Is it wrong that I’d now like to see the female one in a corset, bustle and some of the nice lace-up calf boots?
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And having seen the site for myself, I understand that nothing short of a full Dinochrome Brigade or more could contain that place.
Still, while I am slightly shamed by how foolhardy I was in the beginning, I still intend to find a solution, and having spoken to you in person, an interesting little rumor was brought up that I believe we should shift our attention to.
A wormhole system colloquially named “Run” which apparenly has only one entrance at any time, is being camped by a fleet of Arithmos the size of the forces that murdered Empress Jamyl I.
If such a rumor is true, then it would make it the most defended Drifter installation or site to date, and demands investigation.
The running theories as to what this may be are as follows:
1: A Drifter Homeworld System
2: A checkpoint to a Drifter Homeworld System
3: A more fortified outpost than known Drifter WH systems to date
4: A rest/refueling station for Drifter forces
Any one of these is enough to warrant investigation and possible action if deemed a threat to High Sec.
Of course if it proves to be just a rumor, we may have to experiment with a means to determine where the Drifters come from, besides their Hives. Where else do they go?
And more importantly, if we do determine where they are, is there any way we can reach them?
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That particular system is an example of why pissing them off isn’t necessarily the best idea, if you don’t know you have the firepower to finish the job.
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Or know you don’t; I imagine this sort of thing happening in a shattered C5 system with a favorable stellar effect.
I’ve seen (or heard about) some pretty heavily “Driftered” systems, and some with unusual exit geometry or local features, but never the two combined. Who told you what, exactly, about “Run,” and were they kind enough to include a J-sig?
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I tried to go back and find the relevant information, but it was on a different kind of galnet portal and even going back a few dozen pages didn’t provide what I sought. The search feature is pretty damned useless as well, I fear. It’s a pretty well known system to wormholers though, so I’m sure if you ask people like Makoto or something they’ll be able to provide the information you want.
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@Aria_Jenneth I believe was the one who mentioned the system of “Run” to me after a raid on Sentinel, and @Makoto_Priano seemed to know of it, but was surprised to hear it had not dispersed since the last time she heard of it. I don’t know how large this time table is, but it sounds like to me that this system isn’t anything new.
It was admittedly amusing to hear her surprise in person, that a wormhole as fortified as “Run” was still in existence, instead of just being around for a few days, hearing of it, and then expecting it to vanish after the normal Drifter patrol days have cycled through.
I had never heard of it until just then (I haven’t heard of a lot of other things until that day, cut me some slack) but to see one of the heads of ARC to learn of it at the same time as me? I believe this was when I felt a little ill at the news of such a force guarding one place, and it had not been explored yet.
That said, having been in contact with ARC since the Sentinel raid, I haven’t heard of any progress on discovering the system, and identifying the J-sig.
The biggest problem with it is that if it is true, that only one hole in or out can exist at any given moment - and assuming it works under the normal 24 hour WH cycle, and is not created artificially - then there is a really low chance of coming across it, especially since we don’t - as of yet - have any information about what C-Class it is. I would assume it is a C5 or C6, but I could be wrong, and I’m willing to admit it if proven so.
So my advice to you all? Keep an eye out, and capture camera drone screens often. If this hole is as guarded as we suspect, then you will have to do it quickly before the dreaded Arithmos camp sets its sights on you.
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Bah. Let me turn that argument back on you Miz. They pissed me off and I’m taking action. There is Caldari space and Amarr space and Matari space and Gallente space - but all of it is HUMAN space.
These things stand in the way of our pursuit of resources and living room. New Eden is OURS. Anoikis is OURS. Drifters seem inclined to refute those assertions and all that’s left is to prove the point or fail in the attempt.
Unless, of course, they start talking to us. Then we can make a deal.
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Cool. State space is mine.
… wait, I can hear the cry of "no it’s not, invading, killing our defenses and taking our crap is wrong" being shouted somewhere. Well, protesting this claim or fighting against it just means the solution is apparently more violence against you.
That’s not a decent argument at all, Pieter. If “We want your stuff” has ever been a good reason for warfare to you, I have to question your stance on civilized behaviour.
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I believe he means that by the written laws of our society today, both the New Eden and Anoikis territories belong to the empires. Unless the Drifters have secretly made deals with the standing governments about the ownership and usage of those territories, the Drifters are violating maritime law.
