Eighty million ISK-worth of muscle boosting, metal bone lacing, quickdraw cyberware and all-round enhancements calculated to turn that clone into a superhuman combat machine, and the paskiainen still gave me quite the fight.
Good to see there's somebody in space who can actually back up their attitude when the chips are down. Even if he is a total kusipaa.
Even if my ego is a little bruised that I didn't beat him flat in the first five seconds. Reckon I'd have been taken to the cleaners without the combat clone. I have plenty left to learn, it seems.
Save. End.
ADDENDUM
Of course, there's some people you can't beat sense into even if you smack them around every half hour for a month...
Save. End.
Sunday, 30 October 2011
Friday, 28 October 2011
Journal: 113.10.28
Verin Hakatain.
Just Hakatain. Nearly three years on, and skipping the "Tarn" still feels wrong. Of course, I spent more than fourty years using that name, and only the last two years and ten months without it.
Re-reading the IGS discussion that announcing the disowning provoked, it's hard to reconcile the duty-bound, tradition-bound, hide-bound man who took that ritual to today's Verin Hakatain, or today's Sinikka Hakatain. I can look back on it and see how... narrow and stiff my thinking was at the time. I carried out the ritual because it was expected. Because tradition demanded it. There was none of the same... I suppose intellectualism. Nowadays when I make a decision, I think about it. I think about my thoughts. Metacognition is a relatively new part of the way I think, but possibly the most profound and important. I no longer just act, then explore my motives afterwards.
The universe has taught me that lesson, at least.
Would I still have taken that ritual, today? Just... cast away a relative, a part of my name, and much of my soul on a point of honour? Even after a deep exploration of my motives for doing so, would I really be able to let one set of emotions override another?
I think I would.
I think that for all that I've changed... I've also stayed the same. I come to the same places by different roads.
Save. End.
Just Hakatain. Nearly three years on, and skipping the "Tarn" still feels wrong. Of course, I spent more than fourty years using that name, and only the last two years and ten months without it.
Re-reading the IGS discussion that announcing the disowning provoked, it's hard to reconcile the duty-bound, tradition-bound, hide-bound man who took that ritual to today's Verin Hakatain, or today's Sinikka Hakatain. I can look back on it and see how... narrow and stiff my thinking was at the time. I carried out the ritual because it was expected. Because tradition demanded it. There was none of the same... I suppose intellectualism. Nowadays when I make a decision, I think about it. I think about my thoughts. Metacognition is a relatively new part of the way I think, but possibly the most profound and important. I no longer just act, then explore my motives afterwards.
The universe has taught me that lesson, at least.
Would I still have taken that ritual, today? Just... cast away a relative, a part of my name, and much of my soul on a point of honour? Even after a deep exploration of my motives for doing so, would I really be able to let one set of emotions override another?
I think I would.
I think that for all that I've changed... I've also stayed the same. I come to the same places by different roads.
Save. End.
Monday, 24 October 2011
Journal: 113.10.24
I have GOT to start reining in my tendency to be inappropriately flippant.
Save. End.
Save. End.
Wednesday, 19 October 2011
Journal: 113.10.19
A month is, it has to be said, a long time to go without updating this thing.
But then again, there's been no news worth mentioning. It's been a month without anything particularly interesting happening. Even the wardec we've had this past week doesn't count because the five-person corporation who declared it seem to have no interest in fighting, even two against one.
About the only thing of note is that Meera and Sinikka still aren't talking to each other, which makes this officially the longest squabble ever. Meera's barely talking to me either, which is unusual. Before now I've always been the mediator they both go to.
I think the problem this time is that we're both capsuleers. Though she won't say as much. Our father passed away, and now both her remaining siblings are "immortals". I guess she doesn't want to be left behind.
She won't be, of course. But she needs convincing of it, somehow...
Save. End.
But then again, there's been no news worth mentioning. It's been a month without anything particularly interesting happening. Even the wardec we've had this past week doesn't count because the five-person corporation who declared it seem to have no interest in fighting, even two against one.
About the only thing of note is that Meera and Sinikka still aren't talking to each other, which makes this officially the longest squabble ever. Meera's barely talking to me either, which is unusual. Before now I've always been the mediator they both go to.
I think the problem this time is that we're both capsuleers. Though she won't say as much. Our father passed away, and now both her remaining siblings are "immortals". I guess she doesn't want to be left behind.
She won't be, of course. But she needs convincing of it, somehow...
Save. End.
Monday, 19 September 2011
Journal: 113.09.19
Meera to Sinikka: "You just couldn't wait for Dad to die so you could get those plugs in your brain!"
Not sure HOW I'm going to fix this one.
Save. End.
Tuesday, 13 September 2011
Journal: 113.09.14
Coming up on six years as a capsuleer. You'd think I'd have shifted further and further away from the base-line, become ever more invested in space, and what I can do through the medium of the pod.
In practice, I'm spending much more time out of pod than in these days. With so many investments in State mega-subsidiaries and political interest groups, the demands for my time and attention are becoming increasingly frequent, and thus the time I have to spend on actually being a pod pilot is reduced.
Well. Hopefully after the 25th things will settle down again and I'll be able to get back out there, making REAL money, and spending more time with the people who really matter to me nowadays.
Save. End.
In practice, I'm spending much more time out of pod than in these days. With so many investments in State mega-subsidiaries and political interest groups, the demands for my time and attention are becoming increasingly frequent, and thus the time I have to spend on actually being a pod pilot is reduced.
