Life in Solitude: Events So Far

NOIR. is Recruiting!

A good bunch of dudes. Good PvPers, mature comms. Professional. They're rebuilding and fun to fly with!

Progress Report

  

Things are not going well for the <GSC> bloc. After an initial slow start, the campaign is picking up speed. Almost all of <GSC> structures are reinforced. Cruisers Crew showed up once for an armor timer, having to gate in after the <GSC> cyno got one shot when the pilot decided to light the cyno within optimal range of a fleet of Harbingers. <CR3W> fed half their fleet for an armor timer - and then died on the way home. They haven't been seen on grid since. <GSC> leadership has also been having communication trouble, leading to an Athanor loss when the defense fleet was given the wrong time. The defense fleet landed on the Athanor just as it exploded, losing their tether and feeding killmails helplessly before fleeing back to Yveve. This led to some heated words being exchanged on their comms.

 

Small gangs of stealth bombers and assorted T1 ships are running around the region constantly reinforcing <GSC> structures. One crew continuously makes timers while other crews follow up on them. If a defense fleet forms, the gangs switch to different structures in a campaign of incessant harassment. If a large enough defense fleet forms, it gets pinged and fights are had. <GSC> has stopped trying to push attackers off shields, forming primarily for armor timers.

<GSC>'s 'batphones' have yet to reveal themselves. Word is, batphones help those who help themselves, and <GSC>'s shadowy allies aren't willing to field hard assets to defend people who can barely form a T1 Cruiser gang, and who have lost every single battle since the war started.

Padrick's Mental State: Xuixien

How my enemies see me.

How my friends see me.

I've been waiting a little while to post this entry, because I needed permission from my sources. That permission has been given, and so I'm hitting the fire button.

Padrick has a long, established, and demonstrable obsession with me. Suffice it to say, he hates my guts. He seems to have this idea that I'm some sort of mastermind super villain, lurking in the background, pulling the strings, and exerting my influence over people to turn them against him. Him specifically, and that when he's gone, I'll turn around and do the same thing to them (that's how his mind works, because, well, that's how he works). In his mind, I'm running around Solitude, whispering in ears, and subtly manipulating everyone to hate him.

In reality, all I am is a shitty pilot who throws Catalysts at things without regard to loss or consequence. But while I've been AFK from the game, he has continued to plot and conspire and spread rumors and libel about me. For proof, just read any of my previous blog entries on the matter.

I don't really blame anyone who buys into the "evil mastermind psychopath" narrative; while I am pretty small and inconsequential, I'm a very noticeable presence due to the noise I create in Local and the attention I draw with my blog. I'm also very annoying and incessant in my pursuits, so people's dislike of me is understandable. The fact that I'm a magnet for intel from spies, information brokers, and disgruntled line members also creates a dark veneer over me that's so easy to hate. You never know what I'm gonna know about who and what. Also; when there's bad blood or you simply don't like someone, it's easy to believe negative things about the other person regardless of evidence to the contrary.

But I do blame Padrick, because he knows better. I reached out to him to try to get a solid assessment of his current mental state, and to ask him if he honestly thought the crap he was pulling wouldn't blow back on him. He's been burning his bridges, sending nasty messages to people and then blocking them. Once again I gave him a way out - a chance to be honest and to humble himself in the face of certain annihilation. We didn't get that far because he sent me an angry rant and blocked me. His response: There's no blowback and no one believes "Saif's narrative" and it's all Xui's fault anyway. That's right; I'm a central and indispensable part of the current events in Solitude. That's why when I went AFK for 3 months everything just fell apart (it didn't). And what's more: I pay for people to go to Fanfest! (???)

All I read was "Xui's the man." All hail Xui. -Piolp, 2022

There's nothing blowing back - except all the people blowing up his structures. Or rather, the structures that other people donated to the alliance that he was planning to steal. And the only people who believe Saif's "spin" are - well... everyone. Solitude is being wedged and chaos has been sewn - by me, of course. That is except for the fact that Solitude is pretty much united in solidarity against Padrick, and in a very orderly fashion. You really have to wonder if Padrick believes his nonsense or if it's all for the benefit of his line members.

I have to be honest with my readers though: as far as this particular conflict is concerned, I'm just a line member who's keeping a diary. I'll repeat that again:

I am just a line member who's keeping a diary.

Padrick continues to play his scheming little games. For example, pretending to "drop alliance" - for the sake of his alliance (that he conspired to steal from). Now, I wouldn't be surprised if Padrick did cut and run. It would fit the MO of manipulative narcissists; start a bunch of shit, and when everything blows up in their face, blame it on other people and run away, leaving their victims to pick up the mess while the narc moves on to greener pastures a new set of gullible fools to manipulate and destroy.

Can't steal the structures and sell them if they get blown up!

