I do not know who I am anymore.
What I have seen, what I have experienced, what I have done over this half a year of absolute silence; it all has confounded me to the point where I question my own role in the grand scheme of things.
I do not know why I am here.
I was hunted by a foe far beyond my capabilities to take head on, so I evaded them. I ceased all communications and fled, doing whatever I could to survive. To survive, I had to do hasty decision - questionable acts. What ended up happening, caused a lot of innocent blood to be spilled.
I do not know where to go.
I have begun reaching for my old contacts again, reforming connections; the looming threat over me has been dealt with, Even so, my career has been shook deeply. I adapted a whole new way of life over a half-year period, and now I can barely perform a clone soldier contract without feeling like an absolute wreck afterwards. The discomforting feel that I am immortal again has returned.
I do not know who I can trust.
Six months of distrust. Six months of being a puppet. Six months of bloodshed, death and misery for people I barely knew and had no loyalties at all towards. Now, just being around people is making me uneasy.
I do not know why I am doing this.
Just the mere act of bringing these thoughts of mine into words is giving me great struggle, further questioning my decision to do it in the first place. This site has been the place to gather and share my thoughts, but I want to tell more. I want to tell of the deeds I had done, of the experiences I had, but I mustn't. I can't. I won't.
I do not know what to do.
I do not know.
Maybe one day, when my mind is clear I will share these experiences. But for today, and the foreseeable future, pouring my thoughts out onto this page of text will suffice. For all the bad things that have happened though, I can find solace in one thing:
I am not alone anymore.
Denak Kalamari
A Farewell
It seems my past has finally caught up with me.
After being a clone soldier for nearly a year and a half, dragging through the death, pain and discomfort, it has finally become my time to leave. That also means that this blog will be shut down. I won't divulge in the specifics or reasons of my leave, all you need to know is that this blog will no longer be updated because of it.
The first entry to this blog was written on the seventh of July YC 115, nearly a year now. It has come a long way since then, enlightening the clone soldier, capsuleer and baseliner communities with ponderings and analyzing of the life of a clone soldier throughout it all. A lot has changed over this year, my corporation, my agendas and myself as a person. I've questioned my sanity, doubted my own existence, relished the madness and thought a lot about it all.
It feels funny, thinking of how I was going to retire into Intaki V after a long and hard-earned career as a clone soldier, and turns out that dream was shattered long before I could reach it. Instead, I will be on the run, again. Running away from a past that keeps clinging onto me like a leech.
I don't really what to do now. I might disappear into the eather and start anew, maybe restart my old career and atone for my debts. Heck, I could just off myself and be reborn, going through yet another cycle as an entirely new person. Maybe then I could get peace for myself.
Sigh.
In retrospect, my career has been quite a lively one. I suffered through the brutal and rigorous training you take when you first become an immortal, I've survived a manhunt on our kind by Tibus Heth, I've went on a manhunt against our kind, I've participated in the great battle crucial to Tibus Heth's fall, I've suffered through madness, self-doubt and apathy and I've most importantly lived through them all, through countless deaths and rebirths. The endless cycle.
You will probably not hear from me again, at least not through the public channels. You might hear stories from my friends, tales of my adventures. But there will be no new stories, no new adventures to go onto, no new experiences, no new things to write about. Just, running away, and hiding.
I am sad to see it all come to this, to see all my efforts went to waste, my goal of helping the Intaki people secede will never be fulfilled. But there's no bad without good. Regardless of where I may end up, I'll do that knowing that I have left my mark in history. Maybe not as a significant individual, but as being a part of something greater, being one of the first few to have been achieved the closest thing to immortality one can achieve.
I hope all of you readers enjoyed my writings, and I thank you for having encouraged me to keep writing, it has been a blast.
Farewell.
After being a clone soldier for nearly a year and a half, dragging through the death, pain and discomfort, it has finally become my time to leave. That also means that this blog will be shut down. I won't divulge in the specifics or reasons of my leave, all you need to know is that this blog will no longer be updated because of it.
The first entry to this blog was written on the seventh of July YC 115, nearly a year now. It has come a long way since then, enlightening the clone soldier, capsuleer and baseliner communities with ponderings and analyzing of the life of a clone soldier throughout it all. A lot has changed over this year, my corporation, my agendas and myself as a person. I've questioned my sanity, doubted my own existence, relished the madness and thought a lot about it all.
It feels funny, thinking of how I was going to retire into Intaki V after a long and hard-earned career as a clone soldier, and turns out that dream was shattered long before I could reach it. Instead, I will be on the run, again. Running away from a past that keeps clinging onto me like a leech.
I don't really what to do now. I might disappear into the eather and start anew, maybe restart my old career and atone for my debts. Heck, I could just off myself and be reborn, going through yet another cycle as an entirely new person. Maybe then I could get peace for myself.
Sigh.
In retrospect, my career has been quite a lively one. I suffered through the brutal and rigorous training you take when you first become an immortal, I've survived a manhunt on our kind by Tibus Heth, I've went on a manhunt against our kind, I've participated in the great battle crucial to Tibus Heth's fall, I've suffered through madness, self-doubt and apathy and I've most importantly lived through them all, through countless deaths and rebirths. The endless cycle.
You will probably not hear from me again, at least not through the public channels. You might hear stories from my friends, tales of my adventures. But there will be no new stories, no new adventures to go onto, no new experiences, no new things to write about. Just, running away, and hiding.
I am sad to see it all come to this, to see all my efforts went to waste, my goal of helping the Intaki people secede will never be fulfilled. But there's no bad without good. Regardless of where I may end up, I'll do that knowing that I have left my mark in history. Maybe not as a significant individual, but as being a part of something greater, being one of the first few to have been achieved the closest thing to immortality one can achieve.
I hope all of you readers enjoyed my writings, and I thank you for having encouraged me to keep writing, it has been a blast.
Farewell.
Numbness
I just decided to check my statistics my Neocom has kept track of me, and they were quite interesting. I've died 10,610 times, and killed over 20,863 hostiles, and the tracker has calculated that I have a kill-to-death ratio of 1.96. Funny, I barely remember any of those 10,610 deaths. I've had a hard time remembering any of the battles I've fought recently, it's all been just one blur of gunfire, explosions and burning metal. This has been a problem with many older clone soldiers, who have fought for months, even years like me. Just, burning out.
