In Fountain on June 26 at roughly 13:35 EVE time in 1-5GBW, the HERO Coalition and Black Legion. (BL) clashed over a supercapital construction POS in the system. BL won both the strategic objective of aborting the supers and won the ISK war.
Black Legion brought a capital fleet and a Legion strategic crusier fleet supported by Guardians and Oneiroses led by raknor bile. To defend, HERO fielded their own smaller capital fleet and an Eagle/Tengu fleet led by Blue Ice supported by Scimitars and Scythes, and a smaller Dominix/Armageddon fleet. Pandemic Legion brought its own armor T3 fleet hostile to BL led by BlueMajere. BL inflicted 56.87 billion ISK in damages while sustaining 51.82 billion ISK, though these numbers appear to be skewed; sources relate numbers in the range of 47 billion lost by BL and 41 billion lost by HERO.
BL received intel concerning supercapital production towers and supers being built. Soon afterwards, drama erupted on the Brave Newbies subreddit about a player named NegativeLight Light, who was promoted to, and dismissed from the Military Director position. raknor bile defended him while threatening the abortion of said supers, and was banned from r/bravenewbies ‘for extortion’. Irritated by the ban, raknor bile made good on his threat and attacked the POSes.
With the 1-5GBW tower exiting its reinforcement cylce, BL cynoed into a neighboring system and jumped in, meeting the HERO force. PL came in and BL switched to engaging the PL forces, ‘accidentally’ headshotting the enemy FC, BlueMajere. Clearing tackle, BL began to extract their dreads to a safe tower to re-form before warping in on the objective.
As reported by sources from both sides, Pandemic Legion helped HERO greatly in holding off Black Legion, giving HERO time to rep the POSes. But, it was not enough. Landing on the tower grid, BL dreads began blapping the on-grid triage before turning their guns on the tower. The HERO fleet warped to the tower just in time to witness its destruction. The defenders began skirmishing with the BL fleet, but after losing critical mass of their logistics, first Pandemic Legion, then HERO were forced to withdraw.
The causes of the fight can ostensibly be traced to Brave leadership making questionable decisions. Whether making NegativeLight Light a military director was a bad decision or not is up for debate, but fully demoting him from his position as an FC seems a poor one; Brave chose to lose a competent commander liked by line membership. Secondly, leadership in the alliance and/or the subreddit chose to ban an opposing FC with capital superiority from their subreddit without a proper explanation.
However, NegativeLight Light and other sources confirmed that there was an Aeon being built within the POS belonging to NegativeLight. HERO and BL have been engaged in a protacted war for supremacy in Fountain, one of the richest regions in the game. Other engagements in this war include the fighting at O-PNSN and the slaughter in MN5N-X. In light of this, it is likely that BL would have attacked this tower at some point regardless of personal drama.
TMC would like to thank raknor bile and NegativeLight Light for their contributions. raknor bile’s complete response and account of the engagement can be read on page 2.
raknor bile:
“So it all started a week ago when we got the intel that brave were setting up super production towers n (sic) 1-5 we debated what we should and came to the decision to leave them for the time being as nothing was in build. Fast forward a few days and we finally get the intel we were after they were building! at the time our intel was 1 titan 2 super carriers but it seems that was off and it was actually 2 titans in build and a unconfirmed number of supers, we think at least 1 but could not confirm this.
Fast forward another 2 days and i am happily reading my way through the brave sub reddit(1 of my favorite pass times) when i notice some drama about a hero MilDir(braves formal hierarchy for head fc/military coordinator) it seems that he was promoted and then demoted for adding ship comps and removing other comps that are outdated or not up to the task. now i lead to Negative lights defense against what i think is unjust treatment. and i mention how i would probably RF the SCSAA if the kicked him, no Cagali some random brave leadership type(they have hundreds hard to keep track) and mod for the sub reddit sees this and bans me ‘for extortion’ like i am in the mob. Now it is fair to say that at this point my Jimmies were well and truly rustled, after contacting the admins asking for the actual rule i broke they refused to answer me so i decided to go RF some stuff because i was salty.
Come the day of the fight both sides had hyped and pre pinged i form up a fleet of 55 legions 15 logi 26 dreads and 7 triage and cyno into F-88 as they had cyno jammed 1-5. as we jump in brave warps to the gate and the fight is on we start by destroying the bovril BS fleet and all the brave dreads, then we start brawling with the hero tengu fleet and exchange some losses for not a great deal so we kill dictors and T1 logi until PL show up to assist brave. I switch to the PL fleet right away because i know there Fc and he is good at this game we kill a few logi until they pull range then we just go right for the T3s and kill a few(really sorry bluemajre i hit X and you were in half armor before i realized it was you :(.) losing some of our own logi to PL but killing enough that they decided to go for some dreads that bumped of the main fleet.
We keep killing tackle and extract our dreads to he safe tower while we sort out a warp in on the Hostile SCSAA our dreads finally get a warp in and warp to the tower killing the triage repping it and start on the tower it is at 49% so they were super close to saving it. our dreads manage to bring the tower down but the hero fleet disengages and warp over to our dreads tackling them.
We have some triage with the dreads so i warp my subs to the dreads to try and save them. we have around 26 dreads a 2 triage bubble by hero at this point so we are fully committed, we start by clearing tackle because we cannot break the tengus. Now brave have hundreads of atrons and condors set up in system and hundreds of dictors it seems so we spend the next 5 min hazing tackle and the occasional scythe or random t1 cruiser until PL warp back in after killing a dread that bumped out or triage range. I switch to the PL fleet once again and manage to kill 2 of there 4 remaining logi and a few T3s before they decide to bail.
We keep cyoing out dreads as tackle drops and bubbles go down until it is just the triage and the legions left at some point they make the call to change anchors and i notice that there anchor is right on my fleet so i Dishonorably headshoot him and the entire brave fleet makes the call to disengage, i burn after them and kill there entire logistics wing and a fair number of tengus we managed to tackle. with brave heading home and docking up and with our objectives met we kill the 300+ wrecks on grid and make our way home though braves staging system(to send a message) and go home. now while we lost more than i expected we managed to achieve our objective and hold the field so GFs all round.”