The coalition lead by CSM member Sort Dragon, Guardians of the Galaxy, has begun its move from Querious to Tenerifis and Immensea. Under some pressure from incoming alliances Pandemic Legion, Pandemic Horde, and Northern Army, the Guardians coalition negotiated safe passage to its new home further east.

Background

Last year as Phoebe kicked in, alliances positioned themselves to settle in what they would call home for some time. Darkness, of N3 coalition at the time, moved along with Northern Coalition (NC) and Kadeshi to hold on to multiple regions: Delve,Querious, and Period Basis. The three alliances settled comfortably, but when invasions into Fountain proved fruitless and the Imperium (then CFC) counter invasion came, Darkness was dislodged from Delve and put NC under strain in Querious .

The Imperium installed alliances friendly to it in Delve while NC sold Querious to Darkness . NC prefered to wait out the coming sov changes near Providence, in low-sec Derelik. By early 2015, N3 was officially disbanded and Darkness was the last regional powerplayer in Querious. Goonswarm reavers were assaulting the from a stronghold in Khanid. Over time, Darkness and allies reconquered Querious, beating back Ev0ke, Pizza, and Goonswarm Reavers. This marked the beginning of a new coalition, unimaginatively dubbed Guardians of the Galaxy by Darkness’s IT guy. Elise Randolph of Pandemic Legion, and an alliance tournament personality, dubbed them Dumpster Coalition as a gentle nudge, a name detractors embraced as a way of insulting the coalition. For the purposes of TMC, the coalition will be referred to as The Guardians Coalition.

Veteran bloc leader Sort Dragon led The Guardians while in the roles of head FC and CEO of Darkness, the largest alliance in the coalition. Sort is also a seasoned diplomat and sitting CSM member. His fame dates back past the Fountain War. He lead the Honey Badgers Coalition (TEST, Pandemic Legion), and later took on N3, leading Stain Wagon (Russians) into the Battle of B-R5RB. That is a tale for a different article.

Querious has been a peaceful area for the past few months, ushering The Guardians through a prosperous summer and fall. With the announcement of Citadels, planning began on how best to adapt. It was decided that Querious was not suitable as a home once the expensive structures arrived. Querious can easily be sieged from Aridia and Khanid without the opportunity to strike back at those low-sec regions. Deep space would be required to invest in building Citadels.

The plan to leave has been long in the making. With citadels coming and me moving to Australia around the same time we were looking for a place to settle in where it wasn’t so always on. – Sort Dragon, Darkness Alliance

Assault on Querious

A few weeks ago, Sort’s plans were put in motion early, as the Pandemic Horde and Northern Army (NARM) retreated from the Imperium, abandoning what little space they took in Cloud Ring. In late November, Horde landed in L-6BE1 (Querious) after being freeported by its benefactor Pandemic Legion (PL). NARM settled in Gehi (Khanid) a few days later. NC was occupied by fighting up north.

The difference between Horde and NARM is that Horde is a new player alliance, while NARM is a training alliance combined with a new player alliance. Training alliances are considered a “pay your dues” organisation which you eventually graduate from once you have proven yourself. They are usually ignored by their senior alliance, but the “newbro” philosophy, established by Brave Collective a few years ago, ushered in an era of making nullsec safe for very new players. New playerswere given a lot more support and training, while kept isolated from the main organisation to avoid spy infiltration.

Horde and NARM wanted to turn Outer Ring into an arena for new players to fight each other. Brave would be invited and Karmafleet would be nearby. When that didn’t work out, Horde and NARM came down to set that up in Querious, next to the original thunderdome years ago in Delve. There was no intention to invade and remove The Guardians, but Horde and NARM did need some territory to work from. Pandemic Legion started reinforcing sov in the area ahead of Horde’s arrival.

It wasn’t meant to be an invasion, lol. We really wanted Darkness to stay. We discussed it a lot, mostly among ourselves. – NARM leadership.

The Guardians, led by FC Vlade Randall, fought back. PL’s presence in the area made capital use very difficult for The Guardians. Fights were fun by all accounts, and staging systems for each side were reinforced. Darkness was welcomed to stay and be a part of the new Querious.

Horde were awesome to work with, great to fight with the fights went both ways. Gobbins was good to get along with and upfront about what he wanted. PL played a part but up until maybe 3 weeks ago PL had mostly kept out of Querious. A little border skirmishes here and there. But mostly fine, it just got a little more full on recently and I started looking at places to go. – Sort Dragon

Despite the niceties, PL would never miss a chance to kill a super unless it was contractually prohibited, or the super belonged to a rare ally (like NC). PL would not give up an opportunity to take moons,  grabbing ten R64s (Dysprosium) while Sort Dragon was at the EVE Meetup in London for Veto Corp’s 10th Anniversary. This was not a first; long ago, PL moved on Brave’s staging system while its CEO was at fanfest, ultimately collapsing the Alliance’s hold on sov. PL has enough power to take what it wants anyway, but it is an interesting note. The loss of moon income had a demoralising effect on The Guardians, but the calendar also played a role.

What made me say let’s go is realising that the time till I move is coming fast. Christmas is also round the corner and if we didn’t move now it would be unfair to move until after christmas and it was not sure as to what we would still hold after Christmas. A lot more entities were moving in each day. – Sort Dragon

Evacuations are not easy, especially for the members of the retreating alliances. To avoid a turkey shoot, Sort negotiated terms, allowing them safe passage for 48 hours. In return, some ISK was exchanged with PL, and Horde and NARM didn’t have to grind level four sovereignty, something that might take hundreds of hours. The Guardians would drop claims instead, leaving only the stations to be captured.

The Guardians that are moving on together are:

• Darkness
• The Methodical Alliance
• Short Bus Syndicate
• Adaptation
• Blades of Grass
• Echoes of Nowhere
• Mortum Ravagers

Stainwagon

Years ago, Sort Dragon had a leading role in Stainwagon during the Halloween war, but that relationship ended badly while he was away from game. Still, he was able to negotiate some territory for his coalition.

Russians are always hard to deal with but are also crazy loyal. It is true that my former leader (Skilo) broke a deal with SW while I was away from the game. He took the decision to the CEO’s and they wanted to pull out so he did what all alliance ceo should do and that’s keep his members happy within reason.

It has taken 2 years now to repair those walls to even allow for us to consider living next door to each other. They never had to give us this space and we went back and forward with offers and counter offers and they have been amazing so far to allow us to stay autonomous yet still rebuild a previous relationship again.  – Sort Dragon

The terms settled on were a non-aggression pact that included no taking of sov or moons, as well as a prohibition on cloaked camping. This came in exchange some sov space in Tenerifis and Immensea, were the Guardians can settle and look forward to the next phase of sov life.

For its part, Stainwagon is having issues of its own, and may need allies as rumors spread that Against All Authorities and Infamous Alliance are not getting along, one may be splitting off to take over Catch. The destabilization of Red Menace coalition and others in the area is a concern.

Conclusion

So ends The Guardians hold on Querious, and Darkness’ involvement in the area. The Guardians move on, and adapt yet again to coming change. Sort Dragon is optimistic, saying “I am interested to see what the future brings.” When asked if the new coalition would be renamed, he said, “I think the same IT admin was talking about the Avengers today. Who knows.”

Please don’t.

This article originally appeared on TheMittani.com, written by Matterall.