I say its Ganking

I wound up in a mild disagreement upon language use when it came to labeling an action a "gank".

The person I was speaking with was sitting on a gate in a thrasher grabbing pods and shuttles for war targets and outlaws. I did not disapprove of the activity. I did say that he was ganking them with amusement.

"I'm not ganking them!"
"You are in an instalock Thrasher on a gate killing pods and shuttles," I pointed out. "They can't fight back."
"But they are flashy red."
"That doesn't mean it's not a gank. I think we define what a gank is differently."

And it turns out we did. He sees the war targets and outlaws to be non-innocents so except from being ganked. I see anyone in a situation where they are over powered and rendered helpless a ganked target. I told him that I did not think that he was doing anything wrong. He is not a pirate and he operates under a different moral compass then I do. I'm pretty sure my words of reassurance did nothing but I did try.

I decided to go look it up.

I'll use the very well renowened Urban Dictionary to define Gank:

Ganking

It is a word commonly used in online video games, usually used in an MMORPG. Ganking is the process in which a group of characters gang up on one or more players that do not have a chance to defend themselves, Or when one high level player does the same action to a player way below his or her own level

This is a Procurer being ganked. He and his friend were in a belt in low sec. They aligned and tried to warp off. However he got caught on an asteroid. I also bounced off of a few of the larger asteroids when I was visually quite far away from them.

We got together a little fleet. Stabber Fleet Issue x3, Vigilant and a Sacrilege. On our way out the scout found two Procurer's mining. We sent Razor into the belt where he tackled the unfortunate barge. There was a hope that the other people in system would come assist. They did not. We gave them a few moments. Razor ungrouped his guns so that he wouldn't kill it to fast. The fleet jumped in and we popped it. If I have to say there is one benefit for the new mining barge changes it is that barges are back in low sec as a thing. I picked up a strip miner 1.

We continued on our way. The scout found a Proteus and a Brutix running around. We tried to figure out where they were going and split our fleet across the gates. Then they vanished. Then we found them again sitting on a gate to high sec.

We sent Fried in there to shake his flashy red ass. They ignored him. He aligned back towards the gate we were at. They ignored him. He started to bump them off the gate. They ignored that. He targeted them. They targeted back. The decision was made to kill the Brutix. He'd have the lesser tank between him and the Proteus. Our one non-flashy member jumped the gate and reapproched from the other side to back up Fried in his Stabber Fleet Issue once he started to shoot.

Fried started to shoot them. With a little bit of a delay they started to shoot back. We gave it a count of ten. His primary back up jumped in and then the fleet jumped in. Fried had to deaggress and start burning away. He was in 40% armor. He then warped off and the fleet landed, reacquired tackle and started to kill the Brutix.

The Brutix was rep fit and managed some reps in structure. He soaked up a nice bit of damage. He still died. I had tossed my web and scram on the Proteus just in case he decided to warp off. With the Brutix gone and the Proteus still there we went for bumps. Diz landed a beautiful bump and knocked him a clean 7k off the gate.

Webbed to hell (a state I am very familiar with quite recently) he didn't have many options. Then he just started to melt. Diz told us to hold our fire so that Fried could come back and help finish what he started.

Fried landed. I have no idea if this Proteus was shooting anyone. He was in structure and he exploded. It was way to easy and per the damage report on the kill mail he only tanked around 18.5k of damage. Very sad for a ship that can tank like a Proteus can tank.

The death of the Brutix and Proteus is also a gank situation. Our fleet was not something that they should have engaged. There was plenty of time to deagress and jump into high sec. They did not take GCC we did. Sitting like bowling pins for us to knock out of jump distance from the gate was also very silly. These ships would have done better if the situation had been handled differently.

We scooped it up and the loot fairy rewarded us with some goodies. We then warped off the gate, got ourselves situated and bounced into the next system to dock and repair while we waited out our GCC. When we looked at the kill mail we were amused that the Proteus had died faster than the Brutix contrary to our original opinion on the possible direction of the fight.

We made it back home. Fried had to log out at the station but Diz did a good job of keeping the roam to about an hour and producing pewpew for us. Me. I was happy to have a chance to go out after missing several delicious roams with good fights in them over the weekend.

I don't have issue with ganking. But ganking is ganking even if the targets are in your defines of evil.

The moral of the story is also: When a Stabber Fleet Issue lands on you, aligns out and then starts bumping you away from the gate, don't ignore it.