Where are they now?

Sov Wars will be publishing a bi-weekly column focusing on well known pilots who were formerly in the militias. Today’s interview is with Garst Tyrell of No.Mercy. Garst was an FC for the Amarr in ’09.
Interview conducted by Raphael Saint.

Sov Wars: What made you choose the Amarr?

Garst Tyrell: I originally aligned with the Amarr faction pretty much at the start of my career. I rolled true Amarr with a vague understanding of their race’s pvp ships in the scheme of eve combat (armor tanks and lasers) which appealed to me, however I also wanted to join PIE at the time as a corp to learn the game with.

Sov Wars: Was your involvement with FW soley because of PIE or did you have an interest in pursuing FW from the start as well?

Garst Tyrell: I originally read about faction war in EVE and decided thats what I wanted to do, at least to learn the game. In the end it didn’t live up to my expectations but it was a great place to start, and I lucked out that Amarr was the best faction to be in at the time I went through.

Sov Wars: What is your fondest memory of FW?

Garst Tyrell: That’s an easy one. The battle of Kamela on Halloween 2009, in which the Amarr and Caldari united to destroy a Star Fraction safe pos in the system defended by joint Star Fraction, Minmatar, Gallente, Cry Havoc, and mercenary forces. It ended up being one of the largest battles ever in lowsec, more significant because it didn’t involve nullsec alliances as the main combatants and ended with the destruction of the pos, around 10 Star Fraction and Minmatar caps, and a few hours of straight PVP.

Sov Wars: After a few months toiling in the ranks, you seemed to rise quickly into a popular FC. Tell us about that.

Garst Tyrell: I stumbled into leading a guild and raids in my previous MMO, Age of Conan, which I left to play EVE. As such as I knew that I would inevitably be seeking leadership opportunities in EvE (the ultimate sandbox) and FCing was an easy extension of that. I ‘studied’ initially under Wraithstorm and some of the older FCs. I started taking gangs out and with success came popularity and it became easier and easier to raise fleets. PIE offered neglible leadership opportunities within the corp so I found my outlet through the milita as a whole, and in the end associated and related much more to them than my corp.

Sov Wars: Tell us about No.Mercy during it’s FW days.

Garst Tyrell: Well the story about No.Mercy starts before the official founding of the corp. Star Fraction had regularly postured itself as a parasite on the Minmatar, whoring their kills and knocking textwalls out onto the forums. Sadly they also exploited FW and wardec mechanics by wardeccing various Amarr corps and harassing them in highsec and in lowsec by hiding in Minmatar fleets where the Amarr would be forced to go global to shoot back, and take gate aggroe and sec hits.

PIE itself was subject to various Star Fraction wardecs over my time there. As mentioned, I was associating more and more with the general militia. I grew disillusioned with PIE and resolved to form my own corp, which in any case had been an aspiration of mine since starting EVE.

SF’s harassment of Amarr was not the reason for my corp’s creation, however it did provide us a nice focus in the early months as we started out. I gathered up many of the top Amarr pilots at the time and were promptly wardecced by SF who recognized us as a threat. Inevitably, FW’s prevalance of spies and mixed skill levels, as well as the SF and merc wardecs, caused us to turn inward more often, running corp fleets and excluding militia when we needed ‘to get shit done’ which allowed us to flourish as a pvp corp indepedent of FW.

We concentrated on growing the corp member base, knocking down some highsec offline pos towers for easy isk, and sparing with Minmatar and the SF on a regular basis. I guess the tl;dr version of No.Mercy in his FW days, is an indepedent pvp corp who still liked to use the free FW wardec to find lots of targets and fight off SF and the mercs they hired (unsuccessfully) to destroy us. We always planned on growing beyond FW, but tried not to overreach ourselves too fast. I feel we were successful in that regard.

Sov Wars: You spoke about having to turn inwards because of spies in the general militia. Did No.Mercy ever engage other Amarr Militia corps?

