Epilogue – Patch Day

It must have been weeks of sleep. Possibly more. I dreamt of my newfound security, and the injustices of Jita abolished by the simple solution of moving all of her rocks to block the gates in. My followers were here, and I was at peace in a utopia.

The exhaustion of it all spun over my head. From my mere days waking up in a cheap apartment, driving an Ibis and running murderous missions for pocket change… all through conquering 0.0 space and defeating Robert’s massed army, it was exciting. A thrill.

As light returned to my vision, I began to awaken. I saw right above me a dirty ceiling, and an uncomfortable bed below. Stretching, I rose to look at the surroundings.

Everything looked… different. Shinier than when I left, but I realized it indeed was the familiar old apartment that I had started this adventure in. It had the smell of poverty that you couldn’t cover up no matter how hard you tried, yet everything was glazed over with a shiny sparkle.

I rose to find a small note left on my bedside. My hand reached out to read it aloud.

“Happy Patch Day. Welcome to Kali III. Today’s date is… January 1st, 2017?”

I blinked again. And looked around. The entire room was covered in post-it notes again. I gaped, as one fell from the ceiling to my lap.

Quote:

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Congratulations on waking up. This tutorial will show you how to undock from bed. Please take note of your overview and...

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Pushing the Tutorial aside with my extensive old-school knowledge, I moved for the window. I looked outside to see everything new and shiny, showing off some sort of graphical upgrade across the world. For some reason, the gates lay un-blocked, and cars honked and people argued through the streets like the Madness of Jita that I had loathed. What had happened?

As I read the note by the window, I sank back in a chair.

Quote:

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Welcome. You have been given a new capital-class car, standard to all rookie drivers of your race. It is called an Ibis-II. For more information, please refer to the new tutorial downstairs.

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Looking below, a brand new ‘Rookie Dreadnaught’ lay parked and waiting for me, complete with civilian siege module and all. It still looked like crap of course. And I took a deep breath, resting back. It seemed some things would never change. I felt refreshed from my break, and smiled through brief moments of lag.

Some things just don’t change. What changes are people. I stood up and headed downstairs.

I had a universe to break again.



(The End... for now)

Part 36 – We didn’t listen!

We were there. The smells, the local ramblings, and the incredible field of lag surrounding every one of our movements. It was the street called Jita, my sworn nemesis. And we were locked down, needing a way to somehow cut off those endless waves of CONCORD reinforcements from coming in here and totally spanking us.

I was alright at least. My speedmobile Typhoon had only been scratched in the chaos, but most of my followers clogging up the traffic queue were in those bizarre plastic eggs. Barely anyone made it out with a proper ride or weapons it seemed.

Around us, Chaos prevailed however. The local denizens, disturbed from their wal-mart shopping and moneymaking filled the streets, as ever more present suicide bombers tried their hand at them. I had to think fast before the chaos disrupted my forces.

“Uh…” I stumbled. “Tackle the gate! Don’t let it get away and… um. Smash em!” I called. Yes, we would smash the highway gates that entered Jita, however long that would take. A brave Velator shifted by me, already crashing into the gate and backing up, lunging forward to crash again.

This was clearly not working. Action had to be taken. We had to find something to destroy or block all of these gates…

“Everyone.. um..” I paused. “Get a chunk of Concrete from every Rock Field in the area and stack them all over the gates! Fast!” I called hastily. For this plan to work, it would had to start now. I myself flew through, toasting poor mission-runners trying to kill some defenseless members of that Guristas gang, who barely did anything bad to anyone except hang out amongst themselves. After a few hours of murder, I returned to one of the gates to see how everyone did.

Apparently, there was not a single loose rock in Jita anymore. Nor any way in through several gates. The road was completely closed and all the price we had to pay was several billion metric tons of Concrete hauled. A few of those robotic asian miners I knew from before seemed upset at all of this. They were soon dispatched with that trusty violence I had grown so used to…

Still. I felt tired. Jita was gone now and my mission complete. Had I won? Had I stopped it all? I felt exausted from this terrible ordeal. As the lag faded, I slipped off to much needed sleep.

It was good to be lag-free. I slept for quite a while.

(to be concluded!)

Part 35 – Criminally Flagged!

Midway through my relentless assault on Empire once I crossed deeper into the city, something odd happened. As I fought, somebody had the nerve to slap a huge sticker on the front of my nanophoon! It was bright red, and I barely paid it any notice. Looking back on it, I probably should it have.

