EPISODE III - REVENGE OF THE COSMIC

DISCLAIMER: This interview is friendly banter and is in no form intended to harass or attack anyone.

TRACTOR BEAM COUCH, BEERS AND HOOKERS

Kuki: Good afternoon!

Cosmic: Yow! What does that weird button do, oh, just hang up … ok.

Kuki: There was a high popular demand for an interview with Butt Admiral, uh … Rear Admiral Cosmic Debris from his legendary couch!

Cosmic: Yeah I like to get behind things. I used to have a couch for the longest time until it got worn out and I had the choice to either buy a new one or buy a mattress and use the bed frame I had out in the shed. The latter option turned out tremendously cheaper and a hell of a lot more comfortable for naps!

Kuki: Does it still come equipped with a tractor beam though?

Cosmic: Oh hell yeah! It's calling my name right now! But I'm not gonna answer it until later, cause if I lay down, it's nap time!

Kuki: I wanted to stop by your office on the TRA website, but it reads: "Under Construction. If this is still under construction by August 2021, go ping Cosmic and make fun of him. Edit: Xmas 2021, nothing here yet. Make more fun of Cosmic.". What happened?!

Uhh, laziness … and I took the funds they gave me to renovate my office and went out and got beers and hookers.

Kuki: I see Rebel Alliance money is being well spent? Is that were the merchandising profits are going?

Cosmic: Well, it was yours! You know, Disney gets their cut.

[Edit: TRA does not make any profit from its members via merchandise or in any other way]

A RISING STAR IN TFA

Kuki: Initial jokes aside I always like to start the interview with some easy going questions that will put my guest at ease. What can you tell us about joining TFA?

Cosmic: The actual date was June 15th 2001. I had just gotten a computer capable of playing XvT online, so I went to the MSN Gaming Zone where I was recruited by a group who's initials were DS first. Never saw any of them around and then I got approached by a TFA guy in the room. I worked my way up through the ranks and became a squad leader in Epsilon Squadron. I was about to become a Wing XO until I got accused of sexual harassment by another member of TFA. There was a whole D-SEC case about it and I got found not guilty due to lack of evidence. According to them I was not innocent. I'm not gonna harass some name on the internet. I got a wife I can harass upstairs if I wanted to harass a woman, you know. That woman's mine. And so you know, I got no support at the time from the TFA High Command or Wing Command. It was 20 years ago, so I don't remember who the leader was at the time, but so eventually I was like "**** you guys, I'm outta here" and went over to TRA where I had friends at. And the rest is history.

Kuki: Wait, this is serious? You're not kidding me?

Cosmic: No, no, it's not a joke. There was a whole bruhaha over it and it really happened. Maybe Grommet [edit: now a TFA Admiral] was with me at the time, he remembers the details better than I do and actually knows the person in real life. She seems to be happily married now, best wishes to her. I definitely did not harass anyone. You know, I'm not one of those people that's gonna be like "Hey baby, let's sext over ICQ!" no, no. There is a tremendous possibility I said something insensitive or stupid, yeah, but I never went like "Hey, what are you wearing right now?". That's just stupid, there's people that do that, but that's not me. The only thing that got me quite ****** off is that I had to go through the whole process in order to prove my innocence, turning over chatlogs from ICQ and mIRC which had nothing in them and still I wasn't declared innocent. I was declared not guilty due to lack of evidence. So am I a little sore about it? You know, maybe a little bit. I don't know who she is. I don't know her name. I remember her screen name, which I won't repeat because I think that wouldn't be cool. Just some random crazy chick who had a bad day and thought I said something harassing to her and reported it to the Department of Security for DJO and that was that.

Kuki: Waw, that went a complete different direction than I expected. I just wanted to poke at your TFA past to tease you a bit. I noticed before those events you had been awarded the Bronzium Star "for extraordinary service and achievement in the performance of duties" within TFA. So up until that point, things were going pretty well within TFA?

