Throne of Lies

I messed up pretty bad today. I'll leave it at that for the moment since I think some back story is in order.

My alliance is currently under a declaration of war by some k-space bears (everyone who lives in k-space is a bear now) so we decided to take out a fleet and wreck some of their faces. The FC asked if anyone had anything good and shiny that we could use as bait in Jita, so I offered up my Navy-thron. It had a solid tank and would last more than long enough to act as bait.

A scout already in Jita had ID'd one war target sitting on the Jita 4-4 undock so I made my way there in a pod. The guy sitting on the undock was in a Megathron with a bunch of probes out. Naturally I was able to dock up without issue and proceeded to refit the bait ship for maximum tank.

I gave my thumbs up to the FC and once the fleet was in position I was given word to undock and engage. I did so, but this is where I screwed up. The guy wasn't firing back. I'm not sure what he was waiting for.

At any rate, I had him locked up and was giving it all the pew I could muster. When the FC asked how it was going I told him I had him aggressed and that he wasn't going anywhere. I was under the mistaken impression that if you're being fired on you can't dock. I'm not sure where I got idea, but it is wrong! So don't make the same mistake that I did.

Well... the fleet lands and starts applying DPS and the target docks. There was about a half-second of silence before the WTF's started to erupt. Here's a few of the highlights.

"I thought you said he was aggressed."

"That was definitely not 1 minute."

"He didn't even red-box you did he?"

"He said the war target was aggressed. He sits upon a throne of lies!"

Many of us have kids so I can make this analogy. You know how when a kid does something he realizes is incredibly wrong or when he breaks something he'll get really quiet and just hang his head? That was me last night once I realized what happened.

In addition to my throne of lies I also had a crown of shame. One might even say I Nutmegged us.

Ultimately, it was just a lesson learned and one I won't need to learn again. I'm sure it won't be the last time I have to deal with lessons learned.

They Moan ALOT

I logged in today and did the usual. Scanning, scouting, spinning my ship in the POS. When I got around to checking out the chain I saw a bunch of ships - likely inside a tower - on directional scan in our static. I took a second to put eyes on this potential pinata and at first sight all was as I would typically find a bunch of ships sitting inside a tower.

Ships. Stick. Corporate hangar. Bubble. Dickstar mods.

Alas, there was one small problem in their particular dickstar implementation: most of their mods were unanchored. Of the mods that remained most of those were offline.

Being the educator at heart that I am, I decided to teach them one of the lessons all true wormholers already know. I made a few million ISK in the process, but I would've done it for free, I think.

You might say I'm just generous, like that.

The Sidelines (twice)

I logged in last night to find that our people had already found a good fight - or at least the probability of one - against Sleeper Social Club. We've met these guys a few times now and were looking to redeem the honor of our good name since our last fight against them was a catastrophic failure.

I didn't have any ships that would fit in with the fleet comp so I stood by in my trusty Helios and took notes, more or less. With 3 Bhaals and an Archon the support aspect of the fleet was rock-solid. The rest was armor-tanked strategic cruisers (standard fare for w-space fights).

Listening in on comms, but never actually putting eyes on the fleet, I had to rely on what was being said. Luckily things were smooth and clear during the actual engagement portions so I had a good idea of what was happening and could visualize it well.

SSC pretty much ran up against a brick wall, which was good for us, but they weren't running very fast so didn't lose a ton of ships, which was good for them. Still, the victory went fully toward Transmission Lost.

After that fight we rolled the static wormhole into a c5/c6. The static was empty, but had a ton of gas sites in it. After scanning down the c6 I jumped in, leaving another prober in the c5 to finish up the signatures.

Intel available on this c6 system was promising. It looked to be held by a small corp who had been running sites daily at exactly that time. Another scout jumped in and we put eyes on both POSes in the system, confirming the wormhol.es intel on the inhabitants. There were no ships at either POS and both had feeble defenses.

For a few minutes we were pushing the idea to stront-check the POSes, but pilots of the c6 corp began logging on. First it was a Buzzard which appeared to be completely lost, but we allowed him to scan down the system in his own fail fashion. His logon was followed by several others: 2 Moroses, a Domi, another Buzzard, a Rapier and a Tempest.

Keeping eyes on the POS I relayed all this intel to the fleet which was massing on the other side of the C5s>C6a wormhole. We were hoping to catch one of the dreads rolling the hole, but that was not to be. The targets decided to use a Domi and their Tempest, so we took what we could get.

