Tag: EVE

[EVE] Treasureless Space

Some wormhole systems feel haunted before you even finish loading grid.

This one did.

The static crackle of the connection faded behind me as I slipped into the system and launched probes almost immediately. Empty local. Just me, the stars, and whatever secrets the system had decided not to bury properly.

The results came back quickly.

Ten relic sites.

Ten.

I actually blinked at the scanner for a second, convinced I’d misread it. Relic runners dream about chains like this. Somewhere, some explorer would have started hyperventilating. I warped to the first site already imagining intact armor plates, ancient components, maybe one of those absurd cans that makes you feel chosen by fate itself.

The loot was terrible.

Not just bad. Impressively bad. The kind of bad that becomes funny after the third site. Burned-out scraps. Worthless fragments. Containers that practically apologized when I opened them.

By the fifth site I was laughing softly to myself.

By the eighth, I’d started narrating my disappointment aloud to no one in particular.

“Ah yes,” I muttered while cracking another container full of garbage, “the ancient civilization clearly valued melted wiring very highly.”

Still, I kept going.

Because honestly? I was enjoying myself anyway.

The system itself was beautiful in that lonely way wormholes sometimes are. A C6 connection loomed like an open wound in space, dangerous and heavy with possibility. Nearby was a Drifter wormhole, pale and ominous, silently daring someone to make a poor decision.

Not me.

Absolutely not me.

I gave both a respectful amount of distance and continued picking through archaeological disappointment in my little Helios instead.

And somehow, despite the terrible loot, despite the utter lack of profit, I felt content. There’s a kind of peace in solitude when it’s chosen. No fleet chatter. No politics. No urgency beyond the next warp.

Just me, drifting carefully through forgotten ruins while the universe remained impossibly large around me.

In the end, I left the system poorer than I’d hoped and happier than I probably should have been.

Not every expedition needs treasure to feel worthwhile.

[EVE] The Bench

There is a bench somewhere in the Federation that I keep trying to find again.

I know that sounds ridiculous. New Eden is enormous—thousands upon thousands of systems, stations, colonies, forgotten outposts orbiting quiet worlds. Entire wars disappear into history out here. People disappear even faster.

But still, every so often, I go looking for that bench.

It sits beneath pale trees on a Gallente planet whose name I can never quite remember afterward. The sky there turns gold in the evenings, and the city lights below the hill shimmer like station traffic seen from orbit. Capsuleers are not really meant for places like that anymore. We become too large, too detached, too immortal.

But somehow, that bench always makes me feel small again.

That’s where I meet them.

Our lives never quite align properly. One of us always chasing duty, distance, obligations, timing. Sometimes they’re across the cluster. Sometimes I am. Sometimes weeks pass in silence before a single message appears asking the same quiet question:

The bench?

And somehow, one way or another, we find our way back.

I think that’s why I search for it so carefully when time passes. Not because I’ve forgotten where it is, but because I’m afraid one day I’ll arrive and find the spot empty. No saved place beside them. No familiar silhouette waiting under the evening lights.

But they always save me a spot.

Always.

Even when things don’t work out. Even when life bends in difficult directions and timing remains cruel. The bench remains ours in the small way that matters. A fixed point in a universe built entirely around motion.

Today I found myself drifting through Gallente space again, chasing fragments of memory from orbit to orbit. A hillside looked familiar. A station tram sparked recognition. For a moment, I thought I had found it.

I hadn’t.

Still, I smiled.

Because somewhere out there is a quiet bench beneath golden skies, and someone patient enough to keep saving me a seat.

[EVE] The Gallente Election (or, my favourite event, ever)

I started out confused, but by the time I had finished the latest EVE Online event, a gallente election, I was smitten. I have a hard time finishing most EVE Online events, they usually require me to leave my cozy wormhole, head to highsec/nullsec/lowsec or some other activity that I am less than thrilled to be doing.

This event had a long list of things I could do. I started out attempting to mine scordite like everyone else in the universe and quickly backed off of that one as it became the most rare ore in all of New Eden. In my wormhole, there were sites to hack that gave points, but searching for them was a bit hit / miss, I did find a nice C6 that had 6 of the sites, so that was lovely.

Eventually I opted for the lesser of all evils, and I grinded L1 security missions with the masses. I completed the quest chain, and then I promptly started doing it on alts.