Cosmic: Yeah, yeah. I was a rising star! I had a lot of free time, I would come home, play XvT all night, dogfights rule, fleet battles ****, and I had a lot of fun. There's one medal in my TFA profile… I had stubbed my toe one night on something in the house and the nail cracked. It got infected and led to a blood infection. There was a nice red streak riding up my leg. So I sat at home for a week during DJO Cup with an IV in my arm and a little pump on my waist pumping antibiotics into my arm while I was playing. The medal reads "Wing One Meritorious award for flying with an IV in your arm, showing true love blah blah blah …". It was nothing unusual for me to score 3.000.000 to 6.000.000 points in DJO Cup.

Kuki: Yeah I saw that. Your TFA promotions and awards curriculum is stellar.

Cosmic: Oh you did your research huh? Someone told me you were digging for dirt. It was Sharper! I'll snitch him out!

Kuki: Is there a chance that this being Episode III is a fitting occasion to reveal yourself as the true Sith lord we've been looking for, shrouding the minds of the Jedi Elite and plotting to take over Scorer's position to make TRA into your own empire of Peace and Justice?

Cosmic: I'm not overthrowing Scorer. That guy just does too much work. I'm in a position where I don't have to do much. Being Scorer's XO is awesome! Once in a while I will get to an email for a new pending member first, but if I don't get it before 9 AM, he's already got it. So I have to get up early if I want to beat him to it.

Kuki: Imagine that one day you get the opportunity to become the next GDC?

Cosmic: That will not happen! No, I'm serious! I'm not the right person for that. If for some reason Scorer ever steps down, it will probably fall to me to help find the next one, but it would not be me. I will not take it.

Kuki: Is that because of your previous troubles with DJO?

Cosmic: Oh no! **** TFA and DJO. No I'm just not the right personality for it. The club needs someone like Scorer or perhaps some of the previous GDC's. Not WingMan. You don't even know who WingMan is, do you? Well a lot of people in TRA don't know who WingMan is, so we'll leave it at that. He was a former GDC who never showed around. You know who Daymaster is right? Daymaster was never the GDC of TRA. He had my position, but he ran TRA because WingMan was never around.

Kuki: Oh, a bit like Arvel? I saw he's TFA Fleet Commander but I have never seen him online.

Cosmic: Who? Who's that? Oh, I've heard that name before? Sorry, I can't place it.

Kuki: He used to fly a lot in XvT though? I found him in the statistics and he had quite a lot of games.

Cosmic: I'm still making final who Arvel is. I didn't know him back in the day. The only first knowledge of him was when he became the GDC of TFA, back when they started bringing everybody back and opening back up. It's my understanding with him that he wants to be very large and in charge, so to speak.

JOINING THE REBELLION AND SMUGGLING HILLBILLIES TO VIRGINIA BEACH

Kuki: So after that thing happened in TFA you went straight to TRA since you already had friends there?

Cosmic: Yes. BlackHawk [edit: Later changed his name to Darkstreet] was one of them. Highlander too. I met him twice in real life. I hosted two real life TRA meetings. One in Virginia beach where we had people come from Germany, England, French Canada, … wherever the hell that is, various places around the United States. Highlander was one of them. I think he's from Kentucky or Tennessee. He's gonna get ***** when I get it wrong. But you know, he's a hillbilly anyway. We had a lot of fun at the real life meeting. I rented a house in Virginia Beach and we partied. It was May 2004.

Highlander and BlackHawk came to my house and spent the weekend. Liberty 1976 actually also slept over once and wired my house for network cable. In those days you had to make network cable with the connectors and I was just too lazy to do it. We couldn't both play with only one connection, so he started cabling and 20 minutes later we were both playing.

The second meeting I hosted was with people from all over DJO, TRA, TFA and DJO Recreational League.

Kuki: How was TRA different from TFA?

