Retrospective pt 4

So here is the fourth and final part of my longwinded retrospective. I hope I've not bored you too much, but next week I shall be resubbing to eve and getting back in the game. In previous parts I described how I had yet to find a corp that I liked, but this was about to change.

After being thrown out of a corp after my trial period with no reason given, I resorted to browsing the eve-o forums in the recruitment channel. Up until this point I had usually applied to random corps who had offices in the stations I occupied, or had been invited by passersby. As always I began searching for a pirate corp, or one that is heavily involved in pvp. I wasn't particularly interested in joining 'famous' or well established corps, I would actually prefer to be with a corp from the very beginning and help it grow and develop.

This was how i came across The Sons of the Fallen, who had just started up and had recently joined the Brothers Grim. alliance. This corp consisted of three people, the two directors (who were friends IRL) and me. Shortly after joining I became the ranking member, as the directors had exams and took a break from EVE. Unfortunately they had not given me any roles or instructions while they were away, so essentially I became the only member of the Sons of the Fallen. I didn't particularly mind as I made friends quickly in the alliance, particularly the various CEOs and directors. In fact the alliance leaders K1rth and Chapters, and the corp CEOs Klothos and Red Armageddon became my best friends in EVE.

I have to say that my time in Brothers Grim was fantastic, the laid back atmosphere and the frequent ensured that I would stick with them for a long time. This alliance was not without its drama however, as one of the member corps recruited someone that would go on to steal from the alliance (not much at all but still pretty disappointing). We all accepted it and marked it down as a one off, but later another issue would plague us.

At time I also got into a fight with Mr. Ka Jolo at an asteroid belt. He was piloting a thorax and I was in my maller. It was a close fight but he managed to escape (blasted ecm drones). He offered me a place in his corp, but I declined as I was already spoken for.

We were currently at war with a number of corporations, having minor skirmishes here and there. We suffered a couple of losses as that was to be expected but on the whole we were doing quite well. Some people were not happy however, one or two reports came by my way about a pilot who had recently joined and had FC'd and lost on two occasions (Poor use of spies, bad primary calling). Then about a week later he had organised another fleet consisting of about 15 people. Quite frankly this fleet got its arse handed to it by a gang of 4 led by Nexa Necis i believe. I wasn't there on the operation, but Red, Klothos, and many others were rightfully peeved. I was asked to talk to the pilot who led the op, so i opened up a convo an simply asked what happened. I was met with hostility but i kept calm and asked him to give his side of the story. He gave it, but blamed the other 14 people for being crap (they weren't as I've flown with them before). I told him he needs to calm down and that I would offer him a chance to prove he had what it takes to FC. I offered him leadership of a wing in the fleet op i had organised for the weekend. I was then met with such a torrent of curses and 'who do you think you are' that I snapped and told him how pathetic he was blaming others for him mistakes and having this kind of attitude. The others were told about the convo and all of them called for the pilot to be expelled. (Although I had no roles in my corp, I was considered to be one of the alliance's leaders after running several successful ops and moving the alliance to a more prosperous area of lowsec.)

This is where things took a slight turn for the worse, but in no way could we have predicted it. We expected the player to be dropped from the corp. However the CEO pulled his entire corp from the alliance, saying that we were better off without them as they were the cause of several incidents. This was mainly due to their lax recruitment policies but that also made them the largest corp in the alliance. We lost a huge number of members that day, and it weakened us substantially. After we were decced further by another merc corp we felt the strain and had to organise a cease fire. I offered to try and convince the merc corp to drop the dec, and permission was granted. I had some dirt on this particular corp (minor dirt but it could still damage their reputation, and that's bad news for a merc corp). Their CEO said they 'didn't care' 'we're not currently taking contracts at the moment anyway' and other stuff. I thought that I had failed and left convo disappointed. The next day the dec was quietly dropped.

The alliance still continued to deteriorate while I went away on holiday. When I returned K1rth, Chapters, Red and I decided to start empire wars. So a new corp was formed and the alliance was left in capable hands. I joined the fight a week later as I had to grind my sec back up (a very long and ponderous affair. I made a little money but most of that was spent on replenishing my crystals and replacing a couple of ships that got ganked).

We had three simultaneous decs running, but in the three weeks I spent in high sec all i got was a bestower and a couple of noob ship kills. This was primarily due to K1rth putting the fear of God into the corp. He engaged 13 of them solo, killed an ishtar and a few others, and still managed to jump to safety. After that point they rarely undocked. I spent most of my time solo camping anywhere up to 7 people and they still didn't undock. I managed to get a few fights with the friendly residents of Amarr, which was quite fun. That was until someone interfered with a 1vs1 that i was having. I lost a maller, but i was so peeved I came back out in a harbinger and chased the bugger to a belt and swiftly dispatched her brutix. I can assure you she didn't interfere again. My conclusion? High sec deccing is ridiculously boring, don't do it.

Giving my farewell to the lads I went back to lowsec to kill something. I also sent a mail to Ka Jolo asking if his offer of a place in his corp was still open. He confirmed that and asked me to post an application on the Tuskers forums. I liked the requirements and questions, quite effective when your trying to get the general attitude of the recruit and his talents. An idea that I will steal when I form a corp of my own.

The Tuskers at this point was still quite young and had about 10 members. I quickly found my place in the corp, but being pretty much the only UK player at the time, I still soloed a lot. Not to say there wasn't any roams, far from it. I have to say that the Tuskers was the most organised corp i have ever been in, and their forums are top notch when organising operations. I have had the pleasure of being on a couple of these including Wensley's. I made many friends in my time in The Tuskers and had plenty of exciting times. I have never in my time as a Tusker come across a bad pilot and everyone had been very polite and considerate (this also meant i refrained from telling my dirty stories and jokes). As i mentioned in Part 1, over Christmas and January I've not been an active player, only really getting on to set my training. This hasn't been entirely fair to Ka Jolo as he has been very patient about my absence, but as I return to EVE I fear it is my time to leave the Tuskers. I will be staying in the Tuskers until the end of February at which point I shall give my final farewell.

It is time for a fresh start in more than one place. My old friends Klothos and K1rth have decided to start up a new alliance (Chapters and Red are as far as I know undecided). I have been given the opportunity to lead my own corp though I still haven't entirely decided on its focus (privateering more than likely) I feel that we have the potential to be quite successful. We have also decided to move to an area of lowsec that none of us have ever been to before. I hope to use all that i have learned from Ka Jolo about running a corp, and also to recruit only those who are as reckless as I am to make a force to be reckoned with.

So with my lateness in turning over a new leaf for 2009, I can only hope for good times ahead, and with me for the first time leading a corp you'd better watch this space......