On December 5, 2016, three Imperium titans, along with a Revenant supercarrier, and other supercapitals and capital ships were killed by a fleet comprising Pandemic Legion, Hard Knocks, and several other groups. The Imperium lost 600bn ISK in ships, compared to PL and allies 170bn in losses. The attack was engineered by former Imperium members that had moved to Pandemic Legion.
Since the Casino War ended, Goonswarm has done well in the southern region, Delve. Without any major competition in the area, their members have roamed and rebuilt in relative peace, despite the occasional rogue hot droppers that are easily chased away by a show of overwhelming force.
Imperium FC Jay Amazingness used a task force that was originally created to protect Deklein, called “DekSwat,” to try to bait out someone that had been harassing the area with dreadnoughts. They used easy targets – jump freighters to tempt one of the harassers. It worked, a Russian Naglfar jumped in to kill the freighter, but was countered by Jay and his crew. A Revenant supercarrier and three shield tanked titans, along with other supers jumped in and destroyed the Nag in short order. Then two Tengu strategic cruisers appeared and lit cynosural beacons. In came dozens of suicide dreadnoughts (dread bomb) with support. The baiting side had been baited.
The Nag was bait, set there by PL members who knew exactly how the Imperium would routinely react, and Jay, complacent in a time of peace, fell right into the trap.
Jay explained, “My revenant was tackled by Rorquals and I was neuted out by the archons and shortly thereafter I died. I was too busy in jabber to notice that my levi [titan] was their next primary and was at half shields before I could do anything.” The use of Rorquals as tackle ships shows a potential shift in the meta of EVE, with these previously defenseless capitals now being used as super capital tacklers. These events were memorialized in Jay’s video, which is believed to be the first Revenant POV death on YouTube:
Goonswarm reinforcements arrived and secured the area, but the ISK damage had already been done: Three Imperium titans and four supercarriers were destroyed.
Introspection inside the Imperium leadership has resulted in some internal procedural changes to avoid the mistakes made in the future. “We were just too cocky,” An anonymous Imperium source explains, “PL had an idea [to do this] for a while, and we saw this as their best chance [to carry out the idea].” The Imperium had “analyzed the previous losses of the hunting Naglfar and didn’t expect such a large response fleet.” Clearly, the Imperium fleet was caught off guard. Jay Amazingness congratulated PL, “well played to the dudes who baited us.”
One question that lingered was how PL could have gotten so many dreads into Delve so quickly since their headquarters is deep in the north of the map. Some of the dreads were given to PL by TEST Alliance FC Progodlegend, “I did give our dreads to them a month back, though some PL guys claimed to already have some down there. They weren’t my dreads, they were the ones Lenny paid us to build.” Which begs another question: What role did Lenny, the mercenary broker of the Casino War, play in aiding PL, yet again?
Progodlegend noted that Jay seemed to be taking the losses well. The mood of Karmafleet super pilot Kaladin Nakrar is also fairly upbeat, despite losing valuable ships aside Jay. He vows that he’s already begun replacing them.
While the losses suffered were costly to the individual pilots, they represent a drop in the bucket for recent industrial activity in Delve. Fleets of Rorquals continue to devour the ore anomalies with Excavation Drones, and industrialists throughout the alliance are already working to turn these losses into little more than a momentary setback.
In a similar vein, Progodlegend offered this advice to would-be supercapital pilots: “I keep telling people that when you spend all your time grinding for a super or titan, you’re going to regret it. Better to just let that happen as a natural progression in your EVE career.” Imperium News also encourages pilots to always remember the First Rule of EVE: If you can’t afford to lose it, you can’t afford to fly it.
