TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword
Chapter 1: The Siege of C-J6MT
Chapter 2: Introduction to EVE Online
Chapter 3: Seeds of the Empires
Chapter 4: A Civil War in the North
Chapter 5: Prelude to War
Chapter 6: The Great Northern War
Chapter 7: The Capital Age
Chapter 8: Rise of Ascendant Frontier
Chapter 9: The Ascendant Frontier War
Chapter 10: Fallen Frontier
Chapter 11: Enter Goons
Chapter 12: Unholy Goonion
Chapter 13: The Great EVE War Begins
Chapter 14: The Great EVE War Part 2
Chapter 15: Maximum Damage
Chapter 16: The Russian Schism
Chapter 17: The Great EVE War Part 3
Chapter 18: After the War
 
Note  for  ebook  readers: This  story  benefits  greatly  from  the  inclusion  of
maps  displaying  the  geography  of  the  EVE  Online  universe  which  cannot
properly  be  displayed  in  some  ebook  formats.  They're  not  required  to
understand the story, but may help to enhance the experience. You can view
these maps at: EveHistory.imgur.com.

FOREWORD

"EVE is real.”

That single statement has embroiled the EVE Online community in

disagreement for years. That sentence sums up everything that makes EVE

special, and every player has an opinion on it.

For some people the notion that EVE is real is absurd, a way of placing

false importance on a silly spaceship game, and a byproduct of people

taking the game too seriously.

For others the idea is more meaningful. For them—for us—it’s very much a

philosophical statement. For us, it’s about expanding the definition of what

constitutes a real space.

The building blocks of EVE Online’s universe—called New Eden—are

ones and zeroes rather than ordinary Earth elements, but what Earth and

New Eden have in common is humanity. Jealousy, ambition, revenge,

greed, hatred, and friendship are at the core of EVE Online. Human

emotions and work make up the soul of New Eden, and you’ll find every

emotion there that you would in the traditional world.

In that sense, New Eden is very much a new province of humanity, and its

history is worth preserving. It’s a place where a single leader can inspire

dozens of Russian pilots to defend their last starbase for two and a half days

straight without sleep. It’s a place where ideological differences can spark

years-long conflicts involving tens of thousands of real humans. The full

range of human potential is on display in EVE. It’s a virtual space, but it’s a

virtual space where causation and human ambition matter, and that makes it

a space that matters to history.

As a journalist, chronicling the history of EVE Online is an incredibly

exciting opportunity. Scholars have been studying the actions of players in

virtual worlds for decades, but never before—to the best of my knowledge

—has anyone worked to document the stories and the struggles of the

people who inhabit one of these virtual places.

There are certainly many people who think spending your time in a virtual

world is a waste of energy, but I hope to convince you in these pages that

it’s not. The stories from EVE are no different from those that occur in the

real world. They inspire and bring meaning to people’s lives, and they show

us the very best and worst in ourselves.

EVE is real.

— Andrew Groen

The following is based on true events...

CHAPTER ONE:

THE WAR FOR INSMOTHER

AND THE SIEGE OF C-J6MT

On May 25, 2006, 70 Russian pilots sat tired and bleary-eyed in their

battleships near the first moon of the fourth planet in a star system so

remote it was known only by the obscure designation “C-J6MT.” They had

dug in their heels, huddled around their last stronghold—a defensive

starbase—and were preparing for the fight of their lives. Their fleet

commander, a Russian-born New Yorker known to his compatriots as

“Death,” spoke to his friends and fellow pilots, rallying the troops for one

last stand.

“You have to be able to show people that there is a hope,” he later said.

“Even a fucking tiny one. Just show the people that there is a little tiny hope

that exists.”

A fleet of over 400 “Coalition of the South” ships—the enemies of the

Russians—warped in on the position of the 70 defenders. Among the

massive fleet were 15 state-of-the-art, siege-capable dreadnoughts designed

to rip the entrenched Russian position to shreds. As the Coalition

dreadnoughts aimed their huge guns at the starbase and fired the opening

volley, the Russian fleet commander gave the order to retaliate. They were

outnumbered almost six to one, but they were prepared.

“When you’re going up against those kind of odds you’d better have some

great fucking idea about how you’re going to beat their asses,” Death told

me in a thick Russian accent.

The siege of C-J6MT had begun.

ALAMO

The Russian pilots were all that remained of the former powerhouse Red

Alliance, a group whose holdings had once spanned across 450 star

systems, making it the dominant power in the southeast of New Eden.

The Coalition of the South was comprised of several smaller alliances

which each had an “ancestral claim” to the territory Red Alliance conquered

(some very old groups in EVE occasionally claim ancestral rights to certain

territories if they were among the first to settle there when the game

launched in 2003).

Before they joined forces and became the Coalition of the South, the

smaller groups each individually asked Red Alliance for their territory back,

but each request was denied by Red Alliance at the height of its power and

its hubris. Real world relationships can heavily influence politics in EVE,

and in this case the path to a peaceful resolution was being obstructed

because some Coalition of the South pilots thought it was funny to mock

the Russians for their nationality.

“They really bore grudges, the Russians,” said Lallante, a former fleet

commander in the Coalition of the South. “We tried diplomacy initially to

say ‘we’re happy leaving you in the East, you can keep your old regions.

Let’s just be friends.’ And they said, ‘No. We remember all those vodka

jokes. This is gonna go down.’”

Not content to take no for an answer, those alliances came together to

remove Red Alliance from its enormous empire in the southeast.

Individually, the alliances that made up the Coalition of the South were no

match for the Russians, but as a combined unit it was the dominant force in

the southeast of New Eden. And so the fingers (Lotka Volterra, Knights of

the Southern Cross, Chimaera Pact, and Veritas Immortalis) formed a fist:

the Coalition of the South. Its ranks numbered in the thousands. It was

wealthy. And it was capable of fielding fleets bigger and better equipped

than any in the region. The ranks of Red Alliance had swelled too. The

Russian alliance now recruited American and French wings among other

nationalities.

As Red Alliance accepted more and more partner groups into its alliance,

the Coalition of the South prepared for a massive invasion of Red Alliance

territory.

ENCROACHING DARK IN A GOLDEN AGE

The stage was set for an epic war between the two giants of the southeast,

but it didn’t pan out that way. The initial invasion of Red Alliance territory

went unopposed. Two whole regions, 180 star systems, were lost for the

most mundane of reasons: Red Alliance’s leadership couldn’t convince its

pilots to make the long trip out for the battle from their headquarters. The

regions of Detorid and Immensea were lost and Red Alliance defense fleets

were nowhere to be found.

The newfound girth of Red Alliance was working against it. In the words of

a former leader, “Mactep,” (a Russian word both pronounced and meaning

“Master”) it had too many language barriers and was weakly organized.

These are two terrible qualities for an organization trying to field an army in

EVE Online. Loyalty takes time to develop, and Red Alliance’s constituent

corporations were like newly absorbed independent states, still more loyal

to themselves than to the alliance as a whole. Beyond that, it’s difficult to

form camaraderie between soldiers who speak different languages, and it’s

also difficult to ask new alliance members to spend their time and risk their

ships to defend territory they played no role in conquering. Not to mention

the difficulty of leading a fleet under the guiding voice of a single

commander when many of your pilots don’t speak that commander’s

language.

In the region of Wicked Creek, Red Alliance finally stood its ground and

mounted a defense on March 8, 2006. It fielded its largest capital ships,

dreadnoughts, and made a stand.

Dreadnoughts are extremely powerful—yet vulnerable—warships. They

had the ability to go into “siege mode,” which gave them huge bonuses to

firepower and survivability, but this also rendered them immobile for 10

long minutes (this was later reduced by the game’s developer to five

minutes). They could output enormous amounts of damage in siege mode,

but if the battle went south then these expensive ships had no way to extract

or receive help from repair ships.

The battle for Wicked Creek began, and Red Alliance’s losses were

catastrophic.

Nine of Red Alliance’s prized dreadnoughts—the most expensive ships in

existence at the time—were destroyed, and its morale was broken. After

this crushing defeat, the alliance fell to pieces. Because Red Alliance was

composed of loosely-joined corporations, its pilots and fleet commanders

were only experienced in small fleet combat. No one was yet capable of

leading the hundreds of ships necessary to mount an effective defense with

expensive capital ships, and so the Red pilots were defeated again and

again.

The writing was on the wall: the Coalition of the South’s time was rising

and the sun had set on Red Alliance. One by one the corporations which

once happily joined Red Alliance began making excuses and leaving the

front. The alliance’s last few dozen members were left to fend for

themselves. Every non-Russian corporation in Red Alliance gave up the

fight, leaving only a small squad of pilots to carry on the Red name.

What was left was a ragged group of just under 100 players, many of whom

weren’t actually even fighters. Some of them were what Red Alliance called

its “citizens,” non-combatant civilians who depend on the military for

protection. But the miners of Red Alliance weren’t merely vulnerable

civilians. They had been under constant attack for months, fending off

Coalition of the South raids into their territory. As a result, they had no

choice but to figure out how to protect themselves. This meant becoming

schooled in the dark art of player-versus-player combat. They became a

mobilized civilian militia.

The rest of Red Alliance’s pilots were among the best fighters in the game

at that point. Pushed out of their territory, they opted to stay behind enemy

lines rather than flee. Many of them stayed inside enemy systems for

weeks, hiding in safe spots where the enemy had trouble finding them.

They’d become the meanest, most ruthless pilots in New Eden. They stayed

hidden until the enemy dropped its guard, then swooped down like hawks to

pick off vulnerable lone enemies.

NO SURRENDER

But all of this leaves the question: Why were these Russian pilots sticking it

out to the bitter end against terrible odds? What could they possibly hope to

accomplish?

The answer has much to do with the international, multilingual structure of

EVE Online. There are groups in EVE from dozens of countries, and people

generally prefer to play with others who understand their culture and their

language. In 2006, there was only one major Russian player group—Red

Alliance. So for Red Alliance pilots to abandon their comrades would be

tantamount to abandoning any sort of social structure in EVE, and likely

abandoning EVE itself (games like EVE aren’t much fun when you’re

flying solo).

Another factor: they wanted revenge. They were utterly fixated on sticking

it to the Coalition of the South, which had conquered their hard-won

territory.

“When you’re at the point where you’re losing your real-life job because

you’re trying to achieve something… you have to keep going,” said

Mikhail Romanchenko, better known today as Death. “Because otherwise

all of those losses were for nothing. When you set a goal for yourself… you

have to achieve it. No matter what.”

But it was also about more than just stubbornness. Many members of the

Coalition of the South were not exactly gracious in victory. Some members

of their coalition could be found spouting nationalist, even racial epithets

and hate speech about the Russians.

“Russian dogs.”

“They’re selling ISK to feed their families.”

“Their ships were bought with Russian brides.”

The intent was to disparage the Russian players and make them lose all joy

for the game and quit. It had the opposite effect. It gave the Russian players

a rallying cry and a reason to fight. Victory in EVE is very often

accomplished when one side simply gives up and moves on or falls apart

from internal strife. In this case, the opposite was happening, and the

Russian players weren’t going to be booted out of nullsec until they lost

every ship they had.

RED INVASION

Red Alliance waged a guerilla war against the new lords of the land. Under

the leadership of fleet commanders Studik, Death, and Mactep, small

groups of 20-30 Red Alliance pilots would venture out into enemy territory

to hunt.

Bizarrely, they were ignored for days, even weeks, as they stalked and

destroyed their enemies. The Coalition of the South had been broadcasting

propaganda about the demise of Red Alliance, and this led most people to

believe that any Red Alliance members they saw were stragglers and

nothing to be feared. They were wrong.

These Red Alliance raiding gangs quickly racked up a kill tally of over 500

ships on their hunts, and lost only a tenth as many in return. But Red

Alliance wasn’t going to defeat a coalition of thousands with hit-and-run

tactics. It needed to win battles. The raiding gangs had been a nuisance, but

now it was time for a real offensive.

Red Alliance selected one system as the key to its traditional home region

of Insmother: C-J6MT. It was centrally located in Insmother, contained

valuable space stations, and was the gateway to eight other star systems. On

May 24, 2006, Red Alliance attacked and took C-J6MT away from the

Coalition. It quickly built defenses, preparing to defend the system at any

cost. The Coalition could never have stopped the surprise attack, but it

certainly planned to take the system back.

THE WAR FOR INSMOTHER

On May 25, those 70 exhausted Russian pilots were grouped up around

their defensive starbase, waiting for the battle they knew was coming.

A fleet of over 400 Coalition of the South ships warped into the system and

began organizing for battle. For the Coalition of the South this was a chance

to stomp out the flame of Red Alliance. It had defeated the Reds weeks ago

and believed exterminating it here was key to stopping future attacks.

When the Coalition pilots arrived they were full of bluster. Many of them

were still spouting the same old Russian epithets in the local chat channel.

Every major battle had gone their way; they believed victory was a

foregone conclusion.

The Coalition of the South fleet was massive but weakly organized. It

showed up with hundreds of ships of all makes and models with very little

in the way of true strategy. The Russians, on the other hand, were extremely

well organized and knew exactly what they planned to do. After months of

guerrilla warfare they were a finely tuned fighting force. Every pilot in Red

Alliance was outfitted with the exact same ship—a mid-sized Tempest-class

battleship—with the exact same components, the intent being that every

pilot would be on the same page as every other pilot at all times. They flew

in packs of ten.

The Coalition of the South dreadnoughts unpacked their heavy artillery and

unloaded on the defensive starbase while Red Alliance pilots charged the

enemy lines. In their small packs they swarmed the Coalition dreadnoughts

like wasps: difficult to hit and packing a punch. The damage they were

doing to the dreadnoughts forced the rest of the Coalition to try to defend

them. Rather than destroying Red Alliance’s defensive starbase, the

Coalition was now on its back foot just trying to keep its own valuable

ships from being destroyed.

While the Red Alliance Tempest formations swarmed the enemy

dreadnoughts, the defensive starbase’s automated guns were annihilating

the Coalition’s smaller battleships. One by one they were popping like

fireworks as the starbase’s kill tally steadily rose.

The packs of Red Alliance Tempests wove through the enemy fleet with

near impunity, with each group of 10 ships coordinating attacks on one

specific enemy. The damage that the seven groups of battleships were

inflicting began to rise, higher and higher. The Coalition fleet was simply

outmatched. Not in numbers or in firepower, but in strategy.

When the smoke cleared, the Coalition found itself down hundreds of ships,

while the Red Alliance defensive base was still standing and fully repaired.

Red Alliance gave the starbase a name in honor of its stunning performance

in the battle: “The Meatgrinder.”

One day later, the Coalition returned, but was again turned back in a near

repeat of the previous day’s siege. Red Alliance took bigger losses this

time, but again made the Coalition hurt much more badly. Crucially, Red

Alliance managed to take down the flagship dreadnought of the Coalition of

the South fleet commander, who was named “Chowdown”—a symbolic

blow that took the wind out of the Coalition’s sails and embarrassed its

leader.

The next day—the third of the siege—the Coalition pilots arrived in low

spirits. At this point, what hope could they have had in removing the

Russian fleet if they’d already failed with two previous waves of attacks?

But Coalition commanders hoped they could win by grinding down the

Russians. Even if it lost these battles, the Coalition had four regions full of

hundreds of miners and workers to replace its ships. Red Alliance didn’t

have that luxury. Every ship was priceless.

“And so again we fought,” said one of the Coalition’s fleet commanders,

Lallante. “We brought the full weight of [four] alliances to bear on this one

system where they were holed up. But they kept staying up all night to

defend, and coming up with brilliant strategies to kill our dreadnoughts.”

Predictably, the third day was a disaster for the Coalition of the South. Red

Alliance destroyed four more Coalition dreadnoughts, and once again

pushed back its enemies.

Morale had hit rock bottom in the Coalition of the South, but Red Alliance

hadn’t beaten the Coalition yet; it had merely stood its ground. The Reds

were sturdy enough to hold against a foe trying to push them out, but they

were a long way from taking back the hundreds of systems lost in the initial

assault.

In the following days there were no big engagements, but the Coalition still

maintained a presence inside C-J6MT. At all times it outnumbered Red

Alliance two to one inside Red Alliance’s own system. The Russians were

patient. The Coalition was blockading Red Alliance in the system, but it

was getting tired. Day after day, Coalition forces inside C-J6MT weakened

until finally its numbers were equal to Red Alliance.

The Russians saw their advantage. They attacked and wiped out the

Coalition blockade, removing any dispute as to the true owners of C-J6MT.

After months of fighting and a weeks-long siege, Red Alliance had forced a

stalemate and stopped the retreat.

C-J6MT had been conquered by an alliance with more grit and

determination than has been seen before or after. But to take the rest of

Insmother—and regain the southeast—Red Alliance would need allies.

Fortunately for the Russians, within days they would find the most

powerful ally they could possibly imagine.

THE BEGINNING

The Siege of C-J6MT is just one story in the vast interstellar drama that is

EVE Online. It’s merely an excerpt plucked out of context from the much

grander story of the game that this book explores. In order to understand

these recurring characters and these warring nations we have to go back to

their origin at the dawn of the game in 2003.

But before we can explore the events and sweeping narrative of the outer

rim of EVE Online—including the ramifications of this legendary Russian

stand at C-J6MT—there are some things you’ll need to know about the

game.

CHAPTER TWO:

AN INTRODUCTION TO EVE ONLINE

It’s Wednesday night in Belgrade, and a young man has logged in to EVE

Online—an online science fiction video game—along with 49,387 players

from around the world who are exploring the quiet dark of the roughly

7,500 star systems that make up the New Eden star cluster. In one of those

systems, the young man from Belgrade, new to the game, is orbiting a small

asteroid. He is flying a Venture-class beginner mining ship to prospect for

ore in low-security space. In the Tamo star system in the region of

Lonetrek, he burns through an asteroid with lasers like blow torches and

collects the ‘scordite’ ore into the ship’s cargo hold while nervously

watching for any signs of inbound pirates. As soon as his cargo hold is full

he warps his ship to the system’s stargate and sets an autopilot course for

the Jita system—the nearest major trade hub, where players meet to buy and

sell goods. He’ll be able to unload the scordite ore quickly there. He won’t

make a fortune, but it’ll be enough to start saving for a larger mining ship.

When the miner arrives at the main station in Jita, he puts the scordite ore

up for sale on the marketplace and heads back out to do some more mining.

Before long, that ore is snapped up by another player who works as a

production specialist. She makes a living by buying cheap ores on the

market and processing them in a refinery into their more valuable

constituent parts—crystal-like minerals called pyerite and tritanium. In turn,

she sells them at a profit to a wealthy player who is buying up these

minerals en masse as an investment. He has his finger on the pulse of New

Eden’s politics and has learned that two enormous player groups—each

with more than 10,000 players from the “nullsec” region of space—are

about to go to war against one another. When they do, thousands of ships

will be destroyed in the calamity, and their miners will no longer be safe

enough to collect ores for building replacements. The investor is gambling

that those player groups will come to Jita to replenish their supplies,

causing a surge in demand that will send the price of these minerals through

the roof.

When these player alliances scoop up the refined pyerite and tritanium

minerals, they pour them into construction of a brand new Titan-class ship.

This enormous vessel requires the coordination of hundreds of players to

haul millions of tons of minerals to massive capital shipyards. It can only be

built by extremely well-organized groups of players and still takes between

two and three months to construct, but when it’s done, it will be a force

unlike anything else in EVE Online. Titans are so rare that most average

players can spend years playing EVE and never see one.

The warring alliances are constructing entire fleets of these behemoths. The

ores that the lonely miner harvested will now become part of the Doomsday

cannon of an Avatar-class Titan, which will someday soon obliterate an

entire dreadnought-class siege ship with a single volley. That small haul of

ore harvested by a single miner is about to become part of an interstellar

conflict for power and glory between tens of thousands of real people.

THURSDAY

Twenty-six hours later, it’s nearly midnight on Thursday night in Belgrade,

and that lonely miner is back out in an asteroid belt in the Tamo system in

Lonetrek, stuffing the cargo hold with scordite again. He stayed up later

than usual to make some extra money, and he’s crossing paths with other

players he doesn’t normally encounter. Tonight his worst fear comes true

when he notices a new ship on his overview coming directly at him: a

pirate. Moments later he’s struck by a laser blast and warp scrambled so he

can’t get away.

The pirate opens a chat line to the miner, and offers him a chance to escape

with his cargo intact—if he pays a ransom. But the miner is new to the

game, and doesn’t have enough money on-hand to pay for the extortion. So

the pirate blasts his ship into oblivion. As the ship bursts into flames, it

automatically launches an escape pod with the miner from Belgrade inside.

Normally, this would allow the miner to get away, but the pirate is angry

that her ransom was refused: she destroys the escape pod out of spite. The

miner’s body is destroyed, and his consciousness instantly awakens inside a

clone in another star system—as all pilots do when they’re killed in EVE

Online.

Furious that this pirate destroyed an entire evening’s worth of mining yield,

the miner contacts a rich friend who has been playing EVE a much longer

time to ask her for a loan, and she agrees. The miner gets a new ship, flies

back to Jita, and opens the community chat channel. Over a thousand

players are in Jita right now, and the system-wide chat channel is buzzing

with hucksters, alliance recruiters, scam artists, and a few legitimate

business people advertising their wares. The miner asks for help contacting

reputable bounty hunters. He’s put in touch with a mercenary player group

called Double Tap which agrees on a fair price to hunt down and kill the

pirate who destroyed his ship. The miner agrees to pay half in advance and

half when he receives the pirate’s corpse. Before the night is over, the

mercenaries return with the pirate’s body—frozen from being jettisoned

into the vacuum of space when her escape pod was destroyed—and close

out the contract.

FRIDAY

The next evening, 2000 kilometers away in Moscow, the leader of a group

of mostly Russian pilots is preparing his people for an incoming invasion. A

neighboring American alliance has been growing in popularity, and it needs

more turf to house its ever-expanding player base. The American leader has

convinced the members of his alliance that this war is necessary, and that

the people they’re invading are an evil enemy worth going to war to

destroy.

