So that's how being a outlaw works.

As I had mentioned in a previous post, my sec status is in a great decline. Since then, I've sunk to a healthy -6.5, making me an outlaw in the eyes of both Pilots and Concord. I now get a neato announcement when I go into high sec, show up on people's overviews, and can be attacked without provocation. I'm perfectly fine with all of this extra attention, and don't venture into high sec often enough to care. I'm also aware of the added risk of being attacked by other pilots without Concord intervention, which is where my lesson in being an outlaw begins.

I had just jumped into Dal, on my way back to Egg. Holding cloak, I saw a Condor and a Rifter jump into the system I had come from. Both pilots were neutral to me and looked like prime targets for my arty Thrasher. I decided to burn back to the gate and jump through. Back in Hof. As soon as the system loaded I watched the Condor warp off as the Rifter stayed behind. Armed with my superior knowledge of how gate guns work, I decided to see if I could get the Rifter to agress me. I burned over to him, gave him a nudge and puttered around a bit trying to look like a prime target. My plan was to get him to fire on me and then have the gate guns chew him up. From his perspective, I must have looked like an idiot.

What I should have done, in the wise words of Mike Birbiglia, is nothing.

While putting together my plan to get these two guys to welp to gate guns, I neglected to thoroughly think things through. Since I'm a criminal, the gate guns won't protect me. Since I was in an arty Thrasher, orbiting a Rifter at 500m put me right in his optimal and put him under my guns in a prime location to kill me. Oh, and the Condor pilot. Forgot about that guy...

The Rifter finally locked me up and fired moments before the Condor landed. I quickly returned the favor, but with him under my guns I was largley ineffective. At that moment the realization that I was going to lose by my own foolishness settled in. I actually laughed out loud as the Condor lit me up with his disruptors. I slowly removed the pants from my head as they chewed through my ship and admitted to my stupidity in local. I gave them a GF as I bounced my pod around waiting for my timer to expire and admitted that I had  forgotten about my sec status. Hopefully they found the whole thing as funny as I did.

I know the next time I try to do something like this, I will account for my sec status and not just sit there like a potato.