Who Are the Real Villains of EVE?

From the beginning, the New Order has been a strong advocate for civility and respect in the world of EVE. It's not just a good idea--it's the law. As the Code says,

"Keep local clean. Miners should be courteous in local and should refrain from the use of profanity."

EVE Online can be a pretty wild place. It offers the players much more freedom than a typical MMO. Unfortunately, there are those who take things a step too far, abusing the privileges of the sandbox. I am speaking, of course, of the highsec carebears.

Some people believe that the level of discourse in EVE is lowered by the so-called "villains". They call the gankers, bumpers, scammers, awoxers, wardeccers, etc. "belligerent" and "undesirable" and call for their removal from the community. They think this would improve things. Those of us who have lived in highsec know the truth.

In reality, it is the carebears who commit the offenses in EVE that make us all shake our heads in disapproval.

One wonders, how did the carebears get the reputation of being the "good guys" in EVE? Is there anything intrinsically good about taking ore from the asteroid belts, or shooting red crosses in deadspace? And if not, don't we have to judge the carebears by their behavior?

Once they are judged by their words and actions, rather than their PvE classification, the carebears do not appear so pure and innocent.

Still, the carebear apologists and other enemies of emergent gameplay will insist that when a carebear does something wrong, it's only because he was driven to it. "What do you expect?" they say. The carebear must have been forced into behaving badly by the evil griefers.

But what, specifically, do these griefers do to inspire such things? What horror do they bring upon the upstanding miners and missioners?

Well, they bump them out of mining range. And shoot their Retrievers. No one could experience such a thing without becoming a monster, at least temporarily.

Thus, the emergent gamers of highsec "cross the line" when they engage in PvP. By shooting spaceships in a spaceship-shooting game, they bring it all upon themselves.

We see, then, that the carebear apologists believe PvP in highsec is the great sin of EVE. It is such a great evil that, when performed against a carebear, pardons and justifies anything a carebear might do or say in response.

Once the great sin of PvP is introduced into the environment, the carebears can't help but offer death threats and encourage other players to commit suicide. Having their spaceships fired upon sends them over the edge. It brings them to the breaking point. It's psychological torture. How else to explain the carebears' behavior? Surely they aren't bad people to begin with. If a miner acts like a raving lunatic after losing a Mackinaw, then losing a Mackinaw must be really, really awful.

If we judge people by their words and actions, the carebears are the villains of EVE. However, the carebear apologists tell us this can't be true. Only a truly virtuous human being shoot asteroids with a mining laser (without miners, we wouldn't have any ships!).

But even a morally pure miner isn't perfect. He can be driven to evil by the horrors of PvP. The only answer, they say, is to remove PvP from highsec. Then everyone can be happy.

Nice logic. Allow me to suggest an alternative theory, though: Carebears might not be the kind of people you think they are.