Black Sheep Down

In which we engage in a little corporate drama and sheep fancy.

The true enemy of organizations in null sec are not hostile in your systems, or SBUs on your gates, or bad fleet doctrines.

The real killer is entropy, the slow wasting away of your corporation or alliance or coalition until it is just a shell of its former self.

Sure, in New Eden, as in real life, such pressures can accelerate entropy.  The evacuation from null sec of Intrepid Crossing might illustrate what a shock to the system can do.  Razor jumping on them for fun one time too many made them evac, but the root cause was more likely the rot from within.  Razor just wanted a fight and suddenly the door came right off in their hand.

But, while CCP’s motto might be “EVE is real,” you, me, and The Mittani are not bound to New Eden.  We don’t live there and our investment in space is purely emotional.  People leave the game all the time.  They take breaks, they tire of the routine, or they just move on.  Some stay subscribed but rarely log in, others let their accounts lapse without a word.

Any organization in EVE ends up with a certain amount of inactive players as time moves on.  If people are leaving, or just coasting, and nobody new is coming in, you can end up with a hollow organization.

But what happens when your leadership tires of space and stops logging in?  That is a problem we were facing.

Our corporation, the British Space Corporation Legion has been around for a while.  If the rather out of date entry on EVElopedia is correct, it was founded on March 16th, 2007.  It has been active and dormant at times and has been part of a number of alliances, most recently with Tactical Narcotics Team up in Deklein.  That is where they were when I joined them about 21 months back.

I joined up to make the jump to null sec space because my friend Gaff sponsored me there.  He has been with TNT for a couple years himself having started out in Skyforger.  He then moved to BSCL which was active and open to members, as was the case when I showed up.

Since then, however, there has been some decline as people have faded from the scene for one reason or another.  And the most noticeable of those spending less time in space was the CEO, Qtipp.  2013 has not been his year for New Eden and he has been away much of the time.  Acknowledging his time away, he put an interim CEO in place for a while.  However that did not work out.  Qtipp showed back up at the outset of the war in Fountain, but faded from view again shortly.

So the corp was adrift.  Participation rates fell after Fountain and leadership was ad hoc as we deployed to Delve.  Serious discussions started behind the scenes as something had to be done; were not looking good in the eyes of the alliance leadership.  Two alternatives came to the fore.

There could be new leadership for BSCL( and a likely purge of the inactive), or there could be a fresh start with a new corp.

Qtipp was willing to let somebody else step into the CEO role officially, but would not part with his shares in, and thus his complete ownership of, the corp.  While that is an understandable position for a corp with a long history, it wasn’t one that the emerging leadership could run with.  So the second option was sent out in a corp-wide email.  The BSCL would be retiring, with Qtipp, from null sec for now.  We bid them farewell and wished them well.  But those who wished to remain in Deklein with TNT were welcome to join the new corp, Black Sheep Down. (Ticker: BAAW)

I was told that the Welsh contingent insisted on the connection to sheep.  I try not to get involved with that aspect of the corp.

So we are now in transition with the new corp up, the old corp departing, and some small chance of losing access, at least temporarily, to all the services to which we have grown accustomed.  Somehow I know that among the three voice coms, three forums, two wikis, two Jabber channels, or various other utilities, something is going to throw up and reject me because “BSCL” is encoded with my account and now I am in “BAAW.”  And, of course, just as I need this, CCP is throwing errors when I go to the API manager page.

Nice picture, but not helping…

Paranoid, I went and sat in my high sec clone while updating my access.  But I made this while I was cowering in the station, afraid to undock because of all the goddam neutrals.

Not really a logo

So we have that going for us.

I am actually pretty happy with that.  Did the rifter silhouette myself.  I just couldn’t find the right font from the cover of the original.  Actually, I found the font (Citizen), I just didn’t want to pay money for it, so Copperplate Gothic for the win!

Meanwhile, on the Delve front, my question has been answered.  We do appear to be done with Delve now.  No more siege fleets for a while.

Delve – Swp. 18, 2013

TEST has been purged from Delve and Period Basis and has just one system left in Querious.

Of course, Querious and areas east of that have become… interesting.

South West – Sep. 18, 2013

Solar Fleet and a cast of many are carving up Querious, including my favorite “I really know nothing about them” group, the Walltreipers Alliance.  Against All Authorities, against whom we waged a bitter campaign previously, is pretty much right back where we found them last summer.  And then there are a bunch of other players in the area.  I am sure we’ll be meeting the neighbors soon enough.

Now will it be back to Deklein for us, or another campaign elsewhere?