The Interstellar Correspondents are happy to bring you a new series of articles which are based on interviews with famous or infamous capsule pilots. Today we bring to you Jade Constantine, a cunning troublemaker to foes and an enlightened soul to her friends.
Jade was able to pay for her original education as a pilot because she had successfully sued her previous employer for negligence while she was recovering in the hospital. She worked for a period as an undercover Valentine agent for the Gallente Empire, her job consisting of infiltration and information gathering about Caldari trade routes. After her graduation she started the corporation Jericho Fraction, however she confided in me a bit of news that proves that despite shouldering the responsibilities of a CEO, she never really forgot her training as a Gallente seductress who uses her charms to gain information.
Modest as Jade secretly is, she preferred to discuss the history of Jericho above her own. It became clear, however, that the two are inseparable. Jade Constantine: “Jericho has been my only corporation and only love really - and does reflect those values I believe to be most important in our world”.
Then what was the mission of Jerico and Jade, you may wonder. We'll let the woman herself describe it.
Jade Constantine: “We (the founders of Jericho) were each convinced that the new technology and diaspora into the unsettled frontier could free mankind and human potential from the chains of historical mistakes and endlessly repeating imperialist delusions. In simple terms, we saw the capsule pilot technology as a revolution, a way for human minds and souls to find true freedom and the chance to build their own destinies and futures outside of social conditioning and hierarchy."
"Jericho Fraction is about breaking free of the social constraints we have been brought up on by the empires. We all suffer from a shared heritage of struggle for power and control. Even when Jericho joined the Venal Alliance, they did so with a different agenda from the obvious one of escaping their border control. They had a desire to transform the alliance into a region out of range and therefore free of the influence from the empires, a place for independents to conduct their business as they saw fit, with a market open to everyone willing to travel the distance.
"This failed because human nature proved to be more tainted by the heritage of empire thought than Jericho had foreseen. Our vision of a free society in 0.0 amongst the free captains of the VA was contaminated and destroyed by one man who brought the old empire to the frontier and began the process of incorporating the wealth and possibilities of the frontier into his own imperialist dream of hierarchy. Just like in the old empires in Venal the code words were profit, border control and distrust. Basically their goal was their own new empire. Ragnar, the man who took a leading role in the new VA, made a mistake when he declared war on Evolution and Fountain.
Jade Constantine: “Bloody war came to Venal, Evolution and the Fountain alliance were extremely competent and brought crushing strength to Venal”. A long story short, Venal decided to save themselves from further war and decided to vote out Ragnar and Taggart in the end, after Ragnar declared war on the corporations who wanted to vote against him. After this the New Venal Alliance had the same problems, pilot who were free space idealist turned into border controlling capitalists. This brought a new civil war to Venal and Jericho left to rebuild themselves and gain more experience in battle. This even lead Jade to accept a dual with Havocide in Obe, the victor of this dual would end the war between Jericho Corporation and Forsaken Empire. Jade won and the war between the two was over.
Now Jericho resides in Pure Blind and their largest income comes from producing Tech II items, Venal was ruled by the Phoenix Alliance which was successful until they tried to force the corporation Reikoku out of the region by excluding them from having a voice at the meeting table which left the vulnerable. Jericho helped their old friends and corporations which are now a member of Band of Brother aided as well. During this Great Northern War the prices of a single crow would run into the 25 million in neighbouring regions.
Arielle deVoir > I fear I still do not see a real difference between the old alliances claiming a region (and control who enters and who does not,) and the new alliances. In the end if you are not on a good standing with them you can lose your ship if they find you in their claimed region.
Jade Constantine > I take your point to a degree yes, but let me point you at a clear source of difference: in the old days an organisation like the ISS (Intersteller Starbase Initiative) could not have functioned in 0.0. It’s a politically neutral infrastructure development alliance that rents access to 0.0 from various powers its a clear symbol of interdependence and outsourced specialism of use to the frontier alliances. (The existence of) the ISS is ,if nothing else, a sign that some things have changed for the better.
After discussing the importance of freedom and what is means for Jade ( which you can read on the GalNet recruitment poster of Jericho) we came to the subject of slavery. Jade has mentioned that people trapped in the systems of the empires are slaves in subtle ways, of their social constraints for instance.
Jade Constantine: “well you know what they say, slavery is comfortable - other people make all the decisions for you. I think its rather more pertinent to more subtle forms of slavery, but even so, the capsule pilot community can't help but have noticed some of the more verbal Matar pilots of recent months returning to the comforting arms of their masters.” This comment may prove to be something worthy of remembering in light of the next pilot who took some time to answer my questions and reflect on slavery as well. It’s also someone who will work closely with Jade as he and his fellow corpmates will soon join the ranks of Jericho Fraction.