Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Playing EVE at Benghazi Mission




When the American mission in Benghazi was attacked on Sept. 11, 2012, Steve Smith, one of those who would die, was in the Tactical Operations Center playing an interactive internet game called EVE - a futuristic science fictional role playing game that includes pirate space ships, mineral exploiting colonial empires, revolutions and high intensity graphics. 

In GQ maggazine, Sean Flynn wrote "….As dusk fell over the American mission in Benghazi on September 11, an information-management specialist named Sean Smith was logged into an elaborate role-playing game called Eve Online. He was 34 years old, a veteran of the air force and ten years in the foreign service, with a wife and two kids in the Netherlands. Smith was also one of the more prominent players in Eve. He went by the name vile_rat. "Assuming we don't die tonight," he typed to his co-players six minutes before eight. Dark humor—Smith had done tours in far more dangerous places than Benghazi. "We saw one of the 'police' that guard the compound taking pictures."

He probably meant one of the Libyans patrolling the perimeter. But there were nine other guards in the compound—five armed Americans and four Libyans from the 17th of February Martyrs Brigade, the same militia that had helped protect Stevens when he was stationed inBenghazi the first time.

Almost two hours later, at nine forty, vile_rat typed: "FUCK. gunfire." He logged off.

According to senior State Department officials, the agent in the tactical-operations center saw, on the screen monitoring the main gate, armed men swarming in. There were too many to count. He punched the alarm, grabbed the microphone for the loudspeakers. "Attack! Attack!" he yelled….




                                                              Sean Smith Eve Gamer

From the Eve Sci Fi Gamer Program:


The Paradox of Democracy

The Gallente Federation is one of the largest star empires ever to be seen in the New Eden cluster, surpassed in volume only by the vast realms of the Amarr Empire. Yet even though its many regions are patrolled by a large and powerful navy, the Federation is governed by the consent of its peoples. Remarkably, the Gallente and their partners in the Federation founded and expanded their empire according to the principles of democracy. Additionally, the Federation has done much to enhance the standard of life of all the peoples living within its borders, including migrants and exiles from other empires.
The Federation might seem to be the one pure beacon of freedom and justice in New Eden. Yet its history is not without dark episodes. Gallente Ultra-Nationalism seized power during the turbulent period leading up to the Caldari-Gallente War and contributed significantly to the embittering nature of that conflict. The Gallente government has sometimes displayed authoritarian tendencies, suppressing independence movements and exiling dissidents. Federation foreign policy is viewed with a jaded eye even by their Minmatar allies. Amarr and Caldari opinions on Gallente interventionism are rarely expressed in terms suitable for polite company. The vastness of the Federation includes poverty, criminality and outright depravity in its sweep. In the end though, it is a free society where success is conceivable for every citizen.

The entire race remained enslaved until the historic battle of Vak'Atioth, when an Amarr invasion fleet was defeated by the mysterious and powerful Jove Empire. The shock of this defeat swept through the Amarr Empire and served as a spur for the gathering forces of the Minmatar resistance. Almost as one, the Minmatar rose against their masters in what would become known as "the Great Rebellion". Still reeling from their defeat at the hands of the Jove, the Amarr were unable to quell the rebellion and gave ground before Minmatar strike forces that attacked them with near suicidal fury. The outcome was the wholesale ejection of the Amarr occupation forces from Minmatar space and the foundation of the Minmatar Republic.
Outlaws and Vigilantes

One of the undoubted scourges of New Eden is piracy, a rapacious criminality that has been present in some form since humanity reached out to the stars. At first, bad enough, the pirates were mere mortals who preyed on other mortals. Now there are immortal pirates who devastate and loot mortals and other immortals alike. Many capsuleer pilots take to piracy, either as a means to gaining wealth or, more darkly, out of sheer enjoyment of the act of preying on those weaker than they. Most capsuleer pirates focus on the most lucrative targets: other capsuleers plying their way across the trade routes of low-security space and the outer regions.

Pirates are in particular an ever-present danger in low-security space, those half-abandoned and practically lawless systems that lie between the core empires and the outer regions. Nominally subject to law, low-security systems are guarded only by static sentry guns around stargates and stations, with CONCORD peacekeeper fleets concentrating on maintaining order in the more populated or important systems of the high-security zones. As these systems cannot be directly controlled by the capsuleer alliances, it is rare that even the brutal frontier justice of the outer regions is visited on low-security space with any consistency. Therefore the pirates flourish.

However, the pirates are sometimes opposed by bounty hunters and so-called "anti-pirate" corporations or coalitions. Some capsuleers actively hunt pirates for possible profit, while others band together to try and bring order to sections of low-security space. Even so, the pirates are many and the most powerful outlaws can command capital ships capable of destroying starbases and other infrastructure. Only the most determined can hope to fight against these pirate lords but some rise to the challenge.


