Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE Character Development => Topic started by: Roime on 06 Jul 2013, 04:24
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I'm in the process of writing my character histories, but one thing baffles me- the starter NPC corps and their relation to capsuleers. We all start in some educational institute, but are these for capsuleers or for non-capsuleers? Are there separate programs for capsuleers? How and when do we normally become capsuleers, and who performs the selection? Any information on the selection processes for the institutes? Graduating?
Any pointers to resources or your personal views on the matters would be highly appreciated.
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Are these for capsuleers or for non-capsuleers?
As far As I understand they are the best institutes/universities of their empire, state, federation etc. And as best of the best they have a capsuleer program course. So they are open for pretty much everyone if you have sufficient knowledge/funds/connections.
"Hedion University (graduating the best business students in the Empire)..." - source (http://"http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Hedion_University")
Are there separate programs for capsuleers?
If I understand correctly there is:
"Aside from the mental and physical training, which can place the trainees under immense stress, the added component of catatonia is constant possibility. In effect, a capsuleer in training does not and will not know whether or not they are predisposed - through genetics and general constitution - to complete their training course until after the fact." - source (http://"http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/The_Capsule_and_the_Clone")
Or at least there must be some sort of course/training to prepare trainee for mental/physical stress.
How and when do we normally become capsuleers, and who performs the selection?
I assume there is a test that you can take to show are you at least compatible with the capsule.
Then there is a course/training that you have to petition to get in and it is probably funded by your government/institution or from your own pockets.
Finally there is a final exam when you pass and become a capsuleer or fail and become a catatonic vegetable.
I have no source so it is all just my assumptions.
Any information on the selection processes for the institutes?
Again no source so just my assumptions.
For the institutes I don't think it differ much from our present selection process:
school/college reference -> tests -> final interview or connections and money.
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I have always been under the impression that most of the school corps are institutions which only just opened a capsuleer training program recently; keep in mind that the age of non-navy capsuleers is only just over ten years old, and many of these institutions have been around for many times that.
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They are old and have been around for awhile. They have simply opened capsuleer programs. For example, Republic University has existed since the formation of the Republic, and only recently opened a capsuleer program.
"The Republic University was founded by Minmatar emigrants as a show of support for the fledgling republic shortly after its inception. The school is modeled after the University of Caille and based on the Gallentean education system." - Republic University in-game description
As for the other questions: The general assumption is that it is based on genetic disposition that is discovered through specific medical tests. The programs are typically assumed to take 2-4+ several years like any other university program.
For funding, I have gone with government/school assistance/grants, but requiring a time spent making up the costs after finishing. There's no lore for this, but with the amounts capsuleers make, I figured a few months/years post-graduation spent working for the organization (your time in the corporation while playing the game, before joining a player corp) makes up all the money you were granted to attend, thus allowing the universities to make out ahead despite paying for your education costs.
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Only a tiny number of people are capable of interacting with a capsule without going into mindlock and there is a genetic marker that indicates a higher chance of making it so there is more to it than just money and connections. New Eden is home to several trillion people, yet only a few hundred thousand capsuleers roam the stars. I would imagine that even a street kid who tested positive with the marker would suddenly find herself with dozens of sponsors. I have a personal hope/theory that the learning skills weren't just retconned out of existence but are now part of the the first 'hidden' skill books a new capsuleer gets before graduation - if so, tripling their IQ would give even the initially poorest budding transhuman the means to pay of any sponsor loans with interest well before grad day.
Also, my assumption has always been that while the majority of students at a given school are normal people, the capsuleers-to-be probably don't interact with them much and that the capsuleer program takes several years.
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The wealth and influence capsuleers generate so easily means none of us paid for any sort of schooling ourselves (after compatibility is detected, which varies based on character). Even if 1% of the gene-capable students make it through, just collecting a fraction of their income through taxes pays the investment many, many times over.
IE I'd gladly fund and pay for 1,000 people to go to the special school and take the capsuleer test knowing just ten of them would make it through and make me billions and billions with my miniscule .05% isk tax on their future earnings, etc.
