How a scam in Eve Online turned into its greatest rescue mission

Important context for this is that in EVE, you build up both tech progression tied to your character, and assets stored at specific locations. There's no teleporting of the player or his/her assets, it's practically suicidal to move without an escort (as described in the OP), and due to the tech progression, unless you proactively created an alt in your early days and diligently logged into it, it would be a setback measured in weeks or months of work to start a new character. So a new player can actually become stuck in an exploitative situation if convinced to move into hostile territory (and the in-game documentation does practically zero hand-holding to protect a new player from this). Of course, you always have the alternative to quit the game, so the stakes aren't as lifelike as real life, but they're as lifelike as you can find in any video game.

Certain media is designed to build towards an empathic civilization, to emphasize universal cooperation even in a challenging and deadly world [0][1]. EVE, in my opinion, is such a vivid simulation of a competitive galaxy, that it tends to emphasize violent and cliquish instincts in its users instead. But it's nonetheless fascinating to see how such a social system can form.

[0] https://www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_rifkin_on_the_empathic_civi...

[1] For those who have seen the 98%-fresh-rated anime film Kimi no na wa (in theaters as we speak!) this (VERY spoiler-filled) interview from the director is a must-read: https://www.reddit.com/r/anime/comments/5leizv/spoilers_mako...

Actually Andrew Groen recently (2015) finished Empires of EVE - a history book for EVE Online containing many stories like this one. http://www.empiresofeve.com

There have been a few article over the years. Last one I saw was: http://www.polygon.com/2017/3/25/15054854/eve-online-revenge...