While are being ignored by the policing force (CONCORD) they are in violation, and the only reason we haven’t declared open war is for the same reason we haven’t done so with the pirate factions is that they are too large or are too difficult to root out without expending more than is necessary to facilitate their removal… without asking for the help of Capsuleers, which is what usually happens.
Unfortunately, there are too many threats to call against at this time, and if we were to dedicate our time to any one group, the others would go forth with lessened resistance. Just look at the FOBs in High Sec. We can wipe them away from the area, but they are otherwise too rooted to combat efficiently.
In other words, the pirates are being cheap in their combat styles.
And the Drifters are doing much the same, due to their natural tendencies.
So while I do not believe that “We want your stuff” is a reasonable stance to host warfare, I would like to point out that by law, they are in the wrong - unless there’s something we’re not being told.
And let’s be honest, the other reason is their firepower, and after seeing the assassination of Jamyl, I would not want to incur their wrath any more than the empires would.
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I have a sneaking suspicion they are no more under CONCORD jurisdiction than the Matari were under Amarr jurisdiction during the Day of Darkness. Let’s make no mistake here, in w-space we are the invaders.
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I normally wouldn’t bother pointing out the trouble with decrying wars over space and resources - literally the two things that most wars come down to - but I’m keen to see your thinking on this, Miz.
I mean, we both kill for money, but right now I kill Aliens and you kill other Human beings. Your starter for 100 isk - how does this make me an uncivilised person?
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That could very well be the case, but again, like the Sleeper ruins, they did not leave in legalese a “do not disturb” sign, so while we may be invading by their laws, and their spacial territories, they didn’t leave anything behind in the event that somebody did come across them and wondered what to do.
The only thing they did leave behind was their drones, but shooting on sight without a forewarning at all is not a sufficient deterrent or warning.
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First, we don’t know if Drifters are in fact aliens. We’ve seen no sufficiently advanced cognitive entities outside of ourselves on other worlds, so until we know for sure, don’t go slinging it around unless you want to pull out your tin foil hat.
Second, it does not make you uncivilized, but it does sound substantially hostile, and does require a more in depth explanation to defend your case.
So for both of you, if you wish to settle this, please go elsewhere to do so. Otherwise you are welcome to stay.
@Makoto_Priano, I see you are listening. What do you think?
Simple. You’re invading someone else’s home and wrecking their stuff, pillaging their corpses and in all likelihood further pissing them off in the process. All this is also done without any kind of justification or purpose other than outright greed for their stuff. At absolute best, it’s an act of graverobbery and vandalism. The very moment we discovered active systems, it became theft and destruction. It didn’t take very long before we knew very well that there was some form of intelligence involved, and that was the very last point where we could still have retreated and went “maybe we should figure out what the hell this stuff IS and who it belongs to” while still having even the slightest justification for our actions. That it continues even after we know for absolute certain there’s a highly evolved intelligence which is almost impossible to discount the sentience or sapience of is unbelievable.
I on the other hand, I am very far from civilized. I kill people who have made it perfectly clear that’s something they’re willing to risk - i.e. capsuleers and their crews choosing to put themselves in harms way - and I’m not even doing it for money. I’m doing it for fun and maintaining a combat edge. My victims have bellyflopped into the cordoned part of the pool that is very clearly marked “Here there be monsters”. I have little sympathies for when they discover it is indeed so. None of these people are lacking in options when it comes to staying out of the way of capsuleer targeting computers and so they have all consented to every mark they turn into on my hulls. The Imperials consented the moment they laid a finger on my people, with as little justification as the war waged on w-space.
How does this make you an uncivilized person? Well, that’s a question with no objective answer, I’ll grant you that. In my eyes, it makes you uncivilized for the reason that this war against the Drifters was initiated, waged, perpetuated by us, unprovoked. Of course, this is hardly unprecedented in the history of human civilization, but I like to think it’s our duty to rise above whatever boorish swine we look to in the past. Civilization must adapt and change as time goes on, and the list of things that are uncivilized should grow as we should become better than we were.
@Mahazkei Vas’Hiigara
What is legal or illegal is irrelevant to any thinking human being with even a modicum of principle. What matters is what is right and wrong.
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On the matter of territorial sovereignty, we run into some interesting questions.
