HALLOWEEN DOOOOOOOOMPLOMATIC UPDATE
Ministry – Everyday is Halloween
It’s no longer technically Halloween, but as Ministry says – every day is Halloween.
We’re back! Sorry for the interruption in service, folks. It’s been a crazy couple of months for me. Your humble narrator is sheltered once more by the steel grey skies, gentle, misty rain, dramatic mountains, storm-tossed oceans and lush forests of his beloved Pacific Northwestern homeland, and happily back at work.
Type O Negative – Black No. 1 (Little Miss Scare -All) [OFFICIAL VIDEO]
Little wolfskin boots, and clove cigarettes..
No longer wishing daily for New York and New Jersey to be destroyed in nuclear fire, I’m back to writing diplo updates, double tall nonfat mocha (no whip) from Cafe Vivace in hand. That’s not to say there weren’t problems – even the fucking power went out when I was writing the last few sections of this update – but it’s fucking 2015 and we have smartphones and tethering now, so that was hardly the end of the world.
Spread your wings of steel…
Since it’s (just after) Halloween, that spookiest time of year, while you read this update you’re going to be a captive audience for the gloomy club hits of my youth. Fear not – to misquote the Blues Brothers, we have both kinds of music: goth and industrial.
The Imperium
This one’s for The Mittani, who I happen to know is a VNV fan. If you ever get the opportunity to go to a VNV Nation show, you should – for a tubby bald guy, Ronan Harris has amazing stage presence and they give a great performance. Dude loves his work. I’ve been to like six and it’s always a blast.
We closed out the Content Ring deployment in fine style, demonstrating that heavy entosis ships work much better than interceptor sov laser doctrines. We’re pretty sure we’ve got FozzieSov nailed down — at least until the citadel and capital changes hit. Then, of course, October saw the run-up to EVE Vegas and the event itself, which I am assured was fun for everybody, including the SWAT team (not even joking) that was called on the Imperium party. And if you haven’t already, you should back the Fountain War novel kickstarter!
BASTN has enjoyed the attentions of Mordus Angels; MOA has pivoted from NPC Pure Blind to the NPC constellation in Geminate, where they can poke at the eastern end of the Imperium instead as they probe for chinks in our armor. They haven’t found any, as LAWN and BASTN have this shit locked down tight, though my old buddy Kippig did welp a GENTS-built titan in a driveby gone wrong while out truffleKippiging. Rather astonishingly, this was the first loss of any of my old space nation’s alliance-built titans. Kippig was by far the most active user of his titan in PVP in the eastern Imperium, so it was only a matter of time, and it had a good run — his Erebus was called primary for a good twenty minutes during BR-5 and lived. Had it just been MOA on their own, it might have gotten out, but MOA is receiving backup from NCDOT and Out Of Sight. They have also tried to engage lowsec powerhouses Snuffbox and Hard Knocks, but MOA’s mainly managed to cry ‘Wolf’ a lot and not get them any kills.
LAWN did not destroy a suite at Eve Vegas this year, to everyone’s surprise. They’ve been working with BASTN to keep MOA in line. Otherwise, it’s pretty much business as usual for our favorite gnomes. Wish LAWN CEO Thoric Frosthammer well; he ended up getting hammered by illness rather than booze, and spent EVE Vegas in the hospital. He’s all right now, but still, I feel for the guy. Hope to see you next year, Thoric!
CO2 have been fairly quiet over the last couple of months, aside from a brief corp recruitment issue which was quickly resolved.
EXE is longing for content. Mo’chuisle, their EXEcutor, is optimistic about the capital changes that were announced in Vegas, though there really are not enough content drivers in the game right now to make real wars worthwhile. This isn’t helped by jump fatigue, which even with the five-day maximum fatigue change is still overly aggressive in his opinion.
FCON has been gravely concerned about Karmafleet scanning down wormholes in their space. Otherwise, it’s been a quiet week in Lake Woebegone.
GSF is eagerly awaiting the capital and citadel changes, and our leadership has been working on fun things to fill the meantime. Expect announcements soon.
