War

[Phildo]

General Brusilov was challenging people to duels in Amarr from a Rifter.  I went out to fight but he had apparently just left the system.

This leads me to believe that all Goons are cowards.

[palmer_eldritch]

From Kugutsumen:

Atlas is leaving the North and coming home, apparently due to the H-W debacle and general unhappiness with IT's leadership of the campaign.
AJ Regard, who I think is IT's propaganda-master, has stated that IT will continue fighting.

Also, Mostly Harmless seems to be shedding members rapidly?

Here's Bobby Atlas' Eve-mail to members (as I said, ripped off from Kugutsumen):

I am going to start off first by saying I am sorry, sorry for allowing the cluster fuck that is this campaign and the h-w situation to have happened or more importantly to have allowed it to get so bad.

Lets take it from the worst thing first, the h-w fiasco. The attack on H-W was never supposed to have happened, the original plan involved camping down H-W on the morning of the 9th to keep as much of the NC contained while a smaller but cap heavy group of forces went off sbuing/reinforcing stuff all over pb/fade. One of the straining points of the plan was that it was all created on a rather hasty whim by SirMolle on a Thursday night after a number of his FC's and best grunts started to scream at him for action or they were leaving.

So how did we end up sieging H-W instead, I have no fuckin idea to be perfectly honest -- but whatever happened, happened and by the time the day was through it seemed Molle had some misguided conception that he could camp H-W in a PR-8 style as goons/nc had done to BoB before the fall of Delve. The only problem was he failed to realize the details in that when PR-8 was camped up, it was like 25 alliances vs his mainly 2 alliances (IT/-A-) whereas H-W was our collective 6-8 alliances vs NC blob's however fuckin many alliances. Worst yet there was little to no success to date on our part to demoralize/fracture NC numbers, so when H-W was threatened, it was like walking into a bear cave in the middle of winter and popping off a few rounds for lols then sticking around to see if you get eaten or not. Well ladies, we got eaten.

The whole idea of logging capitals off in H-W was a ludicrously stupid plan, it was one I was vocal about not doing and my biggest regret in this whole situation is failing to do what I have done for the past 3 years -- telling others to go fuck themselves and issuing my own orders in the best interest of ATLAS. I was trying to be a team player and it bit us in the ass -- I will not make that same mistake again. I have no problem working with allies but at the end of the day, never will I allow us again to be subordinate to other peoples plans. You take what ATLAS offers you or you can suck our collective dicks.

I am going to try keep the rest of this short, the entirety of this NC campaign is and has been a joke, it never materialized as was envisioned and the sooner everyone involved realizes that the less retarded everyone will look. I really don't give a shit what people think about us for pulling out but we are going home. The allies we care about know we are leaving and understand, the rest of them, well thats really only IT -- I don't really care what they think. I have a feeling the only thing this campaign has proven among the SC alliances, is to never let IT lead another campaign.

This campaign was so stupid it even cost us our first titan loss after 3 years, sure it was going to happen eventually and that is the only comfort we have but we will not be phased by it -- shit happens, ships blow up, we move on. If you got iskies to spare I do encourage you to dig deep and generously with your donations to beehatch. It does not matter the circumstances of how or why he died, all that matters is he died in the name of ATLAS by putting himself out there in a hostile system under questionable and stupidly disorganized circumstances and for that we will make sure he is taken care of, expect to see him in a new titan VERY soon.

If you have a super capital stuck in H-W, thats easy to get out -- login 2-3 minutes before downtime or even in the final minute, make fleet with cyno pilot, jump out on exit from warp. This can and should also be done by regular capitals but when doing so it is VERY important that you make sure YOU INVITE THE CYNO PILOT to your own fleet right after you've logged in, this will make sure that YOU HAVE NO SESSION TIMER, so the minute you land from login warp, you can jump out instantly. There is no reason this has to be done near downtime for conventional capitals but downtime does serve as a nice cutoff in case you screw up.

