Planetary Genocide

-FOREWORD-

My name is Planetary Genocide, and I am a Black Rebel.


Okay, so maybe my name isn’t actually “Planetary Genocide”, but when you’re a capsuleer with retarded amounts of money who can’t be killed, nobody’s going to bother questioning you.  Besides, my real name is long forgotten, buried deep within the records of CAS’s capsuleer program.

I suppose that before anyone begins reading about my time wearing the Black Jacket, they might want to know a little bit more about me.  A little strange, but why not?  I was born in YC 94 to a pair of Gallentean miners, the last son of what was once a dynasty back when new worlds were being settled.  I don’t even remember the name of the rock I lived on, what with it being several lifetimes ago.  I do remember in May of YC105, where the capsuleers first exploded on the scene.  I followed their exploits with single-minded intent, knowing that one day, I too would be one of them.

The road to being a capsuleer isn’t as easy as that, of course.  I didn’t have many friends to begin with back then, but I threw myself into my studies even more, hoping to get a scholarship to one of the prestigious new capsuleer programs at the major Gallentean universities.  And in the end, it paid off, as I was granted a spot at the Center for Advanced Studies in Cistuvaert.

That day was nearly three years ago.  Since then, I’ve done quite a few things, some good, mostly bad.  I started out as a miner in the relative safety of Gallentean high-security space.  Alentene was my home while I ground away at rocks for hours like my family always had… but I was a capsuleer, and I should amount to more than that!  Thus, instead of selling my ore and minerals to the richer capsuleers who paid a pittance for hours of work, I began to keep it, refine it, and to build things. It was slow going back in those days… the minerals for a single frigate took hours to mine, and the profits weren’t great.  But it was something.

I’ve branched out since then.  Delved into running missions for the corporate agents in the area, explored the depths of wormhole space, tried my hand at inventing tech 2 blueprints, even a spot of corporate theft that netted me more ISK than I had ever dreamed of while slaving away over textbooks and news reports of the capsuleers back in my family’s hovel.  Three years of flying the spacelanes and I’ve come a long way since undocking my first frigate into the great Unknown.

But now, in joining the (unwashed) men and women of the Black Rebel Rifter Club, I’ve dedicated my life to blowing up other capsuleers for fun.  More sensitive readers would stop here, call me an asshole unworthy of civilization, and walk away.  Fuck ‘em.  It’s fun to watch things explode.  Despite my ancestry, I’ve always found fun in suiciding miners in highsec, to hear their cries over the local channel mingle with the sound of my laughter as CONCORD takes apart my ship around me.  Sure, it sounds a little insane, but we all get our rocks off in our own way, and blowing people up is mine.

Of course, I get into my fair share of “actual” fights too, and that’s what this log is all about.  Of course, my results vary wildly due to not often being in actual fights, but that’s just how I learn to make things explode a little bit better.  That’s what the Rifter Club is for.

-1-

Jakanerva Solar System, Okomon Constellation, The Forge
August 02, YC 114
1600 hours New Eden Standard time

I had just settled into the couch in my Caldari-styled quarters in-station when a notification popped up in my inbox.

"Welcome to the Black Rebel Rifter Club

Dear Planetary Genocide.  Your application to join the Black Rebel Rifter Club has been accepted."

I grinned, got up, and walked towards the hangars, tapping out a message to the crews as I went.  "Prepare the Rifter I brought back yesterday. I'm going hunting."  Settling into the pod, I waited as the gantry lifted it into the frigate and hooked up the connections that allowed me to pilot the ship like an extension of my own body.  Almost before undocking clearance was granted, I was out in space.

With a mere thought, I brought up the ship's directional scanning interface, quickly determining the presence of several mining barges and their owners.  As the sleek and deadly ship slid into warp, I brought up the bio of a pilot whose name was still embedded within the beacon of their ship.  Amateur, I thought.

As my ship dropped from warp in the belt, guns spinning up as I transitioned to sublight, I was greeted with the sight of a Retriever, surrounded by its swarm of Caldari-made Hornet I drones, mining into a jettisoned cargo container.  Quickly sidling up alongside the pilot, I jettisoned my own container and flipped the ore.  Your move.

