Goonfleet vs. Band of Brothers - The End is Nigh

Last night Minor Threat demonstrated that they are indeed just in Delve for the mayhem and are not taking a side in the conflict...by jumping a KenZoku Cruiser group near Period Basis. Other than a few smaller squads acting independantly in light ships, KenZoku is still inactive, still camped into PR-8CA, and still losing ground every hour.

To keep themselves from going stir crazy and boost morale, GoonSwarm members have begun to read slash fan-fiction over the Coalition teamspeak during Dreadnought seiges. Said homoerotic stories apparently involve player-characters from the game and power tools. The Northern members of the Coalition are reconsidering their political relations and reviewing their communications options.

Even though things are going their way, GoonSwarm and company are not being triumphalist or losing focus. A meme they keep quoting in their posts is "2/21". They know that if KenZoku tries anything at all, it needs to be on Saturday. They are racing to accomplish as much as possible while they are still relatively assured of a free hand.

Quoth The Mittani:...

tldr version:

j-l hellpurge will flip it tomorrow

y5c, 5-6 and 7utb are all safely in pl hands though y5c will need a hellpurge soon with 23 finfleet towers to 35 PL

BNC const is under assault, PS-94 fell today, 1 hostile tower on 10 moons left, 39P was sieged and it and 8RQ both have been spammed

EVOL's const is entirely secure with 5BTK and MO-G hellpurged, TCf has superiority in 8WA and will flip it, Y-O has 21H to 15 F RZR towers but all 21 are in RF and will die tomorrow

RKK's constellation W-4 is all done, though many hostile towers under the 51% mark remain for cleanup, thanks for the six stations kakashi-sempai~~~

DICE is busy taking down towers and evaccing their const in Period Basis. You're next.

NOL is hellpurged, C6Y and C3N are ours, and T-M is being spammed by ZAF and had hostile towers RF'd today.

and that's your delve weather update

kenny capfleet status: still trapped in PR- rololol~

The above information can be quoted because...the regular Goon Fleet forums have crashed and GoonSwarm brazenly moved their "war room" communications and operations-updates to the official EVE forums. Even if they've got the information minute to minute on where and what the Goons are up to, there's nothing KenZoku can do about it. It seems the other residents can do nothing about hundreds of Goons suddenly posting in multiple threads either; no one else is even trying to break into the spam.

This is a truncated update-post (not that there's much more to talk about) but I'm afraid it is likely to be the last regular update for some time. As of today I have another committment for my time and writing abilities (such as they are). I'll likely peek in on the situation tomorrow to see if KenZoku tries anything, but won't be able to follow it closely.

I've done the majority of the reportage up to this point, but that doesn't at all mean the thread has to stop. It's an open forum and anyone can speak up with what they know. In fact I'd be pleased if they would. If you want to follow it along on your own: The official EVE forums contain the psychological attacks and reactions to events from the participants. Scrapheap Challenge has better information about what actually took place in the various battles. The Goon Fleet, Band of Brothers, Pandemic Legion, and other killboards will let you see who downed what and how battles turned out for each side (PL's is the easiest to read). And of course, there's the daily-updated Influence Map.

Thank you to everyone who gave compliments to my posts in this thread.

Goonfleet vs. Band of Brothers

For more than five days now, KenZoku and its subordinate Alliances have remained camped into the NPC station of PR-8CA. The only activity from the blockaded parties is a few individuals trying to leave in disposable frigates or shuttles. A greater threat is currently posed by...well...Minor Threat, who now seem to be intendant upon more than quick vengeance for last weekend's moment of comedy.

In the last three days a majority of the in-system kills by GoonSwarm are Minor Threat fast Frigate and assault Cruiser gangs roving Delve. The next night, more of them are back; seeking stragglers and targets of opportunity. Given their chosen enemy's indolence, I don't think GoonSwarm minds the distraction deep down. In different circumstances, an invasion of annoyances like this could be chased out with a few flottilas of Goon assault craft and sniping Battleships. However, the focus of attention remains the systematic destruction of KenZoku's hundreds of Towers and the claiming of their territory.

Again, keep in mind that the map represents the reality on the ground from a week ago. It takes seven days for a Tower majority to officially claim Sovereignty in a system. Regardless of the delay, KenZoku Sovereignty continues to disappear because all Towers in some systems have been destroyed. KenZoku enjoyed a 42-to-8 Station majority in J-LPX7 (the site of the heaviest fighting) this morning. Each station literally has millions of hit points. By tomorrow morning, GoonSwarm and its Coalition partners expect to have razed all of them; leaving them with 0-to-8 control of a system having 108 moons. The Dreadnought teams are working around the clock with what is now a practiced, machine-like efficiency.

Meanwhile, lesser strategic threats are also being dealt with. When the BoB Sovereignty collapsed, one of the groups unaffected was the Pet Alliance Axiom Empire. Axiom Empire held Sovereignty level 3 in a couple of scattered systems. They tried to help with the resistance by emplacing new Towers of their own early in the conflict as well. Now, Axiom Empire holds no Sovereignty anywhere in Delve; thus removing one more bolt-hole for GoonSwarm's enemy to base from.

Further East, the Skunk-Works Alliance also held Sovereignty 3 in a small portion of Querious and expanded that territory early in the War to stem the tide of Goon-Coalition Tower-spam. The RAZOR Alliance, along with other members of the Northern Coalition, has done yeoman's work in attacking this redoubt. Two more Skunk-Works held systems lost all Sovereignty this morning. While Skunk-Works is putting up as little resistance as the rest of the KenZoku Pets at the moment, it must be mentioned that RAZOR and company are having to do this the old-fashioned, brute-force way. Any system with functioning Cyno-jammers means rapid reinforcement and Capital Ship firepower will not be forth-coming.

Moving away from the major combat (if I may be permitted to call it that ) zone, Against ALL Authorities and its Southern allies continue their occupation of old Goon-space and are even moving on Goon allies. Prior to the dissolution of BoB, AAA (with BoB support) had been contesting GoonSwarm territory in Tenerifis and Feythabolis. Also in the South, Stain Empire, Systematic-Chaos, C0VEN, and Atlas Alliance were fighting for Esoteria against GoonSwarm and the United Legion (UNL). UNL was able to hold its own, and backed by GoonSwarm were denying the enemy territorial gains.

When GoonSwarm relinquished their holdings in the South, UNL moved rapidly to take possession of their Feythabolis and Tenerifis domains. They have had some success in Tenerifis, contested against AAA, but have been pushed back by Red.Overlords and AAA in Feythabolis. Loss of this area means their holdings in the Southwest are cut off from South-central. Furthermore, they were not able to claim the Goons' part of Esoteria and are now beginning to lose ground in Paragon Soul.

United Legion is very much a "rear guard" for the Delve invasion, with all the risks that come with that role. So long as Stain, C0VEN, & cetera do not take Paragon Soul, there is no escape route from the southern region of the war-zone through Period Basis. KenZoku and Pet posters have made much of GoonSwarm and the Northern Coalition "abandoning" United Legion. The Goons have replied that everyone in the War Coalition knows what is at stake, what must be prioritized at the moment, and that unlike BoB/KenZoku, they do not abandon their allies or treat them as servants. UNL for its part, has expressed confidence that they can hold against their bitter rivals.

So is that all AAA is up to? In an earlier post this morning, I pointed out that a Red.Overlord ship with a Cyno-field Generator had been destroyed in PR-8CA. That could have signaled the beginning of an invasion, but there has been no other activity through (and now beyond) Russian prime-time. It's entirely possible it was simply a head-game. A cheap (literally) joke at everyone's expense.

If the Kestral had been part of a larger invasion plan, I'm afraid I would have had to revise my estimate of their stance a third time. I'd previously expressed puzzlement over why AAA would not be fully backing KenZoku when they would become the natural next target for all the parties involved. I changed my mind after I recalled that AAA is Russian; with the educational point of view on history which that implies. If you look at Against ALL Authorities territory (Catch, Tenerifis, Impass, Omist, and Feythabolis) their constellations tend to be arranged in long strings. Most of these are heavily built-up Sovereignty level 3 systems. It may be the AAA leadership's belief that, even if they end up facing a large Coaltion, they have plenty of ground to force an enemy to fight for. Their territory is very "deep", and has recently gotten deeper. If facing more enemies than they can manage, they can make a fighting retreat of it while their central territories are untouched. AAA might survive this way for a long time.

Furthermore, if they sit and wait for KenZoku and the Pets to collapse, they can pick and choose amongst their best pilots to recruit. What other alliance could they join? Where else are they going to go?

I don't think the Russians are coming to help ...

So where does that leave KenZoku and the Pets? I'm reminded of a frustrated fan sitting near me at a hockey game who screamed to his team "Do Something! Even if it's wrong!" The current KenZoku strategy is like the occupants of a besieged castle saying "forget the food stocks, I'm sure they'll pack up and leave soon enough". The longer they sit inactive, the less a breakout is likely to accomplish.

KenZoku still has possession of 26 known Titans. A group of them could break the fleet out of PR-8CA in a few minutes. They would naturally be beset immediately...unless of course another Titan could also be used as a distraction. If one was spotted trying to hop north to the borders, the bored attackers would likely swarm it from all locations. Even more-so if it turned out to be Shrike in a fifth Avatar. (The deliberate sacrifice of himself to fool his enemies would also go some ways towards recovering face for him.)

Once a breakout was made, they could either stand and fight in a single throw of the dice or retreat Northeast. If they made a stand in PR-8CA with all of the Coalition members jumping in-system, they would be attempting to cripple GoonSwarm's numbers in their space with superior firepower and bring a halt to the Tower offensive. If they retreated to Skunk-Works space, they regain Sovereignty advantages for their base while being able to range freely across the rest of Querious.

As it is, a few KenZoku members are retreating to Period Basis. Why this is a good idea is beyond me. In the Northeast, resupply from Empire should be easy. Period Basis is a cul de sac. Resupply is extremely difficult and even if they had a route through Paragon Soul, the distance is too far for a Cyno-Jump; retreating that way would mean leaving their Capital Ships and Titans behind. The Executive Outcomes Alliance, in Sovereignty 3 control of the southern half of Period Basis, has openly told their members to get their equipment out to Empire-space while they still have time.

If anything happens, it needs to happen Friday or Saturday at the latest. Anything later means there will be fewer people with time to log on for extended periods and less likelihood of building any momentum. Failing to make a move by the end of Saturday in Europe will mean the loss of many corporation members as they are faced with probability of another week of inactivity while the leadership "waits". Throwing taunts at the Goons and promising to do it a second time tomorrow is not rewarding play. (Though there have been reports that a few of *the Goons* have been stunned into silence by the vehemence and personal nature of some of the smack-talk emanating from PR-8CA.)

