Before I begin, some of you might have noticed this character is brand new. For strategic reasons(mostly involving the infiltration alt used) all of the names in this story have been changed. I will say however, that I represent alumni of a certain group known for appearing quite Suddenly. We’re known for our thefts and griefing, which are assured to be of the highest quality. For the purposes of this story, I will be going by the name of Garrett, after the protagonist of the Thief series. Anyways, onward to the sotiyo theft.
Part 1: Contact
Back in September 2017, I returned from a long break of a few years. I had a long checkered history of theft and griefing, but I had never pulled off a successful infiltration. Upon return, I made that my primary goal. I took some time to get re-acquainted and do some relatively mundane tasks while I brought myself up to speed. A lot had changed. After a period of adjustment spent trading and doing lowsec pvp, I found my target.
Viridian Dynamics had a corporate advert up, and it met every criteria I put forward. They were sitting just over about 50 players, not doing API checks, and had that atmosphere of “please join us”. A little research allowed me to find one of their citadels, and to my surprise I found its public description stated they were moving. Further, it wasn’t a basic one, but an engineering complex worth about 5 billion at the time. Their new home was only a few jumps out, but they were hiking to a fairly unpopulated .5 system near Jita. Satisfied that they would be an easy target, I put in my application on my alt, Trilby. A few days into October, I had my man in place.
I established my cover story. I was someone who had tried eve long ago, but gotten bored and stopped. After reading about it in the news, I decided to give it another try. They accepted this without question, and I was off to the races. I quickly surveyed their citadels and member activity. It was at this point I realized they had a sotiyo. I’d thought they were loaded, but I hadn’t expected them to be THAT loaded. With ships in place, I started mining in a venture next to a corp mate. All the while I was asking lots of newbro-sounding questions. You know, the sort of stuff that implies a lack of knowledge, but in the process leads to my targets divulging strategic information. It wasn’t long before it turned to the wars at hand.
They were not doing well, strategically. They had no less than 3 active wars at the time when I joined, all declared within the span of 2 days. Many of their newer players had been preyed upon repeatedly, without the knowledge to avoid or engage hostiles. Most of their hostiles were sitting around hubs, but it put a bit of a damper on morale. Sensing an opportunity, I tried to organize impromptu mining fleets with a few of the more friendly corpmates. Mind you, I had no boosting skills to speak of, but getting the gang together and creating a positive attitude would maximize my chances of being trusted with hangar access.
Befriending the more active players was easy, but in the process I learned something unfortunate. The CEO, Lord Bafford, kept his assets locked down remarkably well. He wasn’t in the business of extorting his newer players, but he made a point to keep all high valued assets out of reach of anyone but himself. This was a problem. They would occassionally lend things to each other, but there were almost no centralized assets in a position to be grabbed except the sotiyo itself. They had several orcas on standby, and I considered “borrowing” one, but I decided against it. It was go big or go home. Still, the fact that several people had orcas and freighters meant I would be struggling to stand out from the pack.
I started establishing psych profiles and activity logs of all the active members, especially Lord Bafford. I found Lord Bafford to be friendly and generous. But he was also inexperienced with combat and(perhaps justifiably) paranoid. You see, Lord Bafford, like the rest of his corporation, did not understand PvP. They knew the mechanics of the game. They ran missions. But all of them were industrialists; carebears to the core. The only directors were his alts. His diplomat, Toyota Mitsubishi, didn’t have any access either. As inexperienced as they were, they had the sense to keep their assets relatively decentralized. They had an ore buyout program at just below Jita prices, but it was handled by a single isolated member. And it was like that with everything. They had a lot to offer a newbro, but each project was largely self-contained by the individual who ran it. With an eclectic mix of newbros and paranoid inexperienced industry vets, I needed to get creative.
