User:Sylvanium orlenard/Wormhole Campus: A History

This page is a work-in-progress intended to wikify the beginnings of EVE University`s Wormhole Campus

Main Actors

• Sylvanium Orlenard
• Frood Frooster
• Azmodeus Valar
• Scrapyard Bob
• Threshold (Corp)

In the beginning

The year is 2012, the month is the month of June. The capsuleer Sylvanium Orlenard is born and joins EVE University. At the time, EVE University was not involved in unknown space. The university, and most of its cohort was situated in Aldrat. There was a Low-Sec Campus, and it was the only campus.

This was not long after CCP had made some rather drastic changes to the War Declaration system. A change that was likely brought on by Eve University's infamous "Dec-Shield" (a system that made it prohibitively expensive to declare a war on Ivy League) As a result the Wars Operation Procedures directives were undergoing a major scale back. While it was allowed, undocking while not being in a fleet was frowned upon still. One had to be on mumble in order to undock. Almost everyone on mumble ended up being in the public lounge (It was corp only at the time, non-corp members could only log in to the Spy Lounge...) Kelduum Ravaan still CEO of Eve University at the time, and was a member of the CSM. Azmodeus Valar was recently promoted to the role of Director of Operations (essentially CEO in all but name).

The corp thinking at the time was to avoid splinting the university at all costs. Most of the University services (Classes, Fleets, etc.) were suppose to be given or at least starting in Aldrat, where 90% the unistas were. Any talk of creating a wormhole campus were quickly quieted down. More probing brought up horor stories of the ever mysterious "Division 6". Even it's name was hard to find. (Incidentally the pilots that created Division 6 and played in it eventually moved on to create one of the most recognizable names in W-Space: ADHOC)

If that wasn't enough there were other stories about an other attempt to get the Univeristy in W-Space. This time by a group calling itself the "Wormhole Club". This group never actually established a presence in W-Space while there were in the University. Once they left the university Wormhole Club's leader founded his own corp: Future Corps which eventually founded it's own alliance: Sleeper Social Club.

One guy, who had accepted as fact that the Universty would never again establish a wormhole presence created his own corp: Threshold. It was a novel approach to the University astonishingly lack of any teaching content regarding W-Space. His corp was only accepted Unista alts. They lived inside a C2 with a H-Sec and C1 static. The purpose of the corp? To teach Unistas about the mysteries of W-Space. It was alive and kicking during the summer of 2012. Threshold was an unsanctioned and unofficial university Campus. It's management received no support from University Management besides being granted blue standings. As a result, it's participation was extremely low.

This was the current state of affairs for Eve Unisersity and the Wormhole Space file (a file that was sitting on a shelf inside the CEO's captain's carters gathering dust)

Summer 2012

Summer 2012 would bring about major changes to the University. By Christmas 2012, the University would have a new permanent director position: Special Projects Director. The Null Sec Campus would be created and established in Non-Sov Null space. Project Solitude, a project meant to establish a University presence in the Solitude region in order to create a space for those pilots looking for the peaceful life was launched. The Director of Operations sent out a request for opinions and help with the possibility of re-opening the dusty wormhole file. And a newbie pilot would start FCing weekly PvE fleets intended to kill Sleepers, make ISK, teach and learn about all things W-Space; this weekly fleet was called: Noobs on W-Space Patrol, it still exists today, under a different name and different format: Noob Night in the Hole.

Noobs on W-Space Patrol

This was a weekly fleet, it was loosely modeled after a different fleet called "Noobs on Patrol". Every week, about 25 pilots would fleet up in T1 cruisers and battlecruisers, we would bring one dedicated salvaging pilot and go run wormhole sites, usually around 20 or so, and it would last anywhere from 1 to 2 hours. All the loot was then transfered over (and that included wormhole gas on occasion) to the organizer. Sylvanium was the only pilot to ever organize and FC this event. It started in late July / early august 2012 and the last Noobs on W-Space patrol was in mid-November 2012. This event was always preceded by an other event; The Wormhole Hunt.

