When the Hisec trade route choke-point of Niarja was invaded and subsequently conquered by The Triglavian Collective, the ensuing sodium chloride produced by the player parties involved during the siege—heaped upon the EVE forums, r/EVE, and community Discord servers—was enough to nearly overwhelm the game devs. The pure, unfiltered NaCl pouring out of players began piling so high CCP Sledgehammer expressed fears the company would need “to rent storage just to store it all.”
Niarja serves as a “pipe” system along the formerly shortest route between the largest trade hubs in New Eden, Jita and Amarr. When The Triglavian Collective began invading Empire systems and recruiting capsuleers to assist in taking the systems to seemingly harvest the suns for resources, many hisec and skeptical players expressed doubt any key systems would be invaded. Many of the Kybernaut (Pro-Triglavian) community dearly hoped they would, for a successful conquering of a system with the right type of sun lowers the security status, and in the final stage of “Full Liminality” the system will drop to null security – a system without CONCORD. No police, no rules for engagement, just free PvP and gatecamping. This, as one can imagine, would make moving goods via freighter through any such system much more difficult. For this reason, the system of Niraja has been viewed as the “holy grail” for Kybernauts. The Pro-Triglavian players waited in anticipation while the EDENCOM (Anti-Triglavian) supporting players expressed their doubts.
Naturally, when the system was invaded many players had mixed-to-strong feelings about the prospect. No insignificant amount of players were nervous, some outraged, while Kybernauts leapt for joy. For a brief time, the null empires looked on with vague curiosity, but soon they began throwing their lot in, seeing the importance of such a chokepoint, as it falling would mean the safest route between the two trade hubs would be a whopping 45 jumps. Such would be a minor inconvenience to null coalitions with jump freighter services so they couldn’t just sit idly by.Many hours of stalemate PvE grind and Catalyst ganks had players exhausted and venting their frustrations, aspirations, sh*tposting, and disdain for each other in local chat. Community leads, FCs and CCP could only look on as salt poured forth from players, especially as the system hit Liminality after The Imperium sent reinforcements to the outnumbered Kybernauts. Within a day of their arrival, at the command of TheMittani, the system was conquered, and the salt mounds in Niarja quickly buried local chat and began spilling over into Discord.
In a stroke of genius, CCP marketing specialist CCP Alpha formulated a plan for the overabundance of blood-pressure-elevating granules: “Why don’t we just sell the stuff?” Truly a remarkable, if risky business venture for a game development company. Masked interns were brought in by truckload, carrying boxes of CCP’s EVE themed salt shakers, and were put to the task of scooping the salt into the shakers and boxing them for shipment.
The new Premium Niarja Salt™ in EVE shakers is now available on the EVE Online Gear store. For a limited time, players can also purchase the stylish EVE Waterproof Backpack/Duffel Bag filled with Niarja salt. Players are encouraged to take advantage of this sale quickly, as the salt supply from Niarja is finite; many players burnt themselves out on shooting Triglavian and EDENCOM NPCs for several days straight.
