Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Laerise [PIE]]

Bah, I should have been more specific in the OP

Yes, all the points outlined above are correct.

There was the time when CyberKnight yes/no just meant that you'd save x months of training to get to a certain degree of PVP versality!

What I was wondering about, apart from the background issue, is why podders decide to put themselves in substantial danger of instant death and/or final death.
This includes a lot of my FW folks who are aparently more than happy to run around in a warzone, with armed troops everywhere, just to enjoy the scenerey / rescue some slaves / etc. .

Yes, of course, "I'm a spaceship captain" isn't exactly the most genre breaking role thats out there, but, come on, sometimes we're really pushing it.

P.S.: This is mostly an ooc gripe I have, I agree that sometimes you have to throw logic into the wind to have some fun, heck even I did it once in a while.

[lallara zhuul]

You're still not really coming out as clear in what you are wanting out of the discussion.

You have a problem with pod pilots acting like they're immortal and risking lives of their crews on a whim?
The fact that they tend to have similarities in the archetypes they represent?
Their choices of priorities differ from yours?

[Laerise [PIE]]

Alright, trying to get this through as quick as I can before I have to head off.

I don't have a problem with anything, it just confuses the logical part of my mind to no end that these pseudo-immortals seem to go for the kick of having their feet actually touch ground in completely unsafe locations (like, for example warzones) and/or go out and about for personal combat in an area where a single lucky shot actually -will- definetly kill them forever.

I'd like to find out if this is just a misconception of my own (i.e. I'm taking a very few examples of this behaviour for granted in the population at large), or, in extension of this, if this behaviour is actually emergent from IC motivations or if it's because people get a tad bored with being "just joe immortal spaceship captain".

Examples of such behaviour include:

-Pod pilots going on a solo (!) covert mission to steal something from another capsuleers heavily defended home.
- Pod pilots stretching their legs on planets in systems that have been 'captured' mere hours ago by their faction.

[lallara zhuul]

Ahh, so its about how people portray their characters acting outside the pod.

I think I have the right answer for this.

It is because all of the characters in EVE are Mary Sues.

[Ciarente]

Yes, I find that a little confusing too ... it is easier/more fun to RP your character doing something than their massive security force doing it, unless you're an alt-a-holic like me.

Some characters have convincing reasons to be more physical, IMO, since pod piloting has been around for not that long and many older characters would have a previous background that might well include military or similar training. Perhaps they miss the physical activity?

[Ashar Kor-Azor]

1. Overconfidence.
2. Cabin fever. They've heard and heard and heard about the security risks.
3. Stupidity. Capsuleers are capsuleers because they can avoid mindlock and pass college exams, not because they're wise.
4. The very real capacity of these people to hire thousands to hundreds of thousands of troops and crew to make a location safe.
5. The technology to bring the dead back to life. It's been argued and proven and made canon that there's ways to grow a clone out of pod; they'd have a hold in their memory and a lot of complications in their lives, but they wouldn't be dead, in the strictest sense.

[Vincent Pryce]

Well, my reason for going for the "Amazing Adventures!" because there is only so much conniving and looking grimdark, washing the dishes, going shopping and drinking absinthe at the Last Gate you can do before it turns, well, really boring

Secondly IC reason is that Vince is reckless. He acts on a whim and he wants to feel alive, to feel human, and he is a firm believer of "We all die someday, why not live little until we do?".

Granted going out there doing dangerous exciting stuff that could get you killed isn't particularly logical or realistic for the characters of stature, but, it is fun.

[Wanoah]

If we're talking about capsuleers taking unnecessary risks out-of-pod, then yeah, I'm sure we can handwave plenty of reasons why they would do so. Having that degree of backup would lend itself to a certain sense of ennui I would think. In space, I am nigh on immortal. Elsewhere, the thrill of vulnerability calls to me like the siren's song.

If we're talking about why so many people choose to mostly write about out-of-pod experiences when they write about their characters, or Eve in general, then I think there are a couple of major reasons. First, we're all very familiar with what happens in space because that's the game we play(ed). Why write about it? What more can you add? Second, pod pilots are inherently dull. In space, there's nothing at stake. Barely any dramatic tension at all. You have to work hard to make a reader give a crap about the character. While conceptually interesting and essential from a gameplay POV, the clone sucks the natural drama out of anything that takes place in a spaceship.

