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[Machiavellis Nemesis]

This may seem a little weird.

Firstly, I am not generally considered, nor do I consider myself to be a roleplayer in any traditional sense. 

My first character gained minmatar (and derived) gallente standing through the usual early empire driven economic activities.  This, combined with RL friends involved in the minmatar militia (oddly, they RP in other games yet aren't RP driven in eve) got me involved in the TLF.  This in itself has roleplay implications despite the fact my tactical decisions and general play style are effectively non-RP.  This much is easy to justify as an in-game premise...

...however, I maintain a number of "spy" alts within hostile entities.  I use them to gather intel, sabotage operations and occasionally steal assets as and when I see fit.

My question is this:  as a roleplayer, how would you go about the use of alts in such situations? 

As an example, under this name I am essentially NRDS within minmatar space, refuse to buy/sell/hold slaves etc...but my "operatives" are embedded deep within a lot of the major amarr militia corporations and the local pirate groups around amamake.  In all honesty, I view the 'membership requirements', even when whoring onto my own lossmails as means to an end.  Intel I have gained has proven vital in several large engagements, not to mention the several tens of billions of isk I have liberated.

How, if at all, would you go about convincing yourself that such necessary activities to "gain trust" among your enemies are justified in the grand scheme of things?

[Silver Night]

Well, easiest way is to just have them be spies in your employ, I'd think.

[Inara Subaka]

There's a couple ways to rationalize it.

1) Both characters are familiar with each other, and are willing to do business for themselves at the expense of their respective empires as long as the two of them come out "on top".
2) The "spy" character is being paid for the information they are obtaining by the other character.
3) The "spy" character doesn't know they are the leak, and is in fact being exploited by a local security hole in their computer systems by the character receiving the information.

I could go on, because there's numerous ways to explain the rationalities for "spy alts", but the general idea is here. And these are just the IC rationalizations, if you want me to hit OOC ones... the biggest one is "I want to win", and in EVE information helps make sure that happens.

[Arvo Katsuya]

I find it more of challenge as a player to treat each character individually, containing the knowledge of what the characters know to themselves. That the alts are not a spy, even if the two existing characters belong on opposing sides. Because the hatred a character possesses should also be contained to that character, and not us as the player.

What a novel concept.

[Casiella]

That works if it fits your higher-level gameplay goals. Some players want to participate in The Great Metagame, so why not try to find ways to do that in a roleplay-ish way too?

[Inara Subaka]

I find it more of challenge as a player to treat each character individually, containing the knowledge of what the characters know to themselves. That the alts are not a spy, even if the two existing characters belong on opposing sides. Because the hatred a character possesses should also be contained to that character, and not us as the player.

What a novel concept.

Actually, I tend to agree with you. I have characters that are set red to each other or they have no knowledge of the other's existence at all (this is the easiest way to do it, imho).

Hell, several of my characters would shoot Inara on sight for being a "dirty pirate". I was just offering suggestions for the occasions where, as Casiella said:

Some players want to participate in The Great Metagame, so why not try to find ways to do that in a roleplay-ish way too?

[Elsebeth Rhiannon]

My take is that if information, isk, gear, or anything else whatsoever passes between the two characters OOC, it passes between them IC. You can invent various ways to connect these two characters, same as you would two characters that belonged to different players - are they relatives or friends, is one doing a job for the other, being blackmailed, etc; there's loads of options.

You can (well, some people can) also play two characters completely separately, without using each others intel or resources, obviously. A lot of people have two or more "mains".

I am personally very iffy about letting people have these "disconnected alts" of active reds in Gradient, because I don't think most people are actually capable of keeping information separate like that. It's not unheard of, but I cannot say I like it too much.

(Despite there having been "gentlemanly agreements" between some specific RPer parties that they do not use alts to spy on each other, you should never assume any general rule about it exists - not the least because there cannot be a general RPer rule, but also because a lot of, if not most, RPers simply don't feel it is a problem outside of such explicit agreements.)

[Laerise [PIE]]

My take is that if information, isk, gear, or anything else whatsoever passes between the two characters OOC, it passes between them IC. You can invent various ways to connect these two characters, same as you would two characters that belonged to different players - are they relatives or friends, is one doing a job for the other, being blackmailed, etc; there's loads of options.

While your RP is wrong, and while I despise your backstabbing ways I agree wholeheartedly.

"It was ooc" is just a weak excuse for laziness.

[Ciarente]

My 'alternate mains' (who are neither secret nor spies) are connected to Ciarente and thus to each other in a variety of IC ways to explain the fact that they do business with each other.

[Grr]

Machiavellis your post isn't that wierd at all.  In fact your one of the few sensible people out there that realise everything you do in eve is RP and will have implications to your characters development.

Since I'm probably the worst person to give sensible advice on usage of alts, I just wanted to applaud you for coming here and asking for help and wish you luck

[Graelyn]

^ This, honestly.

[Merdaneth]

One can have hundreds of rationalizations.

However, very few 'spy alts' are more than cardboard characters with a oddly unquestioning loyalty to their main 'master/brother/employer/etc' while nearly none of them get any kind of pay, glory, publicity or whatever.

The difficulty in separating knowledge from both characters and the difficulty of getting one to betray the other is what makes me shy away from any kind of spy alt. If you want your alt to be a spy that is basically incorruptible and has unquestioning loyalty to your main, then a good rationalization would need to provide a reason for that.

1. Your main has his woman/sister/children under the gun, and any kind of betrayal will result in their deaths
2. Your spy alt's life has been saved, several times over perhaps, by your main