A Pixel Nomad

Aboard the Kinetic Regret, Docked in E8-4

Captain Gobbins stood at the main holotable, fingers steepled, a faint smudge of blueprint toner still smeared across one knuckle from some earlier encounter with a stubborn industry hub. The map of nullsec hovered above the surface in flickering 3D, glowing with the aftershocks of recent upheaval.

“Delve and Querious,” he began, his voice echoing slightly in the command deck. “Officially evacuated about a week ago. The region’s been a bit like a nullsec garage sale ever since.”

Several crew members chuckled quietly. One of them—Ensign Brin, possibly regretting her transfer from Jita customs enforcement—tapped through ownership changes on a side console.

“So who’s moving in?” she asked.

Gobbins zoomed in with a flick of his fingers. “The biggest chunk’s gone to a new mid-sized coalition—XIX, Siege Green, OnlyFleets, SYN, and a few others. Not bloc-aligned, working together, and from what I can tell, not completely exploding yet. Promising start.”

He tapped again.

“Streamer Ahront—yes, that Ahront—and his crew took a decent slice too. Remember those guys that anchored the BWF Keepstar way back? Looks like they finally carved out a piece of Delve for themselves. Credit where credit’s due: they did it without bloc support and somehow didn’t implode. Yet.”

Another swipe.

“The rest? Sold off to Init. Classic Goonswarm move—sell the furniture before the house catches fire.”

A quiet ping sounded as Gallente Citizen 4586793463 entered the room, datapad in hand, taking notes silently from the corner. No one greeted them. They didn’t expect it.

“But here’s what isn’t being talked about,” Gobbins continued, walking slowly around the glowing map. “The way Goons pulled out. Or more specifically—how many neutral groups they shoved out the airlock on their way.”

“Wasn’t XIX neutral?” Brin asked.

“They were,” Gobbins said. “So were Siege Green. SL4GS. All of them made deals just to be left alone. Gave up space. Agreed to neutrality. Guess what it got them?”

“Nothing?”

“Eviction,” Gobbins said flatly. “Goons demanded they give up the rest. No more pretexts, no more lies about ‘Panfam pets’ or jump bridge fairy tales. Just straight-up ultimatums.”

A ripple of silence moved across the bridge.

“And yet,” Gobbins said, “compare that to what we did when we had the South. From the collapse of FireCo in early 2023 to late 2024, we held the strongest force down there. Did we evict neutrals? No. We protected them. SEA agreement. Even when it ended, we left them alone. When we pushed Catch, we didn’t demand space or bridges. We just flew smarter.”

Brin raised an eyebrow. “So what changed?”

“They overextended,” Gobbins replied. “And that gave us the opening. Their reach into Delve and Querious cost them everything they tried to hold. And now—neutral entities can thrive there again. Irony’s a lovely thing, when properly aged.”

He tapped the map off. The lights rose slightly. In the pause that followed, Gallente Citizen 4586793463 scribbled a single note:
“When Goons go full tyrant, the void grows fertile.”

“Oh, and before I forget,” Gobbins added, turning back to the room, “local notes: industry hub is now active in E8-. New ratting areas are going live around us. Our allies who lost ground are being resettled in Outer Passage—which also makes the region tougher to crack.”

He looked directly at the crew.

“Train Maelstroms. Buy Titans. And for the love of Bob, stop asking if MJ- is still safe.”

With that, he walked out, coat flaring slightly, trailed by a muted chorus of murmured “Yes, sir”s and one distant ping of someone trying to buy a Revelation off-contract.

The mess hall of the MBV Roidrunner’s Regret was abuzz with the slow-burning chaos that only a patch day could provide. The crew—miners, haulers, and opportunists alike—sat clustered around datapads, mugs of synth-coffee, and a running argument about Mordunium, stockpiles, and how many lies a patch note could legally contain.

“Just reduce the volume of the ore,” muttered Ragmar Ohu, dragging a finger across a half-empty spreadsheet like it owed him money. “They say they’re worried about buffing stockpiles. Then just make the rocks smaller.”

“Yeah,” replied NWABroseidon, tapping rapidly into a price index, “but the only way people actually dump their hoards is if the market’s worth it. You want movement? You gotta make mining and selling not feel like self-harm.”

He glanced around, daring someone to argue. No one did. He added flatly, “GG no re.”

From across the room, Aykira Sl4ker chuckled. “At least that panic dump in Jita helped me buy enough pyerite to build an entire Orca family. Thanks, hysteria.”

“Yeah, well now that everyone’s realized the buff was a nothing burger,” NWABroseidon muttered, “prices are crawling back up again. Like roaches. Disappointed roaches.”

