Writing a Horror Novel Inspired by EVE Online: Wanting to Honor the Community

Communications Center General Discussion
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Hey capsuleers,

I’m a horror novelist currently working on a new project: a cosmic horror novel centered around a fictional MMO heavily inspired by EVE Online. I’ve played (or at least lurked) long enough to deeply respect the scale, stories, betrayals, and camaraderie that have made EVE what it is. This isn’t a tie-in or direct copy, think more spiritual successor than parody or expose.

The game in the novel is a sandbox MMO with player driven factions, real-time warfare, propaganda meta games, and a long, infamous history of in-game betrayal. The horror starts when something old and buried in the game’s code starts waking up, something no one remembers building.

I want this to be a love letter to the type of community that makes EVE so unique: passionate, relentless, creative, and yes sometimes brutal. But never shallow.

Here’s what I’d love your input on: • What do you think makes EVE’s community stand out compared to other MMOs? • What mistakes should I avoid in portraying a fictional community inspired by EVE players? • Are there any aspects of the game’s culture or history that you’d love to see reflected in fiction?

I don’t want to appropriate or flatten the community for a cheap plot device. I want to reflect its complexity and intensity in a horror context, something that might feel like a blend of EVE history + cosmic horror + Black Mirror.

Thanks in advance, and fly safe.

(P.S. This isn’t a promo, just trying to do right by the source of my inspiration. If you’d like updates or excerpts down the line, I’d be happy to share them elsewhere.)

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I think most people want to see more Aiko.

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Ammarians/Bloodraiders have a lot of horror stories.

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I looked this up. It is compelling.

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Not so much the ‘community’ as the way the ‘flavor’ of players interactions changes. (This might even inform the way you approach the ‘horror’ element.)

The thing I find interesting about ‘actual’ EVE (vs. the "EVE I wish existed and naively hoped I was going to get, way back when’) is just how much the nature of player interactions, trust and suspicion changes when you add in two elements:

  1. The actions one person takes can directly negatively effect another person, in the form of various loss or penalties.
  2. The game/devs does little or nothing to discourage ‘bad’ behavior. Darwinian selection is the order of the day.

As for your original ‘what does this say about the community’, I’d say it brings out the element in some personality types that in some ways triggers their ‘struggle for survival, for me to win, you must lose’ behaviors.

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Here’s a title - Boot.ini: EvEpocalypse. iykyk.

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DO NOT ANGER THE POS CODE.

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The rain streaked Ian Winters’ apartment window, smearing the neon glow of a vape shop sign across the glass like blood on a monitor. He sat at his desk, hunched over a flickering laptop that had once carried him through wars, betrayals, and thousand ship battles. Now it was just another ghost, too slow for modern software but good enough for notepad files and nostalgia.

A cigarette smoldered in a cracked ashtray. The screen in front of him blinked with the headline he’d written hours ago but couldn’t bring himself to delete:

“Ghosts of Gaming’s Past: The Legacy of Edge of the Heavens Online.”

The cursor pulsed, patient. Accusing.

His phone buzzed. It was his editor, Cara. He let it vibrate twice before answering.

“Yeah.”

“You’re behind,” she said. No preamble. “I need a draft by Friday.”

“I’m working on it.”

She hesitated, just for a moment.

“Look, Ian. This isn’t a fluff piece. There’s something happening in game. People are logging back in. Big player spikes. Old accounts reactivated. But the devs haven’t said anything about a relaunch.”

He blinked. “What?”

“I sent you a Reddit thread. Some guy’s talking about a lost warp gate. Says he found something that wasn’t in the original build.”

“There were always rumors.”

“This feels different. Real. Creepy.” She dropped her voice. “He posted a video. You should watch it.”

She hung up abruptly.

Ian stared at the blinking cursor for a long moment, then opened the thread. It was buried deep in a dead subreddit, r/EdgeHeavens. The top post was titled:

THE GATE IS OPEN. THIS ISN’T A PATCH. IT’S A SIGNAL.

He clicked play.

The footage was old-school—the UI unmistakably from Edge of the Heavens Online but altered. The skybox was wrong. The stars pulsed like veins. In the distance, beyond a ruined war station, a gate slowly opened, its interior a pitch black spiral, swallowing light. There was…lighting…in space? Audio crackled. Then, faintly, a voice. Not text-to-speech. Not human.

Just a whisper.

We remember you.

The video ended. The comments were locked. The uploader’s account was deleted.

Ian sat still. The cursor blinked again, but this time it didn’t feel patient.

It felt like it was waiting for him to remember something.