If KenZoku is planning to rise phoenix-like from NPC space in a few weeks, they will be sorely disappointed. Even if the Northern Coalition has gone home by that point, they have stated they are leaving a battle-fleet and Jump Clones behind in an EVE equivalent of pre-positioning. If KenZoku should reappear weeks later with any kind of strength, the North could respond within hours. Furthermore, who will wish to come with them in these forays of vengeance with little likelihood of material gain? It's conceivable that Sir Molle could form new Alliances and sortie from Delve NPC-space for years; but each time he did it would be with fewer pilots and more derision. Meanwhile, the Goons will gain all the terrain advantages that their enemy once held and more. They will have "Fortress Delve" with easy access to Empire, allied groups holding their Northern and Southeastern approaches, and the Sovereignty Level 4 constellations that once belonged to BoB.

If KenZoku fails to fight any further for what they are losing, I firmly lay the blame on a Failure of Leadership. BoB was the strongest and most feared organization in EVE. Their stated opinion was once enough to sway other Alliances. It was Sir Molle who set BoB's goal of the destruction of GoonSwarm, citing them as too rude and uncivilized to remain in Band of Brothers' Game. It was Sir Molle who declared that GoonSwarm would never be allowed to hold territory in Player Controlled Space. Where now is this majestic heater repairman while his empire burns?

When BoB first came to destroy GoonSwarm they were a new, tiny alliance based in Cloud Ring. GoonSwarm didn't have the skills or resources to fight back against the Battleships BoB was fielding against them. For two and a half weeks they sustained losses against them. Then in a shift of tactics, they made dozens of new characters named "VCBee XXX", where XXX was a random number. These throw-away characters were used for guerilla warfare against BoB. Having them destroyed essentially cost GoonSwarm nothing and any losses for Band of Brothers gained them nothing. Furthermore the unique "Goon" mentality meant they could keep up the effort indefinitely while still enjoying themselves. BoB declared GoonSwarm "Destroyed" and left the North.

If Sir Molle is indeed planning to attempt harassment of GoonSwarm from NPC space at some later date, he is willingly adopting the position GoonSwarm held when he personally declared his enemies "Destroyed" so many years ago . Take that as your Daily Irony...

Goonfleet vs. Band of Brothers

Why is the Goon side winning? In the words of Shadoo, Pandemic Legion Fleet Commander for the offensive (note: HAC = Heavy Assault Cruiser, a gunboat that can be fitted as a sniper and a favorite of Pandemic Legion)...

We have been successful this time (my 3rd time in Delve, 2nd proper offensive) -- NOT because we brought everything and the kitchen sink. We have been successful because we brought GF/KIA + MM/RZR + TCF + PL/SOT who have been operating pretty much as 4 entities with their own fleets and designated targets.

We've syncronized our sieges, had topes to cover each others and in fights -- called 3-4 different primaries across fleets on their own comms after having landed on field within a minute of each others.

Everyone's used a combined jabber, all FCs are always constantly polling for intel and how each others are doing and when they've started siege cycles. The communication and coordination over the past 2 weeks has been unparallel to anything I've seen/done before.

Delve mk1 we tried to do something like this, but it failed miserably. Nync did his own thing, Suas tried to coordinate with MC over MSN, RZR was in Querious, etc etc etc... Delve mk1 coalition assault reminds me more of GKC defence mk2 this time around infact.

You appear to be very badly coordinated, your allies on paper should outnumber/match us (and did for the first 2 days). Your issue was that your 2-3 different fleets (GKC, EXE, RKZ) in the first 3-4 days were warping in sometimes 5min after the fight kicked off and 2 min after one of you warped out. By the time you pulled everything to a single teamspeak -- your dicipline and fleet ability had dropped significantly due to heavy losses I presume.

You strategy seems to have been the old "pile up, lock system and hold it" in the W-4 const. You demonstrated very little manuverability and very little aggression to try to intercept any of the smaller groups/tower spam in the starting days of the conflict. And by the time you demonstrated aggression (Waagaa's fleet) -- I dare say it was too little too late.

When you swapped to combined fleets and shared your tower passwords for titan bridges -- you chose the Delve mk1 strategy of "pile everything to PR and base from there". I'm not sure if you expected Delve mk1 like 20 man PL HAC gangs to harass you in PR, but whoever made that decision completely failed to realize the field and spread of your hostiles.

The first time the combined fleet ended in PR -- was the last time so far it has undocked in there. It's not an issue as such for many, since you can JC and roam... But to do anything beoynd light roaming seems to have utterly stopped due to this, thus giving us keys to roam your kingdom with capitals 23/7 at speed I've not ever seen before.

I'm sorry to waffle on here, it just seems appropriate to respond to your points in your post that to me seem a little unrealistic. This whole "everyone is picking on us, so just sit and wait" line demonstrates the complete denial of what has happened and shows the usual hubris to acknowledge and try to address the issues that actually have lead you here.

Just look at the KB, view involved parties, check dotlan maps for pilot numbers and you realize -- you aren't outnumbered. Check the first 2 engagement involved pilot numbers if you want to argue "numbers on paper aren't on the battlefield".

"Hubris" is the Classical Greek concept of supercilious pride and arrogance; the unspoken belief that one can get away with anything because you cannot be harmed. Actions of Hubris end up shaming their victims and often their perpetrators. Hubris inevitably draws down the attention of Nemesis, the Greek goddess of retribution.

BoB was very much an empire. The Pet Alliances were subordinate and treated as such. They were not permitted free access to BoB's space, only what they paid rent for. They were not brought in to decision making for the BoB Alliance, or allowed to listen in; communication was through the Greater BoB Coalition (GBC) channels. If a Pet member showed up for a fleet action with "Tech 1" equipment as opposed to the more expensive "Tech 2" fittings, they were criticised by BoB's officers.

From the point of view of LuciasTrask, a Pet Alliance member (note: JC = Jump Clone, having your character appear in another pre-selected location and leaving all the ships/equipment you were using behind)....

I have been in both Delve wars, mostly on the side of BoB and then with VV for a little while, which sucked. But I can say this.

The first time around, when I was with Aftermath, we used BOB TS, we had direct orders and while the people that flew [censored] fit ships (me.. I was a noob) got scolded it still felt like one team.

This time around is different for me.

I am just an EXE nubbin right now, but when in the US TZ, we are not allowed on BOB TS so we have no idea what is going on. Im in fleets with people I dont know or have ever heard of before on the GBC TS.

I have lost 2 Falcons with only 1 rapier kill in curse to show for my efforts as the GBC leadership is alway behind the ball because of communications.

I hear "Support warp to so and so" Suddenly Im in a bubble.. then a pod, then a station. Nothing but reds in sight for the mos part. So my efforts are definitely hampered when by the time we are ordered to warp and engae, BOB has left the field and We warp onto an enemy that has already loaded grid. In some of these fights if the fleets had been unified we would have outnumbered the PL/SOT/GF/NC fleets. But we never actually seem to merge, just get suicided onto already loaded reds.

I have JC'd out of PR- leaving quite a few HAC/HIC and logistic ships behind. Whatever I will buy new ones. So thats not a big blow to me. I have plenty of BS in PB to throw at the war effort.

What does hurt the efforts in my opinion is a lack of communication between the GBC and BoB from a grunt perspective. I know basically nothing aout what is going on. I learn more from Sahdoos battle reports than when I am logged in. Kinda silly.

I have heard all the "BoB thinks you suck" talk and while it doesnt bother me if it is or isnt true I know some people it does bother. I think that is another problem.

The true solution to this problem is for everyone in the GBC to swallow their pride and shut up. Start working together, begin to fight with capitals on the field, and not be afraid to die. I mean [censored] I was in a meat shield alliance the first time around and died ALL THE TIME.

Its just pixels. Lets lose them in fun ways. The PR- camp can be broken by everyone stuck in there logging in and a quad doomsday on the station folowed by a mass undock. Then begin to drop the capitals in. Sure we may lose some, we may lose alot. We may lose a titan. But we wont to a conventional fleet, it will take a capital fleet to bring down that many caps and sub caps.

this war isnt over, it just needs to be rethought from our side.

Maybe I might get blasted for posting this, hell I dont even know if any of this is already planned. Like I said. Being a grunt on the bottom doesnt lend itself to knowing really anything of what is going on.

BoB/KenZoku has fallen to Hubris.

And the Goons are Nemesis...

Goonfleet vs. Band of Brothers

KenZoku still has its Titans and should outnumber GoonSwarm in Capital Ships. Bringing immense firepower to bear on discrete spots; trying to force a confrontation on favorable terms, might have been a workable strategy.

We still don't know where the Titan superiority has gone, but I may be able answer where the Dreadnoughts are now: behind those bubbles. I had presumed the "fleet" in there was simply a battle fleet of Line ships and Support as had been used in the previous days. But I've seen a passing comment about KenZoku's "Capital Fleet" in PR-8CA.

As to how those ships got there, regardless of what class they actually are, I suspect it was a failure of either courage or leadership. Or perhaps both. Concentration of force could have been a good strategy, and hiding behind station shields while the enemy has numerical superiority on the field is a reasonable tactic. In this case though, the ships kept trickling in and going to the same place, and still they wouldn't come out; until GoonSwarm became disgusted and walled them in. Perhaps low morale caused pilots to dawdle and straggle in before and after the appointed rally time. Perhaps the orders for when to arrive were vague. Perhaps the losses from the earlier battles made them hesitate until they were sure of their strength so they wouldn't be venturing out into a trap. Perhaps errant officers simply never gave the order to leave. Any of the above possibilities could be true...

...because it is very much looking like KenZoku morale is indeed Broken.

Here is a quoted battle report from today written by a Morsus Mihi pilot:

I was in MO-G setting up 4 resist-stars and a little bit of maintenance on 2 other starbases. Five of these had no defences at all and I had to warp between them in an indi maybe a hundred times, with no friendlies in local besides a couple of afk logistics guys and ~10 hostiles (mostly docked). Usually in such a situation I'd expect to eventually come out of warp and end in a bubble with a lone sabre killing me or whatever. Even outnumbered that's the kind of asymmetric thing you can do to fight back, and I guess it's what I always expected from BoB not least when their home region was being overrun, but I've hardly heard of any resistance at all. They've just suddenly switched off. It's begining to remind me a bit of the dissapointment when MC got overun.

That said some 8+ frieghters evacuated MO-G last night (we captured it at DT today), so there's some logistical effort going on behind the scenes. Strategically, at least as long as -A- won't deploy to Delve, Ken's only option seems to be to lay low until/if they get some sov-timers ticking towards sov3, then hopefully start making a stand. We're doing our best to make sure they have no stations left by then but maybe they'll build a new one in some random backend sov3 system (I'm still waiting to see outpost deployment used as a war tool.

