War

[Cadaverine]

That is    and then some, Mr. Comstar.

[Sir T]

More details in on RA. It seems that Diara Lir managed to get control of the executor corp through an al (possibly a long term plan based on someone "robing" Diara blind and going to RA a few months ago) He then pulled in a quintillion alt corps to lock in the votes so he was safe. He then went around to various forums stroking about how he now controlled RA and how wonderful he was, and letting everyone know he was about to bull a pull a Haagroth.

Unfortunately, as appears to be common in AAA plots these days, he didn't know the rules of the game he was playing.

So the other RA Ceos got together and called a vote while he slept, and yanked Executor away from his corp while he slept, and then booted him. It seems that a corp cant vote on an alliance level till 7 days have passed. Oops.

[5150]

It seems that a corp cant vote on an alliance level till 7 days have passed. Oops.

Correct because one of my alts was asked to help in an alliance takeover about a week ago the plan got burned by this

[Pax]

RED.Overlord just declared war on Morsus Mihi and Razor :V

If this prevents the standings reset - thanks, ROLolololol!

[Comstar]

Xrossposting from TWR thread : War Stories.

---------------------------

SirMolle: My part in his downfall.

I rejoined Goonswarm just before the start of the 2nd Great Eve War. I was still flying tech 1 Rifters and Stabbers part of the time. In those days Goonswarm stretched over 6 regions and it took hours to cross from one side to the other. BoB sat in Delve nursing their wounds after the MAX fiasco and things we're pretty boring.

The directorate tried to get an offensive started in Stain vs the Stainwagon, but it never really got off the ground. Goonswarm was getting stale. I got to run missions in Stain though, which was a nice to thing to say I did. Dodging the roaming Stain Empire and COVEN gangs was kinda fun too. They never pointed me either.

Then out of nowhere a random system housing a 10/10 plex caused DRAMA and suddenly we're at war with 1/3 of RA who turns into ROL who ally with AAA (who backstab us) and Stainwagon and I've lost my small home in Estoria and we're fighting for our lives around AZN.

I saw ROL in OOYZ deploy fleets of nothing but cap ships. I saw said fleets destroyed by a fleet of Rifters. I saw AAA break our jump bridges with ease. I saw the front fall back to AZN and last ditch defences hold the enemy at bay with the gates covered in our wrecks and the call for our our friends and allies to save us from a doom that almost seemed inevitable.

ROL was pretty weak by themselves, despite the $10000 US spent to hire Evil Thug his new life and and new teeth. For a month I was part of the attempted Ninja sov-taking of ZS-. We actually gained sov over three times in the system, but it was too far away from anywhere and once AAA took down the jump bridge supply line our attempt was doomed. The highlight was being part of DBRB's BIRTHDAY BASH when DBRB used an old RA password to steal 70 ships from under ROL's very nose. When the make the Goonswarm TV series this will be one of the mid-season episodes. I got a Tackle Typhoon out of it, that I went on to lose in OOYZ. Even though Goonswarm was unable to directly take the system, we kept 20+ towers running right up to the point of BoB's disbanding and the evacuation to Delve.

The nightly highlight was Clorcius's expedition to the ROL 10/10 complex. I can see why CCP left them in the game- it's a guaranteed fight every night. They were a lot of fun and a nice change from the slow grinding POS and Timezone warfare vs AAA. I hope we can one day go back to that plex and own it forever. ROL (and ATLAS who allied themselves with ROL) was one of the big winners over BoB's corpse.

BoB eventually entered the war and things got even more grim. However, our friends and allies came down to help too. I was in a large fleet fight that stopped their advance in the northern area of Goonspace and things looked like they might be turning to us...when Haggorth the Betrayer decided to get a spy inside IGNE...and *everything* changed.

I was about to go to bed when I logged into Goonfleet.com when I see the Mittani's announcement and got to listen to TS as he described what had happened. Never have I laughed so much.

It took me 3 days to understand we were actually leaving EVERYTHING for Delve. I saw more BS wrecks outside the AZN station from pilots blowing them up for the insurance than I have ever seen before or since. It took me a week to pull down my small mod and tech 1 ship building production. I still have over a billion's worth of ship hulls on sale in AZN/VNG/k-9.