When you're a clone soldier, you are often encouraged to be, careless in battle. You don't really think about the implications of charging into a heavily fortified position to your health and safety, you just do it. This is what every soldier is trained to do though, immortal or not, but with us, it's different.
With us, we are literally suicidal, mindlessly trying to achieve the impossible, only for the slight possibility of maybe getting that critical push, kill or uplink point. If you fail and get killed, it's just a brief flash of pain before waking up in a new clone to do it all again. This is what we do every day, how we sustain ourselves for battle after battle. This also bleeds into our lives when not in the battle. Slowly, you just become numb and uncaring of everything.
First there's the initial shock of actually being the closest thing one can get to immortality. You are confused, scared and very much aware of the pain you're experiencing when you die for the hundredth time. After that, you start getting used to it. You are serious about what you do, and you might find a side to fight for within the Empyrean War. Death is still very painful, but you started to be less and less aware of it as time goes on.
Then as the first few months have passed, a change happens. You start finding things, funny. The way that enemy you just filled with bullets did a cartwheel before collapsing dead on the ground may have made you chuckle, the sight of bodyparts and blood raining down like snowfall after you detonated your remote explosive may seem quite a comical side to you. You start losing your touch with the reality of the battle, it's all just good fun.
More time passes. Months, maybe years, until you start to get even more numb and disconnected of battle. Deaths have started to be just something that feels funny when they happen. Even the pain you feel from death has started to fade away, and you may start to question your own existence. You ask questions like: "Is this me? Am I in control of my body? Is all of this even real?".
And in the end comes apathy.
At one point you just, stop caring, about anything. Death isn't even discomforting anymore, it's merely a financial and tactical inconvenience, a number on a screen. Enemies could may as well be AI, or cardboard cutouts. You just point at the enemy you are paid to shoot at, no questions asked, without a thought on the implications it might have. The way you would see the world in this state would be pure gray. There's no white nor black, not even shades of it. Just dull and consistent gray, nothing more, nothing less.
Some say that at this point you reach the peak of your career. You become the ultimate soldier and mercenary, completely unaffected by pain and death. I agree. But is it a good thing? Not necessarily. Abandoning the very thing that defines a human being, death, can lead to bad consequences.
In the end, when your moral compass is guided by ISK, there is truly no limit to what you can do. And that is the scariest part of it all, and why capsuleers and clone soldiers are dangerous beyond their immorality.
When you're a clone soldier, you are often encouraged to be, careless in battle. You don't really think about the implications of charging into a heavily fortified position to your health and safety, you just do it. This is what every soldier is trained to do though, immortal or not, but with us, it's different.
With us, we are literally suicidal, mindlessly trying to achieve the impossible, only for the slight possibility of maybe getting that critical push, kill or uplink point. If you fail and get killed, it's just a brief flash of pain before waking up in a new clone to do it all again. This is what we do every day, how we sustain ourselves for battle after battle. This also bleeds into our lives when not in the battle. Slowly, you just become numb and uncaring of everything.
First there's the initial shock of actually being the closest thing one can get to immortality. You are confused, scared and very much aware of the pain you're experiencing when you die for the hundredth time. After that, you start getting used to it. You are serious about what you do, and you might find a side to fight for within the Empyrean War. Death is still very painful, but you started to be less and less aware of it as time goes on.
Then as the first few months have passed, a change happens. You start finding things, funny. The way that enemy you just filled with bullets did a cartwheel before collapsing dead on the ground may have made you chuckle, the sight of bodyparts and blood raining down like snowfall after you detonated your remote explosive may seem quite a comical side to you. You start losing your touch with the reality of the battle, it's all just good fun.
More time passes. Months, maybe years, until you start to get even more numb and disconnected of battle. Deaths have started to be just something that feels funny when they happen. Even the pain you feel from death has started to fade away, and you may start to question your own existence. You ask questions like: "Is this me? Am I in control of my body? Is all of this even real?".
And in the end comes apathy.
At one point you just, stop caring, about anything. Death isn't even discomforting anymore, it's merely a financial and tactical inconvenience, a number on a screen. Enemies could may as well be AI, or cardboard cutouts. You just point at the enemy you are paid to shoot at, no questions asked, without a thought on the implications it might have. The way you would see the world in this state would be pure gray. There's no white nor black, not even shades of it. Just dull and consistent gray, nothing more, nothing less.
Some say that at this point you reach the peak of your career. You become the ultimate soldier and mercenary, completely unaffected by pain and death. I agree. But is it a good thing? Not necessarily. Abandoning the very thing that defines a human being, death, can lead to bad consequences.
In the end, when your moral compass is guided by ISK, there is truly no limit to what you can do. And that is the scariest part of it all, and why capsuleers and clone soldiers are dangerous beyond their immorality.
DENAK KALAMARI, GRAHISHA OF THE INTAKI LIBERATION FRONT
Announcement of my Quintupling Service
I was contacted by an advocate of my very distant cousin of Brutor descent, who used to live in Molden Heath just recently, telling that I was on this now deceased cousin's only known relative, making me the inheritor of his wealth. And thus, I have found myself in the ownership of a large sum of ISK, several manors in Amarr Prime, a large armada of supercapital ships, and Quafe Company.
Unfortunately, I have no idea at all what to do with this large amount of wealth I had recently acquired, and my brand new lawyer advised me to liquify all my assets and convert them into ISK, which I did. Although it did not really solve the problem, as now I only have even more ISK, which I can never realistically spend myself. Fortunately for you, the reader, I have come up with a solution.
As the patron saint of the Idama and Intaki, I have set up an ISK quintupling service. The concept is simple, you transfer me a specific amount of ISK, which I will quintuple in size and transfer back to you. I only accept specific amounts, which are the following:
Give me one million ISK, and I give back five million ISK.
Give me five million ISK, and I give back 25 million ISK.
Give me 10 million ISK, and I give back 50 million ISK.
