Ben Derindar

From EVE History

Ben "Benneh" Derindar is a male Caldari pod-pilot of Deteis descent. He graduated from the Center for Advanced Studies [CAS] on Todaki in May 2004 with a set of fairly balanced attributes, his best by only a small margin being Willpower. This is reflected in both his skills acquired since graduation and his personality, with substantial training across three of the four Empire races (60 million skill points as of March 2008) and an unerring resolve to do what he believes is right at all times, though with varying degrees of success.

History

May 2004 - Oct 2004: Early days, Empire and beyond

Lacking the mildly xenophobic trait common to most planetside Caldari, Ben was able to form a network of friends of all races during his studying days, particularly with the Minmatar pilot KelThuzad who Ben would come to regard as his "brother". Upon their collective graduation in 2004, they elected to band up and form a corporation of their own, the New Zealand Eve Alliance [NZEA]. Within the NZEA Ben and his friends learned how to survive and make a simple living under the relative safety offered by CONCORD in the Kor-Azor region of space.

While not serving in an official leadership capacity while in the NZEA, Ben nevertheless played a central role in the corp's growth. Ben was the first to learn the ways of the range and directional scanners as they were known in the days of the Castor ship interface, and developed his skills as a maker of "insta" gate-to-gate bookmarks. Also, such was his record against the local Blood Raider pirates that he held a standing with CONCORD of 0.5 before most of his corpmates had even reached 0.2.

Before long Ben became bored of the Empire life and longed to learn more of what lay beyond in the outer regions. Knowing that the price of pod-death increased with time, he set himself a personal goal to find and retrieve samples of high-end ore from wherever he could find it, and bring them back to Empire alive. This quest took Ben across much of 0.0, crossing paths with many prominent pod-pilot entities of the time, including members of m0o Corporation in Querious. Ultimately his quest was successful, but predictably at the cost of his first pod at the hands of a trio of pirates in Syndicate: Zarquon Beeblebrox, Lifewire and xpoHoc.

Following that first pod-pilot vs pod-pilot (PvP) experience, Ben's appetite for more such action began to grow. One expedition saw him fly up to Deklein to take up arms alongside the Coalition of Deklein (CoD) against the Phoenix Alliance (PA) and friends at the height of the Great Northern War. It was here that Ben participated in his first PvP kill in CZDJ-1, tackling Shar Gath's scorpion in his griffin while Shalmaneser Ili and awebon did the damage. However at this time, the rest of NZEA were concerned that Ben's activities would draw undue attention to the rest of the corp, and in a difficult decision, Ben relented to pressure from home and withdrew back to Empire.

Soon afterwards however Ben was back in 0.0, this time with his corpmates in setting up a small arkonor mining establishment based out of deep safespots in the dead-end RNF-YH system in central Catch. Here he would make friends with others in the area including Casey Jens and KSUDruid of Versatech Interstellar Ltd [VTIL] and Steel Rat and Murphy of Dirty Deeds Corp [DDC], both of which were corps Ben would spend time with in the future. Several of his favourite ospreys were lost to the Sansha NPCs, but the losses were paid for several times over by the arkonor successfully mined and hauled to Empire, to the point where enough isk was made for Ben and most other NZEA members to hop into their first battleships.

Ben's first BS was a scorpion, but was tragically stolen from its RNF safespot after only a few days by Righteous Fury. This setback prompted Ben for the first time to consider retiring from space for a couple of weeks before eventually pressing on. His next BS would be an apocalypse, also short-lived thanks to Sansha NPCs, but the armageddon that Ben then purchased with the apoc's insurance proceeds would stay with him for a full three years.

Oct 2004 - Feb 2005: Syndicate and life in JQA

Saying goodbye to his new southern friends in the RNF area, Ben followed the NZEA to lower Syndicate in October 2004 following its successful application to join the JQ Alliance [JQA] under the reformed corp Ingenuity [8WIRE] and then on to Unforgivn [UFGVN] following a corp merger. This environment provided the perfect opportunity for Ben to grow as a PvPer, particularly once fleet commander Arboc granted him permission to accompany the JQA Navy on roaming patrols around the region. His first kill for JQA was again as a tackler, this time in a vigil, webbing Ifni's "wideboy" fitted moa allowing Burning Chrome's torpedo volleys to finally connect.

Life in JQA also allowed Ben to grow as both a leader and explorer. The merger into UFGVN allowed the corp another representative in the JQA senate, a role which Ben was happy to take up and take an active part in. He also mapped the lower half of Syndicate region both via a new collection of instas, and in a standalone graphical form. His CONCORD standing also capped out at an even 5.0 at this time.

Ben also began leading PvP gangs of his own for the first time in November 2004, and was even granted the status of alliance fleet commander for the "night" timezone in December, though this was due more to the absence of talent in that timezone (JQA was a predominantly "European" alliance), than to Ben's own skills as a pilot, still relatively young at only 4 million skill points at this stage.

