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[Jason Galente]

I'm really shocked there isn't already a thread about this!

So, I'm finally getting a chance to read all of the EVE Series books (No spoilers please!) but I'm seeing a lot of The Broker in Empyrean Age, I know of this character from my knowledge of the background lore but there are a few things I want to ask other RPers about him and the effect this elusive, borderline-conspiracy-theory primary antagonist has on the lore/RP of a sandbox like EVE.

If you don't want to know about The Broker or haven't had the chance to read Empyrean Age yet, there are some light spoilers.

[spoiler]
How do you approach his existence/the consequences of his existence? While he is exceptional at covering his tracks in the lore and just about impossible to pinpoint due to his mastery of subterfuge and his immortality/ability to change faces, there are some circumstantially strange scenarios of huge significance to the lore that result from his actions. One of the most glaring ones I've noticed so far are the Malkalen Incident. The act seems a bit imprecise and amateurish for The Broker. The quality of The Broker's cover here was poor, compared to other incidents, the admiral's final transmission was like something out of a bad soap opera. Combined with the suspicious change in personality/convenience of killing almost all of the cluster's peace advocates in a single act of terrorism, makes this a very odd incident that would attract independent, fearless investigators. Wouldn't capsuleers, who have unlimited resources, time, and little vulnerability to blackmail, be looking into these events? Another example being Tibus Heth's corporate takeover of Caldari Constructions. Tibus Heth was all over international media after the riot, footage of him trying to save the negotiator was everywhere, and the incident caused a massive change in public temperament in Caldari society and even a change in culture for a while, with the country eventually becoming more populist, militant, and nationalist, all of which was intended by The Broker when he transferred Caldari Constructions to Tibus Heth after blackmailing all of its executives into transferring their shares to him, which was no small feat. So wouldn't capsuleers have found this interesting enough to look into beyond a two page news article and some 30 second clip of footage from the fight? Here's the thing with this incident: the Caldari State is portrayed in Empyrean Age as being very stratified, with 90-95% of citizens living hard, industrial lives with little in terms of savings and economic power, and a 5-10% class of very rich, successful businessmen. The State has very extensive public records on people, with employment prospects limited to natural merit, which would require extensive monitoring and testing to determine. Therefor, a State citizen would be a relatively known entity in terms of information available about them, compared to other areas with less of an effective surveillance state. So how exactly did The Broker manage to blackmail these executives, in secret, into transferring all of their shares to him without anyone noticing this, and how did he then transfer it all to Tibus Heth basically overnight, whilst all this attention was on Heth, scrutinizing him heavily? Nobody thought to look into who this Xavier character who transferred him an entire corporation was? Is The Broker so thorough that he never misses any spots when he creates his identities? Wouldn't someone, anyone, a capsuleer, have figured out that at least some events in New Eden don't seem to completely add up, often involving the most powerful and influential people in the galaxy?

To that end, do any of your characters know about The Broker? Do they have similar questions, curiosity or suspicions? If so, how did your character come to have this information? (after all, capsuleers are pretty powerful and influential even without taking it to The Broker's depths, if we knew where to look and who to squeeze to get info, we probably could). And what do you think is a good rule of thumb, if any, to have when you want your character to flirt with theories about The Broker? What knowledge in the books is considered somewhat available/attainable to a curious mind? And to what extent would knowledge of The Broker be meta-gaming?[/spoiler]

[Syagrius]

I must admit I am a complete nerd when it comes to Eve lore.  Despite its occasionally schizophrenic and patchwork nature, I tend to be something of a purist.

Having read every 'Eve book' written, I don't see how James would 'know' about the individual known as the Broker.  Now are their suspicions that someone, somewhere is pulling strings, of course. But again they are just suspicions.

[Elmund Egivand]

Well, I am sure it is something of an unwritten agreement that we are not going to roleplay knowing anything about the Broker.

As for why there isn't a serious roleplay about figuring out Malkalen, I think it's partly because those were chaotic times and partly of the Broker being pretty good at covering his tracks, which means by the time someone got around to investigating, the leads were already either cold or covered up. Also, the consideration of 'what's in it for me?' would explain why there's only a handful of people (I know of only one guy) who actually takes this seriously.

[kalaratiri]

Nobody knows about the Broker, and to be honest the less said about him the better.

Absolutely terrible character.

Tony G designed him with the explicit intention of allowing himself to do whatever he wanted with the story "because the Broker".

He's got tougher plot armour than Batman, if Batman was also cloning himself so he could do 4 things at once as well.

To put it simply;
[spoiler]REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE[/spoiler]

[Ché Biko]

Well, thanks for calling my roleplay not serious, Elmund. Or are you? I'm not sure.

I used to think that the people were overly obtuse regarding the holes in the official version of Malkalen attack because they went overboard trying not to mix OOC knowledge with IC knowledge. I still think this may be true for some, but considering the last time my char brought this up, it was mostly Caldari referring to the idea of Noir possibly not being solely responsible as a tinfoil theory, it may not be as true as I thought.

Edit: FYI, I'm not completely done with the Noir thing yet. If someone does not mention Noir's words captured by the Jove Observatory, I likely will.

[Graelyn]

It's my understanding that The Broker (when the chronicle about him was published, by CCP Ginger I think) was supposed to represent Istvaan Shogaatsu [GH-SC] and his approach to the game.

To see it get turned into...that...was a bit disappointing.

Another reason this pissed everyone off at the time: The Ushra'Khan had fought for a sample of Insorum (the cure to Vitoc) in-game during an event arc that spanned more than a year. They were successful. They sat on that sample for another half-year or so, desperately demanding that the Republic take this thing from them. Despite activating the event teams for equivalent actions (like the Empire accepting the Imperial Apocalypse delivery in 2004), they simply didn't respond. U'K had to sit there with the salvation of their people, unable to get the gameworld to react to it.

 Along comes this story..talking about the broker taking the sample from Gariushi...while the U'K had that very thing sitting in thier hangar. In-game.

The history of Minmatar RP is best demarcated by Before and After this incident. It pretty much snapped the spine of that particular scene, it never recovered. GG CCP.

[Elmund Egivand]

Well, thanks for calling my roleplay not serious, Elmund. Or are you? I'm not sure.

My grammar is shite.

[Silver Night]

It's my understanding that The Broker (when the chronicle about him was published, by CCP Ginger I think) was supposed to represent Istvaan Shogaatsu [GH-SC] and his approach to the game.

To see it get turned into...that...was a bit disappointing.

Another reason this pissed everyone off at the time: The Ushra'Khan had fought for a sample of Insorum (the cure to Vitoc) in-game during an event arc that spanned more than a year. They were successful. They sat on that sample for another half-year or so, desperately demanding that the Republic take this thing from them. Despite activating the event teams for equivalent actions (like the Empire accepting the Imperial Apocalypse delivery in 2004), they simply didn't respond. U'K had to sit there with the salvation of their people, unable to get the gameworld to react to it.

 Along comes this story..talking about the broker taking the sample from Gariushi...while the U'K had that very thing sitting in thier hangar. In-game.

The history of Minmatar RP is best demarcated by Before and After this incident. It pretty much snapped the spine of that particular scene, it never recovered. GG CCP.

I thought Istvaan/HG wrote it himself. The original Chron obviously. I know he has a credit in the original manual for (I think) writing at least some of the pre-release fiction.

Anyway, yes, the original Broker from the Chron is much better, I feel. The way he was written in TEA compared to the way he was written originally serves as perhaps one of the most blatant representations of what TonyG did to the lore overall.