Paradise

Welcome to the 39th Blog Banter - the community discussion that stretches across the many communities of EVE Online through the use of arcane bloggery. The conversation is open to all and readers are encouraged to visit all of the entries that will be listed below as the discussion progresses. Be sure to leave your thoughts there when you do.

For enquiring minds who would like to know more about the Blog Banters, check out this short explanation or read this overview of the subjects covered in the last year.

After a some heavy topics in the last few editions, this time we'll be taking a more relaxed trip through the thoughts of the blogosphere. The origins of this month's concept come from a suggestion from EON Magazine editor Richie "Zapatero" Shoemaker.

"Some say a man's home is his castle. For others it is wherever they lay their hat. The concept is just as nebulous in the New Eden sandbox. 

In EVE Online, what does the concept of "home" mean to you?"

Alright let's have a go at this while 1- I'm still in home in Montreal at my 'puter, and 2- this banter is still alive!

Let's see. Over the 4+ years I've been in New Eden I have called a few places home for various amounts of time, from the safest space in the middle of Empire - well, as safe as New Eden can get... it's never totally safe you know - to deep wormhole space. Hey even if it was just for a single op, the logistics required meant I spent over a week in there! Let's go over a short list of the places I've called (still call in some cases) home and I'll finish by what to me is the best dark jewel of the star cluster.

Eram (Metropolis): Minutes after graduating from Republic Military School, I was sent to this system by one Letrange as he had his own home in that neck of the woods at the time. Yes this is where I started the nasty climb up the dreaded Learning Cliff; I was so green that I couldn't even see the overhang! But Letrange and I both knew that I wouldn't be staying there long because after an interview and just slighly more knowledge (very slightly) I was off to...

Berta (Derelik): I've mentioned before that at a mere 3-weeks old I joined the Clown Punchers Syndicate but the springboard to Curse was here. At first I couldn't be with the BOZOs full time because frankly I was so green I couldn't be of much use for 'em. But my thirst for the PvP was so great that I stuck around and flew many a Rifter and Stabber to its untimely demise, but slowly but surely I was getting better, faster and able to understand just what the fuck was going on. I kept asking tons of questions to the dismay of some of the more experienced players but at least I made it up by participating and even performing adequately, until I made the move from Clown College to BOZO proper. By this time I was living in...

Jorund (Curse): This was my first Null-sec home; hey, don't bash Curse because it's NPC space... as a true BOZO at heart I couldn't care less about any Sov bullshit, or moon-goo mining or any other crap you can think of that would make Sov space better. To me it's not. Period. We lived in Curse for one reason only: to kill stuff. And with the traffic we had it was like shooting fish in a barrel. but I'll go deeper on the subject of Curse later. Let's fast forward a bit to a time when planet Seyllin I blew up, and wormholes started to appear left right and center. Needing a break from all-out BOZO killing frenzies and knowing my buddy Letrange would need some combat pilots to train some former high-sec industrialists to the rigors of Null-sec space, I packed my stuff and headed towards the center of the cluster to...

Azer (Everyshore): Its central location made it the perfect place to start exploring this new frontier called W-space. I still have a lot of stuff going on in this area because the location is great! Close to the market hub of Dodixie, right next to a few low-sec pipes to keep us blood-thirsty PvPers happy (ok, we had to keep it "anti-pirate" at the time... me remembers getting flak for killing a TCF cyno XD), and decent proximity to Null-sec space through Syndicate, where incidently the BOZOs had just moved, in the system of...

Poitot (Syndicate): After a few months things got kinda slow for me at AMC and I got restless to the point of going back to BOZO, which had gotten a lot more serious during my absence. But as I got there I was told not to bring too much stuff because a move was being planned. We were heading back to...

