Friday, December 08, 2006

The Eve Online 0.0 Experiment - Post 094 - Attack Of The Clones

Attack Of The Clones

I staggered out of the jump-clone unit, and I looked around myself in order to figure out exactly where I had landed. A few minutes later I regained my orientation, and managed to deduce that I was somewhere back up in the North.

As my memory returned, I recalled that I had jumped back up here in order to re-visit an area that, at the beginning of my adventure, had scared me more than the thought of spending the night locked in a room with a very randy hippopotamus.

I was then contacted once more by "Podee", who had previously murdered me outside my office, after she had set out on her own adventure over two months ago.

Since then she had been steadfastly committed to orchestrating as many of her own deaths as is humanly possible, and had now racked up quite a large tally of bitter and gruesome ends...

I flew a few jumps further to the west and landed at the ISS station "Borealis", where Podee met me, and we spent some time complaining to each other over the fact that the Revelations patch had ruthlessly removed our n00bness:



The patch had shockingly given me sufficient skills to fly a Cruiser, and I now wondered if I should take that next almighty step by getting into a large slavering beast of a machine for the first time, and fearlessly flying around in it, safe in the knowledge of my new-found invincibility...

As I pondered over this heavy dilemma, I once more met a pilot called "Sgt Napalm", whom I had previously encountered at the 9UY war in the south. Napalm is a member of ISS, and as such has a sworn duty to conduct his business in the most neutral manner possible.

It was at that point, that a spark of evil suddenly ignited inside of me, and I instantly began to hatch a cunning and malevolent plan to get ISS to shockingly break their hallowed and cherished neutrality...

I knew that in the spirit of friendship, ISS members were always willing to help others, and that in the spirit of self-extinguishment, Podee was always willing to die violently. All I therefore needed to do, in order to get ISS to break their neutrality, was to bring these two concepts together...



My devious ploy had worked, and I quickly undocked to gather the terrible photographic evidence of this amazing breach of neutral protocol.


I had caught ISS red-handed in the act of murder!

CLICK TO VIEW IMAGE


Out of a rampant attempt to bribe me, and out of the erroneous belief that he could buy my eternal silence, Sergeant Napalm then gave me a fully fitted Kestrel and a paltry bribe of a million isk, the fear in his eyes clearly begging me not to expose him...

Suffice to say, I did the only sensible thing and immediately accepted the bribe, before violently logging out of the game.

The next time I logged back in, I encountered a terrifying army of twelve clones, who were frantically flying around the system, and horrifically terrorising the poor unsuspecting locals:



I wondered what sorrowful event had transpired in empire, that had caused a dozen new players to suddenly turn to the dark side, and to leave the safety of the n00bish state war academy, in search of death and destruction in the fearless realms of 0.0.

CLICK TO VIEW IMAGE

Perhaps there were unseen forces of evil at work here, infiltrating their brains and corrupting their minds, causing them to spread the airs of discontent, like a man with a serious case of flatulence.

As I watched them leave the system in search of more prey to violently attack, I packed up my belongings and prepared for my glittering return to the heavily-guarded fortress of Emilio Estevez...


(to be continued...)

Monday, December 04, 2006

The Eve Online 0.0 Experiment - Post 093 - Breaking The Language Barrier

Breaking The Language Barrier

Like a clock handed from one person to another, I passed the time by resting my hands on my face, and staring blankly at the invisible dark matter that surrounded me.

Every now and then, a faint communications signal whizzed past me on a high frequency. Like an air traffic controller with a malfunctioning listening device, I imagined that I could almost hear the distant chatter of pilots on a collision course with their terminal destinies.

Perhaps the noises were all just radio ga-ga, radio goo-goo, radio ga-ga...



Having previously been interviewed by the EVE Tribune, and also by the hammer-clenching Viking Gods of EVE for a news article, I now found myself being offered the chance to speak live on air, to literally tens of listeners....

The thought of spewing my dulcet tones over the wireless was indeed tempting, and like a man chewing on a loud bang, I was very excited by the prospect of creating some explosive sound-bites. However, in the end I decided to teasingly retain my mystique, and to politely decline the kind and generous offer.

Some time later, I encountered several more heroic BoB pilots, and was extremely surprised to find myself becoming friends with Jennifer Aniston, whilst raiding the tombs of Angelina Jolie...



His statement had caused my mind to snatch a glimpse of a parallel timeline, where I had lived behind the dark side of the sun, in Oceans XI, Moon III - Formulaic Hollywood Blockbuster Assembly Studio, where I had felt like:


The Mexican........



