On December 2, 2020, early in the EU timezone, Fraternity (FRT) forces, consisting of 11 titans and 30 supercarriers, reinforced all citadels belonging to Trigger Happy (TRIGG) and Toilet Paper (TP) alliances in the system of HD-JVQ. FRT wants to purge this system to stop attacks in PAPI-controlled space. INN previously reported that FRT had moved a portion of its army away from Delve for such operations. The FRT-dominated group lost 214 ships at a cost of 23 billion ISK, while destroying 97 ships costing 12 billion ISK for Trigger Happy and others. You can view the killboard here, and a video of the fight is available.
Lost Shores
To gain perspective on this battle, we must supply some recent history for this region.
On Sunday morning of June 28, 2020, the alliance No Value (-X3-) “lost shores” — in the Russian language, we say someone “lost shores” when they lose touch with reality and feel godlike. No Value attacked the Astrahus belonging to the corp My Little Pony Industries, Inc. (PO NY) in HD-JVQ, in the region of Venal. PO NY is a member of the Trigger Happy alliance. HD-JVQ borders the Drone regions, where members of the PAPI coalition reside. No Value normally resides peacefully in three constellations of the Perrigen Falls region, controlled by Pandemic Horde (PH), but last summer they decided to venture out.
There had been no previous aggression by either side towards structures or infrastructure. Trigger Happy and No Value lived in adjoining systems, mostly minding their own business. However, starting last summer, No Value became connected to the newly-formed mega coalition, PAPI. Since almost everyone in space was part of the Blue Donut, that affiliation seemed to give No Value leaders and their members a false sense of security and invincibility. The sky became the limit for their behavior. Like the kid brother of the schoolyard tough guy, they never expected that someone might poke them back.
But Trigger Happy and Toilet Paper poked back.
Casus Belli: Real and Imagined
TRIGG and TP responded to No Value’s aggression by dropping a Fortizar in HD-JVQ and a few Astrahuses in MTO2-2, a system in Perrigen Falls bordering Venal. They also began to poke at No Value citadels. This provided some exceptionally interesting and intense fights: the battles were small enough to be free of tidi, and the numbers of pilots on both sides were similar, with No Value and their friends only outnumbering TRIGG 2-1.
Battle reports are available for several of those fights:
- In early November, No Value batphones Winterco to help destroy a TRIGG POS in the MTO system. Outnumbering TRIGG 3 to 1, No Value/Winterco/Panfam lost the fight, but managed to extract 40 capitals they might have lost, since TRIGG ran out of dictors to keep the Blue Donut blob pinned down. It was a very hardcore intense fight. Here’s video of the same battle.
All this fighting culminated with No Value losing a Fortizar to the combined forces of TRIGG/TP and Darkside. There was no fight over this Fortizar, located in Drone regions. No group assisted No Value in the defense. Why?
Because the No Value alliance is of No Value to the Blue Donut, no one showed up to help them. No Value asked for Blue Donut help, but instead of helping No Value, FRT decided to drop a Keepstar in Delve, ignoring No Value’s request for help.
But now, suddenly, FRT moves large numbers of forces back to Venal, as demonstrated by the battle of Dec. 2, 2020. Now, suddenly, the terrible threat of TRIGG and TP must be dealt with. We may well wonder if this move is part of a deeper ploy that could provide FRT a casus belli for attacking Tribute/Vale of the Silent to gain even more space. Or perhaps FRT just needed a reason to drift away from the trench warfare in Delve.