From as unbiased point-of-view as I can manage it really doesn't seem likely atm that GS/PL/RAWR/RZR/TCF will disintegrate and wander home this time before the job is seen through. Goons will have nowhere to wander home to soon (that's probably the single biggest factor likely to make this invasion suceed), PL are next-door and will back Goons to the hilt. Plus the north is highly stable currently and INIT/IRON/ME/MH are doing a great job handling minor threats (they've been great help defending RAWR assets <3).

I've still got good confidence in Ken pulling through in some sense but I'm at a loss to say what I'd do in their position. In some ways all they can do is just sit back and hope that their past descions created an alliance with enough internal strength to ride this out.

So, even to the extent that individual pilots could fight back, they are not doing so.

I also have a quote from an Executive Outcomes pilot. Executive Outcomes (EXE) is a freestanding coalition-mate of KenZoku that holds Sovereignty over the Southern-most half of Period Basis, below Delve proper. EXE has shown some internal strain in the last days with two of the larger constituent corps going from dislike of each other to open enmity. One of the two quit the Alliance entirely and "fire-sold" much of their equipment, affecting ship-equipment prices in the region (much to the annoyance of unaligned battlefield scavengers who are picking over the wrecks). There's no word on where this Corporation is now or what it is up to. Regardless, the poster is from one of the Corporations remaining in the EXE Alliance:

From my standpoint as an EXE grunt, the ability to hold any systems in Delve in any timezone seems fairly non existent at this point given the numbers of hostiles in the area and the tactics employed to lock down the pr- area. . My plan is to head back to PB, make sure I have a good stock of ships and wait to lose them all in a glorious fire when the inevitable assault on our home space begins, post delve being secure by the opposition.

While much of this would not have been easy, or possible, without the unfortunate click of a mouse button of a disgruntled bob director, the coalition has done a great job in terms of pos assaults and locking down stations and friendly gang activity in Delve. So props to that.

Note the resignation.

The Psychological War on the Forums has shifted yet again. KenZoku is basically not posting. Or if they are, it is with non-Alliance alt characters. The Goons' organized effort, centered on the alt characters posting under the stolen corporate name Band of Brothers, is putting up approximately one new thread an hour. They are still satirically posting from KenZoku's point of view. But rather than facetiously pretending things are going fine for KenZoku, they are now posting faux surrender offers, clemency pleas, and evacuation announcements. Playing along, the Goons post refusals in reply. One poster inquired where remnants of KenZoku could flee to; The Mittani replied "Let them eat Feyth~", referring to Feythabolis in the territory the Goons have just abandoned. The Goons have numerous spies amongst their opponents and the direction of the psy-offensive is certainly influenced by intelligence on the enemy's current state of mind. The meme that all the Goons are quoting is "NO LEADERS! NO FLEETS! NO HOPE!".

But beyond the play-posting and trolls, the Goons are not happy with the situation. They want to fight. They want the clash with their arch-enemy. Here the Goons are in their home territory, tearing down everything that makes it belong to them, and they won't put up any resistance. This isn't funny anymore.

Like hearing those words spoken by the Joker, the Goons holding that opinion could be a very, very bad thing.

The final nail in the perception of KenZoku's morale is a Team Speak transcript of KenZoku's Dianabolic posted by GoonSwarm. Dianabolic is the sometimes-Fleet Commander and full-time PR manager for KenZoku. He is the reasonable, friendly public-face for the Alliance that chuckles gently before politely trying to undercut enemy statements. There's no way to confirm this transcript as literally true, but Goons have made posts of this kind in the past that have been acknowledged by their speakers. Even if it is false, it is close enough to the facts for Goon Intelligence to expect it to be believed:

Right, there isn't much we can do about anything right now .. and I've got better things to do

(small sigh)

If you are BoB, remember the tower comes out in 14 hours, just keep the tower on approach, if it dies, there are ways to avoid getting killed here

(pause)

if you are non-BoB ... just stay at a safe spot I guess

(small sigh)

if you want to stay in gang, go ahead, some one could FC but I don't know what you could do ... so ... um

(big sigh)

buh bye I guess

Nn....

In closing this post I was going to point out that during the fifth, when BoB had vanished and no one knew what was going on, Dianabolic issued a public challenge. He said to all BoB's enemies in the game: you all need take your very best shot, because if you can't beat us now, then you never ever will; so bring it. It was a very confident statement, gauged to unnerve the enemy. I find it a painful irony that it is BoB/KenZoku who is shown unwilling to carry the battle.

But that's a bit too much of a downer now isn't it...?

Fortunately though, I don't have to end on that. There are some people that are still willing to fight.

I'd previously mentioned the Cruiser Task Force from Minor Threat that was stalking Delve. Over the weekend Minor Threat flew a group of Frigates through Delve for giggles and had them Doomsday-Deviced out of existence by Pandemic Legion. On Monday, the new Minor Threat Cruisers were hunting GoonSwarm ships in Delve; jumping them when they were alone and injured by NPCs. They've taken at least two Goon Fleet Battleships this way. But they were only one of three alliances involved in the Frigate incidents over the weekend. Another Alliance, The PuPPet MasTers, has one upped Minor Threat's vengeance completely.

Though they hold no Sovereignty and are a minor Alliance, PuPPet MasTers is apparently able to field at least two Dreadnoughts; a Revelation and a Moros. They took these ships unnoticed into the Fountain Region, to system BYXF-Q. The surrounding area of Fountain is nominally in possession of The Arcane Alliance, but that particular system, only a few jumps away from NPC Aridia, is under Sovereignty of Pandemic Legion. In an act of magnificent defiance, they used their lone two Dreadnoughts to gradually destroy a Pandemic Legion Tower and then vanish back into Empire-space.

The frigates destroyed in a mockingly amusing manner by Pandemic Legion probably cost PuPPet MasTers a total of several hundred thousand. In turn, PuPPet MasTers crept into the lion's den and ground down a structure worth several hundred million to Pandemic Legion.

And that is your Daily Irony...

Pulse

Vertical Studio has a fourth video out (I admit, I'm a bit late noticing. Sorry!). It's called "Pulse: Or How To Attain Enlightenment In Five Easy Steps":

Goonfleet vs. Band of Brothers

Some numbers on the conflict.

These are numbers of pilots who have participated in a kill-mail since the conflict began. That is, these are active pilots who have been in some sort of a fight or another, not necessarily in the Delve/Querious/Period Basis theatre.

KenZoku/KFC

• KenZoku: 3441
• Executive Outcomes: 1830
• Axiom Empire: 1231
• Skunk-Works: 968
• Strip Mining Club: 275
• INTERDICTION: 275
• Southern Cross Alliance: 1281
• Confederation of Independent Corporations: 200
• R.U.R.: 211
• HUN Reloaded: 123
• X13 Alliance: 191
• Blade.: 435
• BeachBoys: 207
• Cardshark Influence: 172
• ATLAS: 1121
• Frontal Impact: ???
• Southern Connection: ???
• G00dfellas: ???

Total: 11961+ pilots.

GoonSwarm, PL, Northern Coaltion, & cetera

• Goonswarm: 5363
• Morsus Mihi: 2771
• Razor Alliance: 1956
• Tau Ceti Federation: 1568
• Pandemic Legion: 877
• Sons of Tangra: 1067
• Zenith Affinity: 371
• KIA Alliance: 693

TOTAL: 14666 pod pilots

AAA & Allies

• Against All Authorities: 2024
• Stain Empire: 473
• C0VEN: 525
• Systematic-Chaos: 1031
• RED.OverLord: 319

Total: 4372 pilots

Besides not being able to get information on three Pet Alliances, keep in mind KFC numbers are biased by the fact that many have not logged on or been in any kind of conflict in the last four days. Mostly this is to show the impact AAA could have if they got off their hands (which they haven't).

GoonSwarm is now mocking AAA's absence from the fight as a "loss of control over a Pet" by KenZoku. This is not literally true as AAA was never a rent-paying, Sovereignty-less Pet. They have also replaced the normal Alliance Icon for for KenZoku with a picture of Son Goku from Dragonball Z on their killboard.

And yes, the KFC fleet is still blockaded into that station. No relief assault to kick the jailers away for the 10-15 minutes it would take to get everyone out has been attempted.

Active KFC resistance has essentially dropped to a few roving gangs of several dozen heavy Cruisers looking for stragglers and targets of opportunity.

Meanwhile, a group of fast Frigates and heavy Cruisers from Minor Threat has entered Delve. This Alliance is one of the three that raced through Delve in Frigates over the weekend and were Doomsday Deviced for their impertinence. They are hunting GoonSwarm ships who are off ratting. They wait until a ship has taken damage from an NPC and then pounce it. GoonSwarm has lost at least two Raven class battleships to these attacks.

Monday night a Pandemic Legion reconnaissance ship in Querious detected a Cynosurial-field opening and another Titan (an Erebus piloted by a character named Fire Hawk) coming in-system. A Pandemic Legion fleet formed up on one of their own Titans to Cyno-bridge to the location if it could be captured. The scout and a Heavy Interdictor warped to the location the Titan had entered, spotted it, and opened its own Cyno-field. The Titan immediately started to log off upon opening of the new Field and vanished a mere 4 km short of maximum tackling/aggro range for the Interdictor. PL took out their frustrations by vandalizing more KenZoku towers.

GoonSwarm is estimating that they are now destroying three Towers per hour, with approximately 400 total left in all of Delve (not counting Querious or Period Basis).

Sovereignty is calculated by most Towers in a given system rather than total though, with Large towers trumping any number of mediums and mediums trumping any number of smalls. A given alliance can also only anchor five towers per day. The current standings in several systems for Large towers as reported by Pandemic Legion (taken from a board post) are:

• W-4 Constellation (ex-sov 4 mega const)
  • QY6 (46 Moons): 25 GF vs. 20 RKZ
  • PUIG (21 Moons): 11 GF vs. 10 RKZ | 1 RKZ in RF
  • 0-H (23 Moons): 12 GF vs. 9 RKZ
  • SVM (72 Moons): 22 GF vs. 11 RKZ | 3 RKZ in RF
  • F-T (34 Moons): 19 GF vs. 15 RKZ
  • J-L (108 Moons): 7 GF vs. 43 RKZ
• 1-A Constellation (ex-sov 4)
  • Y5C (68 moons): 32 PL, 3 GF vs 30 RKZ | 6 RKZ in RF
  • 5-6Q (16 moons): 9 PL vs 7 RKZ
  • 7-UTB (80 moons): 5 PL vs. 23 RKZ | 18 RKZ in RF
• E-O Constellation (ex-sov4)
  • 8WA-Z6 (65 moons): 20 TCF vs. 24 RKZ | 9 RKZ in RF
  • MO-GZ5 (10 moons): 7 RAWR vs. 0 RKZ
  • 5BTK-M (12 moons): 3 RZR vs. 0 RKZ
  • Y-OMTZ (61 moons): 15 RZR vs. 6 RKZ
• NON-SOV 4 Consts:
  • NOL (50 moons): 5 PL vs. 8 RKZ | 8 RKZ in RF
  • C3N (51 moons): 10 GF vs. 7 RKZ
  • C6Y (33 moons): 5 GF vs. 6 RKZ, 7 STRIP

While Against ALL Authorities has not taken a major part in the Delve fighting, they have made best use of their invasion of former Goon-space. In the current Sovereignty Map, AAA/Red.Overlord has apparently cut off direct access through jump gates between the southern two portions of United Legion territory. If they manage to take the last piece of Southeastern Tenerifis (which they are currently doing) they will have trisected United Legion territory, leaving them no friendly paths to travel between their holdings.

