Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Balthazarian's War, Part 2

Previously, on MinerBumping... The valiant knights of Sword of the Saviour corp used ganker alts to inflict justice upon some miners. A local rebel named Babylon Balthazarian stirred the system to rebellion, encouraging miners to disobey the Code. She even dared our Agents to wardec her alliance. So they did.


The New Order is the supreme military power in highsec. We prosecute our wars at the time and place of our choosing. In a show of bravado, Balthazarian urged the New Order wardeccers to bring it on.


Agent Trathen knew he was up against a 200+ member alliance. But the odds were in his favor: He had three Agents--and the Code. The bot-aspirant alliance was totally outmatched. Time to attack!


It was an incredible slaughter. Three New Order Agents inflicted a staggering loss upon Balthazarian's alliance. In the space of just a few minutes, they bagged a pair of Skiffs, a couple defense ships, and an Orca, along with a handful of pods. Those six fatal minutes cost the carebears well over a billion isk of damage.


When the dust settled, our Agents offered "GF"s in local. They patiently waited to be congratulated and paid for permits.


However, the initial signs were that Balthazarian's alliance wouldn't see reason.


Maybe the bot-aspirants were in shock. Being killed wasn't a part of their typical routine.


Balthazarian had told our Agents to wardec her alliance. She'd even sent an EVEmail encouraging them to launch an attack. However, when the attack came, Balthazarian didn't have anything to back up her bluff and bluster. She lost a tech I fitted Stabber and abandoned any further effort to protect the alliance. From that point on, she simply smacktalked in local.


Having dragged her alliance into a war that cost them so dearly, Balthazarian was unrepentant.


Nor did Balthazarian appear to have any sympathy for her fellow alliance members--who'd been killed on her watch.


The chickenhawk carebear merely brushed aside the much more expensive losses of others. Noobs lose Orcas; it's the cost of war.


Did the other members of the alliance harbor any resentment toward Balthazarian for bringing disaster upon them? On the surface, they were a united front.


But behind the scenes, not everyone was thrilled with Balthazarian's contribution--or lack thereof--to the alliance.


Balthazarian's own corp, Industrial War Machine LLC, was among those who decided to quit the alliance. Agent Alana Charen-Teng informed the alliance leader that the New Order's beef was with Balthazarian. Judging from the reply mail, Balthazarian wasn't held in high esteem.


In the end, Balthazarian's corp had to go it alone. No longer would they receive the benefits of being in an alliance.


As for Babylon Balthazarian herself, she was cast out and became a pariah. Such is the fate of all who dare to challenge the New Order's awesome power.

Monday, March 30, 2015

Balthazarian's War, Part 1

Although CODE. is easily the most famous of its affiliates, the New Order's mission to enforce the Code transcends corps, alliances, and coalitions.


The New Order uses every weapon at its disposal. More than a few highsec carebears have learned that the wardec mechanic is included in the New Order's deadly arsenal. Corporations of all different sizes, loyal to the Code, surprise carebears by punishing them with wardecs.


Among the wardeccers: Sword of the Saviour corp, of the 315th Circuit Court alliance. They are so feared that their wardec targets often stay docked up for weeks. When this happens, some of the wardeccers switch to their ganker alts. One fine day, the wardecced carebears remained in their holes. The Miniboss corporation, armed with ganker alts, went active.


Akumako's Retriever was the first victim. Shaken to the core, she neglected to offer her betters a "GF" in local.


Despite the warnings provided by a local rebel loudmouth, Noland Ross' Retriever was ambushed and destroyed.


Noland, too, refused to accept responsibility for the loss. As he cursed the gankers, a mysterious fellow with the last name "Balthazarian" made himself known.


Murmured threats bubbled up. Was this a sign of armed rebellion, or just more chatter?


The ganker alts continued to ply their trade. With no choice but to bend to the Code, even the rebels told miners to "look alive". Exactly what we're trying to get them to do.


Owen Shovel's Hulk was incinerated. He claimed not to be AFK, yet he took no heed of the countless warnings in local.


The Balthazarian entered her final form, Babylon Balthazarian. Would she make good on her threats?


Balthazarian was defiant. She denied the legitimacy of the New Order mining permit. Crazy rebels. Do they print their own permits, now?


Though Balthazarian hadn't lifted a finger against the New Order yet, she encouraged others to resist the New Order--and reason.


Then it happened. Balthazarian told the ganker alts to wardec her alliance. She was a member of Industrial War Machine LLC corp, which belonged to the 3dge of D4rkness. alliance. They love to PvP, she said.


Again the rebel cried out for war. She would have it.

To be continued...

Sunday, March 29, 2015

Kills of the Week

You might be surprised how often carebears question whether the New Order are really the good guys in highsec. No joke, some of them are truly skeptical. They doubt that our constantly ganking them will make highsec a better place. I'm sorry, but it will. If you need any proof, look no further than these kills from the week of March 22nd @ 00:00 EVEtime through March 28th @ 23:59 EVEtime. The dumb was out in force this week.


We begin with this polite conversation between bump specialist Siegfried Cohenberg and an unlicensed jump freighter pilot:
Siegfried Cohenberg > hi
Meho Semsin > ya
Siegfried Cohenberg > are you blue to cfc
Meho Semsin > YA
Siegfried Cohenberg > log in your cfc alt
Meho Semsin > OK SEK
Well, "sek" turned into forty minutes, and the fleet lost its patience with Meho. You probably know what happened next, since Eve-Kill spoiled it:


Yes, our friend was moving over 20 billion isk of cargo. Most of it was probably fine sitting where it already was, to tell the truth.


