Just a few hours ago, Asher Elias (Executor of The Imperium) posted to Reddit to announce that The Imperium will be leaving the Tranquility Trade Consortium group (TTC), effective from an undisclosed time on June 15. While no specific announcement of a siege of the Perimeter “Tranquility Trade Tower” (TTT) has been announced, it does now seem likely that will happen soon(tm).
What is the TTT?
Unless you live in the deep drone-lands and never leave, you know what the TTT is. It’s the giant Keepstar, in the system right next to Jita. Y’know, the one with all the favorable taxes compared to the NPC stations? Well, those favorable taxes have been providing income to the empires of Nullsec for a number of years.
The TTT Keepstar was first deployed by TEST Alliance back in 2018. At the time, Vily stated the following: “We aim to provide safety and security to all members of the high-sec community. This is about stability and benevolent leadership and assistance to the people of high-sec. We all came from high-sec and now we can give something back.”
This then became an asset for a Consortium of major powers in nullsec in 2019, when TEST agreed to partner with both The Imperium and Pandemic Horde to split profits from the collective assets of the TTC group. By this point, the TTC group had expanded beyond Perimeter across the Forge region, and included a number of industrial structures alongside the main market Keepstar. Later, in 2021, Fraternity were also added to this profit-sharing agreement.
The vast majority of Nullsec power has been represented within this Consortium for the last 5 years, and the Imperium withdrawing with almost immediate effect is a major signal to the rest of the Nullsec groups that the Imperium is no longer willing to play with others in this manner.
As a result, Asher’s announcement is a big threat to the passive income of those groups who count on it. Hundreds of billions – if not trillions – of ISK a month is flowing through the TTC group structures and into these different organizations, in exchange for very little effort overall. This amount of ISK is more than enough to make defending, or destroying, the tower a major issue for the whole of EVE Online.
Why Now?
The biggest reason comes directly from CCP, and Asher’s reddit statement acknowledges this. In the Viridian expansion, CCP has announced that no more XL structures may be anchored in High Security space. Effectively, this makes the TTT Keepstar a one-and-done kill, with no possibility of being replaced.
As we know, Keepstars are tuned so that capitals are the proper tool for killing them, and having a Keepstar in Highsec means it will require fleets of battleships to destroy it. This is before we get into the myriad issues of dealing with Highsec gameplay; there are issues with CONCORD responses, faction standings, using logistics ships, and even the wider crimewatch system slowing down the system. The last time the TTT was driven even close to destruction was in 2018, during The Imperium’s deployment to Hakonen, which took place before the coalition joined the TTC.
Following this patch, the only possibility for a replacement is a Fortizar, and even if someone wants to “put it back up” it would only be possible using a Fortizar; these structures, however, are almost trivial to remove in Highsec when compared to the XL Upwell structures. This redeployment, and then broad adoption, of a replacement setup is highly unlikely.
The Reddit post also sees Asher point out some major systemic problems with the membership of the TTC itself. B2, a sizable coalition in its own right, was precluded from membership early this year. Meanwhile, a (ahem) much diminished TEST Alliance still claims a share of the TTC profits for its (checks Dotlan) all of 3000 members.
The Will of the People
About Fucking Time
Brisc Rubal
If Reddit comments are anything to go by (admittedly, they usually aren’t), much of the EVE community has wanted the TTT Keepstar destroyed for a long time. Anti-TTT threads and discussions are a monthly touchstone on the r/eve forum, and this announcement is no different. More than 200 comments have been added to the thread as of the time of writing (about 1hr since posting). The vast majority of these posts are either in support of The Imperium’s departure, or in support of the destruction of the TTT, or in fact, both of these situations.
It is highly likely that former Imperium member The Initiative. will also be happy to join in such an event. When discussing leaving The Imperium on the Meta Show of June 4, Dark Shines made a point of noting that they were moving away from the TTC – this may have helped prompt this move, alongside the recent patch notes. This seems like a good moment to mention that INIT. have a long history of making ‘unkillable keepstars’ go away.
Regardless of who steps up to shoot the Keepstar moving forward, this is sure to be an exciting way to kick the summer into high gear. I, for one, am tired of krabbing and look forward to another series of historic fights. Here’s hoping that the servers can handle fighting next door to Jita.