INIT deployed to Curse in October, as they are wont to do — life in Tenal is boring and good for making money, but it’s bad for loving life, so you pretty much have to deploy places all the time in order to stay sane as an alliance. I had a pretty similar experience when GENTS was living in Branch. Curse is basically INIT’s vacation home, and I hear they finally installed a hot tub in Doril.
Razor has picked up some new corps, most of whom passed their trial membership or had it extended. They’re divided (by a sharp blade?) on whether the cap changes are good or not, and echo EXE’s desire for more decent nullsec content drivers.
SMA now has the same sort of relationship with Content Ring as INIT does with Curse; it’s good to see alliances finding content where they can and having fun around the map. Our simian spacefriends are doing a fine job of keeping the southern border secure.
TNT found themselves in a difficult diplomatic situation and dealt with it with humor and grace. Nice job, guys.
Content Ring and Flyover Regions
Combichrist – Get Your Body Beat
You might know this one from one of Stahlregen’s propaganda videos. Them’s fighting music.
We had a grand old time in Cloud Ring, tussling with PL, Pandemic Horde and everyone else who decided to show up. Now that the goodfights are over, the region has stabilized into a tripod of SMA, Fweddit and Pandemic Horde, with a couple of smaller groups playing tug-o-war over the strategically valuable but economically worthless Yrton constellation. Black Legion refugees The-Culture hold the vital gateway system of B-DBYQ — staging point of most of our Fountain invasions in the past — and the next door constellation in Fountain itself. Content Ring has become the Rick’s American Bar or Mos Eisley Cantina of regions in EVE; it’s a place to keep an eye on.
The Southwest
Mors Syphilitica – Fountain of tears
This is Doc Hammer’s old ethereal band from the 90s. He’s more famous for his cartoon show, The Venture Bros. Yes, that’s the voice actress of Triana Orpheus singing. Trivia: All music in VB is done by a guy named J. G. Thirlwell, better known as the industrial act Foetus.
In the wake of the disbanding of Black Legion, Fountain has balkanized entirely. I’m sure somewhere Fozzie is crowing about this, but it’s not leading to any meaningful fights. Lowsechnaya Sholupen, the feared titankillers of lowsec, have shlooped into the Aridia gateway constellations in the southeast of the region. The Cloud Ring gateway is held by BL expats The-Culture. Longtime Fountain Core residents HUN Reloaded hold the central pipe next to NPC space, a high traffic area that probably nets them some good kills. The rest of the space in the region is held by less notable, less accomplished players who have yet to prove themselves.
It’s worth noting that the alliances holding Fountain space are tiny – more the size of corporations you would find in any Imperium alliance, in the 200-400 character range. This speaks to the low survival pressure they are under, as the logistics challenges of Fountain combined with the lack of conflict drivers for nullsec space make it uninteresting for most entities.
Meanwhile, the Delve Triangle still finds Querious mainly in the hands of DARKNESS. with smaller players holding the outlying constellations. Delve itself is almost entirely composed of the same sort of small, new alliances as Fountain, while Querious is held by RUCA Emperor (Russian-speakers who describe themselves as “combat carebears”) and Hams United, who are aligned squarely against DARKNESSdot, as are many of the tiny Balkan states in Delve. To quote Cindare: “Delve is a goddamn wasteland of sov. This is the future of nullsec under the current paradigm, spacefriends – vast caverns of unclaimed territory in the most lucrative regions the game has to offer.”
Geminate, Drone Regions and the Southeast
Sisters of Mercy, Dominion / Mother Russia
A classic that is more or less obligatory for the Russian-held regions.
The Red Menace/Solar Fleet-XIX war has cooled to a low-intensity border war, probably more for content than anything. UAxDeath, longtime leader of XIX, has taken a renewed interest in EVE and has been much more visible of late, which is great to see as he is a long-time friend of ours and one of the better leaderguys out there. Meanwhile, as mentioned above, MOA has moved to NPC Geminate to hassle our guys in Vale, but it’s MOA, not an actual problem.
