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[Aria Jenneth]

Damn. Also, hell.

... Well ... at least he didn't name Tony G as one of the good people whose hands we're in (novel notwithstanding).

[Ulphus]

Tony G was also let go once Templar one was released.

[Aria Jenneth]

Ah, good; that's what I thought, but I wasn't sure.

Alas! Alas for he who could not keep straight which ship was the old warhorse and which the new experiment; who brushed the pages of supposed "history" with head-shaking melodrama; whose position on canon showed fully the depth of understanding to be expected in one who tried the game once, for a few days. Farewell, Tony G! May you find much prosperity in your new career ...

... perhaps in historical fiction?

("Okay, so, canonically, the French Revolution and Napoleon did not precede the reign of King Louis XIV-- but really, isn't it the story that matters?")

[Chell Charon]

Since most combat pilots would essentially be at the head of an unholy union between a middling-to-large corporate bureaucracy and a paramilitary force, capsuleers personally being involved in combat, spy games, assassination or even a bar brawl makes absolutely zero sense to me. It would be like parachuting Norman Schwarzkopf into Bhaghdad to assassinate Saddam Husayn in the '91 Gulf War.

While I have some sympathy for your position, we're also looking at hundreds of thousands of them. After a while, the title "vice president" gets so over-used that they don't get no respect any more.

And if members of parliament (in Taiwan, Ukraine, Czech, and Venzuela on a quick Youtube search) can have fist-fights with other members of parliament, in parliament, then I see no particular reason pod pilots wouldn't occasionally punch each other in the face for fun and relief of stress, especially if they're silly enough to gather together with people they don't like and apply alcohol as a social lubricant.

Vladimir Putin.
Nuff said.

[Silas Vitalia]

Didn't early WWI airplane pilots have quite the chivalrous and non-animosity sort of relationship? They were all wealthy aristocracy (at first), and many were social acquaintances?

[Ulphus]

Didn't early WWI airplane pilots have quite the chivalrous and non-animosity sort of relationship? They were all wealthy aristocracy (at first), and many were social acquaintances?

For about a month. Then some cad started throwing bricks (yes, really, bricks) at other planes to try to damage their wings, and someone else took up a pistol, and then someone took up an observer with a rifle. It all went down-hill from there.

That said, I'm pretty sure they didn't get together for drinks after the day's sorties.

Checking wikipedia to see if my recollections are correct,

... initially air combat was extremely rare, and definitely subordinate to reconnaissance. There are even numerous stories of the crew of rival reconnaissance aircraft exchanging nothing more belligerent than smiles and waves. This soon progressed to throwing bricks, grenades, and other objects, even rope, which they hoped would tangle the enemy aircraft's propeller. The first aircraft brought down by another was an Austrian reconnaissance rammed on 8 September 1914 by Russian pilot Pyotr Nesterov in Galicia in the Eastern Front (both planes crashed as the result of the attack killing all occupants).

Oh, and if you had Buckingham rounds (an incendiary/tracer bullet based on phosphor) in your guns when you crashed, and you weren't trying to shoot down a balloon, they'd usually shoot you. Fire scared pilots a lot when they didn't have parachutes.

[Aldrith Shutaq]

But then again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_truce

Christmas truce was a series of widespread unofficial ceasefires that took place along the Western Front around Christmas 1914, during the First World War. Through the week leading up to Christmas, parties of German and British soldiers began to exchange seasonal greetings and songs between their trenches; on occasion, the tension was reduced to the point that individuals would walk across to talk to their opposite numbers bearing gifts. On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, many soldiers from both sides – as well as, to a lesser degree, from French units – independently ventured into "no man's land", where they mingled, exchanging food and souvenirs. As well as joint burial ceremonies, several meetings ended in carol-singing. Troops from both sides were also friendly enough to play games of football with one another.

However, it is a well-known fact that the longer a war goes on, the more bitter it becomes. The conflicts of EVE have been raging for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Still, I expect there would always be islands of civility in them nevertheless.

[Desiderya]

And also a few sentences further into the same article to further illustrate your point.

The following year, a few units again arranged ceasefires with their opponents over Christmas, but the truces were not nearly as widespread as in 1914; this was, in part, due to strongly worded orders from the high commands of both sides prohibiting such fraternisation. In 1916, after the unprecedentedly bloody battles of the Somme and Verdun, and the beginning of widespread poison gas use, soldiers on both sides increasingly viewed the other side as less than human, and no more Christmas truces were sought.