Semi-Permanently Grounded

Well I did not expect my piloting career to end like this. Shortly after the more or less crippling pod driver update my pilot's license expired. Being in bad standings with CONCORD, and with no way of bribing a CONCORD official or buying a new license off the market, I am unable to interface with my pod. I plug in...and nothing. Nothing.

"Updates"

As many capsuleers are aware, regular updates are made to the pod's hardware drivers. The most recent batch of drivers has left me more or less unable to pilot; every time I jump into a system I experience fluttering vision, a momentary black-out, and then I find myself floating around in pod goo, unable to control a damned thing on my ship. Of course I unplug myself and then re-plug into the pod's interface and things are back to normal within a few moments, but it is in these few seconds that my ship is incredibly vulnerable. Because of this I have been effectively grounded until the software is fixed.

At the time of writing this, I am stuck in the True Creations station in RLDS-R. I guess I'll need to find some True Citizen girls to chase around and court...

Questions and Ponderings of an Addict

*Rek appears in a short holovid, aboard the rather dark and small cargo bay of one of his many Reapers. This one has a small bunk, a table with a few old-fashioned things comprised of thin sheets of paper bound in leather know as "books", and some roots and vials of various kinds also rest on the table. One of the roots in particular, the "Raider's Root" is recognizable by those few familiar with the divining rituals of certain Blood Raider sects. Rek very rarely uses this root, usually opting for the more traditional boosters instead; it is clear he is troubled. He begins to speak into the recorder, but his attention is focused on the nether-distance.*

The path which can be named is not the True Path.

Is Nation a named path? Is it the True Path?

Every time there is a Nation operation my comrades are able to go forth and support Nation, and yet seemingly without fail some "accident" occurs and keeps me station-bound. Is there a Guiding Hand in this? Is this mere coincidence?

I have been called a puppet of Master Kuvakei, but what I have just Seen makes me question if Nation is itself a cog in something much more massive.

What's out there? What Calls me?

Is Nation in danger?

I have fear.

The Separation of Shaktipat Revelators

I am furious. Our alliance's leadership is splitting apart some of the most effective combat squad pilots I've ever seen, simply because of personal differences. While I understand they are no petty things to argue over the issue should not spill over to the rest of us. While I have always been respected as a corporate leader in SHARE, I've always listened to the words of Ghost Hunter and Niraia and trusted their wisdom; I consider myself "under" them in rank, in a sense.

We are being split apart. It's like some sort of sick joke. Other pilots on the Summit joke about "unity not prevailing after all".  I am half-tempted to contact the pilots I've flown with and trust and forming our own separate corporate entity, free of any political bullshit. No power struggle, no trust issues, just a gung-ho group of pilots in support of Nation.

A Somewhat Brief Autobiography (Final Part)

The rest is very recent history. I served in the Republic's militia but was terrible at Pilot-versus-Pilot combat. I was podded a lot, but didn't much care. The real issue was getting funding for replacing my ships. I would dip in and out of the warzone areas, going into high-security space to accept defense contracts against the Angel Cartel to make a quick kredit to buy more ships, and then I'd return to the warzone to have those same ships be destroyed. I improved in my ability to at least survive against or evade enemy capsuleers, and soon became decently proficient at striking Amarrian military deadspace complexes. So long as the ship wasn't commanded by a capsuleer, I could destroy it.

I never even gave thought to the issue of the mortals aboard every ship I lost or destroyed. It was only until a half-destroyed corpse flew into my camera drone that I even became aware of the mortals that I was slaying. I remember the corpse in vivid detail. A fellow Sebiestor, perhaps a bit younger than me. The vacuum preserved his features well; no tattoos or tribal markings (clearly a slave). I wouldn't have been haunted much by the sight had he not resembled my friend Gar so much. I shrugged the feeling away and kept on.

By the time I reached the rank of Blade Commander some months later (an age for a capsuleer), the grisly sights had begun to wear on me. Not even the boosters (with which I had only recently became acquainted) were taking the edge off. Every day I wondered whether or not I'd end up killing one of my childhood friends serving aboard an Amarrian ship without even knowing it. The impersonal nature of this type of warfare struck me as intensely cold and dispassionate. There was no honor in killing hundreds or even a few thousand with the thought-commands of "Launch missiles; fire cannons".