Do the Gallente on Caldari Prime have any right to sovereignty and self-determination? Even those who legally immigrated before the various wars? Or those who were born there? What about Amarr colonies started in Minmatar space before the rebellion? What of, very simply, the Khanid? What’s more, at which point does a legitimate claim begin? Or end? What of systems traded in the frontier skirmishes? Or sovereignty in null-security space? What of, what’s more, the Jove observatories? These were unknown until their decloaking; even now, we don’t know if these were Directorate facilities, or older yet. Directorate sovereignty is a matter of CONCORD law, but what if these are older, automated facilities? Is the volume around them sovereign Jove space? Or is it sovereign space of the empire claiming the system? Was it sovereign local space until these decloaked?
After all, the Drifters are stripping these facilities for parts, and firing on anyone approaching them. Is that piracy? Or is the Drifters’ claim to the volume more legitimate than the Republic’s, or the Federation’s, or the Empire’s, or the State’s? No salvage claims have been filed, after all, and no contest has been raised.
What of the baseliner facilities attacked by the Drifters? During their assault on Imperial space, they struck military facilities, industrial outposts, trade hubs. They later raided research facilities across known space.
Winds, for that matter, the Drifters crack open Sleeper enclaves for corpses to harvest. While they’re sometimes served by Sleeper drones, it may very well be that sometimes they’re also opposed by those very same drones, or that the drones are suborned, reprogrammed.
Essentially, what I’m saying is this: we don’t know that the Drifters are anything more than locusts, or some sort of drone executing automated commands. Else, why would their unerring focus and precision be noted so widely? Why have we not seen signs of a civilization, acts beyond salvaging, harvesting, and destroying?
What’s more, we don’t know that Sleeper space is anything other than a mausoleum. Else, why would it be so far decayed? Why would any sane race condemn itself wholesale to slow death by entropy? Do the dead warrant sovereignty? How long must flesh rot and bones turn to dust before they don’t have a legal claim to space?
Essentially, I’m trying to say this: discussions of sovereignty are fraught. Saying that we are invaders, and so deserve what we get, and may as well stand and take the hits and hope the Drifters get bored-- it frankly just doesn’t make sense to me. It’s an argument that seems made simply for the sake of supporting a pre-existing opinion.
Oh, and on the Drifters and aliens thing. So, there have been lengthy discussions of what it means to be human, to be trans-human, to be post-human. The Jove, I think we’d all agree, were post-human. That they were once human in ancient days is a matter of fact, though viewed only dimly through the mists of time. The Drifters, well-- they use Jovian, or the Jovian Sleeper sub-type, corpses. But we don’t know what infomorph rides around in those heavily-augmented, heavily-modified animated corpses. The infomorph could be Jovian, or Sleeper, or some sort of fabricated intelligence or pseudo-intelligence of any number of potential origins. We simply don’t know.
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I agree up to a point, but that point is a bit of a sticking point. Yes, the Drifters may be all manner of things, from locust swarms to invaders or whatever else. However, that does not mean we get to assume that they are, when we have no evidence of this or much else. All we know for certain is that someone at some point claimed the w-space systems, built infrastructure, maintains to this day an active defense of them and that there is a very significant chance there is infomorph storage and maintenance involved.
If that is the case, destruction of such is for all intents and purposes murder, and pillaging actual active such is not much less than kidnapping, and if it turns out we’re actually using these infomorphs in hardware it’s nothing short of slavery. That is of course, if this is the case, which we yet do not know.
We also know we - and Jammies in particular - have somehow majorly pissed these creatures off. Why there has been no significant investigation into what the hell she was up to and how she did this is frankly beyond me, especially since it seems to be completely ignored in favor of going out and killing more creatures we know very little about.
The long and short of it is very simple. We know almost nothing, and that is the point where gathering information before waging war should be the highest damn priority. If arguing in favor of this is “for the sake of supporting a pre-existing opinion”, I have to wonder what exactly the argument for an all out war like this is?
I am going to point out the title of this chat has since changed, and no longer reflects total war or occupation. What we want, is at least some means to communicate with them, or a means to learn about them, without having to resort to conflict, but contingencies will be in place should the need arise.
And on that bombshell I believe it is time to lay out a course of action on which to begin communication with the Drifters.
Who is this ‘we’? No, there will be conflict, and at the end it will be us standing victorious.
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This ‘we’ is made of the collective pilots who are in this room, and while we may not always agree, it is the differing opinions that drives conversation towards a solution.
If you want to talk strategy involving complete eradication of the Drifters, you are welcome to speak with Alizabeth. Otherwise, I would appreciate it if you did not impose your will over a collective, without legitimately involving yourself in it and it’s politics.
You are not the only one I am saying this to, you are just the one who gets told first.
Makoto, you have been patient. Speak your mind.
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