Author Archives: Ghenna

About Ghenna

An exiled amarrian noble and ex-imperial capsuleer coping with the psychological trauma of experiencing her own death and acclimation to her new home in the Gallente Federation. Ghenna maintains a publicly accessible archive of her aura-log impressions for therapeutic purposes. She currently resides in the Gallente-Caldari warzone, where she serves the Gallente Militia.

The UI… Where do I begin… (Eve Blog Banter 9)

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It’s blog banter time again.

Welcome to the ninth installment of the EVE Blog Banter and its first contest, 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 a 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!

“Last month Ga’len asked us which game mechanic we would most like to see added to EVE. This month Keith “WebMandrill” Nielson proposes to reverse the question and ask what may be a controversial question: Which game mechanic would you most like to see removed completely from EVE and why? I can see this getting quite heated so lets keep it civil eh?”

The group had been working around the clock for weeks. Exhaustion had set in some several Tuesdays ago and every one of the assembled scientists and programmers were now operating purely on nicotine and Quafe Ultra.

The group had been given the momentous task of reverse engineering the Jovian capsule interface such that pilots of non-Jovian persuasions would be able to successfully operate their ships via the capsules. The quality assurance officers had been clear on the goals: no aneurisms and no bits of partially digested breakfast in the pod fluid.

They had succeeded, almost. There was one last, but not insignificant, hurdle that needed clearing.

“Maybe we could just make the font really really small,” said one of the junior programmers, “they could like, zoom in to read it or something.”

The rest of the room sighed.

“Small font, are you serious? Do you know how many rows of data we’re talking about?,” the head programmer looked around the room for support, but most people were either asleep or playing cards in the corner. He took another swig of Quafe and raised his voice, “Well I don’t know either, but it could be a really really big number. So our font would have to be like,” he waved his can of Quafe around dramatically flinging droplets into the air, “like atomic… quantum font or some crap. That is the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard.”

The junior programmer shrugged his shoulders, mumbled something unintelligible – even to himself – and turned to focus on Texas Hold-em.

The lead programmer sat back in his chair, drained his can of Quafe and threw it in the general direction of the trash bin. Owing to his lack of trash bin hitting skills, exaustion or the grace of god he missed and instead sent the can spinning end over end, blue droplets spraying in a thin arc, at the face of the currently sleeping Bill, the head of the design department.

As the can impacted Bill’s forehead he jolted upright, his eyes wide and distant, as if viewing another place.

“I’ve got it!,” Bill shouted, “it’s so simple. It came to me in a dream.”

The room all looked in his direction. One of the junior programmers took the opportunity to peek over at his neighbor’s hand, and then turned his attention on Bill. It wasn’t cheating, he thought, he was going to fold anyway.

“Arrow things, or… no…” Bill struggled for the words to describe the alien concept, “scroll… yes… Scroll Bars. We’ll have scroll bars! See, if there are more rows of data then the interface window can handle, we just let the user scroll,” he placed extra emphasis on the strange word, “to see the rest of the rows!”

It was the solution, it was genius. Everyone put their cards down and went back to their terminals.

“This is perfect, make it happen,” exclaimed the lead programmer, “damn Bill, you’re a genius.”

“That’s not all,” Bill continued, “see because if the user resizes the window so that they can’t see all of the columns, we can use a horizontal scroll bar! It’s perfect!”

The typing stopped, everyone was looking at Bill.

“Sorry, columns? What was that? You’re losing me Bill.”

Bill considered his words carefully, this was not an easy concept to explain.

“See, if the window is too small to show all of the rows then you can scroll with the vertical scroll bar.”

The lead programmer nodded, “yeah I’m following that.”

Bill continued, “and if the window is too small to show all of the columns then you can scroll with the horizontal scroll bar.”

The lead programmer’s face contorted with puzzlement, “Okay, okay. Hold on now, so you could do this scrolling thing in two dimensions?”

“Exactly!” Bill exclaimed.

“Yeah… um…” the lead programmer waved his hands at the rest of the crew to continue working, “you know Bill, you’re tired… why don’t you take the rest of the day off. The first idea was great but this whole two dimensional thing is a bit crazy. I don’t think space ship pilots are ready to deal with two dimensions at the same time.”

Ten minutes later Bill was escorted from the room by security. His repeated shouts of “Horizontal Scroll Bars”, echoing through the halls.