Cosmic: It's the same difference as today. It was much more relaxed then in TFA where they kind of acted like they were a true military sim and you know, that's not my style. They actually do have a list of rules. I think if I remember correctly there were twelve rules of conduct for TFA members. I think that's an absurd amount of rules to follow. If you need to write down 12 rules of what not to do, you might not want to pick up every recruit you see at Walmart. Oh! Scorer's in the voice channel. Get out Scorer! I'm doing an interview! People come online to have fun. If you look at the rules section on our discord, we don't really have any. I don't think we need a whole list of rules to tell grown up people how to behave on the Internet. If you come here and be an ******* we're gonna call you out on it. And if you actually expect people to behave on the Internet, you're gonna be slightly disappointed. I'm very pleased that our group of people generally doesn't post anything bad. I mean, that's what we got the naughty corner for. If we can keep Mitharan out of the main lobby when he's drunk, then you know, we might be doing good. As long as it's not porn or really being mean, I don't care what people post. You can make fun of people. You can make fun of Scorer having to wash the dishes every night. Just because he sneaks up upon us in a private interview. We could throw him and send him over to TFA to be Arvel's second in command. Oh, he's blinking his mute button now. He doesn't like what I'm saying.

Kuki: How old were you when you made the switch to TRA?

Cosmic: Let's say about 32? There was still a lot of XvT being played. There was a little bit of XWA but nobody really got into it. The MSN Gaming Zone had gone down and someone made a program called the Errant Venture [edit: in Legends lore the Errant Venture was an Imperial II-class Star Destroyer captured by the smuggler Booster Terrik], a matchmaking program that connected everyone so you could still play XvT. It was a TRA member who did that, not a TFA member! Just like Scorer made the ToQuest Hangar now. Good boy! You can pat yourself on the back. It's awesome! TFA has a long history of *******. You can put that in. It's a joke. Disclaimer: If you're offended, too bad.

Kuki: What type of events do you remember from that time aside from DJO Cup and Week of War?

Cosmic: Well, there were various Squad Wars. Jedi Elite XvT Training Wars internal, TRA Squad Wars to fill in the gap between Week of War and DJO Cup and stuff like that.

Kuki: I saw on your TRA profile that you were promoted from pilot recruit to Fleet Wookie Groomer.

Cosmic: Oh, probably Ravagin did that as a joke because I knew all those guys in TRA from my time in TFA playing DJO Cup and Week of War. Just like now when we actually had DJO Cup with TFA, some of those people we play with are great people.

It's unfortunate their leader is a ******** and yes, you can quote me on that. Arvel is a ******** because he refuses to communicate with any of us and we tried! Daymaster tried and when he stepped down, Scorval, I mean Scorville, or Scorer [edit: Scorer is still in the voice chat], whatever his name is, became GDC for TRA and he also attempted to get in touch. But Arvel would never return Direct Messages, often didn't reply to posts, … Communication is a two way street. We legitimately tried to be friends with him in the beginning. When it came down to all the drama we've gone through we said "OK. Enough of this. Let's make amends". But he wouldn't. Maybe he carries a grudge. I know what he does for a living, which I won't bring up here, you've probably seen jokes about it in other discords (not ours) and I guess maybe he has authoritarian issues.

You know, this is a game. I come here to have fun. I sit down at the computer, if I'm not having fun I get up and go do something else. Have fun because so much of life is hard, you know? COVID lockdowns, bills, nagging wife (she's upstairs) … I'm just playing. I love my wife, we've been married for 30 years.

When Squadrons came out, they [edit: TFA High Command] accused me of poaching members when they would come over to our discord. I don't keep an eye on who joins TFA. As long as they wouldn't be an officer in TFA I would recruit them. We had quite a few people with dual membership. Apparently that didn't sit well with TFA, so they made the rule that you can't be in both clubs at the same time and DJO High Command backed them up, saying it's their club rules and they can do what they want. Which is true, they can make whatever rules they want. I just feel that was in poor gaming spirit because as long as people are having fun, what does it matter? As long as you have someone to shoot at and I have someone to shoot at, that's what it's about.

Kuki: What about the TFA spy role?

