I am going to answer this with a story, because it embodies this bounty and the long-term effects of how meeting a stranger, can turn into a lifelong friendship.
Around 7 years ago, I was running a corporation called Evil Monkey Asylum. We lived in a system called Samanuni, which is a 0.7-sec system, and our HQ, our corporation specializes in new player recruitment, using our tutorials to teach new players Eve Online.
One aspect of our corporation was T1 frigate roams, we would buy/create T1-fitted frigates, standard ships, etc, our stockpile was massive, and our goal was to take as many new players into low sec for PvP, to get them over the fear of "ship loss".
A few jumps away from our HQ was a level 3 agent. This is where our story begins.
One such roam was a fleet of 50+ new players and existing experienced players, we had been out for some time and had headed back at around 10 PM UK TZ, as we approached our home system and roam end, we jumped into a system called Ikoskio. A forward scout piped up on comms "I have an Apocalypse navy issue on scan, do you want me to pinpoint" I said yes, go ahead, I held my fleet on the outgate waiting for intel, after about 3 minutes our scout said "not sure if this is a site or mission but I'm on his gate" I told him to hold.
I warped the fleet to the gate and instructed squad 1-2 to focus on his drones and the rest to fire on the ship, I said fleet activate and we went in, he was literally on the war in point shooting NPC's, instantly the fleet followed orders and within a few minutes we had him in structure, a member piped up "FC read local please, he seems genuinely distressed"
I read the local chat and ordered everyone to stop firing, what he said wasn't important but, he had been saving for months for this ship and its fit, and essentially, he screwed up in thinking low sec was safe when in a mission. I told the fleet to hold and directly convoed him. After a few minutes chatting as he was in the NPC corp, I sent him a corporation invite, ordered my fleet off-field and to return home, and had him take his battleship back to High Sec.
That player's name was DemonGateUK, after we disbanded the fleet I put him into a private comms and educated him on the dangers of low sec, even when in missions and sites, he had no idea that you can be scanned down. It turns out that he lives less than 45 minutes from me.
After a few weeks, he told me he was going to be in the closest city to me on business and that I wanted to meet up. I said yes, of course, so we met up in Starbucks and chatted for a good four hours.
This man is now one of my IRL best friends, he is my D&D dungeon master, and our newest baby, baby Charlie who is now 5 months old, his middle name is my friend's first name as a way to honor that friendship. He is also the god parent of my daughter Sofia. When COVID hit, I lost my job, I did not know what to do, he called me and said "I need an assistant, easy work, good pay, you're it" and that I could work from home.
Eve Online is a special game to me, this is simply one of the reasons why. This man, is an amazing human, an amazing and loyal friend, and thanks to a chance encounter, I now have this amazing person in my life.
