Getting Set Up
My trip into Jita was eventful, to say the least. Naturally I was unprepared, no jump clone, even remotely close to the Forge. My closest clone was in Tanoo, a questionable system on the outskirts of religious space. I had a Garmur there, left over from an interview I had flown out to do and got bored on the flight back. Naturally it was still ready to go, loaded and waiting with a jump clone for when I decided to retrieve it. I set my affairs in order in Goonland, knowing I wouldn’t see it again for a few days, and jumped into my waiting clone. Blackness, then a new system, a new constellation, a new region. I boarded my forgotten Garmur and began the burn towards Jita.
The first twenty or so jumps were dead silent, nothing but blues. My normally careful or paranoid approach to space life started to slip, and I found myself less and less cautious with each system I burned through. Finally, I just stopped. I stopped caring about caution, and began warping, from gate to gate like a true asshole. Still, nothing. Nothing on scan, nothing on grid, just nothing. I was around six jumps out from Jita when it happened. I entered a system and warped carelessly to the outgate when I came across a pulsating light.
Sirens wailed, my shields melted, and I realised I had hit a smartbombed gate. I activated all modules, but it was too little to late. My hull melted and turned to slag and my pod was left very naked. Quick reaction times saw my pod escape, which is lucky. I might have been pissed if I had to make that whole journey again. A few quick warps around the galaxy saw me with a few safes and a perch to warp from on the opposite side of the gate. I offered up a few “good kill” remarks, and I started my way towards Jita once more.
Arriving a bit late I missed out on a few of the kills, and naturally I wasn’t prepared on comms. I asked in fleet and my corp CEO Major Sniper pointed me in the right direction, and reminded me to stop being a bad. I set them up on the fly on the way to the first freighter. Luckily for me Miniluv did most of my navigation for me, and the rest was self explanatory. I had never suicide ganked before Jita, or at least nothing big. One bored day in highsec I played pod roulette with a few destroyers, but that was the extent of my past experiences. I pride myself on being an honorable man. I’ve never squelched on a deal, never abandoned an ally and I’m always the first to sacrifice himself in fleets in the hopes my space-friends can make it out. I didn’t understand CODE., or MiniLuv for that matter. I didn’t get it. I was always wondering what fun can be had in Highsec?
The First Kills
Needless to say, the first one we burned down had a lasting affect on my psyche. I was hooked. I had never experienced anything like it. Eight years spent as an immortal capsuleer. Eight long years, and with every new Burn Jita, or Hulkageddon, I had been safely tucked away, far, far from danger. Even when I was a pubbie, my nomadic ways always left me far from The Forge, and the spectacle that is Burn Jita. I wasn’t remotely prepared, to be honest with you all. When I burned out there it was for the story. I cetainly hadn’t intended on binge killing freighters for a weekend.
One after another, freighter kills kept pouring in. In one day, a whole life time of mistakes were wiped off my killboard – when I arrived in Jita, it was green, it was only so by about forty million. By the end of the first day, I was sitting somewhere around forty billion destroyed. In one day, I equalled the amount of ISK I had destroyed in a life time of frigate fighting and wormhole defense. I know, I know, Goons aren’t supposed to give a fuck about their killboards. We pride ourselves on being bad at this game, and find it hilarious while still winning. Unfortunately, old habits die hard. I’m from a different time, a time when you needed thirty million skill points, a vouch, and an immaculate killboard to get into nullsec alliances. Needless to say, I’m happy to welp every single Drake I’m forced to fly, but a bit more cautious with my other assets in hopes of retaining my ‘recruitable’ status which is actually an odd thing. I really couldn’t imagine myself anywhere but the Imperium, and they don’t give a shit how my killboard looks.
What was going to be a few kills and a quick write-up later turned into something entirely. I was a slave to the fleet. I couldn’t leave it. That’s how addicting it is. It’s not just the endless stream of content, awesome fleet providers, or the handouts that Miniluv gave us all to ensure we could stay and explode ships all weekend. It was the people I met; the friends I made. Let me tell you, I don’t leave Drug Delve often. Those of you who roam our space will often see me in the same constellation, away from the umbrella. Thus I very rarely meet those outside of my corp or my constellation. However, early on in the weekend, I met a war photographer named Whisper Quietly. Funny guy, and his pictures were the talk of the event. We sat there sharing them amongst ourselves, and linking the albums to all the mouth breathers in local. His photography really captured the fantastic moments and intensity of the whole crazy damned thing.
That’s not to say there weren’t downsides to it all. You do not go unpunished, and you cannnot evade justice. Vegeance will be visited upon you, unescapable and swift. I’m not talking about the anti-gankers present. I’m talking about CONCORD. We’re called bees, but they are the true swarm. An endless mass of points, ECM, and weaponry far beyond the reach of capsuleers. Curiously, I found the anti-gankers genuinely helped me more than they hindered me. In the extremely heavy Time Dilation, the anti-gankers podding me and sending me back to staging was a god send. They also gave me something to shoot at the very moment the freighter we were blapping died. It became a game to see who could get extra kill mails and podkills. Instead of forcing me to suicide my pod in heavy TiDi and stripping me of time and the will power to continue, they genuinely made the whole thing easier to swallow. That said, the first day was simply a blur, where each and every kill spurred me onwards. When downtime hit, I retired to the Captain’s Quarters and took a nap. I awoke to more pings, and knew I had to continue the gankathon.