Both battleships went down in a blaze of failure, while I waited and watched the dreads at the POS hoping against hope that one (or both) of them would warp in to save the day. Neither of them did and my hopes were dashed.

I didn't whore on the kills so my efforts go undocumented, but one day some one will warp a dreadnaught to a wormhole in a failcascading attempt to rescue a battleship. I'll relay that information to the fleet which will eagerly devour the failcakes and maybe then I'll whore on the mail. Maybe.

Forgotten

There is a special place in Hell for wormholers. It's called wormhole space.

It is the region of the universe where the despised and forgotten make their home and I am one of them. I take pride in living out here where the civilization of "enlightened" people has no true power. Certainly there are pockets of light in this vast darkness, but those pockets are an insignificant flicker against the backdrop of an endless, black abyss.

My victories and failings alike are likely to go unnoticed. They'll be eclipsed and forgotten. My entire existence will collapse and be lost behind the veil of history just as these wormholes that enable my existence in this place eb and flow in and out of existence.

As depressing as that may seem, I like the idea that I will become one of the many secrets w-space will keep to itself. There is no doubt in my mind I shall be in good company.

Don't lose the Tengus

A few nights ago it was pretty quiet for us and I, being the impoverished wormholer that I am, had been scanning for sites to run. I found a couple of Instrumental Ladar sites and rallied a few guys who also needed to fatten their wallets. It took a few minutes, but I got four able-bodied Tengu pilots and we set off.

I suppose the only thing that makes this particular Tengu op noteworthy is that we weren't running these sites in home or our static, but four or five jumps down the chain in a null-bear expo system. No big deal as far as I was concerned. We had a dedicated scout in the system, the chain was quiet with the exception of a Helios probing (very poorly I might add) in our static, and we had enough firepower to clean out the Sleepers and head home.

Still, my CEO put the pressure on with the obligatory "You better not lose those Tengus." There's nothing really interesting to tell about the rest of it. Sleepers exploded and Ventures sucked up the gas while one of our guys reshipped to a Noctis to salvage the field.

That, in my eyes, is one of the best parts of wormhole space: the ability to quickly go deep into unknown and hostile territory, do something profitable and get out all under the pressure of paranoia bordering on psychosis.

1.3 Billion

So I logged in last night to find our fleet rolling the static for pew. I hopped into a scan boat and did my part like any good wormhole denizen. We probably spent 2 hours rolling the hole and people were beginning to get a little trigger happy. It got to a point at the end where we had an Archon on the field to rep up ships that became the target of boredom-induced friendly fire.

Soon enough we had a new target. Scouts spotted Sleeper Social Club (SSC) bringing a BlackOps fleet through our static and into the next system, a class 5 Cataclysmic Variable (C5a).

Excellent. We finally had some targets. And these weren't just any targets. They were fat ones that we knew would fight. I had never engaged SSC before, but knew them by reputation - this wouldn't be an easy fight.

Scouts aside, everyone reshipped to armor Strategic and Heavy Assault cruisers. We rustled up a few more guardians and had a Bhaalgorn on standby. The fleet was looking pretty good. It always does when no one is shooting at it.

Once everyone was ready to go we moved up to the C5a wormhole in our static system and held there while scouts got inside the Social Club home system (C5b). Once everything was set the call came. We jumped through in the C5a and warped to the wormhole to C5b, SSC's front porch by all rights.

A Legion and two Proteuses were on the hole and we engaged.

Knowing that these guys wouldn't be left to die alone and that the rest of their fleet would soon arrive our FC gave the order to align to the sun and burn off the wormhole. I wasn't sure why, but I did it and slowly but surely moved outside effective range.

A few seconds later we were told to head back to the wormhole - again not sure why - and then told to burn away as the main body of the SSC fleet started to pour through. At this point I'm still too far away from anyone to deal significant damage so I keep my target webbed and pointed.

I took a second to zoom out and get a better view of how the battlefield is arrayed. Our fleet is basically cut in half, with one group pinned down on the hole and the other group a good distance off the wormhole. It's at this point that I'm certain we're about to get not only beaten, but totally and embarrassingly obliterated.

I'm with the group pinned down on the hole and am somewhat amused by the fact that I can tell exactly when my name gets mentioned by the enemy fleet's FC. Lots of red boxes appear on my overview and I my shields melt as the enemy fleet switches fire to me.

I put my guns on a Proteus who has closed range with me and broadcast for reps that I know won't happen.

My time to die arrives and my beloved Proteus, Arch Sartan, burns in a glorious fire with its guns blazing and a worthy enemy pointed and webbed.