The leader of the defending Russian alliance gives the order for three dozen

pilots to load up massive freighters with hundreds of ships, and begin

moving them to the starbase that will serve as the defense headquarters,

near the front line. The Russian leader meets with his top fleet commanders

and plots out the battle plan. Those fleet commanders, in turn, meet with

hundreds of pilots to tell them what type of ship they should be flying and

what the strategy will be.

SATURDAY

It’s Saturday night in Chicago, and the invasion has begun. The leader of

the American alliance waited until a weekend night in the US time zones to

ensure his pilots would have abundant real-life free time to participate. The

Russians are proving just as dedicated, and have set their alarm clocks—it’s

4:00 AM on their side of the globe—to wake up early and meet the

Americans head-on.

Hundreds of pilots battle in the first starbase attack of the campaign.

Massive laser blasts erupt from the Doomsday cannons of Titan-class

warships, and communications are buzzing with activity as each side’s

leaders bark orders and try to adapt their battle strategy on the fly. The

control of hundreds of star systems is at stake, and the entire balance of

power in the star cluster hangs in the balance.

But on the other side of the star cluster, most players of EVE Online are

oblivious to the violence of the invasion. A group of friends is wandering

low-security regions in the southeast of New Eden looking for pirates to

rough up. A group of roleplayers is hunting down members of the

computer-controlled “Angel Cartel” faction, for the glory of the fictional

Gallente empire. An explorer is scanning and documenting the 5,368th star

system he has visited in his quest to document all 7,500+ systems of New

Eden. A thief is worming his way into an enemy alliance, gaining the trust

of his unsuspecting enemies so he can one day rob them for all they’re

worth. A pilot maneuvers her siege ship into position alongside 200 allies,

and fires the opening volley of a battle that will last six hours. And every

one of these players is a real person with their own personality, culture, and

history. From around the world, they log in to this complex and elaborate

virtual space to try to make their way in this harsh vision of the future.

WELCOME TO NEW EDEN

This is EVE Online, a virtual universe set in the far future, in a cluster of

stars called New Eden. It’s a world of lasers and spaceships and human

beings making real sacrifices for the advancement of their organizations. It

was released to the public in 2003, and survives to this day as the only

video game ever made where ambition, subterfuge, betrayal, and the unity

of thousands of individuals are integral gameplay mechanics.

It’s a “massively multiplayer online game,” which is to say it’s an online

space where large numbers of players come together to play and explore the

same game world. It’s similar to other MMOGs like World of Warcraft or

Everquest, but it’s unique in very important ways.

EVE has only two servers—one for the international community, and one

for Chinese players due to strict Chinese internet regulations. A server is a

carbon copy of the game world. By contrast, most MMOGs or virtual

universes have dozens or hundreds. In a typical online game a player is

assigned a server when they first start playing, and they can’t interact with

players from other servers. These servers are used so that there are never

too many players online at once, which would make the world of a game

like World of Warcraft too crowded. EVE Online can use a single-server

system to house hundreds of thousands of players from most of the world’s

nations because the game world is far larger than the average MMOG. In

most MMOs you’re unlikely to see more than a hundred or so people in any

given place. In EVE, the most populous star systems are routinely filled

with over a thousand players, and the great battles that have made EVE

famous have been waged by as many as 3,000 players at once.

EVE is also unlike most games because it largely allows each player to

decide what they’d like to do in the game. When a new player logs-in to

EVE Online for the first time they’re given a ship, a small amount of

money, a tutorial they can follow if they want to, and some missions which

give them a tour of some of the professions they can use to make money.

But at any time, the player can fly off to any corner of the galaxy and do as

they please. Many an adventurous player has set off on their first day for the

more dangerous areas of the game to make their fortune.

The majority of the players play on a server called Tranquility. Over

twenty-three hours a day (the server shuts down for daily maintenance from

11 to 11:30am GMT) players log in from around the world and play

together in the same space. The Chinese server is called Serenity, and has a

much smaller community.

The events described in this book chronicle the history of the Tranquility

server from 2003 to 2009. The seeds that were laid in the earliest days of

the game sparked a power struggle that has evolved throughout the years,

culminating in the Great EVE War of 2007-2009.

My name is Andrew Groen, and I’ve spent the last eighteen months

conducting dozens of interviews and poring over source documents to write

the first book collecting EVE Online’s history. Much of this work involved

finding and speaking to the original players to reconstruct stories that were

never written down. In other cases, fragmentary accounts have survived and

been combined with interviews and recovered documents to resurrect

stories that would have been lost to time.

MYTHOS

Like any sci-fi or fantasy game, there is a complex backstory behind the

world of New Eden. According to the mythology written by EVE Online’s

developer, CCP Games, New Eden was discovered after a wormhole to a

distant part of the galaxy opened near Old Earth, transporting settlers to a

wondrous new place where they built colonies and new homes.

But the prosperity didn’t last. The wormhole suddenly closed, leaving

millions of people stranded without adequate infrastructure to survive. One

by one these new colonies fell into a dark age, but a few of them survived

and rebuilt their colonies. Over thousands of years they rose again,

developing distinct cultures and mostly forgetting the homeworld.

This, roughly, is where the game begins. EVE takes place in the New Eden

star cluster—comprised of somewhere between 7,000 and 8,000 star

systems—after those original colonies have rebuilt and fashioned

themselves into star-spanning empires.

These computer-controlled empires are known as Minmatar, Gallente,

Amarr, and Caldari, and they form what is called “empire space.” New

players often choose to stay here because these systems are guarded by a

computer-controlled police force, which discourages players from fighting

one another. The police force—called CONCORD—warps in almost

instantly to punish any wrongdoers. CONCORD guards important locations

with nigh-invulnerable ships. However, CONCORD can only punish

someone who commits a crime. It can’t prevent the crime itself.

The biggest threat to a player in EVE Online is always another player.

While many pilots choose to make their living by mining or doing missions,

others choose a life of piracy. They search New Eden for unwary travelers,

easy prey. Even in the most highly secure areas of EVE, other players are

still a potential threat. You can never truly be safe.

The majority of EVE players spend their time in high-security space,

mining asteroids for money, investing in the commodities market, and

running missions. Most of the activity centers around trade hubs like Jita,

where players congregate to buy and sell goods and get missions from non-

player characters. Missions in EVE function much as they do in most other

games: a player is given a task—usually to defeat some notorious fictional

pirate—and if they’re successful they gain some loot and a cash reward.

To help players get around from place to place, every star system in EVE is

linked via a complex system of stargates. The only way to travel from one

system to another is through these stargates, and each system may have one

or several routes to other nearby systems.

CONCORD’s presence in any given system is rated on a scale from 1.0 to

0.0, with 1.0 being the most well-protected. This security system serves as a

sort of difficulty meter for players. In 1.0 or 0.9 space you’re very well

protected, and the chance of being attacked by other players is very low—

but so are the rewards for playing there.

The further a player gets from empire space, the more unforgiving EVE

becomes. When you get far enough from empire space to reach “nullsec,”

or 0.0 space, there are no restrictions of any kind on player behavior. In

nullsec, players can and do seal off entire areas of space for their own

private use, killing anybody who tries to enter. Whoever owns a star system

makes the rules for that star system.

“EVE isn’t designed to just look like a cold, dark and harsh world; it’s

designed to be a cold, dark and harsh world,” wrote a community manager

for EVE Online in one of the most enduring summaries of what defines the

game.

Players always need to be careful, because most of the gains you work for

in EVE can be destroyed forever. The world of EVE has a complete

economy of production and destruction. Almost everything in the game is

built by the players, using materials they mined or otherwise produced.

Some players are miners, and others build ships and advanced ship

components (weapons arrays, shield boosters etc) from the raw materials

they produce. Everybody has their own way of making ISK—Interstellar

Kredits—the main currency of New Eden, which is traded and spent just

like any real currency.

The ships that players produce fall into a few basic categories: frigates,

cruisers, and battleships. There are many roles within those categories, but

the hierarchy of cost and value progresses roughly from frigate to cruiser to

battleship—frigates being the least costly and battleships valued highest.

Beyond those basic categories are the capital class ships. These didn’t exist

at the beginning of EVE Online, and are so expensive and complex to build

that their construction generally requires the effort of hundreds of players.

Capital ships and their bigger supercapital siblings, Titans, will be

explained in more detail later in the book. The important thing to remember

is that every ship has its use. Even the smallest frigate is useful in the right

situation.

Every ship is highly customizable and can be fitted with an assortment of

smaller components, from weapon emplacements to shield hardeners to

speed boosters. Players don’t have direct control over their ship, but they

can give it commands (go here, orbit this object at a distance of 1000

meters, stop moving, fire these weapons). So when fighting in EVE, a

player isn’t dogfighting and aiming with a joystick. They are manipulating

the control panel and giving orders to their ship: cycling weapons systems,

routing power, activating repairs, controlling drones. Winning a fight in

EVE is more about knowing your ship’s capabilities than simply having

quick reflexes.

When you die in most other games you are resurrected; usually with all of

your items and gear. In EVE, a player who loses a fight faces the permanent

loss of their spaceship and its cargo. Even if the player ejects in an escape

pod and tries to get away, their pod can also be destroyed, which results in

the permanent loss of the implants and cybernetic augmentations the player

was using. Every player resurrects as a clone of their former selves when

they die, but any possessions they were carrying aboard their ship—which

they may have worked weeks or months to earn—are lost.

NO QUARTER

EVE Online is known as a “sandbox” game because the goal of the game is

the player’s to define. For some, the goal is to make as much money as

possible and become a powerful trade baron. For others EVE is a game

about spaceship combat, and these players spend their time improving their

ships and looking for fights. Players looking for battle will head out from

empire space into the low-security areas looking for other willing

combatants.

As they get farther and farther from empire, the security rating decreases,

until eventually they arrive in 0.0. This is where EVE really comes alive.

Out in 0.0 space, also called “nullsec,” there is no law. The major nations of

the game’s lore have no footprint out here, and players are free to do as they

please. Generally, that means two things: industry and conquest.

In nullsec, there are no penalties for destroying other players and no

oversight of any kind. This means that players can form groups and wholly

conquer these star systems. In the early days of the game this was

somewhat informal. A group would set up shop in a system and declare that

it was under their control. However, in 2004, the creators of EVE

introduced a concept called “sovereignty,” which allowed player groups to

be officially recognized as the rulers of a star system or region.

In an effort to control these regions of New Eden, players form

“corporations” of hundreds of players who commit to working together.

Some of those players are simple miners or logistics experts who serve their

corporation by lining its wallet with ISK. Others serve as soldiers in the

defense of territory and the invasion of enemy turf. Still others serve as

governmental leaders devoted to keeping order and providing direction for

the nation of players. Most players of EVE Online belong to a corporation

of some sort. The majority of corporations are just small groups of friends

working together, roaming New Eden looking for a fight, or watching each

other’s backs as they mine in dangerous areas. What you can accomplish as

an individual in EVE is nothing compared to what you can achieve with a

group of reliable friends working together.

Each corporation is unique in its mission, structure, and culture. When two

corporations find that they have goals in common they can form an

“alliance,” a feature of EVE that basically allows two or more corporations

to share resources. They can share the same diplomatic standings list (to

make sure they don’t accidentally shoot each other’s allies). They can dock

in each other’s stations. Being in an alliance formalizes friendly

relationships, making cooperation easier. In the outer reaches of New Eden,

the player-led governments and armies of these alliances reign. Conquering

territory requires the efforts of many corporations working together.

However, wherever there is power, there is also conflict. Many an

organization has been torn apart by infighting and civil war.

0.0

Many remarkable things happen in all areas of EVE Online, but this book

will mainly focus on the clashes and the struggle for power between the

diverse, dedicated clans of 0.0 space.

These conflicts between player groups are unique events. While they take

place as simulated video game battles, they are also a very real struggle for

dominance and resources. Over time, warfare in EVE Online has grown

more and more ruthless.

When the game first launched, warfare was purely an in-game affair. Two

small armies clashed on the battlefield and sometimes there was a clear

winner. Over time, players turned to more elaborate tactics, including

psychological warfare. In an EVE war there’s more to a battle than

spaceships and lasers. There’s a real person piloting every ship, and their

willingness to fight is perhaps the most important part of the war.

Sometimes an alliance’s war strategy involves destroying enemy

infrastructure or cutting off their ability to earn money to build ships, but

sometimes the strategy is to simply make the game so miserable for the

enemy that their pilots stop showing up.

To that end, propaganda has been a major factor in many EVE Online wars.

Smart leaders know that they can shape the narrative of a war to make

themselves look like underdogs, aggrieved parties, or even martyrs. In the

era covered by this book, there was one online forum in particular where

the majority of discussion about the game took place—a section of the EVE

Online official forums called the “Corporation, Alliance, and Organization

Discussion” forum: CAOD. This is where alliances came to make a case for

war. Some leaders paid little attention to the discussions on CAOD, but

others used it to disseminate their version of events to the rest of EVE. By

crafting a compelling narrative, a leader could secure high-impact partners

or convince other alliances to join the war on their side. Many an

impassioned speech has been made on CAOD in an attempt to shame an

enemy and rally support from the rest of the community.

CAOD was the central place where the average EVE player could learn

about the high drama taking place between warring alliances in nullsec.

However, the full story is never told on CAOD. The true story of nullsec

unfolds behind the scenes as players work out deals and agreements via the

in-game chat program and out-of-game TeamSpeak-style voice chat.

Only a few hundred EVE players have ever reached the level of influence

necessary to participate in the high-stakes gameplay of inter-alliance

diplomacy. Every leader wants what is best for their alliance, but forming

the wrong partnership or attacking the wrong enemy can lead to

catastrophic failure. The stress of losing can fracture huge social groups,

and deliberate psychological warfare can tear apart friendships and destroy

trust.

Over time, war in EVE has become more ferocious. In the older days of

EVE there was a concept called “e-bushido” or “e-honor,” which argued

that you should play EVE a certain way: fighting should only take place

between prepared parties within the game, and anything outside of the game

was off-limits. Like renaissance-era infantry, you were supposed to line up

on a pre-determined battlefield and exchange musket volleys like

gentlefolk. As in real-world combat, this fell out of favor.

A huge part of winning a war in modern EVE is about controlling

information, because behind every epic space battle there’s a shadow war of

informants, turncoats, and spies. The more information you have, the more

likely you are to win the spaceship fight. That means knowing in advance

what the enemy force will be flying, and how best to combat their ships. It

means placing scouts in outlying systems so you know when and where the

enemy is coming, and whether they may have reinforcements waiting

nearby. It also means figuring out who the enemy’s leaders are and making

sure their ships are destroyed first, to disrupt their lines of communication.

It’s also important to remember that while there are lasers and explosions in

every battle, that isn’t what the average pilot sees. For them, the battle is

about following orders and falling in line. There are no lone wolf heroes in

EVE. A fleet is a collaboration, and the side with more selfless pilots is

usually victorious. The average player sees nothing more than a bunch of

dots on the screen, their own ship’s interface, and a chart listing nearby

enemies and allies. It’s almost impossible to understand what’s happening

in the battle when you’re in the middle of it. That’s the job of the fleet

commander.

The fleet commander is the guiding voice of the entire fleet, giving

direction to everyone and coordinating hundreds of people to form a

coherent battle plan. To do that, the fleet commanders play an entirely

different game than everyone else. They don’t even look at the battle.

Instead, they talk with as many people as possible: the lieutenants on the

front lines, the scouts in neighboring systems, their advisers, and so on.

They try to piece everything together into an accurate picture of what’s

happening across multiple systems and possibly several large battles. There

are hundreds of people waiting for them to give an order, and they’ve all

been trained to do exactly as the fleet commander says.

These battles are generally fought over territory, and, in particular, key

systems that contain space stations where players can find missions and

dock their ships. More territory can mean unique types of gameplay to

experience. It can also mean more opportunities for the alliance to make

money, and more space where a growing alliance can spread out.

But even in a well-run alliance, every combatant is human and has their

own reasons for piloting their ship onto the battlefield. New Eden is a

virtual universe ruled by real people.

CHAPTER THREE:

SEEDS OF THE EMPIRES

Long before EVE Online hit store shelves, it had a community. From all

over the world, gaming fans were lured in by the concept of a space-based,

sci-fi massively multiplayer game—an exception in a genre that had been

dominated by the fantasy theme for a very long time. EVE Online seemed

built for fans of older complex sci-fi games like Elite, Earth and Beyond,

and Homeworld, and many of the first EVE players were plucked directly

from those three communities. When these disparate groups arrived in New

Eden during the private alpha and beta tests, they clashed immediately. The

fight for dominance began before EVE Online had even been released to

the public.

Many of the most influential groups named themselves after the region in

which they were headquartered. Stain Alliance, Curse Alliance, Fountain

Alliance, and Venal Alliance were all named after important regions in

nullsec. But in EVE’s alpha and beta tests, the group that would go on to

have the biggest impact on early EVE was a Homeworld clan that went by

TAOSP—later renowned as the conquerors “Evolution.”

EVOLUTION

This group of space tacticians would one day conquer nearly half of New

Eden. But when they first arrived, they were a bunch of space strategy

geeks playing an entirely different game.

Lured in by the lofty promises of the sandbox EVE Online universe, the

leaders of Evolution sent a letter to CCP Games telling the game makers

about the types of things they wanted to do in this unique and open

universe. They were invited to join EVE during its Alpha stage, alongside

just a few hundred other players.

At this point in EVE’s development there were only seven star systems, as

compared to the over seven thousand systems that comprise the modern

EVE universe. This was EVE at its most basic. But even in this shrunken

state, Evolution’s leaders had a vision of things to come.

The members of the community got to know each other very well. There

weren’t a lot of places to hide in just seven systems, after all. The biggest

player corporations were no bigger than a couple dozen members. In this

fetal stage of the game’s development, a leader rose to the head of

Evolution who defined its mission and public face for years to come.

Everyone in the New Eden star cluster would one day know the name of

SirMolle (pronounced “Sir Moh-leh”). Even to his enemies—who often

later became his strongest allies—SirMolle was one of the greatest leaders

in the history of EVE Online. He was arrogant, inspiring, and prideful to a

fault.

SirMolle was a forceful statesman and was one of the best EVE players

ever when it came to bending other players to his will. SirMolle cast

himself as a ruthless space tyrant: not exactly the bad guy, but a leader with

just the right balance of control and crazy. Like other powerful leaders

throughout EVE’s history, he’d even butt heads with the game’s developers.

He projected an image of the strong dictator his enemies wished they could

be. In him they saw someone whose rule was absolute, in stark contrast to

the messiness of their own political affairs.

This was fiction, of course. SirMolle was backed up by a team of talented

logisticians and strategists. But they all understood the need for someone

like SirMolle. They knew there was a strategic advantage in appearing to be

in lock-step behind a singular face: the chiseled sneer of SirMolle’s avatar.

After having spent countless hours talking with the man during the

reporting of this book, I think he began to buy into his own persona at

times, despite the modesty with which he lived his offline life. In real life,

SirMolle was a repairman who immigrated to Denmark from Sweden. He

fixed air conditioners by day, and by night he commanded the most feared

fleets in New Eden.

ALPHA

SirMolle’s corporation, Evolution, had been with EVE since the beginning,

save for one brief incident where SirMolle was expelled from the alpha

stage testing for calling for the resignation of one of EVE’s lead designers.

He called the designer out for “gross incompetence,” and was met with a

ban. The ban didn’t stick, and SirMolle was back in action when the beta

launched. But it wouldn’t be the only time he was banned from the game.

As alpha ended and beta launched, the game’s developers mingled freely

with the players, and they were considered extremely high value targets.

Every player wanted to stick a missile in the hull of a developer. “And they

were good about it,” SirMolle told me. “They wanted us to shoot them and

have fun.”

SirMolle and a friend once came across a developer ship undocking from a

station. SirMolle and his compatriot instantly turned their guns on the ship

and unloaded every bit of ammunition they had at their disposal, laughing

all the while.

“So we’re unloading on this battleship. Reloading, unloading, reloading,

unloading. And he’s not firing back, he’s behaving oddly. All of the sudden

the server goes down.”

Their screen went black and the tiny one-sided battle ended. This alone

didn’t raise their suspicions. Server shutdowns were very common during

beta, and CCP were constantly wiping and resetting the servers. But when

the game came online again, they received a message: “You are banned.”

They immediately logged into the IRC channel—an online chat program—

where the game’s developers could often be found, and asked them what the

deal was. The reply came back: “Yeah, sorry about that. We’re doing a press

showing and you just shot down a journalist.”

One of the first reporters ever to play EVE undocked from the station and

before they could even figure out how to pilot the ship, the denizens of EVE

had ambushed them.

SirMolle told me this with a giggle in his voice, still clearly proud 12 years

later to have caused such mischief. Throughout his EVE career mischief has

followed him wherever he goes. Though his space tyrant persona carried an

air of righteous justice, SirMolle really loved starting trouble.

BETA

EVE’s beta was the womb for more than just the game’s development. It

was a time when the power structure of the community was beginning to

form. Every major power in New Eden for the first few years of the game’s

retail release had a past in the beta.

There’s an obvious advantage to starting the game long before everyone

else, but there are some not so obvious ones too. Certainly these players

were more experienced in the ways of production and combat, but the more

critical aspects were networking and training. Players who had been around

longer simply had more friends, and you can’t overstate the importance of

allies when it comes to succeeding in cutthroat New Eden.

Evolution—and every corporation with the privilege of beginning in beta—

had one more advantage. Throughout the beta, CCP wiped the servers

dozens of times, and everyone had to start back at square one every time it

happened. Ostensibly this would reset Evolution’s advantages, but it

actually helped the fledgling organization.

By the time the game launched, Evolution’s leaders had rebuilt the

corporation from the ground up dozens of times. They knew exactly how to

structure themselves. They knew how to get rich quickly. They knew how

to build a fleet and fight battles.

“If you took the general population and compared them to us, we were

miles ahead,” SirMolle told me, perhaps arrogantly. “We used alpha and

beta to plan. To build networks. To get to know people. And on the last day

of beta we killed [the corporation.] Completely started from scratch and

said, ‘We’ll keep these people, these other people we do not want.’”

It was true to its namesake, “Evolution.” The Darwinian theme would

permeate their language and messaging for years. But even as it reformed,

other groups were forming at the same time who had the same grand

ambitions as SirMolle and his people.

