Command Ship (Carraig naTairbhe)

With 11m skillpoints in leadership Carraig has been trained up to support Slay while in system either siting in an Orca or, ideally, a command ship. Seeing has how shields are the flavour of the month out in Tenerefis I should choose the Caldari Vulture which has bonuses to its shield warfare command modules. Carraig already has the command skill but this isn't enough! Command ships have requirements beyond those that of the Command Ship skill - namely racial cruiser V, logistics IV and all the support skills required for this (long range targeting V).
Because I ignored cruisers with Carraig and jumped straight to BCs, I never bothered with any racial cruiser (BC is non-racial). As such I can make the decision to specialise in any racial and Caldari seems like the best bet though Minnie was close behind. Caldari Cruiser V will get me access to both the Vulture (shield command ship) and the Basilisk (shield logistic ship).
So 9 days to long range targeting and then a decision: 27 days to wing command V (allowing fleet command and multiple wings) or skip that and go straight to ship command (perception and willpower) for Caldari Cruiser V and Command Ship V.

Command Ships (Slayfoe's Bull)

I have always liked battlecruisers, enough cpu and powergrid to fit a full rack of guns while not requiring large gun skills. My first was a Myrmidon which saw me through my early carebear days missioning out of Auvergne as an armour tanked, multi-purpose dps/ salvage ship able to do L3 missions with ease. After a while I looked into passive shield tanking, my beautiful Myrmidon was re-modelled and I no longer had to switch out hardeners for the different missions. In fact, it's tank is so hard, there are only a few L4 missions that can't be done without warping out.
In those days 100m isk seemed like a lot of money and tech2 command ships seemed beyond what I could afford so I went down the route of heavy assault cruisers (the Ishtar is THE perfect Gallente passive shield mission boat). Now, thanks to a few iskies made from selling prime arkonor, Slay is the proud owner of an Astarte, the tech2 version of the Brutix. Much to my disappointment, the first Angel BS I came across in the belts of KW didn't melt on the first volley, or the second.
I have always protected my investments (roaming BC are considered throw-away) by overtanking them. Looks like I will have to drop the second armour rep for a magstab, perhaps lose the EANM2 for another and load up on faction antimatter. I might even lose the tracking computer for a third magstab... After all, I am only really after the BS in the belts, the smaller stuff can simply be ignored or, if warp scrambling, taken out with warrior2s.
Drone complement: EC-300 Hornets x5, Warrior II x5.

Alliance Drama

You find a nice group to play with, you have a good work/ play balance, your character isn't broke, excitement comes calling at least once an evening and you like the people on teamspeak.
Then the powers that be announce change. One of the corporations that make up the alliance is leaving. Unfortunately they are taking with them the services they provided: empire logistics and a mineral buy/sell programme, both of which made life in nullsec a lot easier.
Unfortunately I had sold the programme 45m trit the night before along with 340m iskies worth of ark, bistot and miscellaneous stuff. The high end stuff isn't a problem, but replacing the trit in KW is going to be much harder. So not only can I not make ships, I can't import them.
Boo.
The other side is the lose of people. I don't like mentioning individuals usually but Jovial Krill [Ro5] has been exceedingly good company and we will miss him on TS.
Double boo.

Life in Null Sec (part 1)

I joined SI Radio when they decided to have a go at the null sec game and looked for volunteers to join.
Providence
At that time CVA had been chased from Providence and SIRadio had acquired the rights to a few systems there. About a week after I arrived I was scrambling along with the rest to evacuate back to high sec as the latest (I believe it was Kadeshi?) round of conquering capsuleers took over.
Great WildLands
So while alternative arrangements were sought, I reactivated my alt, bought an Orca, polished my exploration skills and began exploration. I was just getting used to entering low-sec when our great leaders arranged space in The Great WildLands, NPC null sec in the east. That was my first experience of being (a small) part of larger fleets. The local alliance we were friendly with were called Old Republic? and had some moderately successful fleet commanders.
Tenerifis
However this stopgap came to an end when Against All Authorities (-A-) reconquered space taken from them by The Initiative in the South. SIRadio formed SI Alliance and became a renter in Tenerifis, the marches of -A- space. For a while we settled in, mined the prime arkonor, ratted and had a go at local exploration.
At that point the anomoly nerf took place and the true sec of a system suddenly mattered again. No longer was it enough to have any old nullsec system and simply upgrade it. To maximise profits alliances wanted -10 truesec systems. This had an enourmous effect on all alliances as the map of what was valuable changed overnight. -A- found Tenerifis more valuable than Catch, renters moved out and -A- alts moved in.
Then as the war that ended NC up north got serious, -A- moved in to retake the rest of Tenerifis. It was pushing an open door, there was no resistance and the Region changed ownership over a fortnight.
Of course, once the steamroller is moving, it is hard to stop and Detorid has even better true sec than Tenerifis...