Give me 100 million ISK, and I give back 500 million ISK.
I have also set up a "Bonus Challenge" for those who wish to have their wealth decupled(ten times as much) and all your assets doubled! The only requirements is that you contract me all your assets and wealth, and you will be given a series of challenges. These challenges remain a secret until you enter the Bonus Round and change according to the contender. Losing the challenges means you lose all your assets and wealth.
For those wishing to enter the Bonus Round or have their ISK quintupled, please contact me through the Neocom to negotiate the contracts and have the transfers sorted out. All complaints regarding the service should be forwarded to my lawyer Aldant Nardieu.
I wish you a pleasant April 1st.
Unfortunately, I have no idea at all what to do with this large amount of wealth I had recently acquired, and my brand new lawyer advised me to liquify all my assets and convert them into ISK, which I did. Although it did not really solve the problem, as now I only have even more ISK, which I can never realistically spend myself. Fortunately for you, the reader, I have come up with a solution.
As the patron saint of the Idama and Intaki, I have set up an ISK quintupling service. The concept is simple, you transfer me a specific amount of ISK, which I will quintuple in size and transfer back to you. I only accept specific amounts, which are the following:
Give me one million ISK, and I give back five million ISK.
Give me five million ISK, and I give back 25 million ISK.
Give me 10 million ISK, and I give back 50 million ISK.
Give me 100 million ISK, and I give back 500 million ISK.
I have also set up a "Bonus Challenge" for those who wish to have their wealth decupled(ten times as much) and all your assets doubled! The only requirements is that you contract me all your assets and wealth, and you will be given a series of challenges. These challenges remain a secret until you enter the Bonus Round and change according to the contender. Losing the challenges means you lose all your assets and wealth.
For those wishing to enter the Bonus Round or have their ISK quintupled, please contact me through the Neocom to negotiate the contracts and have the transfers sorted out. All complaints regarding the service should be forwarded to my lawyer Aldant Nardieu.
I wish you a pleasant April 1st.
ཟར༴ཐ٦ཡཐ༴ འཤན༴བ བ༴ཏ༴མ༴ར٦ ٦ནད༴བ٦ ༴འ٦٦ད ན٦བ༴༴ٲ
Discovering Humanity
Today, on the 22nd of March YC 116, marks the one year anniversary of the Battle for Caldari Prime, it marked a historic time in New Eden where the Gallente and Caldari signed a peace treaty over Caldari Prime. To honor the ones who fought there, both in stars and on the ground, and the ones who lost their lives during the conflict, an event has been set up which has already started. Sadly I will be unable to participate, but I will honor the day in my own way, by describing my own experiences of it. As the blog title explains, my story is mostly about discovering myself.
As you may remember from my previous entry, the first few months of my career as a clone soldier were quite hectic and careless. I burnt through bodies faster than I could count, and I was laughing maniacally throughout it all, thinking I was truly immortal. Tibus Heth's attack on our enclaves knocked some sense to me, but I was still not really taking my whole career as seriously as I feel I should have.
Back then I was also fiercely loyal to the Gallente, and when the call to fight on the ground came, I instantly supported the Gallente. Sometimes I even joined the Caldari side to deliberately sabotage their efforts and drain their clone counts(I doubt I was the only one, but despite all this they still managed to emerge victorious on the ground, all the credit to them). I'll describe a certain contract I was deploying on the Caldari side for:
It was just like any other sabotage deployment I did for the Gallente. Spawn at the MCC, get some locus grenades and cook them until I disintegrated, I didn't even care what part of Caldari Prime I was deployed on, I was only ever going to be at the MCC. It was kind of humorous to me in a way, when I saw the other mercenaries looking at me funny as I exploded before they just kept moving, leaving me to my sabotaging.
As I stood there with a grenade ticking away in my hand, I had my thoughts wander off slightly. I don't remember what I was thinking exactly, but it went along the lines of:
"Heh, this will show those Caldari bastards their place! The stupid facist pigs deserve what they got for attacking our land. Why are they attacking anyway? Why is Caldari Prime part of Federation territory? What started this entire conflict?"
I kept going down that train of though, until the point where I just stopped killing myself. I jumped down from the MCC and hung around our base, watching the others fight and thinking why they were doing it. I glanced up at the sky, the wreck of the CN Shiigeru was crashing down into the ground as a massive ball of fire. I could see massive explosions and massive hulks being torn into pieces through the cracks in the cloudy sky.
Right as the battles was going to be finished, the wreck made contact with the planet, sending massive shockwaves kilometers from the impact point and causing massive amounts of damage. Our clones were cut off before we could feel or observe all the effects of the crash, and by the time I got into the next contract the dust had already settled, with the wreck of the Shiigeru burning in the horizon. The civilian casualties caused by the crash were countless.
After that contract, I spent the next few hours on my Neocom, browsing through various articles about the Caldari and Gallente history, what started their hostilities and war, and information about the reasons of this current conflict. What I discovered, shook me quite a bit. Looking back at my fierce loyalty to the Gallente, I felt kind of embarrassed, I was so ignorant of what was actually happening behind the conflict.
Throughout the rest of the conflict, I stopped picking sides. I just went for whichever side the contract system would put me in, and do my best on that side. When the firing ceased and Caldari emerged victorious of the ground battle, I went upon the mercenary message boards as usual. There was a thread about Caldari Prime made by a Gallente loyalist, congratulating other Gallente for successfully beating the fascists.
I promptly began writing how the entire conflict was foolish, for both Gallente and the Caldari, and I spent the next few hours debating about it on that thread. For once, I cared about the humanitarian aspect of the conflict, about the lives lost, about the senseless hatred between both sides, the endless amounts of ignorance both sides showed towards the other. Throughout the next few months, I started to be more aware of the state my homeworld Intaki was in, which eventually led me to this moment, as part of the Intaki Liberation Front.
The Battle for Caldari Prime was a long and painful conflict for both sides, with many unnecessary lives lost and massive damage done to the planet's atmosphere, but in the end a truce was made, which made peaceful relations between Caldari and Gallente possible after centuries of hatred and distrust. While cooperation is most likely something that will never realistically happen due to how distinctly different both empires are in politics and culture, peaceful coexistence is something that I would be looking forward to.