VENAL ALLIANCE

Most of the powerful corporations of early EVE Online came from other

video games, but Venal Alliance was different. Its core constituents weren’t

video gamers: they were LARPers (live-action role-players).

All over the world, LARP groups do real-world mock-battle with swords

and wizardry, but this English LARP group was special. With thousands of

players, it was so large that politics became a very important part of the

game. When EVE Online launched, a small group of 30 or so players from

this LARP club decided to try it out, and they brought their predilection for

politics and role-playing with them.

They called themselves Jericho Fraction. Their leader was a male player

who played the female character Jade Constantine, and he was heavily

influenced by his experience in a medieval alliance of LARPers. He was

also a student of middle English literature, and in our interview he often

made references to Arthurian legend.

The players in Jericho Fraction were originally looking for a sci-fi

alternative to their usual medieval gaming, and they were struck by the lore

of EVE Online. They found inspiration in the fact that EVE’s players are

able to resurrect whenever they die in combat. They formed roleplay

personas around the idea that the cloning technology that made this possible

is a truly transformational technology. They believed that this technology

made the individual human so powerful that there was no need for a

governmental structure, and that we could effectively take care of ourselves.

This ethos was crystallized on the second day of EVE’s retail release. The

first member of Jericho Fraction to join EVE happened upon a small

“slave” operation. A half dozen players were forcing another group of

players to do their mining for them, under the threat of destroying their

ships. All the while, the slavers spouted off about how the miners were lazy

or not paying enough of a kickback. Many players of EVE Online enjoy

pretending to be actual denizens of New Eden, and they are adamant about

playing in character. It’s not too surprising that some players would be

willing to pretend they were enslaved just to further their roleplay persona.

It’s likely they were just putting on a roleplay show, but it sparked the

individualist, freedom-loving ideals of Jade Constantine and Jericho

Fraction.

THE MERCHANT RACES

The members of Jericho Fraction were traders and merchants. Back in the

earliest days of EVE one of the best ways to make money was by buying

and selling commodities in different markets across the game. Later, EVE

would place all of its emphasis on a player-controlled market, but in the

early days, players could buy items and wares from characters in stations all

over the game and then sell them elsewhere. So a trader could, for instance,

make a profit by buying a commodity in western Gallente space and then

selling it in eastern Minmatar space where it was more scarce.

In addition to their LARPers, Jericho Fraction also had among them a set of

dedicated and intelligent board game enthusiasts who were adept at picking

apart an economic system and finding the best way to game it. They quickly

puzzled out the optimum way to make money from this commodity trading

system, and Jericho Fraction became extremely wealthy.

Their secrets didn’t last though. Other traders eventually discovered their

methods, and would challenge them on their trade routes. The traders of the

Jericho Fraction corporation knew that you could buy “Robotics”

commodities in the North of New Eden, then sell them in the South for a

profit of millions of ISK—an absurd amount of money at the time. The

trick was that the commodity price was flexible. Once a player flooded the

market by selling all their Robotics goods, the price would start to fall. The

prices reset every day when the New Eden server went down for

maintenance.

What resulted was a daily series of early morning races along the most

profitable trade routes. Merchants would log in as quickly as possible after

the server came back online from the daily maintenance shutdown, and fly

down the trade routes to the most profitable destinations. But the merchants

weren’t the only ones who figured out these routes. These well-traveled

merchant race tracks drew a bevy of pirate traps looking for easy prey.

Some of these pirates were mercenaries hired by the traders who used that

path. They’d pay the pirates to shoot down their competition in order to

give them an easier path to profit.

Before long, Jericho Fraction realized there was even more money to be

found out in the uncharted territories of nullsec. The goods that could be

purchased up in the Venal region could be sold for as much as 20-30 million

ISK per run. This was in an era of New Eden where even 1 million ISK was

a fortune to the average player.

Jericho Fraction identified the region of Venal as having particularly good

profit margins and set a course for nullsec for the first time. The only

trouble was that nullsec was exceedingly dangerous, and a group of pirate

corporations already had control over Venal. It wouldn’t be right to call

them sovereigns, exactly, but it was the most powerful group in the region.

The corporations called themselves the Venal Alliance, and were most

interested in acting as highwaymen. The alliance made a modest living by

waiting outside stargates and attacking random passersby.

The Venal Alliance pirates were a problem for Jericho Fraction; it posed a

serious risk to the transport ships that were moving commodities. And so

the leader of Jericho Fraction, Jade Constantine, made contact with the

leader of these pirate gangs and set up a meeting with the heads of their

corporations. They got together to talk and Jade Constantine gave them her

sales pitch—and a warning.

She began with a description of Jericho Fraction’s money-making

endeavors. Jade showed these pirates how much a thoughtful organization

was capable of earning in EVE, which also served the ulterior purpose of

making the pirates feel small-time. But Jade also argued that their time was

ending. Large alliances were on the rise in New Eden: wealthy Fountain

Alliance in the west, Forsaken Empire in the east, Stain Alliance in the

southwest, and the warlike Curse Alliance in the Southeast. It was only a

matter of time until these entities sought to claim the uncharted North.

Jade convinced the pirates that they needed a financial backbone in order to

survive against more experienced foes. The pirates agreed to form an

alliance with Jericho Fraction. Instead of hunting the traders, the pirate

factions were now their bodyguards, providing safe passage for merchant

ships to make their profits.

Venal Alliance now had a military and a financial backbone, but it wasn’t

until Taggart Transdimensional came to the North that it became a complete

alliance. Taggart Transdimensional was an industrial powerhouse in the

early days of EVE, making a small fortune as a union of expert miners and

shipbuilders. Its success attracted new members, and it grew into one of the

original superpowers of New Eden.

The only trouble was that materials were scarce in early New Eden. Taggart

Transdimensional could sell the materials it mined for a large profit, but its

mining operations couldn’t source all of the materials it needed to build its

battleship fleets. So Taggart had a choice: waste all its profits buying

materials from other corporations or find some place where it could mine

everything itself.

The mineral it needed was called crokite, and the region of Venal happened

to be an extremely rich source of it. Taggart Transdimensional approached

the Venal Alliance to become a member, and discovered the alliance was a

perfect fit. Taggart would do the mining work—which few people in Venal

Alliance were interested in—and it also brought an impressive, dozens-

strong battleship fleet that rivaled any other power in New Eden.

What began as a simple conglomeration of pirate factions had grown into

an alliance with a well-stocked military, a merchant fleet, a mining division,

and even EVE’s most renowned public relations specialist, Jade

Constantine, who would use press releases and propaganda to turn Venal

Alliance into the most visible group in the game.

CHAPTER FOUR:

A CIVIL WAR IN THE NORTH

On May 6, 2003 EVE Online officially launched to the public. Thousands

of players from hundreds of corporations excitedly logged into the game for

the first time and made their move. Everybody had their plan when the

game first launched: how they’d become rich, how they’d become

powerful. However, one of the greatest conquerors in New Eden’s history

chose to remain still.

Evolution’s original plan was to quietly take over New Eden. It set out to

become the Illuminati of EVE Online. The plan was to maintain a low

profile, creep into the midst of larger entities, and then use espionage to

simply take over without anyone having noticed. But Evolution found that

espionage is long, dreary work. It takes months to earn the trust of your

superiors, and the only way to do that is by acting normal. So infiltrating a

corporation has more to do with being a diligent miner and soldier than

being a super-spy-assassin.

Rather than trudge through that boring work just to maliciously deceive

people, Evolution’s leaders opted to stay silent and observe. Evolution had

enjoyed quite the reputation as an organization of elite players during the

beta phase, and that extra attention made things more difficult for its

leaders. So they chose to hit reset for a month and quietly build. The

leadership was waiting to see what the optimal move would be. And so, for

the first month EVE Online was live, Evolution stayed quiet, building ships

and plotting its move.

When it did make a move it headed toward Fountain, a region of space in

the West that wasn’t controlled by a major alliance. There were a few

corporations operating out of that territory, but none that individually posed

a large threat to an organized force like Evolution.

It’s important to remember that the gaming world was much different in

2003 than it is in 2015. Today, voice communication and a strict chain of

command are the default in EVE, but back then everything was informal.

Many corporations only used in-game text chat which is much slower than

being able to talk to your allies. It took a lot more effort and gumption to

become a tight-knit group that could coordinate times to play together and

talk on TeamSpeak or Ventrilo (Internet chat programs). Evolution was

highly organized. It had its own forums and TeamSpeak server. This fact

alone made it a formidable foe.

“I believe the first official war we had was with some entity in towards [the

region of] Fountain,” said SirMolle. “We had like a three week war where

we destroyed them, and they posted on the forums ‘Okay, we’re defeated.’

“That was the kind of level you had in the wars back then. It was very

isolated with two corporations. It was 30 people altogether. It was

concentrated to two or three systems, and you actually had honorable wars

as in ‘I declare war on you.’ That changed over the years.”

The little wars and petty fights of the early days eventually gave way to

Evolution’s ambition, and it made its way toward Fountain. A brief war

broke out once Evolution arrived in Fountain as the locals—as SirMolle

diminutively called them—resisted Evolution’s attempts to take over. The

local corporations were successful at preventing their own eviction, and

eventually a ceasefire was brokered which allowed Evolution to join as a

member of the new Fountain Alliance.

However, the newly unified Fountain Alliance wouldn’t last long. Several

Fountain Alliance leaders I spoke to described Fountain Alliance as a group

that eventually became bogged down with bureaucracy. Five hour weekly

council meetings became the norm as they discussed logistics, territorial

mining rights, and endless other laborious topics. Nobody was having much

fun, and EVE became work. A lack of fun is the silent killer of alliances in

EVE.

The boredom and bureaucracy of Fountain Alliance became too much for

Evolution over time. In a matter of just a few months Evolution left

Fountain Alliance on amicable terms, said their farewells, and headed

North. It wanted to fight a war, and it was prepared to manufacture one if it

had to.

CASUS BELLI

Meanwhile, in the north, the Venal Alliance had formed and was in the

process of coalescing as the dominant force in the northern regions. The

corporations of Venal Alliance worked together for mutual benefit, and

made a lot of money in the process. What the Venal Alliance didn’t know

was that one of its main corporations—Taggart Transdimensional—had a

bullseye on its back. Taggart and Evolution had fought months earlier in the

EVE Online beta, and now that Evolution had left Fountain Alliance in the

west to search for a war in the nearby north, there was no better target than

its old enemy.

But Evolution couldn’t just march in and declare war against an innocent

alliance. That would paint it as the villain, which would harm its

recruitment, and potentially draw new allies to Taggart’s aid. Evolution

needed a proper reason to fight, and it set itself to trying to find one,

whether it was valid or not. A player by the name of Mr. Blonde turned out

to be adept at this type of spywork.

The plan Mr. Blonde concocted was to send small raiding gangs into Venal

Alliance territory and take cheap shots at Venal ships, the goal being to

simply raise the blood pressure of the region. He wanted to make Venal

afraid and get its leaders thinking about a fight. It didn’t take the bait

though, and Evolution was forced to play along.

Text conversations still exist between the leaders of Evolution and Venal

Alliance from this time as Venal Alliance sought answers for why its allies

were being targeted. In the logs, Evolution leader SirMolle feigns ignorance

and claims the shootings were surely caused by a spate of new recruits who

didn’t understand Evolution’s sterling code of conduct. SirMolle assured

Venal Alliance leaders that he’d look into the problem and get back to them.

He gave Venal’s directors the runaround in every way short of asking them

to submit a complaint to Evolution’s department of personnel. Then he

posted these conversations in Evolution’s forums to have a laugh with his

comrades in a forum thread titled, “Who? Me? What why?

Naaaaaaaaaaaaaah.”

Venal Alliance wasn’t ready to go to war. It was wealthy enough that a few

ship losses weren’t very meaningful. Especially when its leaders had been

assured by their would-be enemies that these were isolated incidents that

would be dealt with.

So Evolution kicked things up a notch. Mr. Blonde—also known by the

nom de guerre “Femme Fatale”—set to work concocting a new plan to

paint Taggart Transdimensional as the secret aggressor in a new war,

planting evidence that TaggartTransdimensional was going behind Venal

Alliance’s back to hire mercenary pirates to attack Evolution’s people.

“Independent sources are now stating that M0o, Sinister and Rus received

payment from Taggart Transdimensional for [Evolution] ships proven

destroyed,” SirMolle wrote in July 2003 on the public forums. M0o,

Sinister, and Rus were well-known pirate factions of the day.

Again, there are surviving conversation logs from this time showing

Evolution players attempting to convince pirates from the accused factions

to play along. In them, SirMolle sends a message to Stavros—then a leader

of M0o—and smugly tells him he’s going to give Stavros “an opportunity.”

SirMolle requests that Stavros lie and say his alliance was paid to attack

against Evolution. But Stavros informed him that he’s mistaken and no such

thing happened.

Molle’s reply: “Meh.” He asked him to confirm it anyway. Ultimately,

Evolution never found someone to lie on its behalf. SirMolle still spread the

lie, but pretended he couldn’t say where he got this information from out of

a need to keep his sources confidential.

Just days later, Evolution determined that public sentiment (which it judged

by conversations with allies and responses on the Corporation, Alliance,

and Organization Discussion forum) was favorable enough for it to start an

all-out war. SirMolle’s pilots were behind him and the average player

wasn’t willing to rush to the aid of Taggart. Evolution was being given the

benefit of the doubt. And so, still feigning shock, Evolution formally

declared war against a confused Taggart Transdimensional.

It’s time...

You have been tried and found guilty. The verdict is simple;

Annihilation.

Among the various accusations are these;

Paying known pirates ISK for hits on Evolution.

Supplying same pirates with Ships/Equipment.

Withholding information and blatantly lying.

These accusations have been reviewed internally, and the answer is

simple. Taggart Transdimensional will die.

Sincerely,

SirMolle, CEO, Evolution

Some people demanded proof of Evolution’s allegations against Taggart

Transdimensional, and SirMolle replied with such a transparent lie it’s a

miracle it wasn’t figured out.

“Our statement is clear, we have no wish to try and convince anyone,”

SirMolle wrote on the forums. “This statement is good enough for us, and

our sources are valid. That is all that matters. You may make up your own

minds. That is not our decision. Our decision is made.”

In other words, SirMolle said Evolution didn’t care if the public approved

of his cause for war or not—an obvious lie given that that he was declaring

the war and its causes on a public forum. He wanted the EVE-playing

public to take Evolution at its word even though it would take mere seconds

to copy the supposed evidence into a forum post.

Eleven years later, SirMolle tells stories like this with a laugh. He’s more

than happy to admit his insatiable love of starting political fires, and he still

clearly gets joy out of recounting the tales of his conquests over truth.

MURDER AND BUTCHERY

With impending aggression right on their doorstep and Evolution banging

its war drums, the leaders of Venal Alliance convened to determine their

official response. The decision was unanimously made to stand by Taggart

Transdimensional and wage war against the invading forces of Evolution.

Evolution was not a large group by any standard. It had only a few dozen

players, but it was spectacularly well-organized. As such, Evolution was

ready to go to war. Its pilots had outfitted themselves in some of the best

ships available. They were ready and willing to show up for battles, and

most importantly they enjoyed warfare. Venal Alliance, by contrast, was a

group that was largely set up for monetary gain. Even its best pilots tended

to be former pirates who had more experience picking on defenseless

miners than engaging in large fleet fights.

Evolution came north from Fountain through Pure Blind and Tribute, and

began its attack on Venal Alliance’s trade routes and mining spots.

“The war began, and we got slaughtered,” said Venal Alliance’s Jade

Constantine in 2014. “Just outright murder and butchery. We lost ship after

ship after ship.”

Warfare in July 2003 was more informal, but also more hectic than in the

modern game. There wasn’t yet a system in EVE Online for defining which

player groups owned which territory. It was very much a cultural thing. The

players knew who owned which territory, and didn’t need official records.

But this also meant that in warzones there were no battle lines, and nothing

to specifically be gained by short-term victories. With no official

sovereignty to take from an enemy the main goal of a battle was simply to

kill as many foes as possible and disrupt their operations. Evolution knew

this very well, and it became equal parts famous and reviled for its “hit and

fade” attacks. An Evolution fleet would show up, inflict as much damage as

it could, and then disappear before the enemy fleet had time to gather.

Evolution’s enemies mocked its perceived cowardice and unwillingness to

commit to a full fight. Evolution mocked them right back for expecting

warfare to be conducted like renaissance-era musketeers exchanging

volleys in turn. A dance would occur between the two enemies that

stretched around the clock. Depending on where in the real world each fleet

primarily hailed from, they would be dominant at different hours. When

Evolution’s commanders didn’t feel they could win a fight, they would

leave. Occasionally, both would catch each other feeling confident and

sparks would fly.

BLOODY BKG

Few details remain of the battles from this time. What we do know is that

the bulk of the fighting centered around the system BKG-Q2 in the heart of

the Branch region, home to a valuable station that everyone wanted to

control. The specifics of the individual battles were less important than the

simple fact that Evolution was handing out a beating on the battlefield. Yet

Venal Alliance was winning on another front.

Venal’s figurehead leader, Jade Constantine, was hard at work waging a war

of propaganda. From the very beginning, Venal Alliance’s vision was that

of a free north. Jade Constantine crusaded to keep the northern territories

free from the type of corporate dictatorships that had sprung up all over the

rest of New Eden. In those places the law was simple: anyone who isn’t a

stated ally was kill-on-sight. Even if they were neutral to you, kill them.

The thinking was that it wasn’t worth the risk to have random people in

your territory in case they’re spies, saboteurs, or pirates.

The dream of Venal Alliance was to create a territory where average players

could come, do business, build ships, conduct commerce, and leave freely.

It was a vision of a civilization that co-existed with the rest of New Eden

rather than trying to militarily protect itself from all potential threats.

“We were running a PR campaign at the time that was saying essentially

that Venal is a free port,” said Jade Constantine in 2014. “This is a place of

free trading. It’s somewhere anyone from Empire space can come out to. So

why not come out and fight for the Venal Alliance against the Evolution

oppressors?”

You might be thinking that this sounds a great deal more honorable than

Evolution’s deceptive warmongering. The citizens of New Eden at the time

largely agreed, and Venal Alliance was becoming the martyr in the north.

Jade Constantine is an extremely divisive force in the history of EVE

Online, but an undeniably important one. At the time, many players hated

seeing her face beside long propaganda screeds on the forums. Some saw

her as pompous, self-righteous, and devious. They believed she twisted the

facts to conform to her self-serving narrative. Jade carried herself with a

pomposity that annoyed some, and she had a way of speaking down to

dissenters, famously calling them “m’dear.”

The real life player behind Jade, was exceptionally talented at painting a

picture of warfare for the people of New Eden. Every week, players could

find a 2,000-word essay he’d written attempting to control the conversation.

When I interviewed Cruse he told me about an old English king whom he’d

taken inspiration from. It’s the story of King Henry II of England in the

12th century who was traveling through Britain, putting down rebellions in

his various territories. At one point he traveled to Ireland and put down a

rebellion, only to be informed he’d have to go back to London to suppress

an even larger one. The trouble was that his army had dwindled, and to

make matters worse he was forced to travel through potentially hostile

territory—Wales—to get there.

King Henry’s astonishing solution was to pretend he was the reincarnation

of the legendary King Arthur. He hired seamstresses to create great white

banners bearing Arthur’s sigil, a red dragon. He hired minstrels and

storytellers to travel ahead of his army to tell stories of how Arthur had

been seen again after hundreds of years. According to the tale, he arrived on

the shores of Wales that winter with basically nothing except his knights

dressed in exceptionally flashy garb. For whatever reason, the people of

Wales bought it. Not only did Henry II gain safe passage through the

territory, but the Welsh people joined his army by the thousands.

Cruse told me this story to illustrate a point about shaping a conflict through

words, and how a story alone can change the course of history.

JADE CONSTANTINE THE VERBOSE

As a result of Jade Constantine’s propaganda/public relations campaign,

Venal Alliance started attracting numerous new corporations from Empire

space who wanted to try their hand at warfare in nullsec. Some people

loathed Jade, but others believed in her vision of a free port in the north.

Venal Alliance had the financial backbone, and these new recruits provided

the manpower the alliance needed to keep the defense strong at all hours of

the day. So Venal began buying dozens of smaller ships for its newfound

meatshield. The combination of an effective narrative, a bevy of new

volunteers, and a strong financial backbone allowed it to stabilize as

sufficient defenders of the north.

Unfortunately, defense was all its pilots could manage. It could stand its

ground against Evolution, but Venal Alliance was far from winning the war.

Its miners were safe enough to keep mining, and the merchant ships stayed

safe, but the battles weren’t being won. They just weren’t catastrophic

defeats anymore.

It wasn’t long before the members of Venal Alliance started to notice that

the members of Taggart Transdimensional—the people Venal Alliance

banded together to defend from Evolution—were barely ever seen anymore.

Battles would break out and Taggart members weren’t fighting them.

Taggart was an exceptionally wealthy corporation with a population of

players that made up roughly 40 percent of the Venal Alliance. In battles,

however, it represented far less than that.

Jade Constantine and others called for another gathering of Venal Alliance’s

war council to discuss how to deal with this. Taggart heard their arguments

and offered to help out its allies in the Venal Alliance by selling them

battleships at “only” a 20 percent markup from the cost Taggart incurred in

building them. Which, it tried to justify, was 15 percent less than it usually

marked them up.

I like to compare this situation to a person asking their friends to help them

move house. Except when the friends arrive to help, the homeowner doesn’t

move any boxes. When the friends inevitably complain, the homeowner

feigns sympathy and tries to make amends by offering to sell them a hand

truck. It was a deal that was obviously rejected and was borderline

insulting.

Around this time, SirMolle of Evolution reached out to contact Jade

Constantine for a parlay. He spoke to Jade with his trademark patronizing

tone, telling her that Evolution had been impressed by the “fighting spirit”

of the Venal Alliance. However, what Evolution wanted was to hurt Taggart

Transdimensional, and SirMolle was frustrated that Taggart was so often

missing from the battlefield.

So SirMolle offered his deal: throw Taggart Transdimensional out of Venal

Alliance, and Evolution would recognize Venal Alliance’s sovereignty in

the north and call a ceasefire with everyone but Taggart.