EVE Online 


CCP was founded in the summer of 1997 with the goal of becoming a leading massively multiplayer game company. With the launch of EVE Online in May 2003, CCP has established itself as one of the leading companies in the field, winning numerous awards and receiving critical acclaim worldwide.

CCP is dedicated to the development of cutting edge massively multiplayer games. CCP is founded on the principle of pushing the envelope and breaking new grounds on all levels. CCP is not about making copycat products with compromised quality. CCP is about making dreams become a reality.

Massively multiplayer games are virtual realities. They are about creating experiences unattainable in any other form of media. A virtual reality is about true human interaction and true human emotions in a living and evolving world. It is CCP's belief that massively multiplayer games are the biggest revolution in computer gaming history and CCP is dedicated to make the dream of a true virtual reality come into being.

CCP's mission is to attract and retain customers by providing top quality online entertainment. CCP does this by establishing and nurturing a trust relationship with customers both in terms of quality of content as well as quality of service.

CCP encourages respect, dialog, interaction and cooperation on a deeper level between its employees and customers than is common in online games. By this and through this CCP provides a unique way for improving the quality of its products and creates an inspiring and challenging environment for talent to thrive.

EVE Online is set in space, in a far away future, in a world of unprecedented depth and magnitude. Your aim is to establish yourself as a major mover and shaker, trusted by your friends and respected by your enemies. Your means of accomplishing this will lie in your business acumen, social skills, Machiavellian thinking and cunning combat strategies. To back that up, you have access to an array of sophisticated equipment, deadly weapons, state of the art spaceships and connections to mega-corporations and crime syndicates.

EVE Online was published in May 2003 and has been consistently growing since launch. EVE Online has won numerous awards and has received critical acclaim worldwide.

EVE Online is in many ways different than other massively multiplayer games on the market today. The setting is Science Fiction, whereas most current offerings are Fantasy based. EVE does not employ sharding* or instancing** to split content and resources between players. This means that all players can interact with each other if they choose to do so. It also means that if you are famous in EVE, you are known by the EVE community, not by the population of one game server.

*sharding
The practice of creating separate copies of virtual worlds each of which can not interact with each other. Makers of virtual worlds often resort to sharding to reuse content or to increase scalability as each world is smaller and thus more manageable. EVE Online does neither.

**instancing
Similar to sharding but deployed on smaller content segment, like a dungeon. Two different parties of players appear to enter the same dungeon but do not see each other, as they are in their own dungeon (instanced space) and cannot interact with the other party. Makers of virtual worlds often deploy instancing to manage access to popular content and limit crowding. EVE Online does neither.


Introducing Our Core Technology Platform: Carbon
The Carbon Framework is a crucial component of CCP's strategy. It is the foundation upon which our virtual worlds are built.

The technology was initially created by harvesting code from EVE Online, code that had already been hardened through years of development and real world use. We call this Battle Testing. This code has then been refined and extended to serve the needs of other CCP projects.

What is in the Carbon Framework?

The Trinity Graphics Engine renders the stunning appearance of our virtual worlds. Since 2003, it has powered the graphics of EVE Online, and during this time has been constantly improved to maintain its position at the cutting edge of graphics technology.
Ambulation Technology builds on Trinity to provide full body animation, avatar movement, real world interior and exterior spaces.

Carbon Cluster Technology is the Peak Concurrent User record breaking cluster framework that out-scales all other MMOs in providing a single player universe experience.

Carbon Database Technology is common data structures, maintenance systems and support applications for our virtual worlds.

Our Single Code Repository is a consolidated development environment within which the source for each of our games resides. All changes are integrated into a common code base, instantly making available the benefits of improvements to Carbon technologies for developers at each of our studios worldwide.

The Carbon Build System works with the Single Code Repository to produce deployable versions of CCP virtual worlds in just hours instead of days.

The Carbon Technical Art Pipeline converts visually stunning artwork into detailed models and textures that can be rendered by Trinity. This optimized process represents ten years of experience for both in-house and outsourced art production.

Our Lightweight Authoring Tools provide CCP outsourcing partners with the ability to view their work as it would be rendered by the Trinity graphics engine, including lighting and special effects. These tools vastly reduce the amount of time it takes to integrate outsourced work into production builds.

Middleware components are carefully chosen and integrated into our solutions library to complement CCP's proprietary technology.

You can read more about the Carbon framework and CCP's Core Technology Group in this EVE Online dev blog post: Carbon and the Core Technology Group.

The Carbon Framework is used by CCP to create virtual worlds, and not intended or available for licensing.

Introducing New Eden and the World of the Capsuleer

The world of EVE Online centers on a dense cluster of star systems connected to one another by a vast network of stargates. These gates allow for near instantaneous travel between linked star systems, of which there are over 5,000 in the network. The core of this cluster, called New Eden by its inhabitants, is controlled by four major empires that constantly vie with one another.

