Blog Banter #22: Corp Loyalty

Welcome to the twenty-second 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 or so 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 to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check for other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

This month topic is brought to us by L’Dene Bean of Nitpickin’s who asks:

Why, and how did you pick your corporation? Is your loyalty solid or just until a better placed organization “recruits” you. The shorter version:  Who holds your Unshakable Fealty and why?

Trust.

It’s the single most valuable commodity in Eve Online; above Titans, above ISK, above PLEXes.  In a sandbox where backstabbing shenanigans are not only possible but celebrated; where impregnable, proud alliances are brought low by a single dedicated spy; and where your treasured assets are no more to others than loot to be scavenged and sold; trust is rare and vital.

There is the well-known facepunch test: that the only people we trust in Eve are those we can physically punch in the face if they screw us.  This is often the cornerstone of strong corps and alliances – a group of players known to each other in Real Life 1.0.  For a corp director or CEO, these may be the only people in their circle of trust, even as they direct thousands of pilots.

For those in W-space, we must trust those inside our shield with our ships, our materials and indeed our very existence – every pilot is potentially a source of an entrance hole for a POS-busting fleet.

Pilots join corps for a variety of reasons: reputation, camaraderie, opportunity.  Many (dare I say most) pilots joining a corp will genuinely intend to behave as advertised.  But Eve, being the king of the metagame, has many pilots who join with the intent to strip a corp of its assets; and smart Directors know it.  There have also been tales of CEOs betraying their members with a corp designed and manipulated to do so.  It’s a dark, unforgiving universe.

Awesome.

One can trust a corp, but not be loyal to it (I trust and support Eve Uni, but am no longer a member); one can be loyal without trust (as any Little Bee can attest).  Inspirational leadership, mystique and reputation can build loyalty, but only time and stakes can build trust.

Eve allows us the full range of human, and superhuman, relationships.  From the loyal friend in a rival corp who you can blow up (and be blowed up by) with no hard feelings, to the suspected noobie spy, to the gut-wrenching horror at having a misplaced trust betrayed; the sandbox allows and nurtures it all.

TL;DR: No fealty is unshakable. Any loyalty may be misplaced if the target is untrustworthy (whether or not you know it) and loyalty doesn’t survive a breach of trust.   It’s you and your facepunch friends against New Eden, with temporary cease-fires at best for others.

Fly paranoid! o7