Children of the Code

In the 1994 classic film "Forrest Gump", the title character observes that life is like a pod killmail: you never know what you're gonna get. The same holds true for miner tears. You can keep collecting decent tears for a while, and then suddenly--BAM!--you get a nice, long carebear rant.

Agent Dreadchain received a normal-length EVEmail from a carebear who was upset about reaping the whirlwind for his crimes against the Code. The carebear's name was Fantic Nightstalk. It just sounds like the name of a bot-aspirant who has more tears to give, doesn't it? So Dreadchain pressed on. And he kept racking up tearmails.

Dreadchain decided to make one last appeal to Fantic's common sense. He linked Fantic to one of my Manifestos about the highsec miner problem. (All such essays are available on the Links page.) Either Fantic would become an Agent of the New Order, or he would reply with a rant.

...It would be a rant, the first paragraph of which is seen here. Fantic glossed over the many replies written by people who supported me in the Manifesto thread and focused instead on a handful of reprobates who disagreed with me--half of whom have probably changed their minds by now.

Fantic was a classic carebear. He was willing to concede that it's okay to shoot at a spaceship in a spaceship-shooting game, but not at someone's pod. This makes no sense. A pod can navigate and warp through space like any other space-faring vessel. Therefore, a pod is a spaceship. Some say that it's dishonourable to kill pods because pods pose no threat. But the same logic would apply to any spaceship, since none can stop the New Order.

Fantic got himself nice and worked up when writing his tearmail. It turned out his quarrel wasn't really with Agent Dreadchain or the rest of the New Order at all. His true enemies were living next door, bombarding his house with flying bricks and scratching up his old car.

Fantic concluded by saying the New Order is ruining EVE. I honestly don't see how anyone could accuse us of making EVE less interesting. Take Fantic, for instance. Before the New Order opened him up, Fantic was just another silent miner in highsec. Now he's a much more three-dimensional character. I kind of feel invested in his story, and I'm curious if the kid next door really vandalizes his house while he's bicycling through the mountains.

Next up, Bailey Kendron. He was killed while AFK mining in my territory. Agent Guybertini conducted a thorough debrief of the miner. Bailey was evasive at first, but when pressed, he let rip an epic carebear rant of his own--which continues below...

There's so much to unpack here that I almost don't know where to begin. What I'd like to know is which EVE player has been going around recommending that their friends sign up to do highsec mining for relaxation. That doesn't sound like a very good friend to me. Secondly, Bailey's two year-old son joins his father for these highsec mining excursions. He might as well, since highsec mining can be done by a two year-old. The two year-old might even have the sense to put a tank on his ship.

Then we have the contradiction: Bailey says he does highsec mining to settle his son down at night, but also says that he was tickling him. Tickling doesn't settle people down, so which is it? My favorite part is the comment about "adding to that family moment". Was this a traumatic experience? Did Bailey get angry in front of his son? I hope not. Regardless, we could have a case where someone's earliest memory is watching his father's Retriever get blown up by the New Order. Winning hearts and minds isn't always easy.

Bailey's closing remarks shed some light on the backstory. You see, this wasn't the first time Guybertini caught Bailey engaged in illegal mining in the system. A few days earlier, Bailey lost another Retriever for committing the same crime. Here's what Bailey wrote to me after his first death:

It's always something with that two year-old of his. I say it's time for Bailey to make some choices. The way Bailey describes it, he can be a good father, or he can be a good EVE player--he cannot be both. I say this is nonsense. When was the last time someone lost a Nyx in nullsec because they were tickling their child? Or when was the last time you read a battle report in which the fleet commander went AFK to feed his son? Never. It's not because nullsec pilots are all childless; it's because they take care of their parental responsibilities when not playing EVE.

I'm not impressed by carebears who use their children as human shields to excuse their lack of obedience to the Code. You want some parenting advice? To raise an honest child, set a good example. Live an honest life. The way things are going now, someday Bailey's child is gonna grow up to throw a brick through the neighbor's window.