These core powers are the Amarr Empire, Caldari State, Gallente Federation and Minmatar Republic. Beyond the interior of the cluster lie the outer regions, lawless zones where the independent space captains of EVE, the capsuleers, contend with one another for supremacy. Outside even these perilous regions exist the Jove Empire, an enigmatic power that rarely shows itself, and the mysterious realms of wormhole space. The capsuleers constantly seek means to exploit the planets, systems and regions of New Eden, and their power is on the rise.

Empire of Religion and Slaves

The Amarr Empire is a vast star empire that controls more regions of the New Eden cluster than any of the other core empires. The Amarr began aggressively expanding beyond the confines of their home star system over 2,000 years ago, conquering and enslaving several races in a crusade known as the Reclaiming, before encountering the Gallente Federation and the Jove Empire. A disastrous attempt to invade the Jove Empire triggered a rebellion by Minmatar slaves, resulting in the formation of the Minmatar Republic and the loss of some territory.

The Amarr Empire, together with satellite states the Ammatar Mandate and Khanid Kingdom, remains a vast and powerful empire, compelled by its religion and feudal structure to dominate others. The other empires, even its ally the Caldari State, keep a careful eye on this giant lest they be caught up in a new eruption of the Reclaiming.

Megacorporations and Militarism

The Caldari State was born in war, and militarism pervades Caldari society to this day. During the Caldari-Gallente War, the Caldari were forced to leave their homeworld and found a new state many star systems distant. The leading powers in the new order were the megacorporations and from its very inception the Caldari State was a corporate state. The combination of corporate power, a strong martial tradition and a deeply-felt sense of injustice at their exile led the Caldari to rapidly build a new empire to rival those of the Amarr and Gallente.

The relatively small fleets of the Caldari State rapidly became known for their advanced technology and ruthlessness in pursuit of their objectives. Constant low-level, and occasionally intense, corporate warfare between the "Big Eight" megacorps fuelled the Caldari's internal arms race and bred a pool of efficiently implacable soldiers. More importantly, although the corporate blocs rarely lose an opportunity to profit at the expense of one another, the Caldari will always unite against external threats.

The Paradox of Democracy

The Gallente Federation is one of the largest star empires ever to be seen in the New Eden cluster, surpassed in volume only by the vast realms of the Amarr Empire. Yet even though its many regions are patrolled by a large and powerful navy, the Federation is governed by the consent of its peoples. Remarkably, the Gallente and their partners in the Federation founded and expanded their empire according to the principles of democracy. Additionally, the Federation has done much to enhance the standard of life of all the peoples living within its borders, including migrants and exiles from other empires.
The Federation might seem to be the one pure beacon of freedom and justice in New Eden. Yet its history is not without dark episodes. Gallente Ultra-Nationalism seized power during the turbulent period leading up to the Caldari-Gallente War and contributed significantly to the embittering nature of that conflict. The Gallente government has sometimes displayed authoritarian tendencies, suppressing independence movements and exiling dissidents. Federation foreign policy is viewed with a jaded eye even by their Minmatar allies. Amarr and Caldari opinions on Gallente interventionism are rarely expressed in terms suitable for polite company. The vastness of the Federation includes poverty, criminality and outright depravity in its sweep. In the end though, it is a free society where success is conceivable for every citizen.

Tribalism and Liberty

The Minmatar Republic is a society weighed down with a tragic and terrible history that remains alive in the present. Centuries ago, the Minmatar peoples lived in a confederation of tribes that had managed to achieve the basics of space flight, explored their home system and even begun to reach out to other stars. This progress was halted abruptly by the arrival in the Minmatar home system, Pator, of the Amarr Empire's slaver fleets. The Amarr initially contented themselves with frequent raids that gathered up millions of slaves from the technologically outclassed Minmatar nation. These raids ended when the Amarr Empire, acting on the religious imperative of their Reclaiming doctrine, launched a full-scale invasion and conquered all the Minmatar worlds, enslaving the entire race in the process.

The entire race remained enslaved until the historic battle of Vak'Atioth, when an Amarr invasion fleet was defeated by the mysterious and powerful Jove Empire. The shock of this defeat swept through the Amarr Empire and served as a spur for the gathering forces of the Minmatar resistance. Almost as one, the Minmatar rose against their masters in what would become known as "the Great Rebellion". Still reeling from their defeat at the hands of the Jove, the Amarr were unable to quell the rebellion and gave ground before Minmatar strike forces that attacked them with near suicidal fury. The outcome was the wholesale ejection of the Amarr occupation forces from Minmatar space and the foundation of the Minmatar Republic.

The Social Universe

The EVE universe is inhabited by many peoples and diverse personalities, the most varied of which are the capsule pilots in their self-made societies. The core empires are controlled by powerful men and women, sitting at the apex of corporate and government power structures. The destinies of trillions living on the planets of the Amarr Empire, Caldari State, Gallente Federation and Minmatar Republic are in the hands of these rulers and the forces they command. The peoples of the empires strive to survive and prosper in an age of extremes. While they acknowledge those who rule in the core worlds, the toiling populations both fear and admire the most extreme personalities of all: the capsuleers.