Goonfleet vs. Band of Brothers

In response to a comment speculating on KenZoku's demise:

I will reply to it nonetheless as there are probably more people thinking the same.

The USA had a bank holiday monday and that results in half of goonfleet being pilled up in pr- and active for any action needed. BoB (GKC) being mostly EU was at work as normal. I dont think pr- dropped below 300 enemies.

Now what i personally feared happened. A day after the order was given to all base from PR- that system gets completely locked down and dozens of bubbles are anchored at the station, all posses and all gates.

This is what you do if you want to completely immobilize a enemy. Its smart, it makes sense. Dont go frothing at the mouth and see the death of a alliance when they dont form a counter fleet against your pos shooting squads. The two are related and not seperate.

We will see what happens tuesday when both sides are on normal workday terms. But the odds are in favour for our enemies in every way at this moment.

It was expected we would lose a big chunk of the stations but damn its going fast now. NC is sieging multiple systems at the same time without a support fleet for the caps in some systems. I assume completely confident that if they come under fire a rescue fleet will be there in 1 siege cycle (and rightfully so atm).

I completely understand it must be epic for goons what is happening now and they must feel they are dancing on our graves now but this fight isnt over by a long shot.

The current situation we are in is because of one person killing Band of Brother alliance not some strategic mastermind or a briliantly executed campaign.

More fights after work, its eve heaven for me.

----

For your viewing pleasure, here is some video footage. It's a series of Tower sieges, first with Battleships and then with Dreadnoughts.

And your Daily Irony: Haargoth Agamar, the defector, was able to steal Black Nova's Capital fleet during the opening to the War because BoB had been concerned with territorial losses in Delve War I the previous year. To protect their assets, they moved many of them into NPC-space where they could neither be destroyed nor conquered. Had they been kept in player-controlled space, Agamar could have taken their ownership rights but GoonSwarm would have had a very hard time getting at them. Putting them "safely" in NPC-space meant the Goons had easy access to them and they were out of BoB's control entirely.

During The Mittani's recorded explanation to other GoonSwarm officers of what had happened, he mentioned the names of the two places where the ships and supplies had been cached. Only tonight I realized that these NPC systems were not in Empire-space; they were Pirate Systems in Delve. The two names he mentioned are "Haddock" (0-HDC8) and "PR Dash" (PR-8CA). The latter of which being...

...the very same place the bulk of KenZoku's active battle fleet is currently blockaded.

Goonfleet vs. Band of Brothers

On February 12th, the same night Waagaa Ktlehr lost his Aeon class Mothership, Grim of Axiom Empire (a KenZoku Pet) agreed to pay 16 billion for an Aeon in a Forum auction. Tonight he was in low-security Empire space (Aridia) just outside of Delve using his brand new Super-Capital to gank Player Frigates. This is like swatting a fly with a Buick.

Or it should have been, until he warped in on a Cynosurial Field-capable reconnaissance Frigate. A Pandemic Legion reconnaissance Frigate. The Recon ship opened up a Cyno-field and dropped a Pandemic Legion Task Force of twelve Dreadnoughts and thirty-six support ships on him. He didn't even have time to kill the Frigate. His corp-mates are decidedly displeased with his discretion.

In keeping with today's earlier post, Goon Fleet also lost a Carrier tonight, one minute prior to Grim's ignominious ruin. But not to an enemy flotilla. The pilot accidentally shot a PL space station in Delve, agressed it, and it blew him to pieces. Goons and PL are blaming "Skynet" for the loss and think it's priceless.

Goonfleet vs. Band of Brothers

I've always seen Eve Online as the most expensive screen saver you'll ever see. A friend of mine used to play it, and I've never seen him do anything in the game except fly across the galaxy while alt-tabbing to another program. Thanks to a thread on the City of Heroes forums, however, it seems there's actually more to the game, at least if you're part of a large corporation, or are watching events from the outside (like me). There's some quite interesting drama that would make a heck of a movie, I think.

Long story short: Goonfleet, a corporation run by members of Something Awful, convinced a director of Band of Brothers, one of the largest corporations in the game, to turn coat, bringing with him a number of BoB properties and trillions of in-game currency (ISK), as well as the official BoB name. BoB and affiliates are currently at war with Goonfleet and affiliates over BoB's remaining holdings.

Audio of The Mittani introducing BoB director. The Mittani is the leader of the Goonfleet Intelligence Agency. (Audio NSFW)

Interview with leaders of BoB and Goonfleet

Human_Being on the CoH forums has been acting as war reporter, and doing a bang-up job of it. Here are some of his posts:

The WAR So Far...
Okay, I've been trying to follow this conflict since the thread started. However, it is obscured in a very real "fog of war" with both sides trying to spin defeats into non-events (or even victories) and victories into conquests. There's nowhere you can go and look for yourself to simply see what's happened. It's not easy to figure out who's where, doing what, why, and to whom.

I've tried to bring disparate pieces together into an image of how things are going, but any of it might be off. So, I bring it here for your interest and entertainment. If anyone knows a different story from what I have below or can add anything, please fill in the missing pieces.

The Set up:
The Band of Brothers Alliance (BoB for short) has been in EVE basically since the beginning. They've been the dominating PVP force in the player-run, non-NPC areas of space for most of the game and hold the richest territory. They were the group involved in the "T20" scandal where a game Dev that belonged to BoB was secretly giving them ultra-rare items that granted an edge for the alliance. They are characterized by their detractors as arrogant and condescending elitists.

The GoonSwarm has been in EVE since early in 2006 and made their presence known the whole time. They style themselves "the worst PVPers in EVE", yet have ultimately been quite successful against larger opponents that were deliberately trying to wipe them out. Having fewer resources and less discipline than other alliances, they take cheap but functional ships and hurl themselves at their opponents like a barbarian horde; safe in the knowledge that they can replace their losses more easily than what they inflict on the enemy. The leadership of GoonSwarm by contrast is highly organized and very bright (typified by the most feared espionage organization in the game). They are characterized by their detractors as a bunch of vicious, adolescent griefers.

This will actually be the third time BoB and GoonSwarm have clashed. The first time the Goons held up against a coalition of BoB and another Alliance that neighbored on Goon-territory, by simply being impossible to wipe out. BoB could blow Goons up all day, but the Goons focused on territorial goals rather than tonnage-of-ships lost and the neighboring enemy eventually backed off. The Goons actually expanded their territory and BoB returned across the map to their own holdings.

The second conflict was sometime last year when GoonSwarm lead a broad coalition of other Alliances in a deliberate attempt to seize BoB's entire territory (wiping them out as a player in larger politics). The war lasted for several weeks, and while BoB did pull back into more defensible areas, they proved too hard to evict from that ground. The other members of the coalition eventually grew bored of making great effort for little headway and stopped showing up for fleet actions. The Goons were the last to withdraw and their leadership swore that it was only technical limitations of the game-rules that stopped them; that they'd be back to take BoB's home some day.

The Strategic Puzzle
The reason it was so hard to fight BoB on their home territory has to do with the game-concept of Sovereignty. Sovereignty is granted to any Alliance that holds the majority of control in an area for a week or more and is ranked in four levels. Gaining Sovereignty levels grants cumulative benefits to the Holders that make it easier to make money off of the territory and defend it. In particular are "Capital Ship Assembly Arrays", "Jump Bridges", and "Cyno-Jammers". In order to get to any particular star cluster, you have to either use an existing "Jump Gate" to get to it, or you have to have another ship there to create a "Cynosurial Field" which acts as a beacon for the largest ships in the game to teleport to with their own Jump Engines. The Titan-class ships can only move through these ad hoc jumps because they don't fit within the regular Jump Gates. With Cyno-Jammers, no one but members of the controlling alliance can use these ad hoc Cynosurial Fields; denying opponents maneuver, stripping them of their strongest assets, and protecting their rear. "Jump Bridges" are player-created Jump Gates that Sovereignty Holders can use to move about their territory quickly. Finally, the Capital Ship Assembly Arrays allow construction of the largest and most powerful ships in the game right in player-held territory.

So if you have Sovereignty level 4 in a group of systems, you have predictable routes that an enemy will attack on, can rapidly reinforce in response to an assault, may have an overwhelming advantage in firepower because you have Titans "guarding the gates" while the opposition can bring none of their own, and can make good even the largest losses in a prolonged siege. With BoB's advantage in "old money" and ship complements, no one was ever going to make more than laboriously-chipped progress in an attack against them....

....until the day GoonSwarm took their Sovereignty away.

The Nuke
A BoB Alliance Director from the Black Nova Corporation was playing on an Alt when a member of one of the GoonSwarm corporations attempted to recruit him. The Director ("Haargoth Agamar") decided this was an excellent opportunity to get a "spy" into GoonSwarm. He accepted, pretending to be a newbie mining character. A couple of days later, the recruiter turned up evidence that the Alt character had been associated with a previous enemy corporation of theirs during a background check (yes I said background check). The recruiter went back to him and told him he'd have to be kicked out. But Agamar revealed his identity and told him that he really didn't want to go because in the last two days he'd found that he really really liked playing and associating with the Goons. (The Goon head of intelligence, "The Mittani" aka "Mittens", later characterized this as a Cultural Victory.) Agamar was immediately handed off to Goon Intelligence and rather than using him as a long term operative and chancing his discovery, they started figuring out what they could steal through him. They scoured the BoB leadership forums for information, prepared to have Agamar rob Black Nova Corporation of every asset they had (amounting to hundreds of ships, including fifteen Dreadnaughts which are the second largest class in the game and take over two weeks of Real Time to construct), and prepared to alter the friend/foe alignment of all Black Nova assets which they couldn’t' outright steal. During these discussions, it was discovered that in addition to being a Corporate Director of one of the BoB members, he had long ago been erroneously granted Directorship in the Holding Company that served to keep BoB officially together in game-law. The holding company owned no assets itself, but with the way the rules were set up any Director could evict any member of the Alliance at will and have it take effect instantly. Apparently this had never come up as an issue in the game before.