Garst Tyrell: Only once, when an old militia corp and their egocentric leader attempted to extort us out of isk we had made from a highsec wardec. Over Christmas break they sent us a claim asking reimbursement for capital BPOs we had destroyed/seized in the POS shoot weeks after the event.

The entire situation was fishy and after one of their directors betrayed them for the promise of isk (he got none, but his loyalty or lack there of was cheap), we received control of their forums and confirmed our suspicions that it was a set up. In response to our refusal to pay them any isk, they wardecced us and hired NOIR mercenary corp to destroy us.

NOIR was an amusing and professional opponent, however they found out the hard way that we weren’t the usual carebear targets mercs get hired against and broke even in the war, despite some slippups from individual members who are no longer with us. They later referred to No Mercry as ‘their toughest targets.’

Interestingly this was also about the time we left the militia formally and began working lightly with BANE alliance and the Amamake pirates at the time before leaving for nullsec. We barely saw the amarr corp that decced us (more bark than bite) but unfortunately the war also forced me to realize that one of the former millitias FC’s I learned from who had joined our corp, was a spy, and after we caught him we blew up his zealot and sent him packing. A shame, I was trying to get him to bring his brother’s carrier, which would have put him in an awkward spot.

Sov Wars: There seemed to be a bit of a controvery concerning No.Mercy’s highsec wars. Did it have any effect on the timing of No.Mercy’s departure from FW?

Garst Tyrell: None whatsoever. We had outgrown FW and the only controversy was found in PIE and SF’s rp posturing, realistically no one cared if some afk carebears in highsec lost their offline POSes.

Sov Wars: Were there any other factors in No.Mercy’s departure other than you felt it was time to move on?

Garst Tyrell: FW is often cyclical but overall the trend was for the pvp to become staler. Mostly we wanted to grow the corp and began researching PVP alliances to join. We felt it was not possible to be a widely respected pvp corp and remain in FW due to peoples (often justified) preconceptions about the militias.

Sov Wars: What is No.Mercy currently up to?

Garst Tyrell: After passing through a long period of nullsec life in former Gentleman’s Club alliance (former ATLAS bloc) and later running Derelik region in lowsec, both stories in their own right, we moved to our current residence in Venal region. Venal is in the heart of the northern coalition naplist and npc 0.0, meaning that npc corps own the stations therefore anyone can dock like lowsec, but it has all the pvp mechanics of sov 0.0 such as bubbles. It is a perfect base for raiding the surrounding regions and growing the corp through adversity.

Sov Wars: What is your ultimate goal for No.Mercy?

Garst Tyrell says: NM and by extension our alliance Merciless is a professional 0.0 pvp outfit. We have fun in EVE by seeking ever greater challenges, stagnation is death to us. Venal was a natural extension of that philosophy as we have surrounded ourselves with enemies and refuse to build a blue list. Ultimately we’d like to see Merciless become a respected indepedent pvp group, eschewing naplists and ‘easy’ pvp like Rancer or Jita camping for more challenging, and therefore more rewarding, pvp campaigns. Should a large coalition someday threaten in earnest the existence of the NC, we’d like Merciless to be part of the group that takes this naplist down once and for all. A man can dream..a man can dream.

Sov Wars: We thank you for taking time out to speak with us. Any parting thoughts?

Garst Tyrell says: FW is a unique pvp opportunity in EVE and a great place to learn the game, however I strongly feel PVP pilots should strive to move on to other things in EVE eventually. Eve and life in general is more fun when you constantly challenge yourself, and I encourage serious PvPers to seek out quality small, independent pvp corps, be that nullsec or lowsec, to fly with to continue learning. I didnt realize how much I didnt know until I left for 0.0, and to this day im still picking up new tactics and ideas from rival groups. There is a distinct difference in the quality of fights in my honest opinion between FW, and say nullsec, where casual pvp is demphasized and people start playing to win, which appeals to me greatly. Then again No.Mercy has always been a competitive group. In closing I say keep on kicking ass Amarr, and warn pilots to stay away from the naplist 0.0 blobs. Believe me pressing f1 in a 500 man fleet is no where as fun as CCP’s trailer’s make it seem like it is.