Capsuleer technology is in use in all the empires and there are independent pilots from all the major races. While some capsuleers choose to remain loyal to their home empires, many have taken very different paths and operate beyond the core and often beyond the law. Fame and fortune can be found as a loyalist, to be sure, but the most notorious and well-known pilots are very often outer region warlords, pirates or freedom fighters. Some capsuleers have even found fame with the extreme opposite of loyalism, advocating anarchy and libertarian posthumanism. Yet others have taken darker paths, supporting the outlaw cartels of the Angels, Guristas and Serpentis. Even Sansha's Nation has its capsuleer adherents.

A Devout People

The undoubted rulers of the Amarr Empire are the True Amarr, a race that rose to power over their home planet of Athra, known to the modern world as Amarr Prime, through a religious crusade called "the Reclaiming". In the course of the Athran Reclaiming, the True Amarr conquered, enslaved and eventually absorbed the Udorian people. Additionally, they gained a powerful subject people that became known as the Khanid, from the Amarr for "little lords". While the Udorians were absorbed entirely into the True Amarr culture, the Khanid retained their ethnic characteristics and aspects of their own culture. Valued by the True Amarr as warriors, the Khanid came to occupy a relatively high status within Amarr society.

When the Amarr went into space and explored their home system, they discovered a disabled stargate and were able to reverse-engineer much technology from it. Once warp and jump technology were available, the Amarr began to spread out from their home system and establish colonies around nearby stars. Over several centuries, the Amarr spread across a vast domain, sometimes encountering other races. Without exception, the fanatical Amarr conquered and either enslaved or exterminated these races. Their Khanid soldiers were always at the forefront of such invasions, such as the conquest of Mishi IV, the home planet of the Ni-Kunni.

In the years following their enslavement, many Ni-Kunni earned their freedom and their children were born as free subjects of the Empire. The Amarr Empire's enslavement of the entire Minmatar race provided an enormous influx of new slaves that accelerated the emancipation of most Ni-Kunni. Today, almost all Ni-Kunni are free subjects. As a result, Amarr capsuleers are drawn from three bloodlines constituting the free peoples of the Empire: the True Amarr, Khanid and Ni-Kunni.

Servants of the State

The Caldari State is made up of three distinct peoples: the Achura, Civire and Deteis. Only the last two bloodlines come from Caldari Prime itself, and they make up by far the majority of the State's population. The Achura joined the inhabitants of Caldari Prime in their break from the Gallente Federation and originate from the third planet of the Saisio system.

In general, the Deteis are considered by outsiders to epitomize the Caldari qualities of efficiency and cunning, while the Civire are regarded as tenacious and straightforward in their dealings. While there is a certain amount of truth to these stereotypes, members of the two bloodlines are far more concerned with their identities as defined by the State, their megacorporation and their family than ethnic differences. This has meant that the Achura have found little difficulty in adapting to the Caldari way of life, as they are taken at face-value by other Caldari as citizens of the State.

The first after the mysterious Jove to make use of the hydrostatic capsule, Caldari captains are prevalent throughout New Eden and have traditionally made up the largest proportion of independent capsuleers. The Caldari combination of militarism and capitalism has led to many of its people adopting the life of the capsuleer. While some of these pilots choose to serve the State as loyalist paramilitaries and militia pilots, many others go into business for themselves, become mercenaries, or end up as pirates and alliance fighters in the outer regions of the cluster.

A Vast Diversity

While it embodies the principles and ideals of its Gallente founders, the Federation is made up of several different peoples living within the only classically democratic empire in the New Eden cluster. Aside from the ethnic Gallente, the major member races of the Federation are the Intaki, Jin-Mei and Mannar. The Intaki and Mannar were founder members of the Gallente Federation, and are well established throughout its territories.
The Intaki in particular have a talent for administration and diplomacy, and have produced several noted Federation Presidents. The Mannar are by temperament a loyal and determined, even stubborn, people, and provide a significant proportion of the intake of the Federal armed forces. The Jin-Mei are a more recent addition to the Federation and have had some difficulty adapting their traditional caste system to the libertarian ways of the Gallente political system. In addition to the home races, the Federation plays host to a very large Minmatar population and significant communities of other races. The Federation's relatively relaxed attitude to immigration and its undoubted freedoms have proved attractive to many able to make the journey from their home empires.

A considerable number of capsuleers are trained in the Gallente Federation every year and many go independent upon qualifying. Most of these capsuleers had tended to be either Gallente or Intaki, but a large number of Jin-Mei have begun to take up the challenge of the captain's life in recent years. Capsuleers of Federation origin are very diverse indeed and while some join the Federal Defence Union militia, many take up their own affairs immediately, whether in business or in less peaceable activities.