“Hey,” someone said, “what’s this bit in the patch notes? ‘Empowering highsec miners to act on the pyerite shortage’?”

“‘Empower them to f*** off,’ more like,” NWABroseidon replied, without missing a beat.

“Is this the third time this happened?” asked aegeahg, flipping through old market charts.

“Ya.”

A notification pinged on someone’s pad.

“5% mord, man.” NWABroseidon groaned. “That’s it. I’m going to bed.”

“It’s 08:40.”

“Exactly.”

Meanwhile, over at the newbie end of the table, RupKilla was having a revelation.

“Yo,” he asked, “can a covert ops Venture mine while cloaked?”

A slow, sympathetic silence followed.

“No,” said Erika Akiga, gently. “Can’t lock targets while cloaked. Goes for all ships.”

“So I just… cloak when someone shows up, then?”

“Exactly,” Munyi Mishi added. “Cloak, hide, don’t die. Basic survival.”

Epice RuinedEpice nodded. “Also lets you dodge gate camps, be sneaky in wormholes—real handy.”

RupKilla blinked. “That’s a pretty cool mechanic.”

“Yup,” said bogusman Aideron. “Warp to a ping, cloak mid-warp, just don’t try to dock while cloaked or touch anything. Cloaking is like introvert mode—you want to not interact with the world.”

Later, as the caffeine wore off and the pyerite market continued its dramatic impression of a rollercoaster on fire, Munyi Mishi checked her index again.

“Seems folks really did offload their pyerite stocks,” she said. “Price is tanking.”

Cube Collider grunted. “Mordunium buff. Wow.”

Dariisa Asiirad looked up from her mining laser calibration manual. “Stop. Get help.”

“I didn’t say anything!” Cube snapped. “WTF.”

Across the room, Macuna Hatata shook their head silently, staring at a market window like it had betrayed them personally.

A final message pinged.

aegeahg: “Scordite got a 10% buff if anyone wants to make a trip to HS.”

No one moved.

Captain Gobbins was staring at the same question for the fourth time that week.

Not the exact same question, of course. That would be too easy. No, this one had been lovingly rephrased, reformatted, and resubmitted by a half-dozen different capsuleers with subtle variations, as if the magic of bureaucracy might change physics or unanchor a Keepstar by sheer repetition.

This time it came from Caldemeyn, who’d at least had the decency to ask in full sentences.

“ ‘Might be unanchored’ means there will be an official announcement before that’s going to happen? I think the consequences for the market will be… impactful.”

Gobbins read it aloud, slowly. Then again. Then once more, just to be sure he wasn’t hallucinating from jump fatigue.

Golthune Aideron didn’t look up from her comms console. “Another one?”

“Another one,” Gobbins said, voice dangerously flat. “They want to know if there’ll be an official announcement before we unanchor the MJ- Keepstar.”

Gilthune blinked. “Didn’t we already make an announcement?”

“We did. You were there. We all clapped.” Gobbins rubbed his face like it might soothe the rising headache. “It said, and I quote: ‘E8- is our new staging. Move out of the MJ- Keepstar.’ It doesn’t say, ‘Think about it, maybe.’ It doesn’t say, ‘Wait for MJ- to personally write you a goodbye letter.’ It says: Move. Out.”

Gilthune leaned back in her chair. “Should we write it bigger next time?”

“I don’t think font size is the issue,” Gobbins muttered. “I think people are asking, ‘Do I really have to move?’ And hoping that if they phrase it differently enough times, someone will say no.”

He tapped his datapad and dictated loudly:

“Yes. You really have to move out of MJ-. Not theoretically. Not hypothetically. Not on some long-term maybe-we-won’t schedule. Pack your ships, sell your junk, and move.”

He paused. “And yes. The market will be impacted. In the sense that it will cease to exist. Like a building that’s being demolished—don’t argue about the furniture, just get out.”

From the corner of the room, Gallente Citizen 4586793463 glanced up from where they were disassembling an NBI-issued Algos with a crowbar, then quietly returned to their task.

Gilthune gave a small shrug. “Should we make a new announcement that says the same thing but with more emojis?”

“No. We’re not putting emojis in a Keepstar evacuation order. This isn’t a daycare center.”

At that moment, another message blinked onto the screen.

“Hi, I heard MJ- might be unanchoring. Does this mean—”

Gobbins closed the console with one swipe, stood up, and walked out of the room without saying a word.

Somewhere, another Keepstar groaned under the weight of abandoned ships, market modules, and the eternal burden of people who only read the subject line.