Smilies

Apparently I now own a house. Also some 13-year-olds are doing "something" with spray cans in front of it. Mysterious!

But holy shit, sometimes people are weird. Some old guy just went to the trouble of making his son find my telephone number just to tell me this. Too bad he apparently was full of shit, since nothing he said had anything to do with our house. Starting at the point that I don't own a house, I just have an apartment in one. Which should be easy to see, because there's like a dozen names plastered on our front for all the tenants in the house. Also he couldn't even remember the adress he "looked at from my car's window", which is even weirder.

Maybe though he will have the last laugh! If I go out to work tomorrow and there's a giant smily spraypainted on our front door, the joke will be on me!

Lazyness and the Writer

Yeah, it has been sometime, right?

Sorry about my lazyness, I just didn't feel like updating this blog. So what noteworthy things happened I could talk about?

Welp, today we let a pigeon free again after a long period of recovery. The little dumbass rammed a wall so hard, some of her bones broke. This was a month ago and according to the vet, the last x-ray was looking good and she was already pretty damn active again.

I collected the little flyer yesterday evening and the kid who found the pigeon took her out today on his way to school. Case closed, one pigeon saved from a gruesome death.

In EVE Online, nothing much happend. I think the most noteworthy thing there was me spending all my industry alt's money on P1-materials to make my own mountain of Wetware Mainframes. My P4-computer industry is a lot slower then I accounted for, though. Now I have to wait until all that stuff is slowly churned through my factory planet and sold. Woops!

Oh, and I tried PVP again and got dumpstered. 

That's it for today!

Storytime: Last Report

A couple of weeks ago I had this weird idea of an alien report salvaged from the ocean after an invasion of Earth had been beaten back. This is the thing after I finally got around to finish it.

Last Report

Download finished, starting read-only process.

12th Absum 3990

The colony ships have successfully made waterfall on EZ-45-P3. Construction of first cities is beginning. We are ready for the next wave of colonists.

15^th Absum 3990

First intrusion detected: Unknown semi-organic composites have sunken into the safe area. Research organisms have been dispatched.

3^rd Benthal 3990

According to our research teams, a warning has been issued to avoid contact with the alien composites at all costs. Especially the non-organic parts of the composites are incredibly toxic. Near-planet detection arrays show a disturbingly high amount of alien composites travelling at high altitudes, on the border to the dry space.

26^th Zym 3990

The second wave of colonists has arrived, just days after construction of City 1 and City 2 have been finished. A second and third intrusion of alien composites into the safe areas around the cities and construction sites have been detected. The second intrusion was deemed harmless, the third one came too close to the construction-organisms at site 3 and triggered a response from bio-defense.

Approximately 3% of construction equipment has been lost due to contamination with toxic materials raining down from the destroyed composite object.

27^th Zym 3990

A military expedition has arrived above EZ-45-P3. The Central Council has decided the alien composites have to go. At the very least the border zone to dry space needs to be cleared. The expedition makes waterfall in the evening, above City 1 and City 2.

4^th Cyc 3990

Military Expedition Command takes control over all sites, including the two finished cities. Suppression pheromones are released to calm down the colonists, which number several thousand by now. Civilian control is dismantled for the duration of the crisis and transported to deep storage.

2^nd Hadal 3990

The MEC declares mission accomplished: 34 intrusions into the safe areas have been detected, and subsequently cleared with military force. 76,000 alien composite objects of varying sizes have been successfully cleared from the border zone with minimal contamination of the ground. The water zone is now safe again for colonization.

3^rd Salin 3990

The MEC transports itself into deep storage, after commanding all military organisms to go dormant. The civilian authorities are taken out of storage and reassembled. Even though the aftermath of the military expedition is disturbingly chaotic, normal work resumes before the day ends.

5^th Absum 3991

Cities 3 and 4 are finished. Another batch of colonists arrives today. With this arrival, the total number of colonists has reached approximately 8,000 individual organisms. The MEC had to mobilize three times during the past months to defeat more intrusions.

It has been recommended to begin construction of dry space-capable research organisms to find the unknown source of the alien composites. However, the civilian authorities have assigned a low priority to this task, since most of the available resources are still needed to finish constructions of the Cities 5-6.

