Hi all. First time running for CSM. My ingame name is Gab, and if you are not a regular to pochven or Gobbins himself, you probably don’t know who I am. I’ve been a loyal member of Purple helmeted warriors for about 6 years now of which nearly 3 of those as the CEO for a corp in it, Svarog Liberi. Our chosen niche in Eve is Pochven. Content in and around Pochven takes many forms, but our main focus is small to mid sized pvp. I’m a very active Eve player, and spend very little time docked in a station, usually out roaming in random ships or finding sites to crab or bait on. Our corp is Pochven centric, but through Phew we participate in super hunting, blops hunting, biggish fleet engagements with caps and a host of other things, giving me a fairly broad range of experience in the game.
Your EVE Online story:
I think Eve didnt stick with me until my 3rd or 4th attempt. When it did stick, it was probably due to me joining a corp. They took me to a remote system in Derelik where they wanted to setup some structures. I had no idea what you could do in the game at that point, so was steered towards relic and data hunting in an astero. This was decent isk for little noob Gab, but after diving ever deeping into wormholes and seeing the other stuff people were up to I quickly tried to broaden my horizons.
This eventually led me from highsec crabbing to lowsec crabbing. Sansha DED sites in particulair. However, when I did, I also had my first encounter with eve lowsec pirates. At first I didnt know how to deal with them. My first instinct was to fight, so I bought a hecate. It died, and after the 4th or 5th hecate I opted for a different tactic, befriending them so I could screw them over later. That never happened, cuz we quickly became friends and it wasnt long until I swapped over to seventeenth battalion to become a blops hunter/dropped. This worked out really wel for me and I spend many many months with them and later RC, hunting whatever moved through their little pocket of lowsec.
I missed the whole proviblock era. I took a semi long break from the game and when I came back CVA was gone and RC held nul. I never didn anything in nul except try the DEDs there. I span ishtars for a day and it made me want to blow my brains out. The alliance was far larger then before and I kind of struggled to find my place in this new organization. And it was then that Zorya blessed us with her ever present invasions.
When I heard what was going on, and got wind of how cool the new trig ships looked, I changed my focus to the invasion content and taking advantage of the potential new opportunities they would bring. With help from now long time Pochven friends, we turned a system close to our staging over to the triglavians, and after a tense period of wonder what dafuq was going to happen, me and 2 rc members built a corp to serve as a focal point for triglavian content.
No idea, did I have, that I would essentially become responsible for alliance assets dragged into a whole new region of space. My 2 buddies quickly lost interest, and I was left with a 1 man corp in pochven, loosely tied to a regional alliance led by suddenly space ships. I felt responsible for the structures now removed from staging, and took it upon myself to become an expert of the regions mechanics and players to be able to make those assets serve a purpose. I’ve meddled and been at the table for the majority of large Pochven occurrences since its birth, and have since grown the corp into the one of the oldest, most consitently active corps in the region, with a soft spot for the solo, the small gang and the outcast.
Your areas of expertise. In which areas of the game do you feel you are the most knowledgeable? What qualities set you apart from other candidates?
My ingame expertise is limited to crabbing (in most of its forms, from supers to abyss, from deds to wormholes) and pvp. I am a experienced small to midsize gang fc, with the first steps towards leading larger alliance level scale 50+ fleets currently being taken. I’m well versed in all of pochvens site mechanics and trickeries and on a first name basis with most of its major house hold names. I’d like to believe I’m also a good judge of character and am very proud of the community I’ve helped create in Pochven, comprising of people from all backgrounds. I am not afraid to share my opinion, even when this might cause conflict, when I think its worth sharing, and will bite hard into any issue I think is worth fighting for.
New Player Retention/Attraction:
I think player retention, or lack there of, is a failure on the part of an organizations leadership. It’s indicative of a nulblock mentality, where individual skill and flexibility is sacrificed for uniformity and obedience. All you need to keep and attract new players is a varied and consistent stream of content, and if you teach players how to explore new eden themselves, retention is up to the individuals fortitude. There is plenty (to much?) to do in Eve, and the difficulty with which to excel at those things is part of the reason why its so fulfilling when its mastered. At the end of the day, Eve is a very social game, so my main focus would be on enabling content creators to thrive.
Roleplay:
I am not a active roleplayer who pretends to be a character. I do, however, play out abit of a power fantasy ingame. As a resident of Pochven and a local to the region of Svarog, I feel obliged to be slightly aggressive, bigoted and offputting, but we try to give our own little spin to it. End of the day, Im in purple helmeted warriors, so it cant be avoided that some people think we can be dicks. This in my mind however does fill a specific niche in the games culture that a region like pochven needs in order to not just be nulblocks crabbing in ishtars all day.
While I dont pretend to be an expert on RP, I think its a valued side of the game I’d like to see encouraged more then it currently is. My wivuh Zorya has been to quiet for to long.
Why are you applying for the CSM?
Honestly? Because someone asked me to. I try to help new local groups succeed in the region who want to do Pochven the way we do, and some have suggested I have valuable input and a good total picture of the regions ebb and flow. I participated with multiple Pochven improvement discussion discords (with debatable levels of success) with CCP in it, and am always willing to try to contribute to solutions if I think I can, and if I think said effort is making a meaningful difference. With that in mind I figured I’d throw my hat in the ring, and see if more people thought I could do some good. And to be fair, going to iceland and meeting some of the most passionate eve players in real life along with some of the devs sounds like an amazing experience aswel.
What can players expect from you?
I’m always abit bothered by how Pochven has been seen and represented. A lot of people think its a space where fat crabs get to whelp expensive hulls to compete over painfully easy and boring pve sites, and they are right. Luckily, however, it’s far more then just that.
Pochven has many small entities that fill the space between the endless ishtar spinning, who use the region to their benefit to do some very creative things not just in the region, but also with interactions in Kspace. I want to shine a light on them, encourage changes to none observatory content in the region and encourage triglavian interacting with Kspace. One of my absolute priorities would be pushing CCP to do something with the painfully neglected triglavian LP store, and making changes or additions to the content people can run in the regions. Observatory flashpoints are a staple of the region, but right now they define it. This is not the way. We can do better. End of the day, my main focus would be on Triglavian related content, be that in Kspace, Jspace or the blessed region itself.
If you have any questions feel free to ask. Keep in mind that I am relatively new to CSM proceedings as I’ve never really payed attention to them. If I do something wrong, feel free to point it out 
Come visit us in Svarog pipe if you want to get to know me up real close and personal. End of the day what I like most is flying my ship around. I’m rarely docked up, so the quickest way to get my attention is by gating a solo marauder down the pipe
Till then, Kind regards
Gabriell Bemenacth
