The World in Opposite

"How do I fit my ship to avoid PvP?"

If we were sitting at a table, I'd have just stared at him, wide eyed for a while.  As it was, my fingers slowed across my keyboard as my mind processed the information. I think my brain rebooted.  For one, I'm always startled and confused when someone comes to me for advice.  For two, it isn't the normal kind of question I am used to answering when I answer questions.

The running away part wasn't that hard.  I'm well versed in that.  It was running away and avoiding PvP.  As long as I've been tottering around low sec I've been taught to fit your ship for PvP and go down fighting.  I've died in a fire before.  I've died slowly.  I've died jammed.  I've sat there as I poured pure DPS hellfire out of my autocannons and didn't even scratch through reps as I died.

The next question might be my own post about my cloaky loki. The difference is, I'll still have a point on my Loki and should I face the situation I'll go down burning in a flame of pathetic brilliance.  I will then weep for my lost skill points.  But that is the choice that I made.

But, this person and this question is not me.  It is not about me. It is not about someone who wants to engage in PvP.  This is a career carebear with character's back in 2004 and for some reason knowing me for the last year has sparked his interest a bit in and for low sec.

We discussed nanos, we discussed stabs, we discussed dscan and sweet burning titans he doesn't really know dscan well.  I discussed watching for probes and since he normally duel to quad boxes, cloaky alts on gates to give him a bit more time to get out of his site.  I am teaching him how to avoid me to the best of my ability because that is what he asked for and that is what he deserves to get.

I don't know what I'm doing. I feel like I am throwing a lamb out to the wolves.  But that is just me being protective because he is my friend.  He's not a child and hes not an idiot.  We have the oddest conversations because he is Norwegian and his English is very good but... sometimes conversations get confusing.  Still, he is the same person that extended me a hand of friendship with a mining fleet my first week in.  He is the only person I've ever loaned ISK to and he has always paid me back.  He built me my ships when I could not build them for myself.  He has been a true friend to me and it is for me to be as true as I can back.

Why am I not trying to talk him out of it or tell him to learn to PvP?

Because it is his game.  It is not what he wants to do.  It is not that he has never tried.  It is that he has found other interests elsewhere.  I do not think that his choice to follow non-pvp paths in play should be penalized. He does not reject PvP. He does not rage against it and ask for it to be changed. He has been ganked before.  He shrugs and gets another ship.  He plays Eve and he plays Eve by Eve's terms not by terms defined by me.

I'm not trying to teach him PvP.  He has dipped his toes into those waters before.  He accepts Eve as Eve is.  If he wants PvP he will ask me about PvP.  He wants to run distribution missions for a group that mostly has the agents he wants in low sec.  He might even do some low level missions.

I wrote my bio almost a year ago.  It's a lot of my opinion on a lot of things.  I have many days where I feel a bit lost and confused.  I seek understanding on both sides so much that I occasional render myself confused as to my own opinion.  It is hard for me, as someone focused on the whys and not the wins to stay grounded sometimes.

Sometimes I read my own bio to remind myself.  I read it not to become swept away in the surge of other, more aggressive view points.  I read it because I believed it when I wrote it and I believe it now.  Sometimes the knowledge feels far away.  And through all of my personal frustrations as I play this game I do my best to remember the whys of things.

Everyone says that Eve is a sandbox.
I don't agree with that. I believe that Eve is a beach.
On one side is the ocean. It is an ever changing, fluid environment. that's PvP
On the other side is land. Its stable and solid and familiar and supports you. That's the life of a carebear. It's tempting to stay there.
But in between is the sand. And that's where worlds are created. It may be bordered by the two forces. That is balance.
On the beach are trillions of grains of sand. Each one is a choice, a decision, a moment, an instance, a chance to be used or discarded or bypassed or noticed. The ocean may pour over it and the land may shake it, but it is a flexible, fluctuating, ever changing world. It is the world that I mold.
That is my Eve