With the ascension of Asher Elias to the leadership of Goons in EVE Online, I started wondering about past leaders.
Look for the Goonion label!
They come up now and the in tales, and the more notorious their actions the more likely they are to be mentioned. But I have zero first hand knowledge of other leaders, aside from Darius JOHNSON showing up in the middle of the Casino War to try and form something of a “true goons” alliance as leader of Ten Dollar Bond, a reference to the fee one needs to pay to become a posting member of the Something Awful forums.
The appeal to purge the alliance of all but “true goons” has been a recurring theme.
There was a whole age of leadership problems and bad decisions that predated the era of The Mittani, which ran from May 2010 until July 2022. I went to go find out who had been running the show before I arrived.
This meant going to the GoonWiki.
The GoonWiki is… uh… a place of many words. Or was a place of many words. It is gone now, having been replaced by a fresh, new wiki full of useful information, but purged of the wealth of information that it contained.
Not that the information was easy to find or of equal value.
Various scribes over the years had taken up the crayon in order to half heatedly record the happenings of a given era… or to rewrite things they felt were unflattering… before wandering off, distracted by some other project or sleep or their everyday lives, leaving behind a largely incoherent and often conflicting collection of writing where dates, names, actual narrative, and any helpful context was thrown by the wayside if the author could make a joke about somebody’s personal grooming habits, drug use, or extreme bad judgement.
It is as though somebody was trying to recreate the writing process for The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy as described in the books.
Braver men than I have avoided the place studiously, and wiser have dashed themselves on the rocks of its chaos in a vain attempt to find meaning or explain why naming the alliance SOLODRAKBANSOLODRAKBANSO [LODRA] was funny even for a minute.
And the further back in time you went, the more unlikely the tales seemed… if only due to the coherence issue.
Still, while I cannot explain the origins of the corporate structure, what happened in Syndicate in the proto-alliance era, the relationship between GoonFleet, GoonWaffe, and GoonPlatoon, or why one individual or another was put in charge at any given time, I managed to put together something akin to a timeline, which I have broken down into some arbitrary eras.
Origins
The pre-alliance era, when there were several corporations. Remedial is judged to have been the first leader of the unified tribes, though leadership was clearly not taken all that seriously for a stretch.
- September 2005 – October 2005? – Remedial
- Somebody else maybe?
- December 2005 – Tribal Overture
- December 2005 – Yeep
- December 2005 Firstname Lastname
- December 2005 – February 2006 – Remedial
- February 2006 – Yeep or Dr. Draw
- Feburary 2006 – June 2006 – Remedial
In June 2006 GoonSwarm alliance is formed. Maybe Remedial is in charge. The records do not state, instead focusing on the main corporations.
- June 2006 Cefte is de jure CEO of GoonFleet proper as Hoegaarden is CEO of GoonWaffe
Then we begin alliance leaders.
- June 2006 – July 2006 – Hoegaarden
- July 2006 – May 2007 – Remedial
The Great War – Sept 2006 to Feb 2009
Sir Molle declared “There are no Goons” and Goons begged to differ. War were declared, ending in the disbanding of Band of Brothers. I included Remedial again at the top as his leadership spans eras.
- July 2006 – May 2007 – Remedial
- May 2007 – June 2007 – The Mittani
- June 2007 – Nate Hammertown
- June 2007 – March 2008 – Sesfan Qu’Lah
- March 2008 – April 2009 – Darius JOHNSON
The Mittani’s first tenure as leader was short and primarily marked by him calling out CCP for continuing to rig things in favor of Band of Brothers in the wake of the T20 scandal, leading CCP to push back against these allegations. It is alleged that CCP implied they would take legal action if he continued and he stepped down as leader, though I can find no record of these threats, veiled or otherwise.
Goons and Empire and the Fall
GoonSwarm defeats Band of Brothers and reigns supreme until Karttoon betrays everybody.
- April 2009 – July 2009 – Zapawork
- July 2009 – February 2010 – Karttoon
Because he was away on an extended vacation, Karttoon failed to make sure there is enough ISK in the correct account to pay the GoonSwarm sovereignty bill. Sovereignty droppped and the alliance lost all of its space.
Karttoon returned and used this as an excuse to steal the alliance, kicking everybody out and taking everything he can with him. Karttoon held both the GoonSwarm alliance as well as the GoonFleet corporation, the latter being tucked away in the Band of Brothers alliance that was formed when the old one was disbanded in order to prevent them from getting their name back. He later claims he was going to do this anyway.
Related:
- CCP – Karttoon Claims Dissolution was Euthanasia
- Massively – GoonSwarm Alliance Disbanded
- INN – Self-Immolation for Fun and Profit
Goons Reformed
Having lost the alliance, a new one is formed even as Goons are allowed to crash on Tau Ceti Federation’s couch in Deklein. Darius JOHNSON comes out of retirement to lead Goons once more.
In February SOLODRAKBANSOLODRAKBANSO is formed. That lasts until the end of May 2010, when the joke is finally declared dead.
