Rifter vs Firetail

I know I said I wasnt going to do so, but I app'd to the Black Rebel Rifter Club. After fighting a group of them, I felt I knew them. That whole "you dont actually know someone until you fight them" thing. Or something like that. Either way, since I apped to R1fta, I figured tonight I would fit one out and fly it. As seems custom in this area, most people fly Minmatar ships. Being that I dont fly Rifters regularly just yet, I felt in the mood to piss people off. It sorta worked.

I saw a few people in Autocannon fighting and one was of The Hatchery. If you dig, you can see that I fought Aeth of The Hatchery awhile back also in a prior life. Good people, honorable pirates. Not the type that would enjoy fighting my Rifter tonight. Anyhow, he killed some cruiser in his Republic Fleet Firetail, so I offered up a 1v1. He was busy in one already, so I waited while warping around. Getting an invite to fleet and an offer to warp to his safe, I obliged. Warping in at 20km, we charged at each other.

With no AB, I was unable to control range during this fight due to his ability to weave in and out from 6km to 12-ish km. However, as he ate through my shields, I popped on my surprise: ECM. He did not like that at all. I let it cycle once, because being perma jammed sucks, and I wasnt doing anything with him out of my range. Had to lure him back in.

It worked, but not for long. My armor was gone soonish. Popped the ECM again, repped up to full armor, turned it off. And again, he brought my armor down, shedding sunlight on some of my structure as well. At this point, I said "fuck honor!" and turned on the ECM once again....And warped out. Sadly, I didnt get any mean comments attempting to hurt my feelings and honor.

Things I learned this fight is that a non-AB Rifter is slower than my Vengeance. Thats sorta bad since its tank is not even half of what Im used to. The only reason I escaped this fight is due to my ECM, whereas most people rely on their speed for gtfo-ability. I mean, I couldnt perma jam my opponent, the Rifter's cap and regen isnt nearly good enough to pulse a repper and keep the ecm on while I shoot it AND keep within distance to do acceptable damage. I learned I dislike the Rifter.

Meh, its one fight. Its a t1 ship with meta mods instead of a full t2 fitting. Ill give it more chances, adjusting my fit around for next time. Tbh, this fight wasnt long, but I did notice that manual flight is important while being kited. Im not experienced enough to pull off more advanced techiniques to get an experienced pilot like Michael Harari to get closer than he wants to; but eventually, I will be. Right now, not so much.

No killmail, yet no lossmail. It doesnt feel as good as it did before when it happened, so Im going to consider this fight a draw. I didnt lose much except for a little ego for running away, but I still have my Rifter to live and fight another day! Which is a true pirates attribute afterall.

Also, in case you missed it, I was accepted into R1fta. An updated photo with my new black jacket below.

Vengeance vs 2x Republic Fleet Firetail and Rifter

Look at the title. I know, right? Totally scary. To me it is, considering the pilots are all Black Rebels and well, they're scary.

Anyhow, After jumping my 29 jumps from Jan to Heild last night, I didnt find much in the way of a fight. A few ships, as in mostly dramiels, that I knew would just kite me, I wasnt going to engage. Several others, I saw and they had a few bigger friends, so meh...I just didnt fight a battle I knew I would lose.

So today, I log in, jumping around Molden Heath and someone calls out for a 1v1. I and another ask what and where. Me being in my one and only vengeance within 25+ jumps, I was pretty limited. He wanted a t1 frig, so meh, I let the other guy have it; but I did let it be known in a casual manner that I was sitting at the sun in Bosena and Heild. Soon enough (10 or so mins later), I had a friend warp in at 100km.

A Republic Fleet Firetail. Oooo, perdy faction ship. So flying towards him, I adjust my trajectory to assist in keeping transversal high for him. Autocannons track pretty damn well as is and a quick look at the firetail info showed they get a bonus to tracking. I needed all the help I could get on this. I was pretty sure my opponent was using an AB due to the 1k-ish velocity showing in my overview. Once I got within 30km, I adjusted to an upwards angle for transversal. I assume he was using the approach command, because he continued straight at me.

Now within range, I activated my web and scram. Avoiding the orbit button, I kept within range of him, but it seemed pretty easy; maybe he was orbiting me? However, as his shields melted (yay t2 thermal rockets), another Firetail popped on my overview. And then a Rifter. I was like, "Omg, how many friends is this guy gonna bring?!" My next thoughts were going to make or break this fight for me. Should I stay and fight or try to escape? Well, with three attackers, I need an escape plan either way. With three webs, I wasnt going to run anywhere. I say fuck it, overheat my AB and align. They wont have any issue keeping up with me, but Im not going to just give them a flying brick, Im going to take one of them down too!

