The lowsec system of Hakonen, in the Lonetrek region of the Caldari State, became the scene of a bloody battle between the forces of the Imperium and their enemies from both lowsec and nullsec. Over 1300 pilots participated in the fighting, which saw members of every alliance in the Imperium facing off against Northern Coalition. (NCdot), Pandemic Legion (PL), Dead Terrorists (DT), The-Culture (TC), Mercenary Coalition (MC), Shadow Cartel (SC), Project.Mayhem. (16-13), Snuffed Out (Snuff), Suddenly Spaceships (CYN0), Psychotic Tendencies (TISHU), Hax. (HAX.), Metallurgy Incorporated (MTLGY), The OSS (OSS), Rapid Withdrawal (RDRAW), and Goats With Frickin’ Rocket Launchers (MEEHH).
The battle was fought to determine the fate of a pair of Circle-Of-Two (CO2) moon-mining towers. One of the pair had previously been reinforced by Snuffed Out, and the engagement featured some of the heaviest fighting seen in the Northwest of EVE in quite some time. Both sides brought expensive fleet arrays, with many of the lowsec alliances banding together to field Machariels, while NCdot and TISHU brought an armor-based strategic cruiser fleet. PL added a Vulture fleet to the mix, with Culture/OSS/HAX Cerberuses, and Pandemic Horde Cormorants as support fleets.
On the defending side, the Imperium fielded a Machariel fleet from CO2 as well as another mixed-alliance Machariel fleet from Goonswarm, TNT, SMA, and other coalition partners staging out of Saranen. Bastion and LAWN brought their own armor T3 fleet, and The Initiative brought Ishtars. These fleets were supplemented by an FCON mixed-tackle fleet, and the latest iteration of the Imperium’s Fuck-You Fleet of EWAR ships.
Early in the fight, good positioning gave the attackers a significant advantage. The NCdot fleet was able to focus on the Imperium logistics group. At the same time, the combined lowsec Machariels turned their guns on the same Imperium fleet’s battleships. After trading Machariels for T3s in heavy Time Dilation for over an hour, the Imperium forces began to turn the tide. As attacking fleets began to withdraw, the defending forces moved into mop-up operations, finishing off trapped battleships and triage carriers.
In the end, the total losses for the battle stand in excess of 180 billion ISK. Attacking forces suffered over 90b in casualties while inflicting just over 80bn in damage to the defenders. With both towers saved, the Imperium won both the ISK war and the strategic objective.
A bird’s-eye view of the extremely chaotic battleground.
TMC reached out to the participants. While the responses were generally positive, some FCs did wish things could have gone a little better:
Raknor Bile (The-Culture): “So I hadnt planned on forming for this timer. I was hoping to go do something in fountain or CR, but it looked like everyone was turning up to the lowsec fight. I decided I would form and head on down to see what I could do. Turns out it wasn’t a great deal. I fragged about 20 ships then headed home when snuff decided to call it a day.”
Apple Pear (Imperium FYF FC): “Had one or our newer FC´s form a FYF with me as backseat. During the fight I took over because he had to much lag. With the FYF, we first damped out machs and later logi legions. With the TIDI we went for scanres so it took even longer for them to lock things up. I´m not impressed with the new hardware yet. There was so much lag and lot off people got disconnected and had to relog. It was a amazing fight anyway. My fleet had alot of fun.”
Hy Wanto Destroyer (Snuffed Out FC): “We came as we had reinforced a tower belonging to C02 the previous day and showed up for the out-timer with a full Machariel fleet. We entered system, warped to the pos, and the fight began with us mainly focusing the goon mach fleet. While we were melting machs, NCdot was also getting melted, which meant NCdot had to ping off and back leaving us to be focused by two full Mach fleets and a 200 man T3 and init in armour Ishtars (lol??). They slowly broke us down and we had to bail. Was a good fight. We enjoyed it, and hope goons did too ;)”
Jed Stevens (Bastion/LAWN joint fleet FC): “We formed for the timers in style and showed up. Before the Hakonen fight started, we got slowed down by OSS cerb fleet that caught some of our stragglers. We engaged them and drove them off. We then proceeded to Hakonen where we set up with the rest of the coalition in preparation for the initial engagement. Upon the Imperium landing on the planet 9 tower the only hostile fleet present was OSS cerbs we warped on top of them at zero and got the initial kills of the Hakonen fight.
One other note is I got headshotted by PM/Snuff/DT Machariels after NC. Warped off field towards the end of the fight. At that point, cainun took over the fleet and cleaned up the field.”
Sister Bliss (The Initiative FC): “Not a lot to say really, we Leeroyed over and bought a cheapy config in Jita and came in a small gang to take part. Tidi was quite heavy, so not sure how much people enjoyed the fight, we shot stuff, stuff warped off, can’t really say how it ended.”
Madison Utama (FCON FC): “Yeah, well we started off trying to bring a proper fleet comp, but had issues getting a booster. So after about 20 minutes, I reformed a destroyer fleet to help try and hold people on grid for the much larger Goon fleet. TiDi was at 10%, and I had a fair number of newbro’s who were unaccustomed to such experiences. But, we got on grid and were immediately instructed to tackle as much as possible. So, thats whats we did. I also primaried a random Machariel.
This fellow was taken down as a result. Luck of the draw!
We continued to bounce targets, until we were instructed to hunt boosters. We were told they were on the 9-9 station, so thats where we went. 3 Astartes were sitting just off the undock with their boostiness, but seemed to be affronted when we locked them up, and they docked. We forced them to stay inside for the remainder of the fight. After the red fleet extracted we tried to catch stragglers, then came back to the grid to oversee the last repping of the POS. All-in-all, a good fleet.”
FCs Sebastien Saintfrusquin of CO2 and Poission Kevin of NCdot provided fairly complete battle reports of their own, which we will reproduce on page 2, given their collective length.
At this point, neither Tau Ad of Project.Mayhem, nor Jay Amazingness, FC of the Imperium Machariel fleet from Saranen, have responded to requests for comment. This article will be updated if that changes.
When asked for comment, The Mittani’s response consisted of the following: