Some War Background

The corp theft I spoke about in my previous post is bad timing for BoB, for a variety of reasons. They have been driven back from key systems in the south, strategic-level attacks by BoB themselves (as opposed to their pets) failing for the first time in their history at JV-1V. Then, they found themselves under counter-attack in the nearby system of 9-9, which they had recently taken from Goonfleet in the midst of our political confusion following two leaders resigning in short order. They were forced to call off their attack and shift their defence west to 9-9.

Worse was to follow for them: their leader, SirMolle, contrived to lose his titan, Darwin's Contraption: the first time that a piloted Titan had ever been destroyed (you can read about it and hear teamspeak recordings on this site). Videos poured out onto the net. Goonfleet had rallied with such a massive morale boost, and we went on to launch a sustained siege of 9-9: we lived in the system, and I personally launched thousands of munitions into one BoB player-owned structure after another.

Bob had spammed towers to take the system, and now they spammed towers to keep it. Over twenty towers had to be destroyed, and we did it, night after night. First we would reinforce them by taking their shields down to 50%, and then we would come back when their emergency fuel ran out, to finish the job.

Logistically, Bob were clearly over-stretched. They had to cannibalise towers from other fronts to put them up in 9-9. Their stront (emergency fuel) timings were bad, and almost all towers came out in the primetime of Goonfleet or our glorious Red Alliance allies (The Russians). Passwords were often not set. Defence guns were not in place or went unrepaired. We destroyed tower after tower, erecting our own in their places.

At first, BoB sent large fleets to defend their positions. BoB contains many older players who have subscribed to Eve since the earliest days of the game. they fly the best ships the game has to offer, and fit them out with the very best equipment, helping them to maintain the high kill ratios that they value. This means that they invariably win fleet fights.

But they didn't. They started to be engaged by unusually well-drilled Goonfleet squadrons, usually under Tolon's command, who were more often than not inflicting unsustainable losses on them in their own primetime. Often, we were even holding the field and forcing them to retreat, leaving behind wrecks crammed with expensive fittings. I fought in one battle in 9-9 where we destroyed a carrier: BoB jumped in six times to save it, and were driven off each time with more and more losses. The last time, they went heads-down and stuck it out, and died en masse.

We took 9-9. There was a postscript: ten days ago they brought a huge fleet over and put all of our towers into reinforced on a Sunday night. This meant that on the Monday and Tuesday they had the opportunity to force us to fight on their terms. Sure enough, they pulled alarm-clock operations both days, demanding that their pilots turned up despite work or university commitments, on pain of being ejected from the corp. This was, as their figurehead DB Preacher (the worst poster on Eve-Online in a competitive field that includes Butter Dog) said, do or die time: they had chosen the battlefield and the time, and called out their entire capital and support fleets. The goons had destroyed around twenty of their towers in the previous fortnight. Now they had 24 vulnerable towers to attack.

They failed. Despite a mass-desynch from the servers that led to the destruction of an entire Goonswarm fleet at the very beginning of the two-day battle (itself due to a very foolish piece of aggression from Goon commander Sesfan that he held his hands up to at once), BoB managed to destroy a total of no Goon towers. Not one. They attacked a few times, mostly at the end of each day when only one or two towers remained vulnerable. But each attempt smacked of desparation and saw large numbers of BoB ships destroyed. Bob members posting on Eve-Online claimed that they had changed their goals to a simple fight, and that they didn't intend to retake 9-9, but it suonded hollow even to their biggest cheerleaders. BoB had been beaten back over three weeks, had lost when on the defensive and on the attack. The sense of humiliation eaked out in leaked IRC logs.

Goonswarm, on the other hand, had tasted success after success for the first time since Titans had been launched. A period of months when Bob needed to press only one button had made them soft, accustomed to effortless wins. Those of us who remained in Goonfleet, however, were the ones who didn't care about losses, whose morale had been tested for months and was almost unbreakable, but who knew that we would, eventually, win. Now, we would attack.

And attacking we are. Omist in the south is under seige: we live in system D2-EZ, 23/7. AAA and IAC are attacking BoB pets FIX, pushing them to breaking point. TCF and Red Alliance join us in attacking Rise and Finfleet in the south. The North is rejuvenated, and have recovered from the collapse of D2, some of whose best members are now fighting alongside IAC, whose destruction was supposedly certain only ten days or so ago.

There are huge dangers, of course. BoB will recover to some extent. Mercenary Coalition's intentions are unclear, and unlike BoB they deserve their reputation. But morale is high, momentum is with us for the moment, and BoB is away on their annual Barbeque. I wish I could have found the time to attend that on Friday...