Getting the Code, Part 1

Everyone who plays EVE is bound to run into an Agent of the New Order at some point--usually sooner rather than later.

...And there's a really good chance that the Agent is going to be Aaaarrgg.

Aaaarrgg kills people who abuse the "autopilot" feature. In his view, people shouldn't autopilot when gankers are around. Plain common sense, right? You might be surprised how controversial that idea can be, though.

Grip Vyvorant strongly disagreed with Aaaarrgg. He claimed to be the alt of an Anti-Ganker. Apparently that was meant to intimidate our Agent, but somehow it had the opposite effect.

We expect carebears to complain about those who gank autopiloters; they want to protect their right to be lazy. But Grip claimed that he wasn't motivated by selfishness. It was about the principle of the thing.

Grip's unwritten rules for EVE included things like, "Don't shoot pods." Aaaarrgg couldn't understand why Grip's unwritten rules should trump the written rules of the Code.

According to the carebear, PvP is an opt-in activity. If you want to pass through territory "peacably", then you should have total invincibility.

The philosophy of the New Order is very different from that of the carebears. Shooting spaceships in a spaceship-shooting game isn't cowardly. Demanding 100% safety because you don't want even the slightest amount of risk to interfere with your ability to "play" while AFK? That's cowardice.

What began as a routine encounter was quickly developing into a fully fledged debate. Aaaarrgg was happy to oblige.

All of our Agents are experts at verbal PvP. They have no shortage of opportunities to hone their skills--and they have to spend their 15-minute aggression timers somehow.

Agent Aaaarrgg began to think that maybe Grip wasn't lying about being an Anti-Ganker: He was clueless enough to be one of them.

Right then and there, Aaaarrgg resolved to tell this carebear the truth about the Code.

To be continued...