I also suspect as part of the sneaky Jovian / CONCORD / Yulai accord treaties, that the empires are FORCED to graduate a certain number of 'independent' capsuleers (the EVE playerbase). I can't find a logical reason otherwise why restrictive dictatorships and such would possibly train the deadliest people in the galaxy and then say 'go have fun!' with no restrictions.
They must be doing most of the training and keeping them in-house and the token eve playerbase are the independents. My two isk.
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New Eden is home to several trillion people, yet only a few hundred thousand capsuleers roam the stars.
Asssuming you are referring to the few hundred thousand total active players here - I'm just going to point something out real fast: There are many, many more navy- or otherwise state-bound capsuleers than there are "free" ones.
I would imagine that even a street kid who tested positive with the marker would suddenly find herself with dozens of sponsors.
Indeed.
I've long RPed that Esna's capsuleer schooling was funded primarily by a grant from Carthum Conglomerate, in return for which he worked exclusively for them for some time after graduation (i.e., the ~9 months or so after starting Esna that I just ran missions). This grant came in part because ~someone~ saw a potential for getting a capsuleer under their thumb; the same someone also pushed for Esna to be given a Holder's title, in return for his expected long-term loyalty to his benefactor.
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Samira's family had basically no money, as refugees. When she got identified as a capsuleer, she got some grants, which funded her schooling. She eventually had to pay those grants off with interest, but with capsuleer income that was easily and quickly done.
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New Eden is home to several trillion people, yet only a few hundred thousand capsuleers roam the stars.
I'm just going to point something out real fast: There are many, many more navy- or otherwise state-bound capsuleers than there are "free" ones.
Source? Unless the empires prohibit them from injecting skill books I find the idea of millions of capsuleers working for the empires to be ludicrous. If that were true New Eden would be a much different place. Go watch the move 'Limitless' then imagine several million copies of the main character serving as mid-grade officers or holding low-level government jobs and not building their own galactic empires. Yea, right.
If I were inclined, which I'm not, I could probably go on for pages siting a list of 'if that were true, then...instead of..."
In my opinion some RPers adopt this belief because they want their characters to be closer to normal humans that PF actually supports. It's in the same vein as the skillsoft/meat-cpu vs 'I know kung-fu' transhuman/demi-god debate concerning how skillbooks work and I wish CCP would clarify both. It's something that seems to really divide RPers and creates drastically different OOC understanding of the universe our characters share.
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Thanks a lot guys!
Looks like the lore leaves a lot of freedom in these matters, but you gave me plenty of good ideas and I think I got this part of background(s) sorted now :)
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Clarity: SOCT Advanced awareness training. While this training obviously is of great value to anyone, the most impressive results are achieved by students with great latent potential. These students develop almost superhuman sensory abilities and can react to stimuli so fast that, to the untrained eye, it almost seems as if they can predict the future.
Focus: SOCT Advanced self-discipline training. While this training obviously is of great value to anyone, the most impressive results are achieved by students with great latent potential. These students are able to remain focused and alert under extreme pressure, and can ignore pain and fatigue for extended periods of time.
Eidetic Memory: SOCT Advanced mnemonic training. While this training obviously is of great value to anyone, the most impressive results are achieved by students with great latent potential, allowing them to recall nearly anything they have ever experienced with total lucidity.
Presence: SOCT Advanced social consciousness training. While this training obviously is of great value to anyone, the most impressive results are achieved by students with great latent potential. Training in this skill allows a student to develop heightened mental sensitivity, to the point of being able to sense the surface mood and emotions of a person.
Logic: SOCT Advanced intelligence training. While this training obviously is of great value to anyone, the most impressive results are achieved by students with great latent potential. These students develop an intuitive understanding of complex patterns and are able to grasp esoteric concepts with incredible ease.*
*The minimum baseline intelligence attribute requirement to become a capsuleer is seven. The learning skills added ten more points, an improved cybernetic subprocessor adds five and a remap adds potentially ten for a grand potential total of thirty two. Now we have no way of knowing what the correlation between IQ and attribute points is, but the description of the logic skillbook seems to indicate that a score of 17 (out of 32) puts one in the genius bracket.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcnkObLoobk
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New Eden is home to several trillion people, yet only a few hundred thousand capsuleers roam the stars.