THIS TREACHEROUS NIGHT

Jade took the deal back to Venal and called a meeting of what was known as

“The Council of the Free Captains.” It was a dramatic midnight meeting

where delegates from all factions within Venal Alliance got together to cast

their votes.

Jade had gone to the leader of Taggart Transdimensional, a player named

Ragnar, to discuss the meeting beforehand. She told him that she and her

corporation—Jericho Fraction—were prepared to stick by Taggart if it

started pulling its weight. Her proposal was to alter the Venal Alliance tax

system which at the time mandated that each member corporation

contribute 25 million ISK per week to the alliance to cover ship

replacements and ammunition. Taggart was a very large corporation of over

200 people—several times larger than other Venal Alliance corporations—

but it still only had to pay 25 million per week. Jade wanted to bring that up

to an amount proportional to the massive size of the corporation.

This was a philosophical problem for Taggart Transdimensional. Its leaders

were stalwart believers in Ayn Rand’s Objectivist philosophy both in EVE

and in their ordinary lives. The name Taggart Transdimensional itself comes

from Rand’s book Atlas Shrugged, which stars protagonist Dagny Taggart

as a vice president of a railroad company called Taggart Transcontinental.

Ragnar himself is also named after a character from Atlas Shrugged. So this

idea of having to pay a heavy tax to a government that would seek to

control their actions was fairly horrifying for the members of Taggart

Transdimensional. They refused Jade Constantine’s deal.

Sensing that there was a very real chance Taggart could be abandoned by its

allies, Ragnar moved to consolidate power. He privately consulted with the

member corporations of Venal Alliance, and lobbied them to side with him.

“There is a rift coming and there is one side that is safe and one that is not,”

Ragnar told one such corporation.

The day of the vote arrived. The ballots were cast and counted: six votes in

favor of preserving the union, five votes against. Taggart managed to

survive, and the Venal Alliance was preserved.

Evolution heard every word of the meeting. It had a spy, again Mr. Blonde,

in Venal Alliance’s midst and he was relaying the minutes. To put it mildly,

Evolution was disappointed. Venal Alliance banding together could have

spelled the death of its campaign. If Evolution couldn’t break Venal in the

previous months there was no reason to believe it would happen now.

Especially with all of Venal’s foreign volunteers still flooding in from

empire space.

But just as the Venal Alliance council meeting moved on to other matters, a

spokesman for Ragnar interrupted to deliver a prepared statement.

“Taggart Transdimensional does not recognize the authority of this

council, nor the voting power of a corporation 1/100th of our size

having the same power to limit our sovereignty. It is clear that the

anti-Taggart effort has been led by Jade Constantine, who has been

bought off by Evolution. We will start with a 100 million ISK bounty

on Jade Constantine. Taggart and our friends will remain in Venal

and we will openly attack all of the pro-Evolution people that have

just voted against their one-time friends in Taggart. This is fair

warning. Thank you.”

— Ragnar, CEO, Taggart Transdimensional

(Edited for clarity.)

The Venal Alliance council was stunned. In the view of these council

members, this vote was just a natural process of inter-alliance diplomacy.

At first, it wasn’t clear Ragnar actually understood what had happened.

Maybe he misheard the vote count and thought Taggart was being evicted?

No such luck. The nightmare was real. Taggart Transdimensional had

declared war on its former allies. Almost instantly, Venal shut down. This

was no longer anybody’s home. This was unfriendly territory for any soul

who went too far north.

Jade Constantine commemorated the occasion with yet another epic,

overwrought forum post.

“I, Jade Constantine, take up the mantle of Ragnar’s 100 million ISK of

blood money and wear it proudly as a shroud to brittle avarice and all the

works of foolish craven traitorlord below. Death to Taggart, Death to

Ragnar, Death to the memory of this treacherous night.” — Jade

Constantine, CEO, Jericho Fraction, Venal Alliance

BATTLE LINES

The Venal Alliance immediately demanded a re-vote in light of Taggart’s

war declaration against its own allies. It should go without saying that this

changed the minds of a number of swing votes. The original vote was 6-5 in

favor of Taggart, but the new vote was 9-2 against Taggart (not counting

Taggart’s vote.) It was partially meaningless given that Taggart had made

no qualms about burning the alliance to the ground. But this was a moment

for the other Venal Alliance corporations to reform and to clarify that their

dedication was to Venal Alliance, not Taggart.

Venal Alliance as it once existed was now dead. The nine remaining

members reformed and began calling themselves the New Venal Alliance,

shifting their focus to destroying Taggart Transdimensional.

This was more difficult than it sounds, however. Taggart was still

staggeringly wealthy and well-equipped. One of the first issues that divided

the former Venal Alliance was that Taggart wasn’t showing up for battles.

SirMolle himself was upset that Taggart wasn’t hurting enough. The

members of the New Venal Alliance had just ended a large, highly

destructive war against Evolution, and were now expected to fight a war

against Taggart, which had barely taken any damage in that war. Taggart

was fresh and flush with equipment for fighting a long war.

Taggart Transdimensional was not a fighting corporation, though. Its pilots

liked to mine and make money, and they were exceptionally good at it.

Taggart preferred to stick to its own niche while fighting its wars through

proxies and mercenaries. It had all the resources needed to fight a war

without the will necessary to see it through personally.

Taggart got together with the two other former Venal Alliance members

who had voted to stand by it, and the new group began calling itself the

Northern Alliance. It attracted one more new member: the well-known

pirate group “M3G4.” Taggart was now at the head of an alliance that

featured three of the most feared pirate factions in the north of New Eden. It

claimed Venal for its own uses and warned all others to evacuate.

However, Taggart had drastically underestimated the disastrous results of

spurning its former allies when those allies voted democratically to stand by

Taggart. It left an alliance of borderline hippies trying to keep the north free

and open in favor of an alliance filled with hated pirates.

The New Venal Alliance propaganda machine used this to its advantage and

was effective at painting Taggart in a horrible light. Jade Constantine kept

up her verbal attacks, rebranding Taggart Transdimensional as “Taggart

Transpiratical.”

Over the next week the New Venal Alliance started receiving care packages

from all over New Eden. People were sending ships and money and morale-

boosting well wishes inspiring the New Venal Alliance to keep up the fight

and wipe out the enemies Jade had painted as hypocritical capitalist snakes.

More foreign volunteers continued to come up North to fight with the New

Venal Alliance. Venal Alliance had been through hell for the last two

months, but its leaders understood better than anyone in New Eden how to

make a war fun. It was managing to win wars while it was actually losing

on the battlefield, because it understood that EVE players need to have a

goal to stay entertained. Venal Alliance gave its members a goal using

ideology, and attracted other players from around the New Eden star cluster

because it offered these people something to believe in—a real reason to be

playing this video game.

This alone would have been bad news for Taggart Transdimensional’s brand

new Northern Alliance, but something else happened that Ragnar didn’t

expect: Evolution was true to its word.

Evolution held up its end of the cease-fire bargain and stopped fighting the

New Venal Alliance. Beyond that, Evolution went so far as to actually aid

the New Venal Alliance in its oncoming civil war. Evolution supplied it

with ships, minerals, and manpower, essentially making the New Venal

Alliance into Evolution’s proxy for destroying its sworn enemies: Taggart

Transdimensional and its gang of pirates.

The New Venal Alliance knew, however, that it wasn’t going to beat

Taggart through force of arms. Taggart was simply too wealthy and could

replace ships too easily. So Venal started training its new allies in

unconventional tactics in order to disrupt Taggart’s income. One new

corporation called Reikoku stood out from the crowd. Its pilots were new to

EVE and Jade Constantine had recruited it as a mercenary unit and

schooled its pilots in the dark art of suicide ganking.

The basic idea behind a suicide attack is to equip a cheap ship with 100% of

the ship’s energy focused on burst firepower—with no concern for

survivability—to almost instantly kill your enemy. This way you can attack

them right in front of EVE Online’s NPC police force in high-security

Empire space, and still be able to secure the kill. The attacking ship will

also be destroyed, but it’s cheaper, easier to replace, and not filled with

valuable mining cargo.

“We basically funded a suicide ganking campaign against Taggart miners in

northern Lonetrek,” said Jade Constantine. “Which was the other front of

the war. To be quite honest, Reikoku did more to crush Taggart than

anybody else because they were absolutely lunatic about [suicide attacks.]”

This went on for two weeks. The New Venal Alliance fought a series of

battles in Venal itself while Reikoku hammered the Taggart supply lines and

trade routes through Lonetrek. Only fifteen days after this fighting officially

began, a delegate from Taggart appeared in the EVE Online forums.

“Earlier today Ragnar Danneskjold officially stepped down as

President and CEO of Taggart Transdimensional and declared his

retirement from EVE. [...] We wish to put the controversy of recent

times behind us, and as such are wiping the slate clean. Our kill-on-

sight list is empty, and we are declaring a unilateral ceasefire

effective immediately. All bounties have been revoked, and all

existing alliances have been dissolved. In particular, while Taggart

Trandimensional has never condoned piracy, we have in the past

been members of alliances which have included pirate corporations.

This is no longer the case, nor will it ever be in the future.

We look forward to reaffirming our diplomatic and trade relations

with all other corporations and alliances, and working towards a

secure and prosperous future for all.

— GunnyP, new CEO of Taggart Transdimensional

October 2, 2003

Though Taggart tried as hard as possible to hide it, this was a surrender.

Taggart’s figurehead leader, Ragnar, had left the game suddenly and without

explanation, and leadership fell to people who no longer believed in this

war. They wanted to go back to being a simple ISK-making operation.

Taggart Transdimensional left the north and tried to get back to the peace

that used to be considered normal.

Almost every other corporation involved in the fighting agreed to the

ceasefire eagerly. SirMolle was still skeptical, and didn’t seem happy to

stop killing Taggart ships, but he went along with it.

Taggart had been wounded badly through all of this. Its membership had

dropped catastrophically, and it had grown to depend more and more on

mercenaries. Then a player named Anla Shok broke its back.

A former director in Taggart Transdimensional, Anla Shok recognized the

corporation’s weakness for the opportunity it was and executed the largest

corporate theft in the first year of EVE. The still vast coffers of Taggart

Transdimensional (filled to the brim when the ultra-wealthy Ragnar left his

fortune) were looted. In total, 1.2 billion ISK was stolen from the shared

corporate account all of the directors used to pool their funds—an

incredible amount of money for the era that would have paid for hundreds if

not thousands of ships. Anla Shok then took the ill-gotten gains and joined

Evolution.

Taggart Transdimensional would never again be a force in New Eden, but

the story of the New Venal Alliance was only just getting started.

CHAPTER FIVE:

PRELUDE TO WAR

With Taggart Transdimensional kicked out of the north at the end of the

Venal Civil War, control of the northern territories was taken by the New

Venal Alliance. Evolution was satisfied with its victory over Taggart and the

fighting was over. The New Venal Alliance had grown large in the

meantime, with the addition of powerful new member corporations Oberon

Incorporated, Cyberdyne Industries, and Terra Nova.

The New Venal Alliance was looking forward to using this peacetime to

rebuild. But the drama wouldn’t end. Egos and ideologies clashed.

Throughout the war, Jade Constantine had been fighting to create a free

space in the north, somewhere average pilots from all over New Eden could

come to explore or conduct commerce. Even when most people found Jade

Constantine overzealous and even obnoxious, she was still adept at shaping

the message of any given situation. She relentlessly spread her propaganda

on the political forums, and while many saw her as manipulative, others

were beginning to see her as benevolent.

Several of the newer members of the New Venal Alliance didn’t agree with

Jade’s philosophy—particularly her main political rival within the alliance,

Halseth Durn, CEO of Oberon Incorporated. Durn couldn’t understand why

they should cede control and share the spoils of war after they’d just fought

to maintain control of this territory.

The crux of their differences came down to the fact that these new members

of the New Venal Alliance were largely mining corporations, and mining

corporations by nature tend to hate the idea of free space. They liked to trot

out massive mining ships and essentially just set them to auto-mine while

the players themselves chatted or watched television outside the game.

Miners could make a great deal of ISK that way, but if there were strangers

nearby, they would have to remain vigilant or risk being shot down.

The ideological clashes between Jade Constantine and the rest of the

alliance carried on for weeks, and only their collective weariness with

warfare kept the alliance together. But soon, war would come to the north

whether the New Venal Alliance wanted it or not.

GHOSTS OF TREACHERY

The public dissension in the New Venal Alliance attracted an all-out pirate

invasion, and the alliance was shocked when one of their corporations—

Terra Nova—betrayed them and joined the pirates in the middle of a pitched

battle. The rest of the squabbling New Venal Alliance was united by the

betrayal. They managed to fight back the pirate threats, but the traitors

made the leaders of the alliance highly sensitive to more internal threats.

The mining groups within the New Venal Alliance—such as Oberon and

Cyberdyne—used the invasion to show that the borders should be closed to

prevent any further attacks. Some of them still blamed Jade Constantine’s

public bluster for attracting the pirates in the first place. Divisions were

deepening.

The other main corporations within the New Venal Alliance were growing

suspicious of the close bond between Reikoku and Jericho Fraction.

Reikoku had proven itself to be a powerful military force in the war against

Taggart Transdimensional, and it had even begun taking breaks from

defending Venal to accept mercenary contracts.

The largest corporations in the New Venal Alliance—Oberon, Rona,

Cyberdyne Industries—were well aware of Jade’s ambition to open the

North as a free port, and their leaders grew concerned about the possibility

of a Jade Constantine-led coup with Reikoku’s CEO Galavet at her side.

In Halseth Durn’s view, in order to prevent Jade Constantine from

radicalizing other members, steps needed to be taken. Jade Constantine was

issued a gag order by the alliance’s council. She was removed from her role

as the spokesperson for the New Venal Alliance and forbidden from

speaking publicly on behalf of the alliance. It was a devastating loss for her,

but people from both sides of the New Venal Alliance say she graciously

accepted this action as a way to heal the divides in the New Venal Alliance.

“Effective immediately, I wish to announce my formal resignation

from the post of Public Relations Representative for the New Venal

Alliance (NVA). Of the reasons for my resignation I will say only

this; that it had become clear that my many enemies and stalkers in

the sphere of public debate were making practical dissemination of

useful information near impossible.

Such indeed is the hatred of my face and voice in some quarters that

any words I spoke were immediately drowned out by raucous cries

of brute antithesis.

I wish all the best of course to the New Venal Alliance and the corps

so joined in glorious camaraderie against the encroaching

darkness.

It is meet and fitting both that such a bold company of heroes should

survive the birthing hands of its founders... how else that the dream

of freedom wrought in blood and sacrifice be passed from past to

future and the promise of brighter times to come? So I say, Long live

the NVA! For now my work is done.”

— Jade Constantine, CEO Jericho Fraction, New Venal Alliance

November 29, 2003

Then something very strange happened. Halseth Durn put a deal on the

table to form a non-aggression pact with the pirate factions that had just

invaded. In EVE terminology, a non-aggression pact was considered very

close to a true alliance. He was suggesting they work together with the very

same group that had just invaded their territory, and whose members

included the Terra Nova traitors.

Jericho Fraction and Reikoku went ballistic. They had fought the pirate

threat on the front lines, and now they were being asked to take a step back

while their leaders befriended those same invaders. A huge argument

unfurled as Jade Constantine and Galavet accused Halseth Durn of ignoring

their sacrifices in fighting the pirate threats. Meanwhile anger flowed the

other way as the rest of the New Venal Alliance accused Jade Constantine

of being the catalyst for that war in the first place.

“I have gotten to know her these last few months,” wrote Halseth Durn

about Jade Constantine. “She’s a liar, a manipulator, and her only weapon is

this [forum]. She lives for it. If you believe half of anything she ever says,

you are a sucker. Being this way, she must always have a target for her only

weapon (this board). She has now chosen me to be her new ‘Ragnar,’ [the

former CEO of Taggart Transdimensional] and every one of you who read

what she says, believes it, and then regurgitates it as ‘divine scripture’ is a

gullible fool.”

The cracks in the New Venal Alliance had become a chasm. Jade

Constantine and her corporation as a whole were removed from the New

Venal Alliance. Reikoku quit as well in a show of solidarity. Jade

Constantine and her followers retreated to Empire space to brood; Galavet

led Reikoku to a profitable line of work as full-time mercenaries.

After nearly a year of conflict, civil war, and in-fighting, there was relative

peace in the north. With Jade Constantine now out of the picture, the New

Venal Alliance was ruled by three corporations: Oberon, Cyberdyne

Industries, and Rona Corp. Along with their many subsidiaries, they formed

the main power bloc in the northern regions.

THE PHOENIX ALLIANCE RISES

The new lords in the north wanted to symbolically move away from the

warfare and drama that had plagued their first year of existence. They

wanted to make their own society in space and get away from the reputation

—good or bad—that Jade Constantine had given the north.

They decided to re-form the alliance and abandon the New Venal Alliance

name. The change meant nothing structurally, but everything symbolically.

What’s more, CCP Games was about to introduce a new system into EVE

Online that would officially recognize alliances. Previously alliances were

spoken agreements or treaties between corporations. Now they would be

hardwired into the game mechanics, allowing alliances to structure

themselves more efficiently.

The remaining leaders of the former New Venal Alliance gathered together

to cement an official alliance. They declared that they would be the

“Phoenix Alliance,” rising from the ashes of their scarred past toward a

more glorious future, and they declared their reformation on the CAOD

forums.

“This communiqué is also a declaration of our organization birth and

intentions,” wrote the Phoenix Alliance’s public relations writer, Hirakii

Phoenix. “Formed from what once were the core corporations of the New

Venal Alliance, let it be known that [we] freely left that organization to be

born again under the common interests of prosperity and mutual protection.

From this point on, the past remains in the past. References to civil wars,

victories/defeats, betrayals, heroics, and feuds associated with past alliances

of the northern territories are now abolished to material we consider

irrelevant. The Phoenix Alliance will now start with a clean slate and a

determined focus on what is best for the corps of the Phoenix Alliance.”

Halseth Durn was voted the leader of the Phoenix Alliance. Despite my best

efforts, I was never able to contact Halseth Durn during my research for this

book. By all indications from both his allies and his enemies, Halseth Durn

was a strong and formidable leader who had the charisma to command the

respect of thousands of people. He was unquestioned in his leadership, even

by CEOs within the alliance who themselves led hundreds of people.

But there was one group within Phoenix Alliance that Halseth Durn could

not control, despite his best efforts. Cyberdyne Industries was a borderline

renegade faction within Phoenix Alliance. Cyberdyne members were jokers

and pranksters who had no respect for authority. It’s pilots did what they

wanted, and sometimes that meant angering their own allies. But no matter

how badly Cyberdyne angered its Phoenix Alliance leaders, it was always

able to patch things over quickly, because its membership was renowned as

a bunch of lovable, fun-loving jokers who were difficult to stay mad at. The

other alliances in the north didn’t always feel the same way.

There was a growing power in the north however, and it needed to be

reckoned with. A group called Forsaken Empire had rallied the many pirate

factions of the northeast into a powerful pirate alliance. Together, under the

banner of Forsaken Empire, they were intent on spreading their influence

throughout the northern regions.

At the height of its power, Forsaken Empire controlled one of the largest

stretches of star systems in the game. While the many wars of the Venal

Alliance, New Venal Alliance, and now Phoenix Alliance were being

fought further north, Forsaken Empire gathered power in the northeast. By

late 2003, it was undisputed in its control of Geminate and Vale of the

Silent, and was the main power in the disputed territories of Tribute,

Deklein, and Fade.

REIKOKU COMES HOME

Reikoku eventually returned from its mercenary endeavors back to the

north, where it still had friends from its days fighting Taggart

Transdimensional. Reikoku returned because on December 18, 2003 CCP

Games had just released EVE Online’s first free expansion pack, which

included a major new feature that was highly attractive to nullsec space

holders. Now, in nullsec, player groups would be able to officially take

ownership of a station. In the past, the only way to control a station was by

maintaining military control over the space around it, at all times of day.

This new update meant that players could lock out enemies and control a

territory even in timezones when they weren’t militarily dominant. They

could make a home. It was still possible to conquer stations, but it took a

much more concerted effort.

Galavet sold the rest of Reikoku on the idea of moving back north to settle

down, and Reikoku set a course for the Deklein region. Far in the

northwest, this was still wild west territory. It was far enough away from the

major commerce systems that nobody had bothered to conquer it. It was one

of the few places left where a relatively small group of players could own

space that wasn’t controlled by the larger alliances, and the only people out

there were small corporations of a few dozen people.

Reikoku wasn’t the only group drawn to Deklein. Deklein was at the outer

reaches of the territory controlled by Forsaken Empire, and the Empire was

keen to expand its turf. It had recently moved into Deklein and taken

stations away from a group in the region, and it was clear that none of the

small corporations in Deklein were safe. Seeing no other option, the settlers

of the desolate Deklein region—including Reikoku—banded together to

preemptively strike Forsaken Empire. They called themselves the Coalition

of Deklein.

Forsaken Empire controlled its vast territory through vassals which kept

control on the Empire’s behalf and paid taxes to the larger organization. The

Coalition of Deklein knew that Forsaken Empire was too small to control

its many territories directly, so instead of attacking the Empire head-on, it

decided to strike the vassals and weaken Forsaken Empire’s grip on the

region, starting with Fade.

Fade is not particularly valuable territory, and this might explain why it was

often filled with weak, vulnerable alliances. The relative weakness of its

early inhabitants—and its crucial position in the center of the northwest—

turned the Fade region into a frequent battleground in this era.

Reikoku struck first in Fade at a group called the Rising Storm Alliance,

making daily incursions into its territory designed not just to blow up its

pilots’ ships, but to disrupt their way of life. In striking the Rising Storm

Alliance, the Coalition of Deklein hoped to damage Forsaken Empire’s

finances as well. Using guerrilla-style hit-and-run tactics it quickly racked

up an impressive list of kills. Finally, its fleets caused enough damage to get

the attention of the main forces of Forsaken Empire, which set a course for

Fade. To prepare for a head-to-head fleet battle with Forsaken Empire,

Reikoku and the Coalition of Deklein called up their allies—the owners of

other nearby regions who were worried about Forsaken Empire’s

expansionist tendencies.

