During the siege of 9-4RP2, Imperium forces onlined a number of citadels around the Keepstar to offer safe spots for friendly forces. These have been abandoned and been left to face assault from PH and friends forces. With the Hull timer taking a week to go into effect, the stage was set for a fight.
There was no plan to defend the citadels, more to use them as a platform to generate content from. So with 1,200 players in the system and 10% Tidi, fighting started. It wound up being a 168bil ISK brawl in the system.
We sat down with an Imperium FC Qicia.
INN: For people who were not present at the fight, can you tell me what happened?
[BASTN] Qicia: The Imperium had left over citadels from the Keepstar engagements which led to the big fight in 9-4 a couple weeks back. PH and friends put the citadels that were on grid with the Keepstar into final reinforcement. There were about a dozen citadels or so in final ref which meant there would be a chaotic attempt to finish all of the final timers in one go. Killmails!
INN: So the Imperium were more interested in kills than saving the structures?
Qicia: Yup, pretty much. The citadels are a dime a dozen. Easy content generators under what was hoped to be little to no tidi for engaging. However, the node wasn’t reinforced so even with the 1200 in the system the node still went to 10% tidi but overall teetered back and forth. If we saved some citadels great! Just means PH and friends need to go through the reinforcement stages again. Which we all love.
INN: How was the fighting, PH and friends would have had to spread the forces to meet all the timers.
Qicia: Fighting was good. It was less serious than the previous engagements. Objectives were met on both sides. Capital groups attempted to spread the workload via smaller groups of fighters on each timer. We had multiple fleets on the grid to contest each timer. Priority changing constantly. It was fun.
INN: That’s always good to hear that you enjoyed yourselves, have you seen the Battle report?
Qicia: I have and I watched the bombing of the TFI’s [Ed: Tempest Fleet Issues] live and on the stream afterwards. Great play by INIT. I don’t mean to downplay everything else that occurred during the fight but that one bombing run by INIT was awesome! Even more so that it was recorded. I’m sure there will be some good videos of it pop up.
INN: I’ll make sure to look into it for the report [Ed: We have not as yet been able to source footage of the bombing run]. What do you think is next for the Imperium and PH and friends?
Qicia: I’m not 100% sure where the next big event for both sides will happen. Some say it would depend on the outcome of current wars in Providence and Insmother. Deployments aren’t out of the question for any entity, with the citadel mechanics in their current and future form. Sigs (mini deployments) are favourable. Committing less but doing more. Allowing to pivot at any time when something changes. There has been some encroachment on the radar…so I expect after this next patch we will see the next big move from coalitions or solo alliances trying to stay relevant.
INN: Structures 2.0 will bring some big changes, do you think they will be for the better or worse?
Qicia: For the most part the change will be for the better. There has been sufficient outcry by the community. Notably Arrendis and Dirk’s articles. Why go to war nowadays with citadels the way they are? Back in the day, you could come out with a revenue stream from a war to help fund/SRP the costs incurred. Lucrative moons that were POS’d with reactions, this meant meaningful reasons to try and take someone’s jar of cookies. For about a year it’s been hit a citadel…wait…hit the same citadel again…wait…hit it again and hopefully have success in anchoring your own citadel. Maybe some enjoy this process and that’s fine. You can’t make everyone happy. The way POS’s worked back in the day was a huge chore for a select group of people and I believe those individuals are a rare breed because it was shit work. Huge props to those individuals and their efforts over such a long stretch of time.
There is no end all easy solution and it’s implementation of eve’s issues. There will always be problems in any game. It boils down to the eve community and the majorities willingness to roll with the punches CCP provides us.
INN: That’s some good insight and you do raise a good number of points. Is there anything else you wish to add/say?
Qicia: Eve has had a diverse social community for long time. People want to blame CCP for the sake of blaming CCP without any sort of rationality to their outbursts. For me, the big step forward came from CCP Fozzie on the Talking in Stations show the other week. The amount of time, energy and passion these individuals put into EVE deserve a tip of the hat. Whether you are Blue, Red or neutral it’s our game, our galaxy and we all live in it together. So just chill out and make the best of it. Hope to see you on grid.
INN: Thanks again for your time tonight, and yes, we’ll see you on grid soon
