Jump Drive Active

On Sunday the long dreadful wait for Jump Drive Operation V completed and Derranna skipped her pod into the mighty Nomad Jump Freighter. Man it felt good. I immediately put it to use.

I warped over the Stacmon and loaded it up with supplies for our new base of operations, ganged up with Kirith who generated the Cynosaural field in the destination, and WHOOOOSH I jumped out of Stacmon to parts unknown. Wel, ok, parts known. But less secure.

I was eager to make a second trip with corp assets to our new base so Kirith rushed back to a low sec system adjacent to Stacmon (since cynos can't be created in high sec itself) and bought a cheap Condor frigate with cyno generator module. The jump freighter once again whooshed to a new system and I quickly docked it since we were not at a friendly POS and there were neutrals in system.

Good thing too because seconds after I docked a Devoter HIC, Hyperion Battleship, and several other vessels warped in and targeted the Condor and blew it up (I couldn't escape since your ship becomes immobile while generating the cyno and it lasts for ten minutes). Huh. Annoying loss but nothing too serious and I did get the Freighter close to high sec safely. I should have known better than to make a jump on a weekend afternoon but I was excited to try my new toy out.

This morning before downtime I logged in and found the system quiet so I quickly undocked and warped to the Stacmon gate, jumping through to safety. I'll probably make another trip tonight with more stuff for our base.

* * * * *
While all this was happening yesterday a "mandatory alliance meeting" was announced with admonishments that the CEO or representatives be present. Well our CEO was not around so me and another director stepped in to find out what the issue was.

BOOM! Drama bombs left, right, and centre. It was quite overwhelming for me and proved to me why I would never make a good CEO. Confronted by a swearing, upset, and angry CEO of another corp claiming my corp was being negligent, I froze. Faced with confrontation I have two responses: fight or flight. There is not much of a middle ground for me and this time I was in flight mode, I just wanted out of there because I had no idea what had happened or what was happening. (The other extreme reaction for me would have been to go on the aggressive with some yelling and swearing of my own. Neither reaction was good but the second one has more damning ramifications and should only be used in emergencies.)

Fortunately, another Strife director stepped in and was the ultimate diplomat, proposing time to step back and evaluate what the issues really are. It was awe-inspiring to listen to him defuse the situation and calm the waters. Wow. He's got a great voice too; I hate the sound of my voice and it took a while playing Eve to accept it and get on Ventrilo more often despite my discomfort.

Anyways, the drama has died down for now, but no guarantees it won't flare back up again. Fundamentally it seems to be a difference in timezones and command-decision making styles. Hopefully they can be resolved but if not we are prepared to go it alone.