When all the BoB officers who could have done anything about it were asleep (most of them are European), the Goon intelligence agency pulled the trigger and the entire BoB Alliance and all that depended on that status vanished. In the space of a few hours all the BoB Jump Gates, Cyno-Jammers, and Capital Ship Assembly Arrays ceased to function. All the local production facilities dropped down to their base efficiency level. Every BoB member who had logged off at a Black Nova facility was identified as "hostile" when they exited "their" stations and instantly fired on by the automated defenses. Every non-BoB-member who operated in the territory started to panic. And GoonSwarm now permanently owned the rights to the corporate name "BoB".

Let’s go to the map (note: non-colored areas are actually NPC-space, not unclaimed territory.)

The BoB territory (now labeled "KenZoku") is in the lower left in blue. They are in a mutual coalition with Executive Outcomes to their south along with Against ALL Authorities and Red Alliance (a Russian group) to their east. In addition to the huge list of corporations that made up "BoB" proper, there were also hangers-on dubbed the "Greater BoB Coalition" (GBC) within the BoB territory who used BoB for protection. These lesser corporations and alliances (Skunk-Works, EXE, Frontal Impact, Goodfellas, Atlas Alliance, FinFleet, and more that I've probably never heard of) were referred to as "BoB's Pets". They were given permission to use BoB territory so long as they paid a "rent" to BoB and pledged support and subordination to their control in the event of a conflict, but they had no territorial rights of their own. Together, the GBC was the largest and strongest group in the game. Furthermore, there were many independent players that came to BoB's territory and also paid "rent" because it was not only a relatively safe area, but it was also the richest territory in the game (there have been past accusations that the mineral wealth of the area had been increased by corrupt Devs after BoB claimed it).

GoonSwarm controlled (past tense) two very large areas in the south and southeast. They are associated on friendly terms with the broad "Northern Coalition" consisting of the Tau Ceti Federation (a francophone group), RAZOR Alliance, Morsus Mihi, KIA Alliance, and the Pandemic Legion. The Pandemic Legion is very tightly aligned with the Goons and although they appear to actually be the smallest among these province-holding groups, everyone also seems to be afraid of their pilots. The bit of "Fountain" area that is home to PL was actually a wealthy BoB territory taken and held during the last war.

The first twenty four hours were utter chaos. Every independent or small-time operator who had depended on BoB's perennial protection grabbed their resources in a panic and tried to flee the area. Every group that had long wanted a piece of the rich pie that BoB was sitting on formed up and headed to Querious and The Delve. And virtually everyone else who didn't live under BoB's roof jumped in wherever they could to cause mayhem. The word coming out to EVE-Radio internet station was to "trust no one!" in The Delve and that anyone might suddenly turn on you. Someone called into the station begging for money because a friend of his had actually been captured while trying to flee and was being held for ransom (he later called back and said that when the bandits heard this on the radio they executed the captive ). Groups of Northern Coalition ships flew through Delve broadcasting: "BoB promised you would be safe, but these were lies! Corporations of Delve, do not cling to the False Comfort of Old Allegiances!" The Pandemic Legion instantly formed an attack force and seized control of a Delve moon designated "LMO" (aka 'The Alamo') four hours after a BoB spokesman announced on EVE Radio that it was their Alliance's impregnable bastion in case of invasion. The only "organized" response by the not-BoB-anymore corporations was to form a huge, roving, Titan-centered fleet that swept up friendly ships like a snowball as it went. Most of the Goons that reacted gathered in what they self described as either a "Waaaugh!" (a Warhammer-game Orc reference) or a "rapetrain with no brakes" and drove into the heart of their enemy's territory. A smaller, more organized group of Goons tried to gather on the points of entry to Delve and limit unfriendly entrance or exit from the war zone.

The Fallout
But the BoB leadership pulled a bureaucratic end-run on their no-win situation. Through some loophole (which I've never completely figured out), one of the smaller constituent corporations of the old BoB alliance had been associated with most of the Player Owned Stations that designate control for Sovereignty. This small corporation was officially able to claim control of the majority of the now-unowned territory. All of the ex-BoB corporations joined in an Alliance under this smaller corp "KenZoku". Since that corporate claim was now officially part of an in-game Alliance again, KenZoku was granted immediate Sovereignty to the area, starting over at level 1, just over twenty-four hours after those players "lost" it. "KenZoku" is a Japanese word for 'family' or roughly 'tribe', i.e. a 'band of brothers'.

The "Sov" map snapped back to nearly the way it had been a day earlier and everyone who had previously panicked, freaked. They only had Sovereignty 1, and thus no Jump Gates or Cyno-Jammers, but "BoB" still existed and there was a flag to rally around. Every hooligan who had gone to the Delve region to run amok turned around and raced out just as fast. GoonSwarm and Pandemic Legion didn't.

The official response from KenZoku was that they were still here, still in control, and still had all their vast wealth. Yes, they'd been indolent and bored of late; there'd been much internal friction in the leadership and dissatisfied grumbling from the Pets. But now the unfair and cowardly attack on all that they and their friends possessed, along with the theft of their Name, had really, truly, finally *Censored*...Them...Off. They declared their intention to gather all the military force at their disposal and wipe out the Goons and company once and for all. Furthermore, since The Mittani had promised to post excerpts from the BoB leadership forums, they were opening them to the public so they could not be quoted out of context.

The un-official response from the Goons was "Oh My God! We Killed 'Kenny'! We're Bastards!" The "Pets" were subsequently dubbed "Barbie". It was also variously observed that "Anime is really just Cartoons". Officially, GoonSwarm declared that not only were they not backing down, they were going to claim their birthright "holy land" once and for all: they were pulling up stakes and abandoning their holdings in the South and Southeast. The Goon's home would be in Delve. Period. Furthermore, the Mittani thanked the KenZoku leadership for opening their secret forums since he had actually lied about having it all archived with intention to post embarrassing snippets. (Which claim is true or false, *shrug* who knows. That uncertainty seems to be the way he operates.)

The Psychological Front
The Psychological war started off with Goon quotes from the BoB forums where various members of the leadership had spoken with contempt or disgust about a particular Pet or even about all Pets in general. "Why should you show loyalty to ex-BoB when they see you as tools, treat you as tools, and are a bunch of Tools?" the Goons ask. KenZoku publicly replied that yes they'd spoken harshly about various Pets, but that was months ago. Those coalition-mates had vastly improved their performance since such words were spoken. They were all united by what the Goons had done now and the Pets had their respect.

In counter attack, KenZoku declared that with this latest underhanded play the Goons were held in contempt, even hatred by the majority of the game. KenZoku/BoB themselves would be bringing every last erg of power and cent of cash in their greater-coalition to bear on them. KenZoku asked "How on earth do you plan to survive against, not only the crushing force we can bring to bear, but everyone who's ever had a grudge against you?" GoonSwarm publicly replied: "lolz wut?"

Neither side has made much headway in the battle of words. The Goodfellas alliance *may* have gone neutral, as their members are now making posts mocking both sides of the conflict and Goodfellas ships aren't showing up on the killboards anymore. Some of the BoB-forum quotes certainly singled out the Goodfellas as among the worst groups in the game, but I'm not entirely certain where the Goodfellas allegiance lay to begin with.

The only other result of both campaigns was the CEO of Against ALL Authorities making a post with a quote from the now-public BoB forums which read: "I don't care, just get AAA here! I will *censored* sing the Russian national anthem in teamspeak if it will get them here!" He declared that effective immediately, all AAA assistance to KenZoku would cease until this became a reality. Several KenZoku members helpfully provided links to websites with phonetic lyrics to several versions of the song.

---

The Eastern Front
When I first looked at the Sovereignty Map, the GoonSwarm territory had convex borders and was separated by a very narrow strip of space. Every day it has shrunk a bit more, with the areas of Tenerifis and Detorid seeing wholesale losses. The KenZoku coalition is making much of this, but it appears that the Goons literally are not defending their space. When their leader declared that they were moving to Delve, they meant it. They are taking everything they have and using a scorched earth policy behind them.

This is actually a brilliant move for several reasons. Firstly, the previous campaign faltered because the rank-and-file lost interest in the fight. The general Goon mentality toward the game seems to be that of a band of marauders (or perhaps college frat-boys on a Friday night ) and while they are enthusiastic it's hard to keep them focused. Like Cortez, the Goon leadership has "burned their ships" and given their pilots a reason to focus on the campaign; if they lose they will have nowhere to go home to. Secondly, it means GoonSwarm doesn't have to fight a two front war with long supply lines; attacking the strongest coalition in the game while defending their own territory against neighboring enemies. Thirdly, it keeps the Goons' allies motivated because they don't want the Goons trying to "move in" with them in the case of defeat . Finally, it has limited the forces arrayed against them because enemies that otherwise would have happily attacked GoonSwarm are occupied in actively taking over the abandoned territory. Of United Legion, Red Alliance, and Against ALL Authorities, only the last has shown up in the Kill Boards for activity in Delve; and them only weakly.

The reason this is a delaying tactic is the way territorial seizure works. Sovereignty is calculated based on who has the most space station facilities in an area and is only granted if that balance has not tilted in another direction for the duration of one week. You must emplace your own stations and destroy those of your opponent. Player Owned Stations however have huge numbers of hit points. They require large fleets to assail at all and the Dreadnought class (second only to the Titans in size) is specifically designed to provide firepower for this purpose. Even then, a Large sized station might take hours of pounding to bring down.

The task of destroying a station is further complicated by "reinforcement mode". Stations can be given a particular type of fuel (Strontium Clathrates) that will allow them to enter an invulnerable state when they reach 25% hit points and remain there for several hours, depending on how much of this fuel they have. The intention is to provide a game mechanic where a corporation's facilities can not be swept away while the players are asleep or at work. During the "reinforcement mode", the owning corporation has time to try and kick the attackers off of their station and re-fuel the station. If they can, the attackers are back where they started yesterday.

Even if there are no defenders, destroying the stations is a time and personnel intensive undertaking. The Goons may not have left anything to loot, but it will still take weeks for their neighboring enemies to claim the territory for themselves.

The Sovereignty mechanics also mean that the map tends to lag the reality on the ground by about seven days. The Goon territory map is actually *worse* than it appears.

The Delve Theater
The majority of the fighting has taken place in KenZoku's space and is much harder to get a good look at. The Sovereignty map remains largely unchanged since the re-naming and re-institution of base-level Sovereignty in the region. Most of the information coming out of the area is from forum posts by one side or the other and Alliance Kill Board reports. Both of these are highly biased to say the least =/.