For one brief 10 minute period I organised a fleet to defend the AZN undock from a COVEN gang so some of the cap ships could undock and jump out and allow some haulers to evacuate the system. We killed as many as we lost I think which wasn't bad. Killed a Hactor at any rate.

I've never been so nerve racked before or since during those convoys from AZN to 319. South from AZN to k-9, then east till TCAG and then north up to 319. 30-40 jumps, and you were 100% assured you were going to see at least 1 hostile gate camp. I did it 4 times, and never lost a ship. But I saw 100's of wrecks along the way. Goons who had packed everything up they owned into a Badger Mk II and headed west to the promised land and tom leave their wreck and corpse as a warning for others making the attempt without a convot. Dodging gate camps from Stain Empire, AAA, Kenny and the badly named Minor Threat (who were a much bigger threat than the others inhabitants of Delve).

Convoy FC's were often anyone who volunteered or was willing to scout 1 jump ahead of the convoy. Some convoy fleets were wiped out to a pod. Some made it through without any trouble and some scarified every combat ship in the fleet to allow 1 hauler to make it through to our new home base of 319 station.

I lead one convoy from a Mastodon that was the slowest ship in the fleet. We meet a SE gang on the southern route but they ran off when our fleet consisting of 50% unarmed haulers jumped in to engage them. This was probably the most useful thing I ever done in Goonswarm.

Living in 319 was not bad. You had to watch the Intel channel to see if the undock was clear or not. There were 100's of mods at low prices and all the ship hulls for sale next door in YZ9. The aforementioned Minor Threat were always around in a small gangs picking off stragglers and lone ratters and losing bait ships at the 319 undock to Goonfleet carriers hot dropping them. It reminded me of my time in Stain, complete with doing missions for the NPC's to make cash, as ratting and mining were far too dangerous. Every 30 minutes the plaintive wail would go up on GSINTEL "Tackled in belt 319 Send Halp", much to everyone else's amusement.

Our logistics team are really the guys who can say they won the war more than anyone else. Moving over 500 Large POS's to Delve, deploying them, fuelling them, anchoring the guns and then keeping them fuelled for months on end, usually under fire or through blockades. I helped a bit on one system, and it took me all day just to push the buttons on 1 tower. Deploying just 1 tower can take 3 to 5 HOURS and those guys set up over 500. Flying unarmed haulers, Rorquels and jump freighters from one end of the region to another and never seeing a kill mail except their own, they are some of the true heroes of Goonswarm and deserve more acclaim.

The war against Kenny and Barbie kicked into high gear. For my 3rd and last attempt at FCing I lead a small fleet from 319 to J-L when a op was called for and no FC showed up. Didn't lose anybody, didn't shoot anybody. Got to J-L and logged out as there was still no FC around.

Logged in next day to see an entire galaxy of drones, ships and wrecks outside my POS. Kenny had deployed his fleet and over 400 ships on both sides were fighting it out for over 4 hours. That was epic fight which ended in our victory. We were still looting drones and wrecks 2 days later.

My memory is fading already, but I think there was another separate fight a few days later in the same system. I'd joined late as usual and got Titan bridged in. We had 3 different fleets running vs one big Kenny, Barbie and the AAA kids. The battle stretched over 600km and I would travel 100km in my 4km/s inty from one BS primary to another. For one of the few times in Eve I was able to *pilot* my ship instead of just navigating it. On every side the blue glow of an exploding ship would go off every few seconds with laser fire and missiles going in every direction.

Eventually the enemy fleet was dead and the FC (I think it was Imperion) asked for someone to check the gate to see if they were leaving by it. I get there and report that there is about 6 hostiles jumping out...when suddenly an enemy Mothership and with it's ten escorting Carrier battlegroup arrive at gate for no reason whatsoever.

Imperion ordered all the tacklers to get points on the carriers so I ignored the super-cap and pointed 6 different carriers while the combined coalition dread fleet hot dropped the the Mothership and committed an execution of Kenny's entire battlegroup. That's the largest fight I've ever been a part of.

Thinking that nothing could top that and that surly Kenny would retreat for a bit, I went to bed...and missed Shrike's 4th Titan loss. I still haven't gotten on a super-cap kill mail.

