Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Holies do the Darnedest Things (part 1)

*Today's guest contributor is Kiritsubo*

For the experienced naturalist it is well known that long term exposure to wormhole radiation induces bizarre behavior. On a spontaneous Saturday night roam Nerbert and I encountered several fascinating examples of Holies in their native environment.

Going down from Odatrik our first J system had a few POSes but no active players. Nerbert probed for other holes while I D-scanned all the POSes. Finding another hole we proceeded down further. Our initial D-scan showed a Prowler and some POS rubbish. I quickly got eyes on both stations and saw that the Prowler was not at either.

At about this point we think he saw Nerbert’s scan probes and cloaked up. No big, he finishes the scan and we go down another hole. The third system was uninhabited; we probe a bit and find an exit up to low sec. A dead end so we head back up the wormhole chain.

A quick D-scan shows the Prowler active again and we had narrowed down his location enough the first time through probe him without alerting. Nerbert warped in to get eyes on him and attempted to describe the scene. What followed was a jumble to verbs and nouns that made little sense; I had to warp in myself to appraise the situation. Sitting from our vantage point were a dozen Small Secure Containers strung out roughly a few hundred kilometers from each other, two Small Mobile Warp Disruptors and an uncloaked Prowler, piloted by
Alia Ravenswing, CEO of Dark Hat, warping randomly (?) between the cans.

The screen captures don’t do justice to this baffling artifact.



Nerbert and I quickly discussed what the possible uses for such an arrangement could be and the sociological implications of this savage dance. A mating ritual, some attempt to propitiate the local deity or a trap for the unwary anthropologist? As the untimely warning of Admiral Ackbar’s screamed in our heads we decided to engage. We warped to 30 on the can to which our subject was closest and attacked. To disappointing results.

Nerbert’s bomb launched successfully, but mine was fumbled due to some recent changes I’d made to the UI. The Prowler cloaked up immediately after we uncloaked, but was briefly de-cloaked by the bomb as he warped to a POS. We quickly got eyes on the POS and showed him ejecting Battlecruiser, Strat Cruisers and other ships from a hanger. This puffer fish response may be a natural reaction to ward off predators; our subject did have the sense to jump in a Loki fitted with CovOps sub-system.

We stuck around awhile longer observing the Loki travel through the up hole a few times, revisit his space totem and finally return to the POS. All the ejected ships were arduously returned to the hanger and the subject logged off.

The meaning of all this furious green activity will be for future generations to puzzle over and study. All I know is we got a serious case of blue balls.

Gentle reader, if you are still with us, please be assured that part 2 of our story will contain blood.

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