Arnaya Oriai Rotsuda's Pilot Logs

This is the personal log of Arnaya Rotsuda, a newly reborn Civire capsuleer.

Who am I? I’m just a pilot. Specifically I’m a Dragonfly pilot, at least I was up until last week anyways, I was one of the top of my class at the flight academy, but more than that, I’m also incredibly lucky, or so I was told by my flight instructor. The top 3 of our squadron were to be picked to transfer out of system to an AIR facility to become capsuleers, immortal demi-gods playing dress up as pilots just like us… I wasn’t in that top three though, I was in the fifth position. Some of the four ahead of me genuinely are better pilots, experienced, deserving that recognition and earning their merit.

The second was shrewd, it was clear he learned a long time ago to read his teachers, then his instructors after his educational graduation. This time however he over reached, he overstrained, and in an error of judgement or a snap under pressure he had burned and crashed…literally. The certification flights weren’t in training pods, they were live flights with live ordinance, and in a reckless maneuver he collided with a wingman, the pilot directly above me in the rankings, and careened both fighters into the flight bay of our carrier. He didn’t make it, and the injuries to his wingman have postponed any chance at transferring anytime soon.

Even so, the quota was three top pilots in two days, so there I was, and off I was sent, and now, a week later, here I am finalizing my capsuleer training in Uitra.

I am Arnaya Oriai Rotsuda, and I am a pilot.

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Welcome to capsuleer life. Do yourself a favor, though: don’t buy into the ‘immortality’ nonsense. Savor every moment, and live life like every day is your last. It could be, and if it is, someone else who thinks they’re you will step into your life while you drift through space with your brain burned out, un-mourned, and very much dead.

Find the things you love to do, and do them to the best of your ability. Find the things you hate, and learn how to do them well, for when you have no other choice. Along the way, try to hold on to your humanity, if you can… or don’t, and embrace the monster inside us all.

Welcome to your new life, pilot. There’s a wide, open cluster out there, waiting for the chance to kill you. Endure, and you will become something you cannot even truly conceive of, right now: Yourself.

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Arrendis speaks truth here.
The moment you start seeing and referring to yourself as immortal, is the moment you die inside.

Do everything in your power to protect your sense of wonder. That innocence. This cluster will do everything in its power to destroy you. And not just the physical sense.

So with that said, find things you love to do and engage in that. Be it baking, or tending a wind garden. Taking holopics of the various nebulea found out in the black.

Welcome capsuleer. May you never loose that sense of wonder, and Cold Wind favors the strong.

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Welcome! I’m pretty new to this also, at least compared to Arrendis and Ax’l, and probably most that will contribute in this thread, so I’ll leave the advice to them. All I’ll say is enjoy the sights, and I hope I see you around!

  • Shasta
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Log Entry 2

The past three days have felt like a blur. I’m not even sure really where to begin with this entry.

I suppose directly following my capsuleer career training completion. Many capsuleers after this point are considered free agents, regardless of naval background or training. Me? Part of the AIR transfer papers’ mandates was continued service in the Caldari naval forces. Not that I mind, it’s where I feel the most at home anyways.

After the ceremonies involved with the training completion I received my first assignment briefly to Jita 4-4. Despite being the galaxy’s biggest trade hub, it’s still a Caldari Navy facility. The renovations, while costly, returned the same operating volume originally intended for the Navy back to it.

Once there I was given a package by a benefactor, someone that must have had some high connections, the package was delivered by State Stockpile officials and included a new uniform and several ship skins themed after the station itself. The package also included an official note offering advice to expand my existing assets through contacts at the Jouvulen system’s Science and Trade Institute while my application to a Naval aligned Protectorate corporation was being processed.

So I headed out, it wasn’t all that far and the additional Merlin combat frigates I was provided would be handy I figured, but it turned out Jouvulen had some problems festering within the Institute. While there I noticed that the local comms channel was indicating that another capsuleer was committing some form of crime. Nothing important enough for CONCORD to intervene with though apparently.

The laws and regulations that apply to capsuleers have always seemed rather murky and confusing to me from the outside, and even now as one it hasn’t become much clearer. Many of us in the war academy had heard the stories surrounding the star system of Uedama, how the system’s capsuleer inhabitants have annihilated freighters for years, untouchable by Caldari law. Despite the confusing nature of these regulations, one thing was clear to me though, a capsuleer flagged in the manner that this “Denis” was meant that I was allowed to attack him.

Observing his actions, it also became clear that despite not being more than a few weeks into his existence as a capsuleer, he knew more than a few regulation tricks and that the stories I had gathered from the dock workers aboard the station were accurate. Whenever someone aggressed Denis, he would dock, a law meant to allow unaggressive capsuleers to shelter within stations from would be pirates, but as quickly as he could have his pod moved, he’d reappear at the undock zone in a Moa class cruiser, in an attempt to retaliate while CONCORD allowed free weapons fire between him and the aggressor.

