The Eve Online 0.0 Experiment - Post 076 - Ghost In The Machine (Part 2)

Ghost In The Machine (Part 2)

I looked out of the reinforced windows of my pod, desperately trying to seek the entrance to Jove, and I wondered just how random my adventure had been so far.

I did not know if I was a believer in fate, but it seemed that events had conspired to bring me to the point where I was today. I now found myself to be a man in a shuttle who was considering forming an alliance, building an outpost, and meeting his makers...


Like a man trying out a badly created insta, perhaps I was getting a bit above my station...


Nonetheless, I took the obstacles that were being thrown in my path as signs that I was getting closer, and I announced my arrival at the system closest to Jove, with the customary word "Greetings":



The system JZV-F4 was controlled by a group called "Pure Alliance", which seemed very appropriate to me, because I suspected that only a pilot who is of pure heart, of sound mind, and who has a noble desire to help others, would be granted entrance to the domain of the Gods. I did not know if I was a worthy-enough pilot to fit such a description, so I quietly crossed my fingers behind my back and hoped.


Gavax then opened a private chat with me:




I had shockingly learned the reason why there was no door here. Far in the distant past of EVE, the mighty Jovians had destroyed all the routes to their domain, by obliterating all the jumpgates into the distant mists of history.

This meant that I was being asked nothing short of finding a path that cannot be found, walking a road that cannot be seen, climbing a ladder that was never placed, or reading a paragraph that had no ......


Some time later I logged back in, and like a man who had just purchased an XBOX, I consoled myself...


I left the dead-end system JZV-F4, and wandered into the surrounding systems, desperately seeking some kind of sign:



My demands were met with an ominous wall of silence and I began to wonder if I had wasted my time. Perhaps the Viking Gods of EVE did not want to be reached, and were sitting there in Valhalla, laughing at my feeble attempts to breach their mighty fortress.


Suddenly, a pilot entered Local and said this:




This was absolutely incredible. For the first time since I had started playing, I had met someone who was speaking Viking! Well, I was immediately spurred on by this incredible development, and I now knew that I must be very close to the holy citadel...

I decided that this must be a test of faith, so I invited the mystery Viking to join a gang with me, and pondered my next move. Eventually, we concluded that making a sacrifice could be the key, and I valiantly decided to offer the only worldly possession that I had with me:



I excitedly set the self-destruct on my shuttle, and all I needed to do now was to wait 120 seconds until I left my body and ascended to Valhalla. However, 45 seconds later, and for some inexplicable reason, there appeared to be a very strange equipment malfunction in my pod, and Sanodi was spookily unable to hear me:



Not only had he destroyed my shuttle before the self-destruct sequence was completed, but he had then also brutally podded me back to empire. For the next ten minutes or so he continued asking me if I was there, and I eventually got a random person in Local to open a channel with him to tell him to unblock me.

Yet again, it would appear that the higher powers were trying their damndest to dissuade me from reaching them. However, a series of shivers ran up and down my spine, as I realised that this fact in itself must be a sign of their very existence...


(to be continued...)