No One Can Force You to Cry

Whenever anything happens in highsec, our Agents probably caused it and definitely know about it.

Melissa Mardain reported the loss of an extraordinarily expensive jump freighter. What channel was this? You might guess Anti-Ganking or Gank Intel--but you'd be wrong. This was actually the corp chat for Center for Advanced Studies, one of the NPC corps.

Melissa's jump freighter was indeed a whale. It was highlighted in the most recent Kills of the Week post. The gank was executed by a large fleet from the Gate Tax Collection Agency, a member of the mighty CODE. alliance. More than a dozen Tornadoes were used to score the kill.

Not everyone in an NPC corp is a newbie; people use the unwardeccable NPC corps for all sorts of reasons. And not all NPC corp members are carebears, either. Bounty Bumper was obviously an Agent of the New Order.

The jump freighter gank sparked a productive conversation. Other players wanted to know how such a loss could be avoided. And rather than cursing CODE., Melissa expressed grudging admiration.

Several hours had passed since the gank took place. If Melissa had been enraged by the gank, she'd had plenty of time to cool off. Strangely, it seemed that others in the chat were more bitter about CODE. than Melissa was.

...Which raises an interesting question. How could Melissa, who'd lost over 23 billion isk, have a better attitude than these other carebears?

One of the principal beliefs of the rebels is that our Agents "force" carebears to shed tears. It's not the miners' fault they make inappropriate or EULA-violating comments; they're driven to it by the gankers. Anyone would act that way, they claim.

Agent Bounty knew better. A carebear's attitude is entirely dependent upon the carebear. If someone loses a 23.5 billion isk jump freighter, he can say "good fight"; someone who loses a Venture can scream death threats.

Bounty recognized that Melissa understood EVE far better than the bitter miners in the channel. Granted, Melissa had failed to obey the Code--and it cost her dearly. But in another way, she was far better off than her peers.

After the brief conversation in CAS chat, Melissa decided to write an EVEmail to her gankers:

The rebels scoff, "Do you really expect someone who lost a ship to congratulate their ganker?" Yeah, we do. We have every right to expect it.

As it happened, Bounty and Melissa's main character were in the same system, where Gate Tax Collection Agency member Australian Excellence was active.

The story of the epic gank spread. Melissa realized that although she'd lost a lot of isk, she gained more in content. The storm of Tornadoes was the most exciting thing she'd seen in EVE in a long time.

This incident should be a powerful example to those who lose a ship in the future. Carebears, if you're impolite to our Agents after you lose less than 23.5 billion isk, what's your excuse?