No Justice, No Peace

Pop quiz, dear reader: See if you can guess whether this miner has been ganked:

Actually, 'twas a trick question. moopoomoo Alabel was attacked, but his mining ship was not destroyed.

Agent Best EVE Player had attempted to kill moopoomoo for violating the Code, but the gank was not a success--or so it seemed. Miners can be extraordinarily salty even when they don't lose a ship.

Our Agent knew that the Code could not fail. The CODE always wins, always! Therefore, moopoomoo's death must have been postponed for some greater purpose. Best EVE Player returned to the field of battle and resumed his fight for the betterment of highsec.

Victory! The miner's ship was completely destroyed. Agent Best braced himself. If moopoomoo could be so angry when his ship survived a gank attempt, what would happen when his ship was killed?

Our Agent read moopoomoo's EVEmail wish astonishment. Was this the same miner?

Agent Best celebrated his victory in local. The newly timid moopoomoo begged for mercy.

Clearly, this was a changed miner. Only the Code could have this sort of effect on someone.

The miner no longer spoke of wanting our Agent to die from cancer IRL. That was a huge improvement, as far as the miner's attitude was concerned. All he needed was a good gank, it seems.

In spite of everything, Agent Best took pity on the carebear. He knew that moopoomoo's fellow miners had not prepared him for the reality of life in highsec. Not one bit.

The miner couldn't wait to surrender. But without a mining permit, moopoomoo could not experience the lasting peace of the Code. Since he refused to pay, Agent Best couldn't help him further--except to offer him a future full of additional ganks. So moopoomoo went to the Anti-Gankers:

Miners, if you don't obey the Code, you will never know peace. No Code, no justice. No justice, no peace.

Highsec Miner Grab Bag #182

Dean Age was salty immediately after being ganked. Would his saltiness level increase or decrease over time?

...And now it's a Grab Bag. Welcome!

These days, the ability to translate the tears of Chinese miners is more important than ever. But Google Translate appears to be lacking:

I get the impression that something was lost in translation here.

Don't worry, though, highsec still has plenty of Russian miners.

"Fuck you, you fucking motherfucker! and shove your new order, yourself or the ass you suck"

Highsec carebears certainly have a distorted view of the EVE galaxy. They think Goonswarm Federation rules lowsec. A lot of these miners don't know anything about the world beyond the asteroid they're shooting.

If Cateron Shikkoken is waiting for CCP to release a dev blog that exonerates him of the crime of bot-aspirancy, he'd better not hold his breath. Our Agents always perform a full investigation before accusing miners of anything.

It seems the space lawyers are multiplying.

Click here for full-size version

In a nod to the New Order's founding, Agent Kalorned bumped a miner in Halaima for an extended period. It was worth the effort. The miner performed a detailed psychoanalysis of our Agent and sent it to him, free of charge.

Whenever Chaos Blackhawk interacts with one of our Agents, he tells them to drink bleach. He's quickly gaining a reputation as "the bleach guy".

I'm always baffled when a rebellious carebear accuses our Agents of "griefing" the miners. It's obvious from EVEmails like this one that the New Order spreads joy wherever it goes. We're whatever the opposite of a griefer is.

There are a lot of bad miners out there, but make no mistake--day by day, highsec is being reformed. It's glorious to behold.

Kills of the Week

We see you, miner. You think you commit your acts of disobedience to the Code in secret--but you are being closely monitored. Our Agents have taken notice of your guilt. And when they feel like it, they'll kill you. If you assume your time will never come, feast your eyes upon your fellow bot-aspirants who were brought to justice during the week of April 21st @ 00:00 EVEtime through April 27th @ 23:59 EVEtime...

KILLMAIL

They're back! Sch1orl is one of a handful of Rokh miners who were ganked this week in highsec. When the Agents of the New Order kill enough exhumers and mining barges, carebears resort to using battleships. They die all the same. Agents Geronimo Wilson, AGBee 911, AGBee 513, AGBee 221, AGBee 400, AGBee 222, AGBee 223, and AGBee 224 released this battleship hull from its terrible fate.

KILLMAIL

Ivan Berger is a genuine Goofus. He was caught piloting a 1.7 billion isk Mackinaw. His ship was destroyed by Agent Guybertini's Talos. Ivan, of course, was too AFK to save his 2.2 billion isk pod--which patiently waited for Guybertini's Talos to slowly lock it and open fire.

KILLMAIL

No, Marcos Moris, you can't safely haul your stuff through Uedama with a fail-fit frigate. There's no way to get contraband past our vigilant Agents. Agent Eva Solberg popped the Condor and its precious cargo:

Carebears, you'd be better off with a daily injection of the Code.

