Grand Theft Supercarrier

 

The A-3ES3 System, Syndicate

Our allies in the Intaki Business Logistics Union had an interesting time earlier this year when the two constellations of 'Synco Pocket' were invaded by a capsuleer group of gangsters led by somebody called 'Tinkerhell', who, in apparent reprisal for some perceived smacktalk/insult that took place in Placid, attempted to take the Pocket's space for themselves. No agreements, no discussions, no treaties, no cooperation, just pure belligerence. Not even the kind of honour-code criminality that the various factions in the Syndicate are all about. Just pure bullying capsuleers again.

The attack took the form of trying to hijack the highly mineral-rich moons that proliferate throughout the area and which the Intaki Syndicate permits Synco to administer. Not just the moons, but the mining stations that orbit them too.

In other words, the kind of resource war that happens all the time. Everywhere.

Synco successfully repelled the invasion and eventually a form of ceasefire was reached when the aggressors were pushed back to the 'dead-end' system of A-3ES3, where they were left to it.

I had nothing to do with the defence of the area at the time as I was engaged back in Devoid. More recently, when I based myself in our Cathedral in XS-XAY, I went for an initial reconnaissance of the local systems and found a Hel-class supercarrier parked in a fully-shielded and heavily-defended starbase facility in A-3ES3.

It was one of theirs, just sat there. I reported the sighting in our intel channel and somebody suggested stealing it. I did think about it for a few seconds. I mean, it's been done before.

This happened like three months ago. The starbase was a staging post for the failed invasion and nothing else has happened there since. The Hel hasn't moved, and the attention span of most capsuleers dictates that probably nothing will happen, because even a week is a long time in New Eden.

The last time I looked it was still there though. I mean you don't just park one of these things and leave it there and forget about it.

Or do you..?

Covenant Network Disruption

 

Syndicate, 10/124

It seems the Sani Sabik abominations have started their annual 'Crimson Harvest' again. These vile heresies are like insects. I must have killed literally millions of them in their spacecraft but they keep on coming. It is among the highest of religious duties to purge them.

And yet they persist.

This time the Order of St.Tetrimon has stepped up and declared its intention to fight the Covenant during this 'event'. All of us in Khimi Harar are committed to assisting the Order wherever we can.

For me this takes the form of locating the Covenant's comms and data network nodes here in Syndicate and hacking into them and shutting them down. The fact that these installations exist out here in Syndicate at all is remarkable enough, but they are here so they must be eliminated.

These Covenant nodes are well disguised, hidden deep within fields of rubble surrounding fractured planetesimals, and it takes considerable scanning power to pinpoint their location.

It's a primordial setting, dangerous enough with drifting rocks bouncing off my shields and the possibility of the node blowing up in my face if I mess up the hack, but then with the added risk of opportunistic capsuleers trying to stop me from doing this important work and 'ganking' me and looting my ship, which would be a magnet for them since they would see 'Pacifier' on their directional scanners and know it's worth three-quarters of a billion ISK.

Of course, the flip side of this is the other work I'm doing to defend the Order's own network nodes from those same opportunists who would disrupt the Order's work for personal profit, and from the absolute scumbags who are actually siding with the Covenant. This of course means me ganking them.

One of the scumbags I caught attempting to hack a Tetrimon node didn't take it very well when I destroyed their ship -

- because this happened:

This capsuleer I killed (the other name is some random who was passing through the system), turned out to be one of that group who insists on communicating in a non-Standard language, so I had to use translation algorithms on her rage:

She called me a bitch. I mean, how rude!

But the translation algorithms are a bit off as it otherwise doesn't make a lot of sense, except that it's obviously insulting. Salty, even. I don't think I ever got salt before. The thing is, I've always found it funny how so many capsuleers can dish it out but can't take it. If the tables were turned, this capsuleer would not have hesitated to take down my Pacifier, and would unquestionably have gloated about it because, as I said above, my Pacifier is worth three-quarters of a billion ISK. Her Probe was worth a tenner, tops. She had a few choice modules and loot that survived the destruction, which was useful, but the real imperative here was the prevention of the interruption of the Order of St. Tetrimon's work against the Covenant. This is God's work.

Anyway, I didn't actually kill this capsuleer at all, just her ship. She warped away in her capsule and delivered the polemic I've just described. You could even argue there's no point in killing them, because a TEBS cycle and a new ship and they'll be back. That 'cycle' will repeat, forever.

As long as capsuleers exist, the names may change, but the game will always stay the same.

That is a terrifying concept...

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...