The bottom line for conventional capitals and support stuck in H-W is to get out, if that means you die trying then so be it, we will do our best to reimburse all losses. Effective immediate we are cutting dread reimbursements to 650m as a cost saving measure, this is not something I want to do but our budget czar Kneto tells me that it must be done and so, it is done. Let this be your incentive to get out alive... lol. We do have an assortment of dreads available and will replace lost dreads with new hulls where possible.

[tgr]

Dont worry we will kill you alone if we have to.

molle was the "leader" of the crusade, usually when stuff fucks up you blame the guy in charge.

5 blind mice are all out one day looking for a piece of cheese.
3 of the mice run across the floor going for the cheese will the cat is looking.
1 mouse is trailing behind a bit but is still coming out of his hole.
The last little mouse stays in his hole, looks at the others going and shouts encuraging words while hoping to get a piece of the cheese once its safely back in the hole.

You see what I did there! /smug

I kind of have to say that's pretty bad posting right there. But I do hope IT will continue trying to break up the NC alone. It'll probably be hilariously like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUYbu5DJA1U

Only imagine the car being filled with teary-faced clowns.

[Meester]

Pandemic Legion nuked an IT Alliance [x13] avatar in Aridia today. A Ragnarok got away.

[Sir T]

molle was the "leader" of the crusade, usually when stuff fucks up you blame the guy in charge.

5 blind mice are all out one day looking for a piece of cheese.
3 of the mice run across the floor going for the cheese will the cat is looking.
1 mouse is trailing behind a bit but is still coming out of his hole.
The last little mouse stays in his hole, looks at the others going and shouts encuraging words while hoping to get a piece of the cheese once its safely back in the hole.

You see what I did there! /smug

What the hell does that even mean?

[tgr]

What the hell does that even mean?

You know, that is a pretty damn good question. I think that if you drink wahtever coolaid they're drinking over there to consider their K/D ratio a victorious one, then you'd probably understand wtf he was getting at. vOv

[Stabs]

I guess it's a response to the allegation that IT threw their allies to the cat so that they could extricate their mice more safely.

If your best propaganda is to compare yourselves to blind mice and your enemies to cats it doesn't bode well for the SC.

I'm delighted this naptrain is collapsing.

There's something of a third power bloc potentially emerging in Providence. Usrha’khan, Noir. Daisho Syndicate, Sodalitas XX, Agony Empire, Opticon Alliance, and Chaos Theory Alliance united to finish off Paxton and the last of the space-holding Amarr roleplayers. They're backed of course by -A-.
http://podlogs.com/2ndanomolyfromtheleft/2010/05/17/newsflash-we-lost/

You also have to regard PL as something of a 4th power bloc in and of themselves. They're hugely influential in most of these conflicts.

Additional news, SyS K have been defeated.
http://manasi.eveplayer.net/2010/05/sys-k-past-and-present/

I can't help wondering if the pace of war will accelerate when the promised lag fixes are deployed later this summer (if they work). If so, Eve will get VERY violent.

[Phildo]

All the possible news sources on the Sys-K withdrawal from Esoteria and you choose to link that one?  I had to turn off the Grammar Recognition part of my brain.

The thread about this conflict on Kugutsumen is pretty long, but this post is right about the time they were losing the fight in A1 and you can see how it snowballed from there:
http://www.kugutsumen.com/showthread.php?5949-The-New-SE-C0ven-Thread&p=86595&viewfull=1#post86595

[IainC]

Leguina Romana have booted all the NA corps and then not only set them red with no notice but also got all their neighbours to set them red. Many of the members woke up to find assets locked in stations they could no longer dock at or with long trips through suddenly hostile space ahead of them. Rumours are that there was a failed putsch and LR took the opportunity to purge all non-Romulans pour encourager les autres.

[Stabs]

All the possible news sources on the Sys-K withdrawal from Esoteria and you choose to link that one?  I had to turn off the Grammar Recognition part of my brain.