The Seven Tribes of Matar

The Minmatar race is made up of seven major tribes but the republic that emerged after the Great Rebellion was founded by only four of these: the Brutor, Krusual, Sebiestor and Vherokior. A fifth, the Thukker Tribe, chose to pursue a nomadic life apart from the Minmatar Republic, while the Nefantar Tribe became the Ammatar under the rule of the Amarr Empire. The seventh tribe of Matar, the Starkmanir, was considered extinct for many years after their supposed extermination by the Amarr Empire.

Indeed, the discovery of a surviving population of Starkmanir within the Ammatar Mandate was the trigger for momentous events that led to the Empyrean War, and the subsequent return of the Starkmanir and many Nefantar to the ancestral worlds of the Minmatar. Today, with even the nomadic Thukker accepting political union with the Republic, the Seven Tribes of Matar are once more united.

Even though the seven tribes are once again in union, the Minmatar Republic is an empire riven by tensions old and new. The horrors of the Amarr occupation are fresh memories for many, and with so many Minmatar still in bondage under the Amarr Empire the cause of the freedom fighters attracts many, including significant numbers of capsuleers trained in the Republic. Some Minmatar capsuleers take up arms in the Republic militia. Many others take a more radical direction and engage in direction action, terrorism to some, against the Amarr Empire and its allies. Most independent Minmatar capsuleers are drawn from the Brutor, Sebiestor and Vherokior tribes.

Capsuleers and the Grand Strategy

In the inky depths of the outer regions, new powers rise and fall as alliances and coalitions of capsuleers struggle for dominion over star systems, constellations and entire regions. Politics is key to the forging of alliances and the grand coalitions that make possible the control of large swathes of the cluster by capsule pilots. Their enemies? Other capsuleer alliances waging war to control resources, invade whole regions or simply to eliminate a hated foe. Brinkmanship, espionage and statecraft all have their place in the politics of the grand strategy. Yet, in the end, war is so often the means by which the political aims of corporations and alliances are realised in the outer regions of New Eden.

Industry, War, Comradeship

When independent capsuleers began to appear in New Eden they rapidly joined together with like-minded pilots and formed the first capsuleer corporations. These corporations were as diverse in purpose as the capsuleers making up their membership. Corporations mine, manufacture, research and trade. Corporations explore, setup starbases, manage colonies and build outposts. Corporations wage war, engage in piracy, fight for freedom, build empires and serve them with their loyalty. When a pilot joins a corporation they become part of a small society or band of comrades. The corporation is the essential building block of capsuleer activity throughout New Eden. Operating independently or in alliances, the capsuleer corporations have made space their domain, and their pilots' ships travel and fight across all the stars of New Eden in pursuit of their various goals.

The New Powers

In the early years of the capsuleer era, many corporations realized that even though they could call on many pilots it would be necessary to ally with other capsuleer groups in order to control the outer regions. As swiftly as the idea arose, the capsuleer alliances were born. At first, the alliances organized on regional lines according to pacts between their member corporations. Some organized councils to govern their affairs, others were unashamedly military dictatorships. Some were little more than pirate coalitions, others were dedicated to political ideals such as democracy and free trade. These early alliances rapidly grew to control their various regions, and as rapidly fell to fighting with their neighboring alliances or dissolving in vicious civil wars.

The various faction and conquerable stations of the outer regions constituted the power base of the alliances until the technology of starbases became available to capsuleer corporations. These were swiftly spread across space and CONCORD was forced to acknowledge that the alliances were sovereign powers in their own right. As technology advanced more infrastructure became available to the alliances and the first true capsuleer stations, the outposts, were constructed in deep space. With the increasing hold of the alliances over the outer regions came intense warfare, as capsuleers struggled for control over territory, resources and the hearts and minds of their fellows across New Eden. While the core of the New Eden cluster remains the relatively calm domain of the old empires, the outer regions are a swirling maelstrom of capsuleer empires rising and falling in titanic struggles for power.

Swords for Hire

Many capsuleers operate as mercenaries across New Eden, in conflicts ranging from small corporate wars to the cluster-spanning campaigns of outer region alliances. Mercenaries operate as individuals for hire, corporations on contract and even as alliances fighting in the grand conflicts for payment in coin, resources and territory. Every aspect of the mercenary life is present in some form in New Eden.

Mercenaries can be found as often in CONCORD monitored space, as in lawless systems. The system of sanctioned corporate warfare allows corporations and alliances to wage war on one another even in "high-security" space. If war declaration fees are paid and no bystanders are attacked, the deadly retribution of CONCORD peacekeeper fleets can be avoided. Skilled mercenaries command high fees and the most powerful mercenary organizations are capable of deploying capital fleets and laying siege to entire constellations. The capsuleers have lent even the ancient business of the mercenary their own special urgency and intensity.