To those who were there on the ground and in the stars during the battle, both military and civilian, I wish you the best of luck. I truly hope coexistence can happen on the planet.
As you may remember from my previous entry, the first few months of my career as a clone soldier were quite hectic and careless. I burnt through bodies faster than I could count, and I was laughing maniacally throughout it all, thinking I was truly immortal. Tibus Heth's attack on our enclaves knocked some sense to me, but I was still not really taking my whole career as seriously as I feel I should have.
Back then I was also fiercely loyal to the Gallente, and when the call to fight on the ground came, I instantly supported the Gallente. Sometimes I even joined the Caldari side to deliberately sabotage their efforts and drain their clone counts(I doubt I was the only one, but despite all this they still managed to emerge victorious on the ground, all the credit to them). I'll describe a certain contract I was deploying on the Caldari side for:
It was just like any other sabotage deployment I did for the Gallente. Spawn at the MCC, get some locus grenades and cook them until I disintegrated, I didn't even care what part of Caldari Prime I was deployed on, I was only ever going to be at the MCC. It was kind of humorous to me in a way, when I saw the other mercenaries looking at me funny as I exploded before they just kept moving, leaving me to my sabotaging.
As I stood there with a grenade ticking away in my hand, I had my thoughts wander off slightly. I don't remember what I was thinking exactly, but it went along the lines of:
"Heh, this will show those Caldari bastards their place! The stupid facist pigs deserve what they got for attacking our land. Why are they attacking anyway? Why is Caldari Prime part of Federation territory? What started this entire conflict?"
I kept going down that train of though, until the point where I just stopped killing myself. I jumped down from the MCC and hung around our base, watching the others fight and thinking why they were doing it. I glanced up at the sky, the wreck of the CN Shiigeru was crashing down into the ground as a massive ball of fire. I could see massive explosions and massive hulks being torn into pieces through the cracks in the cloudy sky.
Right as the battles was going to be finished, the wreck made contact with the planet, sending massive shockwaves kilometers from the impact point and causing massive amounts of damage. Our clones were cut off before we could feel or observe all the effects of the crash, and by the time I got into the next contract the dust had already settled, with the wreck of the Shiigeru burning in the horizon. The civilian casualties caused by the crash were countless.
 |
| This sight was quite shaking when you first saw it. |
After that contract, I spent the next few hours on my Neocom, browsing through various articles about the Caldari and Gallente history, what started their hostilities and war, and information about the reasons of this current conflict. What I discovered, shook me quite a bit. Looking back at my fierce loyalty to the Gallente, I felt kind of embarrassed, I was so ignorant of what was actually happening behind the conflict.
Throughout the rest of the conflict, I stopped picking sides. I just went for whichever side the contract system would put me in, and do my best on that side. When the firing ceased and Caldari emerged victorious of the ground battle, I went upon the mercenary message boards as usual. There was a thread about Caldari Prime made by a Gallente loyalist, congratulating other Gallente for successfully beating the fascists.
I promptly began writing how the entire conflict was foolish, for both Gallente and the Caldari, and I spent the next few hours debating about it on that thread. For once, I cared about the humanitarian aspect of the conflict, about the lives lost, about the senseless hatred between both sides, the endless amounts of ignorance both sides showed towards the other. Throughout the next few months, I started to be more aware of the state my homeworld Intaki was in, which eventually led me to this moment, as part of the Intaki Liberation Front.
The Battle for Caldari Prime was a long and painful conflict for both sides, with many unnecessary lives lost and massive damage done to the planet's atmosphere, but in the end a truce was made, which made peaceful relations between Caldari and Gallente possible after centuries of hatred and distrust. While cooperation is most likely something that will never realistically happen due to how distinctly different both empires are in politics and culture, peaceful coexistence is something that I would be looking forward to.
To those who were there on the ground and in the stars during the battle, both military and civilian, I wish you the best of luck. I truly hope coexistence can happen on the planet.
ཟར༴ཐ٦ཡཐ༴ འཤན༴བ བ༴ཏ༴མ༴ར٦ ٦ནད༴བ٦ ༴འ٦٦ད ན٦བ༴༴ٲ
Beginnings
From the start of my blog to this point, I have focused on factual, essay-like writings analyzing the various different aspects of the life of a mercenary like me. However, I have kind of ran out of things to analyze for now, so after a suggestion from a friend, I have decided to switch to more personal entries, detailing my history as a mercenary. What better way there is to start this than to talk about my first weeks and months as a clone?
The first day I was officially a clone soldier was in December 1st YC 114, as a generation two clone. The weeks and months before that were spent training me to handle the mental strain of the implants installed on me. Like many other clone soldiers, I was confused and shoved roughly into the world of endless dying and war to figure things out by myself. Like many others, the first few contracts I did involved nothing but constant dying and discomfort. I already had training to cope with death and rapid transfers of clones, but no training could really prepare me for the real battle, and it was painful. I tried to utilize my previous experience as a sniper and marksman with the use of sniper rifles, but the device was so alien to me I had no clue how to operate it.
Fortunately I found a few people to help get me started,o ne of these mercenaries being Lorilai Libertas, a scout. He was ultimately my influence into focusing in Gallente scout suits, and he helped me decide what to use with the suit, but he did stress however that you can only get good with experience, which meant dying a lot still.
What happened the next following months are unclear in my memory, but reading the few records that were of me during that time, I seemed to have just, lost it. There was a story of me written in a fairly humorous format about me dodging my way towards a sniper, then jumping right on his face and blasting him full of shotgun pellets, and some, obscene things to the dead body. I also had several cases where I talked to enemy soldiers even though they could never hear me, just for the fun of it and a few cheap laughs from my squad mates.
The first three or so months I didn't at all about my deaths, talked to enemy soldiers even though they could never hear me and generally treating my career as a game, nothing real with no regard to the actual impact my actions had. However this started to change when a series of events happened, which were later collectively dubbed as The Uprising.