Cosmic: Oh that was a joke from when the discord was rolled out. I assume Daymaster set that up and gave them a special color to acknowledge that they are TFA. We have pink on their side too. Daymaster wouldn't let me turn the TFA spy color to shit brown. One day I did it anyway, but it just didn't look good on screen, so I had to change it back. You can quote me on that. The TFA members who actually fly and visit our discord would be amused by that and if they are not, … I wouldn't care if TFA gave us a shit brown color. It's a video game. Who cares? It shouldn't be taken too seriously.

Kuki: You said it's all about having fun, so what's the most fun thing for you about TRA at the moment?

Cosmic: Just flying with the people we've been flying with in the last year. I mean, you build those relationships little by little over time and you know, you may be on the other side of the world, but you're still a friend. But do something about that hair, maybe grow it out a little bit. Maybe don't let your wife cut it anymore. I see you laughing, but I know your wife cuts it. I can tell. Either it's that or you are doing it yourself blindfolded.

Kuki: Yeah I do it myself with the katana, maybe with some more practice …

Cosmic: It looks like it's thinning anyway, I see some gray hair there too …

Kuki: Favorite TRA memory!

Cosmic: Oh, that's a hard one, but I guess getting in the Jedi Elite back in the XvT days. For years I played on a 13 inch laptop monitor. When I went to a 17 inch CRT monitor, everything was so much bigger so I could see ships in the distance easier and was able to hit them. I improved my game to where my K/D went up enough and I made it into the Jedi Elite, so I can legitimately tell people I'm a certified Jedi Master, that's cool. I should be a Jedi Elder, Mitharan or Sharper or Scorer, how can you be on the council if you're not an Elder? Now I gotta kill all of them. Lucas stole that from me when I sent it in a letter. I really hate saying so.

WON'T THE REAL COSMIC DEBRIS PLEASE STAND UP?

Kuki: You're living in North Carolina, right?

Cosmic: Virginia Richmond, VA. I have great neighbors. I have no complaints, they're awesome. I live in a cul-de-sac. It's fairly peaceful. Once in a while there's a car break in or something like that, but never any danger. Most of the little thugs that live in this neighborhood now I knew since they were kids and my wife used to babysit them, so our house is the only house in the cul-de-sac that never has been broken into.

There are lots of trees. Once in a while a branch falls onto my truck and it has to go to the body shop.

We live close to the Interstate, I don't know what you guys in Europa call them. Since y'all drive on the wrong side of the street anyway, you probably call them something wrong.

Kuki: Well in mainland Europe we drive on the same wrong side of the road as you guys in Murica.

Cosmic: I also suffer from an uncurable road rage. I tell people they're number one all the time while driving. Show me what an obscene gesture is in your country because I'm giving you mine right now. Come on, do it on camera. Do that again, there you go. I got the screenshot. Let's see. Crop that out. Put it in the naughty corner. It's going straight in the main lobby! Actually I'll put it in the pilot lounge. I'm gonna turn the tables on the interviewer!

There is also sand in Virginia beach. I hate sand! We also have rivers, but I don't go there much. I got some dirt in the backyard, don't know if that counts as sand. There actually is some real sand outside of my front door because I removed a full size punching bag and had to dump the sand out to move it.

Kuki: You're throwing your Taekwondo skills at that?

Cosmic: It's Taekwondo with a little hapkido and some ground based grappling. Nothing as extensive as Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. My cousin is a black belt in BJJ and beats the **** out of me every time I spar with him. BJJ is a beast of a martial art. Martial arts is my main hobby for now. I do that one or two nights a week since I was 45. I'm about to turn 53 in august so that's 8 or 9 years. I did it because of my youngest, to be able to defend herself. The world is full of **** and sometimes people just need to have the **** slapped out of them. Or sometimes you need the confidence to turn your back and walk away from a situation. Self-defense is all about that confidence. You can have all the training in the world, but you need to believe in yourself enough that if someone puts their hand on you, you could break it, or at least look at them and tell them to remove it and scare the **** out of them. Sometimes a good look or a few words can do more than an actual physical altercation.

Kuki: This is something that I think is widely misunderstood in martial arts because many think it's all about competition. Real martial arts is not about competition because if you fight and someone has a bad fall or you take an eye out it can have a huge impact on that person's life and your own.