Life in Null Sec (Part 2)

Detorid
In Spring 2011 Tenerifis and Detorid were largely owned by White Noise. They has gone north to take out the NC and claim their Technetium moons leaving almost no one at home to mind the fort.
-A- organised small/ medium corporations to move into this space. SI Alliance was part of this push along with SOB, Imperial Order and various others. Space was divided out, SOB were going to get the valuable low true sec systems down south and SI Alliance got various ones up north on the border with Red Alliance Space. I helped take our Detorid base system went on holiday and came back to find that the alliance had helped itself to a further 20ish systems.
Unfortunately for us, the NC had failscaded and the PVPers from the grand eastern coalition that were looking for fights came back south to retake Detorid. They brought with them their IWIN buttons, supercapitals.
SuperCapitals
It is hard to explain to someone not used to nullsec just how good these beasts are. They are summoned straight onto the field of battle from several systems out by a cyno boat. They deploy fighters and bombers which are in effect giant drones with the toughness of a cruiser in flights of up to about 20. They are immune to ECM, they have millions of hit points, they have special repair bonuses and are in effect untouchable to an alliance the size of SI. Naturally they roams in packs.
The Goonswarm have managed to counter them in the last month by deploying hundreds of battleships with massive alpha strikes. This allows a fleet of sub-capitals to take down capitals without them getting the chance to repair.
Our Detorid adventure lasted about a month, now it is full of Red Alliance renter corporations and a place for us to roam. SI Alliance is back in KW licking its wounds, making money and readying itself for the apparantly inevitable invasion by Red once the situation between them and the GoonSwarm resolves itself.

Tenerifis

Tenerifis is conquerable nullsec in the south of the cluster. It is a long chain with small loops off the main chain and with some small branches.
The Angel Cartel are omni-present. According to the forums one of the Angel Officers has been present in this region - I've never seen him!.

Stations:

10 outposts in the region at the moment spread from the top to the bottom. These have all the services you will need (if you can get to them!)

Players:

Situation as of April 2011
In April 2011 it is divided between AAA renters (AAA Citizens) and White Noise. EON are a small French Alliance in the centre. Very much a NRSI policy in effect with effective intel channel through the region.
Situation as of July 2011The area is under control of -A- renting out systems to SI Alliance (around KW), EON (near DG7) and others down south. It is at the border of -A- and Red Alliance space.


The region is DANGEROUS.

Connections:

To the north and east, Tenerifis connects to Immensea (2 connections, one at each side of the region) and Detorid.
To the south and west, Tenerifis connects to Impass, Omist and Feythabolis.
To the north and west, Tenerifis connects to Catch.

Central Angel Sparkling Tower - Radar Plex

Radar in 0,0

Hordes and hordes of small frigates and cruisers with a ring of missile towers. Some webbing, some target painting, no obvious warp distrupting. Clear the nasties and you can use a codebreaker on various Angel computery gadgets. On cracking open the Angel Database 4 more cruisers warp in - but by then I had looted the database and was off with my loot!

Loot

Datacore - Nuclear Physics x 14
Datacore - Mechanical Engineering x 9
Decryptors - Minmater, Advanced Theories
Decryptors - Minmater, Circuitry Schematics
Skillbook - Minmater Encryption Methods
Cryptics Data Interface Blueprint
Materials and Compounds - Construction Alloy x 85
Materials and Compounds - Data Processor x 94
Materials and Compounds - Electric Conduit x 96
Materials and Compounds - Mechanical Parts x 71

Ship

Passive shield Ishtar with codebreaker II, prototype cloaking device and 3 x 220mm projectile weapons.