The Ape Shit Theory, Musings of Old Hulkageddon

I think back to that crazy time of fear in highsec and the bloodbath, the destruction, a festival for freaks and madmen, a carnival of corpses. It was that black age of Hulkageddon--an organised slaughter. The suicide ganker is his very own tyrant, he is the puppet master and he holds all the cards as he looks on silently from atop his bulldozer and scoops up the dead and drops them into his mass grave. Now, highsec still burns don't get me wrong but I feel the campaign that was Hulkageddon united the cult of killer in a driven form of mass butchery and at the other end of the scale it united those who were oppressed by its actions. Will we ever see this kind of movement again?

During the campaign the individuality of the victims and, to a lesser extent, of the perpetrators remained distant from our judgement and by their very numbers the dead in that pit of highsec struck us as the silent scream of the crime. They were a number, another statistic that was shrouded in the veil of the campaign. Not just those burning barges and the podded pilots but also those who were celebrated at the top of the campaign leaderboards.

So what do I mean by this judgement? Am I trying to reason that for both sides it was acceptable because 'Hulkageddon'?

During the campaign we had questions of ethics, of moral codes and of accusations of antisocial tendencies. Forums resembled an ape house and the questions and name-calling thrown around were akin to digital globs of flying shit--yes they stank a bad whiff to one side or the other, whichever way you looked at it. But which side was right? Which side's shit smelled nicer?

Now, let's think back to when every evildoer was labelled a psychopath and every victim was his very own sob story. It can be difficult to take on a stance of neutrality so let's poke at those statements with the cold end of the fire iron. We could point out that every evildoer has a good side and deep down he means well but is ensconced deeply in the game and he doesn't see the suffering or pain he has caused. There is no understanding of why he is being called a psychopath because he just doesn't see his actions as violent or hateful, he's simply having fun playing his game. You might argue that that is part of the problem.

At the other end of the scale does the victim of the campaign betray and humiliate himself by admitting himself into this sordid jigsaw puzzle that is the game? No he can't take that option, he doesn't want in on this, what to him is a very one-sided game and I feel that is why it is easy to stick the enemy with those harsh words of mental labelling. He has no other way of retreat and he must condemn. He strikes out. There is no way of reasoning.

So back to the now and without a campaign like Hulkageddon pushing forward the crimewaves, is the face of highsec and suicide ganking in general any different from when it was pushed by the propaganda machine and a set of posters?

A tough question.

But I'd say probably not that much different if I am being honest. They may not be united under that one banner that was Hulkageddon, but those chuckling terrorists are still at the controls of their bulldozers and the victims are still looking for a way to see out of the windows of the ape house.


MB.