Paperwork doesn't just mean forms and reports. It can also mean things like calculating profit margins, evaluating market trends, and making all other sorts of spreadsheats and such. All of these are extremely common activities in the world of EVE, even for the players. So I don't see why there's anything wrong with people falling back on it.
Alien cadaver will require analyzing and testing. Recording the results of those tests will be paperwork. When you find a charred engine part and take it apart to find any parts worth salvaging, you're going to be taking notes of that and categorizing what's useful and what's not. More paperwork. Tubes of colorful, bubbling liquid are made by science, which is a very paperworky field.
Paperwork is everywhere.
In an environment where Capsule pilots have the capability to rival nations in power, technological advancement, wealth, and influence, filing reports and forms continues to be the bane of law abiding characters and pirates alike. Can anyone explain why it's so popular?
Simply put, "rivaling nations in power", "technological advancement", and acquiring "weath" and "influence" all by necessity require paperwork. Pod piloting is as much an occupation as it is "internet spaceships zoomzoom". You can't expect to dominate the galaxy if all you're doing is yapping in Summit, drinking booze at parties, and baselining.
Now, you might say, "Well, you can
talk about more interesting things!" I agree,
but! You can always press them for more interesting topics, by asking them what their paperwork is about. I'm sure they can tell you stories about what they're documenting. I did it all the time on my Lawful Neutral bureaucrat on another MMO (since I was typically
actually doing paperwork, so it was easy enough to tell people
what I was writing if they asked me).
