Wednesday 1 December 2021

No Sleep 'Til Syndicate


The Tactical Operations Centre of Astrahus-Class Citadel 'LUMEN Cathedral of Syndicate', the XS-XAY system, Intaki Syndicate - 01:00 NEST

As may be apparent already, I'm spending more time in the Syndicate lately. In fact as I type this into my datapad, I'm pulling a shift as duty capsuleer-in-command of the citadel's defensive arsenal. Evening prayers were observed before I signed in, and I have another three hours or so in the chair here. Since it's quiet outside - and at this hour nothing is likely to happen - I'm running simulations, readiness checks and inventory assessments on the weapons with the other personnel here, while intermittently monitoring the intel channel for passing traffic and reading some news feeds, with an edition of Aridia Tonight playing on a holovid in the background. I enjoy these quiet contemplative periods that are as enriching at the helm of a heavy weapons battery as they are in my quarters or in chapel.

Such awesome power that God has given me, from 22:00 to 04:00.

* * *

Syndicate is an interesting place. Cosmopolitan doesn't even begin to describe it. There is a lazy trope in circulation which asserts the Syndicate is a 'wretched hive of scum and villainy'. As trite clichés go it is as bad as asserting that 'all Amarrians are slavers'.

It's there if you want it, of course. This is null-security space. But in I-RED's 'pocket' there appears to be a cordial relationship between I-RED and the various Intaki Syndicate operations and we all get along and do business and repel undesirables wherever they are found. At our base in the Cathedral of Syndicate in XS-XAY, we are free to practice our faith as if we were anywhere within the Empire, and we are free to exert God's will on His behalf on anyone passing through the area who deserves it, and life is generally pleasant. A homeostasis of trade exists here. No big power grabs, no wars. Almost self-policing in a way. 

One's word seems to mean more here. Problems get sorted out on their own. 

Syndicate is also close to the Cloud Ring Nebula. It is to me the most distinctive and aesthetically pleasing of all of New Eden's nebulae. I first saw it for real during my first ever 'roam' into the 'CalGal' warzone as a novice capsuleer when I first joined Outdated Host Productions. No book, holo, immersion sim or anything like that can compare with seeing the real thing through cam drones and the image-intensifying algorithms of a capsule.**



It was first suspected to be a supernova remnant by the Intaki astronomer Alnadil Jouber who also theorised that the supernova had produced gravity waves that had destabilised the EVE Gate. This theory is no longer considered plausible as the nebula's rate of expansion proves it to be ancient. Besides, if it was a related event then there would be documentation of the supernova somewhere in the 'fossil record' that comprises the impenetrable and inscrutable jigsaw puzzle of incomplete paleoknowledge that still exists from before the Dark Ages. Somebody, something would have remembered it. I've spent enough time in Relic Sites to be aware of how much random disparate information still floats out there concerning the period.

I tend to transit between the Cathedral and the trade hub in the Dodixie system a couple of times per month on supply runs. Mostly in my faithful Blockade Runner Motorhead, sometimes in a shuttle. Flying back from Dodixie and the Fed means I have the Cloud Ring on the nose, guiding the way, like a pole star, like a Guiding Light - His Light and His Will, no less. It is no wonder it is starting to feel like a second home.

Syndicate, with its Intaki 'city state' stations and its greater capsuleer influence, is what the Fed could have been if it wasn't for the Fed itself.

Solitude, on the other hand, is a different matter entirely. They say the new stargate has ruined it...




 **A nebula is normally so faint that you would barely see Cloud Ring (or any of them) with the naked eye even from right inside it. It is truly a gift to be a capsuleer.

Thursday 21 October 2021

Shadow Serpentis Titan Encounter

 

The Syndicate Region - 10/20/123 15:10 hrs

LUMEN has deployed to Syndicate for Operation Oriflamme Threshold: a series of exercises aimed at asserting Amarrian influence in the region against both the Serpentis Corporation and the Fed; and to demonstrate our ongoing support of our allies in the Intaki Business Logistics Union [I-BLU] and the Ishuk-Raata Enforcement Directive [I-RED], who hold significant interests in Syndicate under the 'SynCo' umbrella.

All week we have operated fleets against intruders into SynCo's territory, and against Serpentis ships, eliminating whole squadrons of them, bases, flotillas, 'Forsaken Hubs' with fleets of battleships, probably killing tens of thousands of Serpentis personnel. I have no problem with this as it is God's will that brings us to Syndicate to perform this Inquisition.

Earlier today I was patrolling a few of the asteroid belts in Empress of Amarr in one particular system and generating a considerable amount of Serpentis salvage.

Then this thing showed up:



I couldn't believe it: an actual straight-up Shadow Serpentis Titan.


It was spellbinding. I had just a few seconds to break that spell it was holding over me and engage my cloaking device before it would inevitably blow my ship away.


I sent cam drones over to it. I mean, my God, look at the size of it.


It just sat there. 

Waiting. 

Not even that. 

It just sat there, because capital ships are more like political weapons than actual military weapons. Something about the concept of the 'fleet-in-being' - namely that big ships just have to exist; that you don't have to actually do anything with them in order to force your enemies to respond.

It's the implication of them.

Perhaps our work in the region over the last few days had been registered by the Serpentis Corporation and this was their response. A message, if you will. 

Perhaps this was their response to me.


In that case, I am honoured that they sent the biggest ship they've got.

I watched it for a while, then requested advice from leadership on the comms channels. The bounty on it was 240 million ISK.