Quote:

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Criminal Flag: 15 Minutes

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I wondered, why should I care what others thought of what I did? It was for their own good after all. Vague thoughts of morality returned to my distracted mind as we pressed forward into deep 0.8 territory.

The sharp siren of CONCORD Police cars scooting in my way before the Jita on-ramp quickly brought my thoughts back to the situation. So they had responded! But six cars were there, trying to stop my thousand-Ibis horde? What nonsense was this?

“The cops are here.” I said with a smile into the teamspeak. My fingers danced along the wheel, waiting dramatically. “Take them out.”

My eyes closed, expecting the destruction of those pathetic CONCORD cars momentarily before my moment of triumph. Explosions sounded all around, and my eyes opened to press on the attack forward.

The six cars were still there! How dare my legions disobey my order! A sudden dark and creeping fear suddenly swept over me, and I turned my head around. What I saw was beyond horrible.

Wrecks everywhere. And a thousand of my minions rolling around in large plastic eggs. I didn’t get these kinds of new Japanese airbags, but they seemed all the rage these days. Right behind them were seemingly limitless CONCORD Trucks and Cars, all aiming upon me now! How I wished my Dreadnaught armies could have been here, instead of being stopped for being a mite bit too fat before entering 0.5.

CONCORD Closed in around me slowly, circling as if sizing me up. It was an odd departure of their standard ‘Shoot First, Prove Guilt Later’ philosophy, which gave me valuable time to think. There were literally unlimited CONCORD officers here, an infinite horde I could not defeat… how could I stave them off long enough to enter Jita?

Thinking with my feet, I hit the gas and drove for the onramp gate into Jita. “Follow me through the gate! Now!” I called to my legions of capsuled minions, not a single weapon amongst them. This plan had to work.

I would to trap CONCORD out of Jita with a deadly weapon.

Quote:

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Traffic Control: (To CONCORD Police Commander) You are cleared for entering Jita in 12:59:99h. Please stand by.

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(to be continued!)

Part 34 – Preparations for BlobWar

Day 7

I awoke on the seventh day of my adventure, no doubt the last day based on how things were getting. Populations in Empire were rioting, with nearly 33000 of them filling a few select streets. Some cried about how difficult it was to move or do anything, and others whined about traffic jams and stoplight queues. Sensable people tried to tell them ‘Get away from Jita’ or ‘Stay out of Rens’, but few listened.

I would make them listen by the fundamental rule of the universe: he who wields the best armed blob wins. And my blob didn’t waste money on things like ‘better vehicles’, instead using the tried and trued Ibis as the killmachine it truly wanted to be underneath.

Now I waited in HED-GP, one exit off the freeway from the boundries of 0.5 Empire Turf. No doubt CONCORD waited there to stop us. I gritted my teeth at the very thought of how many times they had hospitalized me and how many dental fillings I had lost.

My hands gripped the wheel of my nanophoon. The hour had come. All I had to do now was to set up my gang and get ready.

Setting up the gang took a lot longer than I thought. Working with the teamspeak line and trying to write who was what commander, this all gave me a headache. Whines of ‘I’m not getting my bonuses!’ clogged the voice lines. I gave up, and jumped ahead by myself to tackle the legions of police surely waiting for my invasion.

When I entered 0.5 Sec Keberz Street, all I sensed locally were but a dozen truck drivers hauling Tritanium and garbage around back and forth. They all paused to stare at me and the great big ‘-10’ sign I wore proudly atop this overpowered battletank. Chaos ensued, and they ran, fleeing to dock up in a garage from the ‘scary’ pirate who hadn’t done a thing yet!

A ‘gate sentry’ posted here to help prevent bad people like me from entering did respond, however. He was a rather pathetic guy, standing on the roof of a building pelting me with the mighty firepower of a paintball gun. Yes, it would surely deter my pirating ways. I sped on, hearing my horde pour forth. They fired weapons and pillaged, burning a horrible swath across civilization as we bore down on Jita.

Still, I never felt a shred of guilt for my actions in killing and maiming. I knew full well they’d just wake up in a hospital, slightly dazed but otherwise alright. Sometimes, I felt grateful to this mad world I now lived in.

It was so convenient to have absolutely no moral obligation to refrain from indiscriminate killing.

(to be continued…)

Part 33 – Slaying Private Robert

Chaos.

Violence.

Lag.

I had no goddamned idea what was going on. Explosions seemed to be in slow motion one moment, suddenly jumping next. The forces of Bob were engaged with my own, that much was certain. The Nosferatus were working well it seemed, draining even their massive truck carriers to near nothing.