Outlaws and Vigilantes

One of the undoubted scourges of New Eden is piracy, a rapacious criminality that has been present in some form since humanity reached out to the stars. At first, bad enough, the pirates were mere mortals who preyed on other mortals. Now there are immortal pirates who devastate and loot mortals and other immortals alike. Many capsuleer pilots take to piracy, either as a means to gaining wealth or, more darkly, out of sheer enjoyment of the act of preying on those weaker than they. Most capsuleer pirates focus on the most lucrative targets: other capsuleers plying their way across the trade routes of low-security space and the outer regions.

Pirates are in particular an ever-present danger in low-security space, those half-abandoned and practically lawless systems that lie between the core empires and the outer regions. Nominally subject to law, low-security systems are guarded only by static sentry guns around stargates and stations, with CONCORD peacekeeper fleets concentrating on maintaining order in the more populated or important systems of the high-security zones. As these systems cannot be directly controlled by the capsuleer alliances, it is rare that even the brutal frontier justice of the outer regions is visited on low-security space with any consistency. Therefore the pirates flourish.

However, the pirates are sometimes opposed by bounty hunters and so-called "anti-pirate" corporations or coalitions. Some capsuleers actively hunt pirates for possible profit, while others band together to try and bring order to sections of low-security space. Even so, the pirates are many and the most powerful outlaws can command capital ships capable of destroying starbases and other infrastructure. Only the most determined can hope to fight against these pirate lords but some rise to the challenge.

Engines of Creation and Destruction

Economic power and industrial might are as crucial to the capsuleers of EVE as to any other society that has sought to impose its will on history. The space-industrial economy of New Eden is increasingly controlled by the capsuleers, who produce and use a large proportion of its vast output. Capsuleers mine asteroid belts and moons for vital resources. They exploit planets through their colonies and build starbases and outposts, in order to refine minerals and create exotic new materials. These pilots research their own creations and construct them in nanoforges controlled by sophisticated blueprints. The capsuleer market sees trillions of ISK in transactions every day, with goods ranging from ore to battleships changing hands in vast quanities. This economy is the engine that drives EVE's never-ending cycle of creation and destruction.

Buying Low and Selling High

The capsule pilot has access to a sophisticated network of regional markets on which goods as simple as unrefined ore and complex as mighty capital ships can be bought and sold. Every day on the capsuleer markets of New Eden there are hundreds of thousands of transactions, millions of items changing hands, and trillions in ISK passing through the network. With few exceptions, anything that can be used by capsuleers can be bought or sold on the market.

Traders find many opportunities to buy goods in one region and sell in another. Even systems relatively close to one another provide potential gains for those willing to ship goods from one market to another. The major hubs provide anything that a capsuleer could want, with Jita holding the crown as king of market hubs. In Jita, the ISK flows like water and capsuleers make fortunes trading on the fine margins that exist in this most active of marketplaces.

A significant alternative trading system exists in the contracts system, where capsuleers can offer bundles of items and also auction goods to the highest bidder. Some of the rarer and more expensive goods are typically found on offer in exchange and auction contracts. However, this is the dark and risky world of EVE. The buyer should beware, and take care to check the price of market goods and the details of any contract. Many capsuleers make a good living preying on the gullibility of casual buyers.

Factories in Space

Independent pilots having been building their own ships, equipment and ammunition since the dawn of the capsuleer age. The vast array of Tech I, II and III items available to use can all be manufactured in the factory facilities of space stations, outposts and capsuleer starbases. Many of the rarer ships and items can be constructed using blueprints given as rewards for loyalty or seized from the wrecks of pirate vessels.

In most cases, every stage of the supply chain can be satisfied by capsuleer industry. Raw materials are refined and processed into fuel, minerals or advanced materials. Processed materials can be used to manufacture advanced ships and equipment. Mighty capital ships can be assembled using enormous and complex components produced by capsuleer industrialists. Even the starbases and outposts used by capsuleers can be built through the industrial processes made available to them.

Capsuleer industry even reaches into the realm of pharmaceuticals, with enterprising individuals and corporations manufacturing a range of chemical boosters. Such combat drugs are very popular with advanced pilots and their advantages ensure that the purest boosters command high prices on the market. The thirst among capsuleers for maximizing the potential of their ships is also responsible for the ingenious ship rig industry. Using salvaged materials, many canny industrialists manufacture devices that can be used to jury rig ships in many different ways. The industrial output of capsuleer manufacturers is enormous, meeting the demands of an economy of celestial destruction generated by the never-ending struggles of immortal warlords.

Stripping the Heavens

When capsuleers first went into space, the most readily available resources were found in the tumbling asteroids that swarmed in belts in every system of New Eden. The mineral riches to be found in the belts, particularly in the relatively pristine outer systems, were high indeed. The ores extracted from these rich fields were swiftly used to fuel the burgeoning space industries, and asteroid belts remain at the heart of the capsuleer economy. Early technologies were limited to relatively low-yield mining lasers, often mounted to ships that were not even specialized in mining. The technology of mining improved as time went on, with the Tech II revolution affecting mining lasers and their yields as it affected other areas of capsuleer endeavor.