A User Interface is something one uses to do stuff. In Soviet Russia, user interfaces use you! The EVE UI is like that. It’s something that happens to you… when you’re out in the woods… that you don’t talk about.

“But Ghenna”, you say, “you can’t remove the UI. The game would be unplayable!”

Yes, yes. I know. I also know that the devs keep saying that there is some sort of crack UI team that is taking the UI apart and putting it in little glass boxes to test and redesign. Kind of like those displays in IKEA, where some poor chair gets sat on by a robot thousands of times. I can also admit that the fitting screen is better than it was (it’s still no EFT). Search windows in containers are nice, and the little “how full am I” bar is now blue, and has gone through at least one “blueness/size” revision, but I digress.

In the end I think the best thing for us all is to just scrap the whole thing and start from scratch. Also implement a mandatory “Do you think Excel is the best thing ever?” screening process to weed out the kinds of designers that we don’t want. At the moment when I show people EVE the conversation goes something like this.

Me – See how awesome it is?

Some Guy – Wow that’s really pretty! Go fly around a bit.

Me – Cool, let me undock

SG – Is that a spreadsheet?

Me – No, no. That’s the overview… here let me fly over here.

SG – You had to go like four menus deep into the context menu to fly there?

Me – Yeah, you get used to it… here let me show you the market/industry/science/etc interface.

SG – Wow, that’s a lot of spreadsheets… I’m gonna go get a beer.

“But Ghenna”, you say, “it’s not really that bad. You get used to it and it’s part of what makes EVE so different.”

Or perhaps you say, “OMG carebear! WTF GTFO & GBTWoW lol”

Yeah… well check this shit out. Did you see the titan going down, or the shitstorm of UI elements? I’ll tell you what you saw, you saw a BoB titan getting raped by chat channels, fleet lists and overview. That’s what you saw. Yes, you can tab the UI away so that you can actually view the beautifully rendered game that is playing in the background during those brief moments when you’re not either menu-surfing, spreadsheet monitoring, or trying to click a microscopic moving target in space because you didn’t think to set up an overview setting to only show hostile war-target Gallente interceptors piloted by Caldari with speech impediments.

Let me try to be constructive:

  • A new targeting system that is intuitive and works well (the overview is not this system, though it could possible be salvaged), that does not involve clicking microscopic targets in space, watching a list for the duration of a fight, or having gigantic, useless icons appear all over the place that you have to avoid double clicking on (it’s like a minigame!) when maneuvering manually.
  • Hotkeys! Hotkeys! Hotkeys!
  • A chat interface option that is easier on the screen real estate. Maybe the option to merge chats.
  • UI elements that don’t require a 4000dpi laser mouse to click (or avoid) reliably. This to avoid the current “click the tiny green strip/microscopic triangle/quantum dot in space” wack-a-mole style mini-game.
  • Don’t even get me started on the in-game “browser”
  • Some sort of consistency in attributes, so I don’t need a calculator to figure out whether 1.75% means 1.75%, 175%, plus 1.75%, 42, biscuits, etc.
  • Did I mention hotkeys?

Scrap the UI and make a new one rather than trying to prop up a dead guy.

Well, that’s all I have to say. This post is too long already. In the event that people think that this is a stupid idea, then I’ll retract my venom against the UI and just cast my vote to remove the Caldari. I know they’re not a bug… they’re a feature… but it’s been a long time coming.

List of Participants:

