Unless you have been living under a rock you will likely have heard that The Imperium has gone to war. The target is their long standing enemy, PanFam (Pandemic Legion, Northern Coalition Dot and Pandemic Horde). The objective of The Imperium is to burn every single asset in space within the region of Tribute.
How did this all get started?
PanFam have been throwing around their weight for years. Constantly threatening groups and extorting where they can. With the power available to PanFam they also created and maintained one of the largest rental empires in the game. Although these streams of income were hidden where possible.
In the fall of 2018 we saw PanFam rocked by the rebuilt power of The Imperium and Legacy Coalitions. What started as another exercise by PanFam members in asserting their dominance soon went awry. Ultimately this led to the defeat of PanFam and their “valued allies” in the north. Tribute was paid to The Imperium in the form of 40 factions citadels for a period of peace.
As you would expect from Eve Online the story is a lot more complex than the few lines above. In the simplest of terms, The Imperium has a forever enemy in PanFam and will shoot them whenever possible.
2019-05-18
The Mittani, leader of The Imperium, gave a “State of the Goonion” (SotG). This is a somewhat unusual event and had been announced a week before happening. Equally unusual was a lack of narrative from The Mittani with regard to the planned war. The instructions from The Mittani to The Imperium membership was clear and simple; “we are going to glass a region”. The region to be “glassed” was given as the home territory of PanFam members Pandemic Legion (PL) and Northern Coalition Dot (NCDot), specifically the region of Tribute.
Immediately after the conclusion of the SotG The Imperium mobilised for the long trek to the battlefront in the north. This was arguably the largest single move op not only in New Eden history but for any game. Over four thousand pilots were logged into the home system of The Imperium, 1DQ in Delve.
The Mittani stated that this was full on war and that the homelands would no longer be defended as was normal. Move ops would be conducted for at least the next week in order to get as many people to the war front as possible.
NCDot and PL were also springing into action. Fleets were formed and it was anticipated that this would be to interfere with the move operations of The Imperium. This was not to be the case. PL and NCDot formed simply to ensure that the Keepstar that they had in the system 15W- was unanchored safely. The plan of PanFam was to pull up all unessential assets and move them out of harms way from the incoming forces.
2019-05-19 – 2019-05-23
The Imperium was still very focused on making sure that every member who wanted to get to the war front had an opportunity to do so. Move ops were very much their main focus. But the vanguard forces of The Imperium were already busy setting to work. PanFam assets were already being hit with some even being destroyed. Often PanFam would not even turn up to try and save structures being assaulted.
Meanwhile PanFam efforts seemed more focused on attacking Delve. Although the scale of the attack is considerably less than what PanFam is experiencing in the north. This move was predicted by The Mittani as PanFam had to do something to keep their spirits up.
2019-05-24
The biggest news of the day was that The Imperium onlined a new forward operating base in the system of KQK in the region of Pure Blind. With this Keepstar deployment The Imperium will have options to project power directly into the PanFam owned region of Tribute. It should also be noted that PanFam own a Keepstar in the adjacent system of 0-YM. The onlining of the Keepstar was uncontested by PanFam.
General Overview
The Imperium continue to move forward. Structures belonging to PanFam are being reinforced and timers set for the all too popular sov hacking events. Despite some minor battles things have been relatively uncontested by PanFam in the north. In an odd turn of events it seems that PanFam are using the Ferox doctrine quite a lot. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
PanFam and their other valued allies are set to continue harassment in space owned by The Imperium in the south. Meanwhile in the north PanFam continue to extract assets into safer regions. At times PanFam have offered marginally more resistance in the north but this seems to be waning.
In this there could be an interesting problem for PanFam. The Imperium members are after the blood of PanFam. If The Imperium members do not feel that they have obtained enough blood, then The Imperium leadership may have to consider how to sate this blood lust. This could prove a tricky proposition for PanFam as they love to gloat. So if PanFam continue to whine and gloat, at the same time, on places like Reddit then it is likely that The Imperium will only have a greater desire to cause them harm.
Dead Coalition Back-stabbed by PanFam
One very interesting piece that happened outside of New Eden was the revelations made by Sort Dragon, leader of Dead Coalition. As you may remember Sort Dragon brokered the peace deal with The Imperium in the fall of 2018. The cost of peace was the payment of 40 faction citadels to The Imperium. However after the deal was done PanFam turned on their former valued allies and started to try to invade the region of Branch.
Sort Dragon made the following statements:
“We sure aint helping PL and NC and Horde.”
“Also the deal was made with Vince’s, Hedliner’s and Gobbin’s full knowledge.”
“NC was supposed to pay for some of the forts but did not.”
“The deal stated that we could still help NC and horde and all of them.”
Sort Dragon went on to further lament on the fact that they had been drawn into conflicts at the behest of PanFam. But with the most recent moves by PanFam, Dead Coalition has a perfect opportunity to end the toxic relationship. Sort Dragon was quite adamant that he had no interest in interfering with The Imperium in any manner during their current operations. If anything Sort Dragon felt that Dead Coalition had far more in common with The Imperium and that The Imperium were far more trustworthy.
The statements of Sort Dragon were confirmed in a fashion by NCDot Campaign Commander Killah Bee. Killah Bee did a podcast where he did not contradict the statements made by Sort Dragon and confirmed it was in fact Killah Bee giving the Dead Coalition FCs a hard time of it during the 2018 campaign.
Insert Witty War Name Here
At this time this conflict is still lacking a name. Here are some of the potential names I have seen thrown around at this time.
World War Flee
World War BoB
World War Reeeeee
Schrödinger’s War
World War Bot
Eat My Ass War
Feel free to express your own preferences in the comments section. At this time CCP have not chipped in with their own name for this war. Perhaps they are waiting to see what Reddit decides for them in order to bolster their marketing efforts.