Freedom ain't Free (There is always a bar tab)

Eve online is by far the greatest game I have ever played for the simplest of reasons, it has evoked the strongest and most emotional responses of all my gaming experience. I will admit, in my formative years to rushing outside my house to find and hug the first person I came across after finally killing some dragon in some other MMO. However that was a singular experience expressed after thirty days of pent up frustration that the damned reptile just would not die.

Eve on the other hand has made me laugh, cry and despair at the dastardly humans who populate this universe all while wishing I could develop a little more dastardly of my own. Eve has made me feel and no where feels better than The Price of Freedom. What at first felt like walking into an old western saloon filled with a bunch of hard ass americans who all stop what they are doing and stare at you (and spit in the spittoon) quickly changed into something very different. It became family. For the pure and simple reason that, like any dysfunctional family, most of them drink like fish. There is a copious amount of alcohol related lore surrounding this corporation, so much in fact that the phrase “So drunk I declared my undying love to Price” is not just something I coined but a state that many a member aspires to reach. Ships have been lost, asteroid belts have been slept in, the spice has flowed dangerously on numerous occasions. Many fantastic stories, many fantastic members but the one I always remember first happened in Outer Ring, and goes along the following lines.

We came out to Outer Ring harder than a grandfather on viagra. We took a moon a day for the first fortnight of ops. Which is great, until muggins here has to fuel and empty them all (thanks guys!). We pissed somebody off because a whole host of surly Russians descended upon us like a vodka drinking hornets nest. We held out for probably another fortnight but we were stretched thinner than a bride wants to be on her wedding day. The dispro we fought for, well we formed for, three times, but it fell to more Cerbs than I’d had hot dinners. Members began to do more drinking than gaming, we had pushed them hard and we had grown softer than a grandfather without viagra, picking on people who hadn’t really fought back. All that was going to change, Lord declared he would “Save that tower!”

Now Lord in this instance is not some made up entity the Amarr use to justify talking to themselves in dark rooms because they are still scared of the dark. Lord is a man, he’s a man with a Thanatos and the semblance of a plan. He is enraged, out of his mind fuming that our tower “empire” is crumbling because, well he logged in and fired his lasers at things to make that happen. It’s not like he went from blowing things up to researching, producing, collecting and delivering fuel blocks. It's not like he has eaten, drunk and slept moon goo for the last month. Honestly I am not bitter about this experience at all! Though if he had been drinking moon goo he might be slightly more sober. Lord is drunk, he is past undying love to Price drunk, Lord can’t see past his nose, that is how drunk he is. If a girl was as drunk as Lord I would probably look like a cross between Ryan Reynolds and that guy who plays Thor that my Girlfriend won’t stop going on about (yes I just capitalised the G in girlfriend to emphasise that I do indeed have one).

Lord is drunk, he is armed with a Thanatos, a tower timer and a raging justice boner. Remarkably he is somehow able to remember the tower timer even though he can’t type better than a five year old. He is on time. He is repping, he is ten minutes away from war hero status. I am in system with him, I am weary from tower responsibilities and marvel at his piss into the wind bravado. I don’t quite start whistling disney songs but even the task of taking down remaining towers before they get blown up doesn’t taste as much like defeat as before. Lord you crazy mofo local is filling up and you are still repping! Are you even aligned? Are you even awake?!?! No response, Russians crash the grid, time slows down, I no longer feel like I am playing Eve, I’m stuck in a Max Payne combat sequence and I was never any good at that game. Lord is out! He’s not there anymore, it takes me a second to realise he’s warped off and not got himself blown up. From the safety of the tower shield I may have giggled like a schoolgirl. We have a second tower in this system and he has warped inside it. Seconds turn into minutes and the enemy, frustrated at missing the dangled carrier, unleash their fury on the tower I am hiding in. Lord finally speaks, about ten minutes after I warned him local was filling up, his words of wisdom? “Dude you could have warned me!” I swore at him, not like a schoolgirl.

The plan to rep the tower is dead, roadkill dead. At least it is to me, Lord takes some more convincing, I fear he might warp right back and start repping again. He doesn’t, convincing him to leave is like pulling teeth, every last one of my teeth. The plan, as far as I can tell, is to get him out of system so he is within cyno range of his alt and can jump to safety. Why I am taking strategy advice from a man who is three sheets to the wind and or tying one on is beyond me. It is also beyond me why we didn’t simply move the cyno one jump closer. I do score one major victory, he agrees to let me scout the out gate for him. He agrees, then 30 seconds later leaves system, even I know a Thanatos doesn’t warp that quickly, Lord you arse! You’re a legend but you’re an arse!

“They’ve got me” I warp to the gate, quite what I intend to do in a blockade runner is unknown but the man is drunk, he might not even be tackled, a sober pair of eyes could still carry the day. He starts laughing, hysterical, tears down his cheeks laughing. Hope springs in my chest like a wild hare running across a road. “That was awesome!....” The hare is going to make it! “.....I’ve never been doomsdayed before.” BOOM! The hare is no more. “I may have been drinking” Lord suggests with what sounds like a verbal shrug, if a shrug can be slurred, he then logs off.

I have verbalised that story many times, mainly to friends who are scared to give themselves to the altar of awesomeness that is Eve. That story is the perfect example of how real life antics synergise with online sci-fi to create a memory that makes me chuckle over a year later. I only have one regret regarding the drunken flight of the Thanatos. I am still yet to see a doomsday fire.