Well. Hopefully after the 25th things will settle down again and I'll be able to get back out there, making REAL money, and spending more time with the people who really matter to me nowadays.
Save. End.
Thursday, 1 September 2011
Journal: 113.09.01, entry 2
Heard from Coldkill again tonight, it's always good to catch up. I described the KASDE situation and we got to chatting about strategy, military efficiency and the general philosophy of capsuleer warfare.
It's something I frequently muse on that for many, many pod pilots, even the most elementary rules of warfare seem to be ignored. Very few of us seem to have read the literature on strategy, and even fewer apparently treat their militaries as... well... militaries.
Take your average capsuleer battle, for instance. The whole approach seems to be "throw an enormous number of ships into the fight and then have one fleet commander calling targets sequentially."
This is unbelievably inefficient, when you think about it. A ship being shot at by, say, fifty ships will evaporate damn near instantly. Throwing in another nine hundred and fifty doesn't make the tiniest difference to how long it survives, let alone a tactically significant one. A 250 strong fleet could engage five targets simultaneously if target calling was devolved to the wing commanders. Ten times that many if the responsibility was devolved to the squad commanders
And yet the "traditional" approach seems to be that the FC spends his time constantly barking enemy callsigns down the voice comms channel and hoping that his or her hopelessly overwhelmed sensors are at least up-to-date enough that they're not calling a target which is already destroyed. There's no chain of command - the general strides onto the battlefield in person and proceeds to individually order the death of every enemy combatant.
And that's when everything's going smoothly. Capsuleer militaries totally lack for professionalism. I've been there - people lose their ships and start calling for help, or reporting their loss to the FC who does NOT need to know. What the FC needs is to have a clear comms line so that necessary information can flow.
Or could, if there was a chain of command for it to flow from and into. Point stands, though. That's the sort of thing that can - should - be covered in basic training. Explain WHAT the FC needs to know, WHY, and WHEN. especially explain why the FC generally does NOT need to know and you should shut up.
Is there basic training for alliances? I doubt it, for most of them. They rely on weight of numbers, not on competence. I suspect, and Coldkill agreed when I mentioned this, that one fleet of 250 could take on four times as many ships and win if its members were trained, flew in a planned fleet rather than bringing whatever they felt like, and were part of a distributed command network rather than being effectively a 250-hardpoint weapons battery on a monstrously large ship with no weapon grouping software.
I'm quite comfortable where I am. But I suspect that if I ever go back out to nullsec, the first thing I'll do is contact the senior FCs and whip the combat pilots into shape. Qualifications, education, role assignment, chain of command. If we just picked up even the most basic elements of a proper, professional military, the upswing in effectiveness would, I'm quite sure, be very pronounced indeed.
Of course, the first and probably most difficult obstacle would be convincing the idiots who've been doing it the "blob and primary" way this whole time.
Save. End.
It's something I frequently muse on that for many, many pod pilots, even the most elementary rules of warfare seem to be ignored. Very few of us seem to have read the literature on strategy, and even fewer apparently treat their militaries as... well... militaries.
Take your average capsuleer battle, for instance. The whole approach seems to be "throw an enormous number of ships into the fight and then have one fleet commander calling targets sequentially."
This is unbelievably inefficient, when you think about it. A ship being shot at by, say, fifty ships will evaporate damn near instantly. Throwing in another nine hundred and fifty doesn't make the tiniest difference to how long it survives, let alone a tactically significant one. A 250 strong fleet could engage five targets simultaneously if target calling was devolved to the wing commanders. Ten times that many if the responsibility was devolved to the squad commanders
And yet the "traditional" approach seems to be that the FC spends his time constantly barking enemy callsigns down the voice comms channel and hoping that his or her hopelessly overwhelmed sensors are at least up-to-date enough that they're not calling a target which is already destroyed. There's no chain of command - the general strides onto the battlefield in person and proceeds to individually order the death of every enemy combatant.
And that's when everything's going smoothly. Capsuleer militaries totally lack for professionalism. I've been there - people lose their ships and start calling for help, or reporting their loss to the FC who does NOT need to know. What the FC needs is to have a clear comms line so that necessary information can flow.
Or could, if there was a chain of command for it to flow from and into. Point stands, though. That's the sort of thing that can - should - be covered in basic training. Explain WHAT the FC needs to know, WHY, and WHEN. especially explain why the FC generally does NOT need to know and you should shut up.
Is there basic training for alliances? I doubt it, for most of them. They rely on weight of numbers, not on competence. I suspect, and Coldkill agreed when I mentioned this, that one fleet of 250 could take on four times as many ships and win if its members were trained, flew in a planned fleet rather than bringing whatever they felt like, and were part of a distributed command network rather than being effectively a 250-hardpoint weapons battery on a monstrously large ship with no weapon grouping software.
I'm quite comfortable where I am. But I suspect that if I ever go back out to nullsec, the first thing I'll do is contact the senior FCs and whip the combat pilots into shape. Qualifications, education, role assignment, chain of command. If we just picked up even the most basic elements of a proper, professional military, the upswing in effectiveness would, I'm quite sure, be very pronounced indeed.
Of course, the first and probably most difficult obstacle would be convincing the idiots who've been doing it the "blob and primary" way this whole time.
Save. End.
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