Socratic Files...The ultimate punishment.

Socratic > what is the one thing the game needs to survive?
Socratic > NEW BLOOD!
Socratic > and griefers prey on noobs because they are evil bullies
Socratic > simple concept
Socratic > there are never enough smart people
Socratic > only 2% of the population includes us!
Socratic > everyone else is ordinary or stupid
Socratic > the 2% of us in Mensa are sadly not enough to save the world, it will fail
Socratic > dinner time

Whoever thought that the Socratic Files would come to such an abrupt end.

You may remember two weeks ago. When the sidebar (Boston Bradley) insulted Soc. Well, that day I had been losing ships in 1v1's with Morin Blain. Excellent guy, honors his 1v1's. And kicked me hard several times. So we're friendly. Then, Boston crossed the line, and we both ended up wardeccing him.

Well now...Imagine my surprise. He also seems to be in good with Socratic, even though he is thoroughly hating him, but biting his tongue. Because Morin Blain...has a plan. [ED: Sorry folks, it turns out that Morin does not actually hate Socratic... But it was over his treatment of the rookies (Whom Socratic calls noobs)] Which may be an even better reason]

It's on
From: Morin Blain
Sent: 2011.06.07 00:05
To: Zedrik Cayne,  


Zedrik,


Just send 5 full length evemails to socratic with the final bait. Now all i can do is wait. The backing story is long and elaborate and i've used all the bits i have been seeding for the last week or two. Biggest risk is that I'm exhausting him with info........


If you like i can send you copies of all the mails.


Morin.


ps I've created a channel "Socratic's Fall" PW: "xxxxxxxxx" to coordinate the effort if he bites. Join it at your convenience. Skwis is already in as is that scumbag that just decced you.

And here is the bait that he sent Socratic:

FW: (1) Unexpected help
From: Morin Blain
Sent: 2011.06.08 07:16
To: Zedrik Cayne,  






--------------------------------
(1) Unexpected help
From: Morin Blain
Sent: 2011.06.06 23:59
To: Socratic, 


Hi Soc,


I am sorry that it is such a long set of evemails but there is a lot of stuff to explain and you need to know it all before and if you decide to help me. I have to send it in several parts as there is a limit on the length of an evemail. Please read them in the order i've numbered them.


As you know Zedrik podded me with his alt specifically to strip my implants. I now know why. As I still have my alt in the griever intel channels i found out that they like to bet against each other on their grieving antics and are regularly engaged in juvenile "who has the longest" contest. Well one day it seems that someone (I think it was those OOPS and/or SKULD guys) mentioned that they doubted that Zedrik could beat me in a straight 1vs1 frig fight. So suicide podding me with an alt had absolutely nothing to do with his current campaign against you, it was just to improve his odds to beat me 1vs1 in a frig fight. 


This sickens me to my stomach that someone would go that far. I can't image how one could ever feel proud about such a rigged fight. I do 1vs1 regularly and one of my proudest moments was when i beat Kate in a straight 1vs1 fight, not because i cheated but because I won fair and square.


After Zedrik's alt podded me he has been hammering me to get into a 1vs1. If rumors are correct there is a very large sum riding on it for him. Without implants I wouldn't stand a chance so I've been ignoring him mostly up until now. I also have not given them the satisfaction of hearing about how devastating a loss those implants were to me. They are in the business of "extracting tears" as they call it, so the best thing to do is deny them that, however difficult.


Some days ago I was contacted by a large mission runner alliance. Turns out that i've fought several of their members in 1vs1 and they really liked how i showed respect to every opponent. I even let some of them go (the ones that were obviously very bad at pvp). They have lots of experience with Zedrik too, he has ganked a lot of their mission runners and they have been looking for revenge ever since. They even hired some of the biggest merc alliances but unfortunately they didn't know that Zedrik is affiliated with those so they poured their isk down the drain as the mercs always seemed to "just miss" Zedrik.


To make a long story short, they want me to get revenge on Zedrik. They want him podded while wearing his good implant set (next to HG snakes he rumored to have extremely rare and expensive officer implants as well). In return they will pay me a nice amount of isk. At first I didn't believe any of it and turned them down (explained i couldn't fight him as he podded me out of implants) until I received a trade at SoE station hardly an hour later and got handed a full set of shiny high grade slave implants and several other +5% ones as a downpayment. I couldn't believe my eyes! This was several bill worth of implants, they must really want this Zedrik guy bad. I am amazed and humbled by their trust in me, i could simply walk away but thats not who i want to be (even in a game) so I will do everything i can to fulfill this (near impossible) contract. Now that i think about it, that wasn't you was it? With 7 years in the game you must have some alts too. Nah I'm getting paranoid.I have been very busy trying to prepare a trap for Zedrik but quickly ran into several problems, more about these in my next mails.