To be fair, Kugutsumen is hardly the centre of anglophone grammatical knowledge.

[Numtini]

-A- retreats and resets.

Dearest Filthy Killah's ,

time for an update. The Tl;dr is as follows:

Going Home / Standings Reset / Chill Break / Didn't want that campaign anyway / NC is Gay ( I make excuses and point fingers) / FSI - Need more peeps / SBI- need leaders / FC Training / Group Hug / SSE Trial Continues in -A-

So its been a little while since Ive given a update and explanation of events. So I decided I wanted to take some time and bring you all up to speed on what has happened and what will happen over the next coming months. First off I just want to thank you all for everything you all do. There is alot of people in this alliance that go out of there way to help out and assist in making things happen. Also I just wanted to point out that it has been 6 straight months of active campaigns. So I have alot of subjects to cover and ill try to give a TL;DR for each section.


Review


So starting last December we saw several corps go to Fountain to assist in purging Pandemic Legion. I don't think out impact there was big but everyone had a good time playing king of the hill and locking down Fountain core.

Next we moved on to a short week trip to Black Rise taking out several tech moons for alliance income. RTSQ milked these for a few months and overall the profit we received from them justified the trip.


We then attacked 49-U to draw Goonswarm out of Fountain and force them to defend a vital foothold system in Querious. The day we launched the assault and started pooring capitals into 49-U Goonswarm issued orders to recall all pilots capitals and supercapitals from Fountain. Secondary goal was to try to break sov in 49-U. We had some epic battles for weeks straight as we would attempt to break sov but come up short due to timezone warfare. Every major engagement we trounced Goons Im sure everyone remembers the lag but the fun that was had here.



While we engaged and committed in the diversion assault on Querious CVA made a play for our space. This enraged all of you and numbers went through the roof. I can remember it seemed for weeks we would be crisscrossing between 49-U , Catch and Providence having fight after fight. It was glorius and some of the most fun ive ever had in eve. Fleets were up from Downtime to Downtime as we would repel CVA and assault Goons. Awesomesauce is all I can say.


It came a realization that our primary objective of diverting Goons attention had succeeded. That we had to stop Proviblob and also that timezone warfare against Goons wasn't a easy undertaking we pulled out of Querious. I know alot of people don't like Goons but I have to say respect for the fight they put up I think both sides enjoyed 49-U.


Next we assaulted D-G in Providence as retaliation against the attacks on the Motherland ( god im a fag for the propagandist terms but it makes for good story telling ) . I had several talks with Aralis and other Providence leaders before and after the D-G assault. Honestly im disappointed we couldn't come to a amicable agreement with Proviblob. They were a unique chasm in Eve and our relationship of " sparring partners" was greatly beneficial to both sides. What happened in D-G was simply overkill I remember thinking that day as the final capships were exploding " Damn we just broke provis back" I knew this was a point of no return for there morale and honestly I was sad about that.


We paused after D-G to try to talk to Aralis and other Provi leads and place pressure on them to come to there senses. After no avail 9UY was hit and followed by another pause to give ANOTHER chance for them to reconsider there position. After 9UY it was mop up and we saw the strategy shift from defense to denial of entertainment for us. I have to tell you it took shear willpower on my part to stay the course and finish what we started. Shooting that many structures with 0 fights was so terribly boring. In reality this inflicted more damage on -A- than any ships losses could. At the end of this campaign many people were burned out and didn't want to think about shooting structures for a VERY long time. I share this opinion as well.


The North


I had been on the fence about this campaign and if it was in the best interest of -A-. After several talks with people within the alliance who I respect and the general consensus of the alliance that shooting the NC would be fun I committed us to the task. Im not going to place blame on anyone or anything ultimately it is my job to make sure that things go "Correct" for all of you. Its pretty clear I failed in this regard. There was alot of talks between allies in regards to goals and initiatives. Honestly though beyond fracture relationships and cause damage there was no realistic or tangible goals. For the most part we were " winging it" poking around trying to inflict damage and guage responses and weakness's.



