Love him or loathe him, if you’ve spent any amount of time in Hek in the past decade you almost certainly know of him. In truth, this is an acknowledgement long overdue. You see, despite having no formal affiliation and having declined my many attempts to recruit him, he is nonetheless the Godfather of the HMA. How, you might ask, is the Resident Outlaw of Hek so important to the spiritual fabric of our friendly neighborhood cartel? Allow me to share with you the story of the often imitated but never duplicated Solstice Projekt.
On the surface, SP might appear to be a run-of-the-mill ganker preying on the weak and defenseless. And, the impression of his being a griefer isn’t lessened any when you take the time to interact with him. His personality is abrasive and his tone condescending. This wouldn’t be so bad if he wasn’t right so goddamn often. You see, when it comes to Eve Online (and nearly everything else if you ask him) he’s something of an expert. And, despite the evidence to the contrary, SP is at heart a miner.
However, don’t get him with confused with your average Veldspar-addled rockhound. As with everything he does in Eve Online, there is nothing casual about about the way he mines. What he understands, and what he tries very hard to impart, is that everything in Eve Online is PvP. This applies as much to traditional ship battles as it does to mining or any other kind of “PvE” content. When you’re stripping a belt you aren’t fighting rocks; you are fighting every other miner in New Eden. If you want to be competitive you need to be better, faster, and smarter than everyone else.
When I begin running my public fleets it was just a way for me to kill time while I worked from home. But, I knew it had the potential to be so much more and SP saw that to. From the very beginning he provided guidance and a sounding board. Simply put, without SP the HMA would not exist. While I don’t always agree with everything he has to say, I agree with the spirit and intent behind his words and ideas. One of my primary goals with the HMA is to maintain and spread traditional Eve Online values. If you were to make a list of people who most embody those values Solstice Projekt would take at least three of the top ten spots.
Thank you. 🙂