Ore Mongers
From EVE History
The past
Ore Mongers was founded in the Hysera-system by Samirol, Tobias Sjodin and Dario Wall (who then was CEO). We were founded as a piracy-corporation. Members at this time was Valentin LeFervre, Baleor Targeyren, Jacxx, and later on Vulcrust.
Ore Mongers worked mostly as a small unit piracy group roaming belts and doing what we wanted. Recruitment at this time was slow. Samirol was our most well-known member in the community, and we did get some attention because of this.
Together with another corporation, known as ETHEREAL DAWN we moved to Khanid, and the system Gehi (next to Vezila) we tried to have the few miners we had back then who we planned would work out of Gehi, but it just wouldn't work. It lead to Vulcrust (who was at the time our chief miner) screaming and yelling a lot about getting killed all the time, and our pirates weren't really very interested in doing anything beyond piracy.
Targets at the time was A2-V27, A3-LOG, and the low-sec pipe (and their belts). It was very difficult working as a smaller independent pirate corporation around Khanid, we had no blues beyond Ethereal Dawn, and we fought against Wings of Redemption, Black Nova Corp, The Movement, Soffoco Noctis, Sanguine Legion, and other known pirate outfits. Some recruits we got at this time was Zomiaen, and Samirol (who had left for a period to rat in Geminate, which at this time was "free space" run by Blue).
So Vulcrust made the call to move up to high-security space, where he recruited one of our most integral members today, Lazarus 745. But he also basically took the step toward "accepting" that the pirates wouldn't help with guarding miners (in fact, as pirates our job was quite different).
As a corp this basically led to a division, where Indy and Piracy were split into two separate sections operating nearly as two different corporations. There was a lot of drama at the time, and Ethereal's directors accused OMG of skimming from the top (since we had most industrials of the two corps). Which made us split up (we planned on making an alliance called HUBRIS ALLIANCE). Ore Mongers moved to Essence and Verge Vendor.
In Essence/VV, we continued the same pattern, something I tried to find a solution to all the time. But it ended up in us having a miner's headquarter (actually two, Candyland and Villore). With futile efforts of having scheduled ops for the entire corp. in Costolle, and Muetralle, there was no easy way to combine the two different styles of gameplay (Indy / Piracy).
At this time we fought against Solarflare Heavy Industries (who farmed the plex in Mel), Veto (though only a few times), Exotic Dancers, Incarnation of Evil, and many others (apart from our random piracy ofc.) - at this time we gained members such as Minith Jin, Lucifer Fellblade, KayaYautja, kapads, Amelis Laucian, Mirel Yirrin, Giant Haystacks, and eventually (at our later stage, when we mostly gatecamped in Obalyu) Murtific and Kabule Travar.
Efforts to unite
So the call came to control Costolle, for the entire corporation, which was a miserable failure, because just about at that time, UmaThurman war-decced us as a corporation. And getting our industrials to live there was just not feasible. Hell, even in High-security (where our outlaws couldn't do Jack to help) there were problems. Which eventually led up to Black Friday. Which was the culmination of the issues we had.
Not giving up easily, Ore Mongers then decided to try to pull things together in the two neighbouring systems Lisbaetanne, and [.5-system I have forgotten the name of]. While dodging Uma, we moved the industrial division to the .5, whereas the PvP-division would live in Lisbaetanne. Should Uma attack the industrials, the plan was, they would move into Lisbaetanne, and get support.
Something that worked in theory, but not in practice. Our pirates were still very much too mobile to ever stay at one place for long enough, and things just didn't work out. A final effort to try to pull us together was another low-sec-system off-grid from Costolle, etc. - but this was a miserable failure as well.
Pirate division
Meanwhile our pirate division were ganking haulers, cruisers, and anything that passed through Obalyu/Parts, and Ore Mongers made ourselves a name as a corp. that gatecamped and killed anything that moved around. To the point that GSC:s were placed everywhere near we operated, just to avoid us.
It was hardly a very economical adventure, there were not a lot of T2 fitted ships providing us with tons of ISK in Parts/Obalyu/Ouelletta. And while ganking thousands (!) of ships was fun, it did seldomly provide the nerve-wracking adrenaline rushes of hunting, fishing, or roaming, which was what defined us as a pirate corporation in our earlier times. And this was why we were asked to join the Pirate Coalition (which was our first alliance).
We had a lot of fun in Parts/Obalyu/Ouelletta, but we still had a problem getting the corp. knit together. Some of our members didn't really like gatecamping, so they hunted somewhere else, others just refused to fly a battleship in piracy, and we became divided into four different divisions.