I looked in horror to my side as the Nidhogger carrier exploded in a violent death. Either that, or it just fell apart of its own accord, much like all Minmatar vehicles are expected to. Still, without gasoline reserves even the mighty forces of Bob could not stand in my way. It was almost as if life was broken in my favor. I had to take advantage of this before some god nerfs it.

The Nanophoon conveying my person sped ahead of the battle, and the lag seemed to clear. It would seem moving at speeds unattainable by missiles in this nanofiber-covered Typhoon took me out of that dreaded lagzone. The form of Bob’s titanic shape loomed into my view, and I knew it was now single combat.

One overpowered speedster breaking the laws of physics and common decency versus one oversized behemoth wielding almost godlike powers and fear. Truly, this would be an epic battle.

He started first. Bob’s great form seemed to shiver as I drove in my orbit of his giant shape. He was attempting to escape now that I had penetrated his forward lines! His great behemoth was turning to speed off. I had but one option… to bump him! I knew that he wouldn’t dare let my car actually touch his metal hull, forcing him to turn sharply and lose that precious road alignment. With but a touch, the great titan spun. Teamspeak cheered, and my second force arrived.

Zooming in from a great distance, thousands of Ibis, Velator and Reaper Noobcars set upon the titanic shape, eating away with the might of cars so cheap that they were free. Who else would think of fitting such masses with ‘T2’ annoyance?

I sat relaxed, watching Bob crumble and break under my relentless noobassault. The wreck of his massive train body was visible for all to see. 0.0 was mine now! Yet somehow, I felt no longer satisfied. This conquest was but one step of my grand plan. Empire City had to fall. It was the End Game.

Jita had to be destroyed, like Yulai before it.

(To be continued!)

Part 32 – Blob War is Hell.

Bob was a mighty figure, a beast who conquered all who challenged him. His minions were everywhere, and their propaganda filled all the popular forums around the 0.0 regions. Able to bash aside even the mightiest armies levied against him, there was but one way to defeat the onslaught. As TV has taught me, the only thing that can win is a spunky protagonist and a lot of courage.

In my case, a lot of courage meant I was in the middle of a massive formation of automobiles, sport utility vehicles and a tank or two, each carrying an utterly broken loadout heavy on ‘Vampire’ configurations. While I had never believed in such things, they were said to be quite effective. I gazed from the window of my Nanophoon to a nearby minion of mine driving the awkward Dominix model minivan. I wondered why this ugly wreck always came in that most unappealing shade of brown. Some things we’ll never know.

Inside his car, along the front or ‘high’ seats, I saw his configuration of Nosferatu. In this case, his ‘vampires’ were a car full of black-clad Goths, teenagers who reveled in their own emotional pain or some other nonsense like that. Using their skills at slicing things with razorblades, I would deploy such people against the gas lines of Bob’s own vehicles, slicing them and stopping them dead in their tracks! The excess gasoline could be stolen and transferred to my own war-blob. Surely nothing could stop me now.

“More!” I cried delightedly, as additional vehicles flocked to my cause. I soon possessed even mighty ‘Carriers’, large semi trucks with the ability to haul whole automobiles within them. There was the dreaded Thanathos, most powerful truck of the road and the armored Archon, golden and majestic with it’s impregnable steel sides. These two were the impressive ones. Somewhat less inspiring were the Chimera, a carrier that seemed like you could fit two clowns in it on a good day. It was oddly too small even though it possessed a formidable aura much like a bodybuilding midget.

Lastly, there was some kind of rolling shed on wheels, with a corrugated aluminum roof angled apart and rust-filled interior. Why would anyone be moving a rusty toolshed onto the road? Oh wait, that was the Nidhoggur carrier, a vehicle as bad as it was unpronounceable.

These thoughts of appearance had distracted me, and I focused ahead, forcing myself to look away from the utter ugliness of the Nidhoggur. Bob lay there right ahead with his forces. We closed and the seconds passed, as battle drew nearer.

I counted in my head the seconds before contact, when the carnage and battle would begin.

3.

2.

1.

…

I paused, at the instant of contact. Everything seemed frozen! Slowed down, and control was of no use. I struggled to turn my steering wheel but nothing moved. I shuddered in horror at the realization of a greater enemy, a third party more powerful than myself or Bob.

It was a dark entity and dangerous, that which was known as ‘The Lag’.

The South is on fire again...

Updates'll wait a little, due to a massive increase of stuff to shoot in my part of 0.0, as well as RL stuff. Let's see how the 'all NOS' fleet works in practice. :)