THE FADE UNION TURNS

The day of the battle came, and when Forsaken Empire arrived in Fade it

was met head-on by the Coalition of Deklein’s fleet. By its own admission,

the Coalition of Deklein was overwhelmed by superior tactics and numbers.

After a brief skirmish, the Coalition fleet retreated. But next weekend it was

back, and so was the Forsaken Empire fleet.

The Coalition moved into the capital system of Fade, C4C-Z4, but was

outmaneuvered by the Forsaken Empire, which trapped and blockaded it

into the system. Forsaken Empire locked down both of the stargates that led

into the system, and refused to let the Coalition of Deklein fleet escape. The

Coalition put out a call for help, and was answered by nearby allies

NORAD and Black Nova Corporation, who sent a fleet to their aid.

The ships from these allies engaged the Forsaken Empire blockade in a

coordinated attack with the Coalition of Deklein ships. The blockade

collapsed, and a large fleet battle ensued deep in the heart of Fade.

Hundreds of ships clashed in one of the biggest battles in the early history

of EVE Online.

From a distance, the battle would have looked like a giant ball of ships with

laser fire criss-crossing the diameter. A hundred beams of laser light would

erupt from each fleet’s ships and converge on whichever enemy the fleet

commander had chosen to be destroyed first. From inside the fight, the

tangle of laser beams, missiles, and ship explosions would have been

completely indecipherable. The sky in front of each player’s ship was a

torrent of destruction.

Of course, the average player didn’t see that. To the actual pilots the battle

was a laggy mess. They would zoom their view out as far as possible until

all they saw were little blips on their screen: blue for allied ships, red for

enemies. Each side’s fleet commander would do their best to make good

strategic decisions despite the fact it could take entire minutes for the lag to

clear up and show a current view of the battlefield.

As a combat-oriented alliance, Forsaken Empire was used to these kinds of

conditions—much more so than the average Coalition of Deklein members.

Even with its new allies, the Coalition of Deklein couldn’t stand its ground

against Forsaken Empire, and was forced to retreat again. But it kept

coming back. Weekend after weekend, Coalition of Deklein pilots would

return to Fade and fight Forsaken Empire—and weekend after weekend, the

Coalition of Deklein was pushed back.

On the fifth weekend of continuous attacks the two sides clashed again.

Forsaken Empire’s fleet commanders grew confident when they saw that

Reikoku was absent from the fight, and assumed they’d finally scared them

off. Unbeknownst to those commanders, Reikoku wasn’t in the main battle

because it was busy intercepting Forsaken Empire’s reinforcements two

systems away. The main battle erupted in C4C-Z4, and Forsaken Empire’s

fleet commanders kept calling for reinforcements, but they never made it to

the front line. Reikoku’s raiding squads were destroying them before they

got into the battle. After dispatching a number of small reinforcement fleets,

Reikoku set course to rendezvous with the main fleet in C4C-Z4.

With the fresh forces of Reikoku now joining the fray, the morale of the

Coalition turned. It had managed to hold its own for an hour in this battle

against Forsaken Empire, and now one of its main military allies was

joining the fight virtually unharmed. Dozens of Reikoku ships entered the

simmering ball of laser fire and explosions, and Forsaken Empire ships

began popping one by one as streams of lasers converged on their most

valuable ships. With no reinforcements, Forsaken Empire was forced from

the field of battle for the first time.

This changed the tone of the war considerably. A meeting was set between

the allied Coalition and Forsaken Empire’s vassal in Fade, the Rising Storm

Alliance, as the RSA asked for clemency. The RSA couldn’t keep up this

level of warfare. The Coalition of Deklein agreed to stop attacking them,

but under strict terms: change your name forever and assist the Coalition

with evicting Forsaken Empire from the surrounding territories. In other

words, Rising Storm couldn’t just surrender; it had to renounce everything

and turn on its former masters. In a testament to how rough the conflict had

been on Rising Storm, its leaders agreed unanimously to these audacious

terms. Rising Storm Alliance changed its name to Fade Union, and set its

sights on aiding in the eviction of Forsaken Empire from neighboring

Tribute.

THE MIGHTY KILLER OF THE FORSAKEN EMPIRE

A grand coalition of allies was now arrayed against Forsaken Empire. The

hurt-but-not-broken Fade Union joined the Coalition of Deklein and its

allies on a quest to run Forsaken Empire out of Tribute, out of Vale of the

Silent, out of Geminate, and out of nullsec entirely. These alliances spent

weeks on logistics: moving their backup ships into position, stocking up on

ammunition, and creating a battle plan.

The time came. The allies gathered and flew into Tribute ready for battle.

But there was nobody there.

Well, not nobody. There were miners working in the region and a few stray

Forsaken Empire pilots, but nothing remotely ready to challenge the

Coalition fleet. As it turns out, Forsaken Empire had been struggling with a

problem that was dwindling its forces and diminishing its ability to defend

its outlying territories. The problem was Lineage 2.

With so many enemies (including its former allies, the Fade Union)

knocking on Tribute’s door, a great many Forsaken Empire pilots had

decided their defense of Tribute was hopeless, and they decided instead to

spend more time with the cutting-edge new fantasy MMORPG Lineage 2.

Knowing that its grip on Tribute was fading, Forsaken Empire called in its

allies to help. Its friends in the south, Curse Alliance, sent along a large

fleet of about 50 ships to aid in the defense of Forsaken Empire’s territory.

Combined with its own weakened fleet, Forsaken Empire had

approximately 75 ships ready to retake Tribute.

At the time, a measly eight Reikoku pilots were stationed in the main hub of

Tribute. When Forsaken Empire began their attack, the eight Reikoku pilots

called for backup, and with incredible speed were able to raise 20

battleships from the Coalition of Deklein, 20 battleships from Fade Union,

and an additional eight Reikoku ships for the defense. Outnumbered 75 to

56, Reikoku and its allies still handily won the ensuing battle. Reikoku and

its allies were all equipped in high-end battleships, while their Curse

Alliance/Forsaken Empire enemies flew a mixture of frigates, cruisers, and

battleships. As the battle was nearly over, even more reinforcements

showed up and broke the back of Forsaken Empire’s forces, decisively

ending their attempt to retake Tribute.

THE DREAM OF HALSETH DURN

Forsaken Empire was gone from Tribute, and the allies soon pushed it out

of Vale of the Silent as well. However, none of the alliances involved in

ousting them were interested in controlling that extra territory. They were

mostly striking against Forsaken Empire as a preemptive measure to protect

themselves from its expansionist ambitions in Fade and Deklein.

A power vacuum developed in Tribute, and this invited pirates to take free

reign over a northern territory. Recognizing this threat, the disparate powers

of the north (Phoenix Alliance, Fade Union, Coalition of Deklein, NORAD)

decided it was in their mutual interest to lock down Tribute to prevent it

from turning into a pirate state that would serve as a staging ground for

incursions into their territories.

They formed a treaty called NAST—Northern Alliances Security Treaty—

which turned Tribute into a protectorate between the four of them. There

was no central government over Tribute, and any miner or trader could

come and go freely. The alliances would sponsor military patrols which

would shut down any and all pirate activity. Ironically, it was an

arrangement that Jade Constantine might have supported a few months

earlier.

Everyone was happy with this—except Reikoku. From its point of view,

Phoenix Alliance had waltzed in, patted everyone on the back for their

bravery in ousting Forsaken Empire, and then decided everyone in the north

should share the territory equally regardless of how large a role they played

in the battle. Reikoku’s pilots balked at sharing their victory with a group

that had done none of the work to achieve it.

Then Halseth Durn went one step further. He wanted to unite the alliances

of the north in a grand, peaceful coalition, and to that end he made a non-

aggression pact with Forsaken Empire. Durn had failed to recognize that the

diplomatic “victory” of signing a non-aggression pact with Forsaken

Empire would weaken Phoenix Alliance’s relations with all of its neighbors,

who still loathed Forsaken Empire. Phoenix Alliance had just made peace

with the blood rivals of Reikoku and Coalition of Deklein. Suddenly the

whole of the north was casting a skeptical eye at one another.

At this point in the history things get momentarily fuzzy. Every group

involved at the time has its own story for what happened next.

The one thing that I’m certain of is that the northern powers of New Eden—

Phoenix Alliance, Fade Union, Coalition of Deklein, NORAD, and little

Reikoku—suffered a communication breakdown. In this era of EVE,

communication was not as simple as it is now. Enemies in EVE rarely

talked outside of hurling accusations at one another on the forums. Things

started to get very tangled and confusing in the north, and people were not

communicating well enough to sort them out.

The main problem centered around Phoenix Alliance’s rogue faction,

Cyberdyne Industries. Practically every day Reikoku complained that

Cyberdyne Industries had blown up one of its mining ships or harassed its

players. It was hard to prove their accusations: in this era of EVE there was

no official documentation to confirm the details of an attack. In modern

EVE, a “killmail”—a log of the details of a battle—is sent to involved

players after every ship’s destruction, but in this era of EVE that system

hadn’t been implemented yet.

The two main leaders of the Phoenix Alliance—Halseth Durn and

Robeyone—were stuck in the middle trying to keep the two from killing

one another. Cyberdyne and its leader, Krullz, insisted Reikoku’s

accusations were unfounded, but Reikoku wouldn’t relent. In an attempt to

keep the peace, Phoenix Alliance finally agreed to sanction Cyberdyne

industries.

Phoenix Alliance’s promise to deal with Cyberdyne wasn’t good enough for

Reikoku though, and it drew a line in the sand. Reikoku shut down the

mutually-controlled protectorate of Tribute, and took command of the

region. As its first move as the stated owners of Tribute, Reikoku offered

free access to the territory to every northern power—except Phoenix

Alliance.

“Many people have voiced an opinion on what should become of the

Tribute and Vale of the Silent regions of EVE. For over a month

Reikoku has been working against the forces of the south (Forsaken

Empire) and its over-expanding grasp to reclaim these lost areas.

Help has come from a few close friends, but others valued a non-

aggression pact with an enemy more than a call for help from an old

friend. I personally let this travesty pass for too long and now it has

reached a critical point within the ranks of my corporation.

So, as of now, until somebody can take it from us, Tribute is closed

space. [...] Far too long has Reikoku bled for the security of others

with nothing in return. No longer will this be the case.”

— Galavet, CEO Reikoku

April 23, 2004

On May 27, 2004, Reikoku alleged that Cyberdyne Industries pilots had

once again entered Reikoku territory and shot down a mining ship.

Cyberdyne vehemently denied the accusations. This time, however,

Cyberdyne knew the allegations were true, and so did Halseth Durn who,

according to senior Phoenix Alliance members, worked with them to cover

it up and keep the peace. Seemingly the only person who didn’t know the

truth was Phoenix Alliance’s other main leader, Robeyone of RONA Corp.

Furious that Phoenix Alliance had once again refused to punish Cyberdyne,

Reikoku gave up all hope of a peaceful solution. It prepared its military

assets for war, and began to approach potential allies for support in the

oncoming fight: Fade Union, Coalition of Deklein, Evolution, Jericho

Fraction, NORAD, and even Evolution.

On May 28, 2004, while Phoenix Alliance was still trying to cover up this

latest Cyberdyne infraction, a small fleet of Reikoku ships entered Phoenix

Alliance space in Venal and began an all-out attack.

OPENING SHOT

Reikoku found and destroyed a Phoenix Alliance battleship, catching it

completely off-guard. Robeyone recalled having 34 conversation windows

open on his screen within five minutes of the attack. Phoenix Alliance pilots

were desperately looking for an official order from senior leadership about

how to deal with Reikoku’s surprise attack. They finally found their footing,

organized a fleet, and pushed Reikoku out.

In the face of a larger Phoenix alliance defense fleet, Reikoku retreated, and

only after the retreat did it take the time to officially declare war on the

Phoenix Alliance.

“For reasons that will be stated later in the evening by our PR

director, Reikoku sadly must choose to declare war on the Phoenix

Alliance. Please take this as a fair warning.”

— Galavet, CEO Reikoku

May 28, 2004.

The Phoenix Alliance hadn’t yet committed itself to open warfare, but this

sucker punch changed that. In the forums, people began overblowing the

significance of the attack by calling it “Pearl Harbor-esque.” There was no

stopping this war.

Reikoku leaders Galavet and DB Preacher immediately approached Jade

Constantine and Jericho Fraction to enlist their aid in the fight.

“Galavet and DB Preacher came to me and said, ‘Do you fancy a proper

war?’” said Jade Constantine in 2014. “So I said, ‘Let’s see, it’s against

Phoenix Alliance. Revenge against the people who kicked us out and

destroyed our ideals and closed the borders? You fucking bet.’”

Together the two corporations formed what they called the Northern

Coalition of Allies, and the list of alliances fighting over the northern

territories grew by one.

By the next day Reikoku had formed a new, even larger fleet with Jericho

Fraction pilots and headed back into Venal. This time Phoenix Alliance was

waiting for them with a veritable armada. Tiny interceptor fighter ships

whizzed between hulking battleships to form the enormous Phoenix

Alliance flotilla. The interceptors screamed through fights at incredible

speed despite the fact they were often equipped with four huge cruise

missiles, each of which was as large as the entire rest of the ship (an

oversight that CCP Games eventually corrected).

The mammoth Phoenix Alliance fleet reportedly outnumbered the Northern

Coalition of Allies ships ten to one. The Phoenix Alliance fleet unloaded

huge numbers of missiles and laser munitions on the attacking fleet,

destroying it with ease. All the while, rank and file Phoenix Alliance

members laughed and jeered at the enemy pilots, mocking them for

thinking they ever had a chance against the dominant power in the north.

Reikoku and Jericho Fraction were fine with the losses. They were here to

make a statement. Jericho Fraction wasn’t the only group that Reikoku had

enlisted; four more were ready to pledge their support. Phoenix Alliance

had absolutely no idea how big this war was about to become.

CHAPTER SIX:

THE GREAT NORTHERN WAR

The alliances of the north were sliding into an inescapable war. Over the

next few weeks, every major faction in the north would be dragged into an

all-out regional war for the first time in the history of EVE Online.

Reikoku and Jericho Fraction alone would have been dead in the water with

no hope of defeating the Phoenix Alliance’s massive military industrial

complex. However, they managed to score a fantastic diplomatic victory

and convinced Evolution—their old allies from the 2003 war in Venal—to

come back to the north and resume their crusade to topple the northern

powers.

Evolution brought considerable organization and combat skills to this

nascent alliance of northern rebels, and its arrival marked a turning point.

The Northern Coalition of Allies (NCA) was now a credible threat to

Phoenix Alliance.

The remaining powers in the north (NORAD, Fade Union, and Coalition of

Deklein) couldn’t be contacted for this book, so it’s difficult to know what

their leaders’ mindsets were like during this time. Reports seem to indicate

that they saw the fight against Phoenix Alliance as just, but were inclined to

honor the Northern Alliances Security Treaty and protect their ally. From

the sidelines they put pressure on Phoenix Alliance to expel Cyberdyne in

an effort to restore peace.

It’s important to remember that Coalition of Deklein and Fade Union were

close allies with Reikoku by this time. The trio of alliances fought together

successfully for more than a month to remove Forsaken Empire from

Tribute, and their pilots fondly remembered their time at war together. It

was going to take quite a bit for Phoenix Alliance to convince Fade Union

and Coalition of Deklein to go to war against Reikoku to uphold the

Northern Alliances Security Treaty.

But Cyberdyne couldn’t be reined in. After all the other incidents, a small

skirmish occurred between Cyberdyne ships and a Fade Union/Coalition of

Deklein fleet. It was a silly little fight that broke out after some Cyberdyne

pilots fired off a few insults in the local chat channel directed at a Fade

Union patrol fleet. It would have been almost meaningless at any other

time, but with the drums of war banging, it was fatal to the treaty. Fade

Union and Coalition of Deklein considered all that had happened over the

last two months and removed Phoenix Alliance from the Northern Alliances

Security Treaty. Fade Union and Coalition of Deklein joined the war,

putting their sizeable force behind Reikoku and the NCA.

On this matter, I speak for the Coalition of Deklein and Fade Union.

The Northern Alliances Security Treaty was designed to ensure the

security of three of the powers in the North, and to ensure the

regions of Pure Blind, Tribute, and Vale of the Silent remained open

and free to the public of EVE.

Cyberdyne Industries [CDI], a Phoenix Alliance Corporation,

violated this treaty. Cyberdyne’s wrongdoings have been admitted by

both Cyberdyne and by Phoenix Alliance as a whole.

Phoenix Alliance was given 12 hours to remove Cyberdyne from

NAST space. Deklein and Fade cannot be allies with a rogue and

immoral force such as Cyberdyne.

As of this morning;

Cyberdyne remains in the Phoenix Alliance.

Coalition of Deklein and Fade Union have voted to remove the

Phoenix Alliance from the Northern Alliances Security Treaty.”

—Notferr, spokesperson, Coalition of Deklein/Fade Union

(Edited and abbreviated for clarity).

May 31, 2004

For their part, the leaders of the Phoenix Alliance were honorable about

losing these allies. When Coalition of Deklein laid out their reasons for war

against Phoenix Alliance, CEO Robeyone replied, “There were some good

things that came out of our small time in NAST together. I met some good

Coalition of Deklein people, and if anything it was a pleasure to meet some

of you. Good Luck.”

The sides were chosen, and the forces arrayed against the mighty Phoenix

Alliance were many. Reikoku, Jericho Fraction, Evolution, Fade Union,

UNICOR, NORAD, and Coalition of Deklein were now committed to

removing Phoenix Alliance from its seat of power in the north.

For simplicity’s sake, the enemies of the Phoenix Alliance opted to

collectively call themselves the Northern Coalition of Allies. They never

formed an official alliance, but they were united by their common cause.

The entire region had turned against Phoenix Alliance, but its power

matched every other major force in the north combined.

THE BATTLE AT P-FSQE

The Northern Coalition of Allies pilots viewed themselves as liberators who

were coming to the aid of the people of Phoenix Alliance. It’s leaders saw

the Phoenix Alliance council as an irredeemably corrupt government that

would rather put its civilians through a war rather than simply evict

Cyberdyne.

As the conflict heated up, Phoenix Alliance rallied its people and prepared

for war. Phoenix Alliance coordinated its war assets and put ships into the

hands of every capable pilot it had. In sheer numbers, it still had the

advantage, and its leaders wanted to use those numbers to smother the

opposition.

Reikoku had already started the violence with its surprise attack a few days

earlier on May 28, 2004, but the true beginning of the Great Northern War

was fought at P-FSQE, the gateway into Venal.

Northern Coalition of Allies ships came up through Tribute while Phoenix

Alliance ships came down through Venal, and the two fleets gathered near a

key mineral refinery in H-PA29. Both fleets were using scouts to report on

enemy fleet movements. As the Northern Coalition of Allies forces moved

toward H-PA29, Phoenix Alliance cut them off and drew a line in the sand

at P-FSQE.

As the ships continued to rendezvous in the system the Phoenix Alliance

fleet reached 150 ships. The Northern Coalition of Allies fleet reached 100.

Both were impressive numbers for the time, but the Phoenix Alliance’s

numerical advantage was on full display.

These were not yet battle-hardened pilots. As both alliances arrived in the

system, the fleets got into position, and then stayed still—waiting for the

other to make the first move.

Nobody in command of either of these enormous fleets would have

understood how to win a fight like this. In this era of EVE, a large fleet

fight usually meant 20 ships per side. This was many times larger than even

the most seasoned fleet commander had likely ever seen.

The Northern Coalition of Allies had deluded itself into thinking it could

win a large engagement—despite the three-to-two disadvantage—because

its small skirmishes had gone quite well prior to this. SirMolle, Jade

Constantine, and Galavet—the main leaders of the Northern Coalition of

Allies—doubted Phoenix Alliance’s ability to coordinate a large group of

pilots.

The two fleets continued to stare at one another, each too afraid to begin the

calamity. Finally, the Northern Coalition of Allies fleet brought its ships

into engagement range of Phoenix Alliance.

Both sides loosed cannons and unleashed a stream of missiles, rail guns,

and laser munitions the sheer number of which had never been seen before

in New Eden. With nearly 300 people in the battle, the EVE servers strained

under the weight of this enormous cataclysm, and strange things began to

happen. Missiles disappeared out of thin air. Ships exploded seemingly

without having been touched. Pilots were kicked offline without warning,

then reappeared in a completely different part of the solar system and in a

completely different ship.

Lag became the primary enemy of both fleets. The Northern Coalition of

Allies had discovered that lag problems were reduced if their pilots turned

their cameras away from the fight, which meant the server had fewer things

(particle effects, animations, etc.) to send to their computers. Using their

instruments to engage the fight without looking, many Coalition pilots

conducted the entire battle with their backs turned.

The initial part of the engagement was more or less evenly matched, and

both sides took considerable losses, but things got much more complicated

as the battle progressed. Fleet commanders’ ships were steadily destroyed,

which meant they could no longer conduct the battle. Each fleet had to

adapt their lines of communication on the fly, and Phoenix Alliance was

better at it. Its leaders kept their pilots focused on the highest-value ship

targets, and kept a steady stream of reinforcements coming into the system.

The battle at P-FSQE was getting worse and worse for the Northern

Coalition of Allies. Phoenix Alliance had managed to maneuver its fleet to

sit between the Allies’ fleet and the stargate that led out of the star system.

This trapped its pilots in the system, preventing any Northern Coalition of

Allies reinforcements from entering. Northern Coalition of Allies

commanders took drastic action by making the decision to rally all ships at

the stargate entry point of the system to shore up reinforcement lines. It

turned out to be a catastrophically terrible decision. Lag in the system was

bad enough that when the fleet moved positions many of them were unable

to get a clear picture of the battle for minutes. In that time, the Phoenix

Alliance fleet racked up countless kills against the suddenly defenseless

Northern Coalition of Allies who were struck blind by the effects of lag.

In EVE, it’s not uncommon for lag to create unfavorable conditions for one

or both sides of a battle, but that doesn’t invalidate the results. In a game

where the results of a battle are irreversible, lag is roughly analogous to

weather in the real world. Everybody knows there’s a chance there could be

a rain storm, and if your army isn’t prepared for that then you’re a fool.

