Happy 10th Birthday Signal Cartel/EvE-Scout Enclave Alliance!
December 2014
The Rhea Expansion was introduced to EVE Online bringing with it Thera with its many ever-changing wormhole connections. Johnny Splunk and G8keeper, our founders, decided to form a neutral service corporation, EvE-Scout, tasked with publicly documenting the connections live on a website they created at eve-scout.com.
“I still remember the first time I traversed into Thera and the following week of maintaining the connections in Thera with our co-founder G8keeper. We would take shifts between sleeping, real life, and scanning Thera. It was stressful and exhilarating: some of the best parts of EVE!” – Johnny Splunk
EvE-Scout
However, Johnny and G8keeper soon realized that the endeavor was not sustainable with just two of them. Fortunately, volunteers from the greater New Eden community were eager to help scan Thera’s wormholes as scouts. In an effort to maintain the corp’s neutrality, the original Thera scouts were not permitted to join EvE-Scout. Due to EvE-Scout’s dedicated and trusted scout team, the service became the de facto source of Thera wormhole connection information.
Johnny stated, “When we launched the Thera scanning project we wanted to provide neutral information to all of New Eden. Not to favor one group over another. Our scouts were not even able to join our corporation (EvE-Scout). We only accepted out-of-corp scouts. The reason was we could disavow our scout’s other activities and while at the same time allow us to attract scouts without them leaving their existing corp.”
Signal Cartel
As one would expect, a lot of the original out-of-corp Thera scouts were also explorers. As exploration is a mostly solitary affair, these scouts wanted to create more of a community with an identity centered on scanning and exploration. Thus, the idea for a new player corporation was formed. While Johnny and G8keeper were supportive, they were busy expanding EvE-Scout’s Thera Scanning service and knew they would need someone else to run the new corporation. They wanted the corp to be neutral to all, counter-culture in ideology, and of course exploration-centric.
Fortunately, Mynxee was there to answer the call as one of the first Thera scouts having recently returned to the game as an explorer after gaining infamy as the founder and leader of the Hellcats and fame as a CSM5 (2010) Chairwoman.
According to Mynxee, “Soon after my arrival in Thera, I started scouting for them. We began talking about exploration as a career and what a fine thing it would be to create a home, a haven, for explorers who just want to wander between the stars on their own agenda. Much talking later, Signal Cartel was born: a corp devoted to the highest ideals of exploration, nurturing to new players, and many other things besides that are practically foreign in New Eden culture.”
January 2015
Signal Cartel was co-founded on January 20th, 2015 by Johnny Splunk, G8keeper, and Mynxee with Mynxee serving as the first CEO with our Credo at the heart and core of who we are. EvE-Scout Enclave Alliance was formed on January 23rd, including its two member corporations EvE-Scout and Signal Cartel. Then on January 31st, Signal Cartel opened its doors to the public.
Of the original dozen or so Signal Cartel members that joined the corp on the opening day, I’m humbled, honored, and proud to be the oldest active member and current Alliance Executor.
Happy 10th Birthday Signal Cartel/EvE-Scout Enclave Alliance! o7