I think we can all agree this isn't a coherent strategy and the effort we were expending was not making a impact on the NC. I talk alot with friends from Eve that I've made over the years. One night I was sitting chatting with Satan from Burn Eden. We were discussing how to inflict the most damage to the NC. Both him and I agreed that H-W was a prime target. So I talked with Molle Bobby and others about it. The concept I came up with is that we would launch on the morning of the 14th @ 08:00. I had pitched this plan to the allies on the 7th of May. The idea was that INIT , ROL , IT , Atlas , -A- , GC & COW would prepare tower kits and rabble rouse there members of a big attack happening on the 14th. As a feint Molle Bobby and I would park our alts in key Pure Blind systems. We would also SBU in different places to " Rope A Dope" the NC.


H-W was picked because its the main staging system for 99% of all NC ops. It was a main market hub and cap/warstock staging points. Not to mention it had 2 important bridge links that NC relied on heavily. I felt and still feel this was the correct target. The problem is preparation communication and execution. The timetable got moved up for " expedience to give my members something to rally too" to quote one alliance leader. Bobby and I were not very happy about the timetable change as it basically left no time for us to communicate and verify all parties would be able to fully commit. It negated any chance for us to rally our memberbase and communicate the urgency of the assault.


Bobby and I chatted and decided to once again try to "Wing" it. As the chance was to good to pass up. We knew there would only be one chance to assault H-W and create a PR- style nightmare for the NC. You all know the rest it failed and failed horribly. The NC is very very good at communication between allies and integration. Plain out the "SC" suck at it and it was our fault for not having the patience to take the time to make sure we could execute properly. I apologize to all of you for my part in this. We did have some nice engagements in H-W and a capital fight that we stomped the NC in. The overall failure of the H-W assault out shadows any battles we may have won there.


DIDN'T WANT THAT CAMPAIGN ANYWAY


So after 6 straight months of active campaigns I have decided it is time to return home and relax a bit. Movement orders/ops will be issued soon so please take the time and make sure you are checking jabber and alliance mail for posted ops. Ultimately I have no real grudge against the NC. I dislike what they stand for. They are playing a different game than us. I think eve is more "Farmville or Settlers Online" there whole theory is to circle as many wagons as possible to ward off any attacks. This would be fine with me if they minded there own business. They could happily farm and mine and circlejerk themselves into a BFF Bliss until the servers die for all I care. What I don't like is when groups inside there circle of wagons come down south and think they can push there agenda around down here. But when parties go to repay this favor they have to deal with the entire NC.


Honestly I now think the best strategy is to let them be. Let the weight of there own apathy crush them as there pilots ragequit from boredom and lack of PVP content without traveling 40 jumps. If/when they come south there numbers are weak and they have no staying power just as we have none up there.


Standings Reset


Plain out were dropping 75% as a rough estimate of the people were blue too. Honestly I don't think coalition warfare is very exciting and having to travel 40 jumps for PVP is a unhealthy thing for a alliance. So I will be scaling back our standings list to something that works for us and makes sense. I don't have any designs to go conquer anyone else's space as we already have more than we can ever need. There is a chance this will put us at odds with some of the people we call allies now. To be honest that's there problem its my job to do what is the best interest for us. All I can say is if they don't like it " Come invade us about it ". What this means to all of you is lots and lots of targets for you to go have fun with. Ultimately I think this is a healthy move for all parties involved even though I'm sure some won't see it this way.


Silver Snake Enterprises


Wanted to take a little time to welcome them into -A- as they start the next phase of there trial. The idea was to bring them inside the alliance so we all could get to them and vice versa. I think its a important step along the trial process that way both parties have a better chance to evaluate eachother and make sure its a good fit. The trial was very long when Havoc applied to -A- honestly though I was happy it was. It gave my corp the chance to get to know all of you and really understand what we were committing ourselves too. So I wish SSE luck in there trial and I hope it goes well. I put it to all of you and them to take the time to get to know eachother. Help them integrate and get involved. The process by design is to make sure all parties can exist together well and that the corp trialing can operate at the level we expect of eachother.