KILLMAIL

The myth of the invincible Skiff has been busted again and again, but OSO YTERI couldn't believe it until her own 1.2 billion isk Skiff was incinerated by Agents Eva Mavas, Araena Calorne, Lucia, and Blowtorch Betty. Remember, miners: Non-compliant Skiffs still die, though it would probably be a smart idea to actually tank your tanky ship.

KILLMAIL

What is there to say about Aristan's 3.2 billion isk faction battleship? To be sure, 'twas a foul and decadent beast. But at least Aristan didn't equip it with mining lasers. Agents Eva Mavas, Araena Calorne, Lucia, and Blowtorch Betty killed the Nightmare and caught its 1.6 billion isk pod.

KILLMAIL

Did you know that carebears sometimes bring their blingy pods and Marauders into nullsec? It's true. Duncan420 lost a 2.1 billion isk Vargur before Agents Blaran Falsnar, repmefirst, and abkiller Outamon smashed Duncan420's 2.6 billion isk pod. Our heroes strongly suspected that the carebear intended to smuggle this ship into highsec, so they preemptively ganked it.

These implants had no place in highsec. Now, thanks to our brave Agents, highsec will never see them.

When Roleplay Gets Real

The enemies of the New Order accuse us of being a (fantastically powerful and efficient) hivemind. In fact, each Agent enforces the Code with a style of his or her own.

Take Hero Of HiSec, for instance.

Agent Hero is known for doing things his own way. Miners don't always appreciate Hero, but our Agent is utterly unflappable.

One fine day in Isanamo, Hero heralded the imminent commencement of a gank. He wasn't particularly subtle about it, but I'm sure plenty of miners would accuse him of "not warning them" anyway.

Even as Hero was savoring his latest kill, local miners went about their business--apparently oblivious to the Code.

Agent Hero grew concerned that Raidn Alexander was showing signs of complacency. In keeping with Hero's personal code of chivalry, he posted another warning. It was ignored.

...Or so it seemed. Actually, Raidn took several minutes to browse MinerBumping. He claimed to like what he saw.

But Raidn's professed love of roleplay would soon be tested. One minute after he sent Hero the EVEmail, Hero ganked Freya Black.

Freya Black just happened to be Raidn's alt.

Suddenly, Raidn had second thoughts about Hero's roleplay.

The "new returning player" quickly became an "old departing player".

Agent Hero was unfazed by Raidn's threats to quit the game. His mission remained the same.

Hero's derring-do had saved Isanamo once again. But the villain he had so valiantly vanquished had some parting words:

Raidn was horrified to discover what Hero was really doing. It was all fun and games when Hero was roleplaying a knight who ganked miners--but roleplaying a mobster who ganked miners? Absolutely unconscionable. For Raidn's sake, I hope he was only roleplaying a Goofus.

Crow Consumption Productions: CCP Unbans Brisc Rubal

Tonight, CCP is dining on a flock of feathery black birds. Few events from nullsec have occurred in recent years that were significant enough to receive inescapable news coverage: The permaban of gigX, the "Million Dollar Fight", and the Casino War (going back a bit) come to mind. Then there was the permaban of Brisc Rubal, who was kicked off the CSM for allegedly breaching his nondisclosure agreement with CCP. Two other leaders from Brisc's alliance got one-year bans for supposedly using Brisc's leaked info to gain in-game profits. CCP seemed to take relish in its original announcement of the bans, praising itself for its transparency and for protecting the sanctity of the CSM. CCP also claimed that the information leading to the bans came from concerned--but always unnamed--members of the CSM.

The story of Brisc's downfall made headlines in the mainstream press, partly because Brisc was known to be a real-life lobbyist, an influence-doubler who worked in the political Jita of Washington, D.C. The story also got more attention because breaching an NDA is a real-life offense rather than a purely spaceship-related one.

For the next few weeks, Brisc and his fellow ban recipients maintained their innocence. EVE citizens eagerly awaited a public statement from the anonymous CSM member(s) who had accused Brisc. Instead, the CSM members kept an embarrassed silence. Finally, this week, CCP announced that Brisc was innocent after all and the bans were overturned. Oops!

Am I surprised by the news? Not really. As I wrote in a magical article for TheMittani.com back in 2014, CCP has a history of handing out dubious bans. I experienced this for myself several months into my own EVE career, when I was permabanned from the game for no apparent reason. (Luckily for EVE, my permaban was overturned about a week later.)

In the years since I wrote my article, CCP's track record on bans hasn't improved, and numerous other players--some of them high-profile--have received dodgy bans. Brisc is only the most spectacular example of this phenomenon.

Some people still harbor doubts about Brisc's exoneration, though. Space lawyers have pointed out that perhaps CCP simply didn't want to deal with a legal battle. According to this line of thinking, maybe Brisc did breach his NDA, but CCP didn't have evidence that would stand up in a court of law. Or maybe CCP didn't feel it would be worth it to spend a bunch of money on lawyers when they could make this all go away by reversing the bans.

