...And Have You Met BoB?

Well, I have now...sort of.

I was in the GLBTA channel yesterday, chatting with a few people while I prepared for and then eventually tried to finish the final part of a five-part mission that was proving pretty tough. I'd gotten through the first room once the day before, but it had taken me so many runs to do that by the time I'd cleared it and made it to the second room it was time for bed. Yesterday, the entire mission had been reset and I was having the same problem.

I mentioned this in the channel and a couple of the guys in there gave me some excellent advice about my fitting and a more effective way to use armor hardeners, which I've only just begun using recently. One of them gave me a donation to cover the costs of the hardeners. Terrific guys, very willing to help out a noob in need.

The interesting part came a little later when one of the guys noticed a bug in the little indicators in the chat window. For some, including me, it had indicated we had a negative status with ourselves. Yet, when I logged out for a minute and then back in, the negative indicator on my own character went away, but it remained for two of these guys I was talking to, and I was curious as to why. One of them said something like "A lot of people have a negative status with BoB these days...". I commented that it was interesting because I'm a member of Eve-Uni and I doubted that most of the members of our corp, who are noobs or relative noobs, could ever pose even the slightest threat to BoB. Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say for some reason because within about five seconds both of these guys disappeared from the channel, as far as I know yet to return.

If I broke some unwritten wartime protocol here, I still haven't a clue what it might be. The first major war in Eve since I've been playing has broken out, but since I've had virtually zero Eve wartime experience, I suspect I may have broken some sort of taboo. On the other hand, considering how often I've heard the charge thrown around on the forums in recent times, it's possible these guys might think me a spy from an opposing alliance.

Me, a spy? Yeah right...I'm going to be infiltrating BoB through GLBTA, while still getting my ass blown out of space by level 2 NPC pirates on a regular basis. Yeah...uh-huh. What would be the point in trying such a thing? It's not like BoB is going to suddenly decide they need to recruit a pilot with two months experience, who still learning to fit and operate her ship to best effect, so, if I actually were a spy, how would it gain me anything to try to hook up with BoB using a character at my level? If I were really a spy, wouldn't I create an alt that was far more well-skilled and better equipped than I actually am, in order to hopefully entice BoB to bring me into the fold as a fighter?

I can understand the lack of trust...this sort of thing has happened before. Yet, I have to wonder if any attempt at infiltration or spying in Eve has ever been attempted so ineptly as what it seems I might be suspected of here. In addition, I've been so open and so public about my playing Eve and even the name of my character, that I can't imagine anyone who really thinks this through seriously believes I could be an alt spy. Of course, then there's the other question: Were I truly a spy, what exactly would I gain by chatting up BoB members in GLBTA? When you really think about it, you realize it makes no sense at all, especially when you consider this question:

If I truly were a spy, why on Earth (or any other planet), would I be writing a blog like this one? Seems to me that probably one of the very worst things for a spy to do would be to promote their in-game identity publicly, as I have in the course of promoting this blog on the Eve-Uni and E-O forums.

I hope I'm wrong. I hope these guys just suddenly had something else to do and vanished from the channel for that reason. These things have a way of getting out of hand and don't always jibe with common sense or even basic rationality.

In any case, I owe those BoB guys a debt. Their help was invaluable, and their advice was excellent. I'm a much more effective fighter as the result of their council, and a big reason why I hope they really don't suspect me of being a spy is that I'd like to be able to call upon their advice again in the future when I encounter them.

And just in case those guys, anyone else from BoB, or just anyone involved in the current great war is reading this, I'll spell it out right here:

I do not support BoB.

I am not opposed to BoB.

I don't know enough about BoB or any other major alliance to judge them as good, bad, or otherwise. I'll leave such judgments to those more qualified to make them.

Thus far, at least, the current war does not affect me in any way...how could it? I've never been out of empire space, only a few times even outside of Gallente space. To reuse what I think is an apt analogy, for me to offer opinions on this war, who's right or who's wrong, who cheated or who didn't, or anything in relation to any of the surrounding events, would have all the credibility of a sandlot baseball player offering her opinion on steroid use in Major League Baseball. Maybe by the time the next major war rolls around, I'll have enough time in and experience with this game where I can speak intelligently on such subjects, but certainly not at this point, and so I've resolved to keep my mouth shut on that particular topic...for now, at least.

Now, thanks to that great and timely assistance, I'm ready to head back into deadspace and finally complete the last part of that mission. After I take care of a few things, I think I'm going to do just that. I'll let ya know how it goes...