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[Yoshito Sanders]

Ok, I've had a sudden inspiration and have completely changed my stance on this chron. It is actually an incredibly subtle, amazing aversion of the the A God Am I, Complete Monster capsuleer archetype that some have pushed.

The way I thought of this was because I was thinking how much he was more or less just how a crappy RPer pushes his awesome, badass character who hasn't done anything.

The facts: Omvistus exists in game. He is 2 months old. He is in the Amarr noob corp. Omvistus flies a battleship, has the skills to use large rail guns, and put down dozens of command centers and other PI units all in a short period of time.

Omvistus is actually a new capsuleer who is putting on a front and has no actual power whatsoever and probably flies an extremely poorly fitted battleship.

We know he's Amarr, so it's likely he flies an Amarrian battleship. But he's also fitting railguns. And it appears he's using targeting painters of some sort (the laser sights). He's only two months old, so it's unlikely the skills for his BS or rails or anything else are all that good. He's unlikely to have the skill points to use advanced implants.

Yet his holographic avatar features him extremely creepy with massive implants. It has a booming, echoing voice. He claims to be in a massively important and powerful corp when he is, in fact, actually in the rookie corporation.

Omvistus is just completely and totally pathetic and bluffing. He's trying to sound so cool and badass, but in reality he is a giant tool. He doesn't know how to fit his ship, doesn't know how things work, and is bad at physics (a matter-antimatter annihilation produces known particles, not unidentified ones, for example).

At least, that's the way I'm reading it now, because otherwise it's really, really dumb.

[Svetlana Scarlet]

If the planetary governor had laughed him off the comm, I would take that interpretation.  But the governor did not appear to be taking him less than seriously.

[Casiella]

The governor's clearly not an EVE player.

[Yoshito Sanders]

The governor didn't know. How could he? But we know. We know.

[Ghost Hunter]

So what happens if we pod this guy in game and show the planetary administrator?

[Nascent]

So what happens if we pod this guy in game and show the planetary administrator?

*runs a locator on Omvistus*

And though I side with the camp that says he was bluffing, this will probably lead to posts by members of the opposite camp making claims, sniping back and forth between both camps over the legitimacy of said claims, and a lot of unpleasantness in general.  

[Mithfindel]

As a note, Omvistus was docked in Chaven the last time we know. (As another note, this "temperate planet" happens to be a lava planet. I assume that it'll be retconned at some point to the fifth planet in the system or some other temperate planet.)

However, I'd welcome the guy as a recurring character to later examine his thoughts etc., though of course, primarily the chronicles have concentrated on things that are not generally available to capsuleers (i.e. not ingame).

[Dex_Kivuli]

Omvistus is just completely and totally pathetic and bluffing. He's trying to sound so cool and badass, but in reality he is a giant tool.

This, this and this again. This is what I was thinking the whole time before reading any of this forum response stuff.

I think it was great, I really enjoyed it.

If the planetary governor had laughed him off the comm, I would take that interpretation.  But the governor did not appear to be taking him less than seriously.

My response to this is from the chron itself:

In reality, the efficiency of Federation politics, combined with their peace-oriented foreign policy, had rendered many of his duties unnecessary, resulting in his being regarded by many officials as a glorified middle manager instead of a frontier diplomat.

He's an inexperienced idiot! We only think he's not because the chron is largely told from his perspective. And 9 times out of 10, idiots don't know they're idiots.

I for one, greatly enjoyed the chron and what it implied. That the planet-bound have an inflated sense of the capsuleers, allowing noob rookies to mouth off while showing a scary image of himself with his darth vadar voice synthesiser. He's a toothless tiger, but Yvesk has no experience or knowledge to say otherwise.

[Yoshito Sanders]

I for one, greatly enjoyed the chron and what it implied. That the planet-bound have an inflated sense of the capsuleers, allowing noob rookies to mouth off while showing a scary image of himself with his darth vadar voice synthesiser. He's a toothless tiger, but Yvesk has no experience or knowledge to say otherwise.

Yes, I think it's totally this. It was wonderfully subtle though and demonstrates excellently the usefulness of an unreliable narrator. I totally should have noticed it since I know Abraxas has stated Gene Wolfe as one of his inspirations and I've also been recently reading a shit ton of Gene Wolfe (and am thus inundated with the good unreliable narrator). But it took me a day to put it all together.

[Casiella]

For the record, CCP Headfirst (not Abraxas) wrote this particular chronicle.

[Yoshito Sanders]

Oh? Missed that part. Never heard of Headfirst before.

[Esna Pitoojee]

After reading this thread up until the post prior to this, then reading the Chronicle again, I have to say that I, also, suddenly find this to be greatly amusing. All other stuff aside, it comletely meshes with who capsuleers are - Omvistus still doesn't give a damn about the planet dwellers; he, however, is not about to wipe out several million people just to get his way. He knows better than that. So he plays on everything from the planetary governor's ignorance and stupidity to the mythos and terror that they regard capsuleers with, and plays it perfectly.

[Svetlana Scarlet]

The problem with the amusing interpretation is that there is absolutely no context in the story that would make you come to that conclusion.  If there was, I'd be willing to grant it, but nothing in the story gives any indication that it is a ridiculous threat.

[Yoshito Sanders]

There's not supposed to be any context though. If a big, scary guy corners you in an alley and tells you to give him your money or he'll shoot, there's probably not gonna be any hints even if he's only got an unloaded gun and wouldn't shoot you even if there were bullets in it.

But there's subtext all over. It's pointed out that the capsuleer doesn't look like how he appears to the governor. So you know he's purposefully choosing the intimidating look, just because it's intimidating. Add that to the out-of-story knowledge (you know CCP can age the character and could make a corp for him if they wanted to. If they went through the effort to create the character in game, why not go the whole way unless you purposefully don't want to?) and the conclusion is the "amusing" interpretation.

[Svetlana Scarlet]

If my job was to regularly deal with chump muggers though, I think I could pick out a chump mugger pretty easily.  I dunno.  I also think the "capsuleers are unassailable demigods" theme has been one CCP has pushed before to my displeasure, so I tend to think this is just more of the same.