Interview: Miura Bull, Black Rebel Rifter Club’s CEO

Thank you for agreeing to this interview. Though Black Rebel’s Rifter Club isn’t a part of Faction War, I often see your pilots in our warzone and thought it’d be interesting to let our readers know more about your corporation.

To start with, tell us about the Black Rebel’s Rifter Club, [R1FTA], and what inspired you to create it?

Okay, this is actually a really difficult question to answer. Kind of like being asked to describe your pet horse to a stranger. I don’t own a horse, for the record, but to the outside world I imagine a horse is a horse. So yeah, sorry where was I?

~stares at screen for longer than is comfortable~

Okay, here goes ….

The Black Rebel Rifter Club is a corporation of pilots who share a good few common traits. We love the pewpew and most of all we enjoy frigate based combat, with the three Rifter hulls – Rifter, Jaguar and Wolf – being our three most used weapons to date. Although we do fly any and every race and type of frigate, we can also ship up when the need arises or our members fancy doing something different. Whether that be in a Drake or a Cane or a T3 cruiser or shiny Machariel, we seem to have pilots who can fly everything bar a Titan here in R1FTA but I think it says a lot about how we play the game when they’d rather roll out of base in a rusty Rifter.

We are mostly made up of lone wolf types who enjoy the sometimes sadistic act of solo roaming empty system after empty system looking for the next gfgf. Every killmail we see on the killboard usually (but not always) has some fascinating back story to go along with it. We’re also not a group of guys (and girl) who will worry too much about lossmails or killboard stats or take the game too seriously. After all, it is a game.

Our members have also built up a camaraderie and culture that festers on our private forums, which basically revolves around an odd humour based on internet memes, moustaches, BRokEN KEyBOARDS, some guy named Karma Fox who tried to kill a Tengu in high-sec in his Rifter, an in-corp book review club, a fascinating music library consisting of classical pieces right up to death metal and hip-hop and …erm, pictures of Barry White.

As for what inspired me to create the corp and where we are now …. I originally created the corp with the intention of it being a one-man show back in early 2010 as a backdrop for my planned solo exploits – If I remember correctly I’d just killed a much older toon who was in a Taranis in my Rifter and thought the killmail deserved a cooler name to it other than Republic Military School. In the first few months we eventually had about 6 or 7 members join up but I ended up leaving eve for a while and when I came back everybody had abandoned ship. So I went about my eve journey and left an alt toon in charge on a dormant trading account. It was during a frustrating period of my eve experience about six months ago when I joined -A- as they were going CTA crazy that I started thinking about Black Rebel Rifter Club again. It wasn’t much fun so I decided to restart this R1FTA project and I invited some friends along and we put out some tentative recruitment ads. From there on things sort of snowballed and here we are today with approx 90 members on board.

Where did you get the name from?

I’d just finished reading a book called Hell’s Angels by Hunter S. Thompson and I had a keen interest at the time in outlaw motorcycle gangs and that kind of swaggering lawless attitude to life. I wanted to somehow translate that to my soon-to-be formed solo corporation. Unfortunately I am bad at naming things, I can spend hours upon hours wracking my brain trying to come up with names. (God help me if I ever have a child). Then it was while roaming to a Black Rebel Motorcycle Club CD that it sort of clicked. An outlaw gang about Rifters. Yes that will do! I simply swapped the motorcycle bit with the Rifter. Do we have motorcycles in eve?

Where does [R1FTA] live and operate?

Our home system is Heild. Which is in the Molden Heath region. It is a region that is famed for its loop style setup of predominantly low-sec systems. The main hive of activity usually taking place in and around Bosena. The region goes through high and low periods of activity. The area has a lot of plexes and is sort of famed for its frig combat as well as the roaming battlecruiser gangs that stalk its spacelanes. It has been noted that Molden Heath has an isolated feel to it, when in truth it is not far at all from major trade hubs and in Teonusude it has a trade hub of its own, albeit an expensive one. Everybody should come visit, just a suggestion, bring a bunch of frigates and we’ll try to accomodate some pewpew.

We mainly roam from Molden Heath towards Heimatar and Metropolis. Although we do have members who live and operate in Gallente and Caldari space as well as a handful of null-sec dwellers. You could say we pretty much roam and operate all over the place.

How does [R1FTA] mostly fly? Large fleets? Solo roams? Do you guys fly with others outside of your corp?

Mainly we fly as lone wolf solo pilots. If we have the numbers online and a target is spotted we’ll try to muster up a gang to take it down but 90% of the time our pilots will be out doing solo work or in 3 or 4 man small gang fleets. If the situation called for it we’d fleet up with anybody. We share intel channels with some of our neighbours and we’ve teamed up previously with my old corporation Gunpoint Diplomacy. At any other time of the day we’re usually shooting at each other and filling up each others killboards.

Many of your pilots keep blogs. Which blogs are your favorites?

We do tend to have a lot of bloggers in the corp. It wouldn’t be fair of me to single out any favourites of my corp mates, but we do have a blog pack that I will link at the bottom so you can judge for yourself.

My favourite other blogs that I always look out for on my dashboard are:

Lady Shaniqua’s  , Wensley’s , and two blogs that are sadly no longer active but you really should visit and read from the start; Sobczynski  and Mr Snypes.

Who does the artwork for the blogs?

Sassy B has done artwork for us. As has Bonni3, Kishin Hattori from The Tuskers and Rixx Javix. We also have a few budding artists in the corp who have designed pieces for various projects. We’re currently running an in-house signature competition and I’ll be revealing the finished pieces to a wider audience at some point.

