Hello. My name is Seraph IX Basarab and I’m a writer/critic here at EN24. Recently I sat down with former LAWN member Gimora regarding his recent departure from his alliance. He is accused of having stolen about 60 billion isk before he left. As it often happens, the true story is more complicated than what is initially shown. The following is our interview.
Seraph Basarab: So you recently departed LAWN with around 60 billion isk value after a particular disagreement within your alliance escalated. But before that I want to know a bit more about you. When did you join LAWN and what drew you to them?
Gimora: I can say the beginning of that story is when I joined Easy Co. [EZCO] in FA before its collapse in fountain. I have played my EVE career as an industry and market player. I wanted to join a Null Sec corp that allowed me to maintain my big style of industry with all the perks of null sec. when FA collapsed I followed [EZCO] and my friends to LAWN in Vale.
I had high expectations of moving my large logistical play style into a one man Super and Titan builder with the CFC. I currently play with 38 active accounts haha.
Seraph Basarab: Quite an extensive operation. How many supers and titans would you say you built in your career?
Gimora: With LAWN alone I’d say 2 dozen is a fair estimate for the short amount of time I was operating. I began May of 2015 with my first set of “official” orders.
Seraph Basarab: According to LAWN leadership there was an issue when they asked you about 3 Wyverns that you had built. CFC generally keeps a close eye where the supers built in their territory go due to their fear of ending up like the Old Northern Coalition which sold most of the supers their conquerors would end up using against them. Can you shed some light on these 3 Wyverns?
Gimora: Of course. around early September I want to say I decided to move my 4 super pilots from Nyx to Wyverns amid a push of eventual shield supremacy. Seeing as I am a man with extensive means I wanted to buy them straight away because the effort of building for myself and the time commitment was too much. I had been shooting the shit with friends about us dropping Wyverns for fun on stuff and wanted to jump into it. So I made a thread on Imperium forums, WTB x3 Wyverns. Over the course of two weeks I received only 3 messages. One lead to the purchase of a Wyvern from a Miniluv director. The other two were dead ends, one person wouldn’t accept a decent offer. The other thought I was selling wyverns. I gave up on buying and said fuck it I’ll build them, So I gave the one I bought in YA0 to a friend who left LAWN to join goons and started the process. Roughly 3 weeks later I was pinged by Thoric Frosthammer with a link to EVE-O forums asking me to explain a pubbies post. The pubbie had posted something like: “I just bought 3 wyverns give me some time to find a sitter” it was an Aeon purchase thread. Someone had reported it as me. (fair to note the pubbie was BUYING supers…not selling).
Seraph Basarab: But those were not your wyverns?
Gimora: No, I am in no way connected to that pilot who posted on EVE-O forums.
Gimora: I found the thread.
Seraph Basarab: Aside from coincidence did Thoric offer any other evidence it may have been you?
Gimora: He did not, I explained it was not me, pointed out that the person was BUYING supers and not selling (which is legal in the Imperium even if it was me).
Seraph Basarab: So did they give some sort of ultimatum?
Gimora: At first it was all extremely casual. Throic had told me Mittens himself pinged Thoric. I have done extensive market seeding for goons in the past being pervy to opsec info and investing billions in premarket stuff. I also published a thread on the goons scamming forums where I reported a former LAWN Corp of trying to buy supers from me…We scammed them for 40b+ isk which I gave mostly to LAWN. I was a loyal player.
Seraph Basarab: So when did you decide you were going to part with a nice severance package? What exactly did Thoric and LAWN leadership do/say that got you thinking you had no alternative?
Gimora: This part got complicated very quickly so I’ll explain my perspective of it as best I can. As I said the first few days were very casual. I explained to my Diplo handling the case from LAWN’s side what was what and she relayed the info and I was told we are all on good terms everything is gonna check out and good to go. Goons wanted to know a lot of info, so I unbuckled my belt and bent for the rectal exam. I gave full access to Google Docs detailing all history of orders and build times. I then took the leap and gave them 15 full API keys for ALL my imperium characters past and present. There was a tiny snag when they wanted names of people who messaged me about the WTB 3 wyverns thread. To me those conversations were mere passing but it was apparently a big deal – since I have dozens of convos a day I wasn’t really recording and remembering who MIGHT sell to me. Within a two days they had all the names and the waiting began. I was then informed despite giving full access to my wallets, and all my accounts I would be perm comms banned (not blacklisted but no longer trusted in the Imperium) and I could never build again. No reason was given. At the same time I tried finding out why I would be accused of SELLING supers outside the CFC when the pubbie I was supposedly connected too was only ever buying.
My isk and my time got me to being told a lawn HC person had set me up and reported me over a previous dispute.
Seraph Basarab: So you feel that another member within LAWN wanted to move in on your business and this was his way to get rid of you?
Gimora: No, this particular member hardly plays as of late. We had a public fight on the LAWN forums where we ripped into each other a bit. Silly drama. Being I thrashed him on the forums I assume he was seriously ass mad. Feeling that lawn HC would stoop so low I decided to leave LAWN. The taking of assets was decided at a later time. In the mean time Imperium demanded I hand over all building materials and purchase three wyvern straight away. Seeing as I can see a blacklist coming a mile away and my stuff getting stolen and station locked I said hell no and started Evac. This process took over 3 weeks all the while they had full API access to me.
