I didn’t impregnate my wife so you people could ruin everything I created

– Me

I’m sorry it took so long folks but it’s here. You can expect the logical Zapawork Russian Politics follow-on article any day! As many of you know, I haven’t been playing the game for a while. I was a lot more active than it seemed over the past seven years, but the last year or two I’ve taken a break. Recent events however have kindled a new interest and I’ve decided to return and while I’m pretty thrilled about it that’s going to be a bit unfortunate for some people.

To answer the obvious question no, I am not joining the Imperium or Goonwaffe and nothing’s going to change that. I’ll explain why by way of a story but prior to that I want to make something clear. I’m not going to get involved in personal attacks though I am not Jesus and will not turn the other cheek. I will have to speak to why I’m bothered but I’ll endeavour to keep it impersonal. On to the pleasantries!

When we started Goonfleet it really was just a bunch of idiots in space being idiots. We had some degree of organization and some really smart and talented people but at the end of the day no real plans aside from farting around in a space game. It was hilarious and funny and so much identity came from what was forged then, completely by mistake, by a man named remedial who would live forever in our hearts as the scumbag lawyer we needed. We got picked on by some bigger folks but we were really just a bunch of idiots. Then comes BoB and if you want a fictionalized version of that entire story you can read a mittani post, dark horse comic book or that kickstarted thing.

Regardless of what happened our core was always that shared culture, cause and the irreverence of it all. We had fun and enjoyed each other’s company. That was what was important. We fought that war with BoB not because Molle had surrounded himself with super serious bushido warriors but ultimately because he took us away from our space farting. We were not allowed to retain our innocence and in return we became the monster BoB said we were. We built coalitions and we fought for more than 5 years to an ultimate victory in Delve after Haargoth disbanded the alliance after XTTZ determined it could be done, I took their name and we spent many months taking every piece of territory they had created. After Delve fell BoB as an idea or as a construct was dead forever. Not a week later. Not 5 years later. The day their final tower fell in Delve.

The context here is important because it helps to express my problem with the current state of affairs. Over the course of the great war I became very weary of dealing with the big boy details of maintaining space relationships with people who annoy me and aren’t funny or interesting. This lead me to some decisions regarding what the future of the alliance would be that weren’t compatible with its form at the time or the coalition that had been built. I couldn’t own it completely at the time due to fresh children and so I handed it off once I made sure it could walk and left. What became of it was the polar opposite of what my vision had been.

The Imperium is a shit show. It can’t decide if it’s a Goon alliance (best estimate is about… 200 goons in the alliance), a business spanning multiple videogames or a space alliance. As a whole for the past few months the alliance’s leadership have just made shit decision after shit decision alienating people who were their staunchest allies. A post on Reddit makes you The Enemy. A question about the validity of a decision is tantamount to betrayal. Being sick and away from the space game for a few weeks is grounds for removal and having the temerity to be a successful EX-CEO automatically makes you an existential threat due to the paranoia and insecurities of the man-children at the top who’ve been getting fat eating other people’s pies. Offer up “hilarious” support to a CSM candidate who, aside from being a deplorably distasteful person who has been on record advocating computer crimes, crimes against minors and mocking a goon whom some of us were very close with who is no longer here? My protestations against this for the above reasons went ignored by people I thought friends as my word was clearly not as trustworthy as this human garbage.

I have always said that I will ensure a place for Goons in EVE. Every single time there has been a situation where that has been threatened I have come back, sometimes not quite so overtly, and helped ensure that this remained the case. My People do not include the current crop of pubbies trying to out-edgy each other by suggesting or engaging in activities so cringeworthy and unfunny that I’m actually ashamed and that is a fairly foreign emotion to a man who has snorted wasabi for money on the regular. My People are SA Goons and those who qualify by way of cultural compatibility. As to the rest, who gives a shit?

With all of that in mind today I’d like to announce the creation of a new organization within EVE that will seek to right some of these wrongs. I have no illusions of being a day one powerhouse. I have no desire right now to be a powerhouse. Over the long term we will grow to destroy only insofar as it suits our amusement. Over the short term we will annoy any and all who can be. We have no gods and no masters. We will set standings only as required for benefit to us or those who we deem worthy. We will do as we please, when we please and with whom we please. No timesheets no clubbin’.

Today we create the Ten Dollar Bond. An EVE Online corporation held together by nothing more than a fat old man’s dream and a whole bunch of people’s willingness to pay $10 or find someone who will that’s dumb enough to sponsor them.

It’s not going to be easy or even really done all that well. We are standing up auth services for mumble and jabber but they’re probably going to be mildly fucked up. We have enough money to keep ourselves in budget-level roaming ships for a very long time. We have a forum with no skin and an animated gif of a guy making it rain because it was the first pic I came across I liked. We have (far too many lol thanks for the patch notes) offices in NPC Delve where we will live for the time being and we have a ragtag group of misfits whose sole desire is to poke EVE in the eye, then ask “are we there yet?” all fucking day long.

The polish (not the Polish even though they’re cool too) will come over time as tends to happen as history is crafted. We will establish a method for retrieving member assets trapped in squandered space. I have long term goals that will be shared once we’ve begun gelling and I can see who we have with us and I have a plan for how we can continue to grow from without but in a fashion that is healthy. If we can’t kill them we will breed them out. If we can’t breed them out we’ll annoy them until they go away. If we cannot obtain what we want we will pretend we did.

I have no interest in shooting whatever The Imperium is at this point in time. We will offer to set standings for a time to reduce the drama that will come from goon on goon violence if necessary but I do not find that shitheap to be something I’d associate with over the long term in any way. I’d like to invite those of you who, like myself, don’t find the current spaceship-guild-as-a-business model palatable to join us. Instructions can be found at www.tendollarbond.com in the auth forum. We are currently only accepting apps from SA goons. I’m not going to spend 30 minutes per app scrutinizing all of your posts so if any shitheads sneak through we’ll just kill you and kick you out.

If you don’t want to join us I understand. Sometimes it’s hard to throw away that shitty Roger Garden baseball card you bought when you were sure he’d make the majors. Whenever you decide you’d like to live a little we’ll be here.

Darius “The RZA” JOHNSON

Note from the editor: The preceding is a submission from Darius JOHNSON. It has been minimally edited in order to preserve the author’s intention with this statement.