After that day, Kenny was doomed. After Shrikes death they retreated into PR-..and the siege began. I did my small part, though not nearly as much as many other coalition pilots. I watched the bubbles that held Kenny Titan's down from logging in. I orbited the gates half asleep and never saw any action in PR- for a month. I spent the time doing NPC missions and taking 5 minutes at a time to burn out of the mass of bubbles around the PR- station. But this lack of action really did kill Kenzuko.

The other lack of action I took part in was the ninja-cap of TPAR. Using only 5-10 pilots (and the notable assistance of a Sigma fleet and DBRB when we asked) we deployed enough towers to take the station system despite Barbie trying to stop us. I got a medal but Mokianna, Endie  an the guys who paid for and hauled the towers from Empire, really deserve all the credit and any kudos.

My proudest killmail is this one from the first failed defence of 49-. That's one of SirMolle's alts, who warped to our Fleet Staging POS's uncloaked, and then stayed still long enough for 2 Rifters and a Vigil to burn out to him and get a point on him. I'd blazed past at 4km/s and lost my point but the Goonswarm tech 1 frigates saved the day. Perhaps he thought the Rifter's wouldn't matter.

There was still many months of fighting to go, and I was part of some of the battles in Querious (49-, H74, I1Y/ED-, H74 again) but mostly just POS shooting and providing Wing Commander Gang links. I was there at the end, shooting the last Kenzuko POS in 49-. And I was very fortunate and thankful I could be a small part of and Played My Part In SirMolle's Downfall.

[Endie]

As you can see from Comstr's post, we're doing war stories on GF.com, amongst threads saying goodbye (for now) to the people who helped us.

One post had this animation showing the death of Shrike in Tenerifis, the moment that turned the war from "Oh shit we're going to lose Detorid" to dining in Delve.  I'd never seen it before, though I know the soundtrack and everyone of Sesfan's lines almost off by heart: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rk-gLXqA5g

[Meester]

As you can see from Comstr's post, we're doing war stories on GF.com, amongst threads saying goodbye (for now) to the people who helped us.

One post had this animation showing the death of Shrike in Tenerifis, the moment that turned the war from "Oh shit we're going to lose Detorid" to dining in Delve.  I'd never seen it before, though I know the soundtrack and everyone of Sesfan's lines almost off by heart: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rk-gLXqA5g

That is pretty good piece of animation there. Fine bit of comedy :P

[trevorreznik]

Out of curiosity, who was the original poster of that war story?  

I also wish I could recognize more voices on that video than Sesfan and Scavok :( (and fnln playing the picard song)  .  Out of everyone in EVE, I really miss Sesfan and the end of the video is exactly why :)

edit: gotcha vvvv  I'd seen it put it in MMOHMO and wasn't sure if that was him quoting here as well.

[Quinton]

Comstar was.  He posted it both in goonfleet's TWR and here.

[Triforcer]

This thread has delivered for years.  I vote that CCP merge the Chinese borg-conquered universe and the everyone-else universe.  That war would be, to put it mildly, entertaining to watch 

[Endie]

Despite the allies still holding accounts, this thread has a much wider range of experiences than The War Room does.  I'd love to hear some of the stories others have of this three-year marathon.

[NiX]

What ever happened to JoeTF? I want to hear what he has to say now.

[WindupAtheist]

They didn't want that Delve anyway?

[Slayerik]

They didn't want that Delve anyway?

Nicely done from a guy who doesn't play and is a total carebear. 

[NiX]

They didn't want that Delve anyway?

Touche.

[Meester]

Red Alliance looks finished with their capital falling to Atlas, Scorched Earth etc. I see Veritas Immortalis are around in Wicked Creek taking sov too. Of course we have all seen Red Alliance fall to one system before but that was then. Has the loss of their sov merely accelerated something that was going to happen in the near future anyway?

I don't think Ethereal Dawn and Intrepid Crossing have much of a future as they certainly look weak at the moment, looking at the various killboards of them losing carriers to Exalted, Red Alliance and other folk.

[Endie]

I'm not so sure about RA, who at least have friends on the way. They're retreating, sure, and they'll very possibly lose most or all of their space before they begin to recover, but I don't rate aggression or scorched earth at all - aggression in particular are exe members that ran not once but twice when things got tough, kenny rats that left the ship and gkc members that were never even good enough for bob to steal - and while atlas are large most are fairweather corps who bailed from delve while the core are tight-knit and cohesive but with a track history of losses that must infect their mindset. And their logistics are doomed to depend on either holding five regions or being friends with all their occupants, including GW.

