BB26: Beauty, in certain conditions

Welcome to the twenty-sixth 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’s topic was proposed by @KatiaSae of the much praised “To Boldly Go” blog. Katia asks: “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As an astrophotographer, I’ve found it in the stars and planets of New Eden. Where have you found it? Perhaps you’ve found beauty in the ships we fly? Maybe it’s the sight of profits being added to your bottom line? Or maybe it’s the pilot portraits you see in the comm channels? Where ever you’ve found it, write about it and post an image.” Don’t be afraid go beyond the simple visual aspects of EVE as well. Is the EVE Community in itself a thing of beauty? What makes EVE the game, the world, the Community, so appealing to you?

He lay back on the bed with his eyes half closed and a huge smile on his face.

“What are you thinking about, handsome?”

Mike opened one eye to look at her and the grin only got bigger.  “Beauty.  Yours, of course but I was also thinking about the beauty of this whole galaxy.  Do you remember the first time you saw a starmap?  I do.  I was stunned as the instrution progrma rotated it before me and I could zoom in on any system, see the planets and the belts, I think right then was when I wanted to become a podder.”

She punched him on the bicep.  “You know I don’t like that term.”

He chuckled and closed his eyes again.  “I have orbited planets for hours, just taking it all in.  I have paused in the midst of a battle to wonder at the sound and fury combined with the majesty of so many ships working to a single cause.  I pipe screens from my ‘take’ to the rest of the ship, for the crews to see.”

“Why?”

“Lots of reasons.  The folks who fly with me, they deserve to know what is going on.  They also have a right to see the beauty that I do when we is out in space.  The majesty of a nebula in the distance or a star lashing out with flares as we do a close pass.  The shock and awe of a battleship as it snipes a distant target and we fly the close support.  All of it . . . . I almost pity some pilots, I hear they trim the visual inputs to get a bit of an edge in battle, make them that hair quicker.  I ‘spose it works but they are missing the point in trying to achive their ‘perfection’.  They are changing what should be a grand thing into a set of tables and calculations.”  Mike snorted.  “Accountants in Spaaaaaaaace!”

She laughed and snuggled into him.  “So you fly poorer . . . ”

“So my soul can be richer, oui.  It is not just a Gallente thing . . . Amarr have their ships of gold, Minmattar keep their beauty closer to their skin, Caldari . . . ”  He made a face.  “Well, I suppose some of them even find a separate beauty in their spreadsheets that I cannot.  That is what makes this special, this time and these immortal lives we lead.  We can search for something better or enjoy what we have with us.   Either way.  “He sighed with great satisfaction.  “As long as there is beauty we have a reason to fly . . . a reason to keep chasing the dreams we have built for ourselves.”

“Are you chasing your dreams?”

Mike chuckles low with a tone that shot shivers down her spine.  “Well sometimes I let beauty chase me.  But for the most part, yeah.  I am.  Ya know, back home my Tanta, well she be a ‘known’.  Dat what we call famous.  Lot of dancers know her name and a fair number of politicos as well.  But that be on one small planet in one tiny corner of Gallente space.  I have met Knowns of a different sort.  I have talked to them and they even answered me as if I was somebody worth talkin to.”

She rolled her eyes and kept quiet.

“That was the other thing I wanted and am still chasing.  I knew that being a capsuleer meant you could be something special, something that all folks might know.  It be one piece o space and what you do follows you.  We can tap the comms and look up a pilots corporate history.  We can watch and listen and learn how the connections form a huge web.  Some pilots manage to be in a corporation or an alliance of their own and hardly speak to anybody else.  I am not sure they are finding the same beauty I am but something keeps them out there.”

“Kry, for instance, she has an autographed picture of an asteroid and then she went and got Chribba to autograph it.  Roc, well he finds it in music, women and being who and what he is. Other paint picture in the violence of battle, in the political machinations of null or even in the tears of other pilots who have been fooled, tricked, or outplayed.  We don’t all follow the same path nor do we look for the same things but the beauty is there and we each find it in our own ways.  But then, as one person said long ago . . .

“No object is so beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly.”

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Lessons

I do still marvel at the maps.  I do still like the single shard the one universe where you are who you are and everyone playing is in the same game.  I do stop and take in a battle and just lean back and mouth ‘wow.  I think this is why I still play.

I love the community and that was the one thing I found hard to write into the above.  The podcasts, the machinations so far above me that I just see the contrails, the battle and alliances in far off places . . . all of it makes this game more than just a program and a few quests.  We make our own game with all the thorns and warts, all the beauty and wonder.

For that, I thank you all

Try not to prove the last quote true and make it ugly . . . . ok?

m

Other Banterers:

• Where the Frack is My Ship: Love at first sight
• Down By Law: “The Beauty of EVE (ooc)“
• EVOGANDA: The Ballet of Battle
• A Lush in Space: Beauty in a Bottle