WU-TANK

Excerpt retrieved from unknown journal entry
Hevrice solar system
Verge Vendor

We caught up with reclusive leader of Screaming Hayabusa, Miura Bull, as he took questions on his time in New Eden and his new alliance creation, a mysterious collaborative registered as WU-TANK.

Let's start with the name WU-TANK. What's the idea behind the name?

There's no real idea as such. We are the WU-TANK. That's all there is to it, honestly. I could maybe expand and add some romanticism to the name, the brand if you like, maybe I could tell you about a phase I went through where I'd name all my ships WU-TANK or a variation thereof. Yeah we'll go with that. I'd have the crews daub WU-TANK in bright white paint on the side of my ships and I would look at them and they'd be like, okay, whatever, and they'd pick up one of those massive industrial paint rollers. We got through a lot of paint back then.

Okay, the ticker. WUUUU. What's that all about?

It's the WUUUU man. You know, when you get in the zone and you ENTER THE WUUUU. I think that's where we are at in our eve life, we are entering the WUUUU, perhaps some of us are already there. The WUUUU is a place of intrigue, a feeling, it's somewhere between nowhere and that space behind the Red Door. If I'm warping an Enyo into a fight I know I maybe can't take but I want to see what mischief can be caused, red or green on the killroll who cares, as long as I'm warping in and in my head I'm saying to myself ENTER THE WUUUU. That's where I am at, that's where my boys and girls are at. When you ask what's the WUUUU all about, just know it's the WUUUU. 

What happened to the last alliance you fronted, the Neo-Bushido Movement?

Well, I never actually registered the movement in my name, let me just get that out there. I had a team pulling the strings and one of them one day forgets to pay a bill and you know how it is, suddenly we're an alliance no more. But we are still the Neo-Bushido Movement, we are still out there searching for the Red Door. I think also at the time a lot of us were away from combat duties, living out a lifestyle away from our ships, so not being in an alliance didn't really matter at that time. 

So it matters now to be in an alliance?

Nah, not really.

Can you talk a bit about the corporations under the WU-TANK banner?

I think in SKRMR we have a good bunch of pilots who have flown together, or at least worn the same colours, for a very long time. So I would say that SKRMR is a home for some who at various points in the timeline became lost. Something like that. We're coming up to nine years as a corp, but a lot of us have been together way before that, from the first days of our life in New Eden even.
Hayabusa Black Caste is an offshoot of SKRMR in the sense that the members in there have all flown as SKRMR pilots, and it's really just a couple of guys who I gave a bit of creative freedom to. 5KRMR has recruited some body-doubles as well who are happy to be used in my place at certain events. 

Are there any requirements expected of alliance members? Dress code or any rules to follow?

I wouldn't say we have rules as such. My pilots are free to do as they please. As for dress codes, well, I did put it out there that I expected everyone to paint their faces, warrior-like, and I wanted everyone to look terrifying. To turn up to battle and to have your face pasted on the killboards and billboards with a mask of war and wearing the clothes of those you have murdered in the spacelanes, all that has a kind of appeal to me around it. I know some took it on board and went wild with the facepaint and metal and tattoos. Then we have pilots like, well I can't really say any names but certain individuals who I have a lot of respect for just read the memo and laughed.

Have you noticed an increase in activity within your ranks?

I think so yes. We have a core of pilots who are always out there doing their thing. New Eden seems to be in the right place for us now in our story so yes, activity is good right now. Pilots are coming back and registering for duty after months and years off of the roll and flying again, which is always a good sign.

Take us through a typical day for a WU-TANK pilot?

I'd say we have a varied bunch who all play the game differently. One might be available for combat duties in the morning, he might wake up in Jita with not a single ship to his name, purchase whatever he feels like flying that day, undock and light a smoke and a filament and then roam wherever the stargates take him. Later that evening he might dress up as a gladiator and play in the arena if there's anything like that happening.
Another pilot might be out in some lowsec hellhole with his bucket of ships and he might be sporting the black flag and waiting for some content to come his way, not worrying about sec status and the fancy trappings of the Jita lifestyle.
Somebody else might start his day with a bubble camp in nullsec before he is chased away by the locals. We might have somebody lurking and watching in a wormhole.
We're all of the same mettle but we will all do different things. So a typical day could be anything, as long as pilots are out there and posting up kills and losses and sharing their battle reports then we're all happy.

Tell us more about Miura Bull? Where is he at in his New Eden story?

I'd say he is content right now. Life is good.

