Difference between revisions of "Nebula Rasa (Player alliance)"

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The Nebula Rasa Order

The Nebula Rasa order is a secular cult who aspire to obtain absolute knowledge of creation and to alter it back to its perceived ideal state. This conglomerate of all trades and creeds are bound by their liberal values and their longing for the absolution of the mind and whose members are convinced that this place, with all of man's faults, in body and in mind are results of mutations from a perceived original perfect blueprint, a sourcecode, a matrix...

Millenia old records speaking of such an ideal place on the far side of the defunct EVE Gate has prompted the Ordo Nebula Rasa to mount relays around the galaxy at their every retreat in hope of being able to pick up any of the vast amount of intelligence this enlightened culture surely must be transmitting, yet there is only static...

In a relentless effort to come across the key to unlock Pandoras box members gather every blueprint they can find, there is no print too insignificant. Shipping orders for everything from carbon to livestock to viral agents all signed for by the cult tell its tale, no building stone is to be left unturned, no DNA ladder left unscaled and taken apart.

While the order's liberal ideals and values have made it most popular amongst the freedom-loving Gallente, its never-ending quest for higher purpose has attracted dashing Minmatar adventurers, ambitious and enterprising Caldari and even a few enlightened Amarr theologians chaffing under the current rigid imperial dogma. Each brings his own unique perspective to the order's pursuits.

The Code

The Nebula Rasa order does not condone slavery, piracy, scamming or begging. The order expects all members to deal fairly and honestly with their fellow capsuleers and clients.

History

These chronicles are based on the living memory of the only remaining member from the starting nucleus back in the year 105, CEO and founder Danton Marcellus.

The Early Years

In a time long past, before highways, jump clones and cynos, in a time where a cruiser was considered a big ship, in that time Danton Marcellus sailed through space in Verge Vendor trying to find likeminded pilots around the Cistuvaert system. He found them in Corridius Signot and Layal and the trio mined jaspet, flying Imicus frigates, in the Hevrice system where the first ever Rasa headquarters was located.

Danton soon branched out and scaled down his mining for a trading empire; at one time, if you bought Quafe in Verge Vendor, you bought it from him. In those days, price-fixing cartels for various trade goods were possible and capitalized upon and Quafe was a sought after product.

The HQ was moved to the neighboring Raneilles system where it remained for years, though the day to day operational base moved around, and from there on the Raneilles HQ mainly served as a front desk for recruitment and complaints.

So many things are a blur after these many years but, as memory serves this chronicler, the first foray into lawless space was through the Reblier gateway. Danton and Sayeret Golani went out in a couple of Thoraxes to explore and hunt Serpentis; that's when a pirate called Eight Bit showed up. Golani bolted for the gate back to Reblier and safety and heard Danton’s words of warning too late, he was predictable and dead before he reached the gate as he landed 15k from it, as you did back then, before bookmarked routes and warp to zero even.

Ventures out into Syndicate space remained sporadic for a time after that discouraging first contact with outlaws but Rasa slowly grew and learned to earn a living off of those who did go that route, as they stocked the markets at Reblier and Harroule system, both bordering Syndicate space. The cult was still heavily invested in mining but the trade skills were passed on and slowly caught on within the group. We remember the Allamotte as the last system where a majority of Rasa pilots still made a living off mining.

The extensive Rasa blueprint collection got started around that time, paid from the income gotten from trading in strategic locations and by the price-fixing of trade goods.

Nebula Rasa Ascendant

Nebula Rasa’s first corporate war was as an aggressor, when negotiations failed for an office in the Great Wildlands. Children of EVE, a dummy front corporation, sat on multiple offices in the same system (a practice frowned upon by Rasa) and when money couldn't be thrown at the issue to resolve it war was declared. The war itself was a mere exercise in paperwork and never saw any real action. Some time later, the Children of EVE faded into oblivion and an office was secured for the cult.

