New Zealand Eve Alliance
From EVE History
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|---|---|
| New Zealand Eve Alliance [NZEA] | |
| CEO | Dreygar |
| Created by | Reaper Cometh |
| Created on | 2004.05.26 |
| Website | none |
| Current status | closed |
The New Zealand Eve Alliance [NZEA] was a small Empire-based industrial corp of about a dozen new Eve pilots that existed from May to October 2004. Most active pilots went on to form Ingenuity [8WIRE] and join the JQ Alliance [JQA].
Contents |
History
Formation & initial settlement
NZEA was formed by Reaper Cometh in May 2004 after he and several of his real-life friends in Christchurch, New Zealand had joined the game within a few weeks of each other. The name, ticker and logo were devised by Ben Derindar, the ticker doubling as shorthand for "New Zealand" and the logo being very loosely based off the real-life New Zealand Air Force logo. Despite the name, NZEA as an entity was not an actual alliance; its creation predates the introduction of the alliance in-game mechanic.
The original member list, in alphabetical order:
- Ben Derindar
- Crocky
- Derlask
- Gradaal (director)
- Kakapo
- KelThuzad
- Mull'ak
- Norem'ak
- Reaper Cometh (CEO)
- Tokenz (director)
The corp elected to settle in Nahol, Kor-Azor. The neighbouring Latari system was full of belts of kernite, while two jumps in the other direction, Gademam offered a low-sec option for the future once the membership felt they were ready for it.
Empire mining & corp growth
In an effort to give the corp some direction, Reaper initially declared NZEA to be a communist corp. Regular group mining operations were held in Nahol and Latari, with all the proceeds going towards providing each member with their first cruiser. The order of reception was determined by a group vote based on who had been participating and was thus the most deserving of the next ship.
Over time various NZEA members discovered - and in turn were discovered by - other New Zealand based players throughout the galaxy. Some, like Asuras, Bardiel, hiddentalents and Nawty (who soon re-rolled as n0sPIG) joined the corp, while others such as Broc Vallion, Burning Chrome, Ramius Monteagne and Caytlyn Rose were content to simply stay in touch instead. This led to the creation of the "Kiwi" in-game chat channel.
Broc in particular was instrumental in helping grow NZEA at this time, offering to guard the corp in its first low-sec mining operation in Gademam, as members looked for more lucrative ore with an eye towards building the first corp battleships. He taught NZEA about how to create and use "insta" bookmarks for faster travel, and also how to use the various on-board scanners.
Discovering 0.0, arkonor and PvP
By the middle of 2004, Broc was ready to share with NZEA the location of his secret arkonor mining spot: RNF-YH in central Catch. This led the corp to establish a presence in the Tash-Murkon border system of Esa, as haulers and mining cruisers were carefully flown out to RNF and parked in deep safespots. Relationships began to form with the few other parties active in the area such as Dirty Deeds Corp. and Versatech Interstellar Ltd, and eventually NZEA pilots were invited into a shared intel channel and even onto their TeamSpeak servers. This would lead to some NZEA pilots taking up arms alongside their friends for the first time, against local pirates such as Corp 1.
Soon enough arkonor was mined and hauled back to Esa for refining to put everyone in NZEA into their first battleship. It was at this point that the corp's idealogy changed from communism to something more capitalistic, as it was deemed that each member now had enough assets in the game to be able to pay their own way. Some members soon discovered the income-making potential of NPC hunting in 0.0, and were now capable of making tens of millions of isk a week.
Closure, preparation for alliance life
By September 2004 Broc had disappeared from the game and Burning Chrome had taken over as an unofficial mentor for the corp. He saw that everyone was developing different interests: Ben, Kel and Reaper were keen for more PvP for example, while Crocky, Derlask and Tokenz preferred the industrial side of life. Chrome's suggestion for NZEA at this stage was therefore to apply to join an alliance. Candidates such as the Coalition of Free Stars [CFS] and the Fade Union [FU] were considered, before it was decided to apply to the JQ Alliance [JQA] in Syndicate. In an effort to make the application look more attractive, it was decided to close NZEA and the active members set up a new corp called Ingenuity [8WIRE] to apply with. JQA co-leader Maud accepted 8WIRE's application a few weeks later.
NZEA was effectively abandoned altogether with the 8WIRE reformation, the only remaining member (Dreygar) inheriting the CEO's role, though he hasn't been seen online now for several years.
Where are they now?
While the NZEA is now a long-distant memory, some of its former members continue to operate throughout the galaxy. As of November 2007, Ben is with Axiom Empire [AXE], hiddentalents is with the Southern Cross Alliance [SCA], Norem'ak is a member of the Australia & New Zealand Eve Corp [ANZEC] and n0sPIG (now under the name Raznarok) flies with Triumvirate [TRI].