The Next few Months


As summer approaches and people are drawn to the big ball of fire in the sky we will fall into a relaxed period. You all should use this time to relax go roaming and have fun. If you need to make isk or if there is something shiny you have been wanting it will be a good time for you to pursue those interest. You all know things change at a moments notice in Eve but I plan to give everyone time to just have fun and chill. Expect lots of roaming gangs FC training and very few CTA's. Pretty much unless its for defense of our interest or the chance of a nice fight there wont be many CTA's

During this time I plan to relax as well. We will be working on alliance infrastructure and our reimbursement program. Vslash and I have had some initial talks of going to a all ship reimbursement program. No promises yet but we are looking at ways and means in which to give you all a greater slice of the pie. Id also like to point out Pallidum Trempona ( god I probably misspelled that) has taken the " Alliance Diplomat " spot. You all have seen here chatlogs her ability to troll people and field convos and be quickwitted is awesome. Honestly I needed help here because I was spending so much time responding to convo and evemails. Ive been floating with auto-reject on because it gets to be a little too much. So im happy she has taken up the job!


FSI

Still having a serious lack of coverage here. Usually this is attributed to lack of coverage of people able to hand out ships in a timely fashion. The few people that are in FSI cant always be online 100% of the time. We need more help here!!!! If you can place a alt into FSI please talk to Cat and do so. Don't take offense if she wants to speak to one of your directors and CEO's just to get the scoop on you.

SBI

This poor bastard child of a program needs a leader/program manager. Shoot me a mail if you are up to the challenge. Basically we will be looking to create a copy of how FSI currently works. This is in everyone's best interest to get this off the ground. Free bommahs & ammo anyone?


FC Training

Who's this guy leading me? Were going to be a few people a chance to get out there and get the confidence and experience it takes to FC. So expect some gangs and fleets being lead by less known faces. I and others will be in the background to guide them and help them develop.

Leadership

Im pushing corps pretty hard to take a look at there corps leadership structure. It is clear that alot of corps directorship is " Bitter Old Vets" with lots of commitments outside Eve. I think its best for everyone that each and every corp have 2-3 active people that can interact with alliance leadership and " Make shit Happen". So im pushing for all corps to make sure this need is filled. As of late it is clear we have some deficiencies in this area.



Closing Comments


So the past 6 months has been a crazy ride with many ups and downs. We have been challenged in many ways some I don't care to repeat ( shooting 50 stations anyone). I think we have performed ok although there have been some moments I was simply amazed of what we can do. This is a ongoing struggle for all groups in eve. Someone said " your alliance is only as good as its last fight" . There is alot of truth in this and judging from our last few fights there are some things we do very well and somethings not so well. I think being honest enough to say " We fucked up here or there" is a good thing . If you can't admit your mistakes how can your learn from them or at least not repeat them.


I never set out to be a alliance leader I don't have a ego that I think I need to feed. I've always just wanted to be a team player who does what the team needs. I hate POS's but ill go assemble , fuel , teardown a POS if thats what my team needs. You guys/gals are my team and so I do this job of overlord for the team. If I were to grade my performance so far id give myself a C. I can do much better and so can all of you. I don't like to half ass thing and I don't want to be part of a team that is ok with that either.


I believe this alliance has raw fighting spirit. I really believe we do come together as a team. I also believe we can do much better. It will only be a matter of time before we are in a large conflict again. I look forward to it as im sure you all do as well. I think everyone of us owes it to eachother to do a better job than we have before. With all this wall of text said thanks for allowing to be part of our team. Thank you and have fun!

[lac]

He has my axe!

[tgr]

He has my axe!

[Gets]

The only worthy notion I got out of that longwinded -A- monologue was admittance that their old sparring partner really did have Down's Syndrome. Everything else was uninspiring blurf.

