As I noted at the end of my month in review post earlier this week, the Imperium has a State of the Goonion (SotG) address coming up this weekend. Unlike the weekly fireside meeting, a SotG has evolved over the years to have a simple purpose: to kick off a deployment.
Despite a reputation for bloviation that past Imperium leaders may have developed due to their time spent on Twitch, these meeting have for years been short and to the point. They are about deploying to a war. They run for as long as it takes the essential information to be announced, then move ops are put together, and the coalition begins deploying for a new conflict.
Generally the announcement of a coming SotG comes with an reminder to be there and be ready to for move ops immediately following.
This time around any attempts to be coy have been dispensed with. New doctrines were announced and contracts for the required ships were put up on the market while the call to poke you inactive corp mates, resubscribe alts, and get your last bit of crabbing in have been part of the messaging in the run up to the SotG.
The only things that have not been announced are who the target will be and where we will be staging from.
And even the former seems knowable with a bit of logic applied. There are a limited number of possible opponents in null sec that would call for a full Imperium deployment. Basically, there are three. B2 Coalition, PanFam, and WinterCo.
It says “B2 Coalition” but it is BOSS, Brave, and BL0B I thought
The Imperium, while not blue currently, has been cooperating with the B2 Coalition in the northwest of null sec, allowing the remnants of FI.RE to pass through Imperium space to join them and coordinating on the occasional fight, like the Fortizar fight in Pochven. We do not have any real beef with them.
Meanwhile, the Imperium and PanFam have come to a settlement on the southeast of null sec, the space that FI.RE abandoned when they moved to join B2 which, among other things, set up a neutrally aligned buffer zone between the two blocs, securing that flank for both parties. Why squander the diplomatic effort used to create that if we were just going to attack?
Which leaves WinterCo, headed by Fraternity, which holds a lot of the north and northeast of null sec. They are also involved in an ongoing struggle with B2 Coalition, so there is a conflict already in progress.
So I suspect that we will be joining B2 Coalition in a temporary alliance to push back WinterCo. More than suspect, really. There are not any other logical options. Certainly r/eve seems to have jumped straight to that conclusion.
The Keepstar where our move ops will start on Saturday after the SotG
Then there is the question about where we will be staging. That is one thing the line members are never told until we arrive there. But even that offers up some limited choices.
There are, of course, some low sec avenues of approach to Fraternity’s territory which, among other things, have the advantage of being easily resupplied from Jita. Always a plus. So we could come up from Hakonen like we tried back in 2017, to assail Tribute from the south.
Or we could try to set up shop near Obe in The Forge to take a run at Fraternity’s core territory, which would draw forces away from B2 Coalitions front, granting them more likelihood of success.
But I think we are more likely to want to coordinate directly with B2. That means, following the paths of past campaigns, setting up in Pure Blind in the NPC null sec systems and driving into Tribute from there.
There are other options… I could see us using a B2 system for staging if we were going to blue them for the duration of the conflict… and other routes we could possibly pursue. We might be set to squash that pocket of space WinterCo holds in the south of null sec. But Pure Blind seems the most likely. And handy. I still have stuff sitting in an NPC station in Pure Blind.
The question is what will PanFam get up to if things play out this way. They have been saying they are not allied with WinterCo, that they have been showing up at fights between WinterCo and B2 just to “third party,” though they seem to favor shooting B2 targets.
If they show up on the side of WinterCo we could see some serious battles in the north in the coming weeks.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 