10^th Loram 3991

General alert has been raised in the morning: A large cluster of alien composite objects has breached the safe area above City 5 (still in construction). MEC is mobilizing a large enough force of organisms to deal with the thread. However, the civilian authority is allowed to function. Clearing the anomalous force of ACOs is deemed arduous, but ultimately harmless.

12^th Loram 3991

Catastrophe. Today will live in infamy. Yesterday, when the MEC-forces reached the critical threshold necessary for clearing the water above City 5, a tethered deep water probe was lowered down by the ACO-cluster. This was obviously an attempt for contact by an alien intelligence: Every authority was thrown into confusion by this. The alien composite objects were up to this point, at best seen as some sort of dry space animal. 

After a couple hours of observation, one small MEC-cluster was ordered to capture the probe for analysis. Several irrelevant suggestions by the civilian authorities had been suppressed. As soon as the MEC-cluster made physical contact with the alien probe, an unknown weapon was triggered. 55% of the MEC-clusters around the probe were destroyed. For some reason a lot of damage was done to the ACOs above, too.

Even though the event cleared up the waters above City 5, all other news are bad. The MEC ordered their last ship to make waterfall, so they can strip it and construct more clusters. City 5 has stopped functioning. A deadly rain of alien composites has further harmed construction. Several hundred colonists are dead and until the composite-rain can be stopped, the site has to be abandoned. 

We’re on our own now and we have lost one of our cities.

21^st Salybsa 3991

A lot of things happened during the last two months. The MEC has fought a fierce, but ultimately futile war against the ACOs. Or better, against the unknown intelligence controlling it. Since our satellite-arrays are still working, the civilian authorities have been analyzing all available data of the dry space of this world, hoping to find a sign of that strange out-of-water hive mind controlling the alien composite objects. 

But nothing could be found. After recalibrating our satellites using salvaged alien materials as a gauge, we at least found an enormous amount of the alien composites hidden all over dry space! It seems colonization planning was faulty. Though it has been argued no-one could have expected masses of seemingly intelligent metalloid-organic hybrid compounds to live on this planet. And even outside the normal life-zone of a water planet!

2^nd Salin 3991

A horrid thing was discovered today: The Military Expedition Command had been clearing alien probes for some time before the disaster above City 5. The MEC had for some reason refused to give this information to the civilian authorities. This breach of protocol is unforgivable! 

The information was salvaged after a MEC-cluster, damaged by fighting ACOs at the border to dry space, broke down in the middle of City 1. Civilian repair units recovered the cluster and by analyzing the memory organs, inadvertently ate the knowledge we now have. The civilian authorities have informed the colonist organisms and started building diplomatic units to make real contact with the alien intelligence. The MEC has been ordered to stand down according to Bio Protocol Control CR-45. Only self-defense is allowed under this control bio protocol.

3^rd Salin 3991

The MEC has not complied. MEC-clusters have attacked and destroyed 76% of the civilian authorities. MEC-minds have stated the alien composite objects are too dangerous for us, regardless of potential intelligence. The MEC has taken over all control functions, stating Emergency Reason 23.

6^th Salin 3991

Riots by colonist organisms have damaged City 2. All progress on the colonization-effort has been stopped by the MEC. Massive amounts of calming pheromones are released by the now combined civil-military authorities. This observation unit has been ordered to stop observing and recording current events and will now comply.

15^th Ordyh 3992

This unit has been reactivated. More then a year has passed since the last recording of current events.

 

Analysis of available information paints a bleak flesh canvas. Only half the colonists are still alive. City 5 is still empty and partially destroyed. Construction on City 6 has not been restarted. City 1 and 2 are showing signs damage. Apparently the calming pheromones were not enough to stop the riots and they spread to another city. City 3 and 4 are fine, but the colonist organisms inside are barely functional. The cloud of pheromones around the cities is far too dense for normal life to resume.

MEC-units are still fighting the alien composites. Apparently the alien intelligence has given up its attempts to make contact. It also has stopped all attempts to intrude into water space. In fact, the MEC-clusters are fighting on the other side of the border now, deep in dry space!

More data analysis is necessary to find out the reason for this.

17^th Ordyh 3992

MEC has made contact with this unit. I am supposed to witness the final purge of the alien composite objects from this world. During my enforced stasis, the MEC has slowly melted the massive amounts of frozen water on both poles. The MEC states they had analyzed the collected data about the alien intelligence nearly a year ago and noticed how many of the metalloid-organic hybrid compounds are gathering near the border to water space, just on the dry side. 