All sides in the conflict essentially lie on their Killboards to one degree or another. (The linked website is perhaps the most informatively-formatted one of those involved.) Killed ships on one board often do not show up on their owner's board as losses. If one were to go solely on these lists, it would appear that all participants in the conflict are sweeping their enemies before them simultaneously. Furthermore, the boards tend to either lag with real time or not list the location that a fight took place until some time has passed (and the fight can't be reinforced by enemies reading the killboard).

You can still get useful information from them though. When many ships show up as defeated in a particular location, you know where the fighting is centered for that moment. If a series of battleships show up as defeated, a major engagement has taken place. If a station/tower or a Dreadnought/Carrier/Mothership shows up on the board, someone suffered a major material loss. Most of the time there are individual smaller ships listed, often reconnaissance ships (lots and lots and lots of dead reconnaissance ships).

If you click on individual entries, you can see a list of ships that were involved in the kill. (Wow, those Apocalypse battleships and Zealot cruisers are *really* popular.) Smaller lists of medium sized ships are likely defensive pickets or strike groups. Larger lists are obviously organized fleets.

From all of this you can get a rough picture of both sides heavily engaged in keeping tabs on where the enemy is dispersed and what they are up to. Roving bands of dps gunboats and crowd-control ships are actively "submarine hunting" for the other side's scouts. Individual or small groups of fast-frigates, mostly on the GoonSwarm side, are hunting outside Delve for enemy cargo haulers (for good reason). Targets of opportunity sometimes appear with ad hoc fleets pouncing on high value targets like Motherships that are separated from the majority or trying to enter the area. Occasionally unlucky recon ships get too close to an entire fleet and are swatted out of existence or come through a star gate into a waiting trap. And at least once a night there are huge fleet actions where billions in currency of ships are destroyed for both sides.

The Time Line
That gives an idea of how things are taking place, but not where or why. For that part of the picture you have to go by Forum posts and brags. Lesser actions appear to be taking place in the Period Basis southern region of KenZoku territory where KIA Alliance may be trying to carve out territory of their own, but are losing many ships for little headway. Querious region in the Northeast is seeing significant Northern Coalition (minus Pandemic Legion) attention and fairing a bit better, partially due to KenZoku's main attention being focused elsewhere. The scene of the majority of the heavy fighting has been in the "W-4" constellation in the Western-most corner of Delve (I can't find any good maps of the area with place-names marked; had to piece together where things were =p). This is where the Goons, PL, and some of their allies made their assault.

The first of the major, organized fleet actions took place on Friday the 7th in the W-4 constellation’s J-LPX7 system. There were several hundred ships on each side and server lag became a serious issue. The "J-L" fight was a crushing victory for KenZoku. The Goon Fleet showed up with the wrong ships/equipment for what they found themselves facing. The Pandemic Legion Battleship fleet ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time and fought a losing engagement at five-to-one odds. And the worst event was Pandemic Legion bringing three Titans and having them not affect the fight at all...

Each Titan can mount one "Doomsday Device" that can be fired once an hour and disables the ship for ten minutes. The Doomsday weapon is an AoE with a 50 Km diameter area and does enough damage to obliterate support ships in the blast and seriously damage Battleships if not outright destroying them. The PL Titans intended to decapitate the enemy fleet and fired three of them at the same time....for a total of zero damage. The official explanation was: lag made the attacks not register even though the effects went off.

From the performance and the damage it looked like GoonSwarm really had made a mortal blunder: They had roused the most powerful enemy in the game to moral-rage, were fighting them on their own turf, and had nowhere to retreat to. People began taking odds on whether KenZoku would destroy GoonSwarm or decide to take Fountain back from Pandemic Legion first. For their part the Goons restated their self-description as the "worst Alliance playing EVE" and claimed they weren't deterred in the least.

The second night of major fleet actions consisted mostly of Battleships. The Goon Fleet came back as they promised and clashed with both KenZoku and all the Pets that mustered (the Greater BoB Coalition re-dubbed "KFC", the Kenny and Friends Coalition, by the Goons). When the fight was over KenZoku smugly pointed to their killboard for another heavily lopsided ratio of battleships. GoonSwarm countered that the picture only looked that way for KenZoku proper. If the Coalition Pets were taken into account then it was clear the balance of ships killed was a hundred battleships in the other direction. A poster on the EVE forums uninvolved in the direct conflict said that the battle had resulted in a debris field well over 400 km in length (and that he was having a fire sale on salvaged drones if anyone was interested).

Sunday night and Monday saw further Battleship engagements with similar results to the second night. GoonSwarm continued to hammer on the psychological front, claiming that KenZoku was using the Pets as a "meat shield" even though they couldn't afford to absorb financial losses the way their leader could. Of greater significance, Station Towers belonging to KenZoku began appearing in Goon and Northern Coalition killboards.

Apparently BoB had never bothered to add Strontium fuel to any of their Stations. Certainly not deep in their own territory away from the borders; who would ever make it that far so that it would be needed? Furthermore, it appeared that they had little of the resource available to them on hand. When the Goons started firing on a station, they could take it down in one attempt because it never became invulnerable. On February 9th, Pandemic Legion destroyed eight towers in one night. KenZoku began trying to haul Strontium in from outside their region and Goon frigates started trying to blockade them.

Tuesday continued the lopsided losses for KenZoku's coalition, with pages full of battleships and smaller support listed on their enemies' killboards. The majority of the losses belonged to the Pets, even though KenZoku suffered heavy battleship losses. It was suggested that the Pet corporations were beginning to agree with GoonSwarm that they were being "pushed out in front" and sacrificed by KenZoku.

Between Sunday and Tuesday, Dreadnoughts and other Capital Ships began appearing on the killboards. However, they appeared mostly on the Goon coalition boards. A few KenZoku ships showed up as defeats in areas adjacent to the main fighting, with no other defeats reported in those areas. The GoonSwarm Capital Ships appeared in their dozens listed as contributing victors in various fights. The Goons had managed to get their Capital Ships into the area and were bringing them to bear in large groups. Their KenZoku counterparts were not committed to the field.

Wednesday during the day (prime time hours for European-based KenZoku), GoonSwarm attacked and destroyed a KenZoku tower with an attached construction facility. A KenZoku spokesman immediately posted a congratulatory note on the EVE forums, and stated that a Mothership class Capital Ship had been "aborted" inside the destroyed facility. GoonSwarm members posted in reply with quotes lifted from the (formerly) private BoB forums suggesting that the vessel under construction was actually a Titan. They further stated that since they had such a convenient list of what was where, all the other baby Titans under construction were going to "get the coat hanger" too.

Wednesday night saw KenZoku step to the front and finally deploy their Capital Ships in an attempt to harry the Goons off of their stations in W-4. However, they refused to "enter siege mode", increasing their toughness and firepower but rendering the Capital ships immobile. They warped around the system, trying to keep from being trapped and surrounded by smaller ships. A Pandemic Legion battleship group formed up a chase party and "suicided" into the KenZoku fleet. They took massive losses but managed to destroy two capital ships in return.

KenZoku declared that they had delivered another strong defeat to GoonSwarm. Further, they stated the Goon's tactics against their towers were ultimately futile since it was obvious who had more resources in a war of attrition. They asked how the Goons could continue in their disastrous situation. The Goons replied that in trading many Battleships for two Capitals, they had come out ahead in the exchange. (A battleship can be constructed in five hours of real time, a Dreadnought takes more than two weeks and requires a station in a High Sovereignty Rated area to build.) They also retorted that while there was no way GoonSwarm could outspend KenZoku in the long run, that was not true of GoonSwarm plus all of the Northern Coalition. And even more, they claimed that KenZoku ships had performed so poorly against the Goon Fleet in the last week that the Goons now owned virtually all of the W-4 constellation; having free run of the area and the majority of Station Towers in most systems. It would take a week for the Sovereignty map to catch up with the status, but they had already accomplished the first goal in their conquest of Delve...

And that's where things stand as best I can tell.

It seems likely that GoonSwarm does have the W-4 constellation in hand. It seems unlikely that KenZoku will be able to hold off the Goon Fleet in W-4, bring enough of their own Stations into the area, and tilt the balance to reset the one week timer. It's still an open question what Delve will look like by the time United Legion, Against ALL Authorities, and Red Alliance finish gobbling up the former Goon territory and are free to enter the fight. Also unknown is how much of KenZoku's claims to un-ending resources to spend on the conflict is real and how much is propaganda. It is quite clear that despite BoB/KenZoku's reputation for PVP in the past, they are losing badly in every engagement against the Goons unless the Goons themselves make an error. That could change in either direction if the allies of one side lose interest in the fight.

For a boring game to play, it really does make a fascinating spectator sport.

*waves a small "Go Goons!" pennant*

---

OMG

And now for your Daily Irony:

KenZoku committed themselves to (what was intended to be) an extended counterattack with their heaviest elements tonight. A mixed fleet of Capital Ships from both KenZoku and various Pet factions. In the engagement, KenZoku lost nine Capitals of their own, including a Mothership, for no equivalent kills on the other side.

KenZoku retreated and the Goon Fleet returned to their task of destroying a Large sized Tower. While they were so-occupied and just over two hours after the destruction of the Capital Ships, KenZoku surprise-teleported another fleet of Capitals into the midst of the Goons. This time the fleet contained a Titan.

But the fleet didn't include any other support ships to keep them from getting swarmed...

The Goon Fleet has destroyed a KenZoku Titan.

But wait, there's more...

Amongst EVE's hundreds of thousands of players, there aren't a lot of them with Skills that will permit them to pilot a Titan (just as there are a limited number of the ships themselves). The Titan was piloted by a player named Shrike. Shrike has now had a total of no less than four Titans shot out from under him; more than any other Titan pilot.

Further...

After losing the first one, he named his second ship Darwin's Contraption. He named both his third and now his fourth Titan Darwin's Revenge.

And today...is Darwin's Birthday!

---

For those still keeping score: half an hour after downing the Titan, the Goons sank another six KenZoku Carrier ships that either showed up late to the party or didn't have sense enough to leave earlier. That's 15 in one day, each representing over two weeks of Real Time investment; it matches the loss that Haargoth Agamar inflicted on Black Nova when he handed their corporate Capital fleet to the Goons. (I wonder how many of those ships were flying in the Goon fleet tonight?) Along with the Destroyed Titan, the fifteen capital ships, and a *second* possibly-Titan-containing Capital Ship Assembly Array that was destroyed with tonight's demolished KenZoku Large Station Tower, players are asking if this represents the most expensive 24hr string of losses in EVE history.

