I first posted about Liberty Squad back at the start of last year. The group was formed as a USTZ effort to deploy out of Delve and find fights in other null sec regions. When I joined up we were off to Geminate to pick fights with Pandemic Horde.
The Liberty Squad forum bee
There was always a bit of a problem with Liberty Squad in that the membership had a large overlap with Reavers, such that either one or the other could deploy, but both could not… unless they went somewhere together… as they mostly the same people. But that wasn’t a huge issue as Asher, the head of Reavers, is a lot more involved in coalition-wide operations these days, being one of the rare sky marshals to run a campaign and not quit the game in exhaustion once it was done.
Anyway, we got word earlier this month from Cainun that the leadership of Liberty Squad was going to take their corp out of GSF and go try something new.
By now, I expect many of you have either heard some rumors, or noticed some movements. Come this time tomorrow, the Terrifying League of Dog Fort will have left the alliance. With them go Thomas, Zed, Mapache, and myself, on a new misadventure of our own making. Liberty Squad will be without leadership, and I expect will be closed as a result. Some have expressed an interest in trying to step up to take over the reins, but those possibilities are not mine to decide, or attempt to influence.
It has been a fantastic 18 months building, and running this squad regardless of its ups, and downs. Our Uemon deployment in particular, will always be one of the more fun periods I’ve spent playing this game. It has been a pleasure running this squad, even with all you meme-riddled bastards making every drake related remark imaginable every 15 seconds on fleets. I wish all of you the best in your search for fun, and enjoyment in this terrible little game we all play.
FC grants you eternal permission to always bring your Drake from now on, fly well.
And so it goes. I actually met most of that group at EVE Vegas last year. They all got Liberty Squad buttons from me, including a special Canadian Drake one for Zed.
My EVE Vegas buttons
It is a bit sad to see that group go. I flew with them many times and their fleets were a lot of fun. But when your friends want to run off and try new things you wish them well and hope they find what they are looking for.
With this announcement there was an attempt in the forums to drum up support for a new group to be called Freedom Squad. This made me chuckle a bit both because USTZ groups seem to always have to play on faux patriotism as a gimmick and because we had a Freedom Squad back in the day, the remnants of which became the core of Reavers. However, this attempt was shut down pretty quickly by a director.
The thing is, creating a group to cater to those of us who just want to deploy to foreign parts was nationalized by the coalition with the formation of the Goon Expeditionary Force earlier this year.
I’m not sure which one is our forum bee yet
I think that came about because there is always some of us who want to know when the next war or whatever is going to happen and the coalition finally decided to harness that drive officially rather than leaving it to the sometimes random attention of smaller, self-formed groups that tend to depend on a small leadership group.
Which doesn’t mean those groups are going away. Reavers and Space Violence and Black Ops are all still around. But none of them are open to all comers these days. They are selective. So the GEF scratches the deployment itch for all and sundry who just want to go on the road and shoot structures… or get fights, which also happens some times.
Things change. People move on. Spaceships remain.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 