I’m the terror of the galaxy, the scourge of the cosmos
Being a colossal space-Jerk in Elite: Dangerous
I’ve always played it straight. I spend most of my time trading. Besides the odd incursion by pirates, it’s a fairly easy way to make credits. But I got bored, so I decided to play differently. Elite is, after all, a sandbox game.
I could become a bounty hunter, perhaps. Elite’s very own Boba Fett. But I have mediocre weapons and a basic starter ship. So I decide just to be a jerk.
I hover outside Azeban City, the starport where new players spawn in multiplayer. Then, when another player undocks, I start firing at them. I’m deep in Federation space here, which has a heavy police presence, but I let rip with my lasers anyway. Most pilots panic and jump to safety, and some try to get back into the base where the automated security cannons will protect them. Finally, someone fights back, and we engage in a dogfight. I win—we were both in basic Sidewinders—and a bounty is put on my head. Aha! That’s what I’ll do. I’ll rack up an enormous criminal record before the space-cops get me.
So I keep harassing people, waiting for them to tumble out of the docking port and pummelling them with laser fire. I kill a few other players and my bounty continues to tick up. Soon the Federation security forces are rushing in to end my reign of terror. Against the odds, I manage to defeat one of them, even though they’re in much better ships, and I get yet another murder charge. I’m the terror of the galaxy. The scourge of the cosmos. The—oh, I’m dead. Another security ship blew me to pieces. Game over.
Back to trading I go, a couple of hundred credits here, a couple of thousand there. The piratical life is not for me, evidently. At least not until I get a better ship with bigger lasers. As I move from system to system, I look like just another innocent trader to the players around me. Little do they know I’ll be using the money to buy an Anaconda battleship and become, once again, the most notorious pirate in the galaxy—and hopefully for more than ten minutes this time.