Sizter Sinister, the pilot in question, pulled her drones and soon I was left alone in the belt, the barge having warped off.  That's disappointing, I said to myself, let's check the other hit.  The second belt held no luck either, as flipping their ore resulted in both Hulk and Retriever pulling their drones and warping back to the station.  Just as I turned to search another belt, directional scan pinged with another result: Sizter Sinister's Rifter.  My own frigate responded to my commands instantly, turning around and warping back to the bookmarked can to see the Rifter sitting 20 klicks off of it.  I sent my camera drones to take a look at the enemy ship.  Quickly getting a read on the weapons -125mm Gatling Autocannons, 3 linked-fire pairs.  No missile launchers - I tasked the auto-loaders to refill my own 150mm Light Autocannon II's with long-ranged Barrage ammunition, thinking Well, I can just stay out of range and chew her up with bullets from afar.  No such luck, as the Rifter warped off.

Disappointed, I too left the belt to search for more targets.  My efforts proved fruitless, but as I warped back to the station to get a drink and a quick bite, directional scan once again beeped inside my head, now showing that the Rifter had somehow morphed into a Thrasher.  Once more heading to the belt, I landed to find the Thrasher, and a buddy in a Hookbill.  Knowing that my Rifter wouldn't likely be able to handle both at once, I let the Thrasher fire on me, artillery shells slamming into my Rifter's shields as I warped to the station and docked.

The thing about CONCORD is that their rules have ways to bend them.  For example, let's say an entrepreneur like me (it's better than the term "thief") decides to flip a can of ore from some poor schmuck in a barge. And let's say that poor schmuck is part of another capsuleer-owned corporation.  This gives the entire corporation 15 minutes in which they can attempt to destroy my ship and send me home in my capsule.  However, one of them shooting me results in a new 15 minute-period in which I can shoot them, and only them.  The corporation cannot interfere after their 15 minute grace period is up.

This makes things easy to exploit.  Since Sizter was so kind as to put a few new dents into the armor of my frigate, I could now shoot her without interference, and I whiled away the remaining corporation timer with a quick sandwich and a swig of Quafe. Checking the time on my Neocom, I quickly hopped back in the pod, hit d-scan and saw that both Thrasher and Hookbill were still in the belt.  Game on.

Heart racing, adrenaline pumping like mad, time slowed to a crawl as I landed in the belt 15 klicks off my stationary target.  I quickly burned to the Thrasher, the ship's hull vibrating as the Microwarpdrive propelled it towards the enemy, and enveloped the Thrasher in the warm glow of a Warp Scrambler.  My shields flashed as artillery fire and the occasional missile poured into them, bullets and rockets from my own weapons systems responding in kind as my tactical overview silently notified me that the Hookbill had acquired a target lock on me.

Evidently, the pilot of the Hookbill wasn't as well-versed in the various legal loopholes as I was, as several more light missiles slammed into my ship, knocking it out of its orbit around the Thrasher and stripping away the last of my shields.  My overview immediately marked him as a criminal, but I was too focused on the Thrasher to send a couple rounds toward the Caldari frigate. CONCORD will take care of him, I reasoned, and I can just pick up the loot later.  Meanwhile, the Thrasher had started to pull away, and I gave the order to overheat the nanobots in my armor repair system as jagged chunks of armor were torn away from my ship by artillery fire.  Once again activating the Microwarpdrive, I caught up to the Thrasher, this time ensnaring it with a web to make sure she stayed where she was. Another missile tore into my ship, knocking out an engine and starting a fire as my HUD blared a warning at me.

Alert: Structural Damage detected.  Initiate emergency warp?

Ignoring the query, I overloaded my guns and launcher, spraying bullets in a withering hail of fire as first the armor, then finally the hull of the Thrasher was shredded.  A rocket found its way into a hole, breaching the reactor, and Sizter's pod was thrown free as a bright blue explosion went off in the belt. As the pod warped off, I realized I was shaking in my pod, still high off the adrenaline rush.

Shutting down the damaged engine, I let the fire burn out as I quickly salvaged what I could from both wrecks, flipping CONCORD the bird from inside my pod as I headed back home to repair the ship. Not bad for a former carebear.


kill

-PG