For those who have not seen the Dominion trailer for EVE online I highly recommend it. Though it does not accurately reflect typical Null sec fleet PVP it is interesting spin on how a actual fight went down.
My first thought of Null sec before this trailer was that it was a wasteland of destruction where only the best survived similar to PVP only areas in Everquest or Star Wars Galaxies. The Dominion trailer (regardless of how it in-accurately depicted typical fleet battles) got me highly motivated to go to Null sec.
When Shepards of the dead were formed it was basically me, Jimmynooo, Crigga (CEO) and Avermaki. Shortly after the wormhole exodus and the dissolution of the old alliance several members that were good friends of Crigga's who were in other corps at the time came to join us. After some talk we formed up and discussed plans to go to Null sec.
In order for us as a corp to go down there, there was basically two ways.
1:Become pets
2:Form a alliance and force our way into 0.0 space
Option 1 was out of the question, pets have to pay rent, almost never get to go out on invasion fleets. Typically all they ever do is rat to afford the ridiculous prices they have to pay for rent and home defense when the masters call for it.
That left option 2. We decided that even with option 2 we would need strong financial backing to afford ships , skill books modules and w/e we needed so we could keep our PVPers well stocked. To that end we began plans for setting up a high sec POS and worked on getting standings up.
Not too long after that we join a alliance which was apart of a small coalition of alliances with the aim to join with Gentlemens club as partners not pets. However due to the crap politics that went on with this coalition we had to move our bases of operations from Mimmnitar space to Caldari and back about 3 times.
To put it bluntly we were fed up. It was around this time, the alliance we were in broke off from the small coalition yet retained its focus for 0.0 space. Led by "Jerseys Best Dancers" aka JBD and "Black Tower Syndicate" aka BTS who were a null sec corp for a short period of time. They brought in two more corps to our alliance and we constructed a high sec pos in a system called Steggete which was surrounded by two low sec systems which acted as a double edged sword.
On the one hand it was a buffer keeping most griefers and would be spys away on the other hand a fair amount of PVPers would come heading to neighboring systems making it a risky base of operations.
Around this time Crigga's computer suffers complications and dies. After about 2 weeks of leadership void I step up to become the defacto CEO and try to get operations underway, mining ops, WH ops, and continue our plans to Null sec.
Meanwhile our alliance takes on a new corp named "Virgina Company".
By taking them in this earned our alliance 2 war decs. Which with some effort were fought off and eventually dropped. I never did confirm how they got the war decs but if VC's behavior in alliance chat was anything of a indicator its no surprise that they did and that we would get more because of the behavior of their players.
After the 5th War dec me along with the alliance leadership determined enough was enough and decided to fight against our enemies as they were active in hunting us. (particularly VC members). We organize 11-20 man fleets and station camp them to which they play station games with us and score kills every now and then.
BTS, and SOTD (our corp) commit the majority of the forces but either get turned back or disband due to logoffski's. VC formed up for one fleet but was for the most part no shows for CTA's.
After a meeting with alliance leadership we decided to fall back to steggete if the enemy logged on and forced them to fight on the gates, on our terms where station games couldnt help them. It worked and they're attacks were practically non existent for a few days. Sadly several VC members got complacent started traveling to Dodixie with war targets online and got camped ganked or worse. Dont get me started on the idiocy that was their corp leaders.
Fed up with VC the war decs and the inaction of the founders of the alliance SOTD pulls out on my command.
The war targets threat to re'dec us unless a ransom is paid which I told them to "put their money where their mouth was" and went back to the drawing board to get to Null sec. They never carried out their threats.
BTS one of the main corps who fought and died with us in the last war decided to continue our working together in the name of eventually getting to null sec. No official alliance was formed but we set each other to blue +10 and continued to operate as usual. Plans were formed and we started research and production to get capital up to afford the various things a Null sec corp would eventually need. The foundation of logistics and ship production were essential.
After a very long talk with a friend of mine in Project Nemesis we discovered and enacted a plan for a 3rd option to get into Null sec.
A Mega corp.
A mega corp isn't anything like a alliance or a standard corporation. It is a corporation merger into a new entity. A new larger corporation. The plan was to combine BTS's and SOTD's industrial players and PVPers to become strong and more productive as a single entity, eventually get more corps to merge with us and join yes join not become pets with a Major Null sec alliance.
At first the plan met with resistance from BTS leadership who wanted to take offers to join with a already established Null sec corp. I argued that neither corp was ready for the move to Null sec yet as we needed more players and our current players to become more skilled. There was also offers for us to join Systematic Chaos but again the same argument was made, We simply were not ready as a whole.
Ultimately after several meetings it was decided by all involved that the most logical way for both corps to make it into Null sec would be the Mega corp. Egos would have to be set aside, leadership would be restructured and agreed on by all party's involved and above all patience and dedication to work towards the common goal.
This did not come to pass. One of the directors in our corp attempted a coup once he discovered he would not retain his director status in the new corp (which failed horribly as he is a idiot). BTS also showed signs of not wanting to commit even after agreeing that they would. And our official CEO was still MIA.
Eventually BTS's impatience and eagerness to return to null sec proved to be the undoing of the Mega corp. They had secretly taken the offer to join a null sec corp who owned 1 sov system and had backed out of their agreement with SOTD. They had also secretly recruited several SOTD members into joining them.
Patience was not a virtue for them.
SOTD was left a broken mess. CEO still missing, several key players leaving to join BTS and some to join Systematic Chaos. All the work that I and several others had been putting into getting SOTD to null sec were laid to waste.
I resigned my director position and left the corp.
I spent the next few days contemplating what I was going to do. I still wanted to go to null sec so I contacted my friend from PRONs who got me in touch with a friend of his in Majesta Empire in a corp called Reliables INC. aka 23-7.
I wasnt even sure if i was ready for null sec but after talking to both my friend from PRONs and the recruiter in 23-7 they were confident that I was qualified. Which isnt saying much imo.
In retrospect I really wished I had moved things down there before I joined wouldve had a few less loss's. At the time I joined 23-7 they were involved in 3 war decs not to mention Max 2 was in full swing (NC vs SC) I was able to get the majority of my PVP ships and modules to the corps logistics system to be jumped down to our home system.
I knew things in this corp was going to go well when I had packed up my gear to the letter where the carrier pilot who helped me haul my stuff down said "This is the easiest move Ive ever had to do for a new guy...I like you already"...
Before I continue Ill say this
Visiting Null sec
and living in it are two very very very different things.
I knew this before even coming up to the North. But I never pictured how right I ended up being. I basically relearned how to play the game. Bought a note book and pen. Took tons of notes. (which is really helpful to new null sec pilots I highly recommend it)
But that is the end of my EVE story thus far.
Ill start my Null sec story next time. Or at least The story thus far.
Let the good times roll
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