The combined civil-military authorities guessed those compound-aggregations are important to the alien minds. They based this on facts like them swimming on the border above us and their main concentrations being near the border, too. 

The melting of the frozen water let the border expand and engulf most of the alien aggregations, just as planned. Most alien activities near the border to dry space soon ceased. Now a massed force of specialized MEC-clusters is supposed to clean out survivors by invading dry space openly. The new clusters are adapted to the low-pressure, zero-water environment of dry space.

I am to witness the xenocide. This unit makes a note: Central Authority considers xenocide and the thoughts leading up to it as dangerous deviation from the norm. If this colony ever makes contact again with the CA, we will be wiped out. I despair.

4^th Absum 3993

The dry space offensive has been a massive failure. During the first days the MEC-clusters reported massive amounts of enemy composite objects destroyed. But apparently the MEC has massively underestimated the amounts of metalloid-organic hybrid compounds the alien intelligence is made of: Counter-attacks from deeper in dry space have driven the specialized clusters back into the water again and again. Heavy losses have been reported.

It seems we are as badly adapted to dry space as the ACO-intelligence is to water space. I can not see a way for this to end in our favor. It is my duty to inform the authorities of my observation and reasoning.

5^th Absum 3993

I have been ordered to shut down until the planet is fully cleared from the alien intelligence. I have no choice and will comply.

25^th Loram 3993

The civilian authority has reinstated my functions and ordered me to observe current events again.

As I can gather from available information, the military expedition command has ceased to exist. The civil-military authority has reverted back to civilian control, but it is barely able to function. City 1 is destroyed. City 2 is destroyed. City 3 is destroyed. City 4 is under attack my unknown alien composite objects. Connections to local organisms are already breaking down. The alien intelligence uses a strange wave weapon to disperse organic compounds. The CA could probably find a counter for this, but this colony is already too damaged for proper analysis of alien technologies.

City 5 is still abandoned. Construction in City 6 is still paused. I assume City 6 will never be finished now.

The civilian authority is now placed in City 6, to coordinate defense. There’s not much left to defend now, though. At some point during the last months unknown metalloid weapons have struck at our bio-satellites and destroyed our array. We are now blinded to dry space. And most of water space.

26^th Loram 3993

All contact to City 4 has been lost. The city is assumed destroyed. The civilian authority of this colony informs me unknown attack objects of metalloid composition are getting close to City 6, which harbors the last couple hundred surviving colonists.

27^th Loram 3993

The last day of this month. The last day of our colony. City 6 and all colonist organisms left have been exterminated. I am lost.

This unit will now copy this observation of current events onto several dormant bio-probes and expulse them from my body. Hopefully at least one of them will survive and be salvaged by the CA. It is of the utmost importance that the Central Authority is informed of the abnormal malfunction of the military expedition command protecting this colony.

This unit will now purge it’s memory organs and cease functioning. Copy process stops now.

Context:

This information was extracted from an unknown alien organism found burrowed into the sediment 2,3 km west from the sixth alien base destroyed during Operation: Payback.

Researchers at the University of Aberdeen successfully translated this information into readable English after several years of multi-national work. At this point it is still unknown how reliable the translation is. The destruction of the alien invaders was so total, not much has been salvaged which could possibly verify any of this.

Until more readable alien information-organisms can be found and brought back to the surface without accidentally damaging them, this text should be considered mostly speculation. 

However, the text can still be used to give a glance at the inner workings of a truly alien mind.

Central Database University of Aberdeen

Last recorded change: 22nd July 2055

Secret calendar:

270 days a year, 27 days a month, 10 months a year.

Every month has 5 weeks: 4x 5 days and a “end week” with 7 days.

The months are:

1^st Absum

2^nd Benthal

3^rd Zym

4^th Cyc

5^th Loram

6^th Hadal

7^th Salybsa

8^th Salin

9^th Therimin

10^th Ordyh

Strange Happenings or The Great Bird Rescue

Yeah I know, I know I should write more stuff more often. Sorry, but other stuff kind of sidetracked me.

But today some dumb shit happened, so I got inspired to write a little bit about it:

It was just after 8 pm, I had just started to plan some project of mine and wanted to start on some term paper for university next, when the son of my neighbours knocked on my door.

