Recently, Maelstrom tried to raid a planet in 23k. We had big ships and the power to bust these planets open. One problem, EMP. The new version of the game is heavy on EMP. Which basically means you aren't likely going to fire at all at the planet. So this made our raid very difficult. This is when the leadership opted to power drain. Making the planet into a shield ball. After 80 shots, the planet didn't run out of power. And one of our raiders was running out of turns. So we left that and raided a station in the same sector. I was flying cover and triggered on most of the kills. I only got 1/8 kills. Oh well, it is the teamwork that counts.

A day after the raids, I sold my carrier and bought a freighter. Now I'm leveling my pilot and hopefully in a few weeks, I will be ready to jump back into a war-bird. And hopefully by then we will have more planets. And we better do this quickly since the round will finish July 15. So far it has been a fun round, but we need to go out with a bang. I just hope the galaxy is ready for us when we get into war-birds. It will be one hell of fun time.

-Robin

Now, Maelstrom was originally an alliance formed about 4 years ago in SM. They were a strong alliance with most of the best players that currently reside in TDZK. At the beginning of this round. KAOS, the alliance I was supposed to join, split off into two major factions. One was Maelstrom and the other was the Praetorian Guard. I was originally planning on going solo, but after talking to a few friends, and being invited to join Maelstrom and PG. I chose to go MS simply because I like a lot of the people there. We were going to be a small group though. A compact fighting alliance.

Unfortunately, we didn't start off too well. People were inactive or not doing what they were supposed to be doing. And our neighbours started acting up, so we had to quickly ship into war-birds to fight them. The Imperials, which were the remains of a once powerful alliance controlled most of the planets in the system we wanted. So we went to war with them, beginning a long mine war that is still going on now. We took one of their planets, but they still own 3 in that system. And directly to the south is SoF. A growing alliance that began pressuring us to leave their system. Our response was to systematically annihilate their forces. Of course, I was given the job of doing it. To this date, I have about 10 SoF kills and about 4 that I assisted in killing. This is pretty good since SoF hasn't killed many MS. Hopefully this disagreement will not turn into another mine war. Because I really hate mines, they are the worst thing unless you are using them to hunt.

Anyway, enough rambling... I'll update this journal as some fun stuff happen.

-Robin

Well, this journal entry is dedicated to my exploits in the online game TDZK. (www.tdzk.net)

Firstly, I started the game about half into the round. This was the fifth round I believe. Anyway, I started off as a really small pilot. I was quickly recruited by the leader of the Demon Hunters. A small alliance with hopes of glory. Unfortunately, the leadership was quite horrible. So a friend and I left the alliance for one of the trade alliances in the game. The Interstellar Trade Consortium was its name. At one time it had been one of the greatest alliances out there. But there had been several internal problems that led to the disbandment of the alliance. I joined in its second coming that round. The former leader had returned and tried to reform the alliance. Unfortunately, he had to stop playing. Leaving ITC leaderless. After several weeks of disorganization, leadership was given to Damion. A great guy, but not a leader. Damion also had to stop playing, and now the alliance was leaderless yet again. I was, at the time, the most active member. And also the newest member. Besides all this, I was given control of the alliance. I started to reform. Recruit new people and promote others. To protect our traders, I had to become a hunter. Through trial and error, I learned the tricks of the trade. As a solo hunter, I was good at it. But never too good at group hunting. ITC was rich and growing. But after a few rollbacks, people began to become inactive. So I began to look for other alliances. Since the reset was coming, I needed to find a place for the future.

I frequented the IRC server used by most TDZK players. There I met many great people. Including Baba and icehole. These two were helpful and kind to me. Amazingly, they were also the leaders of the most feared alliance in the game, Kill Anything On Site(KAOS). After a bit of contemplation, I requested an interview to join the alliance after the reset. During the interview, I was bombarded with questions. Finally, I passed the interview and was now a proud member of KAOS.

I continued in ITC until the end of the round. I became quite an accomplished hunter and finally did something with my alliance.

I'll write more later on about what happens next.

-Robin