The B-R5RB Conspiracy

Huge ships have been blown up, tears have been harvested and Eve Online made the news headlines again. The B-R5RB battle happened exactly one year after the Asakai event, and if I put on my tinfoil hat for a second I’m starting to sense some strange coincidences around this event.

Let me explain. First of all, this battle at B-R5RB happened at the exact same day as that other huge battle in Asakai in 2013. This was a huge battle, the biggest battle ever in the history of Eve Online but the server did not crash and everything with the Tidi went fine. This is remarkable because of the problems the server had during the fight in HED-GP which was a less large battle by a long shot. Both fights weren’t planned but the huge one did not have any problems server wise. Of course the battle at B-R5RB lasted for a long while so that the ccp employees could reinforce the node and keep up with all the data but still… the difference between the two events is striking.

Then there is the subscription topic that has been heavily talked about in podcasts and in all kinds of articles and blogposts with the most prominent one on TM.com (http://themittani.com/features/falling-subscription-numbers-what-can-be-done). The subscription numbers have been dropping a while after the release of Retribution which was a huge success for CCP but Odyssey plus Rubicon were not as successful and there's been a little subscription drop instead of gain. This has been a topic for the first two weeks of January and lot's of people were thinking about how to get more people to join the game. Two or one week later, a huge battle occurs out of the blue and lot's of new players are pouring in at this moment.

Also there's the update on Rubicon released the 29th of january. Just at the same time Eve was getting headlines everywhere. This was just great for CCP as they could do a live event for the release. But they focused heavily on the new influx of players by explaining the player interaction like the CSM. The people from the CSM also just left CCP HQ because of the winter summit, right before the huge battle. So interviews with them were made so they could explain to the new players what CSM is all about. So a lot of focus on the new players, who are pouring in at the same time, what a coincidence!

And to finish the conspiracy theories, PL just made a deal with the CFC to evacuate their stuff out of the BR station that's estimated to be in the hundreds of billions of isk. My only guess the goons would do this is so they could do another great promotional battle in the future. It wouldn't shock me if the news came out later that CCP made a deal with CFC and PL to engage in a huge battle for promotional reasons. As all kinds of weird deals have been going on between CCP and player based stuff (SomerBlink anyone?).

Just to make something clear here, I'm not convinced this is the truth, but I've been thinking about these events and it's noteworthy to say the least. I just said to myself "That's some nice tinfoil hattery you got there, why not write it up?!" so I did!

From right under their noses

If I have to admit one thing about my current Eve career, it's the fact that I'm not making much progress aside from the daily PI income and adjusting my skills from time to time. I've been hopping between a few different corporations but not really finding a true home. Ah we'll see, at least I'm back in null which feels good. But sometimes, most of the time when you least expect it, something truly amazing and exciting happens in Eve.

But let's start at the beginning, I was still in my previous RP corp in high sec. bumming around, returning from a short exploration trip to Syndicate. It was a fruitless venture with only a few sites found and they turned up to be bait (only one or two containers left with at least one capsuleer in system, probably with an eye on the site).

So I went back home to safe Tourier ready to collect my daily PI spoils and log off as I was tired from work. It was on my way back with only one jump to go that I noticed a Yellow battleship wreck floating about 20km from gate with no one to be found on grid. I was awake and sitting straight in an instant, putting the pedal to the metal in my Mammoth to reship and return. Maybe I was able to loot the stuff before the owners returned or maybe it was already too late, who knows. I reshipped in my cheetah and made my way back as fast as I could. As soon as I entered system, I noticed a domi and cane from the same corp as the owner of the wreck who also just jumped in. I raced to my bookmark with a pounding heartbeat and arrived first as I seemed to be alone. Without wasting a second I looted the wreck which gave me a suspect standing, so everyone was free to engage me but most importantly it had a 35mill loot. Still I felt quite confident on surviving as I only had to make one jump to get to my home system and I had a cloak. It was only a matter to get out of the spot before the others arrived. And that's just what happened, halfway into my warp acceleration the cane entered grid with the domi close behind. Just in time to give them a quick wave in local and to haul ass back home.

With 35mil extra loot in my container and a feeling of excitement and tension I logged out with a smile. Stealing loot from right under their noses felt amazing and more importantly for once I didn't feel as a total noob playing this game.