Yeah… but you know, GotG has to get people somewhere.
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Yeah without people like that, we wouldn’t have any BLOPS targets.
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Well, I see the thread is mostly silly, but maybe that is just to cover peoples’ insecurities under a facade. But I think loneliness is a real problem among capsuleers.
The list of bachelors in the capsuleer profession that aren’t some sort of deranged creeps is a remarkably short list, and finding a regular person that can tolerate one being gone for months on end isn’t quite easy either - trust me, I’ve tried.
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Or, you know, it could be because the thread was about silliness in the first place?
On the more serious end of the post, though… the list of capsuleers, bachelor and otherwise, who aren’t some sort of deranged is pretty short, though. (Hell, Napkins got married.) The loneliness angle just doubles down on a bunch of existing problems. One of them is: do you trust them?
Let’s face it, one of the abiding lessons of our profession is ‘trust no-one’. While we all do have people we trust, in the back of our minds, even those of us whizzing around high-sec acting like it’s ‘safe’ have that awareness in the back of their minds: it only takes a moment for someone to decide ‘screw it, I’m out’ to steal corp/alliance assets, shut down offices, and generally stab everyone in the back for their own gain.
And if it were to happen, if it were to be someone you ‘trust’… even then, while you’d be hurt and mostly surprised, there’d be some level of ‘always knew it was a risk’ involved. So it’s hard to build up deeper levels of trust with capsuleers. Superficial types of ‘I trust you to do your job in a fleet’? Sure. But past that… not so easy.
At the same time… baseliners can be all sorts of other complications. Like it or not… we’re different. We have experiences and perspective they never will, and can’t really grasp. How many of them can even begin to appreciate the feeling of having your hull plating scored by laser fire? Of feeling the impact of projectiles in your bones when structure starts to suffer… and being completely calm about it, because either the reps will catch, or you’ll wake up in a new clone in a few moments?
How does that level of disassociation impact our ability to connect with them? to empathize? How does knowing about that disassociation impair our ability to trust ourselves when we deal with them, on a subconscious level?
I haven’t seen my folks in years. I’ve thought about it—thought about hopping into an interceptor and zipping over to Pator to spend some time… but the me they knew was someone very, very different… and I don’t know if I could handle their reactions to who I am now… not because of my particular affiliations, just… the level of comfort I have at the death and losses… worse, I don’t know if I could handle how I’d see them because of those reactions.
We isolate ourselves from one another because of how much we risk… and from everyone else, because of how little.
So, there you go. Silliness derailed. Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop drinking.
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The feeling is a little different if you haven’t really ever been out of touch with your family. I visited during Academy breaks, I go by for holidays and weddings and funerals and sometimes for harvesting even, but it IS still there!
Even if you spend most of your time not in a capsule, and even if hurting people in ships and being hurt or exploded in a ship, there is still an awareness everyone has that you’re different. Your lifespan is different, your customary economic framework is different, your approach to physical things is VERY different. They know. My mother gave me such a look when I was visiting once, and I had short hair and ate nothing but cheese and sweets and didn’t fix a broken toe, because I was going to use that clone for harvest things and hop into another with proper hair afterward.
She understood! I could tell. And she was proud, they all are, but, seeing someone they love treat their body as disposable is very unnerving at first. Maybe forever. Usually it’s a sign of something being very wrong with someone, but for us…it’s the point. It is sad to see people have that instinctive reaction but there isn’t any point trying to tell them they shouldn’t have it.
After a while, if you keep coming around, they do get used to it and even relax some. They joke, and it is almost the same. I don’t think the little bit of distance and fuss that never goes all the way away is worth cutting your family off you. They will get used to you and you will get used to them. I did!
I know I KNOW it’s not perfect but perfect can go chew sand. They are still my parents and so on. My cat still knows me. That little whiff of loneliness that comes from being very different now is much easier to ignore when I can go out of the pod and hug someone I love with the clone body I have at the time. Clone bodies still make happy chemicals when you do that–all of them!
Unless you have them made not to. Do not do that.
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I think only one person around here is that emo… and it ain’t Ibs.
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You KNOWWWWWWW there are hundreds and hundreds of pilots who would happily do it if it occurred to them because loving people and having fondnesses and being pleasant is bad and makes you, you know, less tactical. Or something.
Most of them already have pod dementia, though. I don’t think this is an accident.
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Well, all 'yall aint having no fun on my watch.
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Have you considered joining Goonswarm? Our battle cry at one point was literally ‘no fun allowed’.
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