How I Got Here
February 2018. I started playing because I watched 9-4RP2 on Twitch. Massive fleets clashing, the server buckling under them — I thought it was epic, and I wanted to be in the middle of it leading the charge.
I joined Pandemic Horde and went on roams constantly with FCs like Alphastarpilot. Eventually we took a Caracal fleet to Delve. The Goons who lived there dropped titans on us. We were demolished, and as I sat in my pod watching the fleet evaporate, I fell in love with it — a game where, if you aren't careful, you find out exactly who the bigger fish is instead of just knowing one's out there.
Then I joined Goons. I started pinging destroyer fleets immediately, moved up to cruisers and bigger, and ran fleets every single day for dozens and sometimes hundreds of people. In July 2018 they took me on as a strategic commander, and I worked with the group's AUTZ through the Pure Blind wars — including X47L-Q, the battle that drove the server to its breaking point. Months earlier I had been watching this war on a stream. Over those years I led thousands of pilots against thousands more and put trillions of ISK on killmails, one way or the other. It was my favourite thing to do in EVE.
Then Blackout happened. The fleets I brought — a few dozen cruisers with logi, sometimes battlecruisers — started getting answered with supers and titans. No more good fights. No more good will. No more assuming the fleet on D-scan wasn't there to ruin your day. Every outing met overwhelming force instead of a fair one, my motivation went, numbers shrank, and eventually I was done trying to provide good fights in an environment that wouldn't reciprocate. I started pre-arranging them instead. My last outing was a battleship showdown, 100+ a side, agreed in advance. We won, killed a Phoenix on the way, and that was that.
Within weeks I'd stopped running fleets entirely. I left the alliance to start my own, which was a non-starter, and then an FC in Northern Coalition picked me up and got me up to speed. Panfam from then on — until I was removed from Pandemic Legion over personal differences. The alliance leader used slurs in comms, I corrected him, and he didn't like being corrected.
Now I'm in Test. Panfam is gone, so I'm WinterCo. Our last war ended with Goons putting thousands of Vexors on a Keepstar — the same tactic we'd used on one weeks earlier. Neither of those should have been possible. Because they were, every outing meant hours of tidi and a server buckling under the weight of it. That's not sustainable, and it's most of why I'm running.