It was announced in a broadcast earlier today that RAZOR Alliance
RAZOR Alliance – June 11, 2016
RAZOR Alliance held sovereignty up in the Tenal region, along with The Initiative and Executive Outcomes until the Drone Walkers broke off from Legion of xXDeathXx back in April to join the offensive against The Imperium.
RAZOR is the fourth alliance to leave the coalition since the war began back in January.
The Imperium – June 11, 2016
As when SMA left The Imperium, RAZOR is retaining blue standings with The Imperium.
RAZOR takes with them over 1,200 capsuleers, down from over 3,000 at the start of the year.
RAZOR has always been one of the more independent alliances within The Imperium, conducting their own deployments, including the one that pushed Intrepid Crossing over the (Cobalt) edge back in 2012.
There hasn’t been any word (leaked) yet about what RAZOR’s plans may be. They had been working with The Initiative and LAWN in the Syndicate region to drive out The OSS and control the money moons there, and they appear to have picked up a system in Cloud Ring. We shall see where they end up.
Meanwhile, rumors about the war’s end continue to seem premature.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
Actually, EXE had no sov in TENAL, but in BRANCH. INIT never defended Tenal, but was deployed elsewhere.
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“Meanwhile, rumors about the war’s end continue to seem premature.”
I guess it really depends on how you define winning and losing in EVE, but,historically, when you lose all of your null sov, you lost that particular war in null. Whether or not you make a comeback later is a separate issue. Otherwise, you might as well say that no one has ever lost, or won, a war in EVE, since there is always the remote possibility of a comeback.
On that note, the Goonswarm alliance (not to be confused with the Goonswarm Federation alliance) seems to be making an odd comeback, in Querious.
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@Anonymouse – I think you are a bit off base with that. If the war is over, then why is everybody sitting on Saranen trying to make us say “uncle?” The MBC hasn’t broken up, it remains together in an essentially blue coalition.
Wars don’t end when the winning side says they’re over (see Iraq or Afghanistan), they end when the losing side admits defeat. The war in Fountain ended when TEST gave up. There are other examples that refute your statement. We have not yet given up.
As for DARIUS Johnson and GoonSwarm, that is something completely different. I’m not a “true Goon” by his definition, so am not welcome at that party.
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@Wilhelm – “[Wars] end when the losing side admits defeat” probably isn’t a realistic condition/definition in EVE, since there is no way to actually force someone to leave the game, nor is there any external way to force the dissolution of a coalition, alliance or corporation, nor to force them to say “uncle”. In the end, TheMittani could be the only one in Goonswarm Federation and in the Imperium, sitting in station, with a couple of mercs outside, and the condition would never be met and the war would never be considered over (certainly not by TheMittani). Is that too ridiculous of an extreme? Then, where do we draw the line?
Perhaps, then, the answer to the question is purely subjective. If your alliance decides to quit the Imperium, will you consider the Imperium to have then lost the war?
In any case, whether it is a considered a “war” or not, I’m glad to see the PVP activity. It makes for enjoyable reading, particularly your well-written posts.
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@Anonymouse – ““[Wars] end when the losing side admits defeat” probably isn’t a realistic condition/definition in EVE, since there is no way to actually force someone to leave the game, nor is there any external way to force the dissolution of a coalition, alliance or corporation, nor to force them to say “uncle”.”
Except, if you look at the history of wars in null sec, that is the only way that wars ever end. One side decides it doesn’t want to fight anymore and either goes away to do something else (generally a leadership decision) or falls apart because members of one side just stop showing up for fights and, in some cases, start leaving the organization in large numbers. So either Mittens (or a successor) moves us elsewhere, or we stop being able to form up fleets and fall apart on our own.
This is such a natural part of wars that on Reddit you can find people from the MBC (notably from NCDot, who has given up before us on a number of occasions) calling The Imperium “bad sports” for not rolling over and giving up.
However, my saying the war is still on shouldn’t be confused with me thinking that we are winning. We are, by any objective measure, ISK war included, losing, and losing more so daily.
An amusing aspect to this is that one of the things that sustains us is that some of our foes, especially NCDot, have historically gotten bored and have gone away even when they haven’t been losing, or at least not losing badly. So there is very much a sense that if we just tough this out we will exhaust our foes and be able to push back into sov null. The Imperium will never been what it once was, but Goons retaking Deklein would be enough of a psychological come back as to feel like a victory.
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From my point of view as a “MBC member” the war ended a month ago when we ceased to be deployed to Pure Blind on contract against The Imperium.
Goons remain one of our favourite targets but it really is one among many.
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Having just finished reading The Empires of EVE book, certainly almost every major conflict covered in that book ended with the losing side admitting defeat. That hasn’t happened in this war because its not over. That was always one of the problems with MBC; taking sov wasn’t going to win them the war, and the prediction is that they don’t have it in them to stick it out and push far enough to get an acceptance of defeat.
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Mittens: Hey! What’s all this station spinning around shit?
Goon1: What the hell are we supposed to do, ya moron?
Goon2: [to Mittens] War’s over, man. MBC dropped the big one.
Mittens: What? Over? Did you say “over”? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!
Goon1: [to Goon2] Germans?
Goon2: Forget it, he’s rolling.
Mittens: And it ain’t over now. ‘Cause when the goin’ gets tough…
[thinks hard of something to say]
Mittens: The tough get goin’! Who’s with me? Let’s go!
[Mittens undocks, alone; then returns]
Mittens: What the cluster fuck happened to the Goons I used to know? Where’s the spirit? Where’s the guts, huh? This could be the greatest night of our lives, but you’re gonna let it be the worst. “Ooh, we’re afraid to go with you Mittens, we might get in trouble.” Well just kiss my ass from now on! Not me! I’m not gonna take this. MBC, they’re dead men! Grobbins, dead! PanFam…
Goon1: Dead! Mitten’s right. Psychotic… but absolutely right. We gotta take these bastards. Now we could do it with conventional weapons, but that could take years and cost millions of lives. No, I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part!
Mittens: We’re just the pilots to do it.
Goon2: [undocks]
Goon1: [undocks] Let’s do it.
Mittens: [shouting] “Let’s do it”!
[all of the Goons undock and follow Mittens to Valhalla and beyond]
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@Hordling – I am pretty sure that was TEST right before 6VDT-H at the end of the Fountain War.
We’re more like Sean Penn at the end of Taps shouting, “It’s beautiful man!” as our position gets overrun during a fight that probably wouldn’t have happened save for our own stubbornness in keeping the war going.
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