Tempers flared on May 25, as a Legacy cyno memorial was followed by a major attack on the O-EIMK constellation. Some in the Imperium were quick to cry foul, citing a general agreement that such memorials have been a time to set aside differences. PAPI FC and architect of the Tuesday morning attack, Progodlegend, sat down with INN to discuss things.
INN: EVE’s a game that’s built—at least in nullsec—almost entirely on relationships and the bonds that develop between players. Part of that is coming together to mourn when we lose people. In the past, those gatherings have taken the form of cyno vigils, and they’ve been attended by allies and enemies alike. They’re usually seen as occasions where hostiles coming in are expected to act like guests, and nobody gets shot at. You guys had a cyno vigil at 1100 EVE time for one of your pilots. Can you tell me anything about how the cyno vigil came together, and if it went well, in and of itself?
Progodlegend: A TEST member named Beer from Bavaria did all the planning. From all accounts it seemed to go well, and I was glad we got to do it.
INN: Did you attend?
PGL: No, I didn’t sit down at my computer until 11:30
INN: In the past, most of these vigils have seen the fighting pause for large parts of the day. After this vigil, there were stratops that some people have called questionable. What happened there? (This has been edited slightly for clarity)
PGL: I disagree with the framing of your question. That is just simply not true. Regardless. We’ve had a Monday AU form up planned since Saturday. The high level PAPI people who planned it (me and a few others), didn’t realize that the vigil was also the same morning. I personally never saw the post, and was only made aware of it about 6 hours before the op by one of our AU FCs. This occurred in chat:
[12:53 AM] progodlegend: sounds good
[1:02 AM] KaeL EaglesEye [TEST]: theres the Cyno vigil in T5Z at 1100 today aswell
[1:05 AM] Pernicious Karma [Horde]: oh, for who?
[1:06 AM] progodlegend: how long is that going to last?
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r/Eve - A good friend lost
554 votes and 249 comments so far on Reddit
[2:15 AM] Pernicious Karma [Horde]: @Steadyo [HORDE] will you be around for 1200 plans or a bit too late for you?
[2:37 AM] Steadyo [HORDE]: Fuck no
[2:37 AM] Steadyo [HORDE]: Be long asleep mate
[2:39 AM] Pernicious Karma [Horde]: Ya, figured. Rest well princess
[3:26 AM] progodlegend: do we know how long that funeral is going to last?
[3:27 AM] Thomas [Test]: I could ask beer from Bavaria how long it will
[3:27 AM] progodlegend: that would be nice
[3:27 AM] progodlegend: I'd like to do things at 1200
[3:27 AM] progodlegend: and while I want to respect the funeral
[3:27 AM] progodlegend: it'll give him a full hour
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r/Eve - A good friend lost
582 votes and 278 comments so far on Reddit
[12:56 PM]
xxxxxxx
[3:31 AM] Thomas [Test]: "good question tbh, i got no fixed timeframe. If people will do 1 or 2 cycles i'll be happy. I will let mine run a bit longer but i don't expect it to last longer than 30minutes"
[3:32 AM] Thomas [Test]: So it shouldnt interfere with 1200
[3:33 AM] progodlegend: @here ok I've prepinged for 1200 eve time
[3:33 AM] progodlegend: cat is out of the bag. Feel free to start pre pinging your guys
At this point I sent a very clear and explicit ping, which I know you all read.
Hi everyone, just a reminder, we lost a fellow player recently and will be holding a cyno vigil for him at 11:00 eve time. Please read Beer for Bavaria's post for more details:
https://forum.pleaseignore.com/topic/109909-a-good-friend-lost/
During this time please do not engage any hostiles who are coming into t5zi to light a cyno. I can't guarantee the rest of PAPI will follow this, but I hope that at least TEST/Legacy will.
After the funeral, we will be forming up a strat op at 12:00 eve time. See yall there.
#### SENT BY progodlegend to OP Military @ 2021-05-25 08:32:27 EVE Time ####
INN: So TEST leadership was unaware of the timing of the vigil. If you had been, would that have changed things?
PGL: No, I would have asked him how long he wanted, he would have said 30 minutes like he did, and then we would have done the same thing. We don’t usually pre-ping ops, as you know. We went out of our way to be clear that the funeral would end at a set time
INN: You said you disagreed with my earlier question, and obviously, the issue of how long resumption of hostilities should wait after a memorial like this is one that many people have strong feelings about. A lot of people, for example, remember the way basically everything in null stopped for Vile Rat’s memorial. So that readers can get a better understanding of what went into your view on this, do you have previous examples of similar situations in the past?
PGL: There has never been a cyno vigil like Vile Rat’s.
INN: That’s very true. But I was asking more about ones like today, where major combat operations commenced directly after.
PGL: If you have some examples you’d like me to comment on I can.
INN: Well, that’s exactly my question: do you have any examples of similar chains of events?
PGL: It’s a pretty unique situation. If you have something specific you’d like to compare it to you can.
INN: I really don’t, other than the BRAVE vigil that’s already been mentioned, or the 1DQ vigil that took place a few years ago, with non-blue fleets welcomed in to take part.
PGL: Yeah, I don’t remember much about the brave vigil. I know it happened in Querious and went on for a while, I don’t know if fleets were pinged during it. I don’t think it reflected the same strategic situation regardless, nor do I think it’s worthwhile to compare these.
INN: Just to play devil’s advocate: is the strategic situation really that meaningful, though, that it might be considered the more important thing to focus on?
PGL: I don’t think playing devil’s advocate is really necessary here. The idea that it would be a good policy for us to abuse our own member’s cyno vigil for our own gain is kind of ridiculous. That’s why we asked him what he had planned first before making any announcements.
I don’t see what else can be said. We pre-pinged 4 hours in advance even though it gave you guys ample time to presetup on the gate. That certainly isn’t very strategic. That is not something we normally do.
INN: Obviously, this is an issue where people have strong feelings all around, on both sides of the matter. If you had it to do over again, or in a similar situation in the future, is there anything you’d do differently?
PGL: I would not change anything that we did. Everything was made very clear in pings. No one seemed to be caught off guard on either side. The people who ran the cyno vigil were happy with the turn out and appreciative of both sides for giving their friend a proper send off.
INN: In the end, that’s a big chunk of what we all hope for, for friends in that situation. Do you have anything else you’d like to make sure gets out there?
PGL: Yeah nothing really. Sorry if anyone got confused but let’s all just chill out. I wouldn’t think that Goons would ever do something like what was alleged here, neither side is interested in something like that. And thanks to the Goons who reached out to offer an olive branch and calm everything down.
This is an issue that has seen a lot of heated reaction. INN would like to thank Progod for taking the time to sit down and talk with us. If you have any questions or thoughts about this chain of events, please feel free to post them in the comments below.