---

I've found some more information about what went on in the last nine days. However, it may just be a matter for the history books now. It's still too early to know for sure, and it's possible the holiday is just interfering (though time zones put it a day earlier for Europe), and I suppose it's conceivable that it's a deliberate strategy; but at the moment BoB/KenZoku appears to be....

...well...

...Broken.

No engagement on the scale of the previous week has happened in the last 48 hrs. There was a small battleship skirmish, in which Shrike was defeated, again, in an absurdly fit Apocalypse Battleship (Apocalyspes get bonuses to Laser range, making them effective snipers at 100 km; they get no bonuses to Smartbombs which are 5 km PBAoEs. Comments are at the bottom of the page). Saturday night FinFleet attempted to put up five Large stations in the 1-A constellation (rather than the w-4 one where most action has occured), but three were destroyed before activation, one was destroyed before fueling, and the fifth was immediately put into "reinforcement mode". The largest number of ships KenZoku has had in any area appears to be 300 and they didn't attempt anything significant.

They just seem unwilling to engage. Unopposed, there are now some 40 KenZoku stations in "reinforcement mode" and on a timer to being destroyed. This is out of approximately 137 as of Thursday; most of these in the "J-L" system with 108 moons. On Thursday afternoon there were a claimed 117 GoonSwarm stations. If this continues, GoonSwarm could clear the constellation of KenZoku Sovereignty in another two days, with those systems already flipped appearing in the Sovereignty map in the middle of next week.

Things have quietened down enough that, on two occasions, fleets of small Frigates and Cruisers from Alliances unrelated to the conflict (PuPPet Masters, Force of Evil, and Minor Threat) flew through Delve in what appears to be a joy ride. Unoccupied with anything else, the three Pandemic Legion Titans in the area obliterated them both en mass with their Doomsday weapons. The second time they did this, the PL fast attack squadrons complained that their fun was being stolen, but were countered with "even if they outnumber you they won't engage anyway". A single ship from the first frigate fleet managed to dodge all three Doomsdays, evade the GoonSwarm/Pandemic Legion support flotillas, and make it back to NPC space. Pandemic Legion invited him to put in an application.

Furthermore, there's been a call through the Greater Coalition allied with KenZoku to focus on moving logistics from a particular system of non-PVP NPC space to a staging area in The Delve. It's been suggested that this is actually a cover to hide KenZoku evacuating resources going the other direction. A super-freighter was destroyed in the Delve end of this corridor that contained five Amarr Command Ships packaged for shipment. There's evidence that they belonged to Shrike.

Maybe events will explode tomorrow, but at the moment it looks like KenZoku morale has been shattered. And given extra details that I've learned, that's an entirely reasonable response...

The battle that culminated in the Titan kill actually raged over more than nineteen hours. Over the previous two days, the GoonSwarm side of the conflict had attempted to maintain a continuous presence in the region, 24 hrs a day, rather than having "peak" hours of a few timezones when people logged in. KenZoku, for their part, had put out a public call to all Pet Alliances and Coalition mates (including Against ALL Authorities finally) to make a priority of putting aside RL concerns and getting into the game for a major push. This was referred to as a "Red Pen operation". (I have no idea what the words signify, but it meant something to the board posters.) The tactical focus seemed to be several Capital Ship Assembly Arrays that were coming out of "reinforcement mode" through the mid and late day (North America time) Thursday. With the focus on them, it was speculated that again they contained Titans under construction.

The battle began with the Tau Ceti Federation in France's early morning. Hundreds of battleships were involved, with often 1,000 or more ships in a given system. The numbers on each side shifted throughout the day but remained essentially even. Participants said every time it looked like one side was going to overwhelm the other, reinforcements arrived for the opposition. There were lulls in the fighting, but neither coalition was left in control of the field throughout the day. A pilot jettisons in an escape pod when his ship is destroyed, and the pod itself must be targeted afterward to "kill" them. By noon, records showed that 760 pilots had died in the last 24 hrs in the J-L system alone, with 360 of them occurring in the last sixty minutes.

In the afternoon, GoonSwarm succeeded in preventing the repair of the first CSAA tower to come out of reinforcement and destroyed it. This was during prime time hours in Europe, when KenZoku should have been at their strongest. KenZoku, for its part, managed to repair several stations (without CSAAs) in the QY6 system. Titans' "Jump Engine's" were used to shuttle reinforcements in from staging areas, but didn't approach the battles themselves.

The effort to keep constant numbers eventually turned the balance in GoonSwarm's favor, with the battlefield stretching over 1000 km. The three major Alliances on the GoonSwarm side (Goon Fleet, Pandemic Legion, and Tau Ceti Federation) all had separate commanders and separate communications. the Pandemic Legion commander decided on a whim to withdraw from the battle line and set up an ambush on the QY6 stargate. His group moved under warp speed to the gate and dropped "Interdiction Bubbles", anchored effects tens of kilometers across that prevent warp travel and thus an enemy's escape. As soon as they had arranged themselves for the ambush, Waagaa Ktlehr and a group of KenZoku Carriers and Battleships warped directly into the Interdiction field.

Waagaa Ktlehr piloted an Aeon class Mothership, the second largest class in the game and requiring over a month of Real Time to construct. Once a pilot enters a Mothership, they cannot leave until and unless the ship is destroyed. Waagaa's Aeon was one of the first three constructed after their introduction to the game. He had been piloting it for two years. In his own words "that ship survived more Hot Drops than a cat has lives". Why he brought his Capital Ship group to the stargate is unknown because Capitals are too large to use stargates, they can form their own Cynosurial fields, and stargates are commonly the sites of exactly this kind of ambush.

GoonSwarm Cynosurial fields opened from neighboring systems and in minutes they had over a hundred Dreadnoughts firing on the Mothership with support ships engaging the Carriers and Battleships. The Mothership and other Capitals were destroyed, giving an unambiguous victory to GoonSwarm.

A Goon posted a haiku on the EVE forums commemorating the event:

The red pen descends
pet fleet vastly outnumbered
Aeon: dead on gate

GoonSwarm was in control of the field and everyone thought that Waagaa's defeat had capped the day. The Goon Fleet settled down to mop up stragglers and finish off the remaining two CSAA Towers. Two and a half hours after the Mothership was destroyed, CovertOPs recon ships reported a Cynosurial field opening near the CSAA station. Interdictors were ordered to warp directly to it and try to snare whatever was coming through. Shrike Jumped into the 8WA-Z6 system with another fleet of Capital Ships. One of the Interdictors arrived and threw up an anti-warp bubble and shot the Titan to officially "aggro" it. (This is suicidal for Interdictors, but that's apparently the mentality that "Dictor" pilots have.) Seeing the trap, Shrike took a time-honored route to protecting one's ship: he logged off. But in doing so, he also committed a laughable "noob mistake". If a ship has been aggroed, it remains on the field for fifteen minutes even if the pilot logs off. Goon and Northern Coalition pilots jumped into the system from all over Delve. Some tried to make it in from as far away as Querious to get their name on the "killmail" list. There was no fight, no Doomsday, Shrike's Titan simply died. A fourth time.

But it turns out the humiliation goes even deeper than that. Shrike is actually an alt character of Sir Molle. Molle is the CEO of BoB/KenZoku! He's the head honcho, el Jefe, man-in-charge, he who calls the shots, The BOSS.

So KenZoku brought all the force it could muster, managed a draw at best throughout the day Thursday, failed to stop the destruction of their Capital Ship Assembly Arrays with whatever they contained, lost a legendary ship, lost a Titan, had their leader become (more of) a laughing stock, and the KenZoku coalition suffered the greatest losses for a single day in EVEs history amounting to hundreds of billions in currency. Said leader then further humiliated himself the next day. The Greater BoB Coalition of Alliances was based, not on mutual interest of territorial powers, but on subordination of many lesser powers who's interest was in being associated with "the best" Alliance in the game. "KenZoku" is a different name without the weight of success that "BoB" carried and stands as a reminder for the theft of that name.

Beyond that, territorial Sovereignty is being lost to what is being called the most prolific "Tower Spam" in EVE's history. The primary Fleet Commander for Pandemic Legion praised GoonSwarm Logistics for being able to have a Station emplaced, anchored, activated, and begin fueling "within seconds" of a KenZoku tower being destroyed. Goon Logistics was also efficient enough to have their Dreadnought forces martialed and moved to Delve within four days of hostilities being opened and during a mass migration. This is to say nothing of being able to keep supply of ammunition and tower fuel available around the clock. It's possible that even if KenZoku has more money, they might not be able to utilize it as efficiently as GoonSwarm.

It may be that KenZoku has had their morale broken and simply given up. If that's so, then here is your Daily Irony dating back a year to the first Delve Invasion.

EDIT: RAZOR Alliance propaganda flier.

---

KenZoku still refuses to engage in large numbers. Moderate sized fights took place in the 4K-TRB and 5BTK-M systems. In the 4K-TRB fight, KenZoku managed to inflict 31 to 3 Battleship losses on GoonSwarm. That minor victory is overshadowed by multiple Battleships lost in 5BTK-M, two KenZoku Stations destroyed, and another Carrier caught in a GoonSwarm interdiction bubble alone and sunk.

The Psychological Front is going just as badly for KenZoku. Their failures on the field have undercut their "we will crush you" meme and GoonSwarm has switched tactics from division to ridicule. Since GoonSwarm owns the corporate name "Band of Brothers", two individuals are now posting under that corporate affiliation with the names "Sir Molley" and "SirTrolle". They are satirizing recent events and damage control spin from KenZoku, pretending to post from KenZoku's point of view.

However, while I can't pin down details, it does appear that the GoonSwarm Coalition has suffered a significant loss in the last few days. A member of the Pandemic Legion named WarGod "rage quit" and said that he was tired of leaving and then being brought back only to get sick of it again. Thus he needed to "burn his bridges" so that he would never be asked back again. He stole 34 million in game-money and 14 Dreadnoughts from a Pandemic Legion constituent corporation.

After this event, Tyrrax Thorrk posted on the EVE forums that he himself was in fact WarGod. Tyrrax Thorrk is the leader of the Guiding Hand Social Club, the organization that pulled off the ten-month corporate infiltration and theft that made gaming headlines in 2005. There is of course no way to be sure, but if this is true then the mercenary GHSC has ironically inflicted more damage on the Pandemic Legion than KenKoku has managed in the last week.

There's no word on where the Dreadnoughts are now, but GHSC's normal mode of operation is to sell such items on the open market (having no use for them themselves). A Pandemic Legion spokesperson later claimed that through some "social engineering", he had recovered "most of" the lost assets.

Earlier in the week, Tyrrax congratulated The Mittani on the dissolution of "BoB" and lamented that he didn't know how he was going to top the exploit. I'm sure he's still thinking on it.