Morin


FW: (2) Ensuring contract parameters
From: Morin Blain
Sent: 2011.06.08 07:16
To: Zedrik Cayne,  






--------------------------------
(2) Ensuring contract parameters
From: Morin Blain
Sent: 2011.06.06 23:59
To: Socratic, 


First problem is how to know that he is in his good implant clone and not a cheap one. Fortunately I am in a unique position to practically guarantee that. If he fights me 1vs1 in a frig it will definitely be in his best implants (otherwise he has no chance at all and he knows it) and my contractors have accepted a podkill if and only if it is right after the 1vs1. They stated that the 1vs1 and pod kill have to be within a minute of each other so he won't have time to clone jump. Fair enough.


This leads to the second problem, how am i going to get a lock on his pod right after the 1vs1? I'm perfectly willing to give up sec standing by suiciding him but he is good enough to warp his pod immediately and will definitely not wait for me to lock him (in the intel channel i've heard that he is extremely paranoid when in this clone, wont even go near his own "buddies"). From my own experience I know that it is virtually impossible to catch a well piloted pod in empire space. The only reason he got mine is because i was typing "GF" in local (even though it wasn't), so courtesy killed my pod. I payed the ultimate price for not spamming the warp button right away, he won't make that mistake.


Smartbombs could be a solution but i quickly realized that even without all the security status risks using a throw away alt it would require extreme good timing and positioning skills. As pods insta warp the smarties would have to be fired at exactly the moment he enters his pod. This requires more luck than skill and since i get only one shot at this that option was off the tableI


t would seem that this contract is really impossible to do.


Morin


FW: (3) Getting his pod
From: Morin Blain
Sent: 2011.06.08 07:17
To: Zedrik Cayne,  






--------------------------------
(3) Getting his pod
From: Morin Blain
Sent: 2011.06.06 23:59
To: Socratic, 


Impossible contract, or is it? During my observation of Zedrik I noticed that he always warped to somewhere under SoE, there are no celestials in that direction so it has to be a safespot. It took me a really long time but I managed to probe it out (i got lucky he went afk while there). I put an alt in a cloaky there and yes, he seems to use it every single time. Refining the bookmark to the exact position took even longer (days) but I did it and am 100% sure it is spot-on (at one time he scared the shit out of me by warping there and landed only 3400m from my cloaky alt). An idea formed in my mind……


The only way to reliable way get a pod in highsec is by using smartbombs. This virtually makes it impossible as you cannot use them near a station or belt. A safespot is something completely different however. So the idea is to have a ship at his safespot with smartbombs already blasting away, beat him at 1vs1 and he will warp his pod right into it. Sounds easy enough but i didn't want to take any chances so I tested it out in using a safespot of my own and warping in a pod several times to see where it would end up. Turns out warps are not that accurate, there is a variation of a few K in which you land. As smartbombs have short-range it will only work with large smartbombs. I did lots of trial runs where i dropped cans on the landing spot and 24 out of 25 cans were within large smartbomb range. I like these odds :-)


But now i am coming to the third big problem, for which i need your help. The only alt i have that could fly a battleship with large smarties is on the same account as Morin, so cant use that. I will have to confide into someone. All of my old corpmates of SHHM are basically grievers too and i would run the risk that they would run to Zedrik with this for a reward. I cant trust them with this. I cannot imagine getting a random other person to go out and use smarties without telling the whole story so that option is too risky too. That leaves you, you are the only one I could trust with this and you happen to have some beef with Zedrik too so you might be willing.


But with you there is the problem of your security status. It's already at -2.5 and I will not lie to you you will get a sec penalty. I've calculated it to be a 0.93 point loss for you (12.5% of 10 - 2.5 = 0.93) so you would go to -3.4. This would mean you could barely enter 0.7 systems. I wouldn't ask that of you and I doubt you would consider it worthwhile. I would of course be helping you regain the sec status but it would take a long time and very hard with Zedrik most likely on our tail.


