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[Silas Vitalia]

Well to be fair there are thousands of player capsuleers that are easier to kill and less intelligent than your average NPC or Sleeper AI. 

[Ollie]

I hope this is the right place to post this.

From what I've managed to gather (and what Anslo told me, thanks o/) :
Becoming a capsuleer is a very risky, expensive and frowned upon process. Only a handful of individuals is genetically and mentally fit to survive this process. And it basically makes them demi-gods, Homer style : the kind you don't want to mess with, Achilleus ganking Hector at the Troy Jump Gate, etc. Powerful enough to live outside the boundaries of the law.

And who provides this sweet technology ? Governments. In game, a character starts freshly implanted with this sweet technology, and his school of choice provides him with basic training -a school affiliated with a government, either Caldari, Amarr, Minmatar or Gallente.

If I remember correctly, the last step of the tutorial, right before the career missions, provides the character a piece of paper (in my case it was a "tribal sponsorship") which basically says "Please capsuleer, be nice with us. We like nice."

I find it very puzzling. The four galactic powers players can come from are building and training demigods and launch them in New Eden hoping they will behave ? Without any kind of safety protocol ?

"Of course they won't go rogue/berserk. We asked them nicely."

If I may : é_ô
I must have missed something, right ? Because right now, to me, not only does this looks incredibly dumb, but also irrealist -governments giving free toys and total freedom to use them, sure.

To be clear, game-wise I totally understand the freedom given to the player. And I love it, simply because two weeks into this game and I'm still not sure of what I want to do. In fact, I want to do everything. I want to build stuff, I want to build stuff that makes the other stuff explode, I want to be a cuddly carebear in Highsec, I want to roam in Nullsec, every darndest thing.

So I'm perfectly fine if there's no PF-explanation about the interrests the 4 powers have in training capsuleers, knowing that a sizeable chunk of them will do unspeakable things to the hand that nurtured them. But I really hope there's one =)

Two points to add to all the ones already made.

• If i recall correctly you had to have a genetic link in order to become a capsuleer, which some people postulated was a segment of Jovian DNA. I don't remember the source chronicle ("The Jovian Wetgrave" perhaps?) but it was implied to be rare, with the possibility of mind lock making it rarer still. In medical terms rare usually means <= 1-2% of any given population for statistical purposes. The empires might have been banking on numbers in conjunction with CONCORD safeguards making the societal impact of capsuleers containable
• The history of human technological advancement usually is backgrounded by one group attempting to gain some kind of advantage over other groups - tribes, nations, civilisations, war, business, fire, the wheel, gunpowder, flight, steam power, nuclear power, the space race, right up to Steve Jobs and how he rebranded the smart phone as his own iDea. Capsuleer tech wouldn't be the first time the pressure of conflict with one's neighbours and competitors has seen governments rush an innovation into mass production without fully considering what effects it might have in the long term.

TL;DR Capuleers are rare, PC capsuleers rarer still. Governments can be dumb and typically focus on short term gains, often to the neglect of long term planning.

[Mithfindel]

Empirically, the majority of player character live in Empire space. Which, of course, doesn't mean that they aren't terrible monsters, but probably means that they are terrible monsters working for the Empires (either via agents or by industry). Also, if some of them go mad and butcher the entire civilian population of a colony, then at least that was one of those dangerous "free" capsuleers and not one of the white knight heroes of the empire. In the Outer Regions (i.e. nullsec) capsuleers do significant work for the empires by culling the regular pirates. Some of them even mine the more valuable types of ore, bringing some back to the Inner Regions. What really doesn't match (in my opinion) is lowsec, perhaps with the exception of the privateers in FW warzones.

But, it's a game.

[Lyn Farel]

Well to be fair there are thousands of player capsuleers that are easier to kill and less intelligent than your average NPC or Sleeper AI. 

Because they are on their own, but in the case of an empire they have support, logistics, setups, and all the materials they need to be effective. I bet their stuff would even be more effective than ours since they might also have an easy access to navy stuff and the likes.

[Silas Vitalia]

What really doesn't match (in my opinion) is lowsec, perhaps with the exception of the privateers in FW warzones.

What about lowsec troubles you?

We don't have the mini-empires that the null-sec groups do but I think you can make a case for sizable collections of brigands and outlaws causing havoc for passersby.

As lowsec is still technically in the Empire controlled regions it has some nice opportunities for fiction regarding how we interact with the local authorities.  Dodging or occasionally cooperating with, etc.

[Adreena Madeveda]

Thanks for the answers =)

[Mithfindel]

What really doesn't match (in my opinion) is lowsec, perhaps with the exception of the privateers in FW warzones.

What about lowsec troubles you?

We don't have the mini-empires that the null-sec groups do but I think you can make a case for sizable collections of brigands and outlaws causing havoc for passersby.

As lowsec is still technically in the Empire controlled regions it has some nice opportunities for fiction regarding how we interact with the local authorities.  Dodging or occasionally cooperating with, etc.

Actually I did just figure several possible "fluff" explanations for lowsec. The most disappointing is "Jove did it" (for whatever purposes they might have). Others include wanting space where CONCORD / central authority doesn't monitor things (doesn't seem to really work for Amarr Holders, at least in Kor-Azor - but possibly works for the Intaki, Caldari megas and some tribes) as well as simply CONCORD having limited funding and being unable to monitor space everywhere. Interestingly, all of these reasons would make lowsec pretty much the place to be for a well-enough independent capsuleer (excluding of nullsec) or a dissident but still somewhat benevolent capsuleer (possibly excluding non-pirate NPC nullsec, though not that the "light grey" factions would be good).