Targeting the second Firetail and Rifter, I adjust my flight again to keep in missile range. And then I watch my overheated rockets finish off the first Firetail. Ignoring the pod that popped up, I start firing at the second one. The rifter is a danger, but being a t1 ship, Im not too worried about his damage as I am the faction ship's output. I get him to low armor and guess what happens....Come on, take a guess.

Yeah, BOTH my AB and scram burnt out. I think I may have OH'd my scram also at some point to prevent them getting out of my 10km range. So with both my ab and scram burnt out, the Firetail turns tail and warps out. I continue firing on the Rifter with OH'd launchers and drop him to structure. Then he warps out. Omg, I just survived a 3v1!!!

I dont care that I didnt get all three and after the first popped, I tried to escape. Turning back and keeping them in range, messing up my warp out alignment just felt greedy trying for the kill and is not something I should do often, but I was no where near being hurt; I dont think my armor dropped below 50%. Not bragging or anything, but at the same time I am. I freakin survived a 3v1 against one of the better pirate corp members. Yes, I am going to let this go to my head for the weekend!

Anyways, what did I learn this fight? Well, I learned that I really need to not OH my AB or scram unless either myself or my opponent are running away. With their speed, I think they would have had me if I wasnt able to web them, causing my rockets to do less, or little, damage. I also learned that even though it was a 3v1, my Vengeances tank is insane. Im not there yet, but maybe soon I will consider switching out my rigs for more offensive ones. Looking up the Firetail, I noticed it has an explosive hole, as most Minmatar ships seem to have. With that in mind, I should have switched my missiles, but that reload time was just too much considering how fast the shields fell.

And finally, the killmail. Only one out of three due to burning out my scram, but like I said, "fuck it, I lived through a 3v1!!" One thing I do need to do though, is loot the freakin wrecks. I forgot to this time, but in the future, I need to make an attempt to get the loot. One comment on his fit however, because he had fit a TD. Lucky for me tbh, as those have no effect at all on missiles, causing him to have a wasted midslot that could have been used to increase something else. I dont know what though, so w/e.

Firetail Fired!

The Week in Review

Im thinking this is a good ending trend for each week. It keeps me consistent on content and helps me set a goal for the next week while also allowing me to look back and see if I actually succeeded in the previous weeks goal or not. This prior weeks goal was to practice manual flight.

With this in mind, I dropped a can in a high sec safe and practiced keeping it within certain ranges while manual flying. Pretty simple excercise, considering the can doesnt move. I made it fun by switching back and forth between 2km and 6km, without going over 7.5km; the range on my rockets that I feel comfortable reaching to ensure they hit. At least until I max out the range skills, putting me at about 9.1km.

I need to work on those skills as well, any extra range my rockets can get is good. Currently, all missile skills that have an effect on rockets are level 4, excluding warhead upgrades, which is level 3 (going into level 4) and should be finished training later today. Ive got a plan for a "maxed" Vengeance that is done in 45ish days. I say "maxed" because Im probally not going to train the long 10+ day level 5 skills for a 2% bonus anytime soon. Im making an exception for the Assault Ships 5 (at 15 days) because more resists and a small boost in cap regen are both great for active tanking.

So manual flight isnt mastered, but Ive gotten to an acceptable level while pushing everything else in combat to the "white noise" part of my brain in combat. The next weeks goal will be to continue manual flight and adding in the overheating of modules and not burn any out, while getting as much time in OH mode as possible. This will be helped a little bit when I get Thermodynamics to 4 over the weekend, finishing late Sunday night.

I look forward to the AF buffs coming eventually, but as other people have stated, Im not sure on the mwd role bonus. I think a regular 4th bonus without CCP pushing ships into a specific role would be a better idea. The way the changes are looking at this point in time though, I know I will be switching to the Wolf if they go through. Luckily, my gunnery skills are average and will take a minimal amount of time to get to 5s and t2 projectile weapons. I may even do this once my Vengeance is maxed just to fly something new, but I really want to fly a Sacrilege in pvp; so thats a high priority after the Vengeance Plan.

