No one really understands what is going on in Stay Frosty. Sometimes even our own members are probably confused. Heck, I must admit, that I am sometimes confused. Let's be honest here, it shouldn't have worked. Goodness knows I've been told a million gazillion times that it wouldn't. That it would never. That we was doomed to fail. That this idea was stoopid and would never work in Eve. Sometimes the people that told me it wouldn't work were pretty darn angry about it. Like crazy angry.
Thing is? I never had any doubts.
I was confident it would work because I had zero expectations that it would work. All I knew for sure was that I was going to do it no matter what happened. And, if I was the only member, then I'd keep doing it. Frankly, had no one else joined, I'd still be in Stay Frosty solo'ing around Low Sec on my own. There is a extreme amount of freedom to be had in approaching the building of an Empire from that perspective.
And yet here we are 1 year, 6 months and 27 days into the Stay Frosty Era and 251 days into A Band Apart. 230 players call Stay Frosty home and over 400 call A Band Apart home in seven different Corporations - each, to one degree or another, embracing the ideals of the parent corporation in their own unique game-play orientations. High-Sec Industry, Missioning, Wormholes, Trading, you name it and we have it covered. We operate like one giant Corporation, with members free to move within the Alliance and everyone free to do as they please. Join an op. Go make iskies. Yarr with the Pirates. Whatever.
We continue to confuse people. We've had an open door recruitment policy since day one and that isn't supposed to work in Eve. Considering that well over 700 players have passed thru our doors, we've only had a few minor instances of drama. (Three to be exact.) We continue to hold fast to an old fashioned idea of Solo and Small Gang piracy that is increasingly difficult to find in Eve. And when I say old fashioned I mean old fashioned. As in without link ships hiding next to Gates or on Station. Just try to find a Pirate group that doesn't do that. You can't. (And yes, we have many link ships - heck I have an alt that is extremely good at them and Rixx himself is trained in them. So let's be adults here. We use them when forced to, but never in normal day-to-day activity.)
We are also very strange in other ways. We are extremely casual when it comes to rules. We have comms, and we use them for organized roams, but we have no rules about having to be on comms all the time. This confuses the hell out of people. We don't kick people for inactivity. (I do clean house every six months, but I write each person a note telling them they are free to come back if they return to the game.) We roam all over the Universe. We have active groups in just about every corner of New Eden and you'll often see kills on our killboard from every corner. And generally we tend to do whatever seems like it would be fun to do.
We are weird. We don't play by the rules. We are doing our own thing over here. And it works really, really well.
Granted, it isn't for everyone. There are those that enjoy being told what to do by a handful of ego-maniacs who think they know what is best for them. Or those that prefer to serve masters who only care about filling their own wallets at the expense of others hard work. And some people like to be responsible only to themselves and choose the hard way of going it alone. I respect that. And no one believes in your right to choose your own adventure more than I do. More power to you.
However, if you are also weird and want to prove yourself to no one other than yourself - then I invite you to come join Stay Frosty or one of our member Corporations. Supreme Mathematics focuses on Wormhole space, Lucifer's Hammer on Hi-Sec Industry, Voodoo Children on Missions (and other stuff!) and each one is always open to new members. And, of course, Stay Frosty is all about pew pew. And we take everyone, young, old, bitter, crazy, nuts, whatever.
I don't know where this crazy train is going. All I know is that it keeps rolling along with a full head of steam. Where we go and what we do is ultimately up to our members. And that is yet another thing that makes us pretty weird.
Stay Frosty. Always.