Morin


FW: (4) Your security standing problem
From: Morin Blain
Sent: 2011.06.08 07:17
To: Zedrik Cayne,  






--------------------------------
(4) Your security standing problem
From: Morin Blain
Sent: 2011.06.06 23:59
To: Socratic, 


I have to admit this had me puzzled for awhile. The obvious solution would be for you to be in a corporation that is at war with Zedrik's corp IEEE, no sec standing loss that way. I could invite you to my corp (since everybody except Xenofarion left SHHM is mine) but then I wouldn't be able to do a 1vs1 with Zedrik ruining the plan (for Morin would be at war with IEEE as well). You creating a corp and decing IEEE is not a good solution either, it would make his job grieving you far to easy and I doubt he would engage me at SoE with a 2004 wartarget nearby. He is not stupid. The solution presented itself with the whole Boston Bradley affair (as a sidenote this is an area where I agree 100% with Zedrik). As I'm hunting this Boston character too I did some intel and this boston character is unbelievably dumb, rude and arrogant. Dumb enough to dec IEEE without raising any suspicions. As this boston guy likes to hop corps to avoid wardecs and has lots of young alts with similar names I went creative and made up a new boston alt and corp and decced the IEEE. Zedrik will think it is just another hop in/hop out corp of Boston's and will not worry about the single few day old toon that's in it. Zedrik also knows that I would stop any 1vs1 if this boston character would interfere with the duel.


Next I remembered Skwis bragging in April about how he tricked you with an old pending application you send to his corp. If I have the story straight he saw you out of docking range in your gila, quickly accepted the application and both got your ship and pod. I didn't know that it was possible to accept an application while in space but apparently it is. It's a very dirty trick but we can also use this to our advantage. What if you would go to Zedrik's safespot in the smartbomb mega while still in [A] (so you won't be red to Zedrik at SoE and no strange corp ticker) and I would accept your application to the boston stooge corp right before engaging Zedrik 1vs1? The only way he could possibly see is if he would do a show info on your name but he'll be far to busy fighting me to do that. After it is all over you can simply dock up and drop corp (for some reason joining a corp can be done in space but leaving one requires being docked, some of the CCP mechanics are really warped!)


I have everything prepared and I assume you can fly a mega (it's T1 fitted). If you are willing to help me just let me know and i'll give you the exact mega i've tested with and necessary bookmarks. We will then go over the strategy in detail and execute our plan.


Morin


FW: (5) The final plan
From: Morin Blain
Sent: 2011.06.08 07:17
To: Zedrik Cayne,  






--------------------------------
(5) The final plan
From: Morin Blain
Sent: 2011.06.06 23:59
To: Socratic, 


So there you have it, in a nutshell my plan is as follows


:1. you apply for membership of my alts corp, i will not accept yet
2. I will accept Zedrik's 1vs1 challenge3. You hop into the mega i will give you and warp to the bookmark i will give you as well. It is important not to move at all once arriving and just let the ship come to a natural halt on its own. You will then be perfectly positioned to catch him.
4. Once you are at Zendriks safespot and seconds before i engage i will use my alt to accept your application and you will be at war with IEEE -> No concord -> No sec loss from podding Zedrik!
5. I will say "good luck Zedrik" in local and that is your cue to fire up the smarties, simply press F1 to F8 with about a second in between, this will ensure that roughly 1 will go off every second and no way a pod escapes from that. You will get the concord warning only when firing up the first. The timing isn't too critical. It's just that if you would fire them up almost simultaneously it will leave a gap of a few seconds when they recharge and you can be sure that Zedrik will be spamming the warp button when he sees you at his landing spot. For this reason the smarties have to be running before he arrives on grid in his pod
.6 Depending on the outcome of the 1vs1:
6a) I win, i will say "GF" in local and Zedriks pod will be on his way to you
6b) I lose, i will say "damn" in local and a badly damaged rifter will be on his way to you
6c) Win or lose, but Zedrik does not appear at the safe, you turn off the smarties
7. You warp back to a station and drop corp back to Aliastra, you will no longer be at war with IEEE


Option 6c seems to be highly unlikely to me, as i've been watching this safespot for days now and every single time after a fight Zedrik will warp there. In the days i've been watching i've never seen any other pilot there so i'm confident it is Zedrik's personal safespot. Also note that it doesn't really matter if I win or lose the fight with Zedrik, either way he will arrive at the safespot in a pod, or will soon be in a pod as his rifter will be badly damaged. If you turn on the smartbombs with 1 second intervals between the pod will have no chance in that case.


I had a different strategy at first which absolutely required me winning. This is however much better as that variable is no longer a part of the equation.


So basically you need to do only 3 things: 1) apply to the stooge corp, 2) warp to the bookmark and 3) Turn on the smarties at approximately 1 sec intervals when the fight between me and Zedrik starts.


The only potential danger for you is actually me. If i would double cross you and not accept the application to the alt's corp I would have an instant trigger to get aggro on you whenever you are undocked. I have no way of taking this risk away except that in this case you would be aware of it and you can add one more name to your list of known grievers.


