The Same Old Rumor of War

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed.

-Matthew 24:6, New International Bible

It all started with a move operation, hours before the rumors began to swirl.  Pings went out over Jabber declaring the end of our mini-deployment to the frontier with Venal, just five gates away from our main staging point in YA0-XJ.

Of course, this came just as I finally gave in and moved a few ships from YA0 to the staging system, but I guess that at least gave me some ships to join in with.  So at the undock at QPO-WI, just about every sort of ship you might find in null sec was heading out.

Traffic control needed on the undock

Fleets were formed and convoys were run back and forth for quite a while on Saturday, occasionally interrupted by opportunistic hot droppers.  But that at least gave us somebody to go chase around for a while.

I am still not used to seeing capital ships taking gates.  And I am not sure that the capital pilots have all of the changes down either.

Ragnarok on the undock?

Despite the fact that there were convoys for subcaps and capitals, we had some carriers taking gates with us as we ranged back and forth between the to stations.  As it turns out, a carrier can be fit to warp pretty quickly.

Of course, as we were doing that, the rumors started on coms.  If we were pulling back to our main base it could only mean that we had something more interesting to do, some place better to deploy, some targets fatter than the residents of Venal, the latter having been somewhat thin on the ground since Black Legion departed for more fruitful hunting grounds.

The war in the east seemed to have wound down, with one Russian faction having secured control over the other and all having settled into a minor routine border conflict, while there didn’t seem anything new about the ongoing Brave vs. PL fun fest.

Then an item popped up in the forums over at EVE News 24 that indicated that Northern Coalition, a couple of their allies, and Black Legion were forming up for another run at Fountain while EVE Fanfest was going on in Iceland.

Black Legion, NCDot, The Kadeshi, and Darkness

That started as whispers in the wind but the post eventually got firmed up and updated and became a front page story on the news end of the site, indicating that those four were forming up in ZXB-VC in Delve.

But while that was still just speculation, we got our own news in Jabber from fearless leader himself, who summed up the hostile plan as…

Let’s try to move on the CFC just before Fanfest – third time’s the charm, right?  They just can’t get enough ~Dominion Sov~ action.

-The Mittani, Jabber broadcast

With that out, there was a summary over at TMC as well about the pending conflict, and an alliance update when up in the GSF forum late yesterday, which will probably end up posted over at TMC today at some point.  I’ll link that when it arrives.

Anyway, I expect that means that move ops will continue.  We are still playing by the Dominion expansion sovereignty rules, with CCP’s proposed summer changes to the sovereignty mechanics still being discussed.  So more move ops will be going on, with capitals and subcaps alike moving out.

Carriers and dreads undocking

Of course, the CFC has a standard response to and sort of assault on its sovereignty.  A force will go out to contest timers, shoot SBUs, reinforce and hostile towers, and generally turn the whole thing into the usual trench warfare that is Dominion sovereignty, where one side can only win when the other side gives up, unless they can bring overwhelming force to bear.

While that is going on, the Reavers show up in the backfield of the attackers and start reinforcing towers, dropping their own SBUs, and generally attacking timers until the hostiles have to make the choice to either keep attacking our sovereignty or deploy back to defend their own.  Time to warm up the Basilisk and get ready for a wormhole trip and some space camping.

Always another wormhole to jump through…

We shall see if our foes have come up with a different plan this time around.  If not, I’ll throw in a third quote for this post… which is really hitting my limit… about how I expect things will turn out.

They came on in the same old way and we defeated them in the same old way.

Wellington at Waterloo

Not that there won’t be some fun had.  Look for updates soon enough.  Timers will bring opposing fleets together now and again, but without a new angle the outcome seems per-ordained.