Also, as many people know, CCP allowed us to get a 60 day trial key per account we have and give it to a friend. I took advantage of this and made a new account. Since I had two accounts, I gave my other key to my brother; who btw is really slacking on his skill training and doing it wrong. I tried to show him EVEMon and EFT to get an idea for a ship and mods he would like to get into, but he just doesnt understand the need for 3rd party tools such as these. I should have expected as much though, he never liked using ACT for EQ2 and upping his dps. So w/e, I just added his api to my evemon and I sneak on his account to edit his skill queue to get him to the ship he wants to fly: Hurricane. Unfortuneately, as short as the plan is to get into the ship with t1 modules, he still wont be able to get the BC skill until he switches to a regular account. Not sure if that will happen if he never logs in to fly a Rifter or Punisher with me. Roaming is rather boring solo.

Speaking of which, Ive logged in and looked for a few more fights, but in my area of space (Jan, Hakonen, Lonetrek) Im not finding acceptable targets at the times I log in. I also dont have the patience to jump through several systems looking for a fight and not finding anything, even when letting people know my location in local. I noticed R1fta is recruiting, and as tempting as it is to apply, I dont want to join another pvp focused corp and not be up to par with the small amount of time I am active each week. I did see they fight each other though, so perhaps that may be a good idea. Especially with future plans to jump into a Wolf =P

Anyhow, goals for next week are to continue working on manual flight while watching my overheated modules and keeping range control in fights. The Vengeance is probally a poor choice to maintain range control, but Ill still make an attempt. I should also expand my selection of targets towards just getting a ship blown up, whether its mine or theirs. This includes popping the obvious bait I keep seeing and possiblely even ignoring the amount of people in the persons corp in local. Looking back, if theres been more than 25-30 people in local, I just dont bother looking for a fight due to the chance of interruption. I need to work on reducing my risk aversion activities and just get blown up.

Kestrel/Vengeance vs Rifter/Taranis

Tonight started out slow, asking for a 1v1 in the RvB channel didnt pan out as I had wanted, even starting out in a Kestrel. So I jumped over to Jan looking for trouble. There were a few ships on scan, so I did what anyone looking for a fight would do: Sit at the Sun.

Ive wised up and learned some tricks over my time of reading other people's experiences though, so I warped in at 100 and started flying straight up. Soon enough, a Taranis and Stabber jumped in, 130 km away though. With my ship aligned already, I started up the warp drive and left; letting out a hearty "pft, bring a good fight instead of gank" in local. To which I was told "Fair enough."

Warping back from a different angle after they had disappeared from dscan, I activated the AB and aligned. After a few minutes, a Rifter popped up in the overview. Flying towards each other, I adjusted my angle as we closed in to cause a little transversal issue with his guns. But its a Rifter, so that is difficult to do =P So began the dance of death. Practicing my manual flight with my Kestrel, I knew I was going to die quick and have to be aligned fairly fast with my pod. As soon as my shields went down, I aligned and awaited the inevitable while my overheated launchers did their thing to the rifter. Well, maybe next time Ill put some tank on my ship instead of all gank and maybe Ill win?

Kestrel Down!

Anyhow, after warping my pod out to Autaris to reship, I started up a convo with my opponent for my after combat evaluation from his side. He informed me my fit wasnt that bad but did need some tank; to which I agreed. The fight had gone so quick and I was focused more on keeping within 5km while manual flying, I didnt notice his armor dropped down to 40-50%. That made me happy knowing I had some pretty good dps in a kestrel fit for nothing but gank. Possible fleet ship?

With a few words exchanged and thanks given from both sides for not bringing in friends, we agreed to run into each again; this time me in my comfort zone of armor tanking and him in his Taranis. I was hesitant at first tbh, fighting an interceptor, because I had thought they were fast, kiting ships. A quick look on his fits in BC corrected me though and showed that he would most likely use blasters. Well, that made me scared due to the buff they received with Crucible. Oh, how silly I was to be scared of blasters when there were much deadlier things hidden in the depths of that ship.

You probally already know, but I wasnt expecting some drones. Warrior II's at that. Only two of them, but they hurt! Chewed through my shields, unsurprisingly, but also ate through half my armor before I dispatched them. I really do owe thanks to Taurean for the insight into how important it is to dispose of drones as quickly as possible in a fight like this. He seemed to have issues with them during his travels at first, and I appreciate that he shared those experiences.

So with the drones dispatched, I focused back on the Taranis. I feel my manual flight may have messed up some here, or I was just doing it completely wrong. I would try to go towards him as the range increased from 2-3km to 5-6km, but as I did, I would almost fly past him, as if he had turned around to play chicken. I think its called slingshotting (what he was doing), but I caught it each time it was attempted and got my ship turned quickly enough to prevent my opponent from exiting missile range. Or maybe Im just not used to flying as fast as I was since he wasnt webbing. Lucky me?