Before the Uprising, clone soldiers were still a small and relatively unknown force. After the Uprising however, we started gaining cluster-wide recognition, being involved in empire politics and being key to throw Tibus Heth out of power. It all started with the Templis Dragonaurs attack on Autama IV, Tibus Heth was targeting clone enclaves in an effort to wipe out the clone soldiers. Mordu's Legion came in to stop this, and contracts were opened for both sides of the conflict for us to join.
That was really the point when I started to really think about my life as a clone soldier, and what would happen if Tibus Heth succeeded in his goal. So with a still lighthearted mind and a huge load of locus grenades, I deployed into battle for the Templis Dragonaur side, and began killing myself in order to ensure they would lose. This was so widespread within the mercenary community that there were even competitions on who could kill themselves the most while fighting for the Dragonaurs. A few days later, the Dragonaurs retreated and Mordu's Legion extracted personnel from Autama IV, job well done.
Many more events where clone soldiers were significantly involved also happened afterwards, for instance the historic first gathering of the Tribal Council and damaging Intaki atmosphere in the Imperfects-run orbital strike tournament, and these all made me consider more and more about what my actions meant for the cluster at wide. This series of events eventually peaked at the Battle for Caldari Prime, which will have its one year anniversary coming next Saturday on 22nd of March.
What happened to me after the battle, I will discuss on the next entry. I hope you enjoyed this, and be sure to watch for another entry on the 22nd.
The first day I was officially a clone soldier was in December 1st YC 114, as a generation two clone. The weeks and months before that were spent training me to handle the mental strain of the implants installed on me. Like many other clone soldiers, I was confused and shoved roughly into the world of endless dying and war to figure things out by myself. Like many others, the first few contracts I did involved nothing but constant dying and discomfort. I already had training to cope with death and rapid transfers of clones, but no training could really prepare me for the real battle, and it was painful. I tried to utilize my previous experience as a sniper and marksman with the use of sniper rifles, but the device was so alien to me I had no clue how to operate it.
Fortunately I found a few people to help get me started,o ne of these mercenaries being Lorilai Libertas, a scout. He was ultimately my influence into focusing in Gallente scout suits, and he helped me decide what to use with the suit, but he did stress however that you can only get good with experience, which meant dying a lot still.
What happened the next following months are unclear in my memory, but reading the few records that were of me during that time, I seemed to have just, lost it. There was a story of me written in a fairly humorous format about me dodging my way towards a sniper, then jumping right on his face and blasting him full of shotgun pellets, and some, obscene things to the dead body. I also had several cases where I talked to enemy soldiers even though they could never hear me, just for the fun of it and a few cheap laughs from my squad mates.
The first three or so months I didn't at all about my deaths, talked to enemy soldiers even though they could never hear me and generally treating my career as a game, nothing real with no regard to the actual impact my actions had. However this started to change when a series of events happened, which were later collectively dubbed as The Uprising.
Before the Uprising, clone soldiers were still a small and relatively unknown force. After the Uprising however, we started gaining cluster-wide recognition, being involved in empire politics and being key to throw Tibus Heth out of power. It all started with the Templis Dragonaurs attack on Autama IV, Tibus Heth was targeting clone enclaves in an effort to wipe out the clone soldiers. Mordu's Legion came in to stop this, and contracts were opened for both sides of the conflict for us to join.
That was really the point when I started to really think about my life as a clone soldier, and what would happen if Tibus Heth succeeded in his goal. So with a still lighthearted mind and a huge load of locus grenades, I deployed into battle for the Templis Dragonaur side, and began killing myself in order to ensure they would lose. This was so widespread within the mercenary community that there were even competitions on who could kill themselves the most while fighting for the Dragonaurs. A few days later, the Dragonaurs retreated and Mordu's Legion extracted personnel from Autama IV, job well done.
Many more events where clone soldiers were significantly involved also happened afterwards, for instance the historic first gathering of the Tribal Council and damaging Intaki atmosphere in the Imperfects-run orbital strike tournament, and these all made me consider more and more about what my actions meant for the cluster at wide. This series of events eventually peaked at the Battle for Caldari Prime, which will have its one year anniversary coming next Saturday on 22nd of March.
What happened to me after the battle, I will discuss on the next entry. I hope you enjoyed this, and be sure to watch for another entry on the 22nd.
ཟར༴ཐ٦ཡཐ༴ འཤན༴བ བ༴ཏ༴མ༴ར٦ ٦ནད༴བ٦ ༴འ٦٦ད ན٦བ༴༴ٲ
Silence
Been nearly a month from my latest entry, woah. I really apologize for the sudden silence and dropping off the radar, the mercenary front has been quiet and I've had a severe lack of ideas and inspiration to write anything. There has been some rumors about new equipment and weaponry being released in the upcoming weeks, which I will be following and hopefully can make an entry out of. The rumored cloaking device seems like something I can use as material for an entry.
I'll try to always have at least one entry out each month from now on, depending how much material I have to work on and how active the mercenary front is. Other than that, feel free to read my older entries in the meanwhile.
I'll try to always have at least one entry out each month from now on, depending how much material I have to work on and how active the mercenary front is. Other than that, feel free to read my older entries in the meanwhile.
ཟར༴ཐ٦ཡཐ༴ འཤན༴བ བ༴ཏ༴མ༴ར٦ ٦ནད༴བ٦ ༴འ٦٦ད ན٦བ༴༴ٲ
Freedom
Freedom is often a concept that the Gallente use to describe the Gallente Federation. The Federation, land of the free, home of the oppressed. You are free to chase the wildest of goals, without being oppressed by your government and told what to do and not to do. Everyone is happy and well off. At least that's what 99% of the nonsense propaganda I see today claim. Today, I'm going to break down all these claims and clear up some of the ignorant views people have been showing in the Intergalactic Summit for the past few weeks.
Firstly, you aren't free to do absolutely anything you wish, that would be anarchy. In order there to be a civilized society, there needs to be laws, regulations and a governmental body to enforce these laws and regulations. If there were no repercussions to anything that you did, things would go very bad very fast.When people talk about freedom, they don't mean absolute freedom like in anarchy, but more often than not political and social freedom, where you are free to practice your own faiths, beliefs, practices and whatnot without fear of repercussions.
