OOC Entry 33 - Senseless Killing

Before you think that upcoming text will be about tears and being victimized. Let me tell you that it is not.

Now that we have this out of the way, let's move on.

Some time ago I had a conversation with an in-game friend where he said something to the effect: "People in wormholes will just always kill eachother whenever the opportunity arises, for no particular reason." I might be misquoting him a bit, but this is also not so much about his exact words as it is about the thoughts they inspired me to.

Because he is right at the first glance.

Generally speaking, people in lowsec kill eachother because of Faction War targets, or because they want to make ISK through ransoms and loot drops. In highsec they go after carebear tears, the chance of expensive loot from pimped-out mission runners or haulers full of shiny stuff. In nullsec they kill eachother for Sov and for political reasons that are rooted in the powergame they play.

All over the place people kill eachother for Goodfights(tm) but I think that is the smallest group.

In wormhole space people kill eachother for none of those reasons, except of course the Goodfights(tm)

In a bit more than a year, I have never seen a ransom attempt in WH space. I have seen people just leaving wrecks where they are, never bothering. If there is talk in local at all, it is usually of the "gf and here we part ways" sort. A bit of banter might be there, but never any actual smack talk or emo raging.

We have no reason to be eachother's enemies, so why do we kill eachother on sight.

I will go the subjective route now and say: Because this is how wormhole space should be: An environment where you constantly match your wits with anything you see on DSCAN or catch with your combat probes. A place where death lurks behind a cloak in a system, that is not on your starmap and that even Dotlan has only limited information on.

I say we kill eachother to keep that sense of danger alive. To preserve an environment in which even the powerful forces of nullsec get eradicated if they think they can invade.

We kill because that is what the dark romanticism of WH space is all about. The lurking danger, the unknown enemy, the game of wits.

This is the archetypical dark-forest-nobody-ever-enters of fairytales and fantasy stories. The place where monsters hide in the shadows and wicked elven rangers will jump you without you even knowing they were there.*

In every fight I ever had in highsec, lowsec or nullsec, I could usually more or less predict the outcome. (That does not mean I was smart about it, mind you) In WH space you often don't even know which sort of fight you are getting yourself into once you engage.

Mass limits, the lack of stable routes and the inability to use cynosural fields will force you to use small gangs of versatile and powerful ships which need to be used to the best tactical effect. This creates a difficult environment  which breeds some of the most creative and crafty PvP pilots I have ever encountered.

Sure, not everyone in wormhole space is that good - I wish I were - but the point is to try and improve on those skills whenever possible, to preserve the reputation of WH space as the last actual frontier of EVE.

All of us who live out there fight to keep that legend alive in one way or other, and that is as good a reason as any other in this game.

Also Goodfights(tm)

Here's to all you wormhole pilots. I hope I can do my part for the legend by shooting your ship to pieces, and I know you will do the same to mine :)

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*And no, I don't mean the vain and effete kind. I mean something more like the fantasy version of very lethal special forces, like this one or that one