[Gottii]

Well, I would say its two things, maybe a combination of them.

In real life, I come from a line a fighter pilots actually, from my grandfather on down.  And I had a chance to serve (and party) with a number of pilots when I was attached to an air wing.  All of this kinda taught me one thing.

Fighter pilots do really dumb things.

The same reasons that drives them to push their aircraft are the same reasons you dont want them driving your car.  Their risk takers by nature, moreover, they need it. Theyre sharks, constantly having to move or they feel like theyre dying.

So, on a whole, capsuleers would come from that same vein. Theyre all combat pilots on some level, or at least most of the pilots we tell stories about are. They would need that rush, that risk.  Its just how they function.  

(cue carebear/high-sec/miner joke here...im speaking as far as RPs go, not the reality of the EVE game)

Now, take those pilots who need that risk to feel like theyre alive, then tell them they cant die in combat.  Now, you've taken that edge away from them, that adrenaline rush. Theyve got to find it somewhere.

Basically, a fighter pilot suffering from existential ennui is going to do really, really, really risky behavior just to feel like theyre still the people they were.  

Edit:  Also, what Wanoah said

Last Edit:  Also, take the above personality type, then make them live for centuries.  I think our characters are all gonna go bat shit crazy, and end up taking the kind of risks that made the scene from "The Deerhunter" seem reasonable.

[Ulphus]

Last Edit:  Also, take the above personality type, then make them live for centuries.  I think our characters are all gonna go bat shit crazy, and end up taking the kind of risks that made the scene from "The Deerhunter" seem reasonable.

People keep saying that, but there's only been pod-pilots for less than 10 years.

I mean, doctors don't even like predicting the long-term effects of some surgery or drugs because we haven't had enough of them around for long enough time to see the potential long term effects. And we've had some of them for decades.

So to me, calling pod-pilots immortal is like people saying CD-ROMs will last forever, before we'd had them long enough to tell that they break down chemically after 15 years....

What the long term psychological issues will be for pod-pilots seems complete conjecture, although current evidence is for a certain amount of narcisitic risk taking...

[Casiella]

As I understand it (and perhaps somebody recalls the details from Jovian Wetgrave better than I do), the Jovians have had this tech for considerably longer. That's not to say, of course, that they might have some specific difference in their genetics that will end up causing major problems down the road for capsuleers.

But for certain, they've had the tech at least since the Minmatar Rebellion, because their defeat of the Amarrians served as a catalyst for said rebellion, IIRC.

[Silver Night]

Well, as far as my recollection of PF goes: Cloning and pod tech have both been around for a while (toward the end of the Caldari-Gallente war, for pod tech). It is the combination of the two that makes pod pilots like our characters 'special' and that wasn't publicly released until about 7 years ago (and might have been available to governments for some unknown time before that, but still comparatively new.)

[Arnulf Ogunkoya]

It's true, stereotypes can be annoying. Sometimes there are good reasons though.

I decided to buck the "my parents are dead" trend. I did decide to have Arnulf's mother die. However it was from natural causes. I had a originally decided that his father was in the Republic Fleet Marines and that, when Arnulf went into the RMS, was a senior NCO. I was more-or-less thinking in terms of the story of "An Officer & A Gentleman."

His parents taught him all about personal responsibility and discipline. So he keeps up with his close combat and marksmanship training as a form of same. Challenge him to a duel and you'll be invited to present yourself at a suitable station with your hand to hand weapon of choice. He doesn't consider it reasonable to expect crew to defend his personal honour so he doesn't ship-duel. He's also more than slightly disdainful of tournaments that involve blowing up the larger ship classes, but that's incidental to this discussion.

The existence of jump clones implies that brain scans can be done on a slow burn, without destroying the brain they are taken from. Therefore persona backups and re-cloning after out of pod death are reasonable assumptions. So are any jump clone trained pilots being suicidal even if they get into an out of pod dangerous situation?

[Casiella]

Particularly given that Zainou's CEO was the "first" to upload his consciousness into a computer, I don't even know that we always have to have physical bodies. A station trader in Jita well might not.

[Natalcya Katla]

Katla's parents were killed, but she's forgotten all about that by now.