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Posted by: Havohej : Category: 
¶ I think that by the time you’ve got 5 hours of flight time in EVE-Online, every capsuleer knows that there’s a war going on. Everybody knows that the tens of thousands of pilots involved in this struggle, and the sheer vastness of the territory being held and contested by the four main powerblocs (The Southern Coalition, The Northern Coalition, The Alliance, and Superfriends), means that even if you’re not fighting in this war yourself, you are affected by it. This war, and the territory (and therefor resources) being fought over have a universal effect on the EVE-Online in-game market. Issuesin gameplay and balance that arise during this conflict lead to nerfs that effect all players (drone nerf, nos nerf, nanonerf, what else?).
¶ Last night, I flew for my first time in a large fleet op that was organized with the sole intent of doing a little damage in the Great War in the name of VENOM Alliance and the Southern Coalition.
Call to Arms
¶ An EVE-Mail came down from the VENOM leadership a few days ago, alerting us all that there would be a fleet op on 2008.01.07 - GoonSwarm had planned an attack and we were going to lend a hand. We were advised that this would be a mandatory op and that all pilots who would be online would need to make themselves available for the raiding party and for defense of Omist as surely once word got around that a large VENOM fleet was on the warpath, our enemies would seek to take advantage of a not-so-well-defended D2EZ-X. I knew that [DFIAS] wouldn’t be able to contribute a large number of pilots since many of us still haven’t returned to our normal schedules after the holidays, so I determined to carry the [DFIAS] banner to war myself. This night, The Defias Brotherhood would be mentioned on numerous kill mails.
¶ Over the next few days, I got my affairs in order, making sure that I had an unimplanted clone in Omist and a ship that would be capable of striking hard and decisively in a large engagement, while being able to survive at least a half a minute of sustained fire from a large force if needbe. I didn’t know where we’d be going, but I knew I wouldn’t likely be returning to Omist in the same ship I left with.
Mount Up!
¶ When the day arrived, I got up and made my way to my pod and just waited, shooting the shit with a couple of friends up in Molden Heath while I monitored the status of preparations down in D2EZ-X on the Alliance secure comm. Once I received the signal that the fleet would be departing in 30 minutes, I transferred my consciousness to the fresh clone in The MADDNESS Asylum and got my Cyclone-class battlecruiser online. It wasn’t fit out as good as it might’ve been had I had the time to put it together in empire and fly it down manually - the Omist market isn’t quite as well-stocked as Rens or Jita, needless to say - but it was a fair loadout for what its purpose was. I verified that my medical clone was up-to-date and that the Cyclone was insured, and I flew out to the fleet assembly point on the M9 gate.
¶ As we assembled, Yahfree and Viper made it known that in order to protect the operation from any potential spies who may have infiltrated from BoB or Stain Empire (or any number of other enemies) we would be given the checkpoints in our route as we traveled. In the interest of security, I will not disclose any of those checkpoints here. Suffice it to say that we were soon underway.
¶ As we traveled, I was amazed and emboldened by the might of the fleet VENOM Alliance had put together for this adventure and felt compelled to record numerous stillframes along the way…
New Intel
¶ As we entered the Period Basis region, generally considered to be Mercenary Coalition space, word came down the line that our leadership was awaiting confirmation of our course so as to coordinate our actions with our other Southern Coalition friends. We were also informed that we might come into contact with pilots from the -A- (Against All Authorities) alliance and that we were not to fire on them because they were also coordinating actions with GoonSwarm in the night’s offensive against Band of Brothers.
¶ It quickly became apparent, however, that some manner of miscalculation had been made and the main battle was drawing to an end. VENOM decided that since we were in MC space and had been trailed by a couple of enemy Covert Ops frigates we might as well see if we couldn’t goad MC into a little fight while the alliance heads were discussing our best course of action. We set destination for 1-NJLK and burned in hard for MC’s Sharky Shopping Palace to see how much noise we could make.
¶ Unfortunately, all we got in 1-NJ was a carrier undocking and sending out its fighters. Knowing that, under these circumstances, we were doing nothing more than wasting our ammunition on this capital target, we were instructed to withdraw back out to the VR gate and await further orders. within moments we were given coordinates for a nearby system where we intended to wait in ambush for the MC fleet we knew had to be chasing us.
¶ Only now, word came in that a Goon capital ship had apparently been trapped and was in need of assistance so we dropped everything and set out for G-TTSV in a hurry.
¶ En route to the new battle, a GoonSwarm outrunner met up with us in 319, with the intent to drop a bubble to slow down the MC force that was quickly coming up on our rear and allow us to rendezvous with the larger Goon force to help defend the carrier that’d been snared. Unfortunately, some type of miscommunication occured and the bubble was activated before the bulk of our fleet had a chance to get clear. Just then, the MC fleet started jumping in.
¶ Knowing that there would be absolutely no chance of escaping this engagement with the majority of our fleet intact, VENOM turned to fight. The ensuing battle would go down as a loss for us, but it was a well-fought loss nonetheless.
¶ The MC fleet consisted of more Tech-2 ships than ours, especially Heavy Assault Cruisers. Additionally, they brought more Tech-2 guns and drones to bear than we had amongst our entire fleet. So it isn’t surprising that we were defeated, but it’s not damning, either. In the future, as more of our pilots mature and gain experience and we begin to field more powerful fleets, do more damage, cause more havoc, and inject more caustic, burning VENOM into the plots, machinations, hopes and dreams of our enemies.
¶ And, gods willing, the Defias Brotherhood’s banner will be all over it.
-Havo out.