The Wormhole Hunt

In order to find a wormhole with enough sleeper sites, advantages environmental effects (which really meant no effects) and close enough to Aldrat (meaning less then 30 jumps) an event was created: The Wormhole Hunt. It was a competition, it was an excuse to learn about scanning. About 1 hour before the start of the NWSP fleet a different fleet would form up in Aldrat. Each fleet member flew a T1 scanning frig or a covert ops (there were no Sister's of Eve ships back then, and even if their were, flying a faction frigate or faction cruiser would have been againts the War-SOP). The organizer, Sylvanium, would choose one of the regions around Aldrat and separate the selected region in constellations. Each fleet participant would be given a constellation to scan and they had to report their results in a spreadsheet (this is a game about spreadsheets in space after all isn't it?)

Interest in W-Space from management

Azmodeus send out an eve-mail to the corp asking for volunteers for a W-Space initiative. A number of people responded and from that a selection was invited into a super-secret forum group where planning for an eventual University Wormhole Presence could occur. This forum group eventually became the WHC staff forum. At the time (mid-summer) we were told that the University was entertaining the idea of setting up a POS in a wormhole system soon(tm) and this forum was a place to discuss the feasibility of such a venture. Planning started but discussions in the forum stalled after about a month.

Director of Special Projects

Frood Frooster was named to the new position of Director of Operations around September/August. His portfolio included the Ivy League Navy, the Low-Sec Campus and the Null-Sec Campus. It also included the eventual Wormhole Campus, which was still in the planning stages. Shortly after becoming a Director talks in the secret wormhole forums were revived. By this time Sylvanium's weekly wormhole events were well established and popular. That there was interest amongst the student body to learn about wormholes was self-evident.

Founding of the WHC

In November 2012, Sylvanium, who was a staff member of the directorate of special operations, was given permission to start looking for a possible wormhole space system to establish a University presence. An Eve-Mail was sent, announcing a unique event: a Wormhole Hunt whose goal was to find a home for a university campus. The event lasted about a week. Hundreds of system were scanned by a small group (25 students or so) of dedicated scanners, some because they simply loved exploration and all things scanning. Others because they shared a dream of a wormhole campus for the University. On November 22nd 2012 the wormhole hunt was ended. A system was found. On November 22nd a small group of 30 dedicated University pilots logged off in W-Space. On November 22nd we had found Innuendo.

Members of Threshold, who were helping the University find a hole. Where online at the time. Knowing that it would take a few days to get a pilot with the proper roles in E-UNI to anchor a POS, they offered to anchor a POS themselves and give Unitas a safe place to log off. (There was no option to safe log-off back then, logging off in space meant that there was a thirty second window where you were not online but you could be aggressed, once agressed they could take as long as they wanted to blow you up and Citatels were not even an idea at CCP yet).

Sylvanium send a forum PM to Frood (Director of Special Operations), Azmodeus (Director of Operations), Keldum (Chief Executive Officer) and Bashir (Head Diplomat). Saying that not only had we found a suitable home, but that he had already a group of pilots logged off in the hole and that we were actively maintaining hole control of the system. Saying that there was an abandoned POS in the system and we needed the diplomats to contact the owning corp. Saying that Unistas were logging off inside the forcefield of a POS belonging to an other corp then E-UNI and told to do so by a Staff member of the special operations directorate. Saying that we had founded the University Wormhole Campus.

Four days later, a fleet was organized and a POS was destroyed. Four days later the university received a donation from Threshold of a large Amarr Control Tower, modules, fuel and ISK. Four days later Scrapyard Bob, the university designated POS expert and at the time, the only non-director to have the roles needed anchored a Large Amarr Control Tower at moon 7-1 in Innuendo and small towers at all the other moons. On November 26th, Frood, as a Director of the University, announced the creation of a new Campus. It was official, EVE University now had a presence in Wormhole Space. Sylvanium Orlenard was named Wormhole Campus Co-ordinator, they highest level position available within the Special Operations Directorate, equal in title and responsibilities to the Low-Sec Campus Co-ordinator and Null-Sec Campus Co-ordinator. (Campus Co-Ordinators were not named Managers until late 2013)

The creation of the WHC had a very real effect for Threshold. Since the University was now actively creating a space for new pilots to learn about Wormholes Threshold had no reason to remain, the corporations closed shop and it's members moved to other corps, (most of them to Future Corps). The communal POS at the WHC was named Threshold. To recognize what Threshold did for the University and wormhole space education.