Contemplating that Last Stand at VFK-IV

After the black week that was last week for The Imperium, which saw many billions in ship losses, sovereignty taken from us, and the evacuation of a whole region, our foes, the self-proclaimed “Allies” (or the “Moneybager Coalition”) have been beside themselves with joy.  If you wander over to the EVE Online subreddit, it is full of propaganda and self-congratulation to the point that an outsider might consider that the war is over.

It almost feels like the bottled up emotion of years of losing to Goons at places like B-R5RB and 6VDT-H, years of being being driven from this region or that (or being driven out of Delve repeatedly in some cases), has been released and everybody there has burst into a rousing rendition of “Ding-dong the Witch is Dead!”  The “VFK by Date X!” meme has been revived yet again.

They even built a monument to our victory… and I was there

However, that metaphorical witch is far from dead.  Even some of the joyful news being presented isn’t all that good for our foes.  For example, cheers about Razor losing a huge chunk of players might seem less of an event to toast if you were paying attention and noticed that those players moved to The Bastion. (From DOTLAN)

The alliance that is losing its home in Vale of the Silent actually grew.

Meanwhile, there is a long road ahead for anybody planning on defeating The Imperium.  Even without Vale of the Silent, there are a lot of towers left to reinforce, a lot of entosis work to be done, a lot sovereignty left to grind.  The “Allies” have their work cut out for them.

As I said last week, that alone gives me hope.  As a coalition, we have a reputation for being able to hold out and grind through such things.  Our endurance for the arguably un-fun aspects of sovereignty warfare is prodigious.  Forming at all hours of the clock is no big deal, boredom is our friend, time dilation is practically our natural environment.

Our foes… not so much.  They couldn’t even camp the Vale evac effectively; an opportunity lost.

TEST at least wants sovereignty in the north, something nobody else seems to care about.  They will at least stick around on that basis alone.

Pandemic Legion and NCDot want fights, not sov.  However, unless they want to fight Russians, they don’t have a lot of other choices if they want to bring their supers into play.  They’ll be around for a while.

But everybody else on the bandwagon… well, we’ll see how long they stick with things once it gets down to nightly entosis runs and whole fleets sitting on a single node watching that one guy with the Fozzie laser orbit his target.

And then there is the wildcard in the whole scenario.  CCP will be introducing citadels into the game soon, and nobody knows how that will change the face of the war.  But it is a big enough feature to make Gevlon rage quite the game.  I guess Mordus Angles is going to want some of that IWantISK largess soon.

I am not all that prone to pseudo-patriotism and jingoist pronouncements.  It is an uncertain time.  War has come to our homes at last.  Tribute, my own home region, is now on the front lines.  Outcomes are not certain.  We could lose.

But I also believe what I have written here has a basis in fact, born out by the history of the game and our coalition.  We certainly haven’t lost yet.  The login page for my iPad has a screen shot of the north from back when I joined TNT and entered null sec and a lot of us lived together in a much smaller space, at war with White Noise and Raiden, with NCDot on our flank.

The core of the CFC of old

We have a ways to go before we’re shrunk back to that small of a space again.

If we do lose, I want to be there when it happens.  If my corporation falters, I’ll join another.  If our alliance gives up, I’ll join KarmaFleet.  And if we end up with our own last battle, our own 6VDT-H, I hope I’ll be able to undock and join the fight.

One of the more fatuous questions that keeps coming up on Reddit is “Why?”  Why fly, fight, or whatever for the people so heavily vilified on Reddit, as though that were some objective measure of the world, as though, to put it bluntly, their own shit didn’t stink.

Still, there is an answer.

For about four and a half years at this point a small group of people, the “leadership” for whatever value you care to ascribe to that, has spent a lot of time setting up a situation where a space tourist like me could log in and experience null sec for better and worse.  And, more specifically, whole pile or fleet commanders have logged on night after night, people like Laz and Reagalan and Asher and MisterVee and Lyris and Papusa and Boat… very much Boat… have formed fleets and undocked to shepherd people like me around through the various aspects of the null sec experience and, even when I do stupid things, don’t kick me out or refuse to take me along.

What kind of person would I be if I turned my back on them the moment the going looked rough?  So I have nailed my colors to the mast and will go down with this ship if it comes to that.

Plus, you know, it is fun to be part of space history.  Nobody writes books about Faction Warfare or low sec gate camps.

Some amazing stuff is going down in EVE Online right now. I'll have to write a sequel someday. EVE is still absolutely one-of-a-kind.

— Andrew Groen (@GroenNdrew) March 27, 2016

We shall see what happens at M-OEE8 today.

Hearing rumors that the biggest battle in EVE's history may be about to kick off soon.

— Andrew Groen (@GroenNdrew) March 28, 2016