So...



My first bold venture into 0.0. Kaeda has said that Syndicate is bubble light. I undock in my mighty, ASB Slasher with a series of "Rawrs" as I boldly go to catch up to the fleet four jumps away. I jump into null sec. I am amazing! Second system I land in a bubble and die. Poor Slasher dead to the thing that I hate most in the game. Not an auspicious start but I was also in a slasher and one flies things to lose them.



My lack of familiarity with the things was rather obvious. I forgot to scan for it. It took me a moment to start figuring out which way to burn away from the bubble which was enough time for me to be caught, scramed, and webbed by said Brutix and killed.



And thus is my entrance into a nullsec focused deployment.



The evening before I had taken time to make tacticals around the systems outside of the new home system. I see that I need to spend some time doing that a few more systems in. I need to remember to scan for bubbles. And so, irritated as hell, I reshipped, went back, and made a tactical to avoid that situation in the future. Dying brilliantly the moment I try to do things alone seems to be my thing. There will be no one and then there will be a Sugar killing fleet. It happened often enough when I started that I became very jump shy at going to new places by myself. I almost seemed to jump into fleets of people and burn marvelously into a brief super nova a moment after.



I do not plan to let that happen this time around. This deployment is about going out and getting into fights. Winning those fights is completely optional. It would be nice but the understanding is that we will be blobbed to all hell and probably pour red paint across our killboard while we are here.



I need some more T1 frigates. I like my Slasher a lot.



It may seem odd to killboard counters why we might engage in an activity such as this. We could stay in Molden Heath with our home field advantages. Yet, what does that do for a person? What does not pushing the limits accomplish in the end? Knowing everyone is fantastic but not knowing people is also good. People come around looking for us when they are looking for a fight. That is good and wonderful but does it put us where we want to be as a corporation?



Stagnancy is easy to achieve. Home systems. Home field advantage. Distances are known. Every ship is in the hangar. Everyone knows everyone else. Some groups decide not to engage other groups due to skill discrepancies. Being high on the food chain is a lot of fun but it does not keep people engaged and pushing themselves and their interactions.



Pride and arrogance are just as easy to achieve. It is good to be good. It is fine to acknowledge being good. Yet, it is easy to get wrapped up in how good one is. It is easy to obsess over it. Obsession leads to things like suddenly falcon and station hugging as not to lose ships.



The topic of loss is an intricate one. Losing fights. Losing ships. They do and do not mean anything. A fight can be taken and lost but a lot achieved inside of that fight. If it is only judged in the black and white terms of win or lose it sows the seeds of risk aversion.



Some of the most amazing pilots that I know have a simple habit of attacking every single thing that they see. They come out on top a lot. An awful lot. They are damn good at what they do. They also die a lot. It is very common to point out that many of the best PvPers also have the lowest efficiencies due to the fact that they eschew risk aversion and go all in on everything that they see.



And what is risk? I don't mean that in the sense of, "It's just a video game." I hate that argument. We are engaged in the game and working within the games rules. We have goals in the game and our actions are crafted to achieve the goal even if that goal is taking pictures of the nebula. Sometimes that goal comes at a cost. It comes at a cost of increased risk and of increased loss.



7-2 could stay in Molden Heath forever. It would cause us to become fat and soft. Not everyone will enjoy the changes. We are a low sec corporation and null sec is not appealing to everyone even when it offers fights. I know that I personally have a lot of hurdles to get over and a startling lack of confidence in my abilities now that I've been thrown into a new environment. Null sec has always been something to sprint through or dip into and leave. To have it as the main access port to anything is very different and very uncomfortable.



I don't think any of that is bad. At the core it is a healthy thing that the corporation gets up and gets things done. It keeps the membership focused and active and the corporation healthy. It keeps the focus on the game and the membership improving and evolving.



I need more T1 frigates. I need a few deep breaths. And after that, I need to step off this personal cliff and see where I fall.