The Defias Blog

¶ Over the last two weeks, The Defias Brotherhood has been on a mad dash to raise ISK. Why? Well, because last month when I first arrived in Omist as a new member of VENOM Alliance, the first thing I did was check the region’s contracts. I’d seen tons of great bargains on the contract market before, but they’d always been in deep-space 0.0 somewhere where I couldn’t dock even if I could get there, and I damn sure wouldn’t have been able to fly out with my goods. So now that I would have no problems, I wanted to see what was there to be had. A quick glance at the market details for the region showed that buying 5 Caracal-class cruisers for 20M ISK was a great bargain, so I scooped those up for the corporation. Then I found a contract auctioning off a Domination Control Tower Medium with a starting bid of 220M and no buyout.

¶ There were two days left on the contract and there’d been no bids, yet. I looked on the All Regions contract registry and found that medium Domination towers pull over 300M on average, so while it was expensive, this was quite a deal.
Wanting to know what made a Domination tower better than the standard Minmatar tower, I compared them and found that the Domination variant was not only more resilient, but required far less fuel to operate. So this was not only a bargain to find this tower for only 220M, but it was also going to save me ISK in the long run - I placed a bid for the Brotherhood. Two days later, I accepted delivery of what would be our first tower in EVE-Online’s New Eden galaxy.

Okay, So Now What?

¶ ‘Now what,’ at the time, was nothing. [DFIAS] was in no financial position to pay for multiple carrier jumps to bring the rest of the necessary modules down to Omist from their NPC dealers in Empire, and even if I was of a mind to pay ridiculous markups to buy the pieces locally, there were scarce few items available on the market and on the contract boards, and what was available wasn’t what I needed.
¶ I think I mention in a previous Chronicle that one of the reasons I pressed on into the great wide open of nullsec space was for the opportunities it presents. Early on in the development of the Defias Brotherhood Corporation, we decided that we would need to be able to produce our own space-faring vessels in the most cost-effective manner possible if we wanted to build a solid entity in New Eden. In the future, as our power grows, we would need to be capable of producing our own capital ships, but in the immediate future we would need to be able to produce all of the Tech 1 starships from designers such as Boundless Creation and Ishukone. We would need to produce Rifters, Griffins, Omens, Drakes, Myrmidons, Typhoons, Ravens, Armageddons… we would need to produce our own ammunition, drones, and basic ship fittings for our martial activities. In order to help us to afford premium equipment for our pilots’ ships, we would need to produce surplus inventory for sale.
¶ But at the same time, I understood that the pilots I’d hired up to that point were capsuleers possessed of a great fighter’s instinct. The razor-edged instincts that a pod pilot relies on for combat could be dulled greatly by too much monotony, and mining is very monotonous, so I knew I would need to find some people who had their own genuine interest in the industrial side of New Eden. So I put the tower away in my hangar at D2EZ-X and did all I could to step up recruitment, keeping my eyes open for the right type of pilots upon which I could build the foundations of what I envision will be an empire. To this end, I recruited Shan Dollean and Slain Limbo, two pilots who were already friends. Both of them could fly not only battlecruisers, but also the Retriever-class mining barge from Outer Ring Excavations. Recruiting is a game of patience, though, and it took quite a while to flesh the ranks out further. But now, I’ve got Kiay Stryx, who is more experienced that at first he might appear, bonobko, a skilled explorer and Osjuan Cox - all of whom have interests not only in industry and manufacturing, but also in gaining combat experience. Most importantly, all of them understand what the Brotherhood’s goals are and the work that remains to be done and have come on board with an open willingness to help.
¶ A short while ago, after leaving VENOM Alliance to escape the in-fighting and bickering that they’re going through as they grow into a more powerful force, I made a limited offer to my pilots to purchase shares of stock in the Corporation, explaining that all funds raised would be used to purchase POS modules in Empire and get them shipped down. I was shocked at how quickly the shares I made available were sold out! I immediately clone jumped to Empire to purchase the POS modules and get them in place for delivery to Omist, 50 jumps away.

Okay, So NOW What???

¶ Well, I’d known that it would be difficult for certain, but even my conservative estimates failed to anticipate just what a logistical nightmare it was going to be. Multiple carrier jumps was going to cost upwards of 90M from one pilot who could handle the job in three trips, or over 400M from one pilot who could handle the job as well, but would need to make 9 trips. I asked around to find out if maybe there was a Rorqual pilot who could take care of it in one trip in the near future, but the only Rorqual owner I could find had a pretty tight schedule of ops lined up and wouldn’t be available for quite some time. And when I asked around as to whether ANTX had a jump freighter available for charter, there wasn’t one.
¶ At this point, I’m worried that my pilots might see the delays as a mark against my organization and leadership as I’d spend almost 500M ISK on the POS modules and 220M ISK on the tower itself, but after a week we still didn’t have the tower in place and online. At the same time, we’re dealing with a diplomatic issue between United Legion and everyone else in Omist (with the notable exception of Tau Ceti Federation, of course). VENOM Alliance had apparently decided to engage in open hostilities with United Legion after the latter’s standings reset, but the leadership of Anthrax Death alliance which we are now a part of did not wish to make an enemy of UNL, so we were all cautioned to avoid engagements with UNL forces if possible. Still, losses have been incurred, due to the fact that at the time of this writing, ANTX is still neutral to UNL. I lose a Cyclone to them myself, in fact, and another of my pilots lost a Drake.
¶ This UNL threat made the idea of moving a convoy of industrial ships to haul the pieces and fuel down the pipe impossible. The carrier pilot who could move our goods in three jumps wouldn’t be available for almost a week. And then Fortune shone on the Defias Brotherhood. One morning, at around 10:00, the carrier pilot who would need nine trips to move my 90k m³ sent a call over the alliance channel: “Does anybody have anything they need moved down to Omist? I’ve got about 120k m³ left.”

Milestone

¶ As it turns out, during the week as I’d been hunting Angel Cartel pirates for their bounties as that’s the best affordable way to make ISK right now (though I hate to think that I’m doing the same thing the farmers are to get paid) , our alliance came into possession of its first jump freighter: a Rhea.

¶ My head was still swimming from my clone jump sixteen hours previous, and I knew I’d scramble my brain if I tried to simply transfer my consciousness again. But I couldn’t pass on this opportunity! I undocked in my capsule and set the self-destruct sequence. Two minutes later, I was in a brand new medical clone, hauling the remaining POS modules to the staging point. Once he had made the first jump in his trip, I booked lodging for the night in a nearby station, took a shower and got some sleep, secure in the knowledge that by the end of the next day, I would have the Defias Brotherhood’s first station anchored and operational.

The Defias Brotherhood Has Arrived

¶ I’ll spare you the tedious account of how I ran back and forth to the site where I was planting our tower, due to the limitations of a Mammoth’s cargo capacity. Instead, I will just present the following photographic records and leave you with these words:

The Defias Brotherhood exists for triumph.
This Brotherhood will grow, from the core of the four Empires to the Outer Ring.
This Brotherhood will sustain itself, providing for its own needs.
This Brotherhood will learn from its allies and enemies alike.
This Brotherhood will consume those lesser than itself.
This Brotherhood will destroy those who will not be consumed.

The Brotherhood shall prevail!

-Havo out.

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