My apartment is some weird-ass basement dwelling with huge metal bars on my one main window. That window overlooks our houses' central garden. So every time the neighbour's kid goes out to feed the bunnies living inside a huge rabbit hutch in said garden, he walks past my door into a long, winding hallway leading out to the garden. Then he walks past my main window. So we see each other a lot. Since I also get paid to give him private school lessons, we know each other well.

So of course I'm not surprised by him intruding into my work. I just sigh, get up and walk to the door to find out what he wants. Turns out two young jays got caught in the monstrous cat-protection net another neighbours uses. The jays looked pretty far gone by the time I got to take a look at them, so I went back in and called our local animal shelter. I had no idea what else to do, our neighbour up there wasn't home and we didn't knew the kid's father had a key for emergencies stashed away.

Obviously it was too late to get somebody at the animal shelter. Less obviously, the answering machine of the shelter told me I should contact my local police station in case of emergency. Which I did, wondering a bit at the same time if calling the police wasn't total overkill. A minute later I went out again to look after the birds and of course slipped on the shitty and extremely slippy floor in that stupid basement-tunnel leading to our garden. Got a nice bloody gash on my arm from that.

Half an hour later a police car arrived and a nice police man and woman got out. They too looked at the mess and finally called our local animal rescue. Which I didn't knew was a thing. Oops! The policemen took my phenomenal ability to waste their time in stride, though.

A couple minutes later a fire service van with the nice and friendly letters Tierrettung (animal rescue) on the side arrived and it looked steadily better for the by now exhausted birds.

After a while the kid's father arrived while animal rescue and police were just entering the house next door (we had finally determined we'd probably never get a ladder long enough through the long, narrow hallway from the frontdoor into the garden), to get to the balcony right next to the one under the one the two jays were caught in.

Yeah I know, that sounds convoluted, but for some reason the police didn't want to break into someones apartment just to save some birds. And the animal rescue wasn't allowed to. So we kind of had to work around the easy option here.

Luckily by then we got a key to the right apartment, entered together with the rescuers and the police and saved the birds.

The two jays were in astonishingly good shape and after carrying them back down and freeing them in the garden, they immediately took flight. Two birds: Saved.

100% OP success and I learned to call the fire service next time instead of listening to weird robot-voices. A nice end to a chaotic evening.

UK Elections

Just a funny thing: Today I learned two parties are dominating Great Britain, like totally. It's like the USA 2.0.

For some reason this really struck a chord with me, since it pains me seeing people punishing themselves so much.

I also learned: The UK doesn't have a constitution like we have, and parties can have millions of votes and only gain one seat in parliament if they're lucky.

From above, the UK looks like a weird dictatorship with a monarch on top. The people have to vote for a non-main party in such massive numbers it's hard to make any changes.

The UK election system is deeply flawed.

University at Mad

Today is a great day! For two months, the brave students of the University of Applied Arts and Sciences Hannover have waited for their grads in Publishing Architectures to arrive!

And with great lateness, about halfway through the sign-up period for the exams of the following semester, they're here!

But minus the sarcasm, I'm glad this is done with. We were doing XMLs and stuffs to automatically create manuals for a full week, all day long -followed by building a manual for ourselves with what we learned about how DITA works.

It was nice enough to learn, I suppose. At least now if I get to work as a technical writer and my company is using this shit, I at least can work with it reasonably well. But man, cramming the material of an entire semester into a single week should be forbidden.

Now, my term paper had some serious weeknesses build on being overworked and stressed out in it, but it still got me a 2.0 and I will take it like a man. (I guess in the Anglo-Saxon world this would translate to a "B" or something.)

Another step to my Bachelor of Engineering reached.

Next time: Going through my stash of EVE Online screenshots again. Also something about implants, I think.

Mosaic Musings

So, Mosaic happened. Sadly, I was preoccupied with work and getting home in Elite: Dangerous from a month-long expedition into the galaxy, so I couldn't do much in EVE since the patch landed.

But what I'm hearing about the ongoing story seems neat, so I'm hoping I can put in some EVE-time next weekend.

At least I made some money in selling skin-licenses that got converted from my stash of skin-BPCs and skinned ship. Right now I'm thinking how to best sell the small pile of Confessor I've made before the patch. (The Confessor is one of the new T3-destroyers and in Mosaic, the material requirements for building them and the Svipul went up, so if you build them beforehand, you can get a few extra million ISK profit per unit sold.)

