Jita burns us, nasty Hobbitses

Did everyone have fun during the Jita burns weekend event? Did you avoid Jita completely to avoid it? Did you join in on either side and bag a freighter or a Goon? I know I did.

I decided it would be remiss of me if I didn't at least wander along to look at the wondrous sight of Jita in flames at the hands of the CFC et al. I had absolutely no intention of taking part in any way shape or form. Fly in, take some pictures, fly out. To that end I took a completely untrained pilot in a noobship, set his medical clone next door to Jita and warped to the Jita gate.

Perimeter congestion

Arriving on the Jita gate I found it, unsurprisingly, to be rather congested. Being in a noobship I was fairly confident that I would be safe, but then again this was meant to be a 'with us or die' event so I couldn't be sure. After several attempts to convince Jita traffic control to let me through I was able to jump.

Where's the fire?

Arriving in Jita, it was amusing to note that the gate here was quieter. Had just missed an 'event' and everyone was in station waiting out their GCC timer? Who knows, but now I had made it to Jita I decided that I should set my medical clone here too.

Once I was happy that any clone loss would keep me in the system I wanted to be in I set off to survey the gates. On every gate except the Jita → Perimeter gate there was at most ten ships. That made my voyeurism easier; I only needed to sit at the Perimeter gate to watch the fun.

Sitting around watching was a little boring if truth be told. I watched a handful of freighters come and go without anyone taking a bite. On one occasion a large group jumped into Perimeter behind a freighter. It took a couple of minutes before traffic control let me follow and when I got through there was nothing to see. I've no idea if I missed the kill or they got away. Sticking around for a while more and finally there was a flash of criminal notifications across my screen. Looks like someone's going to die.

I'm pretty sure Concord started dishing out punishment at the same time as the Rhea finally appeared in front of me. The pretty light show was so mesmerising that I forgot to grab some pictures. Almost without thinking I started to lock up the Rhea. Still without thinking I found myself hovering over the trigger for my Civilian Light Electron Blaster, clicking it and accepting the warning about the legality of what I was about to do.

I was surprised by the length of time it took for my ship to be removed from under me by Concord. I flew directly towards the Rhea in the hope I could actually get in range to score at least one point of damage. Sadly it wasn't to be. Equally annoying was watching the Rhea warp off rather than explode.

It wasn't until some time later when I was talking to someone that I found out the Rhea had actually died. It appeared to everyone that the Rhea escaped but apparently as a side effect of Time Dilation it was the pilots on the destination station who got to watch it explode. I guess the stresses of warp can be trying on a hull so riddled with holes. Poor Jeann must have been so happy to get her Rhea away from the gate. I can only imagine how she felt as that elation crashed to despair as her ship collapsed around her.

My only regret is I didn't take Geo into Jita for that kill. A six billion ISK kill would've looked good on his wall. He might even have been able to hit the thing.