Clusterfuck

Clusterfuck.

I try to use good English on my blog, and rarely use any swear words. But today's title is the word that describes today's post most accurately.

There are several pirate corps in our area. They shoot us, we shoot them, its just one big, happy, free-for-all. But sometimes, when the situation sees fit, we pull together and point our guns at a common goal instead of each other.

It all started when we were sitting in a safe spot waiting out our timers, after we had just killed watched some guys Drake self destruct. Self destruct? yeah. You heard right. Golden helmet had the bright idea to make him eject from his ship, but we all failed to see the message were it said the Drake pilot had initiated self destruct.

So we were sitting there, praising GH about his wonderful ideas when a call came over the comms. It was Diva PRM from Quantar Swords.

"What the hell do they want?" I thought. "Their not usually the chatty type"

Accepting the call, I soon learned that Quantars had a Sandstorm. Archon tackled outside their home station. And Quantars wanted our help to kill it.

We don't get on well with Quantars, but I do have alot of respect for them. talking to Diva we made a temporary truce not to shoot each other if we came to help kill the Carrier.

I docked up my ship and quickly boarded and undocked my Tempest, then set a course for Propel Dynamics factory. Which is where the Carrier was said to be tackled.

Exiting warp I saw I wasn't alone. There was already 10+ ships shooting each other and it seemed that the Sandstorm. Archon had got some backup too. I watched to see which ship our temporary friends were shooting, and focused my fire on it. Which just happened to be the Archon.

A little while went by, and not much changed. We were shooting, they were shooting, but none of us were able to down anything due to the carrier repping capability. I thought about just deagressing, when a bunch of red entered system. Checking their info I saw they belonged to Bamboule, Carebear Stare, and Dirty Filthy Perverts. They landed outside the station with a couple of BS's and I assumed they were here to help us kill the Carrier as they didn't agress any of us at first. They opened up a cyno and they brought in a Carrier or two of their own. Still, they didnt shoot us.

So assuming the newly arrived pirates were just here to help, I continued to fire on the Carrier, just as it seemed the Archons tank was starting fail, I noticed one of the Bamboule guys lock me and open fire.

Maybe a mistake?

He fired again, totally destroying my shield. I saw several other Bambo, DFP, and CBS pilots lock me and I knew I was toast. Id had been called primary and their was nothing I could do about it. I overloaded my hardeners and armor repairers in a feeble attempt to maybe hold out long enough to deagress and dock, but it was hopeless. A few moments later my Tempest exploded and I was warping back to my home station in my pod.

Quantar, realising the newly arrived pirate gang wasnt here to help kill the carrier after all, started to deagress, then dock their ships up and it seemed the fight was over.

Looking back at the battle, I think I know why BAMBO, DFP, CBS, didnt shoot us at first. And that's because they also assumed we were on their side. They thought we were helping them to kill Quantar. As soon as they realised we were shooting their new friends, they turned their guns on us. Turning the battle into a clusterfuck.

So there we have it. The problem with being pirates is you can never be sure who's actually on your side and who isn't. I think from now on its better to not assume anything and if a bunch of reds turn up in local, its safe to assume they didn't come to help you out after all.