Cosmic: Absolutely. I don't want to send anyone to the hospital and I sure as hell don't wanna got to jail for some dumb ass. If someone is dumb enough to push me to the point where I have to break their hand, I won't feel bad about it. The only issue I have with it is the legal consequences that would entail. So far I haven't had to do it since I started training. The last fight I got in was 1976 and that girl kicked my ***. She was a big girl at the time man, I was six at the time, but she still whipped my ***. I'm still sore about that. Maybe one of these days if I see her around now that I'm better trained I can get revenge!

Kuki: What do you do in daily life?

Cosmic: Right now I'm retired. I got a bit sidetracked with permanent nerve damage from a foot injury, but it is what it is. I typically get up in the morning, make breakfast down at the computer, check up on things and play video games. Watch TV. Do some stuff around the house that needs doing.

Kuki: Favorite music? You play the guitar yourself?

Cosmic: I like everything except for modern country music. I like old fashioned bluegrass to 80's rock to heavy metal to jazz to classic rock. I just hate twangy American country music. I can't stand it. It's like listening to two cats ******* in an alleyway. You wanna squirt them with the water hose and try to break them up and get them to go away. But it just doesn't work sometimes.

Kuki: You mean the cats ****** in the alley or the modern country musicians?

Cosmic: Well you know, I'm sure there's things in your country you don't like to listen to and in my country I don't like to listen to cats *******. So you know, I don't put it on the country music station. You can quote me on everything.

Kuki: Favorite food?

Cosmic: Meat. If it walks across, if it has a heartbeat, I'll eat it. I haven't tried cats or dogs, because I like cats and dogs, but you know, if it came down to an apocalypse or the end of the world. Yeah I'm ******** gonna eat cat or dog. I like vegetables too, you know, because I do believe it's in someone's best interest to eat a mostly balanced diet. You can have your sinful food, your cookies, your cakes or whatever stuff, but you gotta have a good balanced diet. Stay away from processed foods as much as you can because there is so much *** in it that you don't know. But yes, things wanna eat me? I just eat them first! Maybe a towel doesn't wanna eat me, but a wild pig might want to and I really love baby back ribs. Also seafood. I love crab legs on the barbecue. But I would say pork's my favorite because pigs root around in their own **** and they taste wonderful. So there's something to say for rolling around in your own ****. Roses grow in **** and they smell wonderful.

Kuki: Favorite drink?

Cosmic: Water. Bottled water or tap water, whatever's closest available. I like a non-caffeinated diet soda every once in a while. I'm not a big soda drinker, nor alcohol. I don't drink alcohol. It probably has to do with the gluten thing. I have gluten issues.

HOT CHICK IN BIKINI VS. AWESOME DIALOGUE

Kuki: At what age did you see your first Star Wars movie?

Cosmic: The original Star Wars in 1977! I was eight years old. My favorite one is the one with Jar-Jar though. Just kidding. It's a tough call between Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. I love the original too because it was my first exposure to Carrie Fisher. Bang chicka Bang Bang. But you know, she's in that metal bikini in Return of the Jedi, so that puts it right up there on the list. Empire Strikes Back has the "I am your father" line. Hot chick in bikini versus awesome dialogue … tough call, dude, I can't make it. Maybe I'll try using Scorer's randomizer.

Kuki: Favorite Star Wars character (EU included)?

Cosmic: Jesus Christ dude … Wolverine? Deadpool? Euuhmmm …. I'm just looking at pictures on my wall. I like Chewbacca. He's old, loyal, he doesn't say a lot of ***** and when he does, you can't understand a word he says. He doesn't kiss his sister. Yeah, I'll go with Chewy. He must have a stink though, you know what I mean. Have you ever smelled a wet dog before? Millennium Falcon has got to smell like a whole big ******** wet dog.

Kuki: What's your favorite scene?

Cosmic: I have to go with Leia in bikini on Jabba. I was 13 years old when that came out and it had an impact.

Kuki: Did you get into any choking habits?

Cosmic: You mean the Jabba choking? Uh, no, I never got into that. Usually you pay extra for that.