The Imperium eagle feasting on its favorite prey. We will carefully ignore the fact that both the Haast’s eagle, pictured here, and its sole prey, the moa, were both hunted to extinction by humans in the 1440s. Astonishingly, they were not killed off by white people.
Obituaries and Notices
Dead stars still burn. Swedish EBM/futurepop band Covenant reliably fills the dance floor, and Dead Stars is a favorite dance track in goth clubs around the world. While the album this track comes from, United States of Mind, is excellent, I think Northern Lights is still their best. A particularly appropriate listen when you’re walking off a night of drinking at Fanfest.
I’m adding a new section to this update because of the truly shocking number of alliance deaths that have happened in the last two months. Be glad your leaders have foresight and wisdom; the list of dead alliances we once considered hostile has grown considerably, and mainly not because of us, but because of failure to adapt to the changing realities of EVE.
First: Black Legion has blacked out for the last time. I’m going to take off my diplomat hat for a second here and speak frankly: Black Legion was a fucking terrible alliance, and I’m glad it’s dead. This is more than sour grapes over aborted GENTS titans: their culture ensured that no real FC talent to speak of would arise other than Elo Knight, and maintained a level of discourse that resembled the juvenile delinquents’ table in a middle school lunchroom. In keeping with that theme, many will recall that several of their members famously stole a handle of rum from one of our party suites at EVE Vegas 2014. They also violated the cardinal rule of diplomacy — they did not keep their word, and made and broke contracts as it suited them. We fought alongside them out of convenience on several occasions, and their impact on nullsec cannot be denied, but unfortunately their leadership was primarily made up of the sort of unrepentant shitlers we cannot abide.
Happily, the phoenix that rose from their ashes is The-Culture, in honor of the late, great Iain M. Banks, whose ripping great SF novels you absolutely must read. Raknor Bile is the man behind -T C-, and he has a much cooler head on his shoulders; we have congenial relations with him and his guys.
Next, BRAVE underwent a transformation that effectively amounts to its disbanding – Brave Collective is essentially dead, with BNI itself creating a new Faction Warfare alliance called Brave Squid, led by Nancy Crow. Nancy is doing a far better job of managing the Brave Newbies than Lychton did; we wish them better luck in the time ahead.
Mangala Solaris announced at EVE Vegas that he was winding up Red vs Blue, which shocked the community; there is an ongoing effort to keep RvB going regardless.
Gentlemen’s Club is “on hiatus” and effectively inactive, having lost much of their membership. You can read their leader’s reason for shutting down the alliance here.
The Kadeshi, the other leg of Sort Dragon’s “Darkeshi” coalition, closed its doors entirely due to internal issues. Its leader, who was Sort’s #2 in Darkeshi, is a Swedish gent by the name of Ltd SpacePig. He has gone on to form a new alliance with some of the former Kadeshi corps called IT’S ONLY PIXELS. They’re focusing on small-gang, low-footprint nullsec warfare for now. Ltd SpacePig is a smart guy with a good plan for his people; I had a good conversation with him a few days ago and I think they’ll be around for a while. Kudos to him for the savvy moves and good luck.
Call The Ships To Port
covenant- call the ships to port
The Sleepers probably prefer Dreams of a Cryotank.
As Mittani has said, now that people are mostly recovered from the chaos of EVE Vegas, we will be launching a new deployment Soon(™). Call the ships to port: make sure you are up to date with the latest doctrine changes and prepare yourselves for blood, as Dear Leader has something very special planned. You might want to take time off work for it!
Grimes – Crystal Ball (Directed by Tim Kelly)
I’ll close this one out with a transcendently beautiful song from gothy yet apparently Billboard-friendly young artist Grimes. ProGodLegend is a big Grimes fan, but don’t let that stop you from listening. Her first album was called ‘Giedi Primes’ and she is pretty amazing.
(Editor’s Note: Alliance Updates are aimed at internal audiences and usually are considered the gospel truth by their membership, but vile propaganda by everybody else. You should definitely know this by now. This update comes to us direct from the author, Kesper North.)
This article originally appeared on TheMittani.com, written by Kesper North.
