Welcome to the sixth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!
This month's topic comes to us from Quintrala of Speed Fairy . She suggests to "write a short fiction story about the dissolution of the BoB alliance. It could be from BoB's point of view, the Goons', by neutrals in 0.0, civilians in Empire, NPCs or even rats. Write about before, during or after the coup; give us stories of market, war, people or love. In-character or roleplay. We want to know what happened, from those fictional characters that, in your mind, were part of it."
The last time I sat down to write a short story, Reagan President, the USSR was still a super power, and Macs were just a silicon dream. Suffice to say, I had a hard time coming up with a story for this banter. Though the BoB/Goons story was a major event earlier last month, I've barely had a chance to get to understand the full depth of the changes to the political and sovereign landscape of New Eden. As such, I had to write something that would confine itself to the extent of my knowledge and breadth of my ignorance. What follows is my best attempt.
.../ PRIORITY MSGE CODE ZULU
.../ CODED - Project Wolf - New instruction follows
..
Nabreel checked the encrypted message again. Ran the algorithms that deciphered the encoded instructions. Everything check out. But it still made no sens.
.../ CURRENT DESTINATION: VOID
.../ ADJUST DESTINATION TO RANDOM SYSTEM
.../ LOCATE SAFESPOT. ENGAGE STEALTH MODE.
.../ AWAIT FURTHER ORDERS. BOB IS NO LONGER BOB.
.../ REPEAT: BOB IS NO LONGER BOB. OUT.
BoB is no longer Bob. What the hell did that mean? At first he kept going. Kept following the covert travel itinerary he had planned originally. He pondered over these new instructions, running checks and rechecks to make sure the message wasn't from anyone else. With the cargo hold of his Indy V full of this new alien technology, he couldn't be too sure.
That had been over a month ago. After making two jumps, while he decided on a new course of action, he had finally arrived at an undisclosed moon, orbiting an unknown planet, in a dead-end system. He had engaged stealth, and powered-down every other systems and subs except his life support. Safely hidden in this remote part of the galaxy, he felt as safe as one could. Considering a capsuleer never truly knew safety after graduation.
But something had to give. Despite the fact that his Iteron had undergone major modifications in order to increase its chances of success for this mission, he had taken the chance and reactivated some of the commchannels; at least enough to listen in. He'd done this in a random pattern so that anyone trying to locate him wouldn't be able to pinpoint his whereabouts. Though at first, this had made it very difficult for him to gather enough information to make sens of his new instructions. In the end, he'd heard enough to realize the truth. Band of Brothers had disintegrated; from within. A cancer. A lone tumor had brought down what fleets of enemy ships could not. Nabreel was devastated. He was now alone.
An unknown agent of Bob, on an unknown mission.
All of this had started a few months back. He'd been assigned to a covert mission. So covert only his immediate superior was aware of it. All other members of his unit who had helped put together the mission had gone through a memswipe - that is, a cloning with the purpose of erasing specific parts of their memories.
Having received that last message had meant that even his Superior's memory had been altered to eliminate all traces of his endeavour. Programmed through a special implant. Only Nabreel had the secret code that would reactivate those memories.
Somehow, somewhere, they'd forgotten about him. Alone. For more then 8 weeks now. No news. No new instructions. Simply to stay hidden.
He'd had very few encounter since going into hidding. A few mining barges dropping in for a few cycles, only to leave shortly after arriving, consequence of the poor quality of the ore found in what was left of the asteroid belts. The few of them. Then a few lone pirates on the prowl. Then nothing else.
He needed to take action. His reserves were dangerously getting low. He'd have to act soon, or else he'd put his ship, and his life in jeopardy. And with the last piece of news from back home not very reassuring, he wasn't sure he'd find a clone waiting for him on the other end if anything went terribly wrong.
What to do? Where to go?
Then it happened. The anomaly. First he thought it was ship jumping into the system, but the specs coming off the warping space were completely different. And though at first it was invisible to the naked eye, it soon grew larger. Much larger. To the point a ship could go through it.
Risking detection, he ran his scanners to make sure. At first the explanations made no sens. But by this time, he'd come to trust his systems and had to agree with the results. He'd only seen it once before, but was still overwhelmed at the site. The anomaly was another wormhole. One huge enough to let his indy pass through it, to somewhere truly unknown, if his readings were accurate.
This was his chance. He had to take it. Had no choice.
This wormhole wouldn't last very long he knew from experience, and it would allow him to protect his cargo. With nowhere to go back home, this was his only chance. Nabreel mentally fed the coordinates to his ship, and as she slowly turned and aligned, he reviewed his cargo. All the cryogenic pods were working within normal parameters.
The Sleepers would see another day.
Participants:
- Speed Fairy, The Hand of BoB
- CrazyKinux's Musing, No where to go...
- A Mule in EVE, Rolling to the Warzone
- The Ralpha Dogs, Two Tales of Glory and Honor
- One Man and his Spaceship, Times they are changing
- OZ's House of the Evil Dead, Every betrayal contains a perfect moment, a coin stamped heads or tails with salvation on the other side
- The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, Who the Hell are They?....
- I am Keith Nielson, He Gave Up the Stars
- Life in Low Sec, Six Degrees of Seperation
- A Merry life and a Short One, Die Bard
- Roc's Ramblings, Mythology
- Dense Veldspar, EVE Blog Banter #6
- Letrange's EVE Blog, A toast to the disolution of BoB
- Fumbling in Space, Scarnan Vs The Fleeing Bankrupt Hordes
- More coming soon...