I'm just going to point something out real fast: There are many, many more navy- or otherwise state-bound capsuleers than there are "free" ones.
Source? Unless the empires prohibit them from injecting skill books I find the idea of millions of capsuleers working for the empires to be ludicrous. If that were true New Eden would be a much different place. Go watch the move 'Limitless' then imagine several million copies of the main character serving as mid-grade officers or holding low-level government jobs and not building their own galactic empires. Yea, right.
If I were inclined, which I'm not, I could probably go on for pages siting a list of 'if that were true, then...instead of..."
In my opinion some RPers adopt this belief because they want their characters to be closer to normal humans that PF actually supports. It's in the same vein as the skillsoft/meat-cpu vs 'I know kung-fu' transhuman/demi-god debate concerning how skillbooks work and I wish CCP would clarify both. It's something that seems to really divide RPers and creates drastically different OOC understanding of the universe our characters share.
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=3258433#post3258433
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I do seem to recall Verone shared a different opinion than me on that topic and a few others. Still does make any damn sense. Oh well.
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One of the things we thought of, to explain things such as why it says "Imperial Academy" or "Hedion University" for our characters employment, was that those institutions also validate training/education from other sources, via whatever methods.
E.g. some colleges teach education courses, but the degree is awarded by a University.
And, for membership of some professional bodies, e.g. a chartered engineer, there is an exam, some university courses provide exemption from that exam. You can still learn the stuff by whatever method, and take the exam, without going through university.
So, people from other backgrounds, study the relevant capsule-piloting doodadery, and then turn up with a large pile of money to say "I want to take the piloting exam". Hedion University says "OK, step into the capsule-simulator", and off it goes, complete the tests, Hedion University says "congratulations, here is your license"
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In my opinion some RPers adopt this belief because they want their characters to be closer to normal humans that PF actually supports. It's in the same vein as the skillsoft/meat-cpu vs 'I know kung-fu' transhuman/demi-god debate concerning how skillbooks work and I wish CCP would clarify both. It's something that seems to really divide RPers and creates drastically different OOC understanding of the universe our characters share.
Or maybe it's also a common theory among RPers to explain why all the empire stupidly let us go away/freelance like that instead of keeping us enlisted and under control : where we actually are only the leftovers/loose ends of every academy.
Or maybe we are let go freelance because of hidden CONCORD accords, or whatever.
Could be anything, players willing to be closer to normal humans or not.
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In my opinion some RPers adopt this belief because they want their characters to be closer to normal humans that PF actually supports. It's in the same vein as the skillsoft/meat-cpu vs 'I know kung-fu' transhuman/demi-god debate concerning how skillbooks work and I wish CCP would clarify both. It's something that seems to really divide RPers and creates drastically different OOC understanding of the universe our characters share.
Or maybe it's also a common theory among RPers to explain why all the empire stupidly let us go away/freelance like that instead of keeping us enlisted and under control : where we actually are only the leftovers/loose ends of every academy.
Or maybe we are let go freelance because of hidden CONCORD accords, or whatever.
Could be anything, players willing to be closer to normal humans or not.
Or maybe
the best control is when your subject thinks that he is completely free and has absolute control of his own actions and/or destiny.
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One of the things we thought of, to explain things such as why it says "Imperial Academy" or "Hedion University" for our characters employment, was that those institutions also validate training/education from other sources, via whatever methods.
I like that idea. Opens up a lot of background possibilities.
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It's in the same vein as the skillsoft/meat-cpu vs 'I know kung-fu' transhuman/demi-god debate concerning how skillbooks work and I wish CCP would clarify both. It's something that seems to really divide RPers and creates drastically different OOC understanding of the universe our characters share.
Huh. I must have missed that debate. But I've been over in the corner thinking that skillbooks are just another way CONCORD and/or the Empires keep track and/or exert control over capsuleers, even if those capsuleers believe they're independent of both.
'Oh, sure, you capsuleer guys can have all these shortcuts that get you out of years of training -- but we can take that knowledge away from you when we feel like it. Also, you're going to have to keep coming to us, or stealing from people who have come to us in order to get all of your technical knowledge in future. Your brain is now wired so that you won't be able to learn that shit from experience like regular humans do.'