Should I wait, hoping for some slight increase in price when the ships over-build by industrials before the patch are churned through and production numbers are normal again? Or should I just dump it on the market now for an easy profit?

Decisions, decisions.

A Loveletter to the Stratios

The Stratios is one of my eternal favourites. Weren't it for my eternally empty wallets and it's eternally high price, I'd probably fly around in it a lot.

It looks good, it can warp cloaked and it has decent DPS. The ability to tank more than a couple wet blankets lazily drifting towards you is a nice bonus.

There aren't many ships like the Stratios in EVE. For me, it's mostly either form or function, never both. The Stratios is one of the few ships were good looks and abilities I actually need meet.

Thanks to having a cruise-missile Raven lying around when the Stratios and her little sister, the Astero-frigate, was added to the game, I was able to grind down loyalty points and lay my hands on a Stratios-BPC. That blueprint copy was then transformed into the real deal.

For a while, I went mad and simply flew around everywhere with my Stratios.

My love for the ship even temporarily neutralized my hate for the strange loot spew system and I went around looking for interesting stuff. Which in EVE-terms means I collected a lot of garbage.

Since back in loot-spew days exploration was a horrid mess, I went into W-Space again. With decent DPS I thought "What's the worst that can happen?"

Something not immediately obvious if aren't experienced enough, the laser-bonus the Stratios has is utterly useless. 50% more range sounds like a lot, but even if you cram everything full with modules trying to get the damage-output higher, it still falls flat on it's face.

If you want to fly the Stratios, better que up some drone skills. Drones are the main weapon the Stratios has. If you want to use the ship in PVP, you can either try energy-neutralizer or blaster weapons to give you an edge. A PVP-fit isn't even preventing you from doing exploration-content on the side, since you can refit with a mobile depot.

The ship after my first warp-out. Lasers alone didn't help, fancy that.

At the time I still was stubbornly refusing to use the Stratios as a drone ship. A combination of lasers and T2-medium drones was what I was going with. Even in a C1-wormhole system, using only medium drones and three medium lasers without damage bonus was a chore. Sleeper-drones are quite hardy.

After a while, this thing showed up and my badly fit Stratios couldn't do anything about it.

Some fancy usage of my covert-cloak and creative warping around allowed me to collect some sleeper-loot under the nose of that sleeper-battleship. All in all, this little day trip wasn't that bad.

So I went home. Which in turn gives me today the excuse to post this picture. I just can't get enough from screenshotting the Stratios! (This one ended somewhere close to the border of Stain. Running gatecamps at 3am in the morning is not recommended.)

For some reason I could never get into the Astero, by the way. I really tried to love this little frigate, but writing this post made me realize I love cruisers far too much, so that Astero I lost a while ago is probably the last one I'll ever fly. Sad, isn't it?

EVE Easter Extravaganza III: The Finishing Line

Yeah, technically it's not Easter anymore. But I got annoyed enough today, so I declare today to be Easter Wednesday and finish this. (Seriously, someone pushed my doorbell so hard it broke and the fucker let himself into the building. We're lucky that guy was no stranger trying to rob us. Now I hear the faint buzzsound of the door being permanently kept open. I can only hope our property management can repair our doorbell soon, it's ridiculous otherwise. And pretty damn unsafe, I'll bet.)

And now that I've typed this, our door luckily has locked itself shut again and the buzzing sound is a lot fainter now. My doorbell and opener are still broken, though.

Welp, let's get on with this.

The Odyssey Odyssey III: The Last Great Run

Mysterious station-ruins in Lonetrek. Another scary little stage of our odyssey through New Eden.

The Traumark-Ruins. Once a mighty Amarrian fortress, now fallen into the hands of Sansha-pirates.

One of the more bizzare requests from CCP was a screenshot of Prime Arkonor. And here it is.

Not really one of the requests, I think. But I travelled through a lot of wormholes anyway during this long journey.

Another weird request: A screenshot of dead people. (Other people, that was specified for some reason.)

The next screenshot on our list was a burning capsule. Normally that's kind of hard to get, since capsules are quite flimsy and tend to explode too fast for a screenshot. Like this picture shows, I was willing to try it the real way first.

My plan was simple: Taunt pirates in Rancer, famous for being a (real player) pirate stronghole. Then when blown up, make a few snapshots of my crumbling capsule just before the final explosion, done. So here I am, pretending to be an ice miner while being in a frigate.

