The Power of Vengeance

And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee. - Jules, Pulp Fiction (1994)


After the super alliance formed by the combined forces of Goonswarm, IRON, Razor, RA, Tortuga (debatable), and miscellaneous other alliances who attacked BoB's fortress in Delve and nearly killed them, it wasn't hard to imagine the simmering thoughts of death the bobbits harbored for their northern brethern. In recent months, the GBC has been conducting massive campaigns in Tribute, Vale of The Silent, Deklein, and surrounding areas. The dark horse Triumvirate has been working with BoB, leaving their own trail of destruction by eradicating Hydra. IRON and Pure were the latest casualties in the so-called napfest to fall to GBC advances.

Just yesterday, the GBC scored another impressive feat in the Tribute pipe: the systematic slaughtering of some 50 NC capitals and innumerable support ships. A battle report is given by both SirMolle of BoB and KIAEddz of KIA Alliance from opposing points of view (with propaganda thrown in for good measure). What was supposed to be an ambush on the part of NC backfired badly; they were supposed to gate jump their support and battleships into M-O, cyno the capitals in at the gate (??!) and titan bridge the rest in at the same time. The last time the NC tried to pull this on Insurgency, the same thing happened: the node crashed, NC pilots lacked the discipline to log on at the same time, and the result was a turkey shoot that yielded some 60+ kills for me over a period of 2 hours. This was no different except that the NC had capital ships that crashed at the gate in M-O, with predictably disastrous results as they all logged in one by one. It made me wonder if the NC fleet commanders ever learn from their experience, and if they knew how to play chess.

Battlefield in M-O from a bobbit's point of view. Red ships and yellow wrecks belong to the Coalition.

One by one, the segments of the train has disintegrated. It will only be a matter of time until all the best PVP corps are consolidated into Morsus Mihi as BoB and Tri continue their rampage through the North. Then and only then will we know if MM can survive an onslaught on the scale of the Delve invasion that Bob successfully withstood.

My only qualm is that I couldn't be there to watch the NC die, for Insurgency.

A Prophecy Fulfilled

Remember that many months ago, when I was still in Insurgency, that I made a prophecy about the combination of the four pvp alliances MC, BoB, Tri, and Insurgency into one superpower that can steamroll the NAPland that is the new North? Well, part of it is coming into fruition with the latest MAX campaign kills. As it stands, the Northern Coalition and Band of Brothers are traditional enemies from the war in the South about 8 months ago.


BoB Loses 12 Dreads

The exact title on our alliance forums. By the way, they also took down 3 Morsus Mihi motherships (an Aeon and two nyxes), 13 dreads, 2 carriers, and more than half of the Coalition's support and battleship fleet. You can view the details of the battle on BoB's killboard; while the GBC fleet far outnumbers the NC fleet, the irony of a Coalition member's comment in local cannot be disregarded:

"There s [sic] no need for smack. It is natural for weaker entities to group up in order to try and defeat a stronger, more powerful enemy. It's flattering really."

As an ex-Insurgency member, I cannot help but chuckle.


The Death of IRON's Flagship

Insurgency, as they were ousted out of Branch, held a big grudge for IRON - an alliance whom Insurgency helped defend and had blue standings with, who caved under the pressure of the Northern Coalition to aid in their quest to remove the Insurgency threat from Branch, sending in huge fleets on the second wave and helped push the momentum of the war against us after the death of Razor's Erebus. IRON even helped camp Insurgency into the Venal Guristas station after we were removed forcibly from Branch.

As with wars in the real world, one can be friends with someone while their countries are hostile to each other; simply look at the stories of friendship between individuals living in Israel and Palestine, Georgia and Russia, the United States and China. I still have many friends in IRON, one of the pillars of the North, from my times living in the Drone Regions. And yet one can sometimes be easily swept into the shifting sands that represent politics. While I cannot blame any of my IRON buddies, for all's fair in love and war, I also cannot help but smile at the Band of Brother's success in Deklein, home of IRON.

The result of the skirmish? A dead Macabre Votum titan, flown by Lord2evil. A summary of the battle, presented from BoB's point of view, can be found on CAOD and is surprisingly good and free from smack.