  1. Diary of a Space Jockey, Blog Banter: BE GONE!
  2. EVE Newb, (EVE) Remove You
  3. Miner With Fangs, Blog Banter – It’s the Scotch
  4. The Eden Explorer, Blog Banter: The Map! The Map!
  5. The Wandering Druid of Tranquility, “Beacons, beacons, beacons, beacons, beacons, mushroom, MUSHROOM!!!”
  6. Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah, Kill the Rats
  7. Mercspector @ EVE, Scotty
  8. EVE’s Weekend Warrior, EVE Blog Banter #9
  9. Miner with Fangs, Blog Banter – It’s the Scotch
  10. A Merry Life and a Short One, Eve Blog Banter #9: Why Won’t You Die?
  11. Into the unknown with gun and camera, Blog Banter – The Hokey Cokey
  12. The Flightless Geek, EVE Blog Banter #9: Remove a Game Mechanic
  13. Sweet Little Bad Girl, Blog Banter 9: Who is Nibbling at My House?
  14. One Man and His Spaceship, Blog Banter 9: What could you do without?
  15. Life in Low Sec, EVE Blog Banter #9: Stop Tarnishing My Halo
  16. Cle Demaari: Citizen, Blog Banter #9: Training for all my men!
  17. A Mule in EVE, He who giveth, also taketh away?
  18. Dense Veldspar, Blog Banter 9
  19. Morphisat’s Blog, Blog Banter #9 – Randomness Be Gone !
  20. Facepalm’s Blog, EVE Blog Banter #9: What a new pilot could do without
  21. Memoires of New Eden, You’re Fired
  22. Kyle Langdon’s Journeys in EVE, EVE Blog Banter #9 Titans? What’s a Titan?
  23. Achernar, The gates! The gates are down!
  24. Speed Fairy, EVE Blog Banter #9: Down with Downtime!
  25. I am Keith Neilson, EVE Blog Banter #9-F**K Da Police
  26. Clown Punchers, EvE Blogs: What game mechanic would you get rid of?
  27. Estel Arador Corp Services, You’ve got mail
  28. Epic Slant, Let Mom and Pop Play: EVE Blog Banter #9
  29. Deaf Plasma’s EVE Musings, Blog Banter #9 – Removal of Anchoring Delay of POS modules
  30. Podded Once Again, Blog Banter #9 – Do we really need to go AFK?
  31. Postcards from EVE, 2009.07.02.00.29.06
  32. Harbinger Zero, Blog Banter #9 – War Declarations & Sec Status
  33. Warp Scrammed, Blog Banter 9 – Never Too Fast
  34. More as they are posted!

Temporary Goodbyes

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I docked the great hull of the bestower industrial at the Carthum factory in Pimebeka, for what would probably be the last time for a while. My hangar was unusually clear, all of my belongings either packaged up in containers for hauling or moved into holding as my brokers handled the job of disposing of them for isk. I exited my pod, gave the orders for the cargo bots to load the last few containers into the cargo hold, and exited the hangar via the freight elevator.

“Corporate level,” I said, and waited for several minutes as the elevator moved me through the massive metalworks of the station toward my destination. There was a slight jolt as the elevator shifted from vertical to horizontal. I peered out of the small round window as my conveyance sped a path over the main factory floor. An apocalypse was being assembled below me, the sheer size of the battleship giving the illusion that the elevator was moving much slower than it was. A half a minute later, the factory view was replaced by blackness as the elevator entered another shaft, and another jolt signaled it’s shift from horizontal to vertical.

Moment’s later the doors opened, and I stepped out into the central office of the Carthum Conglomerate.

“Welcome, how may I help?” The young amarr man smiled as I approached the lobby desk.

“I need to talk to someone about cashing in my corporate credits,” I replied as nicely as I could. He pressed a few buttons on the terminal in front of him and then looked up, “No problem Madame, room 35421,” he said as he handed me a datamemo with the number glowing on its surface. I thanked him and headed down the corridor to the office. Entering I was greeted by a portly man behind a desk.

“Well, Lady Ghenna. It’s great to see you,” he said standing up to shake my hand, “you’ve done a lot of work for us. What can I help you with?”

He offered me a seat, and I took it smiling. “I need some focus crystals, Amarr navy issue. Multi’s and Microwaves, and a few Standards and Gammas.”

“Not a problem,” he smiled, “what size?”

“Mostly smalls, a few mediums,” I pulled a datasheet out of my flight suit and handed it to him, “as soon as you can get them.”

He took the datasheet smiling, the smile fading slightly as he looked it over. “That’s a lot of ammo,” he finally replied, “how many loyalty credits are you planning on cashing in?”

“All of them,” I replied.

His smile returned, though a bit forced, “of course, we’ll get them ready for you today. It might take an hour or so.” He tapped his terminal screen for a few minutes, “hope you’re not leaving us. You’ve been a valuable asset.”

“Just for a while,” I replied. I still wasn’t sure how Carthum would take it if I told them I’d be using their crystals on the Caldari. I decided to say as little as possible.

“Okay, all done. Had to call in the lines from a few neigboring stations to get it filled quickly, but you’re a priortiy customer,” he winked at me lowering his tone of voice, “and the resell value of these things is very good, I’m sure you’ll do well.”

I stood up and bowed, “thank you, I’ll keep that in mind if there are any left over.”

