Hello, I am Seraph IX Basarab, Covert Ops enthusiast, meta gamer, lowsec citizen of means and professional rain dancer. (Put out your tear buckets.) I study history, military strategy, and foreign policy and enjoy applying them within Eve in my spare time. I’m not a reporter or a journalist, I write opinion pieces made up of MY opinions. Some of you will enjoy my opinions, others of you will not. I welcome both reactions.
With no exaggeration, this is the single biggest shake up in Eve in the last 4 or 5 years by far. If implemented properly, which right now gauging by the screaming in 0.0 circles, I assume it is, we’re going to see a shattered map of the current powers. Both blue croissant wanted 0.0 fixed, but not fixed in the sense of “solved” but rather “fixed in their favor” like weighted dice.
I thought it quite telling that CSM candidates from both the CFC and N3/PL have been purged from their respective alliances. Reasons were given that the CSM candidate did not communicate well enough with the player base they represented or that they did not over see the new changes in such a way favorable to 0.0 alliances. Both of these claims may be true, but in what regards? CSM candidates did not communicate (AKA spill the beans) to 0.0 power blocs and THAT is what upset them because that is the sort of “communication” is expected. Anyone who thinks otherwise is idealistic at best.
Other members of the CSM have shown their sense of entitlement at not knowing more details about the up coming “jumpocalypse.” Talk about self importance. The basic reasoning why they were not given all or most of the details is because it’s impossible to prevent that information to be spread. You don’t think that each CSM candidate belonging to a major 0.0 power, doesn’t have the personal cell phone of their respective leader? The moment CCP would give such a CSM any information, they would call their 0.0 alliance and give them a heads up. “The other side will do it, why shouldn’t I?” And they’d be right.
We’ve all heard it before. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. It’s known that there is a correlation between having power and corrupt and unethical behavior. But beyond that one someone with greater power is corrupt, its affects are greater. A police officer being corrupt may affect a particular town. If a prime minister or president is corrupt the affects are greater. Now what sort of corruption do you think happens in an entity such as the CFC or N3/PL? How corrupt can an entity that holds that much power get?
As most of you do, I have alts. Most people have alts for mining or hauling or a specific specialty for pvping. I have alts for seeing and listening and I like to get very familiar with various groups in Eve. I even like to get familiar with the renter alliances and the people who run them. I’ve had alts in BoT, NAdot, and Greater Western. Agreements were made specifically out of Eve and a familiar and common question was always asked.
“Are you planning on botting?” Now the first time I thought this would be a warning NOT to do that. But the thing said afterward left no ambiguity to the situation: “Because if you are, such and such system would be better suited.” And “No point paying for a piece of pie you can’t finish.”
So for those who haven’t caught what this person was throwing, they’re asking if I’m planning to use bots to rat and if so suggesting a more expensive system. And if I do not plan on using bots, there’s no point in me paying for such a system.
This is funny considering Mittens had made a proposal to make each individual system in 0.0 more valuable so that fewer systems could support more players. But we’ll get to that later.
Where there is power, there is corruption, where there is corruption there is botting and RMTing. And you can make an alt and a spare e mail and contact a renter retailer in 0.0 and see for yourself.
So both sides want to maintain their power so that they can continue to RMT. But how does each side do it? The CFC does it by raw numbers. Their doctrines are made up of cheap fit T1 ships that they can throw en masse at their enemy. N3/PL on the other hand has fewer people but their skill point requirement is much higher. They prefer to use caps where they can. If we remember the debate over sentry carriers during the Halloween War the argument behind it all was who should have the advantage, fewer numbers with high skill points or greater numbers with low skill points?
Mittani took the time from running a space empire to write about the “apex force.” He wrote about how we should limit the ability for caps to blink across the map but when it came to sub caps, things were just fine. The CFC relies on mass of numbers to fight and win. The jump limitations, if applied only to caps, would weaken N3/PL and strengthen the CFC. Plenty of CFC directors and writers are already up in a rage about the fact that the jump changes will affect non cap ships as well. So in CCP’s vision for Eve, both the CFC and N3/PL lose out concerning their “win factor.” CFC cannot throw masses of people around and N3/PL cannot throw masses of caps around.
It’s natural for both sides to fear for their empire’s well being. The Roman Empire expanded so greatly in large part to its ability to project its forces quicker than others by the use of their roads. Imagine if at the height of the Roman Empire, their paved roads turned to dirt and mud. They would have great losses to their opponents. Both the CFC and N3/PL stand to lose great swathes of territory.
The current map can show us where this will happen to some extent:
For example the CFC is divided by Outer Ring NPC space with Fountain, Delve, Querious and Period Basis in the south. It’s not sustainable to hold those areas if force projection capabilities will be limited. They would always have to pass through Outer Ring NPC 0.0 space which may become problematic depending on who is there. The Initiative is a fairly strong alliance in and by itself. FA, and LAWN on the other hand, at least in their current form, will always need to bend the knee to CFC leadership in order to hold the territory that they have.
In the east we see an expansive divide south of the Drone Regions. Currently large areas of the Drone Regions are held by NAdot rather than BoT. After Jumpocalypse it may not be as viable or beneficial for PL to allow NCdot to hold territory that far into the Drone Regions.
0.0 is full of such examples. I cannot wait to see what the map will look like at the start of 2015. This winter will truly be one of the epic multi front conflicts and we should not listen to those in power that simply wish to maintain the status quo.
Your empires will fall and you will be assailed on all sides from allianceswho you may have never even considered a threat before. Let it burn burn burn.
– Seraph IX Basarab