The considered opinion was get the hell out of there now... 





Sunday 26 September 2021

Thirteen Shots of Exploding POCO Gantries


 Operation Divine Order

It has become a thing in New Eden where some corporations looking to wage economic warfare engage in a somewhat passive-aggressive tactic of blockading planets and impeding normal trade with them by establishing POCO installation gantries - the temporary structures that are used as a base from which a full-sized POCO structure is built - around a planet and leaving them there: not upgrading them, not building a full POCO out of it, just leaving the empty gantry in orbit around the planet; so anybody running a planetary interaction system and indeed any other form of trade at all to and from the planet is basically blocked. Impeded. Throttled.

Our friends and allies in PIE Inc. (having recently joined LUMEN - you can read the press release here) organised a campaign to eliminate such a blockade in the Zemont constellation, a blockade established by a single-member capsuleer front corporation that is so insignificant I will not deign to name it. Whoever is behind it though, I do not know. But somebody is.

The order was simple: bring maximum firepower. I brought my Legion, Empress of Amarr

The results were spectacular:




























The operation is ongoing as of the time of this writing. Our mission is to purge Holy Amarr territory of this nuisance

It won't take long...

Amarr Victor!



Monday 30 August 2021

Polaris Legatus Frigate

 

Another of LUMEN's events commemorating Foundation Day YC123 was Brother Theodosius Savnar's tour of several of the Empire's most important in-space landmarks. The first tour he ran was so successful he ran a second tour later the same day, which I was honoured to join.

The tour was not limited to LUMEN members; it was publicised in advance on various media outlets as one of the many events commemorating Foundation Day, and it was open to any capsuleers who wished to join us (within reason...). It was very noteworthy then that our 'tourist' fleet was joined by Thalhack Dalhar, a member of the Interstellar Services Department, in nothing less than a Polaris Legatus Frigate - the allegedly-indestructible Jovian design that is one of the rarest sights in New Eden, especially now that Jove space is inaccessible and the Directorate has apparently ceased to exist in any meaningful form.

This is the first time I've ever seen one of these ships, ever. 


I may never see one ever again...




Sunday 22 August 2021

Fleet of Charons

 Back when I variously and at different times lived in Khanid and Genesis, a fleet of freighters was a rare sight. Now, living in a highsec 'pipe'** system, I see this sort of thing all the time, although it's no less spectacular for it:


**This pipe being what became, after the Triglavian Invasion and their 'Final Liminality' event, the new principal artery between Amarr and Jita that was for a time called the 'Silk Road' after some obscure and ancient cultural reference that is lost on me.

Wednesday 18 August 2021

Sarum Tormentor


Somewhere in the warzone and on the Republic side of the border, in a system that is nevertheless under Amarr control:



Amarr Victor!



Sunday 8 August 2021

LUMEN Foundation Day Fleet Review

 

In honour of Foundation Day YC123, LUMEN performed a Fleet Review over several landmarks and installations in the Home System. It was preceded by some formation rehearsals in the Sarum Prime system, followed by the Review itself over the Emperor Family Academy station, the Imperial Navy Honour Guard over the Amarr homeworld, and the newly-commissioned TES St. Jamyl The Liberator and its accompanying fleet.

All of LUMEN were present including our Legionaires (loyalist non-Amarr), which explains the few non-Amarr ships in the formations.

I brought my own Harbinger, the TES Reventador, because in its short tenure under my command it has participated in several fleet actions that were crucial to the defence of the Empire's interests, and has distinguished itself far more than any of my other ships. It deserved to be a part of this formation - LUMEN's own Honour Guard, if you will.


Formation Rehearsals - Sarum Prime

Something this important needed to be practised. Flying in line astern formation is not as easy as you think when you're dealing with battlecruisers and battleships that are slow and massive and have what seems to be the inertia of a planet; but it worked well.







Part I: The Emperor Family Academy, Oris (Amarr VIII) 

We briefed on the possibility that some blasphemous or indeed criminal capsuleer group would attempt to disrupt our show of respect to God and to the Empress. The heretic Nauplius made an appearance in the Local channel, but our show of force - and Zek's Damnation-class Fleet Command ship - clearly sent the appropriate disincentive to all present.








Part II: The Imperial Navy Honour Guard Over Amarr Prime

A hugely impressive sight over Amarr Prime, such a demonstration of power, of faith, of loyalty. An honour to participate. 







Other capsuleers showed up to observe, and they were respectful. On the other hand the Megathron in the cam drone still above was commanded by some idiot capsuleer who attempted to disrupt the proceedings, but we and the Navy collectively ignored him. I would personally have preferred to call on God's Wrath to dispose of this idiot in an appropriately biblical manner.


Part III: TES St. Jamyl The Liberator Fleet 

The Navy has commissioned an Avatar in honour of the late Empress Jamyl and her sacrifice during the atrocity in the Safizon system at the hands of the Drifters in YC117 (at which I was present so many years, so many lifetimes ago, as a naive and inexperienced capsuleer). LUMEN paid its respects in the final phase of our Fleet Review. Other capsuleers were present here too, and were respectful, which is as it should be.






After the conclusion of this final phase we broke formation and headed back to our staging system. On this day I felt no distinction between my Ni-Kunni heritage and my Amarr faith; all present here on Foundation Day are True Amarr as long as their faith is strong, because it is God's will that Holy Amarr will prevail, that New Eden will one day be safe again.