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Being Fauna

People coming to low sec looking for fights. They say, "let's go on a roam into low sec for some PvP." Ships are selected, fleets are assembled, and the group gathers at the high sec to low sec gate. Do they take a deep breath? Do they glance around them at their comrades and flick a tongue across suddenly dry lips? Does the flow of adrenaline start even as the gate flickers and the sec status flickers from the ranges of blue to green to a richer, more somber orange?

When they sit on the edge of their wormhole and peer into the depth of named space...

When the last highway sign says, "No Bubbles From Here On Out..."

The predator and prey relationship of PvP in Eve is, for the most part, not clear. There is an entire art form to baiting for fights. Is that seemingly harmless ship, harmless? Is he AFK? Is that battleship stupid or bait? Cyno?

Who is the hunter and who is the hunted?

Low Sec, especially, is a place where people go looking for trouble. They gather together, or perhaps on their own, and decide today we shall go off on a roam. Today, we shall find something to shoot at. Today, we shall place ourselves in a position of risk (maybe, I see you 3-5 logi and that fleet of cloaked falcon...) and PvP...

But for the residents of low sec, they are both predator and prey. I'm reminded of hunters that go hunting not just for big game, but predator big game. The bear hunters and the lion hunters and those that attempt, in a way, to put some risk into their hunting. There is even similarities to the stalking aspect. Getting that predator out and looking around so that it can be taken down from a safe situation as long as everything goes as planed.

Thankfully, the residents of low sec are not always shot while drinking at a watering hole and later mounted to show their turrets blazing fire at a non-existent enemy while florescent lights reflect in their glass eyes...

We hunt spaceships and as we hunt spaceships we are being hunted in spaceships. It is where the excitement is. The interest. It is where the frustration of a non-productive hunt comes from. It is why many people come to the more dangerous areas of Eve and why some live there.

To hunt is to be hunted. I am predator. I am prey. They are two sides of the same.




Comments

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. (boofed the org post, reposting..)

    Life in Anoikis gives you a different perspective on this... Yes, it is the same and yet, not. The transient nature of holes and the ability to change your 'gates', even to close your space off from ALL other space, even for a short while, changes the nature of the hunt from the more, static?, type in the hunting grounds of Lo and Null... (unchanging 'map', local, etc.)

    Plus we, or at least I, have long perceived lowsec as a middleground lying 'between' us and Empire... especially living in C4 and up systems.

    While we often look for the slightly moar elusive hisec holes, that's just logistics and 7-11 runs... but when our route to Hisec or Null travels through Lo... as it almost always does, then lo is seen in a different light.

    We tend to roam Null and do business in Hi... Lo is where we do drive by's... As we travel 'tween our holes and Hi or Null, we keep a sharp eye out for Targets of Opportunity in Lowsec... but we don't really hunt there. That we reserve mostly for Anoikis and Null...

    The reason? The rules we live by in Anoikis, IE no 'rules' at all, are most like Nullsec... in Lo and Hisec we just die a lot to CONCORD and "Why won't my bubble go up dammit!?!?!" =]

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  3. This post reminds me a bit of how I used to explain my former life of anti-piracy to people (especially pirates):

    It's one thing to go hunting.
    It's another thing entirely to specifically go hunting other hunters.

    But even in my criminal~ present, I always prefer to get a fight with a fighter.
    If the old assumption holds true, the ISK is in high-sec, or null-sec, or w-space...and low-sec has the worst risk/reward relationship, it stands to reason the residents aren't here (primarily) for ISK.
    Sometimes I think we'd be worse off if they adjusted low-sec risk/reward, as the landscape and population demographic would change entirely.

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