Do WU-TANK have a home base?

Not really in the sense that we lay down roots anywhere. We are more of a travelling circus, a combat freak show, a festival of tricksters and gypsies, of vagabonds wandering the skies looking for the next fix. A bunch of us like to keep on the correct side of the law and base out of Jita, it's just easier. Then we have hardened criminals who live by the skull and who would be asked to wash before setting foot in the capital and they enjoy that way of life and that's absolutely fine. 
I think a lot of guys have a spiritual base and some will say that will be Amamake or Molden Heath or Hevrice. 

We're conducting this interview in an office in Hevrice, is this a kind of home?

I think that's a fair assumption. Although it's more of an outpost for some of us. I enjoy it personally as I find it is a good location for roaming further afield and if I am coming back from a roam I can always point to Hevrice and know there will be black flags flying and company waiting. I'd say Hev has become an unofficial lowsec meeting point and some of the guys enjoy the content there. Also going back to the spiritual side of things and a bunch of us cut our teeth out this way.

Is WU-TANK recruiting corporations or pilots at the moment?

Pilots are always welcome to apply. We might not be quite what they expect though, we're more of a cult than a corp if I'm being honest. We're mainly solo social anti-socials who will band up at times but most of the time we're out there creating our own content. As for corporations joining, it's not really something we're looking to do, there might be a rare exemption for old SKRMR pilots coming back with a corp of their own and uniting under one banner but that's about it.  

Neo-Bushido Movement was famously statistically the MOST FUN alliance in all of New Eden, how did that come about?

Yeah that was a golden age. We had pilots in seemingly every corner of space and all I'd say the key ingredient to make that statistic come alive was our pilots out there flying frigates. At the core of everything 'fun' is a pilot out there in a frigate. I like to fly the heavier metal from time to time but I'm always drawn back to the frigate, it's my bread and butter and always will be.

Do you think you can recreate that with WU-TANK?

No.

What are the perks of flying with WU-TANK?

Perks? I don't know really. We have a full ship reimbursement policy where all costs are covered, terms and conditions apply. We have first class medical care and generous loot share schemes. Members of SKRMR can buy shares and become a shareholder, giving them a say in all matters going forward, terms and conditions apply. You get to be a part of a necromantic cult and you get to fly with a great bunch of people.

Where do you see WU-TANK in five years time?

If we remember to pay the bills I'd like to hope that we are doing exactly the same thing. Flying the same ships with the same style, the same swagger and ferocity, perhaps with a few more new faces and also with the return of some veterans. We'll still be here, that is for certain. 

End//

The Tree

Above the mountain stretches a thundering velvet sky like a wicked wartorn iron armour enveloping the peaks and surrounding lowlands with its unshifting stillness as if it has been here for an age of everlasting. Snow falls as if it will never stop falling and the ice glitters in contrast to the somber blackness. The forest below keeps within its shadows a darkness that no man wishes to experience, but alluring as it is for some, only they will know what lures them. A cold wind whips with no direction or purpose and dances around like a band of screaming warhorses, and carrying with them the snow that swirls and drifts and then dies like those who themselves are on that same journey.

They say the Red Door that they speak of is just a gimmick. When they reach the peak they find not a door but a tree with stunning greenery that defies the surrounding corruption and bleakness. The warrior arrives weary and battle-scarred but a golden warmth carries him back, for if the tree is green then it is not dead and only if the tree is dead and without leaf does the Door appear. But in an act of mind-numbing disapproval in that very moment the wanderer will never really know about the tree or its green life-giving brilliance because he will already be carrying with him a heavy cold dead black heart that knows nothing about anything else but the impending death or glory that will soon greet him.

And because the tree is nearly always in flower and green, the tragic play goes full circle more often than not and in a world of thieves and wolfbrothers where violence and greed and death and betrayal are the gears of lust that drive the mechanism of desire, our warrior finds himself back where he started. And back at the beginning he dreams of a mountain that he knows nothing about.


MB.

Don't Yet Scream Thy Last Scream

The sky was clear and black above and nothing else. Bones on the floor of those who had gone before. Death came upon him and stood at his side, and he knelt there in waiting and Death gently looked down on him and snaked a bony finger atop his head and down toward the back of his neck. Such tease. Then he slept. Or was he already? He couldn't tell.

In his dreams he saw a cemetery on a hill in some land he could not recognise and the tombstones were a pale whitish-red and the names were etched a deep black but he could not read them. As the sun set, blood orange bars of light flooded the sky. Then he saw the fire and the wind chopped up and the flames licked and spat as darkness fell and horses ran wildly through the flames.