Since the drones were gone, I was getting armor back to the higher levels of comfort and didnt need the overheat anymore. With things calmer now and myself letting the adrenaline subside, I continued focusing on the interceptor and keeping range low. It seemed like forever, but it was only a few seconds until his shield bled away and the armor was peeled back to reveal the hull, which also exposed the pod in a violent explosion of beautiful fireworks.

Taranis Deaded!

Pretty good fights imo. Yet again, I continued my convo with my opponent about the fight and our fits. It turned out he was using the wrong ammo when he wanted to be using antimatter. I understand that mistake tbh as Ive done it before too. I feel I lessened his pain a bit by explaining I have 82% or higher in all resists, so it would have made little difference what ammo he used =)

And with these two fights, I also made two new friends (my opponent and his RL friend in same corp) and was invited along on a roam to a system a couple jumps over. I accepted and soon enough was on dscan duty to locate a Russian Drake. Sadly, my new fleetmate hasnt had much experience in probing, so we were always one step behind. Oh well, another time perhaps, because I had to log out with only 3 hours before I had to be awake again to take my kid to school!

Vengeance vs Vengeance

Its been awhile, but screw it; new year, new oppurtunities. I feel that Ive been slacking quite alot with rarely posting and not sticking to my planned posting. So with this in mind, Im writing things as I do them, but stockpiling them for a consistent stream of reports.

From other people's fits and experiences, I decided to go with a cap stable fit for starters. Stable at 49% that is. This gives me enough regen to suffer through one or two nos or neut. I think. Im using the Coreli A-Type currently, but I have several Centi A-types that drop my cap stability to 40% and boost my armor regen by about 20 points. We'll see if the difference between them gives a noticeable change or not. I have also played around with an MWD fit, but I dont really like it much. I dont want to fly interceptors and flying with and mwd makes me feel like Im a gimp one of those. Other than that, any tips on this fit would be welcome.

[Regular]
Internal Force Field Array I
Coreli A-Type Small Armor Repairer
Energized Thermic Membrane II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II

1MN Afterburner II
Faint Epsilon Warp Scrambler I
Stasis Webifier II

Rocket Launcher II, Foxfire Rage Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Foxfire Rage Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Foxfire Rage Rocket
Rocket Launcher II, Foxfire Rage Rocket

Small Anti-EM Pump I
Small Capacitor Control Circuit I

One of my problems is that I live in high sec now. Ive looked into several places, both low and nullsec space. Also had a look around RvB and its tempting. Havent really decided where to go though. Anyhow, while scouting out one of my potential new homes, I got into a fight.

This guy was probing me out in a Pilgrim. Im not one to fight a ship like that at this point in time solo, so I just kept warping around the first system in my pocket making safe spots. Eventually, he got bored and offered to 1v1 in the high sec system next door. I obliged and dropped a can at the top planet.

I didnt bother asking what frig he'd bring, it didnt matter really; a fight is a fight if its a same class ship. He brings a vengeance and my first thoughts are "Oh shit, he's gonna stomp me with my favorite ship!" While waiting for him to slowboat to the dropped can, I open a convo to see if he'd be having a neutral remote rep come in. Most people would open up BC to check their opponents history and I know he'd see my loss to a Harbinger before. Makes sense for me at least ask =P Btw, this guy has a few hundred wins and only 19 losses. I was scared! Anyhow, after settling into a nice little 10km orbit around my can, I waited for him to go flashy red before aproaching and start firing rockets in his direction.

I decided that for each fight, I would practice a certain aspect of combat, while the other things stay in the background, but still important. I wanted to practice manual flying this fight. So, I start my clicking and camera movements and I was doing pretty good. I got into a nice groove, and my shields hit 30%. Started the repper and OH'd my launchers. We both ate through each others shields rather quickly, an expected result of an Amarr vessel of course. What surprised me, however, is how well we stood against each other at that point.

I assumed he had an active fit, as did I. As my cap reached about 60%, I started trying to pulse my AB just to add something extra into my manual flight practice. I occasionally glance at my overview for transversal, but its not really needed since rockets always hit. I slowly switched to looking at the velocity instead to make sure my rockets would keep up with his ship. It took me a minute to remember to look (even though they are right next to each other), but he was only disabling me with a scram, no web. By this time, my guns were about 50% burnt, so I figured I would turn them off for a possible boost later in the fight.

