INIT. Leadership Update #35, 06/06/2016 “Catching Fire As The Wind Blows”
Warp scrambiling effectors flutter gently on the Onyx class Heavy Interdictor “Royce” as it idles on it’s tether 1,000k above the Federation Navy Outpost in FD-MLJ, staging point for The OSS and Mercenary Coalition counter-invastion forces until just a week ago.
Previously the scene of heavy fighting throughout May, FD-MLJ in the Syndicate region lies quiet with little to interest gunnery Sergeant Soraya Khamaarr as he traces an imaginary arc with the Upwell Point Defence Batteries on the Initiative Recruitment Centre Astrahaus, third of its name. An occasional cyno field fires at the scarred outpost, signalling the arrival of another unregistered jump freighter, likely picking up an OSS courier contract bound for Lonetrek (Apoc Navy spare parts, Machariel hulls or some such). An opportunistic “Snatch” Magus loops over the outpost, searching out another hapless victim, but the undock sleeps tonight.
AS the last OSS extraction convoy departs FD-MLJ via Harroule for GIH-ZG in Tribute, and with Mercenary Coalition retreating and regrouping in Saranen under instruction from MBC command, there is little to distract the somewhat lazy mop-up operations in effect from Initiaitve and Razor forces. A distant thud signals the destruction of yet another OSS industrial reactor installation, marking a total of 126 control towers eliminated since The Initiative. began their campaign on the region back in March 2016.
The success of the Syndicate Campaign maybe be a peripheral victory against the greater war machine which wheels relentlessly against (what remains) of Imperium forces to the North, but represents a satisfying triumph for The Initiative. At the time of writing, most of Syndicate lies in ruins, with every OSS infrastructure asset reduced to rubble, and whose forces (along with Mercenary Coalition and Out Of Sight) since forced into retreat in less than 4 weeks since deploying.
Speaking on behalf of The Initiative. Sister Bliss praised the tenacity and composure of INIT. forces;
“We knew that coming into this theatre was going to be a big challenge. It’s been a while since we campaigned in Syndicate, and deploying into the middle of a hornets nest surrounded on all sides by hostiles was going to be enormously tricky.
Probably one of the biggest unknowns we faced was unravelling all the low-sec players who had joined the MBC and for whom we really had no actionable intel. The first 2 months of operations were certainly the most testing; we rarely had more than 5 minutes capital airtime before being swarmed with 500+ inbound hostiles.
The FC team and fleet have been phenomental this past 3 months and deserve credit for all the hard work and achievements gained (it’s really tough to single out individuals but I think Soraya and Pando deserve a special mention for the outstanding contribution this period). We stuck to our gameplan and took everything we learned during our Curse years and applied it to Syndicate. Many times we were faced with hostile fleets orders of magnitude our size; head-on confrontations being substituted for geurilla warfare with every effort being made to make our enemies bleed for every step in advance and retreat.
We also owe a big thank-you to our allies in RAZOR who moved to join our deployment in May and to those Imperium fleets who made the journey to assist on a number of occasions. And last but not least a toast to our opponents without whom this campaign would not have been anywhere near as much fun. Special thanks to OSS, MC and OOS for putting up a solid resistance, being good sports and making us work hard for great content.
Boson Dubstep, speaking on behalf of The OSS commented “We knew INIT were extremely competent, capable, atonomous alliance that would absolutely give fights, and they did not dissapoint. We unfortunately did not bring our a-game, we will be back soon to bring init the fight they deserve. Mad respect for INIT and we are eagerly looking forwrad too scrapping with them in the future.”
Digging-In
Following victory in Syndicate, we will be digging-in and keeping X-M2LR as our Western Base of operations to mirror that of G-0 in the South. Formally, this campaign phase is now complete as the initial time period of 2-3 months which we planned for has concluded (with all objectives achieved). We will continue to run mop-up operations over the coming weeks (at a reduced pace), but the focus will largely shift away from siege ops to (more fun) search and destroy. Now is a good opportunity to catch your breath and take care of updating and re-stocking your fleet ships in both our stagings, completing the fit-out of your Dreads and FAX’ and organising your Carrier and Super fighter loadouts.
It is critical that you use this small period of relative downtime to make sure you have all fleet configs ready and prepared in X-M (and G-0):
- Are all your fleet refit packs correct and complete?
- Are your Dreads updated to the latest fits?
- Are your Carriers updated and fully equipped with the recommended fighter loadout?
- Are your Supercaps updated and fitted out?
Imperial Bodybags & Glazed Donuts
There’s no question that the Imperium has taken an absolute hiding so far in the greater war against the MBC; a coalition formed and funded by those who wanted to see if they could, those who had something to gain, those who had an axe to grind and those who were just along for the ride. The sheer volume of aggressors brought to bear against the Imperium represents the largest coalition ever formed in the history of Eve. It’s not surprising the impact has been to ride roughshod, virtually unopposed, conquering region after region.