Every decent fleet commander in EVE knows lag may be a problem, and a

good battle plan will take that into account.

Northern Coalition of Allies ships retreated and scattered in all directions,

falling back to deep space hiding spots within the system.

Phoenix Alliance propaganda and public relations officials had a field day

with “The Slaughter at P-FSQE,” and confidently declared that the war

would be over in days rather than weeks or months. It was hyperbole, and

they knew it. Phoenix Alliance wanted to seize on this victory and

embarrass the Northern Coalition of Allies into submission.

But while the propaganda officials picked on the losers, the leadership of

one of Phoenix Alliance’s biggest constituent corporations, RONA, kept his

decorum.

“On behalf of RONA, I as well salute the players who participated in this

weekend’s fight,” said the Phoenix Alliance’s Robeyone on the forums.

“Though we have a long way to go with this war, I was impressed at the

sheer scope of support that Jericho Fraction, Reikoku, and their allies have.

Good friends are good to have. I look forward to engaging your

corporations in the future.”

BATTLE PLANS

Phoenix Alliance wasn’t resting on its laurels, though. Its leaders seized on

their advantage and set up an offensive posture in the southern regions of

the north, where their enemies were located. The Phoenix Alliance pilots

split up into wolf packs and prowled through Tribute, Fade, and Deklein,

hunting for easy prey like miners or hauling vessels.

When Phoenix Alliance’s squadrons ran into too much opposition, they’d

fall back and form up in full fleet posture. With its full force it was

untouchable, and the Northern Coalition of Allies knew it.

The Northern Coalition of Allies understood very quickly that this was a

losing fight unless something changed. It couldn’t win in a major fleet

engagement, but it couldn’t just play defense. This was supposed to be an

invasion, after all. To complicate matters, Phoenix Alliance had solidified

its earlier partnership with Forsaken Empire, which was now sending ships

to aid in Phoenix Alliance’s defense. Forsaken Empire didn’t have the spare

forces to send fleets to help, but it hated the Northern Coalition of Allies

enough to offer Phoenix Alliance whatever supplies it could spare.

The Northern Coalition of Allies’ solution was as elaborate as it was

effective. The disparate parts of the coalition broke apart into different

tasks.

Reikoku and Jericho Fraction were tasked with holding Pure Blind while

conducting guerrilla-style raids into the heart of Phoenix Alliance’s territory

in Venal. Coalition of Deklein and Fade Union were to conduct strikes in

Tenal.

Black Nova Corporation—a lesser known Northern Coalition of Allies

member—was tasked with hunting down Phoenix Alliance traders and

merchant ships in Empire space to cut off its financial arm.

Meanwhile, Evolution managed to secure the space station in BKG-Q2 and

based its operations there, attacking south from Branch into the heart of

Venal.

Because the Northern Coalition of Allies was made of so many tight-knit

groups, it was easy for it to split apart into small but effective gangs. By

engaging in small-scale battles in five to six different regions, the Northern

Coalition of Allies had found a war it had a chance of winning.

For a week, both alliances found comfort in their tactics. The Northern

Coalition of Allies was able to strike and kill a few ships, but was

eventually chased away by the mammoth Phoenix Alliance fleets. These cat

and mouse tactics resulted in no decisive victories.

During this stalemate, the politicians on both sides were working overtime

as everyone attempted to rally the other major powers in New Eden to take

their side in the war. The Northern Coalition of Allies scored a diplomatic

victory Phoenix Alliance didn’t see coming. SirMolle of Evolution reached

out to a former friend who was a leader in a feared pirate corporation called

M0o. M0o rarely got involved in interalliance affairs. Its pilots just liked to

fight. But SirMolle convinced M0o to head north and direct its mischief

toward the Phoenix Alliance.

This was a problem for Reikoku’s pilots, who had long considered

themselves the enemies of pirates. Their anti-pirate reputation contributed

in large part to the honorable image they enjoyed in the greater EVE

community. This war was too important to lose, however, and Reikoku

needed help if it was going to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. Its

members sucked up their pride and publicly renounced their anti-pirate

stance. If they were going to sacrifice their honor, then they at least wanted

to be honest about it.

Reikoku was now in bed with two of the most hated entities in all of EVE:

the pirate masters M0o, and the alliance-killers Evolution. It hurt Reikoku’s

public image, but it was a fearsome combination.

The effects of M0o joining the fight were immediate. Phoenix Alliance

suddenly had to contend with the best pilots and fleet tacticians the game

had ever seen. Previously, Phoenix Alliance’s massive numerical advantage

trumped the slightly more experienced fleet commanders of Evolution. But

now, Phoenix Alliance could no longer depend on their numbers to keep

them safe. M0o was too good at breaking their fleets.

Details of most battles are scarce, but we do know that almost immediately

after M0o joined the fray, the Northern Coalition of Allies took the fight to

the Phoenix Alliance in full. Even though M0o was only a few dozen

members strong, its strategic brilliance had a huge impact on the outcome.

Still fresh and confident from the massacre at P-FSQE, Phoenix Alliance

wanted to engage in another large fleet fight. The details are lost, but we do

know the Northern Coalition of Allies—alongside M0o—mopped the floor

with its enemies.

Starting in June 2004, the two sides in this war became averse to engaging

in more large fleet battles, except when it was absolutely necessary. Most

major fights from this time included only around 20-40 ships per side, a far

cry from the estimated 150 ships per side seen at P-FSQE.

Both sides attacked each other with little more than raids, as both

understood that the key to winning this war was to put the other on the

defensive: to get inside their home turf, cut off their supply chains, and only

then engage in a large fight. Otherwise, the ships would just be rebuilt.

Phoenix Alliance began to fight smarter. It had no interest in meeting its

opponents on the battlefield in fair combat. Phoenix Alliance saw its

enemies as invaders, and its pilots weren’t going to give them the fights

they craved. Phoenix Alliance knew that boredom and frustration were its

strongest weapons. When the Northern Coalition of Allies showed up to

fight, Phoenix Alliance would disperse and hide. Its enemies would sneer at

them on communications channels, but that only reinforced that Phoenix

Alliance’s strategy was working.

Meanwhile, Phoenix Alliance sent some of its best small-fleet pilots into

Deklein to cut off the industrial arm of Coalition of Deklein by raiding them

constantly. Without the ability to mine in its own territory or move materials

around in haulers, the Coalition of Deklein’s production was greatly

hindered. The Phoenix Alliance corporations RONA and Romanian

Renegades (a fully Romanian group) left their home systems and started

fighting behind enemy lines in the region of Deklein full-time.

Meanwhile, Phoenix Alliance’s finest large-fleet fighters were based in the

north in Branch. These players called themselves “The Night Crew” under

the leadership of fleet commander Presidio. They’d swoop in while the

Europeans in the Northern Coalition of Allies were asleep to re-establish

Phoenix Alliance dominance in Branch. They piloted lightning-quick

interceptor ships and forever crusaded to retake the station in BKG-Q2,

affectionately known as “the Burger King.”

BKG-Q2 was the best staging location in Branch because it was situated

exactly in the middle of the region. All stargate routes went through this

system. There was almost no way to fly through the region without going

through or very near it so whoever controlled the station inside that system

effectively controlled the entire region. A fleet in BKG-Q2 could hit any

system in the region within 15-20 minutes. Just as important, the system

was only four jumps away from Venal and five jumps from Tenal. If an

attacking force controlled the station in BKG-Q2 they could stockpile

warships, organize a fleet, and be in Phoenix Alliance’s territory just 20

minutes later.

Once European primetime came around, Evolution was unstoppable and

would easily take control of BKG-Q2. On the weekends, Presidio would

often try to organize Phoenix Alliance fleets to move in and overtake

Evolution when it was at its peak strength. By Presidio’s own admission, he

was never able to gain the respect of his pilots enough to organize a

disciplined, large-scale fleet. It’s a rare skill to be able to corral a dozen

different groups of people who all have different ideas on how to fight, and

Presidio never managed to gain enough clout to herd the cats into a

coherent strategy.

The northern Phoenix Alliance fighters in Branch were mostly holding their

ground, even if they couldn’t necessarily defeat Evolution. Elsewhere,

Phoenix Alliance was having more success. It had previously sent RONA

Corp and Romanian Renegades off to raid in the home systems of Fade

Union and Coalition of Deklein, and word began trickling back that the

operation was a huge success. Fade Union and Coalition of Deklein were

having a tough time defending themselves, and their industrial backbone

was being torn apart.

The raids against Coalition of Deklein and Fade Union were so

devastatingly successful for so long that eventually the two alliances started

preparing to leave the war. Finally, Phoenix Alliance brought a full fleet to

bear against the denizens of Fade and attacked at its home station of C4C-

Z4. With its main fleet away, Fade’s entire capital system was shut down for

a full day. No pilot could fly, and it was unsafe to be undocked in any

system in the region. The Phoenix Alliance fleet eventually left Fade, but

the damage to Fade Union’s psyche had been done. After the fight, Fade

Union approached the rest of the Northern Coalition of Allies and asked for

permission to leave the alliance. Coalition of Deklein followed suit shortly

after. The organization was so badly beaten up that permission was granted

for them to leave the war amicably.

THE BIRTH OF BOB

The coalition of alliances that made up the Northern Coalition of Allies was

now a much different group than it was at the beginning of the war. The

Coalition of Deklein and Fade Union had mostly left the war except for a

few stray corporations that refused to leave the front. Reikoku was among

those who refused to stop fighting. Its attack against Phoenix Alliance had

sparked this war, and it was determined to see it through.

After months of fighting, the only corporations left who were dedicated to

ousting Phoenix Alliance were those who were primarily interested in

combat. The only non-combat-focused corporation left in the Northern

Coalition of Allies was Jade Constantine’s roleplay and trade corporation,

Jericho Fraction. The combat corporations of the NCA found a bond in their

common interest, and began to talk about forming an official alliance

specifically designed to bring together their best combat pilots under one

roof.

With Evolution and Reikoku at their head, these corporations formed the

alliance “Cookies, Cake, Cream, and Pie” or “CCCP,” a play on the name of

EVE’s developer CCP Games. The joke was that the alliance would take

your cookies, your cake, your cream, and your pie and leave you with

nothing enjoyable in EVE.

The name didn’t last long, however, as CCP Games asked the group’s

leaders to rename it out of a fear that players might mistake a member of

the CCCP alliance for an official employee of CCP Games. The main

leaders of the new alliance—SirMolle and DB Preacher—switched the

name to “Band of Brothers” and continued the fight against Phoenix

Alliance. Having fought in this war for months already, the members of

Band of Brothers were now some of the most experienced combat pilots

anywhere in the game, and the alliance was instantly one of the most

fearsome groups anywhere in New Eden. SirMolle believed that the key to

creating the most effective military force in the game was exclusion. Band

of Brothers corporations didn’t accept random pilots into their midst.

Players who wanted to join their alliance needed to be vouched for by

respected peers and have a track record of excellence in combat. SirMolle

wanted to create an untouchable armada of elite pilots with no weak links in

the chain.

Some groups in EVE at the time were experimenting with the idea of safety

in numbers, believing that if their fleet was large enough then it wouldn’t

matter if their pilots were inexperienced. SirMolle’s Band of Brothers was

designed more as a highly coordinated strike force capable of fighting

outnumbered.

The alliance was governed by a council filled with well-known and capable

leaders, but just as Evolution had, they united behind SirMolle as the face

of Band of Brothers.

NEW ALLIANCES

Phoenix Alliance had torn through two of the Allies challenging them, but

the bulk of its enemies were still fighting. The members of the new alliance

Band of Brothers continued the struggle to control the regions of Venal,

Branch, and Tenal. Farther south, Jericho Fraction kept up the fight against

Phoenix Alliance in Empire space, destroying their trade ships, and

ensuring Phoenix Alliance had no safe havens.

While Phoenix Alliance was seemingly winning the war, it was slowly

bleeding members. More and more, Phoenix was outfitting its miners and

merchants for war. This was a problem because these sorts of players don’t

generally like to fight, preferring instead to mine and conduct trade. So

when there was no safe place in the north for them to do that, they’d often

fly back to Empire space to do their business in peace—and Jericho

Fraction would show up to ruin their day. For these types of players, the

only gameplay they enjoyed in EVE Online was being stripped from them

in favor of a war they didn’t ask for. Many found it easier to simply leave

Phoenix Alliance.