Day Two
The second day was a bit more casual than the first hectic day. More trolling in local was guaranteed, especially once people started selling Burn Jita white passes. If you bought a safe pass so that you could fly your freighter around Jita, only to be promptly blown up, I’m sorry but you’re an idiot. Also, I’m selling safe passes for next year, don’t get yourself popped next year. Buy your white pass now and save!
Anyway, you’d think after a whole day of killing, we’d see less freighters and jump freighters, right? Wrong. It was another steady stream of carnage. Every time my criminal timer cleared, I was undocking again. We had the mass to split the fleet in two and still kill freighters with ease. It was madness. By this time my security status had started to drop by a noticeable amount. It became a goal to become an outlaw pilot. I might as well, since I’m spending three days terrorizing the Forge. By this time, we had gone beyond burning Jita. We were killing things everywhere in the Forge, with zero fucks given. I think at one point we took five gates to blow something juicy up. We still had two full fleets running, as well as multiple small groups ganking the anti-gankers right back.
By the time the second downtime approached, we were all ready for it. The anti gankers had given up long ago, and our FC was blapping for fifteen hours straight. All of the FC’s were on the same mass destruction schedule. All of them working tirelessly to bring us carnage. I guess I was on the same schedule, too. I couldn’t stop. It seemed like from downtime to downtime. I was around for so long I had taken over the fleet’s August Squad and started giving out ships for BJBees to go happily lose. It was a great middle day, CEO’s and the space-famous were in and out of the fleets, blapping freighters then returning to their infinitely busier days. I had destroyed another thirty billion. I may have slowed down, but the fleets didn’t. They kept raising the prices of freighters. By the time the servers went offline, we were wondering where we sat in total ISK destroyed. Our FC’s had told us it might be impossible for us to beat the year before. We would see, the day was also very successful.
The Last Day
We started off strong, our bodies ready to be sacrificed. The day blew by, a lot of laughs to be had. By this time the freighter kills had all become repetitive. I no longer gripped my controls ready to go. I learned to lean back and relaxed for fifteen minutes and wait out my timer in style. “Wake up wake up wake up. Everyone undock in, five..four…three…two…one..undock undock undock.” Oh shit. I engaged the undock a good three seconds too late, fortunately for me, the tidi was strong with us and by the time everyone undocked and I joined them, they were just initiating warp. Op success.
Any time I managed to keep my guns loaded in the immense gravity that is tidi, I called it a success. Tidi does weird things. Guns magically unloading, or appearing online but not being, all of this totally undetectable until you go to fire and get blue balled by fate or the node, whichever you prefer. By this time, I had reached the magic number of negative ten, and was getting shot at everywhere, by everything. It was immensely satisfying. Not all of us made it to warp from the perches, and even the undock. The best were the potatoes that uncloaked after jumping through gate.
You’d think so late into the last day the kills would stop, but they did not; they didn’t stop until the jump freighter kill just before downtime. People still asked in Jita, “Is it over yet?” all day. You’d think the three hundred BJBees in local scamming, bartering, cracking jokes, memeing, and just being a total menace would you know, hint that they probably shouldn’t haul shit but what can you do. I saw a lot in Jita, something I never thought I’d say. I saw Karmafleet recruiting – haha, thank you for that guys. That’s funny because the going joke is that ASCEE recruits from Jita. I seen’t it guys. I seen’t it. More whitelist passes sold.
I bought my frozen corpse from a dealer, paying him entirely too much for it, but I guess I feel my body is worth more than it is. I gave him fifty million ISK when he told me to make an offer, and once satisfied he contracted over my corpse. To my surprise, he was an honorable corpse dealer. Someone was selling fake warp-ins, which was also funny. I also wonder how many people actually fell for a mass nerd scam invasion? I know freighter pilots were falling for the fake contracts and hauling our couriers, only to get ganked by us. Someone probably made stupidly high collateral rewards from that if they did it right. The whole thing was madness. I’m happy to return to Goonland, but I will say one thing. That was fantastic fun, Miniluv. Expect me to solo gank something and apply for the SIG. I had a blast.
One of our pilots, Shingly, took the time and created this great video, which definitely can help you live the experience. All of the pictures I used were by Whisper Quietly. Good work guys. You’ll also see Shingly with the most damage on a lot of kills. Those damn Talos’ do a ton of damage. Also, to any freighter pilots we killed – sorry guys, it was only for fun. I wish you all luck in your hauling endeavours this year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=vmKQHidrAU0
Next year, be sure to buy your white pass from the only true certified pass dealer, Johnny Crowe.
