Change is Life

Pretentious title aside, one of the best parts of being a mercenary is the constant change. Each contract offers something new, even when compared to contracts of the same type. You're fighting a different enemy who approaches things in a new way, you're using a different doctrine, or the geography of your area is different. Regardless, mercenaries go through a lot of change even if it is just in regards to contracts.

Sometimes the change is more dramatic, if not totally unique. Noir. and Noir. Academy once left the alliance Noir. Mercenary Group back in 2013 to join Black Legion. Now, these guys are known for being great, and there were some pretty fun fleets back then, but most of us hated it. Their culture and our culture did not mix. They felt that having a corporation with Academy in its name was not good for their image (never mind that NA members were on the top ten alliance members board every month), and that they were too good for Noir. Academy. After several failed attempts at a few vocal members to have Noir. Academy kicked, they resulted in awoxing Alek, which was the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak. It was one annoying incident after another. After that, none of us were eager to even think about other alliances for a long, long time.

A merger with Suddenly Spaceships was proposed earlier this year but no one was excited about it, the memory of Black Legion. still fresh. We decided that we wanted to hunker down and work on Noir. Mercenary Group, bringing other corporations into the alliance. Unfortunately, there are very few corporations out there that are both interested in being actual mercenaries, have the members, and the capability to interest us. We tried a few, none of them really working out for one reason or another.

So when the topic was brought up again to merge with Suddenly Spaceships, it was actually surprising to me to notice that most people were positive about it, myself included. I have always been a very staunch supporter of bring others into NMG., but it simply wasn't working. I personally tried to find corporations that were worth approaching for many months to no avail, so I could rest safely in the knowledge that we had done our due diligence to find prospective members. Maybe that's why it wasn't such a negative response. In any case, I think many of us were a bit disappointed to leave behind the Noir. Mercenary Group name, but reality insists that we join Suddenly Spaceships since they have about double our numbers.

But like I said, we came away with a very positive outlook on this change. We're going to suddenly have the pilots we've been looking for over the past two years, we're going to have some experienced mercenaries to fly with right off the bat, and we're going to have the ability to fly more expensive, higher-quality fit fleets. Suddenly is going to benefit from our infrastructure (they had practically none it seems), showing them how much more effective you can be with some of the out-of-game tools we've come to rely on.

We're also going to be able to take a wider variety of contracts than we have been able to in a long time. We just recently had to turn down a contract which really bummed me out. It was for a very high profile client (not that we would have made it known even if we had accepted, of course), and it was a pretty cool contract. Unfortunately, we just didn't have the manpower. Now, however - we could accept that contract, and might still if the situation returns to how it was for this client a few weeks ago. We're also going to be able to branch out into things that we had never really done before at all due to our own increase in capital pilots over the years plus Suddenly Spaceships'.

Be wary New Eden. There's a new mercenary alliance in existence now, a breed of mercenary that hasn't existed in almost half a decade. You may have forgotten what it was like back then, but we're going to remind you. And it's going to be awesome.