Then a larger thought struck me: "There is no honor in killing".

At this point it is more or less common knowledge of how I began to sympathize with and eventually side with Sansha's Nation. And it is at this point that I end my (only somewhat) brief autobiography.

A Somewhat Brief Autobiography (Part 3)

I was now a free man with no title or certifications in a shattered Ammatar Mandate. Said with more precision, I was an orphaned teenager with nowhere to go.  To make matters worse Tsula Plantations was practically wiped out, leaving the economy and food supply of the Mandate to the whims of the Amarr Empire. I was not the only servant whose entire Holder and family had been wiped out; many slaves who serve Tsula Plantations personnel now found themselves jobless in an environment of resource scarcity. The backbone of the Mandate had been broken, leaving many Holders and their slaves impoverished.

Of course the Minmatar Republic was all too happy at the situation: charity groups and freedom fighters were more than glad to take in former slaves who were displaced by Chamberlain Karsoth's wrath against the Mandate. With more of their kin free, the Minmatar offered work for all able-bodied and willing; with a Republic to defend all hands were needed. As it turns out Minmatar ships are quite crew-intensive due to all the complex mechanical parts used in their construction, so I continued my father's trade as a mechanic-electrician on board a Rupture-class vessel, the R.F.S Visionary.

Of course serving aboard a starship required further technical training, so I was enrolled in Pator Tech School. When I had signed up for courses they were invariably technical training in starship systems, but when I later checked the course loadout in order to make the tuition payments (with my somewhat handsome paycheck from the Fleet) I noticed the tuition payments had already been payed. My courses were changed. Instead of taking "Starship Capacitor Systems" I was enrolled in "Neuro-Electronics" and "Spaceship Command". What was going on?

As Fate would have it, when I was undergoing my physical after signing up with the Fleet my genetics were tested positive for compatibility with the capsuleer program. The Republic government had taken great interest in me and was willing to pay for my education, which for a poor ex-slave such as myself was great news. To rise from slave to an immortal just because of my DNA was marvelous. I lost myself in the thought of it all; my humility and supportive attitudes towards the Ammatar way of life vanished with dreams of freedom among the stars. The only reason I didn't fly around the entire cluster the day I received my license was a contractual obligation to serve in the Republic's capsuleer militia. The Republic had invested in me and made me immortal, so I figured "Why not?". Sure I could have gone AWOL, but I figured if I am to be immortal I might as well learn how to fend for myself. The Republic monitored me to make sure I didn't do anything shifty, and as soon as they held me in high enough standing I was entered into the Tribal Liberation Force.

A Somewhat Brief Autobiography (Part 2)

Little did I know I was destined to become a capsuleer.

My Holder's only son and heir to his estate was training to be a ship captain. He was aiming for a job as an overseer for Tsula Plantations' space-based trade, which (of course) involved being in space. A Holder's only son is a particularly juicy target for Matari rebels and the like, and I had been charged with protecting the heir (as we had been close friends since childhood and trusted one another). Thus I too was to be trained in basic spaceship command and placed in command of an Executioner-class frigate (of course as an individual in servitude I was to listen to my Holder and was kept in line by strict rules). My job would have been to check the scanner regularly for any potential assassins or pirates and, if needs be, sacrifice myself and my ship in order to protect my Holder's heir.

I never had the opportunity to do this job. I was still in training at the young age of seventeen when YC110 rolled around and the violent events regarding the Starkmanir tribe and their protectors rocked the Mandate. The Mandate's government had been harboring Starkmanir tribesmen, and when this was discovered the Empire's Chamberlain (at the time, Karsoth) was not a bit pleased. Of course at the time I knew nothing of the political events taking shape around me, but they certainly affected me.

When the great golden ships came into Khankenirdia II's orbit I was at a tech school for servants, studying to be a pilot-guardian. The school was just a under a hundred kilometers from the plantation and my Holder's manor. I never did see the mighty lasers that scorched the earth and killed my family, my Holder, and my entire way of life. I also never heard from the heir I was assigned to protect (though I know as a fact he had been in space as part of a test flight that morning; I omit all names in these writings in order to protect his family line, should he still be out there somewhere). With no Holder or no heir to claim me as his servant, I was effectively free. My life was suddenly devoid of meaning; my entire life had been devoted to serving a single family. Where was I to go and what was I to do?