67,000 plus dead in Jita, cause unknown

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened...
-- Obi Wan

Something 'terrible' indeed has transpired recently in EVE Online, but the event brought more amusement than horror to fans of the brutal sci-fi game. Over 67,000 ships were destroyed in the bustling trading hub of Jita yesterday, and the pilots of EVE's galaxy of New Eden are still trying to figure out what really happened. All of the obliterated ships were shuttles, which is unusual given the nearly endless procession of freighters and industrial ships clogging the system's star gates. The Jita system is notorious for being overcrowded and is often blamed for the lag that affects the rest of New Eden. Not a day goes by without an EVE pilot, somewhere, cursing Jita and calling for the system to be nuked. It seems those rage-fueled wishes were finally granted, just not quite how most would want that retribution to play out.

Theories about the event can be found in multiple forum threads, ranging from the plausible to the absurd. A few players expressed the view that multiple convoys of freighters offloaded their cargo of ships into space at one location, and somehow ignited the mass in a doomsday-level conflagration. Some feel that it was all orchestrated by EVE Online's developers to help set the tone for factional warfare between the races, which is about to consume EVE's pilots in the Empyrean Age expansion. Others point out the most likely cause of the mayhem: it was simply a bug... a map glitch. No official explanation from CCP Games has been given for the occurrence, nor has EVE'sInterstellar Correspondents covered news of the event. Glitch or not, it's a novel way to kick off the wave of destruction about to sweep over New Eden mere days from now.


Thanks Hortinstein