The Great Escape

How a scam in EVE OnlinE turned into its greatest rescue mission.

- Steven Messner

The moment the fleet of Svipul-class tactical destroyers crashed through the gates of Standing United’s home system was the greatest moment of Circo Maximo’s virtual life. Leading the charge was a man who had once tried to take everything from him. But today, EVE Online’s most notorious scammer Scooter McCabe would be his saviour. As the hundred-man fleet warped into the star system, Scooter McCabe sent a message in the local chat channel: “We are the Goonberets and we are coming to liberate the oppressed.”

Though Circo didn’t realise it, he had just become the target of EVE Online’s first humanitarian-aid mission.

Weeks earlier, The Mittani, leader of the massive Goonswarm Federation and Scooter’s boss, asked him to settle a personal vendetta against another player. The mark was a small-time pilot who went by the name of Scottmw15 and had made a crucial mistake when he called The Mittani’s personal friend a bitch. Scooter would teach Scottmw15 a lesson about making the wrong kinds of enemies.

In EVE Online, veteran pilots often play with multiple accounts at the same time. This allows them to specialise in several key areas, such as having a powerful combat pilot and another who oversees complicated industrial production chains. For Scooter, each of his ‘alts’ is a suit of digital skin that he wears to become someone else. This time he’d become Neerah Otomeya, a quiet, likeable pilot. In a harsh sandbox MMO where trust is everything, people like Scooter are the very reason it’s in short supply.

“The idea was that I would infiltrate his corporation, befriend him, get a leadership role, and then rob everything,” Scooter says. Making matters easier, Scottmw15’s corporation, Standing United, recruited only brand-new players. It seemed like a simple scam.

HEART OF DARKNESS