By comparison, I have never regarded myself as one of the more bloodthirsty PAPI members in this war. I have mentioned before that PAPI’s talk of extermination was never meant to be taken as literally as Goons have taken it. However, M2 has changed things. Since M2 PAPI has lost much of its momentum. Possibly it has made some PAPI members wonder how long we ought to continue fighting: certainly Goons have been wanting us to question how long we should be fighting. Pre-M2 I think we had the choice to turn back. Post M2, however, I believe is imperative that we fight to the death no matter the cost.
Believe it or not, I don’t say this from some passionate thirst for revenge after M2. Nor do I say this out of a general hatred for Goons. My concern is for the future welfare of my fellow PAPI members and Pandemic Horde specifically. I am not calling for extermination, but for future self-preservation. Hats off to you Goons. Ya’ll spook me. I heard The Mittani’s speech: there will be no terms for surrender, no mercy. Instead of mocking this pronouncement, like many of my PAPI brothers, I believed it. Now, I know what you Goons are thinking. As a Horde member I have been told by The Mittani that I am no longer a target post-WWBII. TEST is the new enemy for Goons, and PanFam will be forgiven for its ‘sins’ committed while aligned with TEST and others. But here’s the truth: I don’t believe it. And other PAPI members shouldn’t either.
A Great Gift
Here’s how it looks to me. During M2, PAPI lost a great number of titans with little to nothing to show for it. That means the Imperium has been given a great gift: all those titans they would have lost in a fair fight, those titans that would have fallen if M2 had ended more evenly, they still have. Those titans mean much more now than they did before the war started, before resource distribution, as the ability to replace/build titans is now a much longer, more laborious process. Resource distribution effectively widens the Imperium titan advantage of M2. Those Goon titans aren’t going to go away after the war. Not at all. And I don’t think they are going to just sit around, after what has been done to Goons if PAPI just turns away now.
It is easy for Goons to say, when things are hard, that they won’t be going after anyone but TEST. But will they still retain that notion when, in a possible future, they are riding a titan advantage on its way to former PAPI members’ space? Will Goons remember that TEST are now the only ones warranting revenge, after the Blue Donut has been divided, after PAPI has relinquished an unprecedented collective strength which is likely never to be reestablished again? Will Goons’ good will remain firm after the largest historical coalition has once again separated into parts? And will each of those individual parts be able to withstand a titan attack, with a 70-count advantage, without the aid of allies? To any PAPI members reading this, you would do well to dwell on these questions and realize what this moment in the war, right now post M2, means for us in the future.
I just finished reading Orson Scott Card’s sci-fi classic Ender’s Game. In the novel, humanity successfully fends off an assault on Earth from an alien species that humans derogatorily call ‘buggers.’ In response, unwilling to risk the genocide of human beings, they commit counter-genocide, killing every bugger in existence and forever preventing the threat of another bugger assault.
The main character, Ender, who is primarily responsible for the genocide of the buggers, later learns that the alien species had no plans of coming back to earth after its first assault (in the first assault they hadn’t recognized human beings were sentient and hadn’t realized what they were doing). The buggers final thoughts were “the humans did not forgive us.”
A Dark and Looming Threat
I do not have faith that Goons will forget this war. If we leave now and disassemble this union in the momentary passion of disappointment brought on by the M2 tragedy, we invite upon ourselves a dark and looming threat. We would invite upon ourselves the vengeance of an enemy whom we deliberately pressed against a wall with nowhere to go: such enemies do not forgive and they do not forget. Do not let their leader’s rhetoric misguide you on this point.
Despite our recent losses, our union, a united null sec, stands upon a precipice: the precipice of fatigue, of disenchantment, and the gravest of all, the precipice of disunion at this heightened moment of EVE history. Our enemies rejoice at the thought of us turning tail, and have had the forthrightness to tell us to our faces that there will be no mercy once we turn! And who can blame them? When we later look out from our respective (now separate) home territories, with Goon titans at the gates, we will all know: They are over here because we were over there.
Whether we joined the war originally for extermination or not, a kind of extermination must now take place. It is not Goons who must be exterminated, but their ability to exterminate us in retaliation for what has transpired! Fields must be salted, homes must be displaced, titans must fall! Delve must fall! Not for glory. After M2 losses the Imperium’s economy that must be dismantled and remain hindered for a considerable amount of time while our economies back home remain intact. Our fighting in the present must not distract us from preparing for the future. How PAPI ends this war will define the terms of the next one. To my fellow PAPI members discouraged after M2, unless you wish to be victims of a swift and understandable vengeance, do not let this harrowing moment become one we will look back to in tears!