Herein lies the biggest problem of the Federation in my opinion.We may have the social, political and religious freedoms on paper, but the reality of things can be much different, especially in the land of politics. More often than not, Gallente show extreme amounts of hostility towards the Caldari, which is often shown in the media, entertainment and simple discussions. For instance, in media and in entertainment products like movies, games and literature, Caldari are often portrayed as the "bad guys", people who are truly bad with no redeeming factors to them at all. They're the greedy corporate bastards who care of nothing but ISK.
Reality however, is much different. While megacorporations are the core of the Caldari State, the finding principles of the State are not of ISK, but of hard work and patriotism. In Caldari society, an individual is born to a family who works for a megacorporation. When you grow up, you work for this megacorporation and when you have your own kids, they will also work for this megacorporation.
You, your corporation and the State are one and the same. Caldari society is close-knit, the needs of the community, aka. the corporation, are put ahead of the needs of the individual. The CEOs and other higher ranked members of the corporation may live better off than the average worker, but everyone's needs are taken care of to benefit the corporation. Even the lowliest of janitors has a home, food, education and everything needed to care of himself and his family sufficiently.
While Caldari can perform morally questionable acts in order to benefit their corporation, they are not doing for just ISK. ISK is merely the catalyst to benefit the corporation, not the end goal. The mindset of the need of the community outweighing the need of the individual, and the capitalism were significant factors in letting Caldari become the formidable empire it is right now. If you really wanted the "bad guy" image popular media has portrayed the Caldari to be, take a look at Gallentean corporations like Quafe.
Popular media often shapes what the general community thinks of a subject, and due to the huge amounts of media portraying the Caldari as bad, and the government propaganda that was rampant during the war has shaped the general Federation consensus to be that the Caldari are evil and need to be destroyed. Opinions that show the benefits of the State, or even support it, are often frowned upon, and at one time were punishable by exile.
Then there's the racism that is often discussed within the Federation, which includes not just the State, but everything not considered as "Gallente". Intaki and Jin-Mei families, or immigrants from other empires, are often pressured to meld into the mismatch of various different habits and cultures that is Gallente. Habits and people that are considered odd or unnatural, usually mark these foreign families as outsiders, shunning them sometimes publicly even. Minmatar have often complained about this, and if this is reported on such a large scale, there must be some truth to it at least. Don't even get me started on the state of the Intaki homeworld and their place within Gallente society, which largely goes unreported.
It is often said that democracy is the ultimate best way to run a government. People vote for representatives to represent their issues, and these representatives discuss among one another to decide what to do that benefits the majority of the people. The problem here lies, is that compromises aren't made that often, which only leaves the majority pleased and leave behind the minority, which might still have a valid opinion to how things should be run. And another problem with democratic elections is that they are often popularity contests than actual ways for people to represent the needs of the community they appeal to.
Politicians often make promises for what they are going to do when or if they get elected, which are often very grand and broad in descriptions. And when these politicians eventually get elected, they forget these promises completely, as they are often impractical to keep, or even impossible. They made those promises just to appeal to the community and help get votes.
This may not really be the fault of the politicians, as usually the common people are often ignorant of what is and is not possible to within a government. That is why people who promise them what they want, not what they actually need and is realistic to accomplish, get the votes of the majority and then cause all sorts of problems later down the line. I'm not saying that we should all suddenly convert into a monarchy or something like that, I'm merely pointing out that the democratic system isn't as good as many people portray it to be.
Freedom might be a nice concept that Gallente often use to promote their ideals, but more often than not they fail to see the issues that their empire has, instead remaining blind and continuing to spout their ignorant views of the evil Caldari State and the perfect Gallente Federation, electing corrupt politicans into important roles in elections that are essentially popularity contest. All this sums up to the statement that the Federation isn't perfect, nor the best government in New Eden.
Firstly, you aren't free to do absolutely anything you wish, that would be anarchy. In order there to be a civilized society, there needs to be laws, regulations and a governmental body to enforce these laws and regulations. If there were no repercussions to anything that you did, things would go very bad very fast.When people talk about freedom, they don't mean absolute freedom like in anarchy, but more often than not political and social freedom, where you are free to practice your own faiths, beliefs, practices and whatnot without fear of repercussions.
Herein lies the biggest problem of the Federation in my opinion.We may have the social, political and religious freedoms on paper, but the reality of things can be much different, especially in the land of politics. More often than not, Gallente show extreme amounts of hostility towards the Caldari, which is often shown in the media, entertainment and simple discussions. For instance, in media and in entertainment products like movies, games and literature, Caldari are often portrayed as the "bad guys", people who are truly bad with no redeeming factors to them at all. They're the greedy corporate bastards who care of nothing but ISK.
Reality however, is much different. While megacorporations are the core of the Caldari State, the finding principles of the State are not of ISK, but of hard work and patriotism. In Caldari society, an individual is born to a family who works for a megacorporation. When you grow up, you work for this megacorporation and when you have your own kids, they will also work for this megacorporation.
You, your corporation and the State are one and the same. Caldari society is close-knit, the needs of the community, aka. the corporation, are put ahead of the needs of the individual. The CEOs and other higher ranked members of the corporation may live better off than the average worker, but everyone's needs are taken care of to benefit the corporation. Even the lowliest of janitors has a home, food, education and everything needed to care of himself and his family sufficiently.
While Caldari can perform morally questionable acts in order to benefit their corporation, they are not doing for just ISK. ISK is merely the catalyst to benefit the corporation, not the end goal. The mindset of the need of the community outweighing the need of the individual, and the capitalism were significant factors in letting Caldari become the formidable empire it is right now. If you really wanted the "bad guy" image popular media has portrayed the Caldari to be, take a look at Gallentean corporations like Quafe.
Popular media often shapes what the general community thinks of a subject, and due to the huge amounts of media portraying the Caldari as bad, and the government propaganda that was rampant during the war has shaped the general Federation consensus to be that the Caldari are evil and need to be destroyed. Opinions that show the benefits of the State, or even support it, are often frowned upon, and at one time were punishable by exile.