[Phildo]

Pretty sure that wasn't meant to be an inspirational speech as much as it was meant to be a round-up of the last six months.  It's not like there were a lot of spectacular events going on for them aside from the Providence thing.

[setar]

What Phildo said. Like so many other alliances we're having a bit of a motivation problem -- most of the folks who've been pushing things forward on previous campaigns are in a 'been there, done that' mood, and the new expansion isn't exactly inspiring anyone either. Some corps like BDCI are pretty good at keeping everyone in the loop, for others you need a wrapup every now and then.

[Phildo]

Poor CVA.

[Phildo]

I see that AMOK. is no longer in LODRA.  What's the story there?

[Endie]

I see that AMOK. is no longer in LODRA.  What's the story there?

I would love to troll about this but it would be far too easy.  If you look you will see that Amok are by no means alone in that regard.

Clue: Lodra solodrakbansolo etc was an awful gimmick name and it deserves to betaken out back and shot.  Which it has been.

[Phildo]

I see Goonwaffe, MRCHI, DS1, FSP, Magel and most of the other core corps still in the alliance?  What would you do without Duragon Pioneer Group?!?

[Comstar]

Call it GOONFORCES: Goonknight II.

[Endie]

I see Goonwaffe, MRCHI, DS1, FSP, Magel and most of the other core corps still in the alliance?  What would you do without Duragon Pioneer Group?!?

There honestly is no drama, trust me.  You just need to keep a small group of people with executors who will log in over the next 24 hours around or else the alliance executor loses the ability to do stuff.

[tgr]

Call it GOONFORCES: Goonknight II.

I keep thinking of star wars when I read this, and calling the goons "goon republic" (or some other variant), with endie/mittani as darth endie and emperor mittani.

[eldaec]

Call it GOONFORCES: Goonknight II.

Should be GoonKnight : Goonforces II.

Or GoonAcademy : GoonOutcast II : GoonKnight III : GoonForces IV

[Gets]

Can we really survive another naming thread?

[tgr]

Just stumbled onto http://www.eveonline.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=1328852

Long story short: 91 in local in lowsec, hotdrop, gridload doesn't happen. EVE is turning into a game consisting of amazingly shit code.

[Endie]

In case you are interested, we are now the Goonswarm Federation [CONDI].  We were, for a few hours, the Goonswarm Federation [OHG0D] but reason prevailed and we dropped a billion on the better ticker.

It is a very pleasant feeling to be able to refer to ourselves as Goonswarm again.

[Slayerik]

Sure doesn't sound all that 'goony' though :P Fear an era of logical thinking by GS, most likely means the apocalypse is coming.

[Numtini]

Goon reality vs. goon narrative. Goony loopy decisions cause massive loss of numbers. Mittani's sensible non-goony choices and the SA thread is full of people losing their religion over not getting validated and back in fast enough.

[tgr]

It's a bit funny to read kugutsumen now, snsmaasta seems to be posturing in lieu of AAA's reset. I'm thinking there's a bit of this going on after the NC vs SC war:

[Thrawn]

I must of been a Goon failure.  Was active in GF for a while, joined ops, read the wiki, read the forums...and I still have no idea what the CONDI referance means.  (Admitadly I never tried to look it up either.)

[Phildo]

I just ran a recent Blaster Worm wall of text through Google Translate and this particular gem came out.

IT (Bob) had been and remained one of the main engines epic script Eve.

Full terrible translation below.

[Sir T]

Or "Yey we er I mean AAA defeated CVA and failed dismally in everything else... SO WE ARE THE MOST DANGEROUS FORCE IN EVE!!!"

What a delusional twat.

[Gets]

Blaster Worm is a Russian Glenn Beck.

[Pezzle]

Resetting people and going back to farming belts is not an especially bold strategy.  For real changes to come all the mega coalitions need to die, among other things.  Since big resets did not happen no noticeable shifts will emerge.  Let me know when AAA attacks IT or Atlas or someone who might threaten their space.