The Agent's Burden

A new day has dawned in highsec. The effect of the Code has been so great, carebears from the old days hardly recognize the place anymore.

The bot-aspirant carebears are relics of the past. If they could, they would make highsec go back to the way it used to be.

Standing in their way: The Agents of the New Order of Highsec. Among this elite group of PvP'ers is Mildron Klinker, "Very Special Agent" of the New Order.

CCP may sell monocles, but they don't sell Agent badges. It would be cool, yet unnecessary, since anyone can recognize an Agent: They're the ones who don't spend their time shouting about penises and such. They're too busy winning.

Agents stand in sharp contrast to the lesser players of EVE--if they can be called "players" at all.

Despite the incoherent ramblings of the carebears, we know they're paying attention. For instance, some will reference things in the Code, or in an Agent's bio.

They look at Mildron Klinker's bio and immediately feel guilty in the presence of an Agent of the New Order. They know they have been judged under the Code.

Most carebears don't immediately respond with an acknowledgement of their guilt or a payment of 10 million isk. They want to see if calling an Agent "horse foot" will suffice. It won't.

Bitterly clinging to their isk, the carebear claims total freedom to mine in highsec. The destruction of their mining barges and exhumers suggests otherwise.

The Code is clarity; the words of the carebear offer only confusion.

Finding themselves powerless in-game, the most hardened bot-aspirant wishes real-life death on the Agents. Failing that, they beg CCP to deploy permabans. A man may die, and a hero may be permabanned. But you can't kill an idea.

Despite their trickery, our enemies failed to slow the rising tide of Code-compliance. The most candid of them admit that there's only one way this story can end.

...Total victory for the New Order. Even those who will "never" pay, do pay.

The bot-aspirant's habitat is being transformed. They call it the death of EVE. They accuse us of driving away the game's subscribers.

The numbers don't lie. The New Order is a cleansing fire in highsec. We improve retention rates among the majority--those who are interested in playing the game. We clear their path by removing those who would only bot or aspire to bot.

The carebears are a curious people. They have even more difficulty understanding us. In time, however, when they see highsec turn into its final form, they will learn to appreciate the Code's beauty.

The Greatest Show on Earth

Dear reader, would you mind if we took a moment to think about some numbers? MinerBumping has been visited over three and a half million times. Thanks to the New Order, tens of thousands of EVE players have been bumped, ganked, wardecced, and treated to all sorts of emergent gameplay that they otherwise wouldn't have been. The New Order has been the subject of countless conversations of countless people. It's no exaggeration to say that humanity, collectively, has spent millions of hours involved in Code-related activities.

And not a millisecond of it was wasted. I can't imagine a better use of our time.

With that in mind, I'd like to present a few more examples of the New Order's contribution to the fine arts.

We begin with Agent Nitetime Video's lyrics for a song from the soon-to-be-classic musical, "The Sound of Compliance".

Teardrops on carebears and permits for kittens
Bright big explosions and support from Mittens
Brown paper ship tanks tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things

Gray colored Catas and crisp new void blasters
Warp-ins on miners and ice safe from lasers
Pilots that fly with permits that code brings
These are a few of my favorite things

Anti-tanked freighters who fly through Uedama
With Loyal as FC and Veers for the Drama
minerbumping.com with fake Mings
These are a few of my favorite things

When anti-Code fights
When New Order stings
When carebears feel sad
They should remember my favorite things
And then they won't feel so bad!

Lovely. It certainly fits with our mission to make carebears feel less bad, to make them calm down, and to enrich their lives.

***

Next up, Agent Kaely Tanniss. You might remember her as the artist responsible for the popular Women of the New Order 2015 Calendar. Kaely has created a recruitment video for the New Order:

New Order Recruitment video

As you can see even from the preview image, the video contains striking visuals of the kind that impressed so many readers of Kaely's calendar.

***

Last, but certainly not least, we have Agent Sasha Nyemtsov, The Man with the Golden Voice. If you've been living under an asteroid, perhaps you haven't yet heard his readings of the Code and other prominent MinerBumping works. You're in for a treat; A Highsec Christmas Carol remains a seasonal favorite. But today, we have something entirely different from Sasha...

The Modern Miner - Introduction

Your eyes don't deceive. Sasha has gotten into the video-making game. His first piece of cinematography is the intro for the MinerBumping post, The Modern Miner. If you're a fan of Sasha's audio works, you'll be enraptured by this video.

The New Order of Highsec: Such talent, such genius. Such culture!

Carebears and Their Promises

Highsec and its carebears remain imperfect. Rest assured, the Agents of the New Order are on the case!

Agent Tisiphone Dira was patrolling a busy highsec stargate. In ganking the Code violators, she aimed to repair some frayed strands of the social fabric. But Ragged Starkiller didn't want highsec to be improved. He threatened to hunt the Agent down.

Some carebears tick like a clock. When they reach the end of their countdown period (the length of the period varies from carebear to carebear), something terrible happens.

However, the "something terrible" is not vengeance. The New Order can't be destroyed--if it could, it would've been already. Rather, at the end of the countdown, the carebear commits another crime: He breaks his promise to engage in PvP.