Even more important than the improvement in narrow-beam mining lasers, was the development and release of an entire class of specialized mining ships. The mining barges, and the high-yield strip miners they could wield, enormously increased asteroid mining yields. Tech II versions of these barges branched out into specialized mining such as the extraction of Mercoxit ore and ice-harvesting.

The expansion of mining into ice fields, in search of advanced fuels for starbases and capital ships, was not the only advance in resource harvesting. Those manufacturing illegal boosters for the capsuleer market required large quantities of various chemicals found most abundantly in certain interplanetary gas clouds. The technology of gas harvesting was quickly developed and put to work extracting these useful chemicals. When wormhole space was found to contain large clouds rich with rare fullerenes, the gas harvesters found a new resource to collect and a new market to sell into.

Mining and resource harvesting are not limited to spaceship-mounted systems. The first capsuleer starbases were dedicated to running automated mining arrays that extracted many useful materials from the moons they orbited. Even now, after starbase capabilities have been expanded to running factories, laboratories and shipyards, many thousands of moons continue to be mined by harvesting systems based on industrial starbases.

Immortals Descending

For many years the capsuleers were prevented from establishing planetary holdings, the core empires being extremely wary of allowing the rogue immortals such a direct presence on their planets. The special technologies of colonial development were even withheld to such a degree that capsuleers in the outer regions could not practically establish colonies on planets that were of no importance to the core empires. This changed in mid YC112, with the signing of the CONCORD Planetary Development Treaty.

Since the outbreak of the Empyrean War in YC110, and the recruitment of capsuleers into militias that fought directly for the empires, it had become clear that the capsuleers were increasingly important to the future of the core empires. More pointedly, the empires had been at war with one another for nearly two years and perhaps saw an opportunity to access the vast wealth of the capsuleers by levying tariffs on orbital import-export movements. Negotiating among themselves through CONCORD, the empires finally agreed to the treaty that allowed capsuleers to establish colonies on their planets and released all the technologies they had long perfected in their own planetary facilities.

Given the means to finally extend their influence to the planets below, the immortal pilots sent down command centers and built industrial colonies extracting and processing all manner of raw materials. Swiftly grasping the possibilities of this new planetary industry, the capsuleers built up supply chains and established factory planets where they produced the most advanced items available using planetary technology. That planetary industry finally unlocked the ability to manufacture sovereignty structures, starbase components and fuel items was especially gratifying to industrialists and empire builders across the capsuleer diaspora.

If the core empires had hoped that allowing a presence on their planets would tie the capsuleers closer to their interests, they may have been over-optimistic. Many capsuleers chose to take the technology of colony management and use it in the outer regions or deep in wormhole space. In the end, planetary industry served to increase capsuleer independence and self-sufficiency.

Knowledge is a Weapon

EVE is a world of lost and rediscovered sciences and technologies, still recovering from a cataclysm that destroyed entire civilizations and plunged New Eden into a dark age. Today, many technologies have been recovered, and spaceships warp across star systems and jump between the stars. The means to exploit the resources of entire planets and wage war on a scale terrifying to imagine, let alone behold, are under the control of both empires and individuals.

The liberating science of cloning and the capsule allow the independent pilot a degree of freedom and power unimagined a scant few hundred years before. Not all science or technology has been recovered however, and many mysteries await the intrepid explorer in the darkness between the stars, in the strange zones of deadspace and in the weird realms of wormhole space. Science and technology were once lofty goals in themselves, now they are simply means to the ends of the ever-warring capsuleers.

Capsuleers in the Laboratory

Capsuleers use some of the most advanced technology in New Eden, their very existence relying on the powerful combination of cloning and capsule technology. As such, many capsuleers take a keen interest in research and development of new technology. Using laboratories on stations, outposts or even starbases, research-minded pilots improve their blueprints, reverse engineer ancient technologies and even invent more advanced designs. Many research corporations exist and often work with manufacturing and exploration concerns in mutually-beneficial arrangements.

Capsuleers are also able to perform minor research tasks on behalf of the various R&D corporations aligned with the core empires. In return for undertaking such work, pilots receive datacores that can be used in their own research or sold on the market. Fully exploiting the fruits of wormhole exploration also requires specialized researchers able to reverse-engineer the strange technologies that can be recovered from the wrecks of the Sleeper drones standing guard over the ruins of their mysterious civilization.