Halseth Durn made up for the bleeding membership by securing yet another

high profile partnership. Far to the south, Durn had managed to convince

Curse Alliance—which had some of the most skilled fighters in all of New

Eden at this point—to head north and help Phoenix Alliance in the fight

against Band of Brothers and Jericho Fraction.

~~~OFFICIAL JOINT PRESS RELEASE~~~

Phoenix Alliance and Curse Alliance

Let it be known throughout the vastness of EVE. The Curse Alliance

and the Phoenix Alliance will now support each other militarily

against all common enemies.

—Foyle, Co-leader of Curse Alliance

July 7, 2004

It was a long way to travel for a fight, but the Curse Alliance made the

hours-long trip north, arriving in Pure Blind. When scouts relayed word of

the Curse Alliance fleet heading north, the main forces of Band of Brothers

and Jericho Fraction got together to meet them. A combined fleet of

Phoenix Alliance and Curse Alliance ships assaulted the region of Pure

Blind—the staging ground for the Allied coalition—and clashed against a

joint Jericho Fraction and Band of Brothers fleet.

The Curse Alliance ships brought with them a strategy that the northerners

had never seen before. Its fleet commanders used a ship strategy that they

called the Cavalry Raven, and equipped them with large cruise missiles,

dedicating most of the ship’s power to speed. These Cavalry Ravens would

launch a first salvo of missiles from a long distance away, then put on a

burst of speed, catch up to the in-flight missile salvo, and then launch yet

another batch of missiles that would fly right alongside the first batch.

They’d do this over and over until they were flying alongside four or five

batches of cruise missiles that would all hit at the exact same time.

The targeted enemy ship would instantly burst, with no opportunity to

repair itself. Curse Alliance’s enemies usually had no idea what had just

happened to them. By the time they knew they were being attacked, they

were already floating in their escape pod.

By July 7, 2004—one and a half months since the beginning of hostilities—

the world of EVE was beginning to wake up to the fact that this regional

war had the potential to engulf the entire game. After Curse Alliance in the

south joined the fight, the Coalition of Free Stars in the far southwest

hedged its bets and said that any attack on it in its territory would cause it to

join the cause of Band of Brothers. Fountain Alliance in the west said much

the same thing: If the territory of its allies, NORAD, came under attack in

the region Outer Ring, then Fountain Alliance would join the war in full on

the side of Band of Brothers. Rumors were circulating that Fountain

Alliance was already secretly sending spare ships and supplies north to help

its allies.

Fellow citizens,

It is with growing concern we have seen the Northern War escalate

as of late, both in terms of warring parties currently involved, and

the ever increasing geographical spread of the hostilities.

As I’m sure the good citizens of EVE are aware, the Fountain

Alliance has a long history of fighting the savage barbarians of the

Curse Alliance, and it is with their introduction into the war that we

have now found it necessary to adjust our policy from our former

“strictly neutral” stance to the conflict in north.

The Fountain Alliance consider NORAD close allies and valued

friends, and will use any means necessary to help keep The Outer

Ring under the influence of a friendly government.

—Alkad Mzu, Head of Public Relations, Fountain Alliance

July 7, 2004

The alliances of EVE were giving themselves an excuse to enter the war if

they ever felt it was warranted. One false move could trigger a cascade of

mutual-defense agreements that would bring all of New Eden into a ruinous

universal conflict. Curse Alliance had a great deal of enemies, and its

continued involvement threatened to escalate the Great Northern War into

what people were prophesying at the time: EVE War 1. This would not have

been a war Phoenix Alliance and Curse Alliance could win.

For two weeks, Curse Alliance aided tremendously in helping Phoenix

Alliance get off the defense and take the fight to Band of Brothers and

Jericho Fraction. Curse’s presence in the north began to trail off, though, as

a simple consequence of the distance between its home base in the south

and the main front of the war in the north. It was a pain for Curse to travel

all the way to the north just for a fight. That’s one possible explanation for

it backing off. The other is that its leaders were worried about the fact that

Band of Brothers had scored two new potential allies—Fountain Alliance,

Coalition of Free Stars—both with honorable reputations. If they continued

to escalate this war, multiple new alliances could join the fight, and put

Phoenix Alliance and Curse Alliance at a severe disadvantage.

After those first two weeks, Phoenix Alliance was on its own again. Curse

Alliance went back to its home in the south. The leaders of New Eden

breathed a collective sigh of relief. Even those already in the war didn’t

want it to spiral further out of fear it could drag on the conflict for an

unknowable amount of time. Without Curse Alliance, Phoenix Alliance was

left to fill its fleet with its own members, which got them back in the same

problem it had been in earlier. Inexperienced combat pilots were never

going to be able to take the field from the likes of Evolution and M0o,

which had been at war since EVE Online was in beta.

Reports from this time indicate that Phoenix Alliance lost several fleets due

to inexperience. In one instance, Phoenix Alliance attempted to jump its

fleet into battle, but the order to warp wasn’t unanimously followed, and the

fleet arrived in staggered numbers. Five here. Fifteen there. Seven there.

Another 10 showed up a half minute later. Rather than striking with a

clenched fist, the fleet arrived one finger at a time, and Band of Brothers

was more than happy to break them one by one.

INTERNAL STRIFE

As the war began to turn against Phoenix Alliance on the battlefield,

Halseth Durn also had to deal with problems on the home front. The entire

war had been sparked after Reikoku accused Phoenix Alliance’s renegade

corporation Cyberdyne Industries of unprovoked aggression. Halseth Durn

knew these accusations were true, but covered them up to keep the alliance

together. The other leaders of the alliance believed Cyberdyne was

innocent, and were fighting to protect their ally. But months into the war,

the secret had leaked out. People began to whisper about the rumors that

Cyberdyne really was the guilty party, and that Phoenix Alliance might be

in the wrong in this war. Halseth Durn struggled to keep control, keeping

the secret under wraps.

Moreover, Jade Constantine was spouting propaganda and misinformation

constantly and had actually succeeded in distracting Phoenix Alliance. For

months, Phoenix Alliance’s focus had been on capturing and holding the

all-important station in BKG-Q2, but Jade had managed to goad its leaders

into turning their eye south to destroy Jericho Fraction in the region of Pure

Blind. In an address on the forums, Halseth Durn announced that his people

were so fed up with Jade Constantine’s verbal attacks that, as a leader, Durn

was forced to capitulate to the desire of his people and head south to focus

on destroying her corporation.

In the following quote Durn uses “the Northern Coalition of Allies” to refer

to their southern enemies (Jericho Fraction, in particular) as opposed to

Band of Brothers in the north.

We would like to take this opportunity to hail the brave fighters of

this conflict on both sides of the battlefield. The sheer volume of

carnage unleashed has been staggering and left no star system

north of Lonetrek unchallenged. For the Phoenix Alliance, it has

been a war fought on many fronts with an estimated 71 hostile

corporations against our 23.

For nearly three months now Phoenix Alliance’s main fleet focus

has been on the never ending exchange of station control in the

Branch region. It has been an epic conflict of numerous fleet battles,

awesome firepower, and the destruction of billions in assets on both

sides. Pushing EVE to its limits on a daily basis is enjoyable and for

this chance we are grateful. However, external conditions are now

pulling our focus away from the north, and demanding that we

respond to the situation south of our home in Venal.

A recent wave of forum attacks on Phoenix Alliance policy, its

history, and its integrity have all originated from the formidable PR

offices of the leaders of the Northern Coalition of Allies. They have

even had the gall to begin dictating the terms of our surrender. We

find this kind of behavior inflammatory coming from those who we

have yet to wage war on. The growing voice for a military response

to this audacity within the Phoenix Alliance is now loud enough to

force us to focus our attention south onto the forces of the Northern

Coalition of Allies.

—Halseth Durn, CEO Oberon Incorporated, Phoenix Alliance

August 19, 2004

When Durn made this decision, Phoenix Alliance finally lost its hold on the

space station in Branch in BKG-Q2. The Burger King was under new

management. After a months-long siege where Evolution—which was part

of Band of Brothers now—and Phoenix Alliance continually attacked,

conquered, defended, and lost that station, Evolution had finally secured a

hold that Phoenix Alliance couldn’t break. From its new stronghold at

BKG-Q2, Evolution also captured the station at V7-MID. It now controlled

both of the main staging systems in Branch and Tenal. From those staging

stations, Evolution could strike into the Venal region and carried out near-

constant raids into Phoenix Alliance’s last stronghold.

While conducting those raids, Evolution was doing more than just searching

for ships to blow up. It was also carrying freighters full of ammunition and

ships. Evolution’s combat ships would enter Venal, scare away Phoenix

Alliance’s pilots, then once no enemies were around to see them,

Evolution’s supply freighters would dock with the station in 6NJ8-V in

Venal and offload their supplies inside without Phoenix Alliance ever

knowing.

Evolution was able to do this because there were two types of stations in

this era of EVE: conquerable stations and stations owned by fictional

factions. The station in 6NJ8-V was the latter, and thus Band of Brothers

could dock there freely and use it to store equipment. If it had been a

conquerable station owned by Phoenix Alliance, Band of Brothers wouldn’t

have been able to dock.

After a few days of stockpiling munitions and spare ships in 6NJ8-V, Band

of Brothers sent out the call for the fleet to gather in the north and prepare

to strike into Venal at a time of day when Phoenix Alliance had a large

number of players online (allowing it to amass heavy resistance.) Ships

from every corporation still left fighting against the Phoenix Alliance

gathered in Branch before moving down as a united fleet into Venal.

Phoenix Alliance scouts picked up on the enemy fleet movements and

formed a defense fleet of their own. This force arrived at 6NJ8-V with a

formidable armada. Exact numbers from this battle could not be found, but

estimates put the Phoenix Alliance fleet at around 100 ships against the 65

or so assembled by Band of Brothers and its allies.

At this point in the war, fleet commanders knew what to expect in a large-

scale fight between hundreds of pilots, and there were few surprises. The

fleets engaged, and each tried their best to target high-value enemies and

control the effects of lag. As time went on, however, the Phoenix Alliance

fleet commanders started to notice the Band of Brothers fleet wasn’t losing

numbers. Phoenix Alliance ships were dwindling, but Band of Brothers’

were not.

The simple fact is that Band of Brothers was much more prepared for this

fight than Phoenix Alliance, and it had chosen the battleground perfectly.

The station in 6NJ8-V—deep in Phoenix Alliance sovereign territory—was

chock full of Band of Brothers’ replacement ships. Every time a Band of

Brothers pilot lost a ship in the battle, the player would simply move their

pod to the station, get into a new ship, and fly back to the battle within a

few minutes. Phoenix Alliance’s own stockpile was several systems away.

It could take them 20 minutes or more to get a pilot back into the fight.

Band of Brothers had baited Phoenix Alliance into the battle by making its

leaders believe they had a huge numerical advantage, but with Band of

Brothers’ practically endless ability to reinforce its lines, it quickly gained a

grip on the battlefield. Band of Brothers had finally gotten the large-scale

fleet fight it wanted, and it made it count. Its pilots broke the Phoenix

Alliance fleet and took the field convincingly. They were able to push

Phoenix Alliance back out of a system that was only a few jumps away

from its capital system.

THE FATE OF ALL TYRANTS

With the war turning in their favor, Band of Brothers and Jericho Fraction

made damn sure the entire EVE universe knew about it. Jade Constantine

went into overdrive. Nearly every day there was a 500-word post on the

forums from Jade taunting and demonizing Phoenix Alliance.

In this era of EVE the CAOD forum (Corporation, Alliance, and

Organization Discussion) was the only major forum where all the alliance

leaders got together to make announcements and talk. Jade Constantine

flooded CAOD with propaganda, and every political leader in EVE could

hear her, including the Phoenix Alliance. Phoenix Alliance came to call it

“The Daily Jade.”

“Imagine having only one TV channel,” said Cochise, a Phoenix Alliance

council member, in 2014. “You come home from work, and you sit down in

front of the TV after a hard day. You turn on the TV, and there’s a five

minute commercial by Al Qaeda telling you how much you suck. That’s

what it was like.”

Band of Brothers saw there was a benefit to this type of psychological

warfare and got in on the action. It sent spies into Phoenix Alliance to start

petty fights between corporations and clog communication lines. These

spies would acquire log-in information for the forums of Phoenix Alliance’s

corporations. But rather than secretly hoard all of the information the spies

collected from those forums, SirMolle of Evolution and DB Preacher of

Reikoku instead opted to share it with their enemies.

SirMolle and DB Preacher saw Phoenix Alliance as a weak amalgam of

corporations that could be split apart, so they endeavored to create distrust

between them. They’d share what the allies of Phoenix Alliance said about

one another behind each other’s backs, and every time they did, they’d

remind their enemies of ways they could end the war and move on

peacefully. SirMolle and DB Preacher had enacted a scorched earth policy,

and if that meant destroying friendships in the Phoenix Alliance then that

was simply a casualty of war.

Their most effective psychological tactic was in implementing EVE’s first

“kill board.” The idea behind the kill board was to provide an objective,

factual resource for showing the grunts in Phoenix Alliance that their team

was losing. In any war—real or virtual—it’s difficult for the front-line

soldiers to understand how the overall war is going. Even struggling armies

tell their soldiers that the war is going well simply as a tactic for keeping up

morale. Wars in EVE Online are no different. Except now Band of Brothers

had a factual way to publicly prove Phoenix Alliance’s defeats.

CCP Games had just implemented “kill mails” into the game. Players

would now get a piece of in-game mail whenever they shot down a ship (or

were shot down themselves), that detailed the specifics of the encounter:

what types of weapons did the most damage, which pilot got the final hit,

and so on. Programmers within Band of Brothers created their own

application that would take that information and automatically plug it into

its website. Anyone who was curious could come and look at the latest

casualties in the war. It allowed Evolution to keep the conversation focused

on its specialty (combat) and forced Phoenix Alliance members to accept

that they were losing the fight. Eventually it did start to have an effect on

morale in Phoenix Alliance, and participation in its fleet operations began

to drop as players simply didn’t show up, afraid of losing their ships.

And then Phoenix Alliance fell apart overnight.

Almost without warning RONA Corp—one of the largest members of

Phoenix—left the alliance. The secret—that Cyberdyne Industries was

actually the true first aggressor in this war—had been discovered by

Robeyone, the leader of RONA. Unbeknownst to Band of Brothers, their

enemy was crumbling from within.

Robeyone’s sense of honor was so deeply offended when he found out he

and his corporation had spent all of their spare time for months fighting

based on a lie that he quit the war and left the alliance as quickly as

possible.

“There was some dissension that sprung up, and several of the major

corporations in the Phoenix Alliance left within a month’s time,” said

Cochise. “Which then left the leadership void. The co-CEO of RONA Corp,

Acidcharm, she was angry because the war was still raging with Band of

Brothers. Yet Robeyone wanted to leave, and she felt like it was betrayal.

You don’t leave someone when they’re down, you stay and fight, and when

things are good we can leave. Robeyone didn’t want to, and he left.”

Mere days after RONA Corp packed its bags, Halseth Durn’s Oberon

Incorporated followed suit. But before it did, it had one last matter to attend

to: evicting Cyberdyne Industries. The departure of Oberon was a huge

shock to rank-and-file Phoenix Alliance members who had been hearing

nothing but confidence from Halseth Durn prior to this.

“Halseth Durn basically said, ‘We’re winning. We’re winning. We’re

winning. We’re leaving,’ said Cochise. “He would say we were

unstoppable; we were winning every fight. I remember every Jade

[propaganda] post, there was another wall of text from Halseth

[contradicting] it.”

The lie that Halseth Durn had endeavored to cover up to preserve the

Phoenix Alliance was out, and it was quietly tearing Phoenix Alliance to

pieces from the inside. The three main member corporations of the alliance

—RONA, Oberon, Cyberdyne—were now gone, and with them went a

huge portion of Phoenix Alliance’s fighting strength.

“It came as a big surprise to all of us to that RONA left, because RONA

was the largest corporation,” said Cochise. “One of the top two corporations

I believe at the time in EVE. They had a lot of ISK, and they had a lot of

big ships. So it hurt us when they left.”

The Phoenix Alliance as an entity soldiered on, but it had just lost its

strongest limbs.

Not long after, Jericho Fraction and Band of Brothers actually arranged a

security detail to escort Oberon and RONA out of the north, allowing their

former enemies to safely and honorably evacuate their ships and other

assets. The war carried on without them.

Jericho Fraction was content to call this an end to the war. It had achieved

its goal of getting revenge against those who evicted Jericho Fraction pilots

from the New Venal Alliance so many months ago—RONA, Cyberdyne,

and Oberon. In an interview in 2014, Jade Constantine remarked to me that

she felt Jericho Fraction had exhibited for the players of EVE “the fate of

all tyrants.”

THE REIGN OF COCHISE

It was Fall in 2004 now, and there was a tremendous power vacuum to fill

in the Phoenix Alliance. The three most powerful corporations in the

alliance were now gone, but the remaining 20 or so corporations were

determined to keep the war going. The spark that ignited the Great Northern

War had now burned out, but the hate that had kept the fire burning for five

months was still there.

For Phoenix Alliance’s pilots, this wasn’t something that could be solved

with a peace treaty. Band of Brothers was an invader—an interloper that

didn’t belong in the north and had come to kick Phoenix Alliance out and

break their bond of friendship.

The remaining corporations in Phoenix Alliance got together and held a

meeting to figure out how to proceed. They had to decide how to fill the

power vacuum in the alliance left by the departure of their strongest

corporations, and just as important, they needed to elect a new leader now

that Halseth Durn was gone.

For an alliance against the ropes, spirits were remarkably high. Cochise—a

low-level council member, and leader of the combat-focused Phoenix

Alliance corporation, 20th Legion—was supposed to be at this meeting, but

he was running late that Sunday afternoon. He rushed home from a family

function, logged into the TeamSpeak server, and heard nothing but raucous

laughter.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“I’ve got some good news for you, Cochise,” a voice responded. “You’ve

just been elected our new leader.”

Ten years later, Cochise told me what was going through his mind when he

found out he now had to lead thousands of people in a losing war. “I was

scared to death,” he told me. “I didn’t know what to do. I remember

shrugging my shoulders, and looking out the window, and saying ‘Okay.

Whatever. I’m going to do my best.’ That was the end of the meeting, and

there I was trying to figure out what do I do now.”

Cochise was taken off guard by the nomination to lead Phoenix Alliance, in

part because he was so focused on the people in his own corporation. He

cared about making 20th Legion as great as possible, and he didn’t get

involved in the larger alliance politics. Despite his disinterest in politics he

had slowly risen in prominence. He was seen as one of Phoenix Alliance’s

best fleet commanders, a kind and well-liked voice in the alliance council,

and a man who was diligent and willing to do the hard work.

The Great Northern War had become something entirely different than it

was when it began. Almost all of the main forces that started the war had

moved on. Fade Union, Coalition of Deklein, Oberon, Cyberdyne, RONA,

and Jericho Fraction had all either formally moved on from the fight or

were rarely seen. Even M0o had decided to call it quits. Its leaders said

they’d become annoyed by their fame in the EVE community, and were

tired of the effect it had on their gameplay—specifically, there was more

talking than fighting.

The Great Northern War took a wholly different shape than before, on a

much smaller scale. The war went on with Band of Brothers—Evolution,

Reikoku, Black Nova Corporation et al—battling 20th Legion, GODS,

Bladerunners and North Star Networks, which made up the bedrock of the

new Phoenix Alliance.

The new Phoenix Alliance leaders felt very strongly that the loss of their

major corporations was due largely to the non-stop propaganda attacks of

Jade Constantine. Without Jade’s propaganda, they reasoned, Phoenix

Alliance would have been able to weather the Cyberdyne controversy. The

Phoenix Alliance council didn’t know at the time that it had elected the

perfect person to lead them against this kind of verbal assault.

“I grew up in a family where my dad was a student of the very first positive

mental thinkers in the ‘60s,” Cochise said. “He made a lifetime of being

positive. A flow of positive energy. He was a minister, but he also did

positive public speaking all over the country and was pretty good at it. He

bombarded me all my life growing up with all the great sayings. You know,

‘turn lemons into lemonade.’ All those things. Zig Ziggler. Tony Robbins.

So I knew in my mind that I’ve got the tools that, if nothing else, I can turn

[their propaganda] against them.”

Cochise set to work changing the attitude of his allies, using everything

he’d learned from his father to change the way they saw Jade Constantine’s

propaganda. The negative propaganda had been tearing apart the Phoenix

Alliance before this point, but now it became exactly the force that was

holding it together.

“I was saying ‘Guys, if there’s not a reason to fight then we pack up, we go

back to Empire,’” said Cochise. “These guys were insulting us. They were

calling us every name in the book. They said we were dead. The brunt of

my leadership meetings on Sundays were about that. Encouraging our guys,

building them up. It got to a point where that became my biggest asset.

“This wasn’t a game for us,” he continued. “This was our home. They were

our enemy. All appropriate emotions were applied. We hated them. Not in a

virtual way. We hated them. It drove us. Man, I can remember blowing off

work rather than leave my guys in a fight.”

Cochise was able to right the sinking ship of the Phoenix Alliance, and keep

everyone’s spirits up. The war began anew, and the battles for the major

holding points in the north, BKG-Q2 and V7-MID, were rekindled. The

fighting was as impassioned as ever, but at smaller scales.

In real life, Cochise lived deep in the Georgian tract of the Appalachian

mountains. He speaks with a thick, friendly southern American accent, and

has a playful way with words. If there’s an old American idiom that can

sum up what he wants to say then you can bet he’ll use it.

Cochise’s southern American charm is certainly part of why everyone in his

alliance loved him and voted him to take command. But it’s also why he

managed to maintain friendships with people at the other end of his gun

barrel. Even as he hated the alliances that invaded his people’s territory, he

still had love for some of the people he fought. Cochise reached out to those

people as the war dragged on.

A large part of the reason for the constant propaganda attacks on the

Phoenix Alliance was that Band of Brothers knew that it’s exceedingly

difficult to push someone out of their space in EVE by force of arms. You

need to completely dominate them for that to work. The more effective path

is to break their spirit. The Phoenix Alliance had been broken once before,

but now it was psychically stabilized with their own Tony Robbins at the

helm of the war effort.

Cochise approached some of his friends across the battlefield in Band of

Brothers and asked if a ceasefire could be negotiated. Band of Brothers

asked if he was surrendering, and Cochise shot back, “Hell, no. We’re not

surrendering, but I want to see if we can talk.” A meeting was called, and

the leadership of every major power remaining in the north got together to

talk peace.

It was the right time for a peace conference. Others from the Phoenix

Alliance recall being exhausted with the fighting by this point. Presidio,

leader of GODS—one of the mainstay military corporations in the new

Phoenix Alliance—recalled privately telling Cochise they were thinking of

calling it quits. Evolution and Band of Brothers were growing weary of the

fighting too. They talked, and Cochise was able to broker a ceasefire

without giving up any territory to the invaders.

“The war ended by mutual consent,” said Cochise. “I went to that meeting,

and the only criteria I had from my fellow leadership in Phoenix Alliance

was ‘we will not surrender. We will not give up one piece of space.’ When

the war ended we were still the proper owners of the three regions: Venal,

Tenal, and Branch.”

All parties agreed to the peace treaty, and the Great Northern War came to a

close. Ask a dozen people who won the war and you’ll get a dozen different

answers. Most people consider Band of Brothers the victor, because the war

left them in a strong position while Phoenix Alliance was greatly weakened.

However, which alliance was considered “victorious” by their peers is less

important than the war’s ramifications on the rest of EVE’s history.

FALL OF KINGS

The Great Northern War is one of the defining moments in the history of

EVE because it shaped the structure of power in New Eden for years to

come. Several of the strongest powers in the game were either destroyed or

developed in the war.

By the end, Phoenix Alliance was not the regional power it once was. The

once promising Forsaken Empire had been beaten back into the East. Fade

Union and Coalition of Deklein were badly wounded and barely surviving.

M0o had disbanded. Refugees from the similarly embattled southeast were

coming in to settle in the weakened regions of Deklein and Fade.

But most importantly, Band of Brothers was forged and had proven itself

capable of striking down one of the most powerful alliances in existence.

Beyond that, it now had more experience with invasion tactics than any

other entity in the game, and its experience in large scale fleet fights was

similarly unmatched. It had fashioned itself into a mobile military force that

was capable of striking over vast distances, effectively dismantling the great

powers of nullsec. The Great Northern War taught Band of Brothers’ pilots

to wage war on a scale nobody had yet seen, and they would soon use that

capability to reshape all of New Eden.

The first year of EVE Online (2003) saw the rise of several formidable

powers in the EVE universe. The next year saw the complete reshuffling of

those established powers in the Great Northern War. The third year of EVE

Online deals with the chaotic power vacuum that results from the removal

of every established, territory-holding power in the game.

When viewing maps from this time, a lot of new alliance names come from

seemingly nowhere. Gone are the days when virtually the entirety of nullsec

was controlled by six entities (Phoenix Alliance, Fountain Alliance, Stain

Alliance, Curse Alliance, Forsaken Empire, and the Coalition of Free

Stars). Nowhere was this more evident than in the southern territories.

So far, this book has not discussed the southern territories very often except

in sidebars. The reason is because the south—while having a number of

influential powers—more or less fell apart at this time. There’s a clear

dividing line in southern history, and what happened before this time isn’t

strictly relevant to the years that followed. The three main powers of the

south all independently split apart for different reasons.

In the southeast, Curse Alliance splintered into several factions, and wars

erupted nearly everywhere in its former territory. The second major power,

Stain Alliance, entered its own civil war not long afterward. Finally, in the

southwest, the reigning power known as the Coalition of Free Stars was

deposed quickly and easily by Fountain Alliance, a far more powerful

neighbor on its northern border.

The northern regions didn’t fare much better. The scattered remains of the

north slowly collapsed. Refugees from the fall of the Curse Alliance arrived

in the north to find a new home, and they evicted the existing northern

powers to make room. In place of Fade Union rose G Alliance. In place of

Coalition of Deklein rose IRON. Phoenix Alliance collapsed not long after.

However, the talent and manpower of these organizations lived on through

other organizations. In a testament to his friendliness and diplomatic

prowess, Cochise found himself and his corporation 20th Legion as a

member of Band of Brothers not long after the war ended. Though he

would never again wield power on the scale that he did at the head of

Phoenix Alliance in the Great Northern War, his ability to maintain

friendships even with his enemies makes Cochise one of the most talented

leaders in the history of the game.

STATE OF THE STAR CLUSTER

Who controls which region at this time is less important than the overall

effect: the unions between the first great nullsec empires of New Eden had

dissolved. The dynamic of power was shifting every day as more than a

dozen would-be empires warred for dominance. Virtually every region in

nullsec was being fought over at all times, and if a region wasn’t already

being invaded then an invasion was surely right around the corner.

In the aftermath of the Great Northern War, Band of Brothers emerged as

perhaps the single most powerful entity in New Eden, but it was an army

without a mission. After the Great Northern War was settled, it went

looking for a new goal for its hyper-mobile war-fighting alliance. Next up

on the chopping block: Fountain Alliance in the west.

CHAPTER SEVEN:

THE CAPITAL AGE

With the Great Northern War behind them, the pilots of Band of Brothers

were left without a mission for the first time in more than a year. They’d

been battling the forces of the north in war after war since 2003, but in 2005