Goonswarm Federation becomes the new alliance on June 1, 2010. GoonWaffe becomes the primary corporation. Somewhere along the way Darius JOHNSON exiles ElitistOps, creating a rift that remains until they come back to Goonswarm Federation to help defend Delve during World War Bee.
This also begins the Clusterfuck Coalition in Deklein, which rebrands in 2015 as the Imperium.
- February 2010 – May 2010 – Darius JOHNSON
- May 2010 – July 2022 – The Mittani
- July 15, 2022 – July 28, 2022 – TheAdj
- July 28, 2022 – now – Asher Elias
Darius JOHNSON stepped down from the leadership role to become a developer at CCP, allowing The Mittani a second shot at leadership, and he held on to that role for the next twelve years, until his downfall earlier this year.
Then TheAdj filled his seat until Asher became the new leader.
And that brings us through to today.
I had actually planned to do a section at the end of this post with short biographies of notable leaders, but the old Wiki disappeared before I got very far, so this is all I have.
That is probably for the best. Did I mention the writing style of some of the old articles? I was trying to scrape together a coherent, four sentence paragraph about Remedial from his Wiki entry and… well, that was just not going to happen.
You can find some of the names from the early days popping up again in other groups. As noted Darius JOHNSON came back during the Casino War to try and make a “true Goons” alliance. You can also find Hoegaarden as head of Clockwork Pineapple, another offshoot of Goons. Karttoon came back and hung around in ElitistOps for a bit.
We’re supposed to get the historical Wiki back at some future date as an archive. Until then, I offer this up as a bit of the history of New Eden.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
I have some personal experiences to add to this. I was in Goonswarm during the Darius JOHNSON phase. I joined with a group of friends from another forum (not SA) just before the BoB sov drop, and was there until the Karttoon incident.
What I know about Remedial is that he got the corporation off the ground and led through the very early days when they were being victimized by others, especially BoB. The peak of the game back then was to own a carrier and the whole group got together to help him buy one. Then he lost interest and flew it away into the sunset.
I know pretty little about the next few leaders. Sesfan was considered to be almost a deified figure but Darius also did what I think was a great job of keeping things together during the war and move to Delve. Both of them were very workmanlike wartime leaders.
But there were (and may still be) another faction, more about trolling and causing drama and not logging in. Firstname Lastname (aka FNLN) was in this camp. These folks believed (seriously or not) that no one should be in that was not a “true goon”, defined at least by SA membership, but the more hardcore only wanted regular and accepted FYAD posters (Google that at your peril). Totally unworkable for any kind of Eve alliance that wants to be relevant, but as I said – trolling and causing drama was the point. Karttoon was believed to be in the previous faction, but revealed to be in the latter.
Solo Drakhban was one of the few universally liked persons. He was the “CIO” at the time and was known for not taking sides and just getting things done. I think the corp named after him was an executor or holding corp or similar.
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@Archey – I actually know who Solo Drakhban is/was, he was still running the web site and such when I showed up. I just never got the story as to why they decided his name, in all caps, repeating was funny enough to run with as a bit.
During the overthrow of The Mittani the “True Goon” faction were in part responsible for setting the stage for his exit. I don’t know if they got what they wanted out of his downfall. Asher is certainly more tolerant than Mittens ever was.
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When I used to lurk SA in high school and college, Goonswarm was this impenetrable THING I couldn’t figure out what they did, no matter how much I read. For better or worse, SA molded my sense of humor and what I thought was funny into what it is today.
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Much of what you posted is wrong (and, without the wiki, no surprise), but this part, “And the further back in time you went, the more unlikely the tales seemed… if only due to the coherence issue.” is especially untrue. It was as wild, offensive, improbable, and crazy as it sounds. I could tell you stories that would absolutely blow your mind.
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@Anon – You can correct my on points of fact, but the coherence issue of the old wiki is based on direct observation. It isn’t that I disbelieved anything in particular, it is that it was written by people who apparently couldn’t string together four sentences about “my day at the zoo” without veering into a scenario about improbable animal sex acts. And that leaves aside bits of completely contradictory versions of tales that pop up.
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I don’t know if it a good or bad thing that the archives got reformatted. It sounds like they were quite hard to read. If anything, being able to say “I don’t know” saves you a lot of headaches.
There is one advantage to having a gaming group outside the game. Since the original core of the old Goonswarm was from SA and they played many games together including EVE, it meant that when Karttoon tried to disband everything when members asked for his resignation, it could reform easily, minus the sovereignty. I’m not saying you should go back to that era, but if Asher Elias decides to do the same thing, the group would probably fragment. I’m not saying he would.
If a normal alliance leader hits “self destruct” a lot of the times, some corps will end up jumping ship even if a remnant alliance forms. Band of Brothers was a famous example, but my CEO saw at least 3 examples of this in the east of the map. An alliance formed by people who met in a way out of the game, or even one where the officers did would be able to stay together. A CEO who only knows the rest of the alliance through the game (and the various VOIP used for fleet comms) who wakes up to see all the corps kicked would probably first ask if reforming or jumping ship is the right option.
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