Kuki: Favorite headcanon moment outside of the movies?

Cosmic: The Ashoka vs. Darth Maul fight in the last few episodes of Clone Wars. That was a damn good action sequence! Well done, well voiced. I watched them several times. It's that good of an ending. I'm gonna go watch them again tonight!

Kuki: Any recommendations from the EU for fellow TRA members?

Cosmic: I only read the Thrawn trilogy. By the time the rest came out I was chasing women around and partying and doing stuff I won't necessarily mention here. I had fun. I thought the Thrawn trilogy would have made a great movie series. You would have to recast the original characters but they could have pulled it off. They could still do it. Just don't get the guy who played Han Solo in Solo because he just didn't cut it. How do you replace Harrison Ford? I think Millie Bobby Brown would do a good job as Carrie Fisher because she kind of looks like her a little bit. And that dude who played Bucky in the Avengers movie [edit: Sebastian Stan] looks a little bit like Luke. They are both good actors. But Harrison Ford just had that swagger.

Kuki: What's your favorite real life Star Wars moment?

Cosmic: Seeing the movies when I was eight years old blew my mind. It was just so real. Not like the science fiction of the past, which was like a ship with a sparkler out of the back end, fireworks hanging from a strain, moving along you could see someone's handling. Seeing how real the space battle scene like with the Millennium Falcon after it left the Death Star was … as a young kid it just blew my mind. I was hooked. I had pretty much all the toys and I was a Star Wars geek. It had an impact on me. The philosophy of the Jedi with Yoda and all that. Formed a lot of the core values that I hold today.

PAPER FOR THE TOILET AND A URINE YELLOW LIGHTSABER

Kuki: Do you see parallels between the jedi philosophy and your martial arts?

Cosmic: A little bit, you know, be good, be nice, everything depends on the choices you make. We teach our kids, if you have to defend yourself, especially when you're in a school, don't make a fist. Put your hands up and tell them to stop. Look defensive, look scared, because if some teacher comes around the corner and you stand in a fighting stance, you're gonna look bad.

But I don't connect the two. We do sword training, but I never equated it to "learning how to be a Jedi Master". I may have made jokes about it, but I'm not out in the woods with some little guy on my back telling me to run faster and "feel the force".

Kuki: That was a pretty good Yoda impression. Is there an official master rank in your martial art?

Cosmic: The name of the company is Martial Arts School. They have a range of titles like master instructor, senior master instructor and so on. You have to train a very long time though to achieve them and legitimately be a master at your craft. They don't just hand it out if you've been around for 20 years. I'm not too concerned with titles and rank. I enjoy teaching people and helping them gain confidence to go out in the real world and not be so afraid. We had a young lady who came in who was regularly physically beaten up by her father. After she got her first belt, you could see the change in the way she carried herself, talked, … If I can have a little bit to do with helping someone like that and it's working, that's what I care about.

Kuki: I think it's very important that martial arts should help you with your real life. If it's just to be a big shot in the dojo, that's pretty useless. My Japanese teacher says his teacher told him "Paper (rank) is just useful for the toilet".

Cosmic: Exactly, the belt means nothing, the stripes I mean. I don't care about advancing anymore. Lately I refuse to test for advancement until I really feel I have the techniques down.

Kuki: Do you still have some of your Star Wars stuff from back in the day?

Cosmic: There might be a few pieces in the storage, but at one point I started to cut things up and glue them back together to make my own Star Wars ships. So I pretty much destroyed everything.

My wife still has her original R2D2 from the 70's. Every Star Wars thing I have nowadays I got from other people. When it's father's day, Christmas, … The only Star Wars things I actually bought myself are the stickers on the back of my vehicle. I registered my official religion as Jedi. My wife too. Yeah, you can do that. My wife was in the hospital a while back. The nurses check out people's religion because they don't wanna offend people. So but they were like: "Jedi. What's a Jedi?" After a while one of them figured out it's a Star Wars thing and they came in giggling. We looked at them like we're serious about our religion and they were like "oh, ****". We let them sweat a little before telling them were joking.

