So. this is a kind of long story – and a very condensed version of it. First off a little bit of background. It started about five years ago in a highsec learning corporation. We lived in Ziona, about four jumps out of Amarr. This corp was under constant wardecs, which we later found was because our CEO was hiring mercenaries against us with alts. This created a learn fast or burnout environment. It was a lot of fun, and created a very tight-knit group within this corp. This group is who this story is about.
After learning the basics of war in high sec, we taught new members these same skills, as long as they were willing to listen. Eventually we started declaring war against others instead of always being the victim, anyone that lived in our system was a potential target. We bullied most corps out of the system at the time. We destroyed several POSes during our attempts to take control of the system, one particular target had a POS which we attempted to destroy- but we failed. With about half EW mods and four skilled pos gunners against several underskilled characters, it just never worked out well for us. They put a great fight and kept things interesting for us, though we never could kill that POS. They fought well, some of their members harassing our newer players, giving us content and a lively war.
Those days in highsec came to an end though, due tp building animosity towards our always absent CEO. The directorate quietly decided to leave, taking many senior members with it to do our own thing. This group that splintered out came to be called “Project Aces.” We created our own mumble server, and have had it since. A number of our members lost interest in EVE but they never left our comms. A few more came and went, and some have stuck it out. Project Aces ended up dying as an EVE Corp, but not as a group. Together on our server, we are now a small dysfunctional family with members all over the US, Canada and the UK. We have gone to meetups and gaming conventions, like PAX Prime, EVE Vegas and the Madison Goon meetups.
Those of our group that do play EVE do different things. Some of us fly with Goons, and others still fly around in highsec. But recently we all logged on together for the first time in years. We found out that our target POS in Ziona was still there, four long years later…
So we started watching our target. Unfortunately for them, they too had suffered in their player activity. Only one active person fueling the tower with a very predictable schedule. Easy pickings right?
The tower itself was still set up the same way to counter our old fleets from four years ago. Some of the guns were still damaged from that war. Lots of guns and lots of EWAR. Most of it offline, but ready to be onlined by an active gunner. Luckily for us, the one guy running the tower wasn’t very active.
We declared war with a one-man corp almost a month before the tower would be attacked. That way the targets would be lulled into a false sense of inactivity. We all have busy lives and it took some coordination to find the right day. The night before we attacked the tower, we all piled in.
The day finally came. After some initial lack-of-practice-related chaos, we took out most of the online guns and EWAR, before sending the tower into reinforce. After reinforcing the tower, we incapacitated every mod outside the tower for good measure. This took us hours- but they were fun hours, with us all together again, doing this, drinking, laughing and having fun.
As we continued to destroy the tower, there was a bittersweet feeling that set in. We were finally doing this, after so long and so many changes, but the one guy defending wasn’t one of the guys that was all that involved with harassing us during our previous conflicts. He was there, but he was always polite. In this new war we didn’t tell him why we were attacking. He had no idea why we were picking on him and did not remember us. I left him some clues and went back to killing the tower. In the end we got our fireworks.
Finally, the tower was gone. A goal we could not accomplish years ago, we came back wiser and stronger to finish it. I had promised our target that all would be explained after the deed was done, so I sent him this message.
He gave us an understanding response like a true gentleman. He is welcome to join us on our mumble, and will always will be. I hope to fly with him and maybe teach him some of those pvp skills that I don’t have. We will lose ships gloriously.
He had done the smart thing and pulled all of the valuables out of the tower. We weren’t after those, or his other towers, just this one.
EVE is more than just a community. It’s a medium which enables its players to create stories. My little band of misfits has been playing games together since we met in this highsec corp almost five years ago. Though EVE is not our normal game to play any more it is what brought us together. That is the worth of EVE as not just a game- but a place where friendships are made that outlast the game itself, and can bring us back together even years later.
This article originally appeared on TheMittani.com, written by SkepticNerdGuy.
