Blog Banter 39 - Home is where my Pod is.

August has almost come to an end, but before we see the month turn, Seismic Stan brings us another Blog Banter subject, courtesy of Richie Shoemaker from EON Magazine:

"Some say a man's home is his castle. For others it is wherever they lay their hat. The concept is just as nebulous in the New Eden sandbox. 

In EVE Online, what does the concept of "home" mean to you?"

I am a hopeless romantic when it comes to space and the universe. While I like deep forests, old castles, Celtic stone circles, lush mountain valleys and lofty peaks as much as every other person, nothing has ever had the magnetic appeal of outer space for me.

Above my desk hangs a calendar with galaxies, nebulae and other stellar phenomenae. I have many books with lots of pictures and descriptions about the planets of our solar system and the fascinating vistas the Hubble Telescope has opened for us. I have stacks of magazines about astronomy, and I often go to sleep putting documentaries and lectures about such subjects on, to carry me off into my dreams.

I can spend hours fantasizing about rivers of liquid methane on Titan, the sandstorms of Mars and the molten surface of Venus. When I was a kid I saw Carl Sagan's Cosmos TV series and I was sold for life.

When, after a long time, a friend told me about EVE, I read with fascination about the concept of humans being one with their ships, able to travel through the vast reaches of space like gigantic space-borne fish.

Disregarding all other aspects of the game for the purpose of this subject, the exploration of that world in my ship is where I feel at home. When the introductory Sisters of EVE epic mission arc took me all over the place, I was thrilled with the experience. The missions in-between were just waypoints on a journey. It was the journey that really mattered.

If only the stars could have looked the way then they do look now.

I can not complain though.

By merit of my wormhole residence, I get to go places where I would otherwise hardly ever come. Exits and entrances can open in the most out-of-the-way regions, and most of the time I do not mind flying those twenty jumps and see how the starscape changes as I progress.

At this point I would like to offer a deeply heart-felt "Thank you" to the art department who created those wonderful views.

Certainly, when I return to our home-wormhole, I get the feeling of having returned from long travels to see my best friends again, to come back to the homestead as it were. When I fly through the core systems of Sinq-Laison or Essence I have to smile when I remember my first weeks and months in New Eden. When I come through Lisbaethanne or Old Man Star, I fondly remember the excitement of my first encounters with dangerous pirates.

However, where my home truly is, that would be the ship in which my pod is cradled at any given time. Warping through space, moving, exploring, looking at the sights.

Home is where my heart is, goes the saying.

Well the pod is my ship's heart.

I am my ship's heart.

... and there in my escapist fantasy, that is where my home in EVE lies.