The Dark Arts: A Guide to Stealing Upwell Structures - Part 2

In my last installment, you will recall that I laid out a simple plan to steal myself an upwell structure or two, so that I would be able to continue wardeccing pubbies following the upcoming nerf that CCP Falcon continues to threaten us all with.

The plan was - join a corporation with structures, get director roles, steal shit. Easy peasey, right, my readers? I just needed to find a CEO naive enough to give director roles to me, Haedonism Bot, known Belligerent Undesirable and notorious griefer from wayback-when.

Stealth System Research and Logistics
I spent several days, cloaked up in my Stratios in a C2 wormhole belonging to my last war-targets, researching the problem, with occasional breaks to terrorize the locals. Finally I settled on a 1 man corporation called Stealth System Research and Logistics (SSRL) as my target.

The CEO of SSRL was a relatively new player, who had clearly PLEXed and skill injected to the point where he had wealth and ships out of all proportion to his age. I found him on the official EVE Online forums, lamenting his disillusionment with the game. He had set up all these upwell structures, he said, and had nobody to share them with. Unwilling to join any existing corporation, his only hope, he felt, was for people to help him build a corporation of his own.

I smirked at my computer screen. Here was a CEO in need of directors. I fired off an EVE mail to offer my services. After all, I have been a CEO several times over, and have a great deal of knowledge and experience to share.

The mark, Alexander Ceasar Caesar (Alex), was all too eager to accept my offer.

Once in, I took quick stock of my new corporation’s assets in space - a Fortizar, an Astrahus, a Raitaru, and half a dozen Athanors. More than enough to meet my needs, and to keep me in Merlins for the foreseeable future.


The Con
I quickly began efforts to convince Alex to give me director roles. My go-to tactic from my POS-stealing days was to offer to FC PVP fleets. Every CEO feels a deep, desperate need for content creators. Offer to create content, and they usually turn to putty in your hands. Then you tell them that you just need a few roles to get things done.

After my first effort, Alex quickly agreed to make me a director. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the same understanding if what that might mean. He gave me the title “Director of Military Operations”, and a few roles, but not the Director role itself. However - I did have enough access to see that the shares were still in the corporate wallet. At this point, I wasn’t sure if a mere director could transfer ownership of upwell structures, or if it would need to be a CEO, so I was encouraged by this development.

For a few more days, I waited patiently. It is important not to appear desperate for roles. I focused on being helpful, creating recruitment ads and giving Alex advice on how to grow and manage a corporation. Then I asked again for the Director role.

This time Alex agreed. When he logged in that evening he made me director. Then he logged off. I immediately flew to the fortizar, confirmed that I had an option to “transfer ownership” and made a thorough accounting of all the corp assets.

I was absolutely giddy with excitement at this point. I was going to heist my first citadels. I was on top of the world. But unfortunately, it was getting late. I have a newborn baby at home, and if I don’t get to bed early, he will make me regret it. I also wasn't sure if Alex would log back in that night, and I wanted to do the heist at a time when he wasn’t likely to be active. So I figured that I’d wait until morning. After all, I had the role, I could steal everything at my leisure. I had already won. Nothing could go wrong.

That’s where I fucked up. Alex got cold feet, and in the morning, my Director role was gone.

In our next installment, I’ll finish the story. Will our hero heroically liberate the fortizar from the perfidious carebear? Or will he disgrace himself with failure? Tune in next time to find out!