A devious tactic, one that was good to learn without being on the receiving end of it. Though according to records on the Gal-Net kill tracking platform zKill, one that had yet to pay off for Denis. In the mean time however my application to the aforementioned State Protectorate aligned corporation had been accepted, thus began the process of shipping my assets to a station on the edge of Black Rise. During this process though, Denis had made an error. An error that left him not near the station but still flagged by the local communication network… an error I exploited.

It was fairly straight forward, during my observations and attempts to catch him before, all of his ship designations were “Banan”. This meant that I could use my scanners to single him out, and I found Banan near the star. He was in an Ibis this time, stationary. I had concealed my ship designation, using another pilot’s name and so he didn’t realize what was wrong until it was too late.

During my training I had been given a civilian grade warp disruptor, I was told that it was ineffective against other capsuleers though. Fortunately one of the Guristas thugs I killed during my training dropped a customized version. It was tuned for increased range, though in this instance not relevant, more importantly though it was effective. I had Denis trapped, and I destroyed him.

Even though he was effectively completely helpless once I had him locked, it was exhilarating to finally catch him, even more so to “kill” my first capsuleer. Though that feeling quickly became uneasy when only minutes after destroying his pod…his name reappeared within the local system list. It’s hard to get my head around this concept. This concept of immortality, not for me, but for my enemies. The Guristas I had killed in the past…stayed dead. I’ll never see them again, nobody will. Even the one calling himself Tahamar didn’t return even though he had a pod.

Does this mean Tahamar, like Denis is still alive? Am I going to have to face him again? Now I wonder how capsuleers sleep at night, knowing that perhaps any number of other capsuleer enemies are also still alive, probably plotting their revenge?

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The others are telling you that you ain’t immortal. But I’ll tell you that you’re closet to immortality than nearly any human has been ever. How many baselines are there? Trillions? Tens of trillions? How many capsuleers are there? Hundreds of thousands. You’re more immortal than not.

And yeah, that means your enemies are gonna be too. You’ve stepped from the realm of the mortals into the realm of the gods. Capsuleers can be forces of nature unto themselves, with inexhaustible wealth driving whole planets and systems towards their goals. Even bit players like you and me have so many more options available to us than nearly anyone else in the cluster.

Don’t be afraid to wield the power you have. Because your eternal enemies certainly won’t be.

Log Entry 3

It has been just over a month since I got to collect my thoughts and write another log. There is a lot to cover…

Following my dealing with Denis and bolstering my wallet and assets in Jouvulen, I received notice that my transfer to the Mercury Arms Inc Protectorate corporation had been accepted and it was time to move my assets which fortunately did not take long. I staged my ships and assets in a Highsec State Protectorate station just 3 jumps from our headquarters. Following this I took a Merlin class Frigate and made my first jump into lowsec as a capsuleer.

Doing so is very different from entering lowsec systems as a navy fighter pilot, then it was nearly no different from operating in highsec. The threats of sudden attack by capsuleers outside of the warzones of Black Rise and Placid did not exist, as unprovoked aggression against a Caldari Navy Chimera would be met with extreme consequences in so many ways I couldn’t list or remember them then.

As a capsuleer, even still in service with State forces however, I am considered on parity with other capsuleers, engaging in hostilities would only be modestly punished by CONCORD and State standings hits. I didn’t fear for my life, but even so, the differences were on my mind until I docked 3 jumps later.

What followed for the next few weeks was a series of fleets and solo operations. The Gallente forces had payrolled a number of privateer and pirate organizations to support their FEDEF units and they were aggressively pushing our space, still bitter about being thoroughly routed in the past year. These operations resulted in my first ship losses outside of training, as well as my first killmarks. So far losing 8 frigates but destroying 17 hostile capsuleer vessels.

I still as of yet have not had my clone destroyed fortunately, though the uncertainty of what it will feel like keeps me up sometimes. I have run checks and re-checks to reassure myself that my informorph will actually work and I will wake up.

Just as I was getting my footing in the field however we were all struck by a huge blindside. Esri Hakuzosu, a Wing Commander assigned to 4-4 as part of a research project had turned traitor and joined the Gurista scum from Venal. Non-Capsuleer Navy support suddenly evaporated as forces were pulled out of anti-Gallente operations and retasked to dealing with the Gurista incursions and raids that were covering for their agents to escape State space.

The result of Navy withdrawals was more of Black Rise fell under Gallente control, but the State’s resolve is strong, and we continue to recover systems despite the navy still prioritizing Gurista cleanup and investigations now.

For now, I continue to focus on training, I’ve taken the past week or so as leave to further skill myself so that I can utilize destroyers and frigates more effectively. My benefactor, after concluding their own operations against the Guristas, had acquired a number of cerebral accelerators from those operations and shipped them to me, trading them for a set of Navy-Spec Hornet combat drones.

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