Touché, Razor alliance. Better be careful with Intensity Green's Erebus - Eve has not yet seen a titan pilot losing 2 titans!

We didn’t want that ___ anyway!

When I fought with the Northern Coalition against BoB down south half a year ago, a particular alliance stood out to me: Firmus Ixion (aka FIX). Word was, they were a “pet” alliance who paid rent to BoB for living in Querious. They sure didn’t seem like your usual docile “pets”, bringing on multiple fights, clinging to I1X like a plague despite being completely outblobbed and outgunned, and proving to be a nuisance to the typical NC’er who tried to operate out of there. I had even more respect for them when they reformed and forged a home for themselves in the Drone Regions. It is really unfortunate timing that caught them right smack in drone politics and they seemed to have gotten chased out of their space again. These guys seriously deserve a home far more than many mega-alliances.

Anyway, that wasn’t the point of this entry. The point was, last night I managed to leeroy my Gistii Crow into a tiny bubble camp in Tribute. D’oh! A most deserving explosion, since I should’ve known better than to directly warp to the exit gate. I know the cool MM boys like me reckless like that… Anyway, it reminded me of a time when I waited hours for rescue, then danced right into the lap of a hostile Insurgency roaming gang…

This tale is dedicated to an old friend and a brave pilot, Brainstem, and serves as a fitting tribute to my time in the North.

***

Once upon a time, before I turned into a naughty cowgirl and moved to Insurgency, I was a good carebear blasting away at creepy crawlies that dropped valuable drone compounds that could be refined into high-end minerals. The payout was good, except that no bounties were to be had. Apparently, CONCORD deemed rogue drones to be of little menace, offering no security status increase for each drone killed. At that time, many of us had blinky red auras that made empire travel difficult. Someone had a brilliant idea: why not make a road trip to Venal, home of the Guristas, until we were all bloated with isk and Concord would forget our past transgressions and welcome us with open arms?

It all began on a fine Sunday morning. Four of us, all in Raven-class battleships fit for travel, began our journey to a quiet spot in the Venal constellation. Launchers were filled to the brim with cruise missiles, speed modules were slapped onto the thrusters, cloaking devices were primed for emergencies (another bright idea from Brain – not many of us knew how to rat in cloaked ships at that time), and off we went. The journey there through friendly Northern Coalition space was entirely uneventful. We hit our spot and started ratting in gusto, egged on by the promises of a faction or officer spawn.

This went on for a good hour or two. Suddenly, my radar flickered with something orange: an Insurgency pilot named “fumb duck” (we shall call him FD) had come into the system, no doubt looking for tasty morsels. We were all ready and warped out to our safe spots and cloaked. After 5 minutes, he left the system, and I warped back to finish up the Gurista battleship that I was working on.

Mistake. This solo pilot was skilled enough to check which belts we were working on, and he returned while I was en warp. I landed right on top of his ship (some nano-cruiser, I had no idea since I was a nub), and was immediately scrambled. Now normally this would be the end of the said Raven pilot when his backup arrived, except for a caveat…

Back story: Insurgency was set to orange at that time as we were not allowed to engage each other in Tribute, home of Morsus Mihi. Which was all fine and dandy for this hunter who found us in Venal (not Tribute), except that for some reason, all four of us had the mistaken notion that Insurgency was not permitted to engage us in Venal.

Absolutely sure that FD had committed a diplomatic transgression (recall we were all nubs), I told him in an outraged and haughty tone to hold fire and that any shootings will be recorded and passed on to alliance leaders of Insurgency. Our belief was so firm that one of us actually rang up the leader of our alliance for “Insurgency breaking their pact with MM and attacking us”. During the delay in confirming this, I told FD to drop the point on me, “immediately, or it would be reported to alliance leadership”. He did, and I warped back to my safe spot and cloaked. We then moved a few systems and he followed, but never aggressed us again and left us alone.

This proves that epic lying through the teeth works best when one has no idea that one is lying. Also proves how little the average grunt knows about alliance territory and politics, and that orange is a confusing color.

