A Bad Idea

The night was never going to go well. I started the evening playing Kerbal Space Program with my son ("play the rocket ship game, daddy"). I'm still getting the hang of building rockets that don't annihilate themselves on launch and, in conjunction with a wriggling child who likes to trigger stages at random, it took a few attempts to even get a decent orbit. Hours after my son went to bed I found myself on a trajectory to the Mun planning one orbit then home.

While doing that I jumped on my alliance comms to see what was happening. It was all very quiet so I continued on my journey to the Mun whilst chatting to the guys in one of the other corps. My projected route would take me within five kilometres of the surface so my plan to orbit became a decision to land and set up a space station. A space station because I would not have enough fuel to get back home. With my orbit decreased to land on the Mun I announce on comms "um, I still have 500 m/s lateral speed". A wise voice suggests "you might want to lose some of that". Commence long retrograde burn using all of my fuel but that still leaves me with a speed of 200 m/s. Well, there was still that one last bottle of fuel meant for getting home. Hitting the space bar I jettison my lander's legs - oops! Triggering the remaining engine and burning fuel as rapidly as I can to arrest my descent and ground speed at the same time creates a pretty explosion on the surface of the Mun. For pure comedic affect my ejected legs complete one orbit and crash next to me. Enough of that nonsense... to EVE!

Went to Mun: Didn't survive

Logging in I find my corp is almost as quiet as the corp comms channel. I needed to pay out peoples' loot and PI earnings anyway so settle down to that while others scan our constellation. Uncommonly, my PC decides to crash to a blue screen and takes forever to reboot. When I finally get back online I find significantly more people have logged in and plans are being formed to raid the sites of our neighbour. I race through the remaining payouts, significantly ruining the corp wallet as I do so. I jump into my site running Tengu and almost instantly the presence of a further two sets of probes not belonging to us is announced. I get my alt in a bomber to our C4a waiting for the arrival and hopeful destruction of the lucky scanner who finds us first. Distracted with payouts I uselessly fail to decloak, target or even get the name of the pilot who jumps in. Elsewhere, in c4a someone identifies the opposing pilots as belonging to Existential Anxiety - the highly effective splinter group from Transmission Lost. Realising we're outclassed for any PvP action, and hoping to acclimatise our new set of recruits to C4 site running, an ill-advised idea occurs to close the static before they get more pilots to us.

A first pass is made with a Scorpion while another corp mate jumps in a Domi and I get in the hole-closing Armageddon. I land and jump out just after the Domi leaves and just when the Scorpion comes back from its second round trip. The Domi jumps back and I hit jump just as a Legion lands on grid with me. Bugger... I burn down and cloak hoping beyond hope that I'll tiptoe away. The Scorpion does the same but upwards. The Domi tries to warp and gets tacked while a further 12 ships jump in behind it announced by our eyes in C4a - "Proteus, Proteus, Proteus, Legion, Prophesy, Claymore... ah screw it". The outcome is inevitable and I get to find Orea's medical clone nowhere useful. We exchange 'gf' in local and ask if they're going to FanFest and if they would mind closing the wormhole on their way out. They say they'll try and offer to sell my corpse back to us. I'm not sure someone in the corp hasn't taken them up on the offer...

Pedro > i will be the proud owner of a orea corpse in about a week
Pedro > sorry studley but i didnt want yours:)
Hesper > hahaa
Studley > You made a good choice.... my corpse was already used
Pedro > eeeewww
Orea > that clone was getting fat anyway

As usual a comment is made by them about us taking the losses with good humour. This is something that comes up again and again. It's almost like a disappointment to some that we don't get all annoyed and rage at them. Do people really get that upset about losing ships in w-space? I can almost understand it for people in hisec, but out here it's kill or be killed.

With the old c4a closed our surviving Scorpion pilot scans a route out our new connection and a mere 26 jumps later I am back home with a fresh new clone. How does that cliche go? "Didn't want those ships anyway"?