There are Only People Here - Blog Banter #54

Do classic heroes exist in EVE? Is such heroism even possible in EVE? How would you go about being one without opening yourself wide open to scams? Is the nature of the game so dark that heroes can't exist? How do you deal with that irony? What effect does this have on us and the psyche of new players coming in from other MMOs? Is it something special that we don't have classic heroes, or should we? Are our non classic heroes more genuine? - Cheradenine Harper 

And I would add to this, who have we elevated to the level of larger than life heroes ourselves in the game, and do they actually deserve it? - Kirth Kodachi

                                                                                                      Blog Banter #54 

I think that if you went into the mind of someone labeled a hero they'd not see themselves as such. Often, they are people who are doing what need to be done. Personal reasons, personal morals, personal wants, all of these things come into play. Is it heroic or selfish to do something because you cannot live with yourself if you did not do it? Because not doing it would hurt more than doing it. No one else lives inside of your mind with you and no one else understand what might bring a person to do the things that they do.

Heroic acts, heroism, and heroes are bright shiny things. People become heroes after death, when the stories trickle down from one hand to another. As people huddle around each other and listen to things that may change their very understanding of things. But more often than that heroes are confused with role models and used to create a foundation of behavior that society would call positive. For a hero will be defined differently in every culture. And what one group considers heroic another may consider horrific or scornful.

The topic asks about 'classic' heroes. I don't think that there are any classic heroes that are not stories. Stories that may have been based off of a real event at one point but an event that is now only a story. People over exaggerate. They do so greatly and freely. But, in a way a classic hero is something that fits into a video game nicely because it is a mythical thing.

But Eve is not a video game that follows the normal path of things. The players are all individuals who are in the world. When they start they are nothing more than whatever they are. The game gives us no direction, no guidance, no goals, nothing but a basic survival. It is an environment where video game heroes may form but the chances of them being villains is just as high.

Some may call someone who has courage a hero. The courage to stand up to someone or something. That is also something that happens in Eve. Someone will stand against a status quo or defend something or someone from something else. Other's will make choices for reasons beyond themselves because they have a larger view. But these people are not heroes. They are role models, leaders, friends, but there is nothing video game heroic in the classical view of heroes.

There is a particular type of story that I like to read. It is one that has come into popularity more in recent times. It is a story where both sides are shown. For each views the other a villain and themselves as good. Eve is a game that creates that type of dynamic. Everyone is a villain and everyone fighting for their own cause.

I do not believe that eve has heroes. I believe that Eve has people with great strength of personality, character, and drive. I believe that it has role models and that the rawness of the environment creates courageous individuals who defy preset norms. Courage can happy in any situation. It can be a small completely individual moment or it can sway the future for thousands of others. In Eve, courage is a reality and heroes are not. Mayhaps if Eve was a place of dragons and golden fleeced sheep where demons and dark gods held sway we'd find classic heroes. But, that is not Eve. Eve is a place where someone stands against something in defiance of those around them. It is a place where labels are slippery and those who do the most violence can also give the most care. It is a place where destruction must happen for all of us to exist. It is a place where success is ripped from the void for there is no god to grant anything to us that we did not enter into this existence without.

I do not find classic heroes in Eve Online.

I do not think that I wish for them.