Ragged's bluff was a failure. Agent Tisiphone stood firm in the face of the carebear's threat. Struggling to think of a way to take revenge, Ragged added a very modest amount to the bounty on Tisiphone's head.

Ragged insisted that his retaliation would occur at some point in the future. He accidentally told the truth when he said it would come "not sooner and not later".

At first, Ragged feigned total disinterest in the Code. But his curiosity got the better of him. Ragged asked Tisiphone to tell him about James 315, the Saviour of Highsec. As you can see, Tisiphone is very good at steering a conversation. Most carebears don't want to hear any more about me. Ragged had given her an invitation!

Thus began Ragged Starkiller's education. Better late than never.

In time, Ragged came to regret his request to be told about me.

The carebear took one look at MinerBumping and decided the Code wasn't for him. Yet he was in highsec, so Tisiphone knew he was mistaken.

Angered by what he read, Ragged renewed his threats to take revenge. Tisiphone was skeptical. So far, the carebear had failed to deliver.

Unfortunately, this is something our Agents must deal with each and every day. Some Agents are still waiting on carebears who threatened to destroy the New Order more than two years ago.

Ragged wrapped up the conversation with some final insults and politely closed the convo. Revenge would come when Tisiphone least expected it. One thing's for sure: if the carebears ever take revenge against the New Order, we really won't be expecting it.

Tisiphone continued her noble quest. To date, Ragged still hasn't made good on his promises. By contrast, our Agents are constantly delivering the Code to highsec's bot-aspirants. The Code's promise is one you can always count on.

Rescuing New Players from Griefers

New players are a precious resource. Unfortunately, there are those who would prey upon the ignorance of new players. These predators seek only to exploit the new players and subject them to unnecessary grief. I am, of course, referring to the leaders of highsec PvE corporations.

The true "griefers" of EVE are the carebear CEOs. Their goal is to locate the most vulnerable players and convert them into isk-grinding machines. In almost every case, they describe their corporations, as seen here, "newbie-friendly with veteran leadership". The new players, being unfamiliar with the game, never think to question why a veteran player with real skill is leading a highsec PvE corp. Experienced players know better. A "veteran leader" has no business telling a bunch of newbies to mine and sell ore to them at less than Jita prices.

Each and every day, countless EVE players unsubscribe out of sheer boredom. It isn't the traditional kind of "griefing" that you hear about, but it's all too real. Theirs is a griefing of quiet desperation. The New Order to the rescue! Agent Kalorned ("Koland") saved the author of this EVEmail from a terrible fate--by ganking him.

The transformation. Once a player has been forcibly removed from their carebear corp, they are free to explore the enjoyable aspects of EVE.

It's important to note that the liberation of players from a carebear corp almost always requires some act of violence. EVE players typically stick with their corp--no matter how bad it is--out of loyalty. They must be given a sharp nudge, not unlike a baby bird that must be pushed out of its nest so it may be properly motivated to discover flight.

Rest assured, the "veteran leaders" eventually get what's coming to them--destruction at the hands of the New Order's finest.

Each time the carebears fail, they petition and beg CCP to remove PvP from highsec. They tell CCP that the company's profits depend on it. But CCP is slowly beginning to awaken to the truth: Ganking improves player retention, and carebearism reduces it. The carebear never cared about CCP; he cares only for his own money.

Highsec's time has come. If your corp's "leaders" have griefed you into mining or other bot-aspirant activities, don't hesitate to stand up and fight for your right to make your corp obey the Code!

Kills of the Week

Over the past few weeks, there has been a lot of conversation on the subject of proper ship fittings. We know that the Code expressly forbids certain types of ship configurations. For example, a Code-violator might slap some modules on a ship with the attitude, "Eh, why not? It's highsec. I'm safe here, so who cares?" That is an insidious form of bot-aspirancy. Sadly, it's all too common. The New Order is here to put a stop to that nonsense. Consider the following kills from the week of April 19th @ 00:00 EVEtime through April 25th @ 23:59 EVEtime...

KILLMAIL

When he chose his character name, Guthawk Badassdom probably assumed he would have an exciting career as a gutsy combat pilot in EVE. Somewhere down the line, he abandoned his dreams in favor of highsec mining. Incredibly, his Covetor was worth 785 million isk before it was destroyed by Agents Seylene Ravlonov, The Occidental, and Chocolate Mooses.

Guthawk, if he learns at all, learns slowly. He was coming off a loss of a 524 million isk Retriever.

KILLMAIL

Gvan Suk was flying an Orca worth 1.5 billion isk. To her credit, it was tanked up. However, in addition to forgetting a permit tank, she forgot about something we might call a "wardec tank". She knew a wardec was about to go live, but she wanted to squeeze in every last minute of mining that she could before the wardec began. Big mistake. Agent Alana Charen-Teng checked in early and kept the Orca tackled for 30 minutes by bumping it senseless. Then the wardec went active. Alana and Agent Cannibal Kane unleashed their weapons to destroy the wretched Orca.

