So why burn a billion isk and start an Alliance now? This has to be the question I've been asked the most during the last week, so I thought I'd take a moment to answer it, as well as tell you more about the vision behind the Alliance itself.
First of all, we are a low-sec based Alliance. This is miles and miles different from being a Sov Holder, Pet, BFF or whatever else you want to call a Null Sec based Alliance. If we had been interested in that play style, we would be doing things a lot different, believe me. But we aren't. So we don't have rent, or infra-structure costs, or any of the other burdens that a zero space Alliance has to deal with. Except for the initial cost, opening a low-sec Alliance costs us nothing to maintain. So cost is not an issue.
Secondly, while Lucifer's Hammer is growing all the time, we aren't planning on becoming a huge 100 man Corporation. In fact, just the opposite. So we take the basic premise behind Lucifer's Hammer, small, dedicated, professional killers, and expand that out to the Alliance. Just as LUCRH doesn't accept every applicant that comes along, neither will Burn Away. We aren't looking to be the biggest, only one of the best.
But why? Right now we have many great contacts amongst like-minded corporations and alliances. In fact, we often fly together for fun, for taking down bigger targets and for other reasons. So we have those established contacts. This is one major benefit we can also offer other Corporations that may be interested in joining. We have a whole room full of batphones in other words. However, we'd also like to accomplish more than what we currently can within that environment and the only real way to do that is by having more people within the Alliance on-line.
It's about having back-up, numbers when needed, and more importantly than anything else - options. The more people of like-minded relation you have around, the more options you have. And by more, again, we are not talking big numbers here. We're looking for 3-4 more similar sized Corporations to join us in our shenanigans. From there? Who knows? Such things are organically driven once organized and imparted with a life of their own. The road ahead is full of options and possible paths. The point is that being a part of such an organized mayhem, ensures that you have a say in which paths those might be.
Something that being a lone wolf Corporation may not give you.
And that is not a slam against lone wolf Corps, but only a statement of fact. I can certainly understand why some would choose to go it alone and I totally respect that decision. But I'm not talking to those Corps, I'm talking to the ones out there that might want more options.
Out in the real world I worked for other people for almost twenty years and one day I realized that if I wanted the perfect job, I was going to have to create it. And I did. I went out and built the kind of place that I would like to work for, the kind of place where I'd actually look forward to coming into work every day. In many ways, this is what Lucifer's Hammer is all about within the confines of the Eve universe. And hopefully, the same will be true of our new Alliance as well.
But, just as with our Corporation, much will depend on the people that help us build it. I'm only one person and it takes many people to build a successful corporation and alliance. And those people are and will be, much more important than I ever will be.
Anyway. Let's see where this street goes shall we?