The Fundamental Designs

Capsuleer ship technology is largely based on designs that have long served in the navies of the core empires, and the basic equipment used by capsuleers reflects similar origins. The standard ship and module designs are often referred to as "Tech I", derived from "Technology Level I". While some of these vessels are typically the province of those pilots starting a career, many Tech I designs are used by veteran combat pilots and are among the most dangerous ships that can be encountered. The ships and equipment available at Tech I can be considered foundational designs and there are many variations.
The navies of the empires have a number of modified designs that can be acquired by capsuleers who are regarded as sufficiently loyal. Even such ships make their way onto the markets, however, and capsuleers of less certain loyalty, who are simply rich enough, are commonly seen in ships the empires might prefer to remain more exclusive. The various outlaw and pirate factions also have a number of designs based on foundational ships, together with some original designs that are entirely unique. These too are often acquired by pod pilots and used in the service of capsuleer interests.

The Morphite Revolution

Not long after the rise of the independent capsuleers, the properties of a rare mineral derived from Mercoxit ore were fully explored and a technological revolution began. It was realized that the mineral - now dubbed "Morphite" - had the remarkable property of altering and enhancing every other mineral, compound or alloy with which it was joined or combined. The applications were particularly exciting in the space industries and rapid development of a class of high-performance frigates called "interceptors" followed the discovery. Advances in ship technology were accompanied by parallel advances in ship equipment and other systems.

The applicability of Morphite was so widespread that it required a new category for the technologies developed using the remarkable mineral. Technology Level II or "Tech II" was born and new ships and equipment continued to be developed by applying Morphite and advanced materials sourced from moon-mining to the foundational Tech I designs. Capsuleers adopted Tech II ships and equipment with alacrity, their appetite for advanced technology fuelling the research and development of new designs by empire R&D corporations able to call on the services of the immortal pilots. The interceptors were followed by many other advanced designs.

Capsuleers were soon using heavily-armed assault vessels, sophisticated command ships, highly-advanced reconnaissance cruisers and many other specialized ships. Standard equipment designs were also substantially improved and Tech I workhorse ships could be transformed into formidable engines of destruction using Tech II modules. Moreover, the impact of the Tech II revolution on the capsuleers went beyond ships and equipment. The need for advanced materials spurred industrial expansion, as capsuleers established moon-mining starbases in orbit around thousands of moons across New Eden. These starbases would become the foundation of the first wave of territorial control by capsuleer powers.


An Ancient and Powerful Science

In early YC111, a terrible disaster destroyed the inhabited world of Seyllin I, leaving it a shattered husk of a planet. This cataclysm was but a symptom of a profound space-time event that caused large numbers of unstable wormholes to emerge in the New Eden cluster. While unstable, and prone to collapse after a certain period of time or if destabilized by excessive masses passing through them, the wormholes could be entered safely by most spaceships. The capsuleers lost no time in exploring these new gateways in space and found that many of them led to completely unknown star systems.

The systems of wormhole space, or "W-space", were found to be highly varied and often washed by strange radiations and other effects from cosmic phenomena. While these effects could often affect ship systems they were not the most interesting discovery to be found beyond the wormholes. W-space also contained the apparently abandoned and ruined remains of an ancient civilization, with technology that seemed to correspond to artifacts of the so-called "Sleepers" found by archaeologists in the New Eden cluster. Unfortunately for some early explorers much of the Sleeper technology in W-space remained active, particularly the legions of immensely powerful drone guardians that would attack on sight intruders disturbing their sleeping domains.

After some skirmishes, many capsuleers got the measure of these deadly wardens and were able to destroy them. It was soon discovered that the Sleeper's drone guardians were constructed using advanced technologies unknown to the science of New Eden. Salvaging from the wrecks of the Sleeper drones yielded much useful material for investigation. Explorers soon found that the sites of their structures could also be hacked to gain access to datacores and special tools used with the ancient technology. When archaeologists also found that many relics from the Sleeper ruins could be reverse-engineered, the blueprints for a whole new technology lay before the capsuleers.
One problem might have been sourcing the highly-advanced fullerene-based polymers used in the ancient technology. But W-space met even that need, as gas clouds rich in the necessary chemicals were discovered. It was clear the Sleeper civilization had taken advantage of the abundant resources of these strange systems and capsuleer explorers were able to follow suit. When all the elements of the ancient science were pieced together it was found that a remarkable new class of adaptable spaceships could be developed. Using a combination of subsystems that could be easily swapped in and out, "Strategic Cruisers" represented the newest, third level of technology and ushered in "Tech III".

From Frigates to Titans

A wide array of spaceships await the aspiring pilot in EVE Online. From the nimble frigates to the mighty titans, the range and scope of spaceships is considerable. Each of the major factions has a full range of vessels filling all the key roles in any fleet, while maintaining their own specialisms and preferred weapons. Spaceships can be found locked in combat with others, mining valuable ores, hauling trade goods, salvaging the wrecks of other ships, and even hacking into arcane technologies from lost civilizations. Spaceships are the instruments of creation and destruction across the cluster, and their capsuleer pilots are considered to be among the elite of New Eden.

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