At roughly 19:11 UTC carnage struck the Pure Blind system of EC-P8R on Saturday, February 29. Coalitions and alliances clashed together after members of the United Federation of Conifers (UFC) tackled a Siberian Squads (SB-SQ) Titan. This came in a SB-SQ move op following the end of the war in the north and the collapse of Darkness. SB-SQ planned to use UFC’s jump bridge as an evac point, but instead were ambushed near the UFC Fortizar Future Freeport.
INN spoke to Darius Caliente, leader of UFC and the fleet commander leading the initial assault, as well as Vertiso Ambraelle, the FC for Trigg’s forces. The following reconstruction draws on their accounts.
Battle of EC-P8R
According to Darius, UFC granted SB-SQ permission to use the UFC-owned cyno beacon to withdraw from the northern front. Several freighters had already passed through over the course of the day. However, due to UFC being stationed in Pure Blind for “15 months harassing DEADCO”, SB-SQ had been set as orange and shoot on sight. When an SB-SQ titan landed to take the cyno gate, UFC pounced with their Fortizar, which was stationed nearby. “We tackled it with the fort,” Darius said. “We tried to get HICs on it, but we weren’t fast enough. So we bumped it. It took 12 minutes to bump it off.” As soon as UFC re-tackled the Titan, SB-SQ deployed additional supercapitals to annihilate the UFC tacklers.
This immediately put UFC on the back foot and they attempted to disengage. “When all of that dropped on us,” Darius explained, “I pulled the tether. We were just trying get out and keep them bubbled to let the Fortizar do god’s work.” However, in the midst of the brawl, Trigger Happy (Trigg) joined in with a dread bomb aimed directly at SB-SQ’s supers.
When asked about what drew Trigg to the fight, Vertiso laughed. “Well it was one of those ‘you couldn’t make it up’ kind of situations. An alliance mate was hunting a rattlesnake in Pure Blind and stumbled across some Titans on a Raitaru.” Vertiso looked into the situation and initially thought that SB-SQ utilizing UFC’s station and jump gate meant that they were working together in some way.
He ordered his troops home and decided to step away for a moment. “I went to get a drink and got back to my PC to the shouts of… ‘CONES ARE BACKSTABBING THEM’.”
Vertiso rallied his hungry pilots and lead them forward. The fleet consisted of the main force, a tackle team and a small gang team. Upon arriving in system, Trigg quickly latched onto SB-SQ’s supers. With the battle now escalating exponentially, UFC went into overdrive. “We screamed for more Sabres and kept suiciding tackle,” Vertiso recalled. “INIT (The Initiative) counter-bombed Trigg and then brought in Muninns.” The battle only raged for 35 minutes, but in that short amount of time all sides managed to deal a healthy blow to each other before quickly disengaging and heading home.
The Aftermath
When the dust settled, just over 350 billion ISK of destruction lay burning and spiraling through space between ships and pods lost. When asked about how the battle would impact UFC, Darius said the losses were “not really a concern. Our losses were light, like 11b.” However, the same cannot be said for the other contenders. SB-SQ’s losses include two Ragnaroks.
Trigg suffered 157b in exchange for two Titans amongst their many kill mails. Vertiso said this was mainly due to his tackle and small gang teams. He said that they were “the unspoken heroes” and were instrumental in securing the Titan kills. On the other hand, SB-SQ, INIT, and allies collectively lost 200b. Trigg’s victory comes with an added twist: In speaking with Vertiso on his fleet’s performance, he revealed that “a mysterious benefactor who isn’t too happy with (SB-SQ) moving to Legacy has offered to SRP all our dreads,” leaving Vertiso and his fleet very much happy and in the green.
Darius noted that accusations of “awoxing” were being leveled against UFC because “SB-SQ had set us (UFC) blue, but we made it very clear that they were still orange and we would shoot them,” adding that UFC had killed two SB-SQ supers only hours before this engagement. Vertiso, on the other hand, openly admitted that awoxing was SOP for content acquisition. “Most of what I do is spur of the moment. I have an alt in every null bloc in EVE and I watch their fleets all day. If they do something we can have fun with, I will do my best to intercept.” However Vertiso earnestly pressed that this was “purely to give my guys killmails they want to have” and not due to any “grudge or a political alignment.”
Moving Forward
Thus far, requests for comment from SB-SQ and INIT haven’t been answered. Banderlogs Alliance were also present in system, but requests for comment have yet to be answered so their involvement in the battle is unclear. However, it appears that they may have been a tertiary combatant simply looking to glean killmails, as they took losses from INIT yet managed to kill some Trigg. All in all, 450 players entered the battlefield, making this one of the larger scraps in the last few days for US TZ.
Vertiso insisted that this fight was a “spur of the moment” engagement, however it is unclear if this battle will end up sparking further conflict in the region. Neither Trigg nor UFC made mention of explicit plans to harass SB-SQ, however did not take the option off the table.
INN will provide updates as they become available.