Of course, if aaa, rol and stain intervene to attack russians and help atlas then RA are in big trouble. But goons need never worry again about evil thug trying to pretend we are the enemy of all russians when we will be the ones defending RA.

You're spot on about ED and IRC, though.

[Pax]

Mittani releases RKK corp meeting recording.

Please, PLEASE, someone tell us there is a transcript, because Dianabolic's voice is unbearable to listen to  

[NiX]

Would it help if I re-recorded it using fake voices?

[Arthur_Parker]

I couldn't bear to listen to it all, just too painful and depressing, here's a quote (reposted from TWR).

Q: "Will we ever come back for Delve?"

A: "In 18 months, if the opportunity arises, where we can come and piss in the porridge and do so with a reasonable chance of success then depending on whatever else we're doing and depending if CCP will be changing how sovereignty works, then SURE!"

[FatuousTwat]

Didn't listen to it, but the COAD thread made it seem like he brags about getting his corps shit out before anyone else. Awesome way to fuck over your allies.

Also:

*GKC Gets wind of an intended reset before Delve is invaded
*GKC Sticks by Kenny as their space burns
*GKC Does Heavy Lifting for Kenny to try and make a comeback
*GKC Were the only ones to set their Towers up popper in H74 Part II
*Gets Reset

And this is why you were destined to Lose Kenny.

[setar]

Of course, if aaa, rol and stain intervene to attack russians and help atlas then RA are in big trouble. But goons need never worry again about evil thug trying to pretend we are the enemy of all russians when we will be the ones defending RA.

Depends. One, you'd have to show a real effort and not just send token fleets in their direction -- although there's still time until Friday to get RA assets out of the station. Two, there'll always be the argument that the current RA has nothing in common with the RA of old. I don't even recognize any of their current corps.. were any involved in previous attacks on Delve at all? Don't think it would be an easy spin. But looking forward to figuring out where the next big conflict is going to arise one way or another.

[Endie]

Of course, if aaa, rol and stain intervene to attack russians and help atlas then RA are in big trouble. But goons need never worry again about evil thug trying to pretend we are the enemy of all russians when we will be the ones defending RA.

Depends. One, you'd have to show a real effort and not just send token fleets in their direction -- although there's still time until Friday to get RA assets out of the station. Two, there'll always be the argument that the current RA has nothing in common with the RA of old. I don't even recognize any of their current corps.. were any involved in previous attacks on Delve at all? Don't think it would be an easy spin. But looking forward to figuring out where the next big conflict is going to arise one way or another.

The three oldest corps (of whom Rush had to reform this week after Daira Lir's show of Russian solidarity) are old-school.  There is real commitment from a lot of Goons to help RA, despite the fact that they have had so much turnover.  We've already had four convoys go over (with frankly mixed results due to multiple-titan gatecamps en route for two of them) and if RA can hold out then that commitment will increase as leadership works out a plan.

I think that being accused of tokenism would be harsh, even if this will take a little while to ramp up.  We're coming off the back of a three year war, and I'm not sure that many alliances in Eve would be so ready to go and help a friend who has - if we're honest - been less than helpful on occasion recently, but who we feel we owe nonetheless for taking us in and giving us shelter in 2006.  It's a huge contrast with Kenny resetting the people who tried to save their space.  If RA can hold the line then they will get their help.

You see, Eve is a lot like the Hindenburg offensive and the German race to finish WWI before the US reinforcements coulghgaaghagwarg...

[Meester]

Looks like KIA Alliance lost a titan today to a bunch of AAA/ROL capitals. This was in Querious.

Not much of a surprise to be honest.

[Teleku]

This thread has delivered for years.  I vote that CCP merge the Chinese borg-conquered universe and the everyone-else universe.  That war would be, to put it mildly, entertaining to watch 

Alas, the whole reason their is a Chinese server is that the government demands the Chinese version be separate from the main version.  Because Eve has space Democracy and stuff apparently.

[Quinton]

Is there not space-democracy in the chinese version?

[palmer_eldritch]

What I got out of the RKK tape was that the various Kenny corps will "stay in contact" and do their own thing. It also sounded like RKK had initially decided to retreat even if the other Kenny corps stayed behind.

