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Friday, October 29, 2010

A Discussion on Loyalty

I've not yet been invited to Blog Banters, but a little initiative never hurt.

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Welcome to the twenty-second installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week or so to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month topic is brought to us by L'Dene Bean of Nitpickin's who asks: Why, and how did you pick your corporation? Is your loyalty solid or just until a better placed organization "recruits" you. The shorter version: Who holds your Unshakable Fealty and why?

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Actually, it hasn't been so much that I picked my corporation as it's been just going with the flow.


My first capsuleer corp was Crimson Light Horse Brigade. I was brand new to the wide open Galaxy, and had been essentially mission running for Quafe in Eystur for over a month. I'd had no idea what pilot corps were like, much less how to join one, even less what I could expect.


Unlike, apparently most people, I did zero research into my new life off world. As such, I had not a clue. So when I was asked to join a pilot corp, I thought to myself, "Why not? What have I to lose?"


So I joined.


Things were relatively good for a bit. Until halfway through my career there I'd mostly continued mission running, not knowing what else to do, if there was much else to do, and making friends in the corp comm channels. Space was  wondrous place at that time. About halfway through, enough of us pooled our ISK and went to W-Space for three months, where old bonds strengthed between those of us that went in and stayed in, and for the most part frayed with the rest.


Obviously, this literal corp division was causing a corp breakdown. Upon leaving W-Space for EMPIRE, I had assumed things would knit back together. This was not the case however, as those of us who lived in W-Space felt the desire for combat while the EMPIRE dwellers by and large wanted to stick to the productive citizen routine.


The corp split. I had a choice to make: Do I stay with my old corp, and my old CEO, who's interests were not aligned with my own and appeared to be in fact blocking my interests? Or do I leave for greener pastures with those I had the strongest bonds with? Or, do I toss it all into the wind and go elsewhere to seek my goals?


Down one road laid blind loyalty to a construct. Down the second lay friendship and trust geared towards my goals. Down the last lay a new beginning, an end to everything I'd built up.


I opted for the second path. I joined my W-Space comrades (the main group I associated with, since we all pooled our money to make W-Space residency possible), and the new corp was Spartan Guard.


The moral of my story is this: loyalty is fine, to a point. Being loyal when it interferes with your life is another thing, often called blind stupid loyalty. You've only got control over your own life, and you can only live it to the best of your ability. If something is prohibiting that, you need to get by it in whatever fashion does that best. But you need a group you trust also, because without it, you're a solo vagrant earning ISK and forever on the run, always isolated, and in the end, tired of it all. Suicide may result.


My loyalty lies with those I trust who will also help me achieve my ambitions, not to a construct created to "join pilots together". Any more or less loyalty than that is a disservice to myself and those I associate with.

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