Unfortunately, we had somehow stumbled deeper into hostile territory in our escape flight, beyond the home system of Insurgency. By that time it was just Brainstem and I (the rest got blown up), cloaked in two ravens, sitting in extremely ‘hot’ space where red gangs (Phoenix, Phalanx, Insurgency, etc.) passed by every 10 minutes. We had no idea what to do and didn’t want to lose our isk-making ships. So we sat, and asked for help from the alliance. And we sat while they formed up an impromptu fleet of 40 (amazing now that I think about it) to rescue the damsel in distress… and sat while they traveled some 20 jumps to our location.

By then, Insurgency had wised up about the Venal/Tribute mistake and gotten wind of our incoming fleet. They figured something was up and formed up a fleet of their own in short order, then patrolled the area even more vigilantly. Our friendly fleet did not wish to engage and told us to move quickly to their locale so we could be escorted home.

I hesitated to leave the safety of my cloak, while Brainstem was already on his way to the next system. He hollered at me to come with him quickly, and I decloaked and warped… just as the entire hostile fleet landed on the exit gate I was on. I jumped.

Like a game of chess, one knows with a sinking feeling that one has committed a final move for the opponent to claim checkmate. That did me in; I had missed the tiny window of opportunity to escape and no cloak was going to save me from their angry swarm of vagabonds, who promptly decloaked my battleship and blew it to smithereens. Surprisingly, my pod got out safely. With a sigh of relief for my implants, I met up with my alliance mates and made it back home.

That’s probably not the kind of excitement that a noob can ever encounter in a typical day of carebearing.

The lone survivor of that road trip was Brainstem. The rest of us all got blown up, but we had a great laugh about it afterwards and were gifted with new ravens from our corp leader. This new Raven, named Chocolate Chip, was my trusty ratting steed in Cobalt Edge, Venal, and Branch for a long, long time until it was eventually stolen in the Great Escape from Branch.

***

Fly safe, dear friends and foes in the North.

A Brave New World (North)

Northern Coalition bandwagon count:

Razor, Morsus Mihi, PURE, Stella Polar, Majesta Empire, Mostly Harmless, IRON, Atlas, Firmus Ixion?, who else did I miss… et al.

vs.

Insurgency

Whelp! I give up blogging about battle frontline news, since it’s worse than trying to keep track of a hot potato. Entities come and go, titans multiply themselves by 8 or 9, bandwagons fill up and roll over, epic e-drama ensues… Why do people watch TV when Eve is full of soap operas and cost less too, if you have fewer than 10 alts? If you live in empire then well… I hope you enjoy the seclusion.

There has been wild speculations of Triumvirate planning blue standings with Insurgency to repel the efforts of the Coalition to oust us out of Branch. Who knows if that will even happen? If it does, however, and Tri decides to throw their supercaps into the warzone, I can guarantee lots of fun times (or lag) for all parties involved. It will be a good way for Tri to show that they are still a premier PVP alliance despite the internal strife. Imagine a new universe with four PVP superpowers working with each other: Band of Brothers, Mercenary Coalition, Insurgency, and Triumvirate. The Axis of “Evil”. One can certainly dream!

When the dust settles, it will be a completely different world up in the North end of the universe. Will Insurgency fall as Phoenix Allianz/RARE did? Will the Northern Coalition bandwagon, complete with everyone and their kitchen sinks and meat shield and dronelets, steamroll the “evil” power blocs or spill and run over everyone when it hits a stray pebble on the road? Truth to be told, I enjoy being on the dark side, fighting outnumbered against a disorganized blob. You may argue with me all you want, but when you throw the entire Northern Coalition of twenty plus alliances together along with FCs who speak only Russian or German or English, it is a recipe for failure at best. I’ve fought on both sides, and I can safely claim that the lack of organization when the Coalition was defending Phoenix space was appalling and made fleet work almost more boring than mining.

And that is why I am enjoying myself so much right now. Fantastic pew pew everyday – why did I deny myself of that by living in the drone regions? I apologize to my Ro3 friends who have joined the “good” guys, some of whom I have shot and podded (and vice versa) but still keep in touch with. It’s all good fun.

Hail… Long live Insurgency!


In other news: You may feel highly displeased as an empire dweller to find out that CCP has taken out NPC sale orders for shuttles, but you will be very pleased as an investor/trader/manufacturer. Just pray that you don’t get podded in your +5 implants…