Ben was present at both of the famous twin battles of VV-VCR that took place in early January 2005. On the day of the first he was stranded in M2-CF1 next door, but after listening to the shambolic communications of the JQA fleet he volunteered to temporarily take leadership anyway, so that he could issue the gang invites while the FC could focus on leading the fight itself. On the day of the second Ben was a direct participant in his trusty geddon, and was one of a very small minority of JQA members to not lose their ship.

In the weeks that followed JQA collapsed completely at the hands of ex-Curse Alliance [CA] forces, as did UFGVN. Ben's duty record for JQA saw him ranked him as one of the alliance's 25 most successful PvPers, despite only having belonged for a few months.

Feb 2005 - May 2005: Time out, the mercenary life

On a personal level, Ben was greatly saddened by JQA's fall, and took some time out to consider his future in Deep Core Mining Inc [DCMI]. During this time an opportunity arose to be nominated as Eve's official "mapmaker", with the retirement of Quarath who had held the defacto title for several months prior. Ben submitted a style of map that was almost identical to that of Quarath's, hoping to capitalise on people's familiarity with the existing design and recognising his current membership to a neutral corp. In what turned out to be a two-horse race for the job, Ben ultimately lost out once again to Righteous Fury.

In March 2005, Ben assisted KelThuzad with the completion and release of their first eve video, JQA: A Look Back. This was a long-running project that the pair began some months earlier as a corp recruitment video for UFGVN, but was later retooled into a short JQA retrospective. The release won praise on Galnet from several of the galaxy's biggest personalities, but was quickly overshadowed just 24 hours later with the Mercenary Coalition's release of their epic blockbuster The FoE Contract.

Ben's self-confidence was restored to a small degree with these minor achievements, and was boosted further when he received offers to join a total of twelve different corps during his time in DCMI. In the end he chose to aid Burning Chrome in his dream of running a mercenary corporation in their unique EVE+12 timezone, and thus, Blind Vengeance [BL1ND] was born.

Ben has described his time in BL1ND as "simulataneously the best and worst time of my Eve life". Under the employ of the Xetic Alliance during its final days, BL1ND were never short of targets with Xetic facing over a dozen different Empire wars at once. The corp was extremely successful with a 10:1 kill/death ratio maintained throughout its initial 3 month run, but Ben struggled with the pressure of having to maintain such success with such a small corp - BL1ND never exceeded a dozen members.

The final straw for Ben came when the corp took on a contract against Contraband Inc [CONIN]-led forces back in lower Syndicate. Many ex-JQAers were now on the opposite side, and Ben announced his intention to the corp to leave at the end of the contract, unhappy with having to shoot former friends. BL1ND's response was to make the contract open-ended, so he then departed anyway, again dejected at having been placed in a position he did not enjoy, and now with the knowledge that he was just not cut out for the mercenary life.

May 2005 - Feb 2006: A return to the south

The options that had been presented to Ben pre-BL1ND were then revisited and it came down to a tossup between VTIL and DDC, both old friends of Ben and the NZEA. However, both corps were founding members of the new Ascendant Frontier alliance [ASCN], established under controversial circumstances that saw them retain positive standings with The Five [.5.], descendants of the former CA who had ravaged JQA earlier in the year. At this point Ben decided it was for the best to not allow past grudges interfere with future opportunities, and chose VTIL on the strength of their superior pre-DT presence, joining them on the 1st anniversary of his initial CAS graduation.

Having moved south just as the conflict there had come to an end, Ben was able to enjoy a period of peace not seen since his early JQA days, but did not let the time go to waste. He diligently went about building up a defensive fleet for himself across the Impass region, and put it to use on several occasions as well, quickly earning him a director's role within VTIL. Within a few short months he would become one of the corp's top 5 PvPers, a rank he would hold throughout his tenure with the corp.

Much time was spent helping those around him as well. Ben participated in several corp mining operations and complex runs, and even assisted in operations for other corps within the alliance when his own was quiet. He created his own insta sets for Impass and Feythabolis and gave them away to anyone in the alliance who wanted them. In August 2005 he was present at the launch of the galaxy's first ever pod-pilot-constructed outpost in Feyth, and led the alliance fleet that guarded the K-9 outpost deployment a few months later. In September he successfully revisited an earlier vision for a corp recruitment video, releasing VTIL Recruitment 2005 again with assistance from KelThuzad.

Towards the end of the year ASCN's campaign against the north had been pushed back to their own borders, with several northern alliances making inroads into home territory. Ben recalls greatly enjoying this war, and spent a great deal of time in and around the AZN-D2 area fighting alongside his friends truly unable to predict its outcome, such was the even-handed nature of the conflict. A reprieve was finally won when northern forces returned home in the 2006 new year to see off a separate attack on their homelands by the Band of Brothers.

(to be continued...)