Roots

No not the movies. I'm referring to how I started this game, as a pure Gallente warrior. Over time I changed how I thought of of the different races. Caldari as being mostly useless, Gallente with only 1 or 2 decent ships with Amarr and Minmatar standing out as the defacto choice for PVP.

See back in the early days, my brother showed me this strange game. Shooting npc pirates and shooting asteroids with lasers. He sent me an invite to try the trial, less than a week was all it took, like that first pack of cigs, its that addictive. On the trial, I played as a Minmatar and got a sweet Thrasher and played around, while trying to learn as much as possible about the best ships in that short time.

One race really caught my eye, Gallente. The sole reason I picked Gallente is because of the sexy curves of the Megathron. This ship is in my book, the best looking model in the game. The old Megathron Navy Issue paint job was really nice, the Black & White just looked awesome.

So ended my trial, and i took advantage of everything I could to get the most time out of my new account. Got a new trial from Steam, the 21 day special. then purchased the activation key for a mere $5. Giving me 51 whole days to play with a full account.

Times were slow in the start. Met a man named Mjed Mazga. Who took me under his wing and showed me how to fit ships after what I now would consider a very embarrassing loss. Eventually we got wardec'ed and I tried my best to put up a fight. Being a newbie in a thorax in the land of Cerberus's and Ishtar's was very daunting.

If there was one thing that the wardec did, it was to make me aspire to get decent at PVP. Time passed and I found myself trying out different corps. Most were complete flops, I eventually joined one that had an active wardec. One day I was sparing with a corpie when a wartarget showed up. I didnt see him but my Myrmidon quickly went boom. A few days later he caught me in a mission and I lost a Dominix. My killer's comment was:

Raven Owa > Maybe you should join a corp that can protect you.
Anxiir > I don't need protection.

This I think was the defining moment in my Eve life when everything changed. Mjed offered to let me join up with his corp, EPIME. A nullsec corp part of Majesta Empire. I learned a hell of a lot in null. Got into shape, watched and learned from many PVP videos. Then one day I thought "I'm pretty sure I can kill some people with this fit". Only one way to find out.

By this time, EPIME had split into another corp, Reliables Inc. A dedicated PVP only corp (at first anyway) and I pretty much took off from there. Working hard to train the right skills and better myself as a harbinger of destruction. Eventually the politics of nullsec left me sour. I had to remove myself.

That's when I really focused on pirating and solo PVP in general. I'm very new to the pirating scene, as most of my life was in nullsec. Don't get me wrong here, I loved nullsec. Even some blob battles were extremely epic. But times change and you have to adapt to the new environment.

I made many small goals and achieved them. Joining The Tuskers was one of those goals. As was making it into the top 10k on Battleclinic (that was much easier than I expected). A new picture of the races usefulness has appeared to me. There is no single race that is really useless. With the recent rocket buff even Tristans are good. All it takes is a little know-how, And any ship can be deadly.

Its been fun revisiting my past to understand why i'm PVP'centric today. Now and then I will think about Raven Owa's comment to me that day. Its been 2 years of solid play time. 2 years of my life that i'm glad was spent in such a great game.

Do I need protection?

Not anymore.