So.. just what is this wall of text supposed to represent? To quote my introduction from Scrapheap Challenge:
For a while I’ve been writing more or less regular summaries of current events in Eve, something that’s been popular as the ‘Daily Show’ within FIX, got some popularity within the MC as ‘Tinfoil Hattery’ and eventually was moved to the general Tortugan area.
The archives are in the process of finding a new home, and the thread itself did not get updated with current events for a while, to no small extent since I wasn’t quite sure where to keep posting any updates. Thanks to Winterblink for providing a venue — as always, all mistakes are mine. Please keep in mind that the original disclaimer regarding any truth or even objective summaries in this thread still holds true:
They are updates on major events, gossip and a lot of tinfoil hats gathered from the various forums. I’m spending entirely too much time browsing through all the smack and madness that is CAOD, SHC, VN Boards, Eve Tribune and various corp boards, and keeping track of the interesting quotes and creating a short writeup is usually just an additional hour a week or so.
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Keep in mind that I make no claims of having inside information or anything that’s even remotely close to the truth. In most cases you’ll be better informed by talking to the actual people involved, by checking other sources or due to having access to internal information. If you spot something that’s wrong please do not hesitate to follow-up; the only purpose of this thread is to allow inactive players to get a bit of an idea of what’s currently going on in New Eden. As such I’ll often skip over details in an attempt to keep this moderately brief. If anyone feels that this is too close to CAOD or rather not suitable to this forum please let me know and I’ll either change the concept or stop altogether.
To get you started, this request on CAOD regarding current conflicts as of early May isn’t half as bad as it sounds. Couple of decent summaries within the thread. I’ll stick to my own ‘areas’, although these overlap of course — this time more so than usual. I’ll also be catching up with current events in the next few days; this post has been split in half to make it at least somewhat readable.
Late April to Mid-May 2008, part 1
Executive summary: Massive cap fights in the drone regions, TRI disbands
The drone regions saw a brief quiet phase before IRC/XiX/SD gave FIX towers in the area another try, using a rather impressive cap fleet. FIX seemed to enjoy the prospect, probably to some extent because it drew SACK (Smash/Roadkill/Atlas) back into the conflict. Fights intensified with one titan in trouble and Mactep’s mothership going down (kb link). Solar Dragons retaliate by killing a cap yard that apparently still had components for a new titan stashed away.
Capital and supercapital losses only increased over time. A second Solar fleet mom soon followed (kb link, report link) only to be outdone by one of the largest cap ship fights that Eve has seen so far with close to 70 capitals lost between all parties (image). Borders itself remained fairly stable, maybe because of a) a lack of capitals and b) everyone waiting for Goons to move in, but the initial push to keep FIX out of BQ0 and GK3 failed. Didn’t stop XiX from losing another Nyx, quickly followed by the 4th dead mom of the week (another report) as fights moved to R-6 — for more cap ship battles, this time with about 15 caps (img) IRC/ED capitals destroyed at one of their own POS.
Goonswarm did arrive in R-6 just in time and decided to catch up with regards to the capital losses, leaving deadtear’s Erebus behind (kb link). Despite a triple doomsday some tacklers survived long enough to take advantage of a de-synched titan pilot, the result being inevitable (mandatory wreck image, full report over here). GS and friends managed to take down 9 SACK caps at least.
With the recent launch of the first DS1 titan (in true GS comedy style, no less) the bees are back to two (known) titans for now. Let’s see whether their combined numbers are sufficient to push back FIX/SACK.
In the second big combat area TRI/Insurgency did their best to stand up to a rather impressive combined fleet of ‘old’ Northerners ranging from Mostly Harmess over Morsus Mihi to Razor, Pure and half a dozen of smaller entities. For quite a while things were looking bright for TRI and CELES, particularly after an excellent start by killing Intensity Green, Razor’s Erebus-class titan (kb link, wreck image, another one) during a POS defense op in D4R. Note the Rorqual on the killmail. But then, battle rorquals are all the rage these days.
If rumours are to be believed, an DAB alt in PURE took revenge on Razor and gave away the titan’s location. Bit of a shame given that it was there on a rescue mission (lovely propaganda material indeed!). Titan loss notwithstanding, fights continued on a massive scale over 4DT (typical kb link), to the point that fleets had to be split up to fight in multiple systems around the general BKG area.
Both sides continued to actively use their titans despite RZR’s loss, some with better results (img link) than others:
(TRI titan pilot)
I get told to loggin get in gang, JUMP JUMP DD ASAP 60 man gang jumped in and bubbled your 120km off. I jump and dd while grid loading. Grid loads all blue pods.
WTF?!?!?
Oh wrong cyno pilot dropped the cyno.
Might want to open a self-help group with Goonswarm who stopped by in Pure Blind to run some interference — only to get DD’d _again_. Phalanx in the meantime did their best to disturb NC supply lines by war-deccing most northern alliances, and former TRI member corps CORA, Sparta and Illuminati kept IRON busy, killing yet another mothership.
All events most likely provided only some help, but in the end — despite other minor capital losses — Insurgency temporarily regained control over 4DT/D4R, and fights shifted into a bit of a cat and mouse game — made more difficult by ‘Trisurge’ disabling various jump bridges.
That is not to say any and all fighting stopped. The involved parties continued to trade dreads over Z-K (kb link of a General Dynasty scorpion with fittings worthy of any capital), quickly followed by another mom kill (Darkness Nyx, RZR propaganda version) in the same system. The Northern Coalition did gradually take control of Z-K by a combination of POS counterspam and continued presence in the system:
NC holds LXWN and BKG station systems.
Trisurgency currently hold 4DT and EQI station systems.
NC is currently removing and incapping Cyno Jammer and Jump bridges in Z-K (first system after BKG). NC POS’s in EQI that were re-inforced have come out and been repped i believe. Insurgency POS’s to come out of reinforced in Z-K over the next few hours.
Currently NC holds the pipe up to and through the two hostile station systems. Only very small engagements at the moment, with small gangs ganking loners and stragglers on gates. No serious hostile force has been seen in Z-K after the cap loss battle this afternoon.
At that time the fight did seem a bit like a standoff, despite an impressive churn of capital ships (at least from my perspective):
Both sides are achieving their short-term objectives tbh. TRISurge seems to be largely content with retaking & refortifying lost systems (4dt, d4r, and eqi). The Northern Coalition have seemed to accept the fact that they will not be able to retake them now that they have been lost.
Maybe that’s why I felt completely surprised when TRI decided to open another front by hitting PURE POS in Vale. While it certainly prevented PURE from defending their valuable moons in Fountain from PL (if they had any intention of doing so in the first place) the move was unlikely to help CELES:
Can we win this war alone against RZR, PURE, MM, mostly harmless, stella, majestic, CO2 and the others? of course we cant…
Quite predictably, CELES got pushed back, followed by an announcement from Darknesss that TRI would be folding down. For a while it seemed they might be able to survive the drama of previous weeks, but the joint work with Insurgency didn’t seem to be enough to hold the alliance together. Oree’s reply is worth reading, as is the TRI history post from touchvill.