Curse! Ah yes, that crazy place was calling again, and this time it was in the system of Hemin. Still a lot of traffic, still a lot of kills. And of course someone who flies as crazy as I do also happens to fail a lot. Where I take failing in stride and just move on, sometimes the brass higher up doesn't take kindly to say, ninja-ratting with a red in system (fully knowing what can/will happen and not giving a shit) or missing what should've been an easy tackle on say a Ferox. At some point the seriousness wasn't fun anymore and knowing that I probably would fail again (and not care) I kicked myself out of BOZO before it was done to me. I just had to go solo a bit and that's when Dock 94, my own tiny corp, was born. And where did I decide to park D94's HQ?

Rens (Heimatar): Believe it or not, at this point the Brutor Tribe Bureau was literally giving away office space! Rens, kinda like Azer, is not badly placed on the star map; no wonder a market hub formed there. During this time I was able to get more ISK from missioning as I now had the skills to do Level 4's, plus once in a while I was giving help to my buddies over at AMC to say, kill a tower or something. But after a while I did miss gang action and a buddy of mine got in touch with some other buddies about to start a little party henceforth known as The Provi War. We set up shop in...

Kheram (Domain): Preparing for the war was more fun than the actual war because, let's face it, the alliance my buddy and I parked our corps in was full of fail. But the whole time leading up to the invasion of CVA space, that was a blast! Low-sec fuckery, killing RP'ers I was already shoot-on-sight with because of my BOZO past, making fun of said RP'ers who I must admit taking themselves waaaay too seriously, etc. But after the invasion the alliance got spread too thin and, yeah... EJECT! The funny thing is I went back to AMC which is essentially an industrial alliance and immidiately found more The PvP! And we found a nice little place to call home Letrange had named...

Chaos Central (Jxxxxxx, W-space): Tons of fun and ISKies were had in here. I can also say were lost in here! I remember a certain multiboxing troll who tought he would make us cry with Hall & Oates lyrics but got disappointed when we just shrugged off our losses. Ahhh, good times! but it came to an end when Letrange took a break from EVE. CC as we came to call it was just one of many AMC colonies in W-space. The one still operating today (not even giving away its callsign :p) is a veritable stronghold. On hit of the scan button will cause anyone to run away screaming like a little girl. One system I can talk a bit more about was called BBW; at around 200au across, yeah she was fat! This is the system where many attempts where made to either kill an AMC tower or to plant a rogue tower, which we utterly destroyed sometimes in hilarious fashion. And there was another one... oh fuck it was deep. A Class 5 pulsar which caused my weird-fit sniper Tempest to have about 275k EHP, with a full gank setup?! Yeah. We kicked out some sleepy russians to get it and it was one hell of a job.

But THE place I would go back to tomorrow if I had the chance. The place that to me had it all, and then some, and when you thought she couldn't give you more she just went ahead and did...

5E-VR8 (Paradise constellation, Curse): By far, THE BEST PLACE I have ever called home in the entire New Eden cluster. I have lived four times in the constellation, once for a short time before the Provi War started in J7A-UR (entry through Catch with AAA as blues had its perks), and once in D87E-A with Ushra'Khan, who at some point did have some links with BOZO. But the two times the Clown Punchers lived there, at the station we came to call BOZOMart, man those were the days! I could fill page upon page of all the funny stuff that happened in here. This is also where I learned the ropes of FC'ing. This is where I killed a Domination rat worth about 120 million ISK just in time to go help my BOZO brothers kill a ratting Nidhoggur (!) three jumps away in JWJ-P1. This is where Tackle-Falcon maestro Loofaro once called for help because he had just caught a Nighthawk next door in K-B2D3 only to belay the order because the Nighthawk was fit with nothing but fail! Ah yes, Paradise. This constellation could not be more aptly named!

Link to the main banter page for all the other banter stories (yes, I'm a lazy schmuck, I'm tired, and tomorrow I'm going on a 550km bike ride!) 

Edit: man Blogger fails at the copy/paste thing...

Edit #2: fuck it, I give up. Sorry if the top part is all wonky.