A Pixel Nomad

Filed by E

Some people wake up, stretch, make coffee, and start their day.

I wake up, stretch, make coffee, and immediately inhale a cloud of compressed fullerite because I’ve been huffing gas in a wormhole since dawn.

The C50 cloud I found wasn’t the richest thing in Anoikis, but it was quiet, unoccupied, and no one tried to decloak me with a polarized Loki, so by wormhole standards it was practically a spa day. After my Venture’s hold was full and my nerves were only medium-jangled, I scanned down a highsec connection and slipped through.

And surprise — I landed just nine jumps from Amarr.
A miracle. A blessing. A trap?
Hard to say.

I docked in the first NPC station I could find and dumped my haul into a neat little bin, then contracted it to my close friend — let’s call her IR, professional space-trucker and part-time sanity-preserver. IR was on the other side of the universe doing whatever haulers do (which as far as I can tell involves 90% boredom, 5% paperwork, and 5% screaming while burning an MWD through bubbles).

IR responded to my contract with:
“On it.”

No hesitation.
No questions.
Just the resigned energy of someone who has accepted that their explorer-friend lives in the abyss and occasionally needs extraction.

She sprinted across nullsec and lowsec like a madperson, dodged the usual array of local lunatics, and made it to Amarr — only to discover that her previous Occator had… mysteriously vanished. (Her words. Not mine.)

So she bought a new Occator, on the spot.
As one does, apparently.

While she fitted it, I poked around the trade hub and watched the ever-present swarm of gankers circling like vultures with blasters. The usual crowd: Tornado pilots pretending they’re subtle, Catalyst pilots pretending they can count to 15, and one guy who kept broadcasting “GIANT MINING FLEET IN KAMIO, GO GO GO” for no reason I could discern.

Just Amarr things.

Eventually IR undocked in her shiny new hauler, threaded the gauntlet of suicide Catalysts, managed not to explode, picked up my gas, and whisked it off to be sold for a tidy sum. I, meanwhile, dove back into the wormhole where the local Sleeper population was still mad at me for existing.

Just a typical day when you live in j-space:

• Huff gas ✔️
• Find exit ✔️
• Dump loot on hauler ✔️
• Watch hauler perform heroics ✔️
• Avoid the Amarr gank circus ✔️
• Return to the void ✔️

Sometimes I wonder why people live anywhere else.

Fly sneaky, fly safe-ish, and tip your haulers.
o7

Filed by E

Signal Cartel’s Sunday Coffee Time is normally one of my favorite rituals — a cozy little gathering where everyone sips something warm (real or metaphorical), parks their ships somewhere safe-ish, and discusses whatever corners of New Eden have been particularly strange that week.

This past Sunday’s topic? Nullsec happenings.
More specifically: Pandemic Horde leaving PanFam and abandoning the Dronelands.

Perfectly fine. Perfectly reasonable. Perfectly neutral.

Or… it should have been.

Instead, our host for the day was a very enthusiastic, very unapologetic Goonsquad member, and the conversation took on the kind of tone you’d expect when someone wearing full faction colors swears they’re being “objective.”

There was no subtlety.
There was no diplomacy.
There was only:

• “No love lost!”
• “Good riddance!”
• …and several cheerful reminders that he was, in fact, Imperial, as if anyone in the channel had missed it.

Meanwhile there I sat — a freshly relocated explorer, recently evicted from the Dronelands, my old home still metaphorically smoldering behind me. I had my mug, my microphone muted, and my camera off, nodding along politely like a diplomat trapped at the world’s most uncomfortable brunch.

I considered speaking up.
I considered clarifying.
I even considered saying “o7 but please stop stepping on my feelings.”

But… I’m still new to Signal Cartel. I don’t want to disrupt the peace, especially when everyone else was sipping coffee like it was the most normal thing in the universe to listen to a victory lap disguised as a fireside chat.

So I just sat there.

Smiling through my capsule.
Quietly absorbing the most awkward caffeine-infused hour I’ve had since joining the corp.

At least the coffee was good.
And at least next week’s topic is “favorite wormhole weather,” which has statistically fewer emotional landmines.

Fly your way o7

Filed by E

I’ve always wanted to see Steve — the very first Avatar-class titan ever built in New Eden. Some capsuleers tour battlefields or markets; I tour historical hulls. So when Signal Cartel put together a fleet to pay respects, I was absolutely, immediately, embarrassingly onboard (of course I didn’t know when I signed up that we would be headed to Steve, it was all kept private for… reasons, but still you get the picture. I was excited.).

We launched from the Turnur hub, bright-eyed and in good spirits, only to discover that someone from nullsec had taken an interest in us. A lone Interdictor trailed behind like an overeager mall cop. Eventually, they managed to give one of our pilots an early express trip home via a questionable bubble. The fallen pilot gave us their blessing to continue.

Then came the moment of FC… let’s call it “navigational jazz.”

We were warped — confidently, decisively — to the wrong wormhole. Half the fleet went one direction, the rest went somewhere completely different, and I briefly wondered whether I should start leaving breadcrumbs like a fairy tale child in space. But we reformed without issue, a small victory for professionalism (or sheer luck), and set off again with only light heckling of the FC.

Our destination? Goonswarm Federation’s home staging area. Yes, that one. Yes, on purpose.

Sixteen jumps through nullsec isn’t exactly relaxing. My palms were sweating inside my Heron, which shouldn’t be scientifically possible. But Signal Cartel fleets are strange creatures: half sightseeing trip, half meditation circle. We made it through intact, landed on the main Keepstar, and activated our hugs — the signature gesture of friendliness, bewilderment, and “please don’t shoot us, we’re weird.”

Local was surprisingly calm. The Goons were polite-ish, confused, but not immediately hostile — likely because we weren’t shooting, tethering, or doing anything more threatening than quietly loitering on their front porch. SC pilots were, as expected, impeccable. Graceful. Humble. There is no group in New Eden better at being both harmless and vaguely mystical.

We offered our hugs. They accepted them with varying degrees of suspicion. Then someone in local gently reminded us that their home system was, in fact, not a wormhole, and perhaps we had lost our way.

Before we could clarify that it was a visit, not an accident, they extended a complementary service: an efficient, unrequested, all-expenses-paid Pod Express straight back to Zoohen. No forms to fill out. No queues. Just a sudden bright flash and a loading screen.

Once back in Zoohen, we regrouped, slightly crispy but cheerful. Steve had been visited. Goons had been hugged. And I had survived a nullsec road trip with only one detour, one bubble casualty, and one involuntary fast-travel experience.

Honestly? I’d call it a success.

Fly your way. o7