Yeah, that didnt work out so well. The stupid overheat button on top of the modules definately needs changed. Yes, I know I could have also hit the overheat rack button. Or the shortcut key (that I promptly found out about after this fight). The launchers were still overheated and because I was working on my manual flight, I didnt even notice they all had burnt out until he was regening shields. Well, shyt!

Luckily, he didnt have me webbed, so I shot off into a random direction, with an overheated AB now. Quickly realizing this mistake, I aligned to a gate and warped out. My opponent was thoroughly confused, so I felt the need to explain how "special" I had been during our duel. He felt it was a win for him, but I feel more that it was a draw, for a couple reasons.

Neither of us dropped below 90% or so armor. Neither of us were having cap issues since neither were using a nos or neut. I do feel I had the advantage being cap stable with my one repper while he was using a cap booster with dual reps. This advantage wouldnt present itself until he was out of charges, but I dont know how long that would have been or if either of us would have had enough ammo to reach that point.

So, my viewpoint is that it was draw because I didnt lose my ship. =)

Vengeance and Rifter vs Harbinger et ali

This was an interesting little evening. I was roaming around through my little low sec pocket finding not much. There was a loki with Sisters Core Probes that I thought was searching me out, but I guess he wasnt after I taunted him in local for trying to find and fight an Assault Frig in a t3. He replied back with a similar taunt and left system. Then there was a Rifter on scan, and my evening suddenly got alot more interesting.

Well, looking at this Rifter pilot, he's been in Brutor Tribe for at least 10 months. Obvious alt or returning player. Talking in local is sometimes a bad idea, but I usually ignore that rule and talk anyways. Striking up conversation with this pilot led us through the usual chat of Vengeance vs Rifter and the Vengeance winning easily. Thats true so I didnt bother trying to find this guy. I was looking for a good fight, not something so one sided. And then he offered to fleet up and roam together with him as fast tackle. Something me in my Vengeance would appreciate greatly, being the brick that I am.

Hesitantly, at first, I just flew through a couple systems unfleeted. Knowing that this pocket isnt normally busy, I saw no reason to risk any of my safe spots for someone's alt who's main I dont know yet. Soon we ended up in Rammi, with 4-6 other people. Three of these people are part of UFO, a corp I ran into when I was making bookmarks. I knew they were capable of scanning down a ship quickly if they werent cloaked, so I kept moving between planets instead of safes. Before my partner had jumped into Rammi, he mentioned seeing two Harbingers on scan. From prior experience flying this ship, I knew Thermal was its weakest resist most of the time. Just in case, I thought, Ill switch to CN Foxfire missiles.

As we warped around trying to find a ratter, the two harbinger pilots jumped into our system. One, I recognized as the one who tried to scan me down previously. I wasnt too worried about her as much as I was about the other unknown pilot. Either way, with my partner and myself both warping around, they werent coming out of their safe POS. Finally fleeting up with him, I recommended we use him as bait in a belt, with me arriving shortly after to make it look like I was hunting him and we were fighting.

With the trap laid, I was soon rewarded with one Harbinger landing 30-40km from us. With primary called, my adept Rifter friend zoomed towards the battlecruiser.....and then bounced off an astroid. I let out a quick giggle as I saw him bounce off it pretty far. In this instance, I noticed I was heading for the same roid, but I was slower with my AB fit and still hit it altering my course slightly. At about 12km, the Rifter was in orbit, locking down the Harbi, when the drones came out. I typed out quickly in our private chat "Kill the drones!"

I felt they were more of a danger to our frigate hulls than the harbinger's medium sized guns. Which, by the way, were of the heavy version. Lower tracking than focused version I used in my fits. This told me two things:

1) He had a light tank, both heavy pulses and 1600 plates are grid hogs.
2) He was dps fit, meaning its possible he has some tracking enhancers fit.

Fact two was negated when I was webbed, scrammed, and I think tracking disrupted. I forget what the third symbol was exactly. Seeing this, I assumed he had a cap booster or recharger in his 4th midslot. Assuming the light tank, most likely was an active armor tanked Harbinger with a cap booster. All of this before he was to 90% shields. Yay for my awesome retention of knowledge that I need to prioritize. Thank you much Taurean!