Kuki: If you had a real lightsaber, what color would it be?

Cosmic: I'd have to go with white because I would probably steal someone else's and make it my own. Or maybe pee colored yellow, like Rey made. Urine yellow. If you've ever been really dehydrated? That's a yellow lightsaber right there. Just go 10 hours without water and you can be like Rey.

MAKING PEOPLE RAGE QUIT

Kuki: What's your top 3 Star Wars games?

Cosmic: I've only ever played 4 online. XvT, Free Worlds (Star Wars mod for Freelancer), Squadrons and a little bit of battlefront I (2003) online. I enjoyed being a sniper. I got fairly proficient at that, being able to pick people off. There was a little spot where you could lay down and snipe and nobody could hit you.

Kuki: Was that at Bespin Platforms? I did exactly the same!

Cosmic: Yep! Until people started coming out with wall hacks, shooting through walls.

When I got into PC gaming and you could actually talk to people online via Teamspeak, that was a big draw. In Free Worlds after you raided a shipper, you could hop on their channel and then go, "hey, I killed you and took all your stuff". I enjoyed being a pirate in that game. People would not see it coming if you were wearing a shipping tag. You could be an armed transport and they would think "ohh it's a New Republic shipper. He's not going to attack us.". Well yeah I am! The Murian transport was awesome for that cause. It was armed, carried a lot of muscles.

There was the Gem trade run where you took Kessel fugitives to Kessel in the maw, you nav the maw to maw installation and get gems to Bastion and repeat. It cost 200,000,000 credits to fill up a full size transport and if you died you lost 200,000,000 credits. It took a long time to earn 200,000,000 credits in game. I made so many people rage quit. I was like "either give me 20 mil or you lose 200". If they didn't comply I killed them, took their cargo and sold it for 20 mil anyway. And they lost 200 because they want to be a **** about it. I was a pirate. What's a pirate gonna do? I gave them a choice. They made their own choice. They lost out and I became one of the richest peoples in Freelancer. Well, Free Worlds.

Eventually I owned the server that it was played on for a while until people started figuring out how to easily cheat at that game. I spent quite a few dollars buying programs trying to keep them from cheating and eventually I got tired of it, pulled the plug on the server and offered the game files to anybody who wanted to open up their own server and continue the community.

I quit online gaming altogether and got into guitar playing again. That's how I met my wife. She was my one and only groupie ever. Me and a friend made a tape [edit: he means music, people!] one night and he played it for her. She wanted to meet me and one thing led to another and three months later that pregnancy test turned positive and we got married. She's a patient person … she puts up with me. Here's a direct quote from her "I have a good heart surrounded by a ******* of a personality". Her words and I think fairly accurate. I won't deny it, I'm a little mischievous, but I usually don't start things. Actually I take that back. I do start **** sometimes, but I like stirring up existing stuff too.

So every once in a while I'll go over to TFA discord and post something stupid and **** off Arvel and Webby and their Kool Aid drinkers. That's the reason me and Scorer can't post gifs there anymore. We're probably the reason we can't do quite a few things over there anymore. But you know, it's all in fun. It's a game. If someone wants to come post links in our lobby, as long as it's not porn, cause once in a while there's younger kids joining. We have the naughty corner for borderline stuff. Once a TFA guy was spamming links to their events in a whole bunch of discords. One of the guys from Gray came over and started posting links to one of their members' Only Fans page. After watching 20 to 30 minutes of that I got rid of the link, banned him and told him not to post porn anymore. I didn't watch that long, I'm kidding.

Just keep it fun. I think here in TRA we have a pretty relaxed group of people. We have good new people coming in regularly who want to learn how to play the game. That's awesome! We have a group of people who are willing to teach anyone who wants to learn. I've even tried to get Edairman to come over but he's a real ******. Quote me on that. Even Serpico or Bazzball, everyone deserves a second chance and sometimes a third one. If we could get these dumb ass A-Wing mains to stop accusing people of cheating… If there's a way to improve your performance, you're gonna try to figure out what that is. I remember when you sucked donkey ***** Kuki. But then you started practicing and you got good. You worked at it. You did everything the better pilots said to do and now you kick everybody else's ***, most of the time.