Naturally, Meho Semsin was triple-anti-tanked. He was doomed. Siegfriend continued his bumps so Agents Zaand Schtvaal, rackarns, Waking Life, Jean Pagette, Don Gately, Kusotarre, Emotion Sasen, Fabulous Andy, Sasha Cohenberg, Kentlar, Krisi Kristo, Rotineque Severasse, Armas Enfuego, Kaapee Torcan, Poppie McBonar, Mary Marvell, BAE B BLUE, Morrigan Laima, Neofelis Nebulosa, Braggs Seyllin, Kitiara Hextech, Kale Sultan, Errror404Name not found, Freya Guinness, PI Slave 004, Ehud Gera, and Jin Bland could slay the beast.


Of course, not every freighter that gets bumped winds up being ganked. Some pay ransoms or drop tears.


One such freighter pilot vented his frustrations in a Reddit thread that earned hundreds of upvotes and ultimately attracted nearly 900 comments.


Luckily, the honourable gankers honoured the 250 million isk ransom.



Ted Bigley thought he knew how to fly a Thrasher. Actually, he didn't have a clue. Agent PV Rock, on the other hand, is an expert Thrasher pilot, so he taught Ted how it was done. The lesson only cost 1.1 billion isk.

Incredibly, a similar incident occurred when PV Rock caught someone flying an 800 million isk Catalyst. If your Catalyst costs that much, you're doing it wrong.
PV Rock > Hi, since you haven't responded to my mail I was wondering if you have any questions
PV Rock > One of my own though first: am I correct in assuming that although your pilot is a year old, you just started playing again?
Taliana Minarai > yes
PV Rock > Well if you have any questions please feel free to ask them, most players are friendly and want to help new plaers
Taliana Minarai > apparently not
Taliana quit the convo without waiting to learn how to properly fly a Catalyst.



Yeah, it's going to be another one of those weeks. akatsuki aganon was carrying a PLEX in his Retriever, bloating the value of his untanked mining barge to nearly 850 million isk. Agents Xia Absent and Salah ad-Din al-Jawahiri popped the Retriever and recovered the PLEX.



No matter how you value Hoptah Amher's decadent 'Aoede' Mining Laser Upgrades (which are not permitted in highsec under the Code), his Hulk was worth billions. That's bot-aspirancy. Another symptom of bot-aspirancy: He was flying a Hulk. Agents Masao Kurata and Nicolas Dupre were the first responders to this emergency.



Lordhawk didn't know much about EVE, but he knew two things for certain: First, every Iteron Mark V is in need of a good laser. Second, if you happen to own 1.4 billion isk worth of Harvester Mining Drones, you should carry them in a well-tanked industrial ship. By well-tanked, I mean one with 200mm Reinforced Titanium Plates. Add a small tech I armor repairer and you're good to go. However, Agent HotShotX Warcastle belongs to another school of thought: No permit, no ship. Our Agent won the argument, I think.



Jadzeer DAXX was spotted in an autopiloting Leopard. For those who don't know, if you ever spot Jadzeer DAXX, you should gank him. This guy is building quite the rap sheet these days. Agent PV Rock popped the Leopard and the pod...


...For a total of nearly 10 billion isk destroyed. This was Jadzeer's most expensive pod loss in the last few weeks, but not by as much as you'd think. I wasn't kidding about his rap sheet.

All in all, this was a week filled with painful lessons for the carebears of highsec. If you live in highsec and spend your time engaged in PvE, I want you to promise me you'll work extra hard next week to make sure this doesn't happen again. The New Order is always watching.

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Highsec Miner Grab Bag #75


Never trust a carebear's ship name. You will know a carebear by his actions--and his tears. Grab Bag time!


You might think Mirela Thai's suggestion to the Agent who ganked her was an idle one. You'd be wrong. In fact, Mirela had given it a lot of thought:


It seems carebears have only gotten worse since the "Fifty Shades of Grey" movie.


Miners always complain about the gankers shooting ships that can't shoot back. Yet for some reason, the miners rarely take the opportunity to use their hard-won kill rights.


Luckily, highsec has a Saviour who is only interested in making EVE a better place. I'm not in it for the money. The New Order is incorruptible.


BTB DK has it wrong. The New Order doesn't sell mining permits to protect miners from other New Order members. We do it to protect the miners from themselves. This is literally in the first paragraph of the Code.


Some carebears, like Dheathproof, offer IRL death wishes in the laziest way possible...


...But in Mother Russia, it's their custom to put some real effort into it.


For Nazareem Dmatto, having intercourse with his girlfriend is a back-up plan for when his ship gets ganked and he can no longer mine. Of course, first he has to finish writing a tearmail to the person who ganked him.


It was bad enough when Xenuria's name was scratched off the EVE monument, but this is ridiculous!


Miners have a funny way of describing events. They can tell a story about good things happening, yet make it seem as if bad things happened.


Jaysin Lock finally finished his complaint letter, urging the New Order to figure out its targets. Actually, we have a system for that, and it seems to be working perfectly.


Our final tearmail of the day comes from ryan "Don't Call Me Sir" Penshar. You know, I always give credit where it's due. ryan managed to come up with a brand new excuse for going AFK: To cool down his laptop. If only he could cool his jets as easily.

Yeah.