Of Red Stars, and Star Factions

So, while I wait for another of my skills to train, I found and read the short story, "Red Star, Winter Orbit", a tale of an alternate history where the Soviet Union has won the space race. A story that captures the cyberpunk genre, it gives a bleak, yet somehow hopeful future.

The story is about the crew of a Soviet space station, Kosmograd, the slowly collapsing American influence, and ultimately the conversion of space into a true frontier. It contains the elements of cyberpunk; a dystopian world with high technology, where information and control are foci.

I'll elaborate more on this later, as I only just finished reading it, and move on to the adventures in EVE.

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The slow decline of my corporation has finally become apparent as yet another familiar face has left the group. I wonder when I personally should start seeking a new home. We all keep in contact with our own communications channel (colloquially: a chat room), so any worries of being alienated are fading.

They are still, however present. There is no surer route to destruction than abandoning friends in New Eden. Trust is a commodity in this violent and cruel society, and attempting to go on one's own is a fast trip to destruction. Pirates, roaming paramilitary forces, con artists, imperial militias, even random pod pilots bored, just looking to shoot something: all are threats.

So I make good use of the friendship I have in the pilot Tango Cainne. Frank, a former co-worker in real life, started EVE at my suggestion a few months back. He has grown quickly as a Gallentean pilot, handling the Thorax class cruiser, and his new obsession, the Helios covert-ops frigate, with almost terrifying efficiency. The first time I took him as a wingman he scored a kill against an aggressive Arbitrator cruiser. His barely equipped Myrmiddon Battlecruiser fought of a squadron of interceptors, with years of experience to his mere months.

As prospects grow dim on our ISK making endeavours, we have both taken to patrolling and exploiting a few, lower security systems near our militia staging-grounds, the Villore system. Oulley, the low-security system I've mentioned before (where I crushed a destroyer), is where I've been patrolling as of late.

Our efforts have been relatively fruitless so far. We attempted to track down a Thorax, running a mission given to her by a Gallente agent of some sort. Frank's Helios deployed a scanning probe in an attempt to locate our prey, but the would-be victim was just out of range. In the meantime, a hostile roaming party came through the system. Fielding several battleships (Dominx and Megathron classes), an interceptor and a combat recon (Curse), I soon picked up newly formed wreckage from bystanders as they moved through.

Eventually, our target left, and the roamers eventually attempted to locate me. I was able to stay hidden between planets, moving from random point to random point until they simply gave up and move along.

Yesterday, I finally caught a careless cargo hauler moving through the system. Carrying only a modest load of minerals, the assault was hardly worth the lowered security rating given to me by Concord (the police agency of New Eden). I start to wonder if I'm doomed to flounder about in this society, grinding out an existence scavening the remains of those careless enough to be caught by the LH-S Malevolence and his unseen partner.

Surely I deserve a better future, former combat pilot of a powerful alliance. However, that certainty was annihalted as the juggernaught known as GoonSwarm lay waste to our defenses, taking advantage of the poor core leadership we had always begrudgingly accepted. Now, my corporation is barely operating within Gallente space, far from the [player-controlled] outlands of Geminate that was the graveyard of Alliances, and final resting space of my former alliance.

Who knows what tomorrow may bring. I have powerful agents I can do work for in order to earn an income. I hate working for those too full of themselves with their important positions, and I hate even more working for their [npc-controlled] Gallente Federation. However, we all do what we must, and the only alternative is attempting to go on my own to find a new niche, a new alliance or corporation to work with, or fading into obscurity as a small-time pirate.