He woke with one eye. The other was still sleeping. The room was cold and black and he pulled his black jacket over him in a fashion. After a few attempts at warmth and returning to slumber he gave up, fumbled for the light controls and filled the room a sickly bright yellow that stung and poked at the back of his eyes like an unwelcome needle. In the bathroom he washed away a metallic and concrete aftertaste with a waterfall of synthetic water.

All along the station the ships went, their lights shining and blipping eerily to the backdrop of the vast ceiling of emptiness above them and he sat there and watched maybe a hundred ships come and go. Through the tunnels below him he watched them weave like little dots of insignificance, dulled by the high-reaching towers of steel and structure. He watched them with warpaint and he watched them new. The bots repaired them and the machines crushed them. As if sat atop a great cathedral he watched long into the night, the ships.

The top of the station roof buzzed and clicked and bits rattled as if the entire thing was a living creature. A mechanic walked steadily past him without acknowledgment. He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with stale station air and he thought for a very brief moment about the fresh air of home. He looked across at a huge row of black windows, the blacklight above them casting them in a strange but appealing light and a billboard reading DANCE flashed high above. He laughed to himself and thought no not tonight.

He felt like right now at this very moment in time he had reached a crossroads and he had to make the decision. He rose from the seat on the balcony, with a slight pang thudding in his cold dead black heart, turned on his bootheels and dug them with a clink into the black metal flooring. He strode towards the elevator and smacked a leather glove hard on the button that said HANGAR, and in doing so he smiled to himself.


MB.

Heild

“Like the generations of leaves, the lives of mortal men. Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth, now the living timber bursts with the new buds and spring comes round again. And so with men: as one generation comes to life, another dies away.”
― Homer, The Iliad

There was once a dream that was Heild

Heild.

Final Scene.

The Veteran and the Rookie Frigate Fighter and the Lost Art of Lovemaking

Somewhere in a New Eden chat channel, circa YC 114.

Living in the wake of the Great Frigate Revolution, all that he craved were the answers to the many questions he had buzzing around in his mind. Scraps of paper littered the desk in front of him, some seemingly no longer making any sense, mixed in with the graphs and charts and various other forms of data. To the untrained eye it probably looked like some kind of messy shorthand.

The Burnt Lands Evolved

Many downtimes ago now back in July 2010, a good friend of mine, Mr Snypes, the Intergalactic Man of Leisure, penned the following words on low sec with the title 'The Burnt Lands'.

Low sec in EVE reminds me of an inner city ghetto. Kids with ski masks ganging up on someone and threatening to stick em if he doesn't give up his chain and the $5 in his wallet. Pimped out "economy" class space ships flying around because nice rides get left on a stack of bricks with nothing left but the stale air freshener you were supposed to change 5 months ago. Seedy people hanging outside the stations wearing aviators, smoking a cigarette, eyeing people up until they see someone weak enough they can take his pocket change to get themselves a cup of coffee. You all get the idea.

What is a Frigate Junkie?

A little brainstorming session in a random fashion of traits, habits and stereotypes that I think most frigate pilots will be able to relate to. Perhaps you find yourself nodding your head in agreement or disagreeing slightly. Maybe I have missed some really obvious ones or you have something else that you'd consider worthy of making the list. It would be great to hear other people's thoughts on their profession or maybe even from people who don't do frigates.

[SKRMR] World Champions

It seems so long ago now when the stars first aligned and the fiery winds cut across the barren foot of a snowy Mount SKRMR back in March 2013 when only five pilots contested the first ever SKRMR World Killboard Championship, a world away from today's hectic struggle as some 21 pilots jostle for pole position each month at the top of the blood-spattered leaderboard.

The Four Atrons of the Apocalypse

The Four Atrons of the Apocalypse are described in the last Book of SKRMR, called the Book of Atrons. The chapter tells of a book held in Miura's right hand that is sealed with seven seals. The Lion of Rifter (Wensley), opens the first four of the seven seals, which summons four beings that ride out on white, red, black, and pale atrons. Although some interpretations differ, in most accounts, the four riders are seen as the beginning of a new age in frigate combat and the symbolizing of Conquest, War, Famine, and Death, respectively. The Screaming Hayabusa apocalyptic vision is that the four atrons are to set a divine apocalypse upon New Eden as harbingers of the Last Judgement.