Beyond that sideshow things very much seem to be going GoonSwarm's way. Goon control is beginning to appear in the Sovereignty map (yellow dots in the lower part of Delve; not the westernmost as I'd previously said. Told you it was hard to figure out placenames.)

During an interview immediately following the dissolution of their Alliance, a Band of Brother's spokesman tried to dismiss the importance of the name. He stated that originally they had been "Cookies Cream Cake and Pie (the CCCP)", but that CCP (the Devs of the game) objected to the name and forced them to take another. "We didn't want that name anyway" the spokesman said. During the same radio broadcast, The Mittani said the best thing to hear from an opponent when you take something form them was that they "didn't want it" to begin with.

This has become a running joke amongst the Goons. After a new event, someone will post "They didn't want that "<system/fleet/tower/sovereignty/Mothership/Titan>" anyway!" Each iteration of the joke becomes a larger loss.

Speculation among third parties has switched from "who will win in Delve?" to "when/what will Against ALL Authorities do?" They are an extremely large Alliance that is nominally aligned with KenZoku. Yet they have made little participation in the Delve fighting. They showed up during Thursday's Red Pen operation, but were not there for the heaviest fighting. Instead, they are fighting major fleet engagements against United Legion over the abandoned Goon-space. If Against ALL Authorities committed themselves to the campaign, they might be able to bring C0ven and Stain Empire with them. Coven has a great deal of enmity for the Goons and the Stain Empire has a Pandemic Legion-like reputation for "small but fierce". After the failed Delve Invasion in 2008, GoonSwarm attacked Stain Empire and were thrown back with painful losses; thereafter leaving them alone.

If I may armchair-quarterback for a moment, this is the worst strategic move in the entire war. It is true that AAA is a Russian based group with the timezone that that implies, but their focus should still be the Delve campaign. Even if other Alliances are taking open-territory that they want, those systems aren't going anywhere. The Goons on the other hand are in the middle of a Hail-Mary assault. AAA could have struck a bargain with KenZoku that they would commit themselves to assisting with conquest of any neighboring systems AAA wished in return for full effort in wiping out the Goons while they were vulnerable. Any of the battles in the last week might have gone the other way with more numbers on KenZoku's side; which Against All Authorities have. Broader coverage would also have made it harder for the Goon Coalition to destroy or emplace Towers.

Instead, an end to KenZoku (if that is what is happening) will mean that many of the larger Alliances will have to find a new enemy to fight. They might turn on each other without BoB/KenZoku to pressure solidarity, but that seems a little rash. Better to find an opponent outside the current alignments. If Delve falls, Against ALL Authorities will have the largest territory of any Alliance by default and will remain the last threat from the old "BoB" balance of power. Furthermore, they will be immediate neighbors for the Northern Coalition on their North (TCF's Wicked Creek), South (TCF's Omist), and West (NC controlled Querious).

With AAA support, KenZoku might win. If Delve falls, Against ALL Authorities will be the next target.

---

Message posted from GoonSwarm CEO Darius Johnson to KenZoku and Friends:

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

I believe it's pretty clear to you by now that we are pretty systemically destroying you. Within a very short period of time Delve will belong to Goonswarm and camped into stations or not, there is nothing at all you can do about it. Were I Remedial this would be about the time I'd offer you terms of surrender. I am not Remedial however. I do not want nor care for your surrender. I want every single second of this to hurt. I want it to be as painful for you as possible and I have the people behind me to make this happen.

PL, the NC, UNL, ZAF, ALL of those you have been so ****y with in your "supremacy" of the game, while hilariously losing to them repeatedly, they are all here and they are all in your house destroying your work. No amount of spin or damage control you do here can save your stations. No amount of bull**** can save your alliance. You are finished. You have no clothes anymore and are found wanting. Nobody is fooled any longer and we are destroying you while you hide and look for hacks that can save you. There is no bat phone. There is no savior. There is only me and my friends.

So Kenny, look back with fondness on your days as a "force" in eve. Remember kindly your "contributions" and your "place in Eve history". I own all of that now and I will remove every last piece of it. You are splayed on the table before me and my allies and I will give you no quarter. No more convos from your pets asking for standings. No more convos from your corps asking for standings. Save it. This will be painful. You will not like it and I will be there the entire time twisting the knife every inch of the way. I don't want this to end easily for you or yours. I do not want a safe evacuation for anyone.

You are finished and this pleases me.

Send a few more sms's to people's phones if you want release. Call a few more people's RL jobs or intrude more on people's RL lives. Squirm and squiggle and try as you may to escape the noose. You cannot. I and mine own you now and it is right and delicious. Die slowly please. Me and mine are savoring this.

Your time is over. This is as it should be.

---

It turns out that AAA was actually fighting against BoB and with GoonSwarm + Company in a previous war. The BoB offensive was limited, much as the first Delve Invasion's was, by GoonSwarm Sovereignty effects. Not finding their progress satisfactory, they looked for another avenue of attack. BoB bribed Evil Thug, the leader of AAA, to switch sides in the conflict.

BoB formed up for another offensive and sent signal to Evil Thug, who then had GoonSwarm's Towers in the region simply turned off. GoonSwarm instantly lost Sovereignty in the same way that BoB did a week and a half ago, though on a smaller scale. Free from Cyno-jammers, BoB surged into Goon-space. GoonSwarm eventually threw them back, but the base betrayal of the Goons and all their other Coalition-mates was remembered.

The inclusion of "UNL" (United Legion) in Darius Johnson's list of allies was the last piece. I'd heard nothing about the United Legion and where their allegiances lay, nor had I seen them in the Delve battle lists. In a search they're there, almost microscopically, but fighting on the GoonSwarm side. They've instead been fighting Battleship engagements with AAA in the South. I'd thought this was just squabbling over the spoils of Goon-space. But it's more harassment for an ally of KenZoku.

Instead of being "maybe the opponent they will attack instead of looking to each other" as I'd speculated, Against ALL Authorities has a cross-hairs on their foreheads painted there by the Alliances that are winning this war. Once Delve and Querious are taken, AAA will be completely surrounded on all sides. They really should have thrown their weight behind KenZoku.

Always stand with an ally, especially when you think it will hurt.

---

There are a few flottillas of fast cruisers and such looking for lone ships to pounce, but they and anything larger than them will run from anything that looks like it might turn into a serious fight. The majority of KenZoku ships that log on are hiding inside Station shields and refusing to come out if there are significant Goons in-system.

On Saturday, the Goons became so disgusted with a battle fleet of their "elite PVP" opponent refusing to come out that they brought in Interdictors and threw up a couple dozen warp bubbles around the station. (I've seen several pictures, but can't find any that are easily linkable.) They left some support there to shoot anyone who stuck their nose out and the rest wandered off to wreck everything in the system unopposed.

There's some speculation this is The New Plan(tm): just hide and wait until the goons get bored and go away. That's roughly what happened last time with people simply not enjoying trading towers in the same system over and over. All else equal, KenZoku has about three weeks before any systems they still have Sovereignty in regain Cyno-jammers and movement in them becomes much more difficult for an attacker. It sucks as plans go, but may be all KenZoku leadership is willing to risk at this point.

It's not going to work this time though. Firstly, it's been made clear to the Goons that this is an all or nothing campaign; if they don't take any constellations they won't have any to go home to. Secondly, the Goons have already had a taste of the most intense fleet combat EVE has seen in its history. Since they are getting the food-pellet "sometimes", they'll push the lever many times when they want "food". Thirdly, they're winning. And finally, Darius' statement was perfectly timed and ideally crafted to armor the Goons against that kind of boredom.

The no-quarter policy means there's no uncertainty about where the end-point of the campaign is. The erase-their-works-from-the-earth and I-want-to-make-you-hurt policies means the Goons can take satisfaction from what might otherwise be tedium. The Goons are pretty simple animals. They want to have fun and see neat things happen. They don't have to be "the best at PVP" to go home satisfied. They don't have to be "the richest" or "the biggest" or "the strongest". After Darius' statement, even if KenZoku refuses to come out and fight, the Goons can destroy a few stations and log off with the fact they are making EVE history by "getting rid of BoB". Even if KenZoku refuses to engage, the Goons can smash some stations and know that they took something their opponent's valued; they made them hurt.

I think the Goons get underestimated because of their "lolz wut?" posting, but if you back off and look at them they're incredibly dangerous in this game. Morale is almost painfully important in EVE because if players have little expectation of "winning" they won't log on. The Goons though, are very difficult to dispirit. They freely and self-effacingly acknowledge they are terrible pilots. They gleefully own the moniker "worst Alliance in EVE". They're just there to goof around and do crazy things. If they go into a fight and lose, so what? That was what was supposed to happen. If they go into a fight and win, that's even more enjoyable than it otherwise would be!

Out of game, derision from an opponent bounces off of them. "You're not as good was we are at this game" is met with "yeah...so?" Since they are so un-pompous there's little they can't laugh at. Even The Mittani posts in a non-serious style. In his announcement post taking credit for disbanding BoB, he declared that he was "mitten, a mighty SPACE TYRANT~, i focus my space tyranny on the v. important job of being 1. warm 2. fuzzy". How do you mock that?

Yet that self-image isn't true any more. The Goons still take in lots of new people all the time, giving them large numbers, but they aren't an Alliance of "n00bs in frigates" anymore. There's a solid core of skilled and well equipped players now. Moreover, they have a very smart and coordinated leadership. The combination of the two means that in the long term, GoonSwarm is utterly determined and in the short term, they just don't give a [censored]. They can do things that pride would forbid others from doing; if they suicide a fleet to achieve an objective, so what?

They can also survive things that would damage the self-image of another Alliance. This morning a lone Goon Battleship called for fire-support, and due to some mis-communication the Pandemic Legion Fleet Commander ordered a Titan Doomsday Device to fire on its location. The only thing destroyed in the blast was the Goon Apocalypse. BoB would have found such an incident blush-worthy; the Goons think it's the second funniest thing they've seen all week! Also, the Goons actually lost a Mothership of their own two days before Waagaa was brought down. But it just wasn't important to them.

From an opponent's perspective though, being attacked by the Goons has to be painful. Besides the high-level coordination for psy-war, there's a continuous torrent of trolls and spam from the rank and file. Any attempt to fight back or vent makes you a target. Any riposte is either in-effective or thrown back at you: "how does it feel to get your butt kicked by the worst Alliance in EVE?"

You basically can't break Goon morale. The only ways to stop the GoonSwarm are to either completely deny them movement in your territory and allow them no foothold to attack from or to have them lose interest and go elsewhere. KenZoku seems utterly incapable of doing the former. Darius Johnson has closed off possibility for the latter.