Indeed, Alana and her fellow wardeccers were busy. They also took down Gary Gaterau, who lost his third orca this month. Alana explains:

Gary Gaterau is a multiboxing ice miner based around Jaschercis and Vaurent of Gallente space. I spied him and his alt trespassing in an icebelt with an Orca and Charon--clearly up to mischief! He had several out-of-corp alts mining in Skiffs, who I could not attack directly. But after capturing his two prized hauling ships, I demanded he contract me two of his Skiffs, which he did. Rest assured, those two Skiffs will be dealt with appropriately. As for the haulers...
Kill: Gary Gaterau (Orca) Kill: Madeleine Gaterau (Charon)

Following this debacle, Gary Gaterau left me with an ominous message...

From: Gary Gaterau
Sent: 2015.04.24 22:34

You will pay for this. It was wardec, you didn't keep to an agreement. I'm a man of my word you are a losy bitch without honour. I will remember that.

Gary's memory probably isn't as good as he thinks. Three Orcas lost to wardecs in one month is a lot.

KILLMAIL

Nothing says, "Who cares? It's highsec, so nothing matters!" quite like Aamon Ra's troll-fit Astero. Agent Tisiphone Dira was appalled when she discovered it was fit with nothing but a civilian pulse laser. A civilian mining laser was discovered in the cargo--unlicensed, naturally.

KILLMAIL

This one is really painful for me. Arkantos Audeles was busy mining in a 0.5 system with an anti-tanked battleship. Everyone knows how I feel about this sort of thing. Agents Jaxi Wreckful and Lament von Gankenheim did their best to quietly remove the abomination from highsec, but the damage was already done. And it would only get worse...

KILLMAIL

Several hours later, Arkantos Audeles returned to the same system in a Talos, a ship normally used for ganking in the name of the Code. I'm convinced that Arkantos was flying this ship as some kind of political statement. But obscenities of this nature have no place in highsec politics. Agent Piz Caldera was alerted to the crime and did his job well.

KILLMAIL

SERG 999 had 5.6 billion isk worth of implants in his pod. How did he choose to protect his investment? By going AFK and autopiloting in a naked pod directly through the heart of New Order territory. It was just a matter of time before he was stopped by Agent Aaaarrgg. If only SERG had made his acquaintance before wasting so much money.

As you can see, we've still got a lot of carebears who keep making the same mistakes over and over. A lesson in efficiency: Their time would be better spent reading the Code over and over again.

Highsec Miner Grab Bag #78

If you receive an EVEmail and the subject reads, "Hey Fuckface!", it might be time for another edition of the Highsec Miner Grab Bag.

Gabriel Starrunner told Agent Snigie Audanie that he would never, never buy a mining permit. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Our wallets are filled with the isk of those who will "never" pay.

...And I'm not joking. Gabriel lasted about a month and a half before he relented. In time, everyone in highsec will obey the Code.

I don't know if I'd call CODE. a "clan", but it's as real as it gets.

I always enjoy seeing the rebels come up with original excuses for things. Here, Trevor Kado came up with an unprecedented motive for opposing the Code. It's not that he's anti-Code, he merely thinks there are enough Agents already and doesn't want any more. He's trying to enforce some kind of quota?

John Sorcerer, too, engaged in a bit of creativity. He reported our Agent to CCP because the CODE. corporations are all in his contacts list. At least, I think that's what he was trying to say. Apparently CCP couldn't make sense of it either, since the petition was denied.

Another benefit of being ganked by the New Order: It serves as a reminder of the existence of the Code. Otherwise they might forget all about it, as FalZeeNNKiLLeR KiLLeR did.

In a previous edition of the Grab Bag, Gavin Keikira promised, "Trust me this is not over." Normally he'd be wrong, since carebears who make that promise typically skitter away into a dark corner and don't show their face again. But now some New Order wardec professionals are seeking out the corps of miners who make such threats.

As a result, Gavin's corp, Tactical Delinquents, is getting a taste of the consequences of harboring an unruly carebear.

I'm sorry, but I don't believe the miners who claim that they were only AFK for a few seconds when they got blown up. Either our Agents have exquisite timing (which they do, but still), or the miners are AFK for longer than they claim. Take DragonStar Kanenald's excuse about going AFK to get a drink of water. How long does that take? Maybe he went across the street to drink from his favorite water fountain. Maybe he went on a trip to the Serengeti to drink from a watering hole. This is why we have a zero tolerance policy for AFK mining. You know these people will abuse any leeway we give them.

Tell the truth, receive bounties.

Highsec is indeed supposed to be a secure sector--secure from bot-aspirancy.

Carebears love to bluff. Even after Agent Guybertini already checked Montgomery Kilstroke's bio, Montgomery continued to insist he had a permit there. He didn't. A nice bluff, but it's kind of pointless to do that after you've already lost your ship.

The comments left on MinerBumping posts are often filled with additional carebear tears. It amazes me that a carebear could immerse himself in New Order content and not learn from it. Though the style of the tears may change, the anguish behind them remains the same from year to year. Still, modern tear-producers could learn a thing or two from the classics.