Imperium and its members have to take responsibility for allowing themselves to become complacent and not address key threats (internal & external) which have contributed to their downfall. Credit must also be given to the MBC for managing to navigate through the sea of conflicting interests and clashing egos which has so often derailed these types of efforts in the past.
At this point in time, many Imperium members face certain extinction, although I am confident at least 2-3 entities will emerge battle-hardened and stronger for the experience. From an INIT. perspective we are (thankfully) largely insulated from the negative impact of these kinds of wars (we are not a sov holding entity by design) and can (somwehat guiltily given the circumstances) confess to having a fantastic time over the past 3 months of this war.
Yet the war will continue for some time and who knows where it will lead. For the forseeable future, I expect the new normal will see the MBC remain in place as a coalition united by common interests though not necessarily with reciprocal blue standings but at a minimum NIP / NAP vs. all external threats. It seems fashionbable to propagate this model of informal coalition and proclaim ‘no blues’ but I don’t think Eve players are that easily fooled. Perhaps the biggest error the Imperium ever made was admitting it was a coalition in the first place.
No thanks; we’ll fight
Many have asked the question on why we didn’t flip sides early in the conflict or accept any of the offers made to us to leave the Imperium for “greener pastures”.
Personally I don’t think it ever looks good to flip sides during a war regardless of whatever justification can be fabricated up as a rationale or for whatever gains that can be made in the process. Once you start down that path, it’s incredibly hard (if not impossible) to recover from any of the reputational damage incurred.
If you can be bought out this time, what’s to stop you being bought out next time. Who wants to work with people like that? Not us.
Logistics Sweep-Up
The intensity of the last few months and the speed with which we deployed (and left Tenal to burn) has left many alliance and member assets strewn across multiple regions. We will be organising a number of logistics ops to move any assets which got left behind or forgotten. Ops will be posted on forums as per usual (with the exception of Supercaps; if we have any Supers stuck in middle of nowhere, please co-ord via the Supers channel on Slack). If you need help with anything, please do not hesitate to ask your CEO or a member of the FC team.
Fleet Config Updates
Our existing configs have been serving us very well, so there are only a few minor (but important) changes to speak of.
- Force Auxilliaries (FAX) are now a critical part of our fleets and capability. We need more FAX capable pilots and ships (shield and armour) available. This is much more important now that Supercap remote-rep is no longer a viable approach.
- With FAX now the dominant factor in supporting capitals and supercapitals, it’s no longer a requirement for an all-or-nothing approach to deploying Supercapitals. There are ongoing discussions on whether we should keep our Supers armor or switch to shield. We haven’t concluded anything or made any decisions as yet, and I’m not sure if we need to yet. As ever, watch this space.
- Combat Carriers have now been added to our config lineups and will be an important part of our fleets. Naturally they are also reimbursable. Get them!
- Dreadnoughts; the uptake on members ordering Dreads for Syndicate has been fantastic so far and many thanks to our main suppliers for helping deliver. If you don’t have a dread yet, please make every effort to get one. I’m aware we mainly see these used on alt accounts but we’re trying to increase the opportunities for use on mains as well.
Joiners & Leavers
We say farewell to NSPWN as they move on along with .BWA., EU41A and ONSOS to try something new with a focus on USTZ. .BWA., EU41A and ONSOS had a very brief spell with us but unfortunately there was a cultural mismatch (it happens), so decided to pursue something different. Thankfully most (if not all) of the great dudes from NSPWN who had become part of the family decided to stay on and join INIT. and IM corps.
We say hello to a handful of new joiners from a variety of different alliances <3
New Auth Tool & The Great Purge
We will shortly be launching a new Auth system which will form the new backbone of IT services for INIT. The initial version will enable players to register their main and alt characters and provide very basic integration with Slack (the intention will be to deprecate Jabber and replace with Slack). Mumble integration will follow thereafter. More details will be posted seperately.
With the new tooling in place, we will be undertaking a very significant purge of inactive and orphaned characters to bring us back down to a decent fighting weight. Broadly I am expecting 3-500 chars to be removed over the coming months, so no alarms and no surprises!
Next Up
Summer is coming…
o7
SB
(As always, alliance updates should be taken as both an information source, and propaganda aimed at both internal and external observers. This update comes to us from Sister Bliss, of The Initiative..
UPDATE: The original version of this article was inadvertently incomplete. Sister Bliss has helpfully supplied us with the additional text, which we are happy to present to our readers.)
This article originally appeared on TheMittani.com, written by Submissions.