I find that doubtful. CCP's announcement exonerating Brisc does not appear to be designed to prevent a lawsuit. Quite the opposite, in fact. If Brisc wanted to sue CCP, he'd be looking for evidence that CCP's original accusation against him had been false and that CCP was reckless in making it. In their exoneration announcement, it looks like CCP was willing to confess both of these things. There are plenty of ways CCP could've announced the reversal of the bans without making these admissions. Here are a few examples:

• "Brisc and the other two banned players are now unbanned. No further comment."
  
• "We have reviewed the matter and, after careful consideration, we have decided to overturn the bans."
  
• "We have taken another look at the evidence and involved, and it doesn't meet our high standards of proof. But we're not admitting he was actually innocent."
  
• "Upon further review, Brisc was innocent, but due to a series of extremely unfortunate and wildly improbable coincidences, he looked guilty. Not our fault."
  
• "We thought Brisc was guilty because certain CSM members engaged in metagaming by expertly framing Brisc. Blame them, not us."

Instead, CCP opted to make a public statement declaring that Brisc was innocent and that the entire debacle was due to CCP's own incompetence. Let's look at a few quotes from CCP's announcement:

Neither Brisc Rubal nor the other players implicated in this incident breached CCP’s confidentiality, the terms of the Non-Disclosure Agreement, or used privileged information to obtain an in-game advantage.

In other words, CCP didn't merely lack proof of Brisc's guilt; he was innocent.

We made a mistake here and we offer our formal apologies. First, to Brisc Rubal and the two other players involved, both for making the allegations and for the disturbance and stress caused by the way in which we handled this situation.

Translation: "Our own conduct caused harm."

Second, for not collaborating with due care with the members of CSM 13, who have acted responsibly throughout.

Here, CCP lets the CSM members who accused Brisc off the hook. CCP may even be suggesting that they misunderstood whatever the CSM members told them. Also, by saying the CSM members acted responsibly, CCP implies that CCP acted irresponsibly by contrast.

...it's now clear that our initial actions were based on unsubstantiated assumptions.

CCP admits they had no basis for making its false accusation against Brisc.

...had we taken the time to review the information with greater scrutiny, this incident could have been resolved without the disruption that has since occurred.

And finally, CCP admits that the entire incident was totally avoidable, had they acted responsibly.

It doesn't look like the announcement was made just to avoid a lawsuit. If a lawyer took part in drafting this statement, it must've been Brisc Rubal's lawyer.

So where does this leave us? Is Brisc totally innocent, then? When it comes to the charge of breaching the NDA and helping alliance members profit from inside information, yes, he's exonerated.

However, Brisc Rubal is guilty of lobbying to nerf wardecs. There is also evidence that Brisc autopiloted in a pod through highsec.

On behalf of the highsec community, I urge Brisc to use his second chance at EVE life to buy a permit and cease from all further violations of the Code.

Axis of Bot-Aspirancy

Your wish is granted. But the many deaths will be those of non-compliant miners. When wishing, always take care to be specific.

Our Agents arrived in Autaris and ganked an untanked miner. When a Code violator loses his ship, it's always a cause for celebration.

...But not everyone knows how to party.

Johny Karter protested the death of his alt's Covetor. Johny's bio, per Google Translate:

I am a blacksmith! I - forge on! I can not forging!

Johny insisted that he had been at his keyboard during the gank. Our Agents thought otherwise. The destruction of the miner's pod (which could have warped away instantly) suggests that the Agents were correct.

Johny would know a thing or two about being AFK. He once lost an Orca to NPCs in highsec.

The miner insisted that he couldn't imagine why anyone would buy a permit and still mine AFK. Johny was correct in saying that it would be nonsensical to do so. But the sad truth is that bot-aspirants engage in a lot of nonsense.

Johny was disgusted by the incident. He had been cheated once again by the children of perfidious Albion. Then he made a cryptic remark:

in short, I betrayed your bodies to your body, and the axis was my reproductive organ

After leaving the system, Johny switched to the alt who had been ganked and replied to the termination notice he'd received. He produced evidence meant to prove that he'd been at his keyboard during the gank.

I was NOT afk. Why:
I gave your body rotation, so that the axis in that think of the ring can

Even after reviewing all of the new evidence, our Agent determined that the miner had indeed been AFK.

The miner stuck to his story.

I repeat:
I betrayed your body to your rotation, so that the axis in that think of the ring can

I am not going to waste any more.
And not going to read English nonsense. you want to write something - write in Russian

With the revocation of his mining permit, the miner was forced to remove the permit from his bio. He replaced it with a chilling warning:

Do not believe the codes - still deceived.

The miner truly had been deceived--by himself. He thought he could do the impossible: He thought he could outsmart the Code!