Preamble

I'm Meissa...

I hate blogs... I really do. Just the thought of sitting in front of this blank page to type :words: at people makes me cringe. Not only do I suck at wordsmithery, I'm a pro at procrastination. Not a very nice combination for a blogger... Whatever.

I've been a member of the Council of Stellar Management for a few years now. I first got in as an alternate of CSM 2, then a full member of CSM 3, then again as an alternate of CSM 4 -- this once on purpose, there was at the time a limit to how many times one could be elected as a full member and I wanted to be full member on CSM 5, but I didn't want to lose track of what was going on during CMS 4, so I carefully managed my election campaign to get enough votes to get alt but not so much that I'd get a seat. Tricky business, but it worked -- then full member of CSM 5, and once more of CSM 6...

I'm not e-famous, I'm a member of a 2 (or 3, depends) member corporation that started as a carebear corporation in empire. I wasn't CEO of my corporation, I just ran for CSM after my CEO (Kilhu Emmek) told me repeatedly I should run. I ran to show him I wouldn't get elected (haha).

Anyway, my story isn't much of one, I started as a miner, then industrialist in empire.
After a few months of missioning and producing, I grew interested in seeing what else the universe had to offer.

I went to lowsec lured by the promises of riches. I armed myself with a POS and a few modules to check moonmining R16 minerals. Not very profitable, but the idea seemed fun. It was indeed fun, and indeed not very profitable...


(Note: yes, that's a passive shield tanked hurricane)

So the profits didn't materialize, but a few chance drops from escalations got me above 1 billion ISK. I remember those escalations leading me into 0.0 for their last step. 2 jumps into the Great Wildlands. I was a scared little noob, I sat cloaked for 4 hours watching the comings and going at the gate separating lowsec from 0.0, looking at the colored dot on the map to see if there was much activity, camping, killing going on on the other side. Should I or should I not go? I eventually did go, was probed doing that site 4 times, still managed to warp out every time and cloak and finish for the prizes!

Anyway, I had 1 billion! I was ecstatic... At that stage I could buy shiny ships or blueprints or... I could try making more money in 0.0! Except I didn't know anything about it, other than it was dangerous... Kilhu (my CEO) knew that the Great Wildlands was NRDS, and happened to know someone in there. We got given permission to go there and do "our thing". The alliance in control of the region was Foundati0n.

So I moved around the region, did anomalies and angel/DED sites, got ganked a few times in the begining (I had prepared for this and purchased a set of passive shield tanked myrmidons). My plan was to die 4 times a week in those cheaply replaceable ships, and still make more money than I'd lose. It went according to plan. I didn't PvP then, just tried to cloak up if anyone showed up. I was so scared of PvP... I had set up the myrmidons for extreme tank, being able of sustaining 1300 DPS omni (and about 1900 against exp/kin), so when I was getting ganked, I regularly had time to call in for reinforcements.

I've had a number of killmails with more than 200,000 damage tanked, but 2 fights really come back to mind. One where I was coming back from doing an escalation in the drone regions. I tanked 7 guys (and killed a sabre) for 19 minutes, waiting for reinforcements to come. And right when they were about to, the hostiles jumped in an extra 3 and I died, having tanked 369k damage. The other one was getting attacked by 4 ships (hacs), and after 25 minutes of fighting and barely succeeding at tanking, they had to let me go because they ran out of ammo. That was fun.


(me getting ganked and being cocky, that screenshot was 10 minutes into the fight, still tanking but running out of drones :p)

After familiarizing myself a bit with how it worked (ie, reading docs), I asked FDN if I could use some systems for moonmining, they agreed, gave me a few systems, I set up a POS, then 2, then 17... (if you've tried to manage moonmining POSes solo, don't go there, it's a pita). Anyway, at this stage I figured I was making money, I could try and assist with the defense of the region that the local blues left to FDN to solve... Problem was I didn't know anything about fighting. I joined anyway, for the principle of it, in the only ship I knew how to fly (passive shield tanked myrmi in an armor tanked fleet, I sure was useful *cough* *cough*).

After a few months our "friendly" neighbours, Red Alliance, decided they wanted the region to rent it to people and started to invade GW. The local blues fled. FDN was left to defend on its own. At that stage I had made about 17 billions (and lost about 2bil in ships and pods), purchased a JF, a regular freighter, had started into T2 production, invested heavily in POSes and POS modules, got some ships and blueprints. I figured I could try and give a hand. So I got my fighting alt (Meissa is a good tank, but 30k SP in gunnery and missiles didn't get me far) a carrier... The only one I was close enough to get was the nidhoggur, but I still got it, knowing I'd lose it. It's the principle that counts right?


(fighting the red alliance in my new nidhoggur)

So I fielded the nid in defense of the region, and it didn't die too quickly, got a few fights out of it, we repelled RA and started invading Scalding Pass in retaliation, leading to some very nice fights with 700ish people. I lost the nid to a desync (damn you CCP), directly bought another one. We stole a few systems from RA, who went to cry to xdeathx for assistance since they couldn't repell us. xDeathx came, we lost, we got back to GW...

Foundati0n imploded a tiny bit later and there ended my year living in 0.0. After a brief stint back to highsec and WHs, I got invited to join former FDN members who had formed a PvP alliance called Rooks and Kings. Being a carebear, I hesitated a long time, thinking I wouldn't be of much use, but after a long conversation, I eventually joined and haven't regretted it. I usually fly command ships and guardians, they don't provide much in the way of killmails but they're important. My main alt flies carriers, guardians, HICs and sabres. Again support roles, which I prefer.


(me looking pretty during ops)

That's my story (was a tad longer than I expected).

As far as who I am in terms of "important internet spaceship person"...

I'm nobody, I'm not well known, I'm not an alliance leader and I don't want to be one. I have opinions that I like to voice, but I'm perfectly happy with leaving the decisions and the spotlight to others.
I'm not most communicative CSM member, but I have a good grasp on the game and I have an analytical mind, I usually do good argumentation for the topics we defend...

I form my opinions using my own experience and tapping into that of others. It takes me some time and thought to form one, so it's based on something rational and not just guts, but I'll happily change my opinion if the facts I relied upon are shown to be untrue or incomplete. As a consequence, once held, I defend my opinion tooth and nails...

I appreciate other's opinions if they differ from mine, as long as they're based on rational thought. We all have different priorities and that's fine with me. I actually welcome it. I'll frequently play devil's advocate on things I support if nobody else does...

No matter whether I support going for something or not, that doesn't change the aknowledgements of the reasons to support the opposite, it helps with not bashing anyone who doesn't reach the same conclusions I did, at least I don't dismiss their reasons as invalid, just maybe incomplete (or mine are!) or the person has a different perspective on where the balance should be...

So when I post, it's rarely to :rage: but rather to provide a more balanced position on whatever is being discussed (something CSM5 chair Mynxee called me being "too diplomatic"). That usually is seen as me sucking up to CCP, which I don't, but I never saw dichotomical positions to be very constructive.

That's me in a nutshell...