Yeah, I really didn't think that one through.

In hindsight, the entire idea was stupid. I hope those poor pirates can forgive me for this. I must have had a very, very low opinion of their intelligence to even try this stunt. Claiming to be in a Hulk? What the hell was I thinking here? Apparently I just kind of hoped the bloodthirsty pirates would warp to me without ever looking at d-scan and wondering why this little frigate was pretending to mine chunks of ice larger than the ship itself.

After a while I actually got some guys to bite on my bait. They bit down so hard my reflexes couldn't keep up.

Here is my second attempt in a Crucifier-frigate. (Interestingly, this weird misshapen lump of metal is what the Crucifier looked like before the redesign.)

But again I die too fast to get the picture I need, so I finally see reason and order one of my alts to fire on my capsule in a sanctioned HighSec-duel.

This is what success looks like.

I went a bit overboard and made enough screenshots of my burning pod I could re-arrange the pictures for a short animated film. Seriously, those two shots are just the highlight-reel.

Poitot. One of the few named places outside of High- and LowSec. It's always a funny joke to see if a newbie actually tries travelling to Poitot before noticing Poitot isn't in HighSec.

A black hole system in W-Space. What CCP wanted was a screenshot of a Wolf-Rayet, the rarest of the rare systems with special effects in W-Space. Finding that one took the most time, so I made most of the other screenshots I needed by wildly teleporting around New Eden via Wormhole-Express.

Did you know Fountain belonged to Test once? That mighty player alliance has fallen on hard times again and again, but they're still going strong in some other region today. By coincidence I landed in Fountain just days before the last battle against the CFC and the fall of Fountain. Kind of funny how at the time, I was annoyed at all those people forcing me to be extra-careful and didn't think twice about what was happening.

A Pulsar-system. Still not what I need, but I'll take it.

Here I got excited, but this W-Space system turned out to have a red giant in it. Still a false positive.

Inbetween trying to find one of the elusive Wolf-Rayet systems, I made some pretty pictures of nebulae.

Either we needed two different nebulae, or I just made two screenshots just because. Honestly, I forgot. And who cares? The pictures are still nice enough.

Shintaht in Providence: Another named system in a sea of weird number/letter salads.

Finally! On my way to the last stage of the odyssey, I lucked out and found a Wolf-Rayet.

And after a last chain of wormholes, I reached the very last screenshot CCP demanded from us: Steve.

This is Steve. The first player-Titan ever destroyed. Now his wreck forever roams the starways.



And with this last screenshot, the Odyssey Odyssey was over. All screenshots were collected. Soon afterwards we collected our prizes and the contest was over.

Today I wish CCP would try something like this again, it was really fun! Sadly, in CCP's mind exploration is a niché so small, we don't even deserve a small line of exploration cruisers. Frigates, a faction pirate cruiser and whatever T3 or other ship we can rebuild to be a exploration vessel. That's all we get.

Now excuse me, I have to go back to my Pilgrim for another long-range voyage.

EVE Easter Extravaganza: The Great Odyssey Odyssey II

So, family matters decended upon me and waylaid this post, but we still have a couple hours left on Easter monday here, so technically it's still Easter!

Let's continue!

The Great Odyssey Rolls On

A Madman's Folly

The next stage of our journey was the legendary City of God, build by a crazed Amarrian emperor. Today only a ruin, thanks to not even faithful Amarrians taking his dumb shit anymore.

Sorry for my Stabber stumbling through the picture here

Next up: Choonka's Diner. Another weird landmark in Amarr-space. Apparently you can go there and get a mission. Choonka's Diner was part of a weird chain of missions, ending in nothing because the rest was never implemented.

A remnant of one of many battles in New Eden

Visiting the Mekinos-Graveyard made me sad. So much death and destruction...

Spacepolice Building Status: Demolished

On my list it was now time for the broken CONCORD-station in Yulai. May or may not be related to the events creating the Mekinos-Graveyard.

A tribute to players rising up against CCP

In a moment of selfdepricating humour, CCP decided to damage the monument they had created for the winners of some old, long forgotten contest in honour of players rising up against the evils of CCP. See also Monocle Gate.