Now, at this point, I figured I had the opponent fixed. I knew how the Harbinger flies and fits from personal experience; always helpful. Next, I knew the drones needed to be took out first if I was going to survive. Finally, I tried to target the drones. Not easy when I dont have them added to my overview settings. Woops? So I clicked a few times before I finally got one targeted and locked. Quickly right click and adding to overview, I webbed and shot my missiles at my first drone. Somewhere between now and the rest of the drones dieing, my Rifter partner bit the dust. I think he got his pod out, but Im not entirely sure as I didnt see him local when I glanced over when he said he died. The rest of the drones quickly followed the first, to my surprise.

At this point, my shields were completely gone and my armor took some damage. This Harbi was fit with a neut, which had me completely capped out. Between cycles, I was able to get off one or two cycles of my repper, which kept up easily with the damge I was now taking from the medium lasers. Surprisingly, as I was managing my modules (scram on as much as possible, web off), I was regening shields. Wow, I might have this kill! How naive of me to think that.

With my shields coming back online, at about 40% with the harbinger at 85-90% armor, I saw a new yellow hit grid. Great, what now? A Guardian? Ok, what the hell is this shit? Turning off the overheat of my missiles that I had turned on to get through the 30% shield regen (not that I needed it), I taunted the opponents in local. Seriously, who brings a Guardian to rep a battlecruiser against a fucking ASSAULT FRIGATE?!?!? If it was the second Harbinger I heard about earlier, I wouldnt have cared. Still mad they called in backup, but not as much as this.

I mean really. I had this kill until the guardian showed up and repped his corpmate (alt?). Then, once they saw I wasnt bailing, the guardian moved in to neut me also. Or I think so, they turned red and my cap was obliterated. Not even my DC2 was able to be turned on once its cycle finished. So, once my armor hit 50%, I offered them to let me live for 20 mISK. A fair offer, considering my ship was only about 13-14 mISK. I turned off my missiles to show I was serious, and they laughed and continued shooting.

Once I popped, I figured out the real reason I wasnt warping my pod out in previous fights: I was hitting "D" instead of "S". How noob of me, but I realized this in time to actually get my aligned pod out. They offered up a gf, to which I replied with, "w/e, woulda been better without your friend." I refuse to gf someone who has to have a repper friend in a AF vs BC fight.

Adventures in New Eden

I meant to post this yesterday, but got pretty busy with RL and stuff. Anyhow, a few other people posted the question about what drew you into EVE. I felt like answering in a small, quick post.

For me, it was the "Great Scam". A story of trust and betrayal. Its not the best tale Ive read, but it was enough to draw my interest and motivate me to find out more. So I did. I found a ton of lore and history in EVE and thats the main point for me to play. Even though I enjoy New Eden, I could spend hours upon hours just reading of the adventures of the capsuleers. I think I enjoy that more than actually playing the game tbh. It was the same for me before I started raiding in EverQuest as well. Raiding ruined me, tbh! But I digress.

The lore and background of EVE Online is what brought me to the internet spaceships/spreadsheets game. Im going to finish up by stealing a short chronicle from the EVE-O homepage because its a cool little bit of info. Without further ado, "The Vicious Cycle".

And then it was all over. The capsule cracked open. The naked skin, exposed to direct sunlight, flared up. The body swelled, convulsing uncontrollably. Just as consciousness faded the saliva boiled on the tongue. Death came quickly thereafter. The body mingled with the debris of the former frigate. In the background police ships chased down the killer.

It all began so innocently. Two Gallentean frigates cruising along in Federation space. Chatting amiably. One a wide-eyed rookie; the other one acting the veteran part. Disaster: a war of words, followed by threats and insults. Then chat stopped and weapons talked. The rookie never stood a chance. But wait! Police ships approach. Too late to save the rookie. So they punish the offender. Justice is swift - an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. The veteran’s body joins the rookie in its graceful dance around the sun.

Yet both live. This very moment they wake to life in their brand new bodies. Maybe they will get a chance to dance again some other time - maybe then the rookie will have learned some new tricks.

This is not the end. The cycle of life saved the fallen two from oblivion. So too their cadavers are returned to the eternal circle one more time. Their frozen dance interrupted as soon as the horizon swallows the police ships. A non-descript ship sidles up. A couple of salvage drones fleetingly deployed. The lifeless bodies snatched up and hurriedly returned to the ship. Getting caught body mining by the Gallente police means serious, serious trouble. Then the ship warps away, wanting out of Federation space quickly with its very hot cargo. Searching for a cloning facility that doesn’t mind a bit of ill-gotten A-grade biomass on the side. Life goes on, citizen. Nothing more for you here.