......who had spent seven years in Tibet:

CLICK TO VIEW IMAGE


I had once learned that the Devil's own devices for turning a pilot astray were the seven deadly sins, which could all be found in many legends of the fall of celebrities from positions of power, to their shameful full-frontal public confessions of a dangerous mind filled with gluttony and indulgence.


I violently resolved to fight this club of overpowering instincts.


Not entirely unlike a man walking into the middle of a giant book, I then entered into another conversation, and bemusingly found myself parsleying the thyme by partaking of an oreganol chat with a very sage pilot:



The Herbster was a seasoned veteran who had been playing since the very beginning of EVE, and who had resolutely refused to train any Caldari skills, thus leaving himself unable to fly a basilisk.

Whereas most pilots spend their evenings shooting the enemy in violent fits of rage, The Herbster whiles away the hours by playing the following game with himself, whilst cooking delightfully aromatic curries:


Dill or no dill?


A few handfuls of the sands of time later, I slipped up Robert's back passage and ventured deep into his bowels, in search of an entrance to the inner sanctum of his crushing war machine.

Eventually, after finding the "Machiavellian School Of Philosophy" and stopping to talk with the brilliant evil geniuses who lived there, I made my way into the vast underbelly of Robert's mechanical inferno of doom.

A few minutes later, I gasped in utter astonishment, as I came across the immense propaganda machine at the very heart of his body of systems.


I bravely ejected from my shuttle and left them a suspicious message:

CLICK TO VIEW IMAGE


Confident that my warning would be singlehandedly responsible for stopping them taking over the whole map, I smugly docked at the Mining Coalition HQ, from where I then stylishly jumped into a jump-clone on the other side of the universe.

Little did I know, that not entirely unlike meeting a group of politicians, I would be set to encounter a terrifying army of clones...


(to be continued...)

Friday, December 01, 2006

The Eve Online 0.0 Experiment - Post 092 - Sausage Dogs

Sausage Dogs

I docked in the station adjacent to BoB HQ, and answered a chat request from a character whose name was strikingly familiar:



I pondered over this important question for a while, and although I felt like a n00b at heart, I had now explored such a large area of the map that I had no other choice but to conclude that my n00bness was probably now a thing of the past.

In recounting my travels I had previously made a reference to the television-show dog "The Littlest Hobo" and I now bizarrely found myself speaking to a strange player with the very same name, who was the leader of a corporation called the "Sausage Commandos"...

Like a campanologist who keeps hearing phantom telephones in his mind, my paranoia bells immediately started ringing, and I wondered if, in the tradition of Strongy Strong and Shaking Sheikh, yet another of my literary devices had assumed a life of its own.

However, I then discovered that this character had been created a full two days before I had mentioned the name, which meant that I was staring at an astonishing co-incidence of more epic proportions than the bosoms of Dolly Parton and Pamela Anderson combined.


I informed him of the co-incidence:




Apparently, this master of sausages considered the fountain region (which I had visited several weeks ago) to be his property, and he forthrightly demanded that I admit my rampant trespassing into his alleged claimed lands.

After informing him that I had indeed been there, but that I was under the impression that the area was free of fried pig and cow pieces, and was inhabited by Xelas and Celestial Apocalypse, he then decided to sit me down and to enthrall me with an amazing tale of espionage, deception and pulse-raising treachery.


Once upon a time, his main character was a member of Xelas...




This story was already causing me to be more enthralled than the regular clients of a dominatrix, and I immediately started to eat and drink a large variety of cinematic foodstuffs, as I listened to the exciting show:



As he continued to bark the story to me, I could feel the waves of his hostility towards Xelas flowing from across the communications channel. This was one seriously scorned pilot, who like a fiery angular afterlife, was now hell-bent on revenge for the swelling hatred he felt towards his former alliance.


He continued in his shocking narrative:




This was an incredible tale of treachery and deceit that left me reeling with astonishment. I suspected that this frying-pan conoisseur, and his band of cumberland commandos would probably be viewed in an extremely negative way by the EVE community, although he did not seem bothered by this at all.



Like Gollum left alone in a cave for a very long time, with only a ring of bitter memories to keep him company through the ages, the Littlest Hobo had been building an army of suicide pilots, ready to wreak murderous and bloody revenge upon his former friends and allies in Xelas.

Although the tracherous story had been tremendously enthralling to listen to, I worried for the safety of my friends in Xelas, whose company I had enjoyed immensely, and I now wondered if they would find themselves violently extinguished by a vengeful pork chipolata...

In a magnanimous act of fried breakfasts, he then informed me that I too could harness the power of the sausage people...



In my continuing spirit of neutrality, I wished him success with his imminent campaign, and I then continued in my fantastical exploration of the holy land of Robert...


(to be continued...)