Kuki: I feel that since I stopped playing competition, the guys who still do are already eluding me again. But it's true, the only way to get better is to play with and against good players and listen to their advice. Isolating yourself will never work because you'll keep making the same mistakes.

Cosmic: Exactly.

Kuki: Favorite non Star Wars game?

Cosmic: Well I don't really play anything else. I had a Nintendo when I was young, Legend of Zelda and stuff like that. But I stopped playing after that.

REBEL QUEUER A-WINGS

Kuki: What's your favorite Rebel Ship?

Cosmic: X-Wing. Just because it's the coolest looking Rebel fighter out there.

Kuki: And on Imperial side?

Cosmic: I'd say TIE Interceptor because it's a little cooler looking than the standard TIE.

Kuki: What's your most hated ship in Squadrons and why is it the Rebel Queuer A-Wing?

Cosmic: My most hated ship are the support ships when I'm in them when I have a support challenge. Especially the imperial one is just a big flying target in dogfights, which I prefer over fleet battles. I don't do a lot of the crazy flight mechanics that people can do in them, I know it's possible. There's so many people out in this game that are better than me and I don't hate them for it, I wish them the best, but I wish they'd stop shooting at me.

The problem I have with Rebel Queuer A-wings is that it forces everyone else who plays on random faction into Imperial. And yeah, I wanna fly an X-wing or a Y-wing every once in a while, but I can't because A-wing mains like the VR in the cockpit of the A-wing. I get that part and I actually like how they fly because it's more Star Wars. I've tried to explain the consequences of their choice to them. Most of the A-wing mains aren't great pilots, but they could be. I applaud the ones who are jumping out of their comfort zones and are flying Empire and discover "Oh my God shunt charging is awesome". Some of those people now queue Empire more often than not.

The TIE bomber with the rotary is ******* fun, especially when you melt A-wings that decide to joust you. You just hit the delete button on it, gone, gone, gone, gone! Sometimes you get carried away with it and you realize that you just massively massacred a team of noobs, baby seals and you know, sometimes I feel bad about that, but yeah. I try to take it easy on the low level people, but if they shoot at me I'll kill them. So don't shoot at me please, low level people who haven't played the game yet!

Kuki: Is there anything else you wanna say to the people of TRA?

Cosmic: No, no, no. Just go out there and play more dogfights. fleet battles, ****! Fleet battles are yesterday. Dogfights are where it's at. You wanna shoot real people! You don't wanna shoot at NPC's! I mean, look at people. "How many AI did you farm? Well, I did 81". Did you have any interaction with real people other than Twigs yelling at you: "Go for AI, go for a Raider! Go for the Raider! God ******, nobody's listening!"? You know exactly what the **** I'm talking about too. And we love you, Twigs, but that **** is the truth. "Oh my ******* God, this ********." I can't do a proper Irish accent, otherwise I'd try to imitate him, but yeah.

Alright, one thing I will say to TRA is have fun. Don't take a game so seriously that you rage quit. I know it's easier said than done. I had my rage moments. I had really bad lag one time and I completely lost it. It was in a room full of TRA people. I beat the **** out of my tough to break Logitech keyboard. Smashing it didn't fix the shunt lag, but I felt better. I felt stupid afterwards, but we all have our days.

Just have fun. If it's at someone else's expense once in a while, that's OK as long as it's within good nature. Yeah, we give each other **** but we're all still friends. We have our moments. We do dumb things, but we're always still here for each other.

Kuki: Then I would like to thank you for your time and I'll let you go back to queuing for fleet battles!

Cosmic: Yeah, totally, totally. You know, I'm going for that Galactic Ace. I think I can get it in 25 years!

Kuki: One last thing, Sir, permission to post this interview as is?

Cosmic: What is the worst that can happen? They already don't like me, so what is a little bit more gonna hurt? Me? No. Them? Hahaha I hope so.

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