Larkonis Trassler was proud of his reputation as a “scoundrel,” and as a frequent visitor to EVE‘s Crime & Punishment forums, he would share with his fellow reprobates tales of skullduggery.
“For me there are too many tales to tell so I will throw it out to you denizens of C&P. Have you ever made someone sing for their ship, griefed them out the game, drank a carebear’s sweet tears as they wept into an overflowing cup…” – EVE-O Crime & Punishment forum, 24 March 2009
Further digging will unearth some of those tales, though. In a thread inviting players to share the most cold-blooded thing they’d done in EVE, a gleeful Larkonis bounded in to share this evil gem:
“I’m a big fan of the INFOD Drone Lottery. When we scan down a mission runner and lock him down (and assuming he doesn’t loggoffski) the fleet gets called in and everyone puts their weakest drone on him until he pops. The winner gets 1mil from all the participants. We had one guy locked down for around 15 minutes while our fleet slowboated through deadspace mission gates. HARR HARR HARR.” – EVE-O Crime & Punishment forum, 3 April 2007
Crime and Politics
As his renown grew for piracy and scamming, Larkonis was able to leverage his infamy to earn himself a place on the 3rd Council of Stellar Management in 2009. In hindsight, this was probably a bad idea.
For some background: the Council of Stellar Management was a player body set up in 2008 to reinforce communication and transparency between EVE players and CCP developers. It was a pioneering move on CCP’s part, and one that poured oil on the troubled waters of the previous year’s T20 scandal (a developer was caught giving Band of Brothers alliance special items).
However, whilst attending a CCP-hosted summit in Iceland, Larkonis, ever the opportunist, learned of proposed game mechanic changes and sought to use the knowledge to his advantage by indulging in some insider trading.
What Cookie Jar?
According to the EVE Tribune, Adam Ridgway (Larkonis Trassler’s real name) returned to his Iceland hotel room after an evening of drinking, where “he logged on, saw a spike in the price of said commodity and, figuring that the cat must have been out of the bag, decided to buy his own piece of the pie. Upon discovery by CCP Internal Affairs (who very wisely monitor CSM members’ wallets), Ridgway promptly confessed everything, and agreed to cooperate fully and resign his CSM seat. In addition to losing his CSM seat, Ridgway’s accounts each received a thirty-day ban.”
In a devblog including official statements from the remaining CSM members, CCP and Larkonis himself, in which he wrote:
“Before attending the thought of using any information gained to aid my position in-game never crossed my mind. However, we are all human and when presented with this information the urge to act on it was too great.”
I’m reminded of Aesop’s Fable of The Scorpion and the Frog:
A scorpion and a frog meet on the bank of a stream and the scorpion asks the frog to carry him across on its back. The frog asks, “How do I know you won’t sting me?” The scorpion says, “Because if I do, I will die too.”
The frog is satisfied, and they set out, but in midstream, the scorpion stings the frog. The frog feels the onset of paralysis and starts to sink, knowing they both will drown, but has just enough time to gasp “Why?”
Replies the scorpion: “Its my nature…”
Larkonis Trassler continued to play EVE, running for a CSM seat again in 2011, but his application was rejected by CCP. On his blog, Larkonis wrote that he was “[m]oderately butthurt about it all but I’m not intending to ragequit over it (much to the irritation of some).”
And he didn’t; he’s still out there somewhere.
NEXT: Helicity Boson – The Industrial Terrorist
EVE Player Celebrities: Rogue’s Gallery
- Lord Zap – The Serial Killer
- Haargoth Agamar – The Alliance Defector
- Istvaan Shogaatsu – The Corporate Infiltrator
- Larkonis Trassler – The Pirate Politician
- Helicity Boson – The Industrial Terrorist
Published: Oct 31, 2013 04:53 pm