Today the repairs have finally begun

This station suffered a lot of damage in some lore-related event. A large ship crashed into the station and killed some space-important NPCs. The station was left with parts of it still on fire until today. A few months ago the fire was supposed to have been stopped and the repairs have finally begun. (Note to self: Go visit it again to see if that's actually true.)

Not all pictures we had to made were related to sites in space. This picture was me politely answering questions in the in-game help channel.

This is one of many wormhole-screenshots I made. I forgot if we were supposed to do this, but I have several of them, so I guess the answer is yes?

The Myridian Strip. In LowSec and we were supposed to have our ship visible and uncloaked in the shot. Danger Level: Rising.

The Golgothian Fields. Same like the last pick, with additional angry NPCs added in.

One of many tries to catch a sunrise over a specific type of planet.

My best try.

Yes, you're seeing this right.

And forward, to more exciting adventures: The strange Black Monolith is deep into LowSec, close to the New Eden star system itself. The same star system which gave the name for the entire cluster we're living in.

Closeby was the ancient wormhole. It is said it leads to the realm of the dreaded Sansha.

Whatever happened over there, it sure was not good.

Another important pic: The remnants of the collapsed New Eden Stargate. On the other side of the gate was Earth. Our ancestors came from there. I stayed a bit in this system, just looking at the dead gate and thinking about this.

After the super-mysterious series of pictures, we're back to good old ruins in space. Here the Serpent's Coil.

Woah, looks like we need another part, this post is getting a bit long and I still have a ton of screenshots left. Let's finish this up in part 3!

EVE Easter Extravaganza: The Great Odyssey Odyssey I

It's Easter! Some guy was killed and revived like a character in a video game and we're celebrating his revival! (At least this is what I remember about Easter.)

Since our characters in EVE are also people who die and get revived all the time, this made me sit down and write up another blog post. EVE-related blog post, I mean.

Back in Summer '2013, I was playing for just about half a year and the changes made by the Odyssey-expansion set me ablaze again with the wish to explore! Kind of fitting for an exploration-themed expansion, if you ask me.

When the expansion hit, CCP came up with a contest for explorers: Travel around New Eden, make interesting screenshots from things CCP had given us as targets and get fabulous prizes. OK I lied, the prices were kind of shitty, but a lot of the targets were things I didn't even knew about at the time, so visiting them was a prize in itself.

In EVE it's kind of easy to forget, but real explorers are neither garbage collectors nor conquistadors only out for a quick buck. Sure, fame and money are a thing, but no explorer ever said to himself "Sure, I'll go risk my life and fortune on something which may or may not be turn out to be a complete dud. Also if someone is faster then me, I get fucked over royally. Sounds like fun!"

Because real explorers don't think like that. Getting fame and fortune takes only a second place to whatever goal we have set for ourselves. Remember the people who climbed up the Mount Everest? Yeah, me neither. But my point is, they didn't climb up because they thought money and fame would rain down upon them as soon as they reached the peak, they climbed up because the peak was there.

Likewise I'm drawn to all the weird and mysterious stuff CCP has sprinkled all over EVE. Sometimes it's stuff only a small group knows about, sometimes it's stuff even CCP has forgotten now. New Eden is full of mysteries, and a real explorer isn't travelling through New Eden to make money, he or she is travelling around to find and record those mysteries. Because they are there.

The Great Odyssey Begins

It was time for Odyssey. Loot spew was the shit (literally, and I'm not using the positive meaning here), but probe-changes made using the probing-UI less retardedly stupid, so all was well in my book.

One day, while playing around with Planetary Interaction, I accidentally noticed a new event by CCP: Targets were given out and a call went out to explorers to travel around making screenshots of the targets. Three waves of targets, easy, medium and hard, then exploration-related prizes were given out. Intrigued, I signed up immediately.

Honestly, this had gotten boring already.

Since the first wave was kind of easy, I outfitted one of my favourite T1-cruisers, the mighty Stabber, and flew off.

First target: Luminaire

The first screenshot was incredibly easy, just a picture of a planet in HighSec, interesting for lore-related reasons, but not really dangerous.

Onward!

One of the first screenshots was supposed to be a screenshot of your ship in warp. This was even easier then my first picture, for obvious reasons.

Something bad happened here...

Goal three was related to the Seyllin-incident. In LowSec and with some spooky lore attached, it was just so cool.

Some ruins I forgot the first time, so I had to go back.

Next time, I'll continue posting about the Odyssey of Odyssey.