CRISIS IN REYKJAVIK

Reykjavik is beautiful in the springtime, as cherry blossoms waft through the air, accompanied by the delicate chords of a lute. Here, in a small dinghy warehouse, CCP maintains its galactic headquarters. CCP Falcon was smiling and sipping his warm morning brennivín, as he logged into the EVE forums. However, this smile soon dissipated, when he received numerous urgent messages.

“CCP_Falcon I understnad what you are saying yo, but suspect timers remain permanant until the individul is caught?? Why would suspicoins fade after just 15 minute?!!!1!”
“@CCP_Falcon WTF HALP PLEX ME NOW ALLIANCE GANK ME FOR PLEX AND LOW SECURITY ZONE SHOULD BE SAFE ZONE FOR NEW PLAYER TRY PVE.”
“@CCP_Falcon I just want to state that market intervention is absolutely required in order to address this ridiculous situation, which many are comparing to the great Tulip Mania of 1637, although more accurately it is akin to the South Seas Bubble of 1720. In this sense, EVE Mogul plays the villian Nicholas Biddle, but where is Old Hickory?”

Normally, Falcon would spend the morning quietly contemplating how to leverage his inside knowledge of CCP development, advancing his portfolio in Hek. However, today, he needed to speak with corporate leadership: Hilmar. As Falcon explained, “My research indicates that within a few months, the price of a single PLEX will reach one billion isk. In fact, this is inevitable, and I recently used my entire paycheck to fund massive regional buy orders in Heimatar and Kador. By December, I will be able to RMT the assets with considerable profit. However, my fear is that PLEX may be the next Bitcoin, with the power to destabilize the international economy and facilitate criminal enterprise.”

Hilmar listened carefully, and together they went to see Hilmar’s alt, the alliance CEO: Birgir. Birgir was quiet, as Paul outlined a catastrophic scenario, with enslaved children forced to farm gold in World of Warcraft, so gold could be traded for Standup XL Cruise Missiles, which would then be traded for a nuclear bomb which terrorists might use to threaten CCP to offer a PLEX firesale. Paul became frantic, his voice reaching a shrill pitch, “Real life! I’m talking about real life terrorists, not fucking Pithior Nihilists!”

Birgir stood up, pacing back and forth. “Here’s what we will do. We will wait until the price of PLEX increases to one billion isk, then we will create a new currency. We will call this PPLEX, and value it at one thousandth of a PLEX. So it will cost 5000 PPLEX to purchase a month of Omega time. Does that solve your problem?”

Falcon was satisfied, glad that another disaster was averted, “Yes, thank you. If you don’t mind, there is another issue. For some time now, player activity has been declining, and even the Rorqual has failed to motivate multiboxers. Pearl Abyss is threatening to liquidate the entire corporation, unless we show them that we can actually get players to log in.”

Birgir and Hilmar both laughed in unison, “Don’t worry about that! This isn’t our first scam, you know?” They then explained the truth about Bonus Training Weekend, “Those idiots don’t check the logs! They don’t know if the player is paying, or even undocking a ship. If we can show them that X number of accounts are currently active, then they will continue to think that people are actually playing. We will continue to apply Bonus weekends on a regular basis, and may even create a Bonus Room on Teamspeak, where capsuleers can learn how to trade their skill points for double skill points!”

Falcon nodded, but deep inside he was already calculating the future of PPLEX, once the Bonus program was converted into skill injectors. As the supply of injectors increased, the relative purchasing value of PPLEX would increase. Inflation would turn into deflation, and that could only mean one thing: It was time to sell the tritanium in Rens; all of it.