At one time Rasa had offices in all regions of space where there were stations, numbering an estimated 300 to 500 offices; mind you this was in a time before market rents, when offices were a mere 10k a month. The purpose behind the blanket cover of offices were not so much logistical as it was marketing-oriented and fulfilling the cult’s role. Mounting transmitters and receivers on the hull of the stations in an attempt to raise the Old Ones from beyond the Eve Gate, sometimes with the permission of the station owners, most times covertly grafted onto and disguised as regular station arrays.

Having covered the four corners of New Eden’s regulated space, by Rasa known as “Inside”, Rasa looked up and outwards, to 0.0 space, “Outside”. Out there we looked long and hard for a base of operations. Syndicate, Great Wildlands and Geminate were deemed too tame. In Venal the Rasa envoy was greeted with open gun ports and mowed down as we stumbled into the great war of the time when a besieged Venal Alliance came under massive attack by breakaway forces from the perceived weaker Fountain Alliance. The pilot credited for killing the Rasa envoy many years later would have a far greater claim to fame for his skills with the blade, his name was Flatliner. Due to the overly hostile nature of the Venal natives, that region was stricken from the list of possible deep space homes. On-sight podding was not a given in those days, and many regions still greeted you with open arms and you could even fly an Industrial solo through them without being harmed. One such region was the Outer Ring.

In the Outer Ring, Rasa pilots quickly established a trading post and things seemed to progress smoothly, even with Rasa’s declining membership in the Outer Ring Society, citing philosophical differences yet not ruling out co-operation. One of the core principles of Rasa is to always remain in control of one’s own destiny, never submitting to a larger governing body but by all means co-operate to achieve specific goals.

Outer Ring Ripple Rasa To The Core

The leap in progress was not to last though, the head of the ORS, Umlat, went off the deep end and read way too much into an innocent comment in local and, the then Rasa colors being similar to that of the infamous M0o pirate corporation, came to the conclusion that Nebula Rasa was a funneling organization set up by M0o to handle their logistics. Rasa was declared not welcome; our pilots were threatened and attacked on the word of one delusional alliance leader. Within days Rasa saw their first big setback as members left in scores to escape the political fallout and set up shop in the Outer Ring, like Orsen Carte and his Brotherhood of Militia, who saw a brief flicker of glory before going dark from there on, others just faded back into the background, giving up on life at the edge of known space. Through it all Rasa endured.

For this reason Umlat remains “kill on sight” from here till eternity for Nebula Rasa and there is a standing internal bounty on his head of 100M ISK.

After rebuilding on the inside, Rasa turned its focus to Curse; a trading post and supply depot was established at H-ADOC system and an insta-jump route from Egbinger mapped and distributed amongst the members, for a period of time the cult mined arkonor in the systems of Wicked Creek. When and why this practice fell out of fashion is lost in time. Possibly it was increased patrols by RUS that discouraged the time-consuming mining effort but at least Rasa tapped that motherload for a time. Another more credible reason was the rush on work done for megacorporations at the time to receive the prize of prizes, the coveted tech II mining laser blueprint. This was the last time Danton Marcellus mined, sometime in the 2nd year of Nebula Rasa’s existence, in its current form.

Pirates Alley

Having failed to get the whole body of the organization in on either of the previous ventures, it was deemed it was time for a change. The Raneilles HQ was moved to the Concord HQ at Yulai, the then center of the galaxy and a period of heavy trading followed, coupled with exploring sites in low sec for precious artifacts.

The region in Rasa’s sights, now known as Cobalt Edge and internally referred to as “The Pitchfork”, not being within reach at the time, Rasa moved their operations to the offbeat and mainly un-populated Solitude region, biding our time, watching, waiting.

