Art by Redline XIII
-all headline quotations are from Don McClean’s “The Pride Parade”
A battle raged in Siseide on Sept. 30, 2018, with over 500 ships involved at a cost of almost 579 billion ISK as Snuffed Out (B B C) pounded Black Legion (.MEN.). But this was not a battle between mortal enemies who each entered the system intent on destroying the other. Rather, Black Legion forces entered the system thinking they were working in cooperation with Snuffed Out.
It started out quite simply, as complex things can do;
A set of sad transparencies ’til no one could see through
The planned fight was meant to go like this: Black Legion had a fortizar being attacked by several groups, including Shoot First (SFAQL), Sev3rance (-7-), and Siege Green (SGGRN). In order to counter these groups, BL enlisted the aid of Snuffed Out. Black Legion would, according to the plan, act as bait in the region, bringing subcapital ships out in defense of the fortizar, which would bait the opponents to expect an easy battle. Snuffed Out would jump into the system in great numbers and with supercapitals so that, together with BL, they would wipe out the would-be conquerors.
Alone you stand corrupted by the vision that you sought
And blinded by your hunger all your appetites are bought
The plan went awry. Black Legion arrived on the scene with a much greater force than a “baiting” fleet might warrant, including supercapitals: an Avatar, four Ragnaroks, and an Erebus. Members of Snuffed Out, mostly in the USTZ, had set their alarms to rise early for the op, but were annoyed to find the trap had already been sprung. Instead of a tasty morsel of cheese to tempt a rat, BL seemed to have brought out a clearly non-tempting cheese wheel labeled with the sign, “Poison! Help Yourself to Some and Die.” As Hy Wanto Destroyer of Snuffed Out puts it: “I think they [Shoot First, Sev3rance, and Siege Green] had scouted us already.” The trap wasn’t going to work. No one was fooled.
But in spite of what becomes of you, your image will remain;
A reminder of your constant loss, a symbol of your gain
Again, in the words of Hy Wanto Destroyer: “BLs supers were sitting there, a very tempting thing. So, we asked our dudes if they wanna kill ’em. They all said “Yes.” Snuffed Out opened fire and when the space clutter cleared, BL had lost 81 ships compared to 35 for the attackers.
The event reminded some of “The Big Black Wedding” in which Snuffed Out awoxed ships from Shadow Cartel, sending ripples of distress and delight through the EVE community. After the Black Wedding, D0nnieDark0 of Snuff Box was quoted as saying, “Long story short I take full responsibility and openly send my apologies to anyone that feels hard done by or involved. This was a one off act against someone many of us dislike and it is not something that will be repeated. In our however many year running as a corp and alliance snuff has never done a such act. So you can be sure it won’t happen again.”
Hy Wanto Destroyer doesn’t believe the two incidents are similar: “They [BL] fucked our bait and were wasting our time at 3 a.m. and this is the second time they had done something like this. We didn’t tell them to bring supers. They were supposed to bait with subs and a few caps. They gated titans from Venal to Metro (a long ass way), [and] didn’t tell [us] about it. [BL] instantly dropped [the supers], meaning the people we were gonna bait wouldn’t escalate. This [event] was just them failing to do their job at a time we were cranky because it was 3 a.m. for us. I mean it’s not the same thing [as the Big Black Wedding] from my perspective because I actually understand the game and what happened in both.”
In an effort to get Black Legion’s perspective on the fight, INN contacted Elo Knight of Black Legion, but he declined the opportunity to respond.
Deni'z von Meanace
Very poor and lame trigger point from Hy. Pretty much cut the throat of the guy you agreed to help before. Knowing BL might screw the deal was no point to cooperate with them further or at least have scouts and do intel. BBC made them look dickheads.
October 3, 2018 at 8:05 AMGarreth Vlox Deni'z von Meanace
if you make a plan you should stick to it. But if you start to improv, you should expect the other parties involved to do the same.
October 3, 2018 at 8:47 AMDeni'z von Meanace Garreth Vlox
How dare you to bring supers without letting us know i.e. |our permission| so we gonna teach you from such behaviour cause if you call us for support we want to blame 100% of success due to our amazingness (sorry Jay).
October 3, 2018 at 12:11 PMDread Operative Deni'z von Meanace
You do realize BL it’s self had done this mutiple times? Karma just came in a big circle.
October 3, 2018 at 3:36 PMDeni'z von Meanace Dread Operative
Any chance you could mention a few cases?
October 3, 2018 at 9:34 PMDread Operative Deni'z von Meanace
Without digging into reddit http://evenews24.com/2014/07/16/black-legion-betrayal-2/comment-page-1/
October 4, 2018 at 9:36 PMDeni'z von Meanace Dread Operative
lol wut, 4 yo news from eve24…
October 7, 2018 at 12:13 PMDread Operative Deni'z von Meanace
Yeah, the one time they backstabbed me and my old corp. Elo was leading them, karma takes a big circle, everything checks out. I have no desire to go through reddit and find every instance they’ve done it just trying to win a comment section argument. Bottom line is, if you disliked Snuff you probably had your dislikes justified, and if BL’s every back stabbed you probably like Snuff a little more.
October 7, 2018 at 5:55 PMNoob Deni'z von Meanace
Well, the fort is still there, or at least the article doesn’t say anything more about it…
So everyone got a fight, the fort lived, and BL got the pimpslap they so thoroughly deserve.
I see the universe as balanced.
October 5, 2018 at 5:59 PMGanthrithor
This is why elite PvPers end up dying alone instead of being prosperous motherfuckers.
October 3, 2018 at 11:44 PM