Damn right. NC was run very differently from the pet model we all despised GBC for and which Goons now emulates. Our allies(*) were alliances expected to stand and thrive on their own, in their own space and to manage it how they wanted. It was more of a federation. There were (between actual NC members) no handouts, loans, borders within borders, ranks, or feudal pet shit like that. RAWR/RZR didn't give stuff to our allies for the same reason they didn't give stuff to us: because they weren't below us, they weren't pets. If an alliance wanted more space the rest would help them take it. If they didn't they had what they had. When stuff got attacked there was collective defence. The stuff the major alliances accumulated over so many years living there of course tended to be greater than the newer alliances, but it was all stuff picked up as the spoils for winning successive major wars. If you survived through one of those wars and played your part you got a big piece of spoils at the end (eg. RZR getting Branch, RAWR getting Venal old-highends, PURE/IRON getting Dek, ME getting Vale, TCF getting Dek, RAGE getting Geminate). You know RAWR lived in crappy ol' Tribute for two years on 2 prom and 1 dysp moons before Tri imploded? Little hardship did us no harm and when we eventually got some decent moons we knew we'd grafted for them so no punk alliance 3 years later was going to get handed some of them for turning up with a 100 man fleet a few times. Even if you didn't play your part in the big wars sometimes if you just survived them there was so much cake you still got some. On the otherhand if you were John new alliance that showed up in peace-time wanting to jump on the NC bandwagon and live off other's success instantly, then proceeded to do nothing and make no play for your own space then all you got was grief from other alliances wondering why they had another useless blue. Incentive and responsibility, let's hope they're not dying values in EVE
There is many opinions what made the NC successful (by which I mean long-lasting) and what contributed to it's downfall, but personally in all the time I've played EVE the NON-pet structure we kept is about the most stable model I've seen in the face of invasion, despite that it proved hard to uphold towards the end once too many alliances jumped on the train and the north got overcrowded (among other problems). Pets really don't work. It doesn't matter how you treat them, they're still pets, and they know that
(*) Not the renters, fuck the renters. They're the scum of EVE, several steps below empire bear




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things like providing direction and activity. He made a deal with goons, he'd get all the pvpers of the alliance into the holding corp, and they wouldn't let anybody else in (no extra management and more incentive to join tomcat's corp I assume). It didn't quite work out that way in the end, but that's what went down. No matter how you look at it though, it definitely was not goonswarm poaching players.

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