Cyrus Alabel
Penumbra Institute
Catastrophic Uprising
32
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Posted - 2013.08.13 17:49:00 -
[1] - Quote
Having been removed from the Gallente militia for a month now to pursue my own interests, I got to thinking...does there not seem something suspicious about our so-called "faction warfare"?
Really, think about it. Pilots who fight in the militias are presented with a startling amount of uniformity of everything from baseliner naval opponents to the very interfaces on their ships. Take, for example, the military complexes we find in the systems. They are uniformly found in deadspace, randomly placed about a fixed set of systems, and whose contents are almost identical. The plexes are the same sizes, with the same stipulated control conditions by each faction, and whose paltry naval guards are uniform as well. For example, a 'small' plex will always have one destroyer and its acceleration gate limited to frigates and destroyers. More worryingly, there was a time where the navies bothered to have more ships guarding these complexes, and all at once they decided to draw back and leave quite paltry guarding of the same. And the so-called "button", that small structure always within several KM of the warp-in, is even the same, no matter which militia is actually in control of the system.
Going back to the uniform set of systems thing for one moment: why does the fight for control never leave these systems? Sure, you can take a ship into enemy hisec, or even enemy losec that is not inside this seemingly designated warzone, and it won't matter one bit what you do to change the sov holder of that system.
Then there is the fact that every pilot's interface for these wars, regardless of who they fly for, is the same in appearance regardless of militia. While I have not flown for any of the others, I have seen imagery from pilots' drones with their interfaces overlaid atop the image, and they are all the same. Same "system control" bar, same "factional warfare" window that contains the relevant Navy's strategic maps.
There is also the matter of the loyalty stores operated for each faction. I cannot help but notice that they are extremely similar in costs to the pilots, from basic ammunition, to ships, implants, even the uniforms. There are variations for each faction, to be sure (ever heard of a Caldari Navy laser crystal?), but there is a noticeable pattern to it.
Lastly, why were the powers so ready to sign onto CEWPA? Yes, you can reasonably claim that Gallente-Caldari tension after the first invasion of Luminaire, coupled with the whole Nyx-crashing-into-a-peace-conference thing, would be enough cause for warfare. And the Minmatar's Elder Fleet invasion of Amarr space would provide enough justification for those powers to go to war. But these events were almost simultaneous.
Any one of these things could be written off as happenstance. But...doesn't it seem like there's just something fundamentally wrong with it all? |