Rock Solid

'Space. Majestic and vast. To even begin to understand its grandeur would drive one mad.'

'Status report lieutenant.'

'Fleet has succesfully arrived at target location. All ships have now exited warp and are intact. Status reports are coming in now. Bringing them up on the command screen captain.'

The command screen flickered to life. Instantly data began streaming across the screen. Captain Minnie got up from the captain's chair and approached the railings and gently placed her hands on them.

'For your information, we arrived within five kilometers of target destination captain.'

Captain Minnie smiled and nodded an acknowledgement to her navigations officer. An ambitious officer and her second in command Lieutenant-Commander Nicholas was a promising young officer and had always performed all the tasks asked of by his captain to the word with out fail. Captain Minnie did not have to say it but Nicholas knew she was proud. He returned to his work station and continued his work.

'Bringing up your survey scan report now captain. From what I can tell the asteroid belt possesses large quantities of Veldspar. Should we proceed?'

Captain Minnie knew well she could count on her bridge crew to perform all the necessary tasks with out having to even ask. She had grown with them and by now they knew exactly what was expected of them by their captain. In had become rare now for the captain to have to issue standard protocol orders as it had become second nature to her bridge crew.

'Very good lieutenant Lea. Signal the fleet to commence with the mining operation. Tell them I want to see nothing but clear empty space but the time they're done.'

Second lieutenant Lea smiled softly. She gave an aye aye captain and proceeded to relay the commands to the rest of the fleet. New to Captain Minnie's bridge crew lieutenant Lea was third in command and the ship's communications officer. Smart and quick thinking the captain had already taken a liking to the new lieutenant.

Captain Minnie remained at the hand railing with her arms crossed behind her back. She watched as her fleet broke apart and proceeded to their tasks. Before long their strip mining lasers went into action and began ripping away at the asteroids. The captain's gaze moved from the events unfolding before her eyes to her crew. This is the captain's first mining operation and her first time commanding an Orca. The industrial command ship is the captain's pride and joy. After years working aboard a Hulk the captain had finally aquired her very own Orca and was given command of her own fleet. She had named her Orca the 'Atlas' after Atlas, from one of the historical texts. Apparently a being who held up the skies. The ancients who had braught the captain and her people to this far away place is of great interest to the captain though little is known of them, if anything at all.

'Captain the corporation has requested a status report on the mining operation.' Lieutenant Lea turned from her screen for the first time since they had arrived and looked at the captain for a response.

'Tell them the mining operation is under way and we should be out of here before they know it. The fleet warp was a success and we have not encountered any obstacles as of yet.'

The captain turned around and returned to her command chair just as lieutenant Lea returned to her station and relayed the captain's message to the corporation. The captain looked out over her mining fleet ripping at the asteroid belt before them. The captain enjoyed the life of a mining ship captain. Though its not as prestigious as the life of a combat pilot or captain of a combat capable ship a mining ship captain still faced the same dangers and excitement if not more. Fate would some times present a mining ship captain with the dangers of the universe such as pirates and rival corporations and protection is more often than not close to none. These are the dangers that some captains must face every day, but the pay off is always worth the risk.

Captain Minnie got up from her command chair and made her way to the very front of the bridge. She often gazed at the stars during the long hours of mining operations. Occasionaly her search into the stars would bring her back to the ship's bridge where she would attend to the regular administrative tasks and check up on the status of the mining operation. Today prooved to be one of those days, and so Captain Minnie gazed off into the stars and the unknown.

The Capsule & The Clone.

I thought I'd begin my first article by going back to basics. The basic being, the capsule, and the clone. When I first began discovering Eve online I started with the website while I was waiting for my excruciatingly slow internet to download Eve. My browsings soon led me to the scientific articles of the website. Ofcourse the most intriguing of the articles to me was the article about, you guessed it, the capsule and the clone.

At first read the idea of the Pod Pilot is a great concept. Not only are you able to control monstrous behemoths into battle all on your own with all weapons blazing but upon destruction of your many-hours-mining-veldspar space ship and ultimately your doom you are instantly transfered hundreds and thousands of light years away where you awake once more to reign supreme over the heavens amoung other demi-gods like yourself. Thus mankind has finally achieved immortality. Or hasn't it?

Upon delving further into this idea questions arise. The major question that arises here is, is it truely immortality? Or is it a memory of you, stored and moved to a clone. Why do I say memory? The reason being that I cannot get my head around the concept that you as a human being, your soul can be transfered that easily from one body to another. To me it would seem the concept is to transfer the memories and the personalities to another body, or container. Sure the new body acts, walks, talks, thinks and even has all the memories that you have, but I still can't help but wonder, is it really you?

With all this in mind, it would seem to me that you die and only the memory of you lives on in another body. So in some ways yes, mankind has achieved immortality in the Eve universe but we have still not alluded death. All we have achieved is to preserve memories of ourselves that continue living on. We are not immortal. We will not go on living. We will not go on enjoying the pleasures of life. Instead only our memories go on living, in another container. No longer will we be controlling what happens, it is this memory of you that will decide how the universe remembers you. Hence forth I will refer to those that are born of sweat and blood from your mother the Originals.

My next question is, what happens when all the originals are gone? Does the inhabitants of the Eve universe then exist as a bunch of memories of their originals? Souless bodies that exist with memories of a former human being. Ofcourse talk of soul is to talk of a higher being and religion or how ever one wishes to view the subject matter and this could bbe debated over countless posts but I am not here to debate this.

I'll leave with these questions open to interpretation and debate amoung you originals out there. The individuals, free-thinkers and intellectuals of the universe.