'Piss us off bad enough, and we'll start deleting stuff out of your minds. You could wind up being nothing but a piece of meat floating in a little egg inside a ship you don't know how to fly anymore.'
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One of the things we thought of, to explain things such as why it says "Imperial Academy" or "Hedion University" for our characters employment, was that those institutions also validate training/education from other sources, via whatever methods.
I like that idea. Opens up a lot of background possibilities.
\o/
glad that something we've thought of, is useful to others :)
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Was searching for something and found this - click (https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=2157894#post2157894). It's not wiki, but word of CCP Eterne is pretty much the law. (at least it is in my book) ;)
"As for why empires "train" capsuleers for free, remember two things:
1) Only one school for each empire is a military academy; the other two schools are typical universities that are large and prestigious enough to offer pod pilot programs. Someone, somewhere is paying for it and it's probably not the governments of the empires themselves.
2) Players are only a portion of the capsuleers in the backstory. At least some number of capsuleers do continue to work for the empires directly."
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I'm more interested in what sort of educational standards are in these schools. Not to say that other players are doing it wrong, but there seems to be a wide variance in how 'educated' capsuleers are, even from the same school. As a fictitious example:
Character Bob has graduated from the State War Academy and does not know basic scientific laws of thermodynamics, does not know how to drive a car, and does not know the difference between a fission or fusion reactor. Has trouble when asked to do basic mathematics, or when asked to explain how his ship goes forward: "Why does a dog bark?! It just does!" Has been quoted saying he didn't bother taking school seriously, fell asleep during class.
Character Sally has graduated from SWA and claims to be highly qualified in astronautics, graviton engineering, and attained a medical doctorate, is a gourmet chef, was trained to be a Triple Dragon Tiger Master Black Belt in Space-Fu. Has been quote saying this was all standard training during the schooling, required learning for any capsule pilot.
Granted, both players are stretching suspension of disbelief right now, but the greater confusion of "what exactly do they teach?" comes up. We have some surprisingly uneducated "trailer park pilots" in the scene, and then we have bleeding edge scientists and military officers.... from the same school. It's often a running gag about 'graduation standards' that's mumbled OOC, but what standards can we agree really exist?
The only solution I can come up with is that Capsuleer Training isn't college at all, but is comparable to a few weeks of job training and implant surgery. Capsuleers are trained literally only on how to handle the very basic operations of their capsules, and nothing else. They get implants shoved in, and they're thrown through the game tutorial to finish up training. This is the only explanation I can conceive that defines how two characters from the same school and the same year can be so wildly different... one actually went there for college, the other didn't.
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The way I approached the education, at least with Steff, was that the Cap program is geared towards training the individual how to handle the basics of ship engineering, fitting, piloting, electronics, etc...all the stuff you need to get into a frigate and hopefully undock without causing an incident. I also think the program would handle dealing with the implants and the side-effects.
All of the other stuff (medical, officer training, etc.) could potentially be done in tandem with the Cap program or may have been done prior to or after completion of the Cap program.
Just my two cents.
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I think I had Capsuleer training be a basic 'how to fly a ship and the basics of piloting' course.
But Pieter took additional vocational retraining to turn him from a Cop into a Pilot.
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Seems to me that capsuleer training is provided by these schools as a service, perhaps through an annex program, in the same vein as private pilot's training. Some testing, some surgery, a few weeks and there you go. This allows for people who say "I took the SWA correspondence course over a month in my spare time, now I'm a starship captain!", while also allowing for people who have gone through degree programs with capsuleer training on the side.
Probably the toughest thing to swallow in this idea is leadership training. Learning how to lead, manage and motivate groups of people is a major part of modern officer training. While I could see the GrimDarque world of Eve saying "Bob here took a four week correspondence course in starship captaining, now he's flying a battleship with a crew of 7000", I couldn't see it going well.
But what the hell, this is a spaceship game. :D
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I can only imagine that near the end of their correspondense course, new capsuleers are given a slip of paper with the number of a local job centre, and instructions to call them and say the phrase "I have more money than God, please find me some people to handle finding and managing more people for me."