Morin


FW: (6) Final words
From: Morin Blain
Sent: 2011.06.08 07:17
To: Zedrik Cayne,  






--------------------------------
(6) Final words
From: Morin Blain
Sent: 2011.06.07
To: Socratic, 


Lastly i would like to point out that i'm not doing this out of revenge, isk or some other juvenile reason like that. I just like a challenge and am trying to make something that is considered impossible possible just for the satisfaction of achieving it. I also believe that if this works you won't have a problem with Zedrik anymore. First of all because we use a corp based on boston bradley there is no link between us and no way of them knowing we are working together. All they can assume is that you probed out the safespot yourself, invented the boston bradley alt + corp and patiently waited for the right moment. Strange as it sounds but they will respect you hugely for that. Secondly he will be the victim of many jokes in his beloved griever channels for months to come. It's kind of a poetic justice that he will be podded in his expensive implants by his current victim and that makes you the perfect man, probably even the only man for this job.


Neither me nor my contractor have any interest to make this known to the eve universe. It will be my own private little chuckle to see them talking to each other in the intel channels with my spy about how socratic beat "one of their best". What you choose to tell afterwards in local i will neither confirm nor deny.


Strange as it may sound I'm having a blast with all this. It's a different type of PvP and i've already had moments gathering intel that were just as exciting as 1vs1 frig pvp. The time when he almost warped in right in top of my cloaky really got my blood pumping!


Regards,


Morin


ps. I know that this was a lot to take in (and type in!). I urge you to read it all carefully and judge for yourself. I have nothing to offer you to gain your trust but my past behavior and if that isn't enough then at least keep this to yourself and I'll try to find somebody else.




Okay, that was a lot to read: Then, Morin actually explains the nuts and bolts to me:


Our strategy
From: Morin Blain
Sent: 2011.06.08 07:19
To: Zedrik Cayne,  


Socratic's fall - strategy


Simply put I am able to get socratic at a safespot blasting 8 large smartbombs at my command (how i will explain after). We will use this to warp in a small fleet of pods right on top of him giving him instant -10 sec status


The fleet will consist of
Morin Blain in an disposable JC
as many alts/volunteers as we can get, all in disposable JC's


Out of fleet:
Zedrik Cayne in a rifter
My support alt in a cloaky.


I have the following bookmarks all in line:


SoE------GP---------------------------------------------SOC---WATCH


SoE - Sisters of eve station
GP - Pod fleet gathering point
SOC - Location of socratic in a mega blasting large smartbombs
WATCH - My alt in a cloaky to verify if socratic is indeed blasting away


The gathering point is sufficiently far away from Socratic that it won't show on d-scan. I doubt he would use it anyway but you never know.


The events will (hopefully) unfold as follows:
1) Some chat in local about Zedrik and Morin going for the 1vs1, Morin and Zedrik both in rifters at SoE
2) I give the signal to soc to get ready, soc undocks the mega and warps to the SOC bookmark
3) My alt verifies that soc has indeed arrived at that point
4) My alt will accept soc's application to his corp to put him at war with the IEEE. Soc knows this and this is how he "avoids sec standing loss"
5) I signal the pod fleet to warp to the GP (manual warp) (all pods check if they are indeed in disposable clones).
6) The fight starts, Morin will win even though he he doesn't have implants. Somehow Zendrik is shooting the wrong ammo with only 1 gun while we orbit at 6.5k. I am actually counting on comments from the locals to make it look real.
7) My alt verifies that soc has indeed started the smartbombs.
8) As soon as Morin pops Zedrik's rifter both manually warp to the GP, neither of us will say a gf in local until we land at GP and step 9 is in progress
9) Upon arrival Morin ejects right away (Zedrik can take the rifter) and initiates a fleet warp to the SOC position, taking all the fleeted pods with him.
10) Upon landing all pods should spam the approach button on soc just in case, shouldn't be needed if soc followed my instructions.


Extra style points for the pod that yells "Yippie Ki-Yay motherfucker!" in local last before popping.


My alt will be frapsing the whole event with the camera view on socratic and local chat visible. I will post it to youtube and Zedrik will publish the link on his blog.

So..such a simple plan...

All it needed was a few good pilots willing to sacrifice their pods. We got thirteen of them.

And because it is so simple..it worked...wonders.

I'll be collecting the local chatter in a subsequent post...but let me just say that Soc's sec status is....-9.8 right now.

And all thanks to...Morin Blain. So, if anyone wants to thank someone for this wonderous event..that is the man.

http://ieee.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=9887154
http://ieee.eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=9887153

And I would like to thank all thirteen of the folks who sacrificed their pods for the good of Arnon. They can out their mains themselves in the official thread here: http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1514296