You Never Go Full Retard

I did something very very very dumb. I’m not exaggerating in the least bit either. I have done the unthinkable and have gone…. Full Retard.

If you haven’t heard of the phrase, which is highly unlikely, it comes from the movie Tropic Thunder. The movie is a comedy with a satirical take on action The main characters include a fading action star , a drug addicted comedian, a character actor in perma black face and a rapper that’s constantly pimping out his latest product, Booty Sweat. Hilarious film, but back to the point.

Best Tom Cruise role since forever

Perma black-face guy (Robert Downey Jr.) & B-List action guy (Ben Stiller) have this heart to heart. B-List action guy attempted a dramatic where he portrayed a mental handi capped fellow and failed. Instead of a Rain Man or Forest Gump type persona he went full retard. And you never go full retard. This is a sage piece of advice in many situations and soon became a trope.

So what does any of this have to do with Eve. Well, I’ll tell ya. As I said in my opening, I made a HUGE error. There’s no hiding it as it’s publicly viewable. I’m surprised that no one has called me on it, but that’s good because I get to explain myself first. Also, if you listen to the podcast, this story will most likely be repeated in the fail mail section as part of my penance.

Sunday March 11, 2012
On this day many wonderful things happened including the catalyst for this blog post. While in the middle of editing the podcast, a jabber ping went out. It was Mister Vee and he was calling a drake fleet. There were dudes in dire need of being shot in the face.

As a young goon, I’ve heard many positive things about Mister Vee fleets. The main points are they are usually successful with lots of kills to be had. Add the opportunity to shoot IRC in the face (♥ ya Mak!) and I was there with bells on. Well, I was there in my scimitar at least.

XXDeath was going to loose a CSAA and they bro-phoned some contacts in CFC. The CSAA was a lost cause. We figured that going in, but again, it was a chance to shoot many space dudes so we took it. Upon arriving on the scene there were 2 XXDeath Thannys repping a POS and the scimis were sent to help. A few minutes later this happened.

I can’t begin to give you a battle report because it was that insane. All I remember is locking, repping and unlocking as fast as TiDi, my shitty Duo Core and my fingers would allow. All I can say for sure is the logi contingent was magnificent and all the hype about Mister Vee was spot on. We should have gotten our asses handed to us and we were expecting to die in a glorious blaze of drake and scimi wreckage.

Instead we controlled the field and even got to loot it! I’m sure you’re starting to see where this is going, but I’ll just continue for fun. This is a blog after all. You’re here for my long winding stories about spaceships and other Eve related non-sense.

Mister Vee gives us all of 5 minutes to loot the field with instructions to go after the shiny hulls. Everyone warps in to the remains of the tengu fleet and I do as well. I managed to collect some drones, some T2 ammo and probably enough to fit a drake with a little left over. I was a happy camper along with the rest of the fleet and we headed home with our spoils of battle!

Tuesday March 13th, 2012
Another jabber ping goes out. This time from DaBigRedBoat or DBRB. I’ve flown in DBRB fleets before. The fleets are interesting to say the least and I usually know what to expect. This fleet was no different than any other and it’s a drake fleet. Awesome! I have just the ship for this fleet and I had such success with it that I should use it on this op too!

It was NC. and company again looking to come shoot some Goons. Apparently they had been dicking around in Branch and turned to float up in to Venal. As customary with hot pursuit, we followed with intent to engage. We sat on the HD-JVQ gate and the moment we jumped would be the moment shit hit the fan.

Since we knew we would be engaging the moment we jumped, we pretty much knew what to do. Most of the Goon Fleet doctrines have specific operating instructions and very rarely will FCs deviate from the path. That said, we jump in, uncloak, turn our hardners on and the scimi’s start to orbit our anchor. Then we hear “Everyone align to the MT gate. Now! Now! Now!”

Well, the imaginable happens and we align towards the MT gate… which happens to be in the direct path of the long range sniper armor hac fleet that’s waiting to tear us to bits.

“SCIMITAR ANCOR! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?”

Umm… what you told us to do. Now I had a close call this time. They locked me and started to get my shields down, but I was cognizant and turned back to run my ass to the gate out of range while the scimi’s repped me and kept me alive. (Thanks guys!) So we’re back to doing our thing. And then we hear…. “Align! Align! Align! Everyone needs to align to the MT gate!.”

Okay, so we must be warping out now. Align… oh… no… wait... I’m in a pod now.

My face when I heard, "SCIMITARS, WHY ARE YOU DYING?"

That’s how I lost the ship. Totally lame loss. That was pretty much the sentiment in the logi channel. Even the ones that didn’t die were dumb founded and a little irked. However, things didn’t go all THAT badly. While we did loose four scimitars, the last remaining managed to hold things together and in the end the fleet took down 22 Muninns. Here’s the battle report of that fight if you’re interested.

It was a really close fight and from what I heard pretty fun. We had titan bridged in so I didn’t go back out. I would have died on the way back out there. Instead I opted to spend the rest of the night catching up on the first season of Game of Thrones. Side note: Pandemic Legion are totally the Lannisters of Eve Online.

Really I should have known better. There’s a saying in Goons to wait 10 seconds after DBRB gives a instruction. He’s not an FC that’s known for his clarity of command. In fact, he’s the antithesis of clarity in command. Many a goon had died to his fickle fleet commands and now I have been christened. I guess I’m a real Goon now. Probably not.

Now, what does all of that have to do with this little gem? Well, brace yourselves.

Confession
Now here’s the part where I make my confession. I keep two or three scimi’s on hand at all times just in case. In case of what? Well, in case a fleet gets called. In case I get blown up and I need to reship quick and get back. There’s lots of in cases. Plus, I keep both afterburner fit and microwarp drive fit since both are in regular rotation.

Now… NORMALLY… before I undock I do a little “systems” check. I make sure I have the right scimi for the fleet; either AB or MWD fit. Next I check my clone and my insurance to make sure everything is up to date. Then I check drone bay to make sure I have light armor repair II’s, warror II’s and hornet EC-300. Finally I check my cargo bay to make sure that I have some nanite repair paste for those moments I need to overheat.

Let’s guess which one of these I forgot to fucking do. Can ya guess? I’ll give you three tries and the first two don’t count. Just to add a little icing on to the cake, I didn’t realize I made a trip out in my little loot piñata until Thursday night 2 days after all this went down. Cause yea, I’m totally not an air head. Apparently I didn’t want all those free mods N-E-WAY.

So, there you have it. It boils down to complacency which is something I warn against in a different blot post. If The Devil Suleimann Shouaa was there he would have said, “You are a remarkable bad.” Why is it so fucking hard to take my own advice?