Once, long ago, a newbie by the name of "JPlanck" had entered the realm of SubSpace. Blindly playing the game without reading the instructions, or trying to understand the mechanics first, he flew about like a damn fool, being killed consistently and relentlessly by the players who had been playing for weeks as SubSpace had been first created. As the newbie flailed about in his ungreened leviathan with his level one non-prox bombs, trying to land in whatever hits he could, he ran across several veterans who had been intelligent enough to read the rules first. They naturally made short work of him, and his visit to Alpha zone was fruitless and wasteful. Finally in a fit of rage and frustration, the newbie logged off and was never seen for the remainder of the week.

Once again, the newbie logged onto SubSpace. This time, the newbie was determined to find where he had gone wrong. He began asking questions of the veterans, and instead of helping him, the veterans tossed jokes at him, telling him that "alt+control+delete" was the cheat code he was looking for. After several failed attempts, and an angry parent who was wondering why her son was trying to destroy her new computer by turning it on and off over and over again, the newbie began looking for other means besides a cheat code to destroy his vile opponents.

Seeing that the veterans were not going to help him, the newbie looked for other means to destroy the evil veterans of subspace. Much cussing and fighting with the vets had only succeeded in earning the newbie a painful record of something close to 10-100, with a 14 average kill. The newbie gathered his thoughts, and he knew at once that his answer lie within another zone. Being a newbie, he could not leave Alpha until he had shown the SubSpace gods that he was worthy of entering chaos zone by ammassing a certain number of points in Alpha zone. The newbie had fought bravely against the evil veterans, but all his efforts of level one non-prox bombing were in vain, and the newbie only succeeded in killing other newbies like himself. Finally, after attaining a horrible losing record, the newbie DID manage to acheive the number of points required to move on to chaos zone. The newbie had become one step closer to his answer, but his quest still seemed like it has just begun.

It was the newbie's first time in chaos zone, when he jumped into the fray and immediately saw his answer. An elite veteran by the name of "Arbitrage" flew by in a ship that the newbie had never seen before, and though the newbie tried his best to kill the elite veteran with his level one non-prox bombs, the elite veteran utterly made the newbie look like a fool. The ship that the elite veteran was flying was clearly superior to the leviathan that the newbie had been stuck with since his first day logging on. It was then that the newbie knew his answer lie with this elite veteran, Arbitrage, and the mysterious ship that he flew.

The newbie began pestering the elite veteran with a series of questions, "Can you give me your ship?" "What is the code you used to get your ship?" and "Please tell me, how do I get your ship!". Finally, hiding his frustration with the newbie that had been hounding him with level one non-prox bombs across the ends of the map, and constantly flooding his screen with private messages, the elite veteran began revealing the secrets of the wasp. Although the elite veteran did his best to explain to the newbie how he had acquired such power, the newbie knew nothing about "greens" or the "scoreboard" and the newbie simply did not understand the knowledge that was given to him. It was like the newbie had been given a great tome of SubSpace knowledge, but he did not understand the language it was written in, and the newbie had gotten no further to his goal of total zone domination. Finally the elite veteran logged off, and the newbie never again saw him or the mysterious ship that he had been piloting.

There the newbie began his quest for the mysterious "Wasp". The newbie knew that once he had gotten his hands on a ship of such power, surely he would be able to smite his enemies with a quick push of tab, and destroy his enemies by the hundreds with rapid pushes of control. The newbie began asking everyone, trying to decipher the hidden meanings contained within "Arbitrage's log" but to no avail. The veterans who had known the secret language of the elite were not willing to give its secrets to a mere newbie fool, and the other newbie fools who were not so secretive knew only as much as the newbie himself.

Weeks of hunting, dying, asking, searching, testing "cheat codes", and the occasional killing had not gotten the newbie any closer to his ultimate goal of zone domination, nor did it reveal any additional secrets to the mysterious "Wasp" or the knowledge contained in "Arbitrage's log". The newbie had almost given up hope, when one late night the newbie decided to stay up for a last night of SubSpace and forget the loss of sleep he would be condemning himself to. The newbie fought and searched, and died and killed, and asked and tested, until he could no longer fight the growing lack of sleep inside him. The zone's population had quickly dwindled to a small number of players, and the newbie was simply too bored to fight the lack of sleep that had been attacking him from the inside.

Finally, just as the newbie was about to log off, the top scorer himself had decided to throw in the towel, and logged off, leaving the newbie as the top scorer in the zone. How did it happen? Perhaps it was a new reset, and the only ones left playing were newbies much like the newbie himself. Or perhaps, the newbie had merely gotten so good at destroying the vile enemy ships with his level one non-prox bombs, and had put in such a large amount of time, that he actually did achieve quite an impressive score. Or perhaps the newbie had gotten good enough at avoiding the vile veteran "negkillers" that his team had usually been able to green him to a ship that was actually powerful enough to destroy other veterans, if the newbie had gotten lucky enough to get in a few better-aimed shots than his veteran enemies. Whatever the case, before he knew it the newbie was flying the mysterious "Wasp".

It was then that the newbie began to understand. The newbie had been enlightened; the mysterious "Wasp" was his and the knowledge held within "Arbitrage's log" was shown to him in a new light. The wasp was not acquired with "cheat codes" or by having the great SubSpace God and owner "JeffP" hand it to you, it was merely another representation of the ship that the pilot with the highest score was given. It was nothing more than a different look for whatever ship you happen to choose, and it was not the all-powerful destroyer he thought it was. The veterans simply greened their "Wasp" before they fought with it, and there lie the difference in power of the two ships. The newbie still had not practiced enough to destroy the veterans yet, despite his great enlightenment, and after being continually owned by the veterans in ships that resembled flying pickles and not being any closer to his goal of total zone domination in the mysterious "Wasp", the newbie logged off in a fit of frustration and rage. So ended the newbie's quest for the "Wasp".

The next time the newbie logged on, he decided to try things differently. Instead of picking the leviathan, he picked the warbird. Instead of flying around trying to destroy the vile veterans as a neg (A ship so under-powered that if killed by you, actually causes you to LOSE points as a method of denying such behavior. Negative points for the kill, hence "Neg"), he carefully greened his ship in secrecy, and then when he was stronger than his opponents, he attacked with a burning rage and with such a quickness that the evil veterans didn't even have time to type "BACK OFF NEGKILLER". It was then that the newbie realized that he was no better than the vile veterans. His burning rage and anger had turned him into a vile veteran himself, and being an evil veteran was too much for him to handle. After seeing his newbie and veteran opponents combined be destroyed before him without cause or justice, he decided to once again become the nice newbie that had been seen so long ago. Once again, "JPlanck" had become a newbie, but this time, the newbie did not kill negs, nor did he fly a level one non-prox firing leviathan. He played with fairness and justice, greening his ship so that he was powerful, but only attacking those ships who were also powerful, and leaving the poor helpless newbies and neg veterans alone. His record was never again that of a great negkiller, but his average kill showed in him a strength of heart and the courage of a true SubSpace veteran, one who fought fairly and justly. It was then that the newbie had become a veteran himself, though this time he was not one of the evil veterans. He discovered a light side of the veteran, a good and fair veteran, like the elite veteran "Arbitrage". The newbie strove to be such a true elite veteran such as "Arbitrage" ever since, and never again in all his many years of subspace became a negkiller.
Learn from this lesson well fellow pilots, for you were all once helpless newbies, and you all once fought the onslaught of vile veteran negkillers. Though the ultimate goal of total zone domination may seem easy to obtain by such vile methods, the power of the negkiller will only make you evil.
And negkilling just isn't very nice.
-JPlanck/Reaem