One corp. Four divisions! Untolerable
'Low-sec hunting pirates, Low-sec gate-campers'High-sec industry (Candyland), Mid/Low-sec industry (Obalyu, Dead Man Star, Villore, Arant), with dwindling participation, the key group that mined consisted now of a few, very much still a family, but there needed to be a change. Our hunting pirates were a bit unmotivated, because VV/Placid/Essence was at the time pretty dry for hunting, and for them it was just not feasible to go gate-camping (this was to the point that they considered leaving (of which some did)).
Around here, the call was made to leave the Pirate Coalition, we had joined to be able to strengthen our pirate efforts (and friendships), and to not be so easily war-decced. In the end PC was more of a problem for us, so we left.
The issue of separate unity still was at hand, we had still an integral feel, being an Ore Monger meant you were a part of the family (and still does today), but many of our pilots still had never flown with eachother.
One thing remained our strongest trait as a corp, and that was that we was a very closely knit group. Despite of our differences. We would kill people, and get cheered on, we would ransom corporations, and cash-inflow for the corp. But still remaining very much apart in terms of divisions (Indy/Pirates).
At this time we decided to try and move to a 0.0 space, and tried Syndicate for awhile (around the T-LIWS-area) but started looking for a regular 0.0 alliance. At first it seemed like we would join CHIMP (Chimera Pact), but they were annihilated by AAA, so our second option was Peoke, and SMASH Alliance.
We moved to TDE, Ore Mongers achieved something that was bothering me before, since we used to live in Khanid space, namely [i]togetherness[/i] in terms of the corporation members operating out of one single central area, and then doing their own things out of that. But always coming back to the central area.
SMASH, and unity
In another effort to centralize, and find a vantage-point for the corp, a central location, a home, we moved to TDE.
With great consideration of the members of the corp. we needed to find an alliance that: a) Had their own 0.0-space, with ISK-making opportunities, whether you were a miner or not. b) Tolerated piracy c) Met Ore Mongers liberal standards d) Did not lie too far away, and did not have too much alliance bullshit. e) Provided enough PvP to satisfy those who jumpcloned into TDE from doing low-sec piracy, despite not liking blobs. f) Allowing for more unity, pulling the corp. now also physically together g) Allowing for freedom of choice in terms of being able to still pirate in low-sec space.
Getting 60 people to enjoy one decision is a hard thing, obviously some of us disagreed, and thought that despite the freedom to still pirate in Essence, they lost faith in that we still were true to ideals.
Ore Mongers has always been about the members, the main motto - always never to betray your own. Under a banner of liberty, and no enforced morals. Compromise for some was an impossibility.
We at this time lost: Kapads, Samirol, Paro. Some of our core pirates. A great blow, unfortunately we couldn't please them all.
SMASH were suffering stormy weathers, not just internally (you've all witnessed the instability of the leadership), but externally, with enemies and politics. Our goal as a corp. was to find space where we all can live, but allow for individual freedom in the corners of EVE. As long as you do well by the family, and don't just think about yourself.
In a huge fit of silliness PEOKE and EMPEROR called all industrials "worthless" and essentially alienated a big portion of our corp (which meant they alienated all of us). As we always emphasized on our togetherness, we left SMASH for R0ADKILL simply because I did not want to see us become divided like we used to be.
When we joined RK we had our first capital ship, a carrier [Thanatos] (flown by Mirel), which turned out to be more of a "semi-benefit" due to extreme internal conflicts about what should be done with that carrier (and what shouldn't).
Our ideals as we joined RK became to make sure every member would want to aspire to be an integral, active part of the corporation. And encourage, and educate eachother. Not undermine eachother. We are a family, we stick by our own. Whether our skillpoints lie more to the industrial side, we still participate among the combat-leaned. Whether we rather fight than mine, we still join up with our close friends, chat on vent, and together bring in the building blocks of our force.
And we have no hard rules, just a common understanding, that if you do well by the family, the family does well by you.
With R0adkill we did a lot, we watched powerblocks crumble (D2, ASCN), saw new regions of space open (Drone Regions), fought against and with some mighty alliances, became routined as both a 0.0 fleet combat corporation, and pirates out of 0.0 and low-sec.
Through all times, it's been the "we" that's made us stand up against internal conflict and drama, and made us prevail and be a unit that flies t1 cruisers, to a unit that flies t2, capitals, and faction gear that can kill capital ships on our own, and in the future form an alliance on our own.
