Traversing the Black

Two weeks ago I chronicled my first proper sojourn into EVE Online, having abandoned the game twice before over the years. The collective galaxy of EVE holds so many stories, so many opportunities, that I am compelled to visit my own experiences again in the shadow of the universe. If the siren call of the stars remains, my collection of galactic tales may grow and these posts may occur with more frequency. In the mean time, here are more ramblings of a spacefarer.


The legends of EVE Online’s cutthroat community of players has populated the inky dark around my ship with phantoms. I imagine legions of pirates prepping their warships to dismantle and salvage the remains of “noobs” like me who stumble through an unprotected jump gate. Even worse, those players who troll the galaxy killing new players for the pure joy of it seem ever-present in the periphery, haunting the the galactic borderlands with gleeful madness. Thus, I have seldom strayed from safe harbor, only testing the waters of long-distance travel with one foot firmly on shore.

My cowardice has not hampered most of my pursuits so far. My missions take me no farther than four jumps or so from the space station I currently call home. A bright green number in the corner of my screen (.7) confirms that my safety is largely guaranteed in my high-security region of the universe.

I know I cannot hide in my safety bubble for long. As any hardcore EVE player will attest, the game does not actually begin until you have joined a corporation and engaged in PVP combat and espionage. The true EVE experience takes place in null-sec, the no-security (0.0) regions of space, where you can only rely on your allies, and sometimes not even them. Besides, I joined a corporation, and they live way out in black, some forty jumps away. They offer protection, camaraderie, financial aid and spectacle. Yet a long journey through the black separates me and my compatriots.

I will make the trip, one way or another. Apparently through some clever clone management, I can simply off myself and resurrect light-years away. This method skips what sounds to me like a rite of passage. I will make the trip through space, even if I lose my life. Sailors of yore must have felt my trepidation ten-fold.

Of course game death is temporary, but loss of possessions is permanent. My sense of value has become skewed in relation to other games. So rarely can one lose currency in games when not spent. Personal income is often related simply to time spent playing. How many jars can Link plunder before he can afford a new bag? In EVE space, property reflects not just time spent playing, but one’s financial literacy of a fictional market always in flux. Money lost is not always easily recovered.

I just spent nearly all of my ISK, EVE’s in-game currency, on a Minmatar Rupture, probably a junker to most players but a thing of beauty to me. I earned this ship. It is a testament to at least some amount of persistence. Returning home from the station in which I bought the Rupture, its cargo loaded with the contents of my previous vessel, I had to pass through low-security space. The green icon on my screen turned red and I populated the nothingness with my aforementioned nightmares. A moon might conceal a warship waiting to blast me out of the sky, sending me back home humiliated and poor. How could I take such risks so early? Haven’t I heard the stories? This is how foolhardy travelers are punished.

Safely docked at home, I laughed at my own paranoia. I then began fitting my ship with the vestments of a more daring pilgrim. Soon I will approach a jumpgate and pass through that door into darkened woods and the night sky.