repairer on me quick enough, the Geddon sporting only a Damage Control as its tank not up to the task of tanking sentry fire on its own. By this time the three dreads had arrived and gone into siege. I warped back in, Keira dropped a large flight of Bouncer IIs and I took place just beneath her, dropped a flight of Bouncer Is and set my Mega Pulse IIs to work.

Keira's perspective:



The view from my Geddon:




The shot itself was very uneventful, no defence fleet and only the two online sentries taking a fancy to my Geddon. It went down without much fanfare and the labs and assorted mods were unanchored and scooped.

The CONCORD generated killmail was curious in that the third Dreadnought didn't appear on it, so here is the correct killmail as it should have been:

2009.10.29 16:21:00
Corp: The Society of Intergalactic Gangsters
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Destroyed: Minmatar Control Tower Medium
Moon: Sotrenzur VII - Moon 1
System: Sotrenzur
Security: 0.3
Damage Taken: 9105721

Involved parties:

Name: ASSSASSIN X
Security: -10
Corp: Mean Corp
Alliance: Mean Coalition
Faction: NONE
Ship: Revelation
Weapon: PURE AWESOME
Damage Done: OVER 9000

Name: Galgor Thale
Security: -9.4
Corp: Hellequin Inc.
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Naglfar
Weapon: Naglfar
Damage Done: 3917629

Name: nominruil
Security: -10.0
Corp: Mean Corp
Alliance: Mean Coalition
Faction: NONE
Ship: Moros
Weapon: Moros
Damage Done: 3618592

Name: Kane Rizzel (laid the final blow)
Security: -10.0
Corp: NovaKane Incorporated
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Armageddon
Weapon: Mega Pulse Laser II
Damage Done: 940290

Name: Keira Rizzel
Security: 4.9
Corp: NovaKane Incorporated
Alliance: NONE
Faction: NONE
Ship: Archon
Weapon: Bouncer II
Damage Done: 629210

Thanks to the Mean and Hellequin guys for letting us tag along, I think Keira was very happy to finally use a ship she had trained so very long for. Thanks too for the cyno back home guys.

Back home for a smoke and a cup of tea before heading out, hopefully Kenny remembers to fuel his POS later.

The Mended Drum

He nodded to the troll which was employed by the Drum as a splatter [footnote: Like a bouncer, but trolls use more force].

-- Nobby takes Carrot for a drink in The Mended Drum (Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!)

A little side project of the Rizzel family went online in the early hours of this morning. The Mended Drum took a little over 6 hours to get set up with mods and guns but I can finally scratch POS setup and management off my list of things to do. It took forever and I'm not even sure if the load out is right but damn if it wasn't a little bit exciting and nerve racking.

Keira brought the NovaKane flagship out for the christening. Of course I had to be there in a Rifter :D



This may or may not be a permanent fixture, depending on the cost and time involved with running it, however I like a challenge and this sure is one.

Guess who's back?

He attacked everything in life with a mix of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which.

- Douglas Adams

Something wicked this way comes

It's a curious thing... Space. The allure of the darkness and the ability it has to consume your every waking moment. It's really dark in space, well, except for all the light. Oh boy the light, the agent dispatched to help with tonight's operation shields his eyes as his systems go off-line, the sheer amount of energy to do what he just did totally incapacitating his ship.

The Cynosaural Field is used to move ships too big to jump through regular stargates. Months of preparation and training had led to this moment as Keira jumped the massive Archon carrier into Gusandall for the first time. The NovaKane fleet has a new flagship.

I always said I will never fly anything bigger than a Command ship but Keira had spent so much time training to be an epic command pilot she decided to move it up a gear and spec towards Capital ships, mainly because she could and partly just to annoy me, at least that's the way I see it.

Interesting times ahead :D

Back with a bang

mandaro > EIFER GATE GUS NOW NEED DPS

Not the most eloquent of requests but short and to the point. What did they have tackled, what juicy treat would welcome me back into my world? The one place I'm truly at home. Which poor soul was having a bad day? Guess his day was about to become decidedly worse.

The Fifth Elephant™ slides effortlessly out of the dock and enters space... It's been a long time but it's like breathing, it's just natural. I engage warp towards the gate and head on in, only intel I've gleaned is that the unfortunate pilot was flying a Charon Freighter and he refused to answer the ransom offer. I entered the fray in the only way I know how, guns a blazing and soon the Charon would join the endless debris in space. Empty and no ransom but a welcome kill for me personally, a nice easy and relaxing way to ease myself back into the darkness.

It's good to be back