My good friend No'Vac sent me a quote the other day from Dash saying, "Plexes are the Plankton of the LowSec Ecosystem". He thought it might make an interesting basis for a blog post. And, as I told him, I can write a blog post about anything. So here goes.
If we are going with ocean based analogies, I think a better one would be coral reefs. Plexes are like coral reefs in the ocean. Places where life gathers, conflicts happen, and fish either grow or are consumed by other fishes. There are other places that this happens, like planets, belts, gates, stars, stations, etc., but the coral reefs are reliable and spread throughout the seas. I like that analogy better in describing the function that FW plexes play in the overall ecosystem of LowSec space. Or, at least, in Factional Warfare LowSec space.
If anything is the plankton it might just be us. In our little ships whizzing about waiting to be food for predators. Although I do think that is a tad off considering we are also the predators. Let's not get hung up on semantics - this is an analogy after all. Like our oceans the Eve ocean in this case is also suffering from climate change, the addition of deadheads has forever changed the dynamic and now we are slowly watching certain areas of LowSec become more and more like Null. More multi-boxers, more organized gangs, more risk averse conditioning, more and more avoidance tactics - essentially the protection racket of group over the experience of risk. And while Null has built-in mechanics to help combat such tactics - LowSec typically does not. It is a legitimate growing concern. At least from the perspective of this old pirate.
As always we grow, adapt, and transform into the ecosphere as it evolves. This is not new. And however you want to build an analogy around it, the truth is that sit continues to change and evolve. All we can do is try to keep up, swim faster, and try not to be the first fish on that infamous "always a bigger fish" chart.
PS: The image is from a Just reward asking for us to change one word in a famous movie quote. I may have gotten carried away.
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