At least Padrick has some insight and is willing to accept some blame for the situation he got <GSC> into it. It's true; they're an indy alliance that minds it's own business. But it's not "my narrative" that is putting Padrick's alliance at risk. It's Padrick's own behavior. I just made it public. Of course, we all know this is a ploy; just posturing and impression management from the man. Unfortunately there's enough documentation of his toxic and manipulative behavior on record that it just falls flat.

Padrick's reasoning is really interesting here. For example, he holds <WHBOO> responsible for my actions, despite the fact that I'm not in their alliance. At the same time, he believes that leaving <GSC> will make everyone stop blowing structures up. Isn't that a sort of weird 180? There's only two problems with that: the blood is already in the water, and nobody believes that Padrick has really left <GSC>. He still has known alts in the executor corporation and is on <GSC> comms every day - and everyone knows it:

 Here's My Mess, Clean it Up

My words about narcs leaving their messes for other people to clean up proved prophetic. As I was writing this blog, I was approached by a man claiming to be the new leader of the <GSC> alliance. We spoke over voice (I wanted to confirm that it wasn't Padrick), and to my surprise learned that he was told that I was the point of contact, the coordinator, and the mind behind the coalition that's attacking <GSC>.

I had to explain that no, I'm just a line member right now, backing up my blues and my friends, and that if he wants to sort the situation out, his points of contact are <WHBOO> and <HC> leadership. I passed his name along to my contacts. He seemed like an honest, decent guy, and I sincerely felt bad that Padrick left him with a huge shitmess to clean up.

I have no idea what the ultimate outcome of that new development will be. My guess is <GSC> still burns, loses a lot of bodies, but manages to reform into a new group under new leadership, or gets absorbed into <WHBOO> or another alliance nearby. Either way, a lot of real estate is about to open up in that eastern section of Solitude. I have nothing personally against the man or (most) of <GSC> membership. As Frank Herbert wrote: "The problem with leadership is that leaders are human beings. And when they make mistakes, their mistakes are amplified by the numbers who follow without question."

And it's the every day bloke that has to suffer those mistakes. Such every day people like Adelaide Oberon.

Burned Bridges and Human Wreckage

I finally tracked down who hired NOIR. to attack <GSC>. It was a former <GSC> CEO. Ooof, that's a bad look for <GSC>. You have to be a really scummy person and really screw over your membership to get them to hire mercs to attack you. The screenshots, shared with permission, speak for themselves and tell the story better than my poor writing style ever could. But I will say one thing: Assuming Adelaide's innocence - and I am, as <GSC> doesn't really have any "intel" to leak that anyone would care about - I feel bad for Adelaide. They seem like the sort of prosocial, supportive person that should be in a leadership position. Instead, they were betrayed and their reputation tarred by Padrick.

And why? Because Padrick felt threatened by Adelaide's competence and growing popular. He was worried she would outshine him and that people would rally behind her, and that she would become the leader of <GSC> in all but roles. And Padrick can't have that. Padrick can't share power or be shown up. So he kicked her for alliance, telling her it was for "inactivity" while turning around and smearing her reputation and branding her as a spy and a traitor.

Here are the screenshots:

Charge your damn phone!

Padrick's response to being shown the bottom message (not by me) was that Adelaide "is playing a role" and playing it well. What a delusional and paranoid man... always working on his next narrative.

The "Acolyte" mentioned here, by the way, is none other than Lord Ghetto. Not only has he spent the last few months burning his relationships within Cruisers Crew by accusing their membership of being my spy alts, but apparently he makes it a habit of accusing people of being spies everywhere. Lord Ghetto has his own agenda, I'm sure, trying to move pieces on a chessboard. It's unfortunate for him that the board is going to be gone soon.

For what it's worth, I feel pretty bad about how things have panned out. A few shitty people in leadership positions, and now an entire alliance is suffering and good people are having their reputations smeared.

The Future

Solitude has been a content factory of tangled and messy human relationships, grudges, and schemes. It's a huge part of the reason I haven't moved all my stuff out yet; Solitude is a hard place to live, far from trade hubs, with a dearth of income generating activities. But it's the people; the flawed, fallible, and fascinating people that keep me around.

I have to say though that with <STFU> completely eliminated (the alliance is closed, with most of the former membership scattered to the winds), with [QUOKA] gone or at least maintaining a very low profile, and with <GSC> on the verge of utter erasure - or at least, with a very good probably of reforming under new leadership with Padrick completely out of the picture - there probably won't be anything more for me to write about in this series. Daily life in Solitude is pretty boring and not worth writing about.

So as the "Life in Solitude" docudrama comes to a close, what I will start to write about more is theory crafting, game balance, and mechanics, and gaming psychology. That's what I originally started this blog to be about anyway. So, I'll see you guys around. You can expect at least 2 posts a month from me, perhaps more as hypomania visits me and the bad ideas pour forth. Till next time.

Space cat out.