Eve has an especially sensitive player base when it comes to these sorts of things, and most players tend to learn this early on in their careers. The majority of people and most group mentalities tend to gravitate towards the one rule: “You’re either with us or against us” and that is an incredibly simplistic approach that leaves you locked into rigid situation without flexibility or social mobility. Players tend to rally around a clan and the only people who can be trusted or worked with all tend to stand beneath the same flag. This is a mistake in my opinion, to be blindly loyal to a group and all those in said group simply because you fly beneath the same banner. Every alliance has its heroes and villains, selfless individuals and cowards, Awoxers, thieves, liars, and the morally corrupt. They also tend to have their fair share of positive individuals, those who honestly wish to work together to build something great, who are truly loyal people and are willing to put aside differences in order to be successful. This is one of the things that makes Eve Online such an incredible game and such an amazing environment in which to grow.
In regards to myself, however, I have never been loyal to any group in my career. This is both true in real life and true in Eve Online. The idea that you belong to a group or an organization and give yourself to all those underneath the same flag simply because they also stand below it is a foreign concept to me. I have always been the sort of individual who is anti-authority, and I have always disliked society and been the sort to buck the establishment. I prefer to walk my own path rather than follow, however I am not so blind as to not see, understand and value the benefits that such groups are capable of bringing. Despite my reservations I enjoy the perks of belonging to a group and I honor and respect the desires and goals of the foundation and choose to do my part in order to advance the agenda of the whole. This, however, is not what I consider loyalty, but more of a social obligation to benefit the community that I have joined.
For me, I will never be loyal to an organization, or a cause, or any sort of flag. It is the individuals serving beside me that bind me in any one direction. I honor and respect the group and the flag that I might fly under at the time, but it is truly with the individuals and personalities that my loyalty ultimately lay. The people whom I have shared experiences, fought side by side with, whose bullshit I have endlessly listened to, who have worked beside me to accomplish goals… These are the people whom I belong to, those who I support and those who command my absolute loyalty. In a place like Eve, groups and players fracture and rearrange constantly, often sending people you respect and trust to opposite ends of the universe. Therefore, I have friends and brothers in all places, all enjoying the game and having differing experiences.
This belief or core foundation has always left me in an interesting situation, where people are really not quite sure how to deal with me. Take my recent entry into Test alliance for example. When I first joined, I didn’t actually know anyone, and every single day when I logged in I would always wave hello in both my corp and in alliance chat to greet my peers. On one of these occasions, and to my utter delight, a good friend and former comrade waved back: Ikech, a good guy and a British Limey Bastard who I had the good fortune to fly with back in WhysoSerious, and again in Color. Through him, I was introduced to others. I met L2azor, another entertaining character, I came across Legasis and had an entertaining troll war, sat in Mumble and bullshat with Sapporo Jones, who comes across as a bored line member who was forced against his will to be the executor of Test alliance. You meet others in various groups, from Sygma of A4D, a great guy, Pleiners, a badass solo pvper who is also hysterical to chat with and a crazed Batman loner, to others like Rots Mijinwerker, good guy and former executive of WHYSO, to Abinus Sertan, a former comrade and awesome dude, Jaon43 a former leader of Razor alliance, now with Origin, who always took the set some time aside to bullshit with all his new members. You meet incredible people as you go along throughout your career, and it is these individuals who keep you coming back to the game and give you reasons to log in every day.
This brings me to why I am fighting the current conflict, why I am with Test alliance and why I am anti-Goon. When I first started Eve Online back in 2009, the very first thing I learned was to never, ever, trust a Goon. This wasn’t a narrative that I was fed, nor was it propaganda from people who did not like Goons. When I began playing, I quickly learned about things like scamming, lying, deception, deceit and the people who would intentionally go out and shit on others, those who had no morals and just want to make people miserable. Many of my friends, people whom I cared about, were harmed by them, new players fresh into the game who spent 100$ of their own money to get a few nice things and wanted to have fun and play the game were robbed and destroyed of everything they had by the Goons. They would invite people to join their corp and steal everything, from innocent people who didn’t know better, that just happened to be decent and trusting and who wanted nothing more than to belong and have fun. They got slandered and laughed at all over Eve for being idiots and falling to Goon shit. Many of the people I met had their lives ruined and the only actual solace and escape they could have from real life was torn apart by that group of bloody thugs. On top of that, anyone that ever tried to accomplish something or build and create something was horribly shat on without any form of remorse simply because there was literally nothing that they could do except die. And then these people would gloat about it and thump their collective chests because they were not out to ruin THE GAME, they just wanted to ruin YOUR game. I myself have never been a victim, because I do my research and I’m a bit paranoid and information to me was always the most powerful tool at my disposal. But my friends, the people whom command my loyalty, those who I have felt a responsibility to look out for have been victimised time and time again, so when the call came out to finally fight, I resubscribed my accounts and jumped right into Test alliance to do absolutely anything and everything in my power to get justice and to see those sons of bitches burn.
-Sanai Nobuseri
