Chack’NulChack’Nul contacted me several months ago and requested a duel, not something that unusual really, I get these requests rather often since the start of CDM nearly a year ago. Mr Chack’Nul fought me in his ‘Tristan of Doom’ and completely obliterated my ‘Kessy of Doom’. He graciously linked me his fit and I fell in love with it. That was the day I started training for Gallente Vessels and still stock some Tristan’s named in his honour. We did catch up at a later date to test my skills in the sexy Tristan hull, Chack killed me again, his superior skills very clear.
We sporadically stay in touch and one particular conversation he suggested for me to challenge T’amber for a Celebrity Death Match.
T’amber? From shipsofeve? Ha! Like as if he’s gonna make time for me. One thing I learned is that celebrities that do not write blogs themselves see me as a nuisance if anything.
A few months later and I received an Eve-mail from Chack, in it was a copied convo between him and T’amber. The convo had Chack describing what I do and T’amber seemed interested however not keen on leaving Jita. But he was interested…
First contactT’amber has been in my address-book for some time, and he certainly had a spot on the Celebrity Death Match wish list. It never seemed right to speak to him however; I lacked the balls to disturb him. With the initial contact already made for me I made the call…
The conversation took me back to the early days of CDM, I had to explain who I am, what I do and then convince my opponent to agree to a duel. Contacting a fellow blogger is usually easier as they will have heard of CDM or even read it before.
Mr T’amber didn’t make me grovel or beg though and agreed to meet up with me, as long as the duel would take place in Jita. ‘Well’ I mumbled… ‘there is a little issue with the Jita high security status thingy…’. ‘Them’s the stipulations, I live in Jita and don’t leave there’ the lottery mogul continued; ‘Security status is irrelevant’ pointing at his own sec status. Hang on, this dude is a super rich, well know tycoon, lives in Jita and has a -10 sec status?!
‘Yes, of course’ is all I could muster, not sure what to expect from a duel in high sec with a shoot on sight sticker on my back. ‘It will be a time-trial; we will both undock in Jita 4-4 and the pilot alive the longest, wins’. T1 Battleship was to be the flavour of hull type, and as a parting hint he linked a previous BS-loss, lost in the very same way he intended to time-trial-duel me. ‘Crap’, he is an experienced-BS-suicider?
This conversation took some time; his responses were short and sporadic. One of the first questions I ask when speaking to a potential CDM contestant is if they have time to speak, he said he did. Only after speaking to him a few times and spending time in his home solar system do I understand our very first conversation. He did give me all the time and attention he could spare, having 10 different chats on the go at any one time is a quiet time for him I guess…
Preparations
EFT provided some insight in what could possibly be done to max out a buffer for my Dominix. Lag was to be expected, possible so much so that undocking would fill my overview with nothing. Nothing until I would awake again in my home system covered in pod goo. My choice was simple; no active mods, no Invuls, no Damage Control systems, just 1600 plates and large Shield Extenders.
Saturday night after work I undocked my Jovian Egg into the Evati night sky and set course for Jita. My intentions were simply to be ready to do the duel at a moment’s notice on Sunday, the agreed date. I had my sons christening and didn’t know if I would have enough time to fit and prepare my stuff on the day of the duel.
I decided to travel in my pod as it is the safest and quickest way to get into high-sec space. The align time is virtually 0 and thus no pilot would be able to get a lock on me quick enough to stop my progress. ‘Nothing can kill you’ I hummed to myself speeding through system after system. On-route I spammed the request for support on the day of the fight.
‘Nothing can kill you’ I hummed to myself, taking a sip from my 2am coffee. I nearly choked on that coffee when the inside of the Evati Clone Facilities filled the screen.
A large ‘Vehemence’ smart bomb doesn’t require a lock and its favourite food is eggs. I updated the clone and immediately set off again. Less chirpy this time however, I like my implants you know…
Arriving in the system I lost my pod it didn’t take long to find the perpetrators. Pirate Corp ‘Negative ten’ must have had a bad day at the office and were killing indiscriminately with their sizeable BS-heavy fleet. Many roads lead to Jita, I know, but the opportunity for sleep was getting smaller and smaller so I piped up in local, requesting safe passage in return for a fee. Isk and words of honour where exchanged.
Travel was uneventful after that and I docked up in the busiest station in the busiest solar system in the EVE Universe. Jita… god how I hate her... the local channel filled up quicker than one could read, scams, links to contracts, vague snippets of conversations poured through, madness, absolute madness. I purchased a Dominix and fitted it to the spec I prepared earlier, filled the cargo hold with lots of random rubbish, logged off and went to bed.
If I would believe in hell I am sure to be taking a nose-dive into that lava pit some day, I mumbled some stuff in church when my son was christened, wishing to be at home, playing EVE. Dinner with the parents in law couldn’t be over quick enough… From the restaurant I rushed home to get the last of the AT8 action and to get an update on the Dead Terrorist/Bastard fight earlier that day before seeking contact with T’amber.
Unfortunately our date was to be postponed as this CDM’s celebrity was severely ill, taking regular breaks to puke his guts out. Our time trial got rescheduled for the following evening…
On Monday I logged in and had to endure 4 hours of Jita’s insanity. The local chat channel did what it usually does, the two channels in use by T’ambers-shipsofeve were no better however, pandemonium, jokes, singing, links to various pictures, prizes being thrown around, bingo, you name it, it was happening.
It certainly wasn’t the longest wait for a celebrity but it was definitely the most mentally draining. I don’t know how he does it, how could any sane man deal with this kind of mental terrorism? T’amber is made of sturdier brain stuff than me, that’s for sure…
The duelWhen my opponent finally found a spare minute to grant me my duel, a final call was made for pilots in Jita to undock and prepare to shoot me or T’amber, or both. The moment I had waited for had come as T’amber counted down from 10..9..8..7..6..5..4..3..2..1 UNDOCK!
‘Rep me quick’ prepared to undock, the overview blacked out, no night sky appeared. For a moment I thought I would simply awake in Evati never knowing what had hit me but the outside of the Jita station finally appeared.
The strategy was pretty simple, undock and watch…
The heavy humming of the stations bowels ceased, with chat channels now minimized everything went quiet. Eerily quiet in fact, as my Dominix-class Battleship gently floated away from the docking bay. Jita Police arrived as the silence broke; many ships now lighting up bright yellow as their targeting systems went live. Here we go… The silence broke properly as Jita opened up its guns on me.
Like thunder and lightning, streams of light from all around me started connecting with my vessel. A full-red-flashy-overview took my shields as if they weren’t even there. I tried to target T’amber and get a volley of to ensure a spot on the kill-mail but the lag was so bad I couldn’t even resolve a lock.
The lag did stand in my favour however as T’amber had 2 active mods on his Dominix and would have serious issues even switching them on…
Alarm bells flared, screaming even over the sound of guns, announcing the inevitable.
The Domi erupted in a large bright ball of fire, vomiting out my pod in the process. I don’t know how, but I managed to engage the warp drive and as the tunnel prepared to suck me in, I caught a glimpse of T’amber’s ship exploding.
One of the shipsofeve-volunteers had kept time from when we each undocked (I undocked earlier) and he reluctantly declared me the winner. Perhaps not the greatest way to duel, but this was not about the action more mass entertainment, I guess. It has been a pleasure meeting T’amber and having had a sneaky peak into his EVE life, I cannot imagine what he must put up with.
Spin-dizzy I selected the quickest route home and closed down shipsofeve-channels that continued to pour out more stuff and chatter, faster than the eye could see.
More CDM soon, so watch this space…