Does your corp roleplay any or only write stories?

I have participated in a few roleplay channels before when I’ve had more time on my hands. A few of our members are also keen on the subject but at the same time we have some who don’t like that part of the game. I guess that sums up all of eve really with regards to roleplay.

What kind of rules and policies does [R1FTA] have?

We’re quite relaxed on rules in general and we encourage members to play the game as they see fit. Two rules that I would personally kick a member for breaking are dishonouring a pre-arranged 1v1 and breaking an agreed ransom. These two things , when I see them happen really get to me. I don’t want my corp labelled as dishonourable. We get called every other name but hopefully we’re not labelled as dishonourable.

What kind of pilots do you look for? What are the requirements for joining [R1FTA]?

We’ve got a healthy mixture of starry-eyed noobs and veterans who have seen it all. In the newer guys we recruit to the corp we look for a willingness to learn the ropes and develop their skills as a combat fighter in an atmosphere that hopefully doesn’t seem too intimidating. We’ve got members who are 3 or 4 months into their eve career yet notching up their 100th kill in Rifters.

In the older members who join we expect them to have a bit of a sense of humour and patience. And above all not to take everything too serious. I think so far we have achieved that. We also ask that they be space rich and enjoy donating copious amounts of isk to various corp projects. (this is partly true)

We don’t really have any set requirements as such. We judge each application on pilot attitude over skill. All we ask is for an api key for a background check and some kind of killmail or lossmail evaluation to prove you sort of know what you are doing and letting yourself in for. We are currently recruiting new members but this is ending very soon!

What are some of the more memorable battles [R1FTA] have been involved in?

Two fights spring to mind.

The first fight involved a visit to Old Man Star where we were chased out-of-town by some angry locals and some Tuskers I think. We were running a ragtag bunch of Rifters and other frig hulls and we ended up cooling our heels in some random backwater lowsec system. Then all hell broke loose as point was called on a Legion in a next door system by one of our guys who had wandered off to have a look around! My first thought was, huh? A Legion, are you sure!? Then it was reported a Rapier and a stealth bomber were on field. Needless to say we all rushed in without a moment’s hesitation and ended up killing them all eventually. This fight sums up what R1FTA is all about to me. We didn’t care if we lost, we just wanted to shoot at stuff, and when it is shinier, well, the better it is!

Battle report http://r1fta.griefwatch.net/?p=engagement&kill=1302

Next up. The Battle of Poinen, as it is known within the ranks of Rebel folklore. We’d been chasing some wartargets and ended up a long way from home in Poinen solar system with an odd-looking mixture of a gang. We pretty much butchered everything that was thrown at us. Great fun.

Battle report http://r1fta.killmail.org/?a=kill_related&kll_id=10045269

Has [R1FTA] ever been a part of militia? If not, would you ever consider having [R1FTA] join a militia? If so, which one?

We’ve never been in the militia no. Obviously we are aware of who is in the militia and where people operate and what they do. We often curse those insta-locking Thrasher gatecamps and those other doods further up the pipe. You know who you are 

The possibility of joining Faction War has been mooted before on our forums and in fact we have quite good standing with the Minmatar militia. Not quite good enough to sign up today but teetering on the edge of acceptable standings. I wouldn’t rule it out at some point in the future if people shout loudly to go down that avenue.

What are some other corps that you most admire, and why?

Hmm. That’s a tough one. I must admit to being a bit of a Genos fan boi – I’m not sure why exactly but when I first started out I remember some advice I was given was to look out for lossmails of good corporations, so I looked up the battleclinic rankings and then started browsing all the good corp killboards and I liked those guys the best. Also PODLA for their fighting style and tactics whilst outnumbered.

The Tuskers for being the best pirates out there. Gunpoint Diplomacy for opening up my eyes to what being in a laid back fun corp is all about. JESUS CHRIST IT’S A LION GET IN THE CAR for being the best named corp ever, even though I think they are inactive now, I remember seeing one of their pilots in null once and thinking OHMAHGOD LOL WHUT? The Hull Miners Union who I lived out in Syndicate with for a while as part of Random-Violence alliance, these guys really introduced me to gangs and good fleets.

What are you most proud of for your corp?

The fact that it has grown into a corporation that seems to be getting some recognition from the wider eve audience even though it was a corp formed just for me, pretty much by accident.

Also the fact that we recently broke the top 25 battleclinic list for recent corp rankings. This may seem trivial to some but I was really shocked when it was pointed out to me and even though we’re not killboard stat heavy. I kind of like the ring to being up there on lists like that – amongst and above some great corporations.

What is the hardest part of being a CEO? Also, what is the most gratifying?

The hardest part is keeping up with all the roles and access privileges. I never do quite enjoy navigating that part of the corp screen and I’m sure other ceo’s can relate? I don’t enjoy that at all.

The most gratifying is seeing a community being built up from some weird ideals I once had and seeing new pilots linking their first killmails in corp chat. That feels good as a ceo.

Does your corp have a public channel? If so, what’s the name of it?

Our public channel is – The Autocannon – It can usually be a hotbed of chat and discussion and sometimes it can be quite quiet. All are welcome to visit and say hello and hang around. If they so wish.

Lastly, what is the links to your blog, kill boards, and any other thing you’d like to share.

My blog , Our killboard , and Corp blog pack (google subscription).

Thanks for doing the interview! Any parting thoughts?

It was a pleasure, thanks for the invitation. Would also be keen to know if your readers would rather be attacked by 1 horse sized duck, or 50 duck sized horses?