So it sounds a lot like Kenny is breaking up, with the corps staying in an alliance only in the strict game mechanic sense

But Diana also seems to have a vague plan, which is for Kenny to fly under the radar and do almost nothing as an alliance - corps doing their own thing and having fun - until the time comes to reform and get revenge when Goons are weak.

He also talked about getting the BoB name back.

[palmer_eldritch]

Kenny's forums are up: http://sesfanqulahmemorial.com/

What gets me is this board: http://sesfanqulahmemorial.com/bob/forumdisplayf7a0.html?f=213 which is their version of the war room. Lots of earnest discussion of ship setups and complaints about people shooting the wrong thing or sitting in the wrong place.

[Quinton]

He also talked about getting the BoB name back.

Which seems totally crack-smoking, given the disaster with the developers giving them a rename to band of brothers reloaded, then caving under the combined griping of the playerbase (not just goons -- I swear everybody who ever had a character with a typo in the name and was refused a rename based on ccp policy chimed in on that thread on eve-o), it would seem crazy for them to reverse themselves yet again.  Especially since they said something along the lines of "well if it was an issue with a newly created alliance, maybe", which RKK definitely wasn't.

[MahrinSkel]

With no sovereignty left to protect, they can just create another alliance and transfer the corps.

--Dave

[Quinton]

With no sovereignty left to protect, they can just create another alliance and transfer the corps.

Well, there is the minor issue that "Band of Brothers" is a corporation in goonswarm these days.  It's unclear that CCP could give the name back to the RKK folks without once again appearing to make a special exception for the BoB folks, though I'm not an expert on their (probably not posted publicly anywhere) policies for name disputes like this.

[MahrinSkel]

Considering that it was deliberately done as a name cockblock and isn't an active corp outside of CAOD, I think they can probably find a way to get it pushed through.  It was the fact that the BoB.R rename was on an alliance-in-place to keep sovereignty active that set off the hostility.

--Dave

[Yoru]

They could also just do what a substantial number of lame alliances do these days and insert an unobtrusive period somewhere in their name/ticker.

[Fordel]

Kenny's forums are up: http://sesfanqulahmemorial.com/

What gets me is this board: http://sesfanqulahmemorial.com/bob/forumdisplayf7a0.html?f=213 which is their version of the war room. Lots of earnest discussion of ship setups and complaints about people shooting the wrong thing or sitting in the wrong place.

The posting is as terrible as I imagined it would be  


-edit- how u werk keyboard

[Endie]

The astonishing things, for me, are the low postcounts on really key members and the lack of general questioning and "refactoring" that is going on in some important threads.  Goonfleet forums (and we can see here that Kenny actually had very little penetration of our forums, by the way) may range between querulous and hyper-aggressive but it means that most people - especially leadership figures - have to think through what they come up with.  The supine nature of the average Bob grunt is utterly alien to people who can - and do - call out everyone up to alliance CEO on everything.

They are also amazingly unfun, even in the periods when they seem to be winning.  Maybe the fun stuff is happening on IRC, but there seems little temptation to turn up on the forums to read, bond, identify with the organisation and so on.  The exceptions here do seem to the be the annual BBQs, but those are always going to benefit a very limited subset.

Related to this, there is a feeling that these people don't know each other very well.  I suppose that - like the low postcounts - a lot of this is due to churn rates and excessive recruiting, but I suspect that the social network maps for these people would go through key people a lot, without the matrix effect that you'd get in GF.

Molle doesn't really take much interest in speaking to "his" people.  Dianabolic, Enjoi, AJ Regard and Yaay are more visible, but Molle doesn't seem to even be caring enough to put the effort in in the last several months.  One Kenny member plucks up the courage to ask him to be a bit more inspiring in his op posts and gets shouted down.

Finally, AJ Regard spins almost as hard on his own forums as on SHC.  That is hella unhealthy.  The deceit and spin made them very fragile when presented with the inevitability of their defeat, and the speed of the collapse at that point makes sense, now.

I suspect a lot of this stuff was different in 2006, but it explains a lot of why Bob/Kenny were so unsuccessful for the last few years in a way that their (admittedly fairly consistently poor) leadership decisions don't.

And my word they don't half passive-aggressively blame the Russians (the ones that were saving them) for a lot of what was going wrong  

Edit: and Mahrin is right, I would be astonished if they don't get their name back.