Niballe system was the operational base and pilots were sent through what became known as Pirates Alley on the regular, Pirates Alley is the stretch of Syndicate from Pertnineere to Reblier to Harroule to Orvolle. What at first was widely recognized as a good move with lots of opportunity over time grew into a dreaded chore, with much of the cult still having substantial investments on the other side of said alley. The back route, dubbed Shirsochin Strait, saw its fair share of traffic too by the more cautious but still pilots were lost to the pirates at Gonditsa. Membership was in decline once more and a falling out over an ill-fated hunting trip into Syndicate space saw Rasa lose the 2nd in command, Gerome Doutrande to a better funded and politically connected outfit. At this low point Rasa was running on fumes but still managed to bring in a few new faces to keep the machine going.

This was the time of the so called “Blueprint Lottery”, where the most deserving pilots were awarded state of the art blueprints by the megacorporations research and development wings. Unfortunately the heyday of this distribution of wealth also saw a low in research inclined Rasa pilots and the CEO walked away with most of the spoils, the earnings thereof were all put back into the Rasa blueprint collection and the funding of various projects.

The Departed

One of the non-sanctioned projects was a mining operation down in amarr space; disillusioned with the Solitude base and nightmarish supply runs, a group of miners shut themselves off from the rest of Rasa to mine scordite in Hibi. Notables among them were Letum Omnis, Hanrup Maru and Osiris Occido. What happened there, and how, remains a mystery to this day. The Hibi system was quarantined and no-one is to go to Hibi system, let alone mine there to this day. There's something in that rock dust that sent the ill-fated mining crew stark raving insane. They all left Rasa to form a pirate outfit known as the Nympho Space Badgers, terrorizing Catch on a mad rush. Rasa scientists have theorized some viral agent to be responsible, causing loss of impulse control. Despite heavy losses and morale taking a dive, Rasa endured.

The Federation presidential election was upon us and Rasa backed sitting president Foiritain despite corruption accusations. This was Rasa’s first appearance in the public eye, with a brief mention in the press. The election turned into a foul mess of red tape and when it became clear the election would not run its due course and become entangled in courtroom proceedings for quite some time to come, Rasa became disillusioned with the Federation and struck their colors, with Rasa’s chief campaigner for Foiritain handing in her resignation. Rasa no longer flew the red and black checkered pattern with a gallente eagle superimposed over it but the black flag signifying a break of all ties with Federation space. This break from the Gallente Federation coincided with the following event.

Locked away in his study, pondering what direction to take the cult in next, after having run out of momentum, Danton Marcellus was approached by enterprising pilot of another corporation wanting to purchase the Rasa office in the Hodrold star system. The offer was considered and turned down. The location and its proximity to The Pitchfork had Danton intrigued and a possible relocation to Hodrold was put before the newly formed council, formed to avoid new Doutrande incidents by having an advisory board provide advice and direction to the cult and bringing the CEO back in from the brink of madness where he liked to spend his evenings. A proposal to vacate Solitude and relocate to Hodrold in preparation for a Pitchfork move met with little opposition in the deliberation.

Organization

The order evolved from a single corporate entity to the current alliance form for logistical and administrative reasons. Prospective members are invited to apply into the Nebula Rasa Vanguard, the order's training, militant and exploration branch.

Many capsuleers choose to remain in Nebula Rasa Vanguard for a variety of reasons. Some do it to share their valuable experience as explorers, PvP'ers or miners with younger recruits. Many feel it their calling to defend the order in militant pursuits, against both PC and NPC foes thus earning glory and renown. Some simply do not have enough play time available and are more comfortable in the looser context of the Vanguard than the other divisions.

The Nebula Rasa Holdings corporation is restricted to long-standing members who share both an absolute commitment to the order and a correspondingly larger amount of play time to dedicate to it. As the name implies, it is the executor company for the Nebula Rasa alliance and membership is open through invitation only.

Two other corporations look after the order's research and development, production and logistics as well as safeguarding the order's ever expanding archives and libraries: Nebula Rasa Technologies and Nebula Rasa Logistics. Again, membership into these corporate entities is by invitation only.