Given that I just spend almost 7 hours straight reading and making notes for an exam (I didn't get a chance to buy the texbook till two weeks before the midterm... Choices between late tuition or late books.... Ces la vie) I felt like a change of pace was in order. Since I've got some new music to listen too, and I've been mulling around this blog post for a week or two, I thought I'd get to it.





Propaganda plays an incredible role in eve; From videos, corp mails, alliance bashing on the forums, COAD trolling, spy leaks etc etc. If you're engaged in any sort of PVP then chances are that you've been led to believe that there's a bad guy out there that deserves to be hated (with the possible exception being pirates in lowsec who like everyone who comes out to play in their corner of the 'box). IN nullsec, the bad guy is the person who invaded your space, Or reset you after a failed coalition campaign and maybe sometimes even those guys who show up to camp your highsec-nullsec gate with regularity. If you're in FW, then the badguys is the side that doesn't come play unless they have a 60+ advantage on your blob. If you're doing your pvp in highsec then the badguy seems to always bring neutral remote reps, or docks up the second a real fight ends up on the plate. If you're a mission runner, then the badguy is the person who shows up to steal all the good loot from your missions; or if you happen to mine in highsec, those 'hulkageddon fags' are the bane of eve. It even gets to the point that old corp mates might start calling you out on some 'trecherous shit your alliance did'.





I suppose this is a bit of a rant; I've got some old corp mates who went to IT when I went to a corp in sys-k (at the time, now AAA) and just as their alliance started to cascade one of em decided it would save face if he smacked my alliance a bit in the public channel we share. Long story short, I didn't respond warmly. I'd gone out of my way to be sympathetic to them during IT's turmoil, and to not call them on any of the typical things people do to reds when they 'lose'.





A big part of this is due to my attitude towards eve; For the longest time I just ran missions and spun my ship around highsec. Eventually (after a false start) I got very interested in nullsec politics. The relationship people had with the people they lived next too was a curious thing; sometimes hot with anger, sometimes warm and friendly, other times passively aggressive. I typed up a C.V. and started shopping for a null corp.





Within a month of that, I'd got on my first titan mail (in an arbitrator) and was starting to get a feel for the politics of the thing. Problem was, I'd been interested for months in it and I'm not one to just express interest. I'd been reading blogs, Interstellar Correspondents posts, COAD (people who tell you COAD is just for trolling fail to realize that knowing who has incentive to troll whom is useful when you wanna get a feel for what the political landscape looks like), surfing killboards, reading changes on dotlan and even reading back forum threads about past wars.





When I got into sys-k, the amount of politics I was exposed to actually dropped. I was told not to read COAD, discouraged from commenting/discussing blogs because they happened to come from people outside of the blue list and in extreme cases given substitutes when I mentioned an interesting peice of literature from the eve politosphere. Alliance leadership was quick to squelch anything that dissuaded direct apathy towards the members of the red standings list, and was almost insufferable to discussion of politics by anyone but direct leadership. Being a newbie at the time, I had no access to those leadership channels but I can, without too much strain imagine that at the command levels, discussion was similarly 'fruitless unless favorable'. Back then, sys-k the soup du jour was to hate the goons.





To be frank, I couldn't get into it. Sure, I was more than willing to fleet up and have a nice fight against them. I even got a space boner when we killed one of their titans, but the 'goons are ruining eve' and 'they're the scum of space' wasn't something that I found palatable. It seemed to me, that while people in my fleet were being yelled at for jumping through a gate too soon, or not being aligned; the goons were singing songs, drawing cartoons, and getting concorded in empire on purpose. I was getting yelled at for being kinda newish out there, and the 'bad guys' were having fun all the fucking-damn-time... I've been reluctant to abandon that idea incidentally; Goons (and now by extension test) seem to be the only people in eve that are consistently having a good time of the game. Of course now being more experienced, I realize that they probably get yelled at just as much as I do.





After a time, I got 'older' and became privy to a bit of (although not allot of) information regarding my corps political activities. While the political lemmings exist at high levels, I seem to be blessed with a corp leadership that can pick up and discard a group of 'enemies' without having to typify them as jerks, faggots, noobs After a time, I got 'older' and became privy to a bit of (although not allot of) information regarding my corps political activities. While the political lemmings exist at high levels, I seem to be blessed with a corp leadership that can pick up and discard a group of 'enemies' without having to typify them as jerks, faggots, noobs laissez faire about who thinks what regarding the 'reds'. For the lemmings in corp, they will end up being drawn by spin into whatever emotional grudges happen to be en vogue, people who could care less are affected less, and for those like me who enjoy the politosophere of Nullsec life; we get to take a step back and watch people rage over who happens to be making what pretend spaceships blow up what.





It's quite nice.





Some stereotypical attitudes regarding entities in EVE (outside perspectives)

AAA are Russian, so they must be RMT botters.

IT alliance/BOB were in cahoots with CCP for unfair advantage even after the scandal.

NC are a vast empire of bears who don't know how to PVP.

Goons are all scum and can do no good for the game.

Test are all newbs and can only win by swarming.

CVA are assholes who only care about themselves and screwed everyone else.





I'm sure that anyone inside any of those alliances/coalitions will realize that its a load of bullshit. Problem is, that outside of your own alliance, these things are spiel enough that they end up being taken for truth. Even bigger for problems is that almost never have I seen anyone in a position of authority encourage people to go out and decide for themselves about other groups in eve.





AAA

I suppose its asinine of me to ask you to take my word for it, but every time I've seen someone bearing in my alliance, they've been available to shoot the shit in local at the very least. Whats more, the number of people who aren't Russian in -A- would probably be a surprise to some.





IT/BOB

Given that a previous leader of Goonswarm is not actually employed by CCP, assuming that they are unfairly granting this alliance an advantage is a bit absurd.





NC

It's been the 'thing to do' in null sec to try and go kill the NC. How many times has that worked? How often have invasions into the perimeter regions succeeded? Razor alliance has 238 losses to over a thousand kills right now.

MM has twice the losses, but more kills





Goons

Did I mention that a goon actually works at CCP; you know, making the game and trying to sell it? If that's not enough, take a look at this









A goon runs one of the most successful column pieces for EVE to date.









They also put out incredible guides to eve(see above), that end up being applicable to tons of newbies. Believe me, I could find more guides, but this post is getting long enough as it is. I bet there Wiki is pretty nice too (incidentally, if you guys wanna open up your wiki to an -A- pilot I'd very much appreciate the invitation to spy! lol)





Test

Did these people not just get themselves indoctrinated with one of the longest running null sec blocs out there? Catapult themselves from a few months old alliance into large scale null sec sov war? (and FFS don't try and say that they didn't have a SOV war... IT failscading was IT's fault not theirs; Test was MORE than ready to bring a right fight).









Go browse their boards a bit... Plenty of solo and small scale killing going on there, not to mention some of them are swinging capital e-penises around like champs.





CVA

These dudes captured, held and operated a pocket of null sec for years, and let anyone who wasn't red come in from empire to get a taste. Sure they probably turned a profit taxing everyone to hell and back, and charging for docking rights; but the fact is they made null sec more penetrable for a TON of people. This first time I jumped into null for a little peer around the place I ended up in CVA space.... Got caught on a bubble camp and rather than get podded was webbed and told to go back the way I came by some RP'ers I had no standings with... Was a strange experience, but a cool one.









TLDR?!?

Smarten the fuck up and don't fill up on all the bullshit that gets tossed around in your corp/alliance... Give everyone else's bullshit a chance too. EVE is a wonderful tapestry of shit-weavers; A veritable rainbow in 64 shades of brown.