A Greeting Card

Welcome to the December 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 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 great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month’s EVE Blog Banter idea comes to us by Roc Wieler of Roc’s Ramblings. Roc asks us to “write a story about a fellow EVE Blogger, or an EVE player whom has inspired you or affected you in some tangible way. After your story, describe why you chose them, and any Holiday wish you have specifically for them“.

. . .

In his tiny cubicle at the Ralpha Dogs’ offices in Tollus, where he and Selena had been doing most of their mission-running recently, Erbo picked another blank greeting card off the stack.

He’d never really done the whole holiday greeting card thing, but Selena had insisted that it would be a good idea, especially in his position.  The cards for Lexx and Petros, for members of the Hauling Hogs and certain other people he knew from elsewhere, were already filled out and ready to send.  But this card was an important one.

Erbo leaned back in his chair, rubbing the back of his neck where the data connector was that would ordinarily hook to his capsule’s systems.  He thought back to his early days as a capsuleer, when he and Lexx had worked for the ice-mining company Chilled Solutions, operating primarily out of Ogoten.  It had been their friend Valandriana who had brought them in, but the company’s CEO still had to approve their applications.  And, while they’d been there, he’d done his best for them, offering them good prices on the minerals they’d been able to mine and bring in, and paying them well when they’d been in on corporate ice-mining operations.  Meanwhile, his trusted assistant, Lenny Lunchmeat, had supplied them with useful advice in the skills to train for maximum effectiveness.

It wasn’t his fault that they’d broken away to found the Ralpha Dogs; the pilot that had touched off the “Kublai Incident” wasn’t even in Chilled Solutions, but had been in another company in their alliance, the Cryogenesis Mining Syndicate.  Even when they’d founded the new corporation, he’d still been fair to them, buying ice from them when Lexx had mined it and Erbo hauled it.  And, of course, in his new role as Abbot of the Ralpha Dogs, Erbo had tried to keep his example in mind as to the kind of corporate leader he’d like to be.

Erbo picked up his silver-inlaid pen of Gallente manufacture, thought a few moments more, and began inscribing the card:

To Slif, CEO, Chilled Solutions:

We’ve never forgotten how much you’ve done for us ever since we took up the ways of the pod pilot.  Best wishes to you and to all your corpmates for a happy and prosperous holiday season, and for continued success in the new year.

– Erbo Evans, Abbot, Ralpha Dogs Inc.

“Wrought in deepest Hell, our vengeance is freedom!”

He then addressed the envelope and slipped the card inside.  As he rose, headed for his capsule, he picked up the stack of cards, ready to be sent off.

. . .

Other articles published from around the EVE Blogosphere (links will be updated here as new posts are added):

• CrazyKinux’s Musing: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
• The Wandering Druid of Tranquility: What will your verse be?…
• A Merry Life and A Short One: EVE Blog Banter #3: What Not To Do
• Mad Rant: My Hero
• The Ralpha Dogs: A Greeting Card
• Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah: The Station
• Diving into Psyche Diver’s Psyche: CK’s Blog Banter #3: Praise and kudos
• Roc’s Ramblings: Blog Banter #3 – PyjamaSam
• Protosolus: EVE: Blog Banter 3 – A Piratical Legend
• Blogging from inside the Pod: The ‘Jita Incident’
• Achernar: Citizen Zhang
• Cosmik R5’s EVE Blog: Blog Banter: Tribute to an EVE player – Letrange
• Letrange’s EVE Blog: Is it December Banter time already?
• Life in Low Sec: EVE Blog Banter #3: Reverend Book
• Sweet Little Bad Girl: Blog Banter #3
• Votrian’s EVE Blog: EVE Blog Banter #3 – my influences
• Zen and the Art of Internet Spaceship Maintenance: Blog Banter #3 Ships that pass in the night
• A Mule in EVE: The reawakening
• Jinarre’s New Eden: Blog Banter: Inspiration
• The House Theodoulos: EVE Blog Banter #3
• Flashfresh – The Pirate: EVE Blog Banter #3