Then there's the racism that is often discussed within the Federation, which includes not just the State, but everything not considered as "Gallente". Intaki and Jin-Mei families, or immigrants from other empires, are often pressured to meld into the mismatch of various different habits and cultures that is Gallente. Habits and people that are considered odd or unnatural, usually mark these foreign families as outsiders, shunning them sometimes publicly even. Minmatar have often complained about this, and if this is reported on such a large scale, there must be some truth to it at least. Don't even get me started on the state of the Intaki homeworld and their place within Gallente society, which largely goes unreported.
It is often said that democracy is the ultimate best way to run a government. People vote for representatives to represent their issues, and these representatives discuss among one another to decide what to do that benefits the majority of the people. The problem here lies, is that compromises aren't made that often, which only leaves the majority pleased and leave behind the minority, which might still have a valid opinion to how things should be run. And another problem with democratic elections is that they are often popularity contests than actual ways for people to represent the needs of the community they appeal to.
Politicians often make promises for what they are going to do when or if they get elected, which are often very grand and broad in descriptions. And when these politicians eventually get elected, they forget these promises completely, as they are often impractical to keep, or even impossible. They made those promises just to appeal to the community and help get votes.
This may not really be the fault of the politicians, as usually the common people are often ignorant of what is and is not possible to within a government. That is why people who promise them what they want, not what they actually need and is realistic to accomplish, get the votes of the majority and then cause all sorts of problems later down the line. I'm not saying that we should all suddenly convert into a monarchy or something like that, I'm merely pointing out that the democratic system isn't as good as many people portray it to be.
Freedom might be a nice concept that Gallente often use to promote their ideals, but more often than not they fail to see the issues that their empire has, instead remaining blind and continuing to spout their ignorant views of the evil Caldari State and the perfect Gallente Federation, electing corrupt politicans into important roles in elections that are essentially popularity contest. All this sums up to the statement that the Federation isn't perfect, nor the best government in New Eden.
ཟར༴ཐ٦ཡཐ༴ འཤན༴བ བ༴ཏ༴མ༴ར٦ ٦ནད༴བ٦ ༴འ٦٦ད ན٦བ༴༴ٲ
The Summit
Again, it has been quiet in the land of the clone soldiers, life goes on as usual completing contracts and making ISK with little interesting things happening. There has been rumors circulating about new dropsuits and pistols being released, but I won't touch on these until they are confirmed. So, to at least have something out, I will highlight a place I visit quite often. It is a ground facility on the planet of Yulai III, but we have dubbed it the Summit.
This facility is a hub for clone soldiers of all races, all affiliations and all corporations to come together and socialize as mere co-workers and not as enemies on the battlefield. It is a huge complex, originally designed as base of operations for CONCORD. But with a huge influx of clone soldiers emerging, CONCORD established a virtual message board for us to use, named the Intergalactic Summit, similar to the one capsuleers have. A few months later, they converted this facility on Yulai III as a hub area for clone soldiers, and after over half a year it has finally started gaining momentum and become very popular.
It houses several different venues varying from emissaries, clubs, restaurants, museums, places of worship and many more, while CONCORD security assures that everyone can interact peacefully there without a bloodbath. So, why would a place of this kind be important to me at all, or to the clone soldier community at large for that matter?
Well firstly, it just brings good-will among the soldiers when they can go to a place where there are no enemies or friends, just fellow soldiers in arms. In the Summit, we can gladly share our stories of that one battle that turned the tide of war within Molden Heath, or from that crazy stunt you performed with your LAV while being chased by two dropships, or that one kill that was so glorious that you died from epicness right on that spot.
It also does wonders to soldier morale. Life can be a little hectic for us at times, we constantly die brutal and painful deaths, only to wake up in a new clone, redeploy and do it all again. When you do this for hours upon hours a day, for weeks, months, even years. it can start taking a toll on you, and you start losing your grip on reality. This has happened to me too.
In the Summit, baseliners, capsuleers and clone soldiers are all free to walk around and socialize without constantly having to look behind your back. You can get a touch of normal life as well, outside of the tiny room that is your mercenary quarters. Overall, the Summit is a place where you can relax, recharge your batteries and gain new friends. There you can forget about the demands of your corporation for a while and just enjoy life as it is.
And that is why I like going to the Summit, and why others should also visit it(I'll also try to make a proper entry next time, promise!).
ཟར༴ཐ٦ཡཐ༴ འཤན༴བ བ༴ཏ༴མ༴ར٦ ٦ནད༴བ٦ ༴འ٦٦ད ན٦བ༴༴ٲ
This facility is a hub for clone soldiers of all races, all affiliations and all corporations to come together and socialize as mere co-workers and not as enemies on the battlefield. It is a huge complex, originally designed as base of operations for CONCORD. But with a huge influx of clone soldiers emerging, CONCORD established a virtual message board for us to use, named the Intergalactic Summit, similar to the one capsuleers have. A few months later, they converted this facility on Yulai III as a hub area for clone soldiers, and after over half a year it has finally started gaining momentum and become very popular.
It houses several different venues varying from emissaries, clubs, restaurants, museums, places of worship and many more, while CONCORD security assures that everyone can interact peacefully there without a bloodbath. So, why would a place of this kind be important to me at all, or to the clone soldier community at large for that matter?
Well firstly, it just brings good-will among the soldiers when they can go to a place where there are no enemies or friends, just fellow soldiers in arms. In the Summit, we can gladly share our stories of that one battle that turned the tide of war within Molden Heath, or from that crazy stunt you performed with your LAV while being chased by two dropships, or that one kill that was so glorious that you died from epicness right on that spot.
It also does wonders to soldier morale. Life can be a little hectic for us at times, we constantly die brutal and painful deaths, only to wake up in a new clone, redeploy and do it all again. When you do this for hours upon hours a day, for weeks, months, even years. it can start taking a toll on you, and you start losing your grip on reality. This has happened to me too.
