War Profiteering
“Meddlesome” is among one of the more G-rated things I’ve been called in EvE. “Trouble-maker”, “instigator” “pirate” (really?), these are all somewhat lighter fare than the more cringe-worthy “motherf*cking piece of sh*t” “asshole” (inclusive of all derivatives and conjugations), “f*ck-stick”, “homosexually-inclined phallus consier” [edit]… it just goes on like this actually. But today it was “meddlesome”, and I kind of took a shine to it.
There’s a saying about “pitting your enemies against each other” that would sound a lot more eloquent if I could remember it correctly. The idea is, get the two guys who are after you to fight each other instead and you’ve just killed two birds with one stone (egads, making one idiom into another!).
Today I was in Vittenyn with Scopique, and after burning a Megathron (and the two subsequent “just coming back to get my loot” bestowers), we tried playing some can games with some members of the Cut Throats and Wise Guys corp. Realizing they weren’t going to play, Scop went afk for a bit, and I went to dock up and get some RL work done as well.
Docking at the station however, I realized that the reason the Wise Guys weren’t playing was that they were busy camping the station like a girl-scout troop. Hooray for carebear station games! I convoed one of the guys we’d been messing around with before and discovered they were currently at war and had the “bad guys” “camped in goodLOL”. Right. Suddenly I realized how it is I knew these guys; their corp used to be in the now defunct (and former TEARS arch-nemesis) deadspace society. :). Gears began turning.
I docked up and struck up another convo with one of the Wise Guys’ war targets. Huzzah! I knew these guys too! E-honor waving, anti-pirates who I’d can flipped on numerous occasions before. NOW this was becoming a party!
Really for no reason other than the perpetration of chaos and hilarity, I decided to tell the war targets I’d be happy to give outside station intel to help them break up the Wise Guys’ station camp (and I would, messing with ex-DEADS? Sure!). What I didn’t mention is that I was also giving the Wise Guys intel on what to expect these guys to undock in.
I set both sides to different colors and undocked to watch the fireworks go off around me:
Silly carebears and their silly station games. I went around cackling like a kid in a candy store, cherry-picking shiney goodies out of every wreck, docking up, emptying cargo, undocking again, rinse and repeat. 7 minutes and 75mil isk in goodies later, the smoke cleared, and both sides thanked me profusely for my help. Wait, what? Yes, thanked me. I was added to multiple address books for “future help”, and both sides declared a resounding victory despite I think just about everyone except the Nighthawk dying horribly.
Go figure.
Speaking of station games: apparently the CSM is kicking ass in their elected roles and has put forth a measure to CCP which would pretty much put an end to ridiculous station warfare. In addition to *finally* being able to look out a station window (so to speak) and see who’s camping you in what, warp-scrammed ships would not be able to simply disengage and dock up when the going gets rough. Win. The full CSM summit notes can be found ->here<- (PDF form) and I highly recommend reading the full thing.
o7,
-Aiden
Finders & Keepers 
Jolly good show old chap, jolly good! Not even the snub-nosed British Empire could have achieved such a fine example of native, or shall I say, highsec manipulation. Bravo!
Back in the good old days of frequenting Motsu and the stench of Caldari space I harboured a deeply ingrained dislike, perchance hatred even, towards members of the brazenly mislabeled profession known as ninja salvagers.
Over months my disdain has, like a stinky turd left on the grass for too long, gone from brown to a mighty white, the white of respect and admiration for the sheer ingenuity displayed by members of TEARS and their associates.
Clap Clap, pass the hankey won’t you?
LOL. I’ve done similar things before, mostly mucking about in local politics while cloaked in some system somewhere. Makes the time pass.
This was a great read; awesome story.
Nice! Woot rymes with loot!
As for the CSM and station games, good on them. Although I don’t know that preventing someone from docking when they are warp scrammed is the best soloution. It will mean no more bait Drakes and such (maybe) and probably an increase in log on traps. If they could make each station a kick-out station their problems would be solved on that front. Oh and neutral remote repping douchebags. Get rid of those.
I have to say, seeing your blog in the pack has made me really enjoy Capsuleer a lot more. Your posts are great! I’ve just started out in the “Asset reallocation” business; mostly gathering skills (real world and in game) around Dodixie, of course.
Your ability to multitask with that war profiteering is awesome. Great job! Anytime you can gain “friends” and take their money at the same time, is a good time.
@ Gilbert: Thank you sir! And thanks for reading!
[…] a comment » I have to say, Finders & Keepers has a great post on some recent war profiteering / friendship making. I hope to, someday, be called such […]