He grimaced as I exited the office. I made my way back to the hangar and made small talk with a group of marines that seemed to have taken up residence in my nearly empty hangar.

A few hours later I bid my farwells to Amarr space for the time being. My corporate duties still required my presence for another week or so, but I no longer had business in the Empire.

One day, I thought to myself as I jumped my industrial across the Gallente border, I’d return.

The Eminent Rhys Thoth

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I entered the canteen fifteen minutes late and spied Rhys sitting in the corner, at his usual table, tapping on a portable terminal. I sat down, there was a glass of spiced rum waiting for me, the ice had nearly melted.

“Sorry, I got caught up in-,” he simultaneously silenced and forgave me with a wave of his hand and continued tapping on the thin sheet of plastic for a moment. Looking through the back of the transparent screen I could see it was some sort of market interface. Moments later he folded the screen twice, to pocket size, and slipped it into his vest pocket.

“Good to see you friend,” he smiled and took a sip of something that smelled like licorice and looked like nuclear waste. “You have no idea what people are willing to sell armor plates for these days.” He shook his head.

Rhys was the head of Section 7, the somewhat enigmatic division concerning themselves with the corporate wallet. I’d met him early on in my short career as the CEO of my mercenary corp, and we’d been close friends since. He pulled his dark hair up into a short ponytail and postured himself for conversation.

“So I hear you’re going to leave us for the milita.” Business first, I thought, Rhys had always been that way.

“For a while,” I replied, “I’ll be back when things are a bit more stable, or if the Corp needs me.”

Rhys smiled and took another sip from his glass. His silence and sharp blue eyes prodding me for more details.

“Well, the situation is pretty dire, the Federation is in need right now,” I continued, “and I’m ready for a bit more action.”

He nodded slowly, placed his drink on the table and folded his hands. I braced myself.

“The Federation would indeed benefit from your skills.”

He smiled, unfolded his hands and lifted his drink to his lips. I relaxed a bit.

“Of course,” he said as his glass touched his lips, “so would the Empire.”

“If it’s a question of loyalty -”

Rhys scowled at me as he took a sip of his drink. “Loyalty,” he laughed, “no need to go on the defensive. I’m just interested to know why you chose to side with the Federation. A month ago you requested to be stationed in the Empire, why the sudden change of heart?”

I nodded, it was a fair question. The corporation had spent resources resettling me in Amarr territory, and not even I could have guessed I’d be back in Gallente space so soon.

“The Amarr-Matari war is not my fight,” I replied honestly. “The Minmatar want to free their people, the Amarr refuse. I won’t fight for a family again. I despise politics.”

Rhys burst into laughter, nearly spitting a mouthful of Quafe and Absinthe onto the table, “Dear Ghenna, if you dislike politics,” he said as he recovered, “you’re definitely in the wrong sovereignty.”

He steadied himself with a deep breath and continued, in a more serious tone, “Look, I for one certainly appreciate you helping my people. I won’t dissuade you. I’ve just always taken you for an idealist, and that war is a war for idealists.”

“It’s a war over slavery,” I said frankly, “and a waste of time. The Minmatar will never be satisfied with the result, and the Amarr will never yield. Anyway,” I said, taking a drink, “we’re all slaves one way or another.”

Rhys leaned back in his chair, his blue eyes boring into my soul. He was silent for an uncomfortably long time. I took another drink.

“You’re very clever,” he eventually responded, “and you’re right. Philosophically we are all slaves in one form or another.” He sat up straight, he was building steam for a debate, and I didn’t win debates with Rhys. “Some Minmatar are fools, I agree with that point. They think freedom means doing whatever you want, whenever you want. But this is not possible. Even we Gallente, the supposed champions of freedom in New Eden, trick ourselves into believing we are actually free, but that is also foolish.”

He took a long sip of his drink, draining the glass, and raised his hand for another. “You are free to create a business, enter the market. You are free to refuse to work. You are free to attack your fellow citizens. But your fellows are free to stop your business, to punish you for transgressions. If you refuse to work, you starve. You see, no one can be free, unless they are the master of everyone else, when there are consequences, no one is free. Philosophically speaking.”

A short pretty Gallente waitress placed two fresh drinks on the table, Rhys thanked her with a smile and then turned his piercing gaze on me. He slid my drink across the table to me.

“The Minmatar aren’t fighting over philosophical slavery,” he said, “that argument is bullshit, and you know it.”