In the Summit, baseliners, capsuleers and clone soldiers are all free to walk around and socialize without constantly having to look behind your back. You can get a touch of normal life as well, outside of the tiny room that is your mercenary quarters. Overall, the Summit is a place where you can relax, recharge your batteries and gain new friends. There you can forget about the demands of your corporation for a while and just enjoy life as it is.
And that is why I like going to the Summit, and why others should also visit it(I'll also try to make a proper entry next time, promise!).
ཟར༴ཐ٦ཡཐ༴ འཤན༴བ བ༴ཏ༴མ༴ར٦ ٦ནད༴བ٦ ༴འ٦٦ད ན٦བ༴༴ٲ
Metacombat
Okay, after a long holiday break(and a severe case of writer's block), I'm back to writing new entries, apologies for the long delay. Today's topic is actually quite a simple one, about the whole reward system we have while in battle, and how it enforces certain behaviors. I dubbed it metacombat, as it is basically using external factors not related to actual combat to influence combat.
For the non-dusters reading, how much we are paid from our contract depends on the Warpoint system. Basically, you are awarded points for performing various actions that benefit you and your team, which is then added to your total score for that battle.
When the battle ends, either the MCC was destroyed or the clones were depleted, you end up on a scoreboard which compares how many Warpoints you made in comparison to the rest of the team and your enemies, who are ranked from 1st to 16th on their side depending how many Warpoints they had accumulated. How this translates into ISK transferred to your account is a little more complicated.
Throughout the battle, the value of all the vehicles and infantry fits destroyed within the battle gets added into an invisible ISK pool that is shared between both sides of the battle. When the battle ends, a calculation starts immediately on how much ISK each soldier gets based on the total ISK pool and how many Warpoints they accumulated.
The ones with the most Warpoints get the most ISK paid obviously, but there is also the factor of how big of a difference your total Warpoints are in relation to others. If you have a greatly larger amount of Warpoints when compared to the rest of the team, you get a bigger percentage of the ISK pool, whereas you would get a smaller amount if your entire team scored roughly the same amount of Warpoints.
How this relates to the enforcement of certain behaviors? Simple, with you getting awarded different amounts of Warpoints for different kinds of actions, you are subconsciously guided to do certain things. A kill rewards you 50 Warpoints and a headshot 60, a successful hack gives you 100 Warpoints, and a counterhack 80 Warpoints.
There are plenty of other things that also give you Warpoints, but these are the biggest rewards. Because you get more ISK the more Warpoints you get, people naturally lean more towards hanging around objectives killing every enemy in sight. It is a lot easier to gain kills than to hack or counterhack, so you naturally want to kill more and give less attention to the objectives.
This whole scoring system also acts as a callous effect. You're just hunting for points, not really thinking of the real implications what your actions. You don't really think that you just shot straight through that person's head and now he completely misses one, it was just a 60+ Headshot kill for you. Yes, we might be only fighting clone soldiers where death has little meaning, but maybe you were fighting actual people with real families and responsibilities they have to do. It would be just another +60 notification and a one added to your total killcount.
Really, many people treat these battles we fight as matches, a competition to show our prowess in killing people. From the talks I've had with other people, most of them treat their careers as some sort of game, where your actions have no real implications and you just compete to have the highest kill-to-death ratio, the most warpoints and the like. At times it feels like every single mercenary has gone insane with how many crazy things that happens to us and we willingly do.
Heck, we may as well make our careers into a video game, dub it DUST 514 because we're always fighting in the dust and everyone seems to have gone 514.
For the non-dusters reading, how much we are paid from our contract depends on the Warpoint system. Basically, you are awarded points for performing various actions that benefit you and your team, which is then added to your total score for that battle.
When the battle ends, either the MCC was destroyed or the clones were depleted, you end up on a scoreboard which compares how many Warpoints you made in comparison to the rest of the team and your enemies, who are ranked from 1st to 16th on their side depending how many Warpoints they had accumulated. How this translates into ISK transferred to your account is a little more complicated.
Throughout the battle, the value of all the vehicles and infantry fits destroyed within the battle gets added into an invisible ISK pool that is shared between both sides of the battle. When the battle ends, a calculation starts immediately on how much ISK each soldier gets based on the total ISK pool and how many Warpoints they accumulated.
The ones with the most Warpoints get the most ISK paid obviously, but there is also the factor of how big of a difference your total Warpoints are in relation to others. If you have a greatly larger amount of Warpoints when compared to the rest of the team, you get a bigger percentage of the ISK pool, whereas you would get a smaller amount if your entire team scored roughly the same amount of Warpoints.
How this relates to the enforcement of certain behaviors? Simple, with you getting awarded different amounts of Warpoints for different kinds of actions, you are subconsciously guided to do certain things. A kill rewards you 50 Warpoints and a headshot 60, a successful hack gives you 100 Warpoints, and a counterhack 80 Warpoints.
There are plenty of other things that also give you Warpoints, but these are the biggest rewards. Because you get more ISK the more Warpoints you get, people naturally lean more towards hanging around objectives killing every enemy in sight. It is a lot easier to gain kills than to hack or counterhack, so you naturally want to kill more and give less attention to the objectives.
This whole scoring system also acts as a callous effect. You're just hunting for points, not really thinking of the real implications what your actions. You don't really think that you just shot straight through that person's head and now he completely misses one, it was just a 60+ Headshot kill for you. Yes, we might be only fighting clone soldiers where death has little meaning, but maybe you were fighting actual people with real families and responsibilities they have to do. It would be just another +60 notification and a one added to your total killcount.
Really, many people treat these battles we fight as matches, a competition to show our prowess in killing people. From the talks I've had with other people, most of them treat their careers as some sort of game, where your actions have no real implications and you just compete to have the highest kill-to-death ratio, the most warpoints and the like. At times it feels like every single mercenary has gone insane with how many crazy things that happens to us and we willingly do.
Heck, we may as well make our careers into a video game, dub it DUST 514 because we're always fighting in the dust and everyone seems to have gone 514.
ཟར༴ཐ٦ཡཐ༴ འཤན༴བ བ༴ཏ༴མ༴ར٦ ٦ནད༴བ٦ ༴འ٦٦ད ན٦བ༴༴ٲ
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