Ruskie Lapdogs

Day 2

And so it begins... I swooped out of the station in my shiny new Caldari shuttle, set my sights on pastures new and dangerous, and began on my journey to BWF-ZZ, bidding farewell to the safety and security of overbearing Mother Conchord. After a powerful wave of support from the inhabitants, I departed.

Soon after, I approached the edge of civilised space. The great unknown spread like an intimidating wall of fairy lights, and I teetered on the brink, suddenly nervous for an instant as the true scope of my intended voyage hit home. Was I taking on too much? Probably, but I'd started writing now, and I'd be damned if I was going to give in straight away after the introduction... And so I clicked on jump, and began.

My arrival in lowsec was somewhat less spectacular than I had hoped... no scary pirates patrolling the gates, no feuding alliances skirmishing across the systems... it was rather quiet. Perhaps my destination-deciding process was flawed? Never the less, I plowed on, defiantly extending my greetings to the nearly empty systems as I passed, until I arrived at my first stop: BWF-ZZ. Empty, but for one guy. Bugger.

As it was 4am at this point, and I was a bit tired, I decided to pop to bed and see how things were in the morning. Upon my return, the situation had improved somewhat... plenty of people to chat to, a fresh load of unsuspecting pilots to aid my plans of getting to know the denizens of nulsec. I apporoached the only station in the system, in the hopes that I could install a new clone there, and never have to return to highsec upon my likely fast-approaching death. Then this happened:

Bugger.

At this point I felt compelled to wonder what it was that I, my corporation (n0.0btrality - formed in the aims of giving corps a way of 'making me blue'), and my nonexistance alliance ever done to the Ukraine, to cause such hostility? Perhaps the name of my shuttle was an insult to them?

After hanging around a while, trying to work out why the local denizens were less than chatty, I managed to put two and two together with the aid of a simple visual clue.

Just as I dedided that the former Soviet bloc probably wasn't the best place to make my introductions to the populace of nulsec, and was activating my decision-maker once more (swirling my mouse over the map), I noticed that the shields, hull and structure of my precious shuttle were swiftly and unforgivingly shrinking. Then this happened:

Bugger.

Moments later, I was reborn, back where I started, and a bit shocked. I thought the end of the Cold War had ended such hostility between the Soviets and the English-speaking world. Are they not content enough with buying our football teams with their dirty oil money, that they must destroy our shuttles too? So I made the brave decision to completely avoid Solar Fleet, and their ruskie lapdogs U.K.R.A.I.N.E, safe in the knowledge that they speak Russian, so are unlikely to read this.

Here I was, then, back where I started. Was my mission doomed from the start? Well, one well wisher in the Nourvukaiken system, on the edge of lowsec on the path to my new destination in Syndicate, thought so...

However, a quick look at the friendly, but fatalistic, Wantless Hero's Corporation, Frontier Elite, revealed he was a friendly, fatalistic coward:

So after hanging around next to the gate for a while, writing this all down and hesitating before puting my squishier parts on the line once more, and after the actually very nice Wantless Hero's asking me if I had cold feet, I set off into the unknown once more, destination: GRNJ-3.

What would I find there? Adventure? Romance? Another minion of Stalin? I don't know, because I haven't got there yet!