Seraph Basarab: And you just walked out with it like that over 3 weeks? No one thought “Hey this guy might not be super happy about this we should check in” ?
Gimora: I moved out over 780b worth of assets including all BPOs, Copies, Supers, bridging titans, POS and modules as well as assets on about 18 pilots. I ran 10 freighters and Titan bridged for hours on end. No one said a word.
Seraph Basarab: That’s kind of embarrassing for them actually.
Gimora: I finished all my industry deals with lawn members, paid all my partners…then something happened. Given the nature of my wallet and assets I had special partners who had access to API sheets and did specific jobs for me. trusted partners. One of these, a mineral provider had been skimming off the top of my contracts. Being a very busy bee I trusted this person to accurately create contracts. Seeing as he had been stealing from me I decided to not honor our business arrangement.
Seraph Basarab: Who was this member?
Gimora: Gyges Skyeye
Seraph Basarab: So how did you handle his betrayal?
Gimora: Silently. Kept all the assets I had on zero collateral from him and bounced. It was enough minerals bought at 40% Jita to build a titan and two supers.
Seraph Basarab: When LAWN leadership found out did they try to contact you? What were the actions that followed?
Gimora: The only people who contacted me were my friends who wanted to say sorry I got fucked by Imperium like that. the headline should have never been “LAWN super/titan builder steals XXXX billions from Alliance and runs” it should be I fucked over someone stealing from me and closed shop. No ill will towards the alliance as a whole. My diplo who represented me in the Imperium trials contacted me and asked me if I was going to return Gyges Skyeye’s assets and an Aeon I took and I promptly said nope. The record should show my diplo was amazing throughout and I honestly believe tried to make it right with the Imperium. Oh, the Aeon was given to me 2 days before I dropped my corp from the Alliance because the person was quitting the game…I “stole” that. The pilot told me to send the isk to them when I can, it’s on permanent loan lol. Even in the last week I had 4 or 5 new super orders come in I could have taken isk for and walked. I was never my intention to fuck over blues. Only the one caught stealing from me.
Seraph Basarab: Do you feel as though LAWN leadership fought for you and were eventually pressed by Goons to act against you or do you feel that LAWN leadership truly believe what Goons told them of you?
Gimora: Thoric and the Diplomatic team I believe acted in my interests at all time. some members of LAWN HC, namely Eminza and Hod3rus were not on good terms with me so I cannot speak for their intentions or motive. This is an Alliance I would regularly pop into strategic index fleets and double all isk sent to me for ten minutes…hand out 5b isk to 3 day old members for being new, give PLEX to people in tough spots and free carrier hulls. People hated me or loved me. Mostly because I have a mindset for making isk and caring deeply about open market policies in LAWN for which I was very vocal. Was I an asshat? Yes. Was I egotistical? I have a 12t isk wallet & assets of course. But I cared for LAWN. Specific people in LAWN HC and Imperium ruined that.
Seraph Basarab: The story seems to follow a similar theme as Rayonar’s situation, a member who was accused by Mittani of being a Black Legion spy claiming that GSF intelligence knew beyond a shadow of a doubt of his malicious intent. Except that a few days later they completely reversed this claim. Why do you think GSF has such a heavy handed approach to their coalition members? If you were to be judged innocent by ‘Imperium’ as having no fault at a later date, would you consider rejoining LAWN?
Gimora: I believe the over zealous nature of the Arms control division in Imperium by nature is almost required. But the current team takes it to the level of insanity and burned a loyal, honest member for simply being accused of being some pubbie buying supers…BUYING suppers. As for rejoining LANW, I was already told I can rejoin LAWNM if I repay Gyges Skyeye and I’m not interested in that. On top of that I could never trust my vast assets being located in LAWN space again with the Imperium having total control over LAWN’s actions. Even if they are all on my side they can’t stop the Imperium from knocking on the door.
Gimora: It’s retirement, liquidation and the happy future of using my hard won isk now.
Seraph Basarab: Is there anything else you would like to let people know? Your enemies? Your friends?
Gimora: To my friends in LAWN, I’ll be around same as always, just a different banner. To my enemies, guess you won and got me out of LAWN lol.
Seraph Basarab: Thank you for your time and it was a pleasure hearing your story.
After the interview we spoke casually. Gimora expressed disappointment about being thrown under the bus. He felt certain that LAWN leadership fought for him but that eventually GSF representatives ultimately forced LAWN’s hand. If what Gimora says is true, it would seem that he is yet another individual that fell victim to a large impersonal bureaucratic behemoth that does not much care for what friends he would have to leave behind. At the end of the day, GSF calls the shots and its members have to listen or risk the consequences.
Gimora also expressed that he was the type of person to randomly give new players a couple billion isk when first starting out, or simply doubling the money of random people for showing up for ops. Gimora also stated that he had worked with with GSF arms control and reported individuals people who were selling supers outside of the ‘Imperium’ by scamming them and then giving the isk to LAWN. Not much is left to do but to pick up the pieces and go elsewhere. With some 12 trillion Isk in wealth, Gimora is now looking to lose a piece of it getting into more pvp.
~Seraph IX Basarab
