Life in Solitude: Week Four

Diplomacy: Crybullies and fair play.

Crybully: Noun. A person who does things to other people, and then plays the victim when things are done in return.

There is a certain type of person that perceives the natural consequences of their behavior as unprovoked attacks. If they insult you, and you insult them back, they cry foul. Consequences are grave injustices. For them, turnabout isn't fair play, and they are perpetual victims. They're not simple crybabies - they're crybullies.

Andiedeath is one such crybully. I knew Andiedeath a few years ago, when I was in the Rifterlings [RLING] corporation. From what I remember, he seemed like a decent enough bloke back then. So when he popped up in Local one day, I said hello and we started chatting. It wasn't long before our corps set blue standings, and I joined them for a couple of small gang roams, mined with them in Toustain, and was looking forward to having more friends in the area.

But there were signs of bad stuff to come. The first was when Andiedeath's corp began strong arming friends of ours - Garsa Corp - into transferring their structures over ("nice Athanor you got there... you should sell it to us at a 'fair price'... would be a shame if it were to suddenly explode one day..."). This was inconvenient, because it meant we had to bug him for ACLs. The second was when Andiedeath's corp joined <STFU> alliance - who are our enemies - which meant that these structures were now in hostile hands. We remained blue, but, really, it was only a matter of time before things went south.

The time came when I was eating some <STFU> content cookies, and Andiedeath opened fire on me. I got my cookie, and moonwalked out of the engagement with a fresh killmark on my Hecate, but I was confused. I asked Andiedeath why he was shooting blues, and he explained that we were no longer blues.

[ 2021.04.15 13:13:13 ] Andiedeath > we arent blue I told your CEO we had to reset you at DT
[ 2021.04.15 13:15:16 ] Xuixien > So is that why I can no longer dock in certain structures to do reactions?
[ 2021.04.15 13:15:45 ] Andiedeath > yeah

Okay fine - so we're red and we can't dock at your structures, which means a lot of people in the area will be canceling some expensive and time-intensive BPO research lines and having to asset safety them. So - you're now enemies?

Architeuthis Rex > xu you prick

Okay, fine by me. The pilot shown above was pretty pissed, but I don't know what he was expecting. I'm fairly certain we show up orange to <STFU>. Do you expect to mine in safety when hostiles are present? I tried to explain that it was nothing personal, and really, their CEO should have told him that no place in Solitude is safe for [QUOKA] to mine anymore, since no place is safe for <STFU> to mine.

Andiedeath's response to the gank is gold, and provides a perfect example of crybullying:

Turnabout is fair play. Sorry bro. You shoulda checked the killboard:

Also, we don't have access to any structures now and <STFU> would never let us join their alliance, since they wouldn't even let us join a blue alliance. A herpaderp try to keep up dude.

Not sure how to fit this into the story, but: [QUOKA] brought a Bhaalgorn and two Guardians to engage... [-XXX]'s Catalyst and Garmur, and my Stratios. Hardly seems like a fair match up, does it? A pIrAtE bAtTlEsHiP not only piloted by an ~eLiTeLoWsECpVpEr~ but also supported by two healboats. Luckily what we lacked in bigpants ships, we made up for in ... grasp of game mechanics. It was only a matter of time before a lack of situational awareness and overconfidence led to two unfortunate losses:

The smacktalk from the Bhaalgorn pilot - about us "hiding behind HiSec mechanics" while he was hiding behind logi - was cute. Of course, bringing logi is ~elitepvp~, but using game mechanics in a clever fashion is cOwArDiCe. He asked us to try again in LowSec - where he wouldn't have to think so much.

<STFU>'s coalition is falling apart.

Murderers Inc. has reset standings and joined the fight against <STFU>! The enemy of my enemy, and all that. Apparently, <STFU> was under the impression that [-XXX] was providing me intel, such as the locations of <STFU> mining operations, as well as warp ins so I could gank them. The funny thing is: right until the moment they got AWOXed, Murderers Inc. hated my guts. I was providing all my own warpins through clever use of small AU quick-probing or simply using a cloaked ship to make a bookmark 3km off my target.

I had been receiving intel - just not from [-XXX]. It seems a lot of <STFU>'s blues don't actually like <STFU>, and are eager to share information. And a director in <STFU> also doesn't seem to like <STFU>, and was more than happy to link me to a recording of their 'state of the alliance' meeting.