I blushed at the truth. He sat back, waiting for a response.

“When I was a child,” I started, “I was told that the slaves were being groomed,” I hesitated, choosing my words, “groomed to do God’s work. It was a path to enlightenment. They served their masters, I served my family, my family served their house. There was an unbroken, unquestioned hierarchy. We were all an equal part in His machine.”

“When I was a child,” Rhys responded with a grin, “I thought that spacecraft must have a terrible time avoiding all the birds.” He smiled warmly, “there comes a time to put away childish naiveté. Do you still believe the Amarr have a million million Matari slaves to help groom them to do God’s work?”

“Absolutely,” I replied with conviction. Rhy’s left eyebrow raised an inch. “Those lessons were correct, every Slave, every citizen, every family in the Empire is groomed to serve God,” I finished my warm watery glass of rum and moved the fresh glass into my hand. “My mistake was assuming that God was some sort of benevolent sentience. As it turns out the Amarr God is the same as the Caldari God,” I took another sip of rum, my throat and stomach becoming warm as the liquid trickled down. “We were groomed to serve the almighty isk.”

Rhys sat back in his chair and smiled, “You’ve always been smarter than you look,” he said raising his glass, “welcome to the Federation, Section 7 will see to it that you are never in need of ammunition”

“I primarily use lasers Rhys, ammo will be pretty cheap.”

He smiled, “And that,” he said beaming, “is why I am head of Section 7.”

The Hang Over

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I am currently sitting at my desk horribly hung over. I celebrated my 30th birthday on Friday and when setting out for the night it felt exactly like being 29. Today, however, I do feel as if I am a year closer to death. Thanks to everyone who came out and made my bar tab so small.

When I woke up I was still wearing a dress. I was, in fact, still wearing my boots. I surveyed the small but adequate corporate quarters that I had been assigned and the first thought that went through my mind was that the station had been attacked. Datasheets were scattered about the floor, mingled with a nearly empty bottle of spiced wine and, nearby, part of the contents of that bottle. I sat up, realized my mistake as the room began to spin and then put my head back down on the pillow. Good, I thought, I was just drunk. The station was fine… probably.

I rolled over, a datasheet crumpling under my body. Retrieving it, I opened my eyes for a moment, passing them over the digital ink quickly. It was recruitment adverisment for the Federal Defense Union. I remembered then. Arco had come to visit. I rolled over onto my other side, as the left side wasn’t helping settle my stomach, then rolled onto my back again. Finally I just said, “Piss it!,” to no one in particular, sat up, retrieved my wrist neocom from the floor and jacked in.

“Good morning madame,” Aura’s voice boomed into my mind, “it appears you are full of toxins. I will initiate a nanite cleansing procedure…”

“No, no,” I mumbled, “I paid a lot for those toxins, just let them run their course. Also, try and keep the volume down.”

“Yes madame, adjusting my auditory cortex inputs.”

I stood up, pulled my dress over my head and took a long hot shower, washing the scent of sweat and cigarettes from my body and the sticky residue of congealed Gallente wine from my neocom screen. An hour later I was in my pod, being loaded into my travel executioner.

“Aura chart me a course to Charmerout, we’re going to talk with some of the corporate brass,” I said as my external cameras came online. I surveyed the full personal hangar I had been allocated upon arival in Pimebeka. “Have the deck crews load my combat essentials into a Sigil for when I get back,” I thought for a moment, “and have them fit the Aby for travel, we might be moving back to Gallente space for a while.”

I watched the smooth curves of the Amarr station shrink to a vanishing point as my ship entered warp. My unusual therapist had been correct again. It had taken a trip home to The Empire for me to realize where I was meant to be.

I savored the irony as I made the long return trip to the edge of policed Federation space.


Univited Guests

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Cigarette smoke hung in the air, mingled with the smell of stale beer and the low mumble of conversation. I noticed Arco as he entered the bar, but made no attempt to get his attention, and enjoyed the solitude while I still could. In a few minutes he’d found me, procured a drink and taken up a seat on the other side of the table.

“Long time,” he said, taking a sip of his brandy. I nodded. He reached into his pocket, producing a pack of cigarettes. Real tobacco. Taking one for himself he slid the pack across the table toward me.

“How’ve you been?” I took two cigarettes out of the pack, placed one on the table and the other between my lips. I put the rest of the pack into my dress pocket, and slid the lone cigarette back across the table. Arco shook his head, and smiled.