Number one, the currency is actually tradeable. You can sell it on the market or pass it to your main . Alpha characters can also fully do this event – though the daily login rewards ARE boosted for Omega characters. I currently have 2 Omega accounts, and one alpha. For a change I decided to just stick with the alpha account and see what I could do. I found a Tristan fit that Alpha can use without too much issue, and off I went. Easy.

This is the first event I’ve completed so quickly, and also the first event that I’ve even WANTED to do on alts. I hope CCP keeps up with events of this type. I didn’t feel pigeonholed into completing something I wasn’t interested in, it didn’t take too much effort, and I found it mildly enjoyable. I do hear some corp mates who are leaning the opposite direction, but compared to the winter event I will take this one all day every day.

Fly your way! o7

[EVE] Three Hundred Small Things

Three hundred.

When I first saw the number, I stared at it for a while, as if it might politely shrink if I gave it enough time. Tending caches has always been part of what we do—quiet work, steady work—but seeing it written down as a new requirement to joining Anoikis Division made it feel different somehow. I was already counting 4 days down, that would make 120 days flying with Signal Cartel. Sometimes when I think back to my days with Pandemic Horde I wonder how it could have changed so quickly. Other days I barely think about it at all.

Three hundred is a lot of anything.

So I made a decision early on: I wouldn’t rush it.

Burnout has a way of sneaking up on explorers. One moment you’re happily scanning signatures, the next everything feels like a chore and even launching probes seems like too much effort. I’ve learned to respect that line. So instead of sprinting toward the number, I’ve been taking it in bite-sized pieces.

A few caches today. A handful tomorrow.

The work itself is simple. Warp in. Check the container. Swap out what needs replacing. Update the records. Move on. Most systems are quiet when I arrive, the stars hanging still while I go about the task like a careful gardener tending something small but important.

Nothing dramatic happens.

No capsuleers appear on grid. No sudden scrams. No heroic rescues. Just the quiet rhythm of maintenance and movement, system after system slowly adding to the count.

Sometimes I pause after finishing one, watching the counter tick upward. 142. 147. 152. The numbers climb slowly, but they climb all the same.

Three hundred still feels far away.

But wormhole space has taught me something useful over the years: big journeys rarely happen all at once. They happen one careful jump at a time, one bookmark, one quiet task completed before moving on to the next.

So I’ll keep tending them.

A few today. A few tomorrow.

Eventually, three hundred won’t seem so large anymore.

[EVE] First Leadership Fireside

I hesitated before plugging in, hovering over the comms for a second longer than necessary. Leadership Fireside Chat. I’d heard people talk about it, but this was my first time actually listening in. I set my ship to idle and let the channel open, unsure what to expect.

The voices came through warm and easy, far less formal than I’d imagined. Each head of the Signal Cartel departments took their turn, talking about the year—what they’d worked on, what they’d learned, where things were headed. It felt less like a briefing and more like sitting in on a conversation I was being quietly invited into.

There were jokes almost immediately. Someone teased Xalyar about how much they liked to talk, and the laughter that followed felt familiar even though I’d never heard it before. When Vega came up, there were comments about them always having a Signal Cartel wiki link ready to go at a moment’s notice. I didn’t know all the context yet, but I laughed anyway. The tone made it easy.

Then came the numbers. Wormholes tended. Signatures watched over. Routes maintained. And the rescues—how many pilots the 911 program had pulled back from places they thought were the end. Hearing it all out loud made it real in a way that reading reports never quite does. So much quiet effort, spread across so many systems, all adding up to something that mattered.

When Anoikis Division came up, I found myself leaning closer to the speakers. Tamayo spoke about it carefully—about redacted, about more redacted after the eviction, about patience (which we all know I lack). AD recruitment was still paused, still finding its footing again, and there were hints that some things would change once it returned, including the requirements to join. I didn’t know what those might be and that uncertainty sat heavy in my chest. But underneath it was excitement, too. AD has always been something I’ve quietly dreamed about, and just hearing it spoken aloud made it feel closer… even if the path there might shift.

What surprised me most was how light the whole thing felt. Between the statistics were little side comments, laughter, the occasional overlapping voices or forgotten mute. No one rushed. No one postured. Just people who cared, talking about work they were proud of.

I sat there longer than I meant to, listening, absorbing it. Feeling, for the first time, like I could really hear the shape of the corporation I’d joined.

When the channel finally went quiet, I stayed plugged in for a moment, staring out into space.

I think I finally understood.