There are a lot of new players, and I suspect new readers, who may be wondering about the history of Stay Frosty and A Band Apart. The archives here at Eveoganda can be intimidating, deep and extremely well-written - but where to start?
So here is a concise history of the journey that led to the creation of the greatest Pirate/Solo/Small Gang Corporation in the history of Eve Online - Stay Frosty. With links to archival posts that you can read at your leisure.
I started my first Corporation - Inglorious Basterds - when I only had about 6m skillpoints. The idea was to build a High-Sec based mercenary group without any knowledge of how that might work, or why it might work, or anything really. There is a great write up about that here. Obviously that didn't last, but I learned a lot.
I spent a lot of time down in Providence fighting wars, joining corps, flying with great pilots like ProGodLegend, Makalu, and many, many others. At one point I tried again to build a Corporation called Brutal Company - but we got awoxed pretty badly and the whole thing fell apart in less than two weeks. Again, much learned.
Every Corporation I joined, every mistake I made, all gave me great experience, knowledge, and contacts. I learned from every stop along the way, good things and not so good things. But it all got put into the mix. Eventually this all led to a great Corporation called Dissonance. One of the oldest Corporations still running in Eve and a great group of people from whom I learned the most. My time there was always great fun, but it also started me down a new path. A path away from Null Sec and into Low Sec. As I gained confidence as a pilot I increasingly wanted a chance to prove myself. In Syndicate I formed another new Corporation called Lucifer's Hammer.
This was the early days of this blog and the first time I started blending writing, graphics and propaganda together to serve my own ends. Lucifer's grew and we left the Alliance we started with, and joined Rote Kapelle. That didn't go well. Read that one, it is pretty awesome. Then we joined Muppet Ninjas. That also didn't go well. You should really read that one, it only lasted a day! Tired of joining we decided to go our own way and moved to Lisbaetanne in Verge Vendor. Eventually we made the decision to form an Alliance called Burn Away.
This actually went very well. We happened to be in a great area of Eve at that time. The Tuskers lived in Hevrice which was just two jumps away, and Shadow Cartel was getting up to speed in the area. So we had lots of great fights, good times, and flew together in many awesome gangs. For those that do not believe me, I even wrote propaganda posts about Immortalis in Shadow and The Tuskers while in a competing Corporation! Who does that?!? (Me that is who!)
Then came the Crossroads. A tremendous amount of real life landed on my shoulders and kept pounding me on the head. Catastrophic things. Divorce. Loss of Business. It was a crazy and depressing time. To make a long story short it all led to the collapse of Burn Away and the emptying of Lucifer's Hammer. I won't even bother linking anything about this, it pretty much was this blog for a year or so. I almost quit Eve. But luckily that was April Fools Day.
I joined The Tuskers. This seemed like the right thing to do at the time. You can read a lot of posts from that time and understand that I was very excited about this move. I decided to simplify my Eve and let someone else run things. I'd just log on and play. Mind my own business. I spent an entire year in the Tuskers without any problems to speak of. I logged in and got into fights. I didn't play a lot. But when I did I had fun. You can read the truth of that for yourself during those posts.
One line from that last post stands out in hindsight: "Like many people over the years they often make the mistake in assuming my sometimes irreverent attitude means that I don't take Eve seriously - which is far from the truth. This has caused a few clashes over the past year, but we've all worked those out and moved on."
I just wanted to log in and play. But during that year the Tusker leadership had changed significantly. And the new leadership was not content to let me just log in and play. In fact, it was the opposite. I was unemployed at one point and my Mic was broken. For this I had my roles stripped and was threatened with expulsion. I bought a new Mic. During a conversation regarding the collapse of Burn Away the previous year, a Tusker made the mistake of bringing my two special needs boys into the conversation. Not only did I get extremely upset about this and report it to leadership, I also sent the convo along to CCP. Nothing was done on either end. Another Pirate group broke a 1v1 with me and leadership refused to deal with that incident. These were not small incidents. But, at the time, Eve was not a huge priority in my life.
During the break-up with The Tuskers there was an incredible amount of drama. Some of that was my own creation, I freely admit that. In fact, I admitted it at the time. However, the amount of sheer hatred, anger, station-camping, wars, and threats that I received from people I had flown with for over a year was a shock. I would ask you this, and try to be truthful with yourself. A corp mate openly mocks you and your children. You tell him that he should stop, because they actually did have to go into the Hospital and they are actually troubled because they are on the Autism Spectrum. And not only does he refuse to stop, he refuses to apologize. And your Corporate leaders, who were in the conversation at the time, refuse to do anything about it. So yes, I was a tad bit angry.
And that has been and continues to be the only time since I've been playing Eve that anything about this silly game of ours, which I love dearly, has ever gotten personal.
A short time later I am returning from an engagement with several ships, which I defeated by the way, in my Sacrilege. As I land on my station a Vexor undocks. Two things happen, (1) I get really bad lag, and (2) I explode. No biggie, I dock up and jump into another ship. About five minutes later I get a convo request from the leader of the Tuskers. I'm suddenly getting yelled at, my fit is bad and I was using the wrong ammo! (Duh, I had used up all the proper ammo in the previous fight!) At this point I am livid and I want to quit. Things get a bit heated. Several Tuskers convo me privately and ask that I not quit, in fact how about we use this to get Tusker leader in trouble? This I did not expect. A Coup?
I ended up quitting. I have never, not even to this day, revealed who those Tuskers are that wanted to overthrow the Bully. Nor have I re-printed any of the convos. There would be no point to it, best to let these things fade with time.
I packed up my belongings and flew across the system to the other Station in Hevrice and haven't looked back since. Almost two years ago now. Despite virtually all odds, all opinions, all efforts, and all the anger, Stay Frosty continues to thrive. Over 600 pilots have passed thru our doors, over 200 remain and more join every day. A Band Apart counts around 500 members in total. And we continue to grow, expand, and thrive.
Our Code is clearly printed on our forums. Entire Corporations have been kicked from our Alliance for using profane language. No one is forced to be on comms unless they want to be. Or can be. Our pilots are free to use whatever fucking ammo they want in their ships. I'm more than happy to tell them the right way, but who am I to force anyone to do anything? And everyone has the right to expect the best from each other. We are not perfect, we are not trying to be, but I have never once broken my word. Or tolerated hate.
And we never will.
Think what you want about me. Everything that happens in this game is influenced by what happens in this game, behind this screen, and the real lives that we all must lead. I am no different than you in this regard. There are those that respect that fact, and those that do not. It can cost me everything and I will always land on the side that does.
All the rest? Is just pixels.