“You have a light?” I asked, and took a deep drag. Savoring the silence, and the expensive gallente organic tobacco. “What do you want?” I finally asked, the annoyance in my voice masked by the smoke and and a healthy amount of self-discipline.

“Do I need a reason to check in on an old friend?,” he said calmly, “Still running security for some no-name Gallente corp?”

I nodded, “They’re doing quite well acutally. I find the work rewarding.”

“Hmm,” he took another drink. “Hows the pay?”

“Fine,” my irritation beginning to show, “What do you want?”

Arco leaned back and took a drag off of his cigarette, the smoke framing his small face. He was tall for a Caldari, but still six inches shorter than me. He looked like a child as he slouched in the large chair.

“I have an offer for you,” he said bluntly, “I’m sure you’ve heard about the war?’

I gave no response.

“Well, in any case,” he continued, “it has gone well for us. Sure, there’s still a lot of fighting going on, but that’s good for business. But the war,” he leaned forward, “the war is over. The Gallente barely put up a fight.”

He leaned back, and took another sip of his brandy. “The petitions are already underway to allow us to take more space. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was another Caldari titan in Luminare by the end of the year.”

“Congratulations,” I responded, “what does that have to do with me?”

“Well,” his face becoming more serious, more businesslike, “what if I told you we could get you a decent paid rank in the Amarr navy. Higher than you were before,” he paused, “before the incident. What do you say? You’d be back doing what you do best, and you’d be paid well for your efforts.”

“No,” I replied immediately, “that life is over. But what I want to know,” I said leaning toward him menacingly, “is why you want me to do this.”

He sat back, his serious face melting back into the comforting friendly face, the marketer face. “Well, to be honest we thought you’d like a chance to get back into the game.”

I stared him down, “Bullshit.”

Arco laughed and took another sip of his brandy, “That’s why I’ve always liked you Ghenna. Blunt and to the point. Okay,” he sat his drink and cigarette down and folded his hands on the table, “the Gallente are useless, there is perhaps some small chance they might mount a decent resistance but it’s not very likely. Democracy looks good on paper, but when it comes to war, well. Too many people involved in making decisions, far too slow, and of course,” he smiled, “everyone important values Jita too much.”

He took a last drag off of his cigarette and then put it out in the ashtray on the table. “The Minmatar, on the other hand, could be a problem. We’d like them out of the picture.”

I understood, if the minmatar joined to assist the Gallente things might go very badly for the Caldari war machine. Keep them occupied in their conflict with the Amarr and the Caldari would have free reign. I remembered how much I hated politics.

“No,” I responded again, “I have no issues with the Minmatar.”

Arco laughed increduously, “they’re killing your people,” he said, “or hadn’t you heard.”

“The theocracy is killing our people,” I responded, getting looks from several adjacent tables, “for refusing to enter into diplomatic talks,” I got off my soap box, remembering I was a guest in an Amarr station. “Besides, the matari are killing soldiers. That’s what you sign up for, it’s expected. They have clones.”

“You also have clones,” Arco replied, his voice revealing his irritation, “I dont’ need to remind you who made that possible for you. You owe us. You owe me.” He produced a datasheet from his briefcase and slid it across the table.

I smiled, he was out of tricks, “You’ll make it out of Amarr space with your pod,” I responded, “and we’ll call it even.”

Arco finished his brandy and stood up, “consider the offer, we’re only going to make it once.” He turned to leave, “eventually we will all have to pick a side, just make sure it’s the right one.”

With that he collected his briefcase and left the bar, I was alone again.

I picked up the lone cigarette, still on the table, and lit it with with the last burning ember of mine. I perused the datasheet, it was a good offer. Entry into the 24th as a Major, a hangar full of ships and a steady paycheck. I crumpled the digital paper and spent the next two hours burning holes in it with Arco’s cigarettes, and drinking myself into oblivion.

I stumbled back to my quarters in the corporate hangar and crashed into my bunk. The corp was doing well, and while the pay was actually very good, the need for a full time security officer was somewhat dubious. I had been offered a sabbatical when I joined, and had been considering the option strongly.

I reached over to my desk, and shuffled drunkenly through a stack of datasheets, eventually succeeding in retrieving the correct one and littering the floor with the majority of the others. It was a recruitment advertisment for the Federal Defense Union.

Arco was right about one thing, eventually we would all have to pick a side.