Obviously, the meta answer is because choice of races/factions don’t restrict players, etc. I get that.
But is there a specific lore reason why the empires don’t seem to give a hurling heck what the hundreds or thousands of capsuleers (new players) they produce from their training programs a month, do?
I’m just not sure why everyone sinks as much time and resources as my quick reading of making-a-capsuleer lore suggests as they do, considering the sheer number of people that end up going to pirate factions, independent capsuleer empires in the outer rim, or even straight to their opponents (i.e. caldari toon fighting for gallente in FW).
When you reach a near godlike level, and can go through an entire cluster of stars in the blink of an eye, I guess it’s hard to monitor your activities.
Sadly, I cannot think of any source that could give us some informations concerning that… I guess the navies are making a profit by the little amount of time a capsuleer is within their highsec space, since they have to live off literally every possible corporation owned by a faction.
Maybe they simply realize that hatas gonna hate and potatoes gonna potate, so are content to stand back and let concord mop up anyone who steps out of line too far.
Also if their navies weren’t overwhelmed by the hordes of pirates running lowsec and null they probably wouldn’t depend on putting bounties on them to help handle the problem. They likely tolerate capsuleers in part because they are dependent on them to help deal with the pirate menace.
We tend to think of the empires as almighty unstoppable juggernauts that can do whatever they want, rather than nations at war with each other and besieged on all sides by threats known and unknown. If you’re taking over and controlling entire star systems, new entities (sleepers, drifters, triglavians, etc) showing up on your doorstep gives you pause and likely makes you more defensive to keep what you have. And any tool you have that can be thrown in their path (capsuleers) you will likely embrace.
I guess this is just gonna be a typical example of the fluff not matching the crunch, though I don’t begrudge CCP in any way because of it!
All I know is, it seems silly when my fresh Caldari alt I just started graduates from the STATE War Academy, implying sponsorship by the Caldari State… And then I immediately send him out to the boonies. No debt owed to the State, no expectation of service, nothing.
You would think they’d at least require some degree of service… Yes, again, I know this violates the video game meta when we zoom out, but just saying. Consider US military commissioning programs – the DoD pays for your college, and you owe the DoD X years as a commissioned officer in whichever branch. You can’t just arbitrarily change your mind and decide you don’t wanna serve after all, or that you’re gonna go open a PMC somewhere in the world (well, you can, but there will be consequences).
Regarding the “Capsuleers are a breed of their own” - are all NPCs specifically NOT Capsuleers, then? CONCORD’S fleet dogpile whenever something goes wrong suggests otherwise, at the least (as one doubts a typical crewed and helmed ship could handle a capsuleer-piloted ship that goes rogue, especially as adeptly as they do in-game). Like, I’m not doubting our understood “might” in the lore, and I understand that the empires are busy squabbling to send kill fleets after us (hence suspect/criminal tagging, etc.), but… Basically, “race traitor” bounty hunting when? Lol
Concord is a collaboration of the best that all four empires can offer. They are the stick when the carrot fails to work, by design. If their crews were immortal capsuleers the need to strap doomsday weapons to their hulls to deal with extreme threats wouldn’t be needed, they could just keep throwing waves of weaker crap to wear anything down.
Concord or rather the people who form Concord despise us and would rather we die because we cause so much unchecked destruction and loss of life btw Sisters of EVE hate us too and would wish us forever dead.
Now Concord sucked ass and got itself beat up by pod pilots in early days of its existence I think it was called the siege of yulai until Jovians came in and gave them hyper advanced tech so they could actually do the policing work they existed for.
The Jovians being seen as so far ahead and strong held a position of power within the deciding council of Concord same council which decided alot of capsuleer regulations.And gues what,Jovians absolutely loved us they saw us as wayward children to be guided the future of humanity so they used their power position to ensure we had free will not to mention the pod tech is their thingy.
The empires had to find compatible individuals for pod tech train them augment them from their populations and in return they could use pod tech-yes there are capsuleers in the navies who never go freelance also the empires could still benefit off freelance capsuleers by offering bounties or payment for tech and materials they brought back and it would keep the Jovians happy.
In a way everyone won we got freedom ,Jovians got their kids to try and guide around,Concord got fancy tech,empires got pod tech to use in their navies on capsuleers who chose to remain in the navy-btw navy capsuleer is super safe job you hardly die so it’s appealing.
I think it’s a numbers game. There is no real way to control capsuleers. But the other empires have them so you need them as well or risk getting wiped out.
The ones who run to the fringes don’t really affect you. The ones who just ■■■■ off and do their own thing in high sec don’t really either. A small % may go and fight for your enemies, but some of theirs come and fight for you. And some of them will stick around. Even if it’s only 1 or 2% it’s still more capsuleers than you had before. And most of the rest won’t be actively working for or against you.
Player capsuleers are graduating with an independant license. CCP have quoted figures indicating that each Empire Navy has 10 million plus capsuleer pilots. So there are lots more working for the empires than are active capsuleers.
Imagine it in terms of scholarships for navy pilot vs rich parents paying full fees so you have no responsibilities afterwards.