they were in an unwanted peace.

Band of Brothers had never been interested in holding territory. It hadn’t

held any since its founding corporation—Evolution—helped create

Fountain Alliance in 2003, and its leaders shunned the bureaucracy and

politics that governing star systems entailed. Evolution and its allies in

Band of Brothers were fueled by warfare. They were invigorated by it, in

contrast to most of the territory-owning powers of this era.

Arguably the most powerful entity in New Eden didn’t officially control a

single star system. Access to resources and funding was what made most

major alliances powerful, but Band of Brothers was powerful because it

enjoyed war, which made it a terrifying force for any peaceable alliance to

contend with.

At this time, Band of Brothers was adrift without an official home, but that

was about to change. When it made its next move, it was to attack more

territory—but also, to start conquering it. This was new for Band of

Brothers’ pilots, but changes in the game pushed them to make the jump

from simple warmongers to proper conquerors.

And it was all planned at the barbecue.

THE TAKING OF NEW EDEN

Every year, Band of Brothers held a real world barbecue celebrating good

times and unity. For a week every August its figurehead leader, SirMolle,

abandoned his avatar and socialized with his pilots as Par Molen, a 48-year-

old Swede living in Copenhagen, Denmark.

For this first inaugural barbecue in 2005, SirMolle rented an entire

campground outside Copenhagen, and hundreds of Band of Brothers

starship pilots would come to drink beer, eat roasted meat, and gaze

drunkenly at the bright rural stars. Amid the drunken revelry they also

planned war strategy. They would convene in a large presentation room that

looked like a classroom to plot out the organization’s future plans.

Standing at the head of the assembly, the Band of Brothers CEOs—the

leaders of the alliance’s constituent corporations—revealed the alliance’s

next targets and their latest fleet strategy theories. More than a hundred

pilots crammed into the room to watch the leaders of the alliance scribble

campaign plans on a large chalkboard. They were making a blueprint for

how to conquer all of nullsec.

By the end of the weeklong celebration Band of Brothers’ constituent

corporations believed that their destiny was to become the greatest

conquerors this game had ever seen. They believed wholeheartedly that

Band of Brothers had more skill and potential than any other alliance, and

they weren’t shy about sharing that belief. They even joked about acquiring

enough power to attack empire space and grind the fictional empires under

the iron boot of Band of Brothers. It would begin in Fountain.

IN FOUNTAIN

After years of controlling only its namesake region, Fountain Alliance had

recently trounced an alliance called the “Coalition of Free Stars” which

resided in Delve, Querious, and Period Basis.

The regions of Delve, Period Basis, and Querious form something like a

peninsula jutting out from the rest of the star cluster. There were very few

routes that led into that peninsula which allowed the Coalition of Free Stars

to hold off groups much more powerful than itself by establishing a solid

defensive chokepoint. However, in 2004, CCP Games added a new set of

stargates into the game which created a brand new route into that peninsula

directly from Fountain. With this new route at its disposal, Fountain

Alliance flooded into the Delve, Period Basis, Querious peninsula, and

crushed the Coalition of Free Stars, which had made its home there since

2003. Refugees from the Coalition of Free Stars managed to hold on to

Querious, but Delve and Period Basis fell. Fountain Alliance was

previously an alliance confined to just one region, but very suddenly

became a three region empire.

After humbling the Coalition of Free Stars, Fountain Alliance became one

of the most feared groups in New Eden, but this turned out to be a catch-22.

It was so big and so strong that it had no credible enemies—at least not

while Band of Brothers was tied up fighting the Great Northern War. So its

members who were interested in combat were forced to move on if they

ever wanted to fight again. A large portion of Fountain Alliance’s combat

pilots abandoned the alliance, leaving it vulnerable.

It was dreadful timing for Fountain Alliance to lose much of its military

wing—Band of Brothers was on its way to Fountain’s capital system. At the

barbecue, the alliance had decided that its future was no longer in the north,

but in the south. But before it could conquer the south, it needed to weaken

the largest entity in the region that could pose a threat to Band of Brothers.

So it set its sights on assaulting the capital system of Fountain Alliance as a

show of force.

Band of Brothers split up, sending Reikoku south into Delve to harass

Fountain Alliance’s miners and cargo ships while Evolution led a fleet

directly into the heart of Fountain and shut down the entire region

overnight.

It was a complete surprise attack, and the circumstances of the strike

seemed quite underhanded to many in EVE at the time. Evolution attacked

Fountain Alliance so abruptly that it never declared war, and were still

declared as allies in the game. So regardless of the fact Evolution was

besieging the system, Evolution ships appeared to Fountain Alliance pilots

to be allies. They were displayed blue on the overview so there was no way

to tell friend from foe.

With the advantage of complete surprise, the battle-hardened Evolution

rocked Fountain Alliance in its home systems with this unscrupulous attack,

and quickly took a dominant posture in the region. Fountain Alliance was a

major force in the EVE universe at the time, but its pilots hadn’t been

through a major war. Fountain’s 2,500 players vastly outnumbered

Evolution’s few hundred, but they weren’t soldiers. Even at peak strength,

Fountain Alliance would have struggled to hold off Band of Brothers, but

after losing its military backbone and spreading itself thin across three

regions it lost any hope of a victory.

Still worse, Fountain Alliance had few allies in the west. Its ally to the

north, NORAD, had just been through the Great Northern War and wasn’t

in condition to fight another war. To the southeast was Stain Alliance, an

old enemy that was more than happy to watch Fountain pilots be slapped

around by Band of Brothers. There were no allies nearby who could come

to Fountain’s aid.

“The founding fathers came back to destroy what they had founded,” said

TornSoul, one of the leaders of Fountain Alliance, in 2014. He’s referring to

the fact that in 2003, Evolution helped create Fountain Alliance before

leaving to fight the Venal Alliance.

With no opportunity to plan a defense, Fountain Alliance was brought to its

knees. Evolution cut it to ribbons in the region of Fountain while Reikoku

kept up the attacks in Delve. The remnants of the Coalition of Free Stars in

Querious formed a group called Firmus Ixion, and joined up with Band of

Brothers against Fountain Alliance.

When enough damage had been done, Evolution left Fountain and linked up

with Reikoku in Delve to bring the region under its complete control. Delve

became the first official home Band of Brothers had known in two years.

There was just one system left to take, NOL-M9, and it was the key to

capturing the neighboring region of Period Basis as well.

You can probably make a good guess as to how the battle for this final

system went based on the grandeur with which Band of Brothers

remembered themselves in their account of the battle.

An awe-inspiring fleet of gold, silver, green and red gleaming hulls

gathered on the fringes of the NOL-M9 system.

Band of Brothers was expecting to engage a fleet of similar or

greater size in the next few minutes. The regions south of Delve were

at stake and the atmosphere was alive with feelings of excitement

and fear.

Commanders were calmly discussing the way the battle would

commence, reassuring the pilots within their ranks that they would

be victorious, discussing how to force the enemy into submission,

making them retreat and scatter their fleets.

For the Band of Brothers, this was to be a great day. For weeks the

enemy had been advertising its intentions to crush the Band of

Brothers forces, flooding communications networks with

propaganda proclaiming their alliance were the owners and

protectorate of the southern regions of Period Basis and Delve.

NOL-M9 was “the” contested system inside the Delve region, as it

lay in-between Delve and Period Basis, making it the ideal tactical

outpost allowing control over both regions. It was chosen by the

mighty BoB military to reveal to the Fountain Alliance the

undeniable might of its squadrons, a force so powerful that even

another group double its size would think twice before engaging in

combat.

BoB’s fleet was a diverse mixture of battleships, cruisers, and

support frigates, each ship equipped with the best technology

available. The ships were bulky and slow, but they made up for their

lack of agility with the devastating power of their laser, railgun,

howitzer and missile batteries. The fleet had organized itself in

military fashion—a staggered line designed to maximize the deadly

effect of tachyon, railgun and howitzer fire against the enemy’s front

along with torpedo ships giving the extra heavy damage.

The frontmen—interceptor and assault frigate squadrons—were

ready to disable the enemy’s means of escape by disrupting their

warp drive systems and slowing them down further with electro-

magnetic forcefields, effectively webbing the ship to stop it moving.

The entire BoB fleet moved into position, eager for battle. The battle

lines had been drawn and the pieces were moving. The first volleys

erupted from the Band of Brothers battleship fleet, its turrets taking

aim and firing as one, with blood-red beams and hard hitting large

hybrid and projectile munitions slicing through the side of a

stationary Megathron battleship until the vessel’s hull ruptured,

pieces of it scattering like dust among the rank and file of the

Fountain Alliance force.

The Band of Brothers fleet made quick work of the remaining Fountain

Alliance forces still vying for control of Delve. The capturing of NOL-M9

was swift, and it cut off the Fountain Alliance from the region of Period

Basis far in the south. Its brief three-region empire was cut down to just

one.

Had its leaders wanted to, it’s likely Band of Brothers could have easily

conquered the region of Fountain as well, pushing Fountain Alliance out

entirely. However, they had come to understand the volatile geopolitical era

of EVE. With a dozen other ambitious alliances now hungry for power in

New Eden, Band of Brothers sought to insulate itself from the fracas.

It pulled back from destroying Fountain Alliance, leaving it to continue

holding its namesake region. Fountain was allowed to retain its name and

its independence, but it was weakened and a great many of its members had

left after the defeat. SirMolle’s logic was that it was better to have a

weakened enemy nearby than to create a power vacuum next door that

might allow a more powerful alliance to move in.

In particular, Band of Brothers used Fountain Alliance as a buffer against its

old rivals from the north. If any alliance from the north wanted to attack

Band of Brothers it would have to fight through Fountain Alliance to get

there. Any force attempting to launch a sneak attack through Empire space

would be kept an hour’s travel or longer from its nearest ship cache—

reinforcement would be all but impossible. A sustained invasion of Delve

from the north would be impossible without first removing Fountain

Alliance.

Band of Brothers used the same strategy on its eastern flank. The remnants

of the Coalition of Free Stars, Firmus Ixion, controlled Querious as allies of

Band of Brothers. For rescuing it from Fountain Alliance rule, Band of

Brothers earned Firmus Ixion’s great respect and loyalty. They became

sparring partners—fighting in good sport in pre-arranged fleet fights—and

Band of Brothers shared with Firmus its knowledge of fleet warfare.

With this accomplished, the only reasonable route into Band of Brothers’

space was now through Period Basis, but that wasn’t much of a worry

because to the east, Paragon Soul was disputed territory. Stain Alliance was

fighting to maintain control there, and there was no worry that it would

break off and attack Delve.

In 2003, leaders like Jade Constantine began to understand the power of

politically isolating your enemies through the use of propaganda and

information control. Now, Band of Brothers was beginning to understand

the power of geographically isolating your enemies. When Band of

Brothers helped humble Phoenix Alliance it wasn’t because Phoenix

Alliance had no allies. It was because Phoenix’s largest ally was Curse

Alliance, which had to travel hours to get its fleets to a fight. This was of

limited use when Phoenix Alliance was already under attack, and it

inevitably meant Curse Alliance’s pilots eventually got sick of making the

trip and stopped showing up.

Band of Brothers chose allies who were close by, deliberately targeting

those who had no nearby friends. It had created itself a highly protected

nest in Delve where it could incubate its master plan. Its leaders were

creating a political empire—to be called the Greater Band of Brothers

Community—alongside their military empire.

THE INDUSTRIAL ARMS RACE

Having created its nest, Band of Brothers stopped fighting for a time in

mid-2005 and settled down in peace and quiet. It wasn’t because its pilots

valued peace, but because a new era had dawned in EVE Online. The times

were changing, and many believed industrial power could potentially

become more important than fighting skill. EVE Online was entering the

era of capital ships.

In July 2005, CCP Games introduced a new type of ship into EVE Online:

dreadnoughts. These were huge siege ships designed not for

maneuverability, but for pure firepower. When these titanic artillery ships—

each several kilometers in length—lumbered into position they could enter

“siege mode” and deal extreme amounts of damage. They were designed to

rip into entrenched positions and destroy player-owned starbases, but they

were vulnerable to fast battleship fleets because their enormous guns were

too slow to target small, fast ships.

An arms race sprouted up across New Eden. In the new era of territorial

warfare in nullsec, dreadnoughts were indispensable tools for invading

enemy territory, and every alliance wanted its own fleet of these siege ships.

They were capable of such fierce power that many considered them to be

the be-all-end-all of fleet combat. But their cost was commensurate with

their strength: it could take more than a week for even a major industrial

power to build just one dreadnought.

To keep up with this arms race, Band of Brothers had to put down roots and

establish profitable money-making enterprises and round-the-clock

shipyards, all producing these new, expensive war assets. No longer could a

purely nomadic combat force maintain the industrial operations required to

stay atop the EVE food chain.

In its new home base, Band of Brothers controlled the 97 star systems of

Delve, and each of those systems has moons around its planets. Across

EVE, moons are one of the cornerstones of industry, and Delve’s systems

were quite moon-plentiful. The most sparse system has six while the most

moon-plentiful has 120—a total of 4,330 moons across the Delve region.

Each of these moons can be harvested for materials by setting up a starbase

and a silo near them. Moon mining was one of the biggest reasons for

taking sovereignty in nullsec. Simply by setting up and defending this

infrastructure, an alliance would make billions of ISK per month extracting

“moon goo” (as the players sometimes call it) from moons.

Delve is a particularly rich region, which is one reason why Band of

Brothers sought to take it. Once an alliance had set up a steady moon

mining operation, it could start to ship the ore off to be refined at nearby

factories. The refined minerals could either be sold on the markets in

empire space or kept and used in the production of ships and ammunition.

Once effective mining operations were set up, an alliance could deploy

“capital ship assembly arrays” which fit modularly onto existing starbases.

Every alliance was working to build capital shipyards and keep them in full,

smooth production. A dreadnought’s weapons arrays, armor plating,

engines, shield generators etc—twelve separate components—all had to be

built separately and delivered to the main shipyard as efficiently as possible.

In order to build capital ships, alliances needed blueprints to work from.

There are two types of Blueprints in EVE: originals and copies. Blueprint

copies are essentially consumable items that wear out after a limited

number of uses. Blueprint Originals, however, can be used and copied any

number of times. They can also be improved through “research” to produce

ships more quickly and cheaply.

Blueprint Originals were highly controversial in this era of EVE. Common

ship and component blueprint copies could be purchased from AI

characters, but the more rare and specialized ship and module Blueprint

Originals (called Tech 2) were controlled by the players. They were

originally distributed by the game’s developer through a lottery system.

Players could earn more chances to win Blueprint Original based on their

participation in an event leading up to their release, and once the Originals

were handed out, the players controlled how they were used. Band of

Brothers and several other nullsec alliances had gathered large collections

of Blueprint Originals, and they made great sums of money making and

selling Blueprint Copies. The major nullsec alliances bought as many

Originals as they could and carteled the sale of copies, constricting the

supply and keeping the price artificially high.

This system was controversial, because it ensured that one of the best ways

to make money in EVE was tightly controlled by the existing powers. Any

new group that tried to make its mark on nullsec would be facing

established nullsec powers with far stronger cash flow resulting from their

iron grip on the blueprint business.

The new Delve homeland of Band of Brothers buzzed with commerce. Its

enterprises collected ores, refined them, and built grand armadas from the

produce. Dreadnoughts were just the beginning. An entire new class of

warship was being prepared by CCP Games: Capital ships. Dreadnoughts

were followed by carriers, logistical ships that carry “fighters” (extra large

combat drones). Carriers can also be used to store additional ships for the

fleet, allowing pilots who have lost their ship to fly an escape pod to a

carrier and equip themselves for battle once again. Carriers are a force

magnifier in any fleet.

CCP also designed a much larger variant of the carrier called the

mothership. The mothership was a beast to behold, and could serve as a

mobile invasion platform. As with all ships, there are four variants of

mothership—one for each of the computer-controlled factions from empire

space. The most common, the Gallente “Nyx,” was flat as a pancake and

nearly as round. More than three kilometers long, small fighter drones

launched directly from the belly of this mammoth ship through a runway

opening in its center.

A carrier could be built within a week of concerted effort, but a mothership

could take upwards of a month to be constructed. Of course, that’s only in

one single shipyard, and the wealthiest alliances could have dozens of

shipyards producing as many ships as they could afford.

But even the motherships paled in comparison to the mightiest ship class

that New Eden had ever seen: Titan-class ships. They could take over three

months to build, weighed five billion pounds (2.2 billion kilograms), and

measured more than nine miles long (13.7 kilometers). Even in the realm of

science fiction, the Avatar-type Titan is one of the largest ships ever

imagined. Titans made the largest ships of the previous era, battleships,

look almost comically tiny. The construction of a Titan cost an unheard of

70 billion ISK—which would have carried a price of about $6,000 in 2005

United States dollars if ISK could have been traded for real money.

Titans are hundreds of times larger than an average ship and capable of

extreme firepower with their traditional rows of laser cannons, but they also

have a powerful weapon called a “Doomsday.” This enormous cannon

could strike an entire fleet of ships at once, wiping out every small ship

within 500 kilometers. In EVE terms, this is a very large radius—basically

anything the Titan could “see” in the star system. The Doomsday was the

nuclear bomb of EVE Online, and everyone was racing to be the first to get

their hands on it.

THE MOTHERSHIP

The arms race to produce capital ships shook up the political situation in

New Eden as well. The most influential example of this became known as

the “EC-P8R Incident.”

In the aftermath of the Great Northern War, a new alliance called “TRUST”

had secured power in the north alongside its close allies, the entirely

German “G Alliance.” Their combined strength and sophisticated approach

to industry had put them on the fast track to creating one of the very first

motherships in the game. It was being built in a shipyard in EC-P8R in the

region of Pure Blind.

But the secret was poorly kept. In this era of EVE Online, spying was not

yet widespread, and G Alliance/TRUST had not effectively safeguarded

against information leaks. Spies from the southern power Ascendant

Frontier—an alliance which will be introduced in greater detail in

subsequent chapters—and Band of Brothers were able to ascertain not just

what G Alliance was building, but exactly where it was being constructed

and when it would be complete. Much of the strategy in this era of nullsec

warfare revolved around constructing your own capital ship fleet while

working to deny your enemies their own. When Band of Brothers and

Ascendant Frontier found out the details of G Alliance’s capital ship

program, they moved to shut it down.

A joint strike force mobilized, bringing together forces from Band of

Brothers, Ascendant Frontier, and Axiom Empire (a splinter group and

close ally of Ascendant Frontier). They moved out of the southern

territories and brought their combined might against TRUST and G

Alliance in one of the largest military maneuvers in the history of the game;

hundreds of ships from the two strongest alliances in EVE Online brought

the hammer down on EC-P8R.

The battle was a disaster for the combined G Alliance/TRUST forces, and

EC-P8R was placed under an unbreakable blockade. Every single piece of

infrastructure in the system—about 40 starbases plus several shipyards—

was obliterated, and the attacking forces were able to lock down the system

for a full week. Twenty-four hours a day there were hundreds of Band of

Brothers and Ascendant Frontier ships occupying the system.

The ramifications were much more significant than simply the loss of a

single mothership. The confidence of all New Eden was shaken. G Alliance

and TRUST were major alliances, and they had been brutally brushed aside

by the mega coalition of Ascendant Frontier and Band of Brothers.

This sent a message to all New Eden: you can’t survive on your own

anymore. If Band of Brothers and Ascendant Frontier can move all the way

across the star cluster to bloody the nose of the well-respected Germans

then they could hit anybody, anywhere. No longer could every alliance on

the map aspire to single-handedly crush the universe. Everyone needed to

be part of a mega-coalition in order to defend against the threat of other

mega-coalitions. These types of giant coalitions were hinted at briefly

during the Great Northern War, and now they were becoming a big part of

EVE’s political game. The fear, however, was that these coalitions could

end up triggering a war that would engulf all of New Eden.

The joint operation between Band of Brothers and Ascendant Frontier was a

landmark moment in nullsec politics. Many in New Eden began to wonder

if the two would come together permanently to form a coalition that

threatened to be unstoppable. The military might of Band of Brothers

backed up by the incredible industrial power of Ascendant Frontier would

have been enough to conquer the whole of EVE.

The bond didn’t last, and this was proven to be an alliance of convenience

for the sole purpose of crushing EC-P8R. With the operation in the north

complete, the two alliances separated and returned home to build.

CAPITALS

Band of Brothers was no slouch in its industrial department. In its Delve

headquarters it managed to build a small fleet of dreadnoughts, and it was

looking to test them out to see what these new ships were capable of.

On July 2, 2005, Band of Brothers gathered its dreadnoughts and advanced

once again into Fountain. Fountain Alliance was a soft target Band of

Brothers had already roughed up once, and thus it posed little threat to

BoB’s new dreadnought fleet.

The Band of Brothers assault struck deep into the heart of Fountain, and it

fought all the way to YZ-LQL, the capital system of Fountain Alliance.

Band of Brothers deployed a starbase and put a chokehold on Fountain

Alliance. Its pilots entrenched themselves right in the home system, and

there was little Fountain Alliance could do to stop them. From its new base

in the heart of Fountain, Band of Brothers began raiding the surrounding

systems, firing upon any ship unlucky enough to cross the path of its

marauding fleets.

Fountain Alliance fleet commanders formed a strategy it hoped would

break the blockade and give them a chance to fight back. They outfitted

ships to essentially become snipers, capable of warping into the system

extremely far away from enemy forces and attempting to knock out smaller

support ships with long range volleys before retreating.

The strategy didn’t do much to loosen the grip around the throat of Fountain

Alliance. When the enemy’s in your base you need more than snipers to

drive it back. Over two weeks, Band of Brothers suffered minimal ship

losses. Fountain Alliance wouldn’t risk engaging in a large fight against the

invaders. But Fountain Alliance morale was plummeting. Its membership

began to fall swiftly as its pilots realized they had little hope of defending

themselves against the far more experienced fleets of Band of Brothers.

From a peak of over 2,500 members Fountain Alliance was now down to

800.

Then, the nail in the coffin: A member of Band of Brothers managed to

infiltrate the ranks of a corporation in Fountain Alliance. This corporation

was responsible for the maintenance of a large number of player-owned

starbases which provided much of Fountain Alliance’s defense and gave it

official sovereignty over the region.

The infiltrator worked his way up in this corporation until he had access to

the controls of its starbases, then he removed the fuel from every one of

those starbases. Player-owned starbases rely on a fuel called strontium for

protection. When an alliance attacks and reduces a starbase’s shields to 25%

strength, the starbase goes into “reinforced mode” which makes it

invulnerable for a period of time depending on how much strontium is

loaded into it. It’s a system intended to allow defenders time to plan a

defense, otherwise an enemy could simply walk in during an alliance’s off

timezone and destroy their bases. While in reinforced mode, the starbase

can be neither repaired nor attacked until the strontium fuel runs out.

Alliances will usually put 36 hours of strontium in a starbase so that they’ll

have time to organize a defense—this also guarantees the starbase will

come out of reinforced mode in the opposite time zone of when it was

originally reinforced. Once the starbase is in reinforced mode, the attackers

will leave, and then return to fight the main battle when the strontium timer

elapses.

After the spy removed the strontium fuel, the starbases were rendered

vulnerable and they were swiftly obliterated by the Band of Brothers capital

fleet. Band of Brothers council member, Blacklight, was quick to declare

this the end of the Fountain campaign.

Effective immediately the Fountain region and all systems therein

are claimed by Band of Brothers. We consider our campaign to

conquer the region and evict Fountain Alliance complete. Along

with the regions of Delve and Period Basis, Fountain is now under

Band of Brothers control and sovereignty.

— Blacklight, Council member, Band of Brothers

July 26, 2005

The exodus from Fountain Alliance continued as its membership fell below

600, and it lost any claim to the region of Fountain. It had lost control of

Fountain for the first time since the inception of EVE Online more than two

years earlier. In the words of TornSoul, Fountain Alliance’s CEO, in my

interview with him in 2014: Fountain Alliance had been exposed as a

“paper tiger.”

THE PENDULUM

After the conclusion of the Fountain campaign, Band of Brothers kept

pushing north into Outer Ring to fight NORAD. Band of Brothers swept

through the region in November 2005, capturing most of the region, before

abruptly pulling back. It was part of a scheme that has since been dubbed

the Pendulum Wars.

Band of Brothers’ members loved combat, and the directors needed to give

their pilots adversaries to fight in order to keep the group entertained and

unified. It’s one of the most counterintuitive aspects of power in EVE

Online. Being a leader also means being an event creator for your people. If

a leader wants to retain their pilots’ loyalty then they need to offer them a

steady stream of fun. Band of Brothers’ pilots enjoyed combat, so at times

SirMolle and his co-leader Dianabolic had to take risks to sate that desire

even when it seemed more strategically sound to just stay in Delve and

build.

So Band of Brothers’ commanders worked out a plan to antagonize nearby

neighbors into attacking them in Delve. The alliance’s military moved

north, destroying ships from NORAD and the alliance Dusk and Dawn.

Then it pulled back to Delve. There could be 60 or 70 stargates between

Band of Brothers’ home star system and its adversaries in the far north. Put

simply, its pilots were tired of making the hours-long trip up there to fight,

so they conspired to bring their enemies to them. They would attack,

antagonize for a week or two, then retreat.

Band of Brothers wasn’t satisfied with just one opponent attacking it in its

territory. It wanted to piss off the only other alliance in the game that

rivaled its power.

“We went into the north and made them hate us,” said Band of Brothers

leader SirMolle in 2014. “We’d do everything we could to make them hate

us. Then we’d leave them alone and go home. Then we would have infinite

[combat opportunities] for two years and we’d never need to go anywhere.

We were cocky as hell.”

With the northern alliances successfully antagonized, Band of Brothers

returned south to Delve, and began looking for the next alliance it would

antagonize. It soon realized that the mighty Ascendant Frontier to the east

was the best target. So Band of Brothers set out to anger the fleets of its

eastern neighbors.

At this point, Band of Brothers and Ascendant Frontier were something

akin to allies, and had worked together to crush the north in the EC-P8R

Incident. Ascendant Frontier had spurned their own allies in the past in

order to keep good relations with Band of Brothers. But SirMolle was

ambitious. He saw himself as a destroyer of empires, and there was no

greater empire in New Eden than Ascendant Frontier in 2005. SirMolle

wanted to bring glory to the Band of Brothers name and its pilots by

invading the only other alliance who could possibly stand against them.

The invasion of Ascendant Frontier would prove to be one of the most

significant turning points in the history of EVE Online.

CHAPTER EIGHT:

RISE OF ASCENDANT FRONTIER

On March 17, 2004, the video game publishing giant Electronic Arts

changed the EVE universe.

Electronic Arts was the publisher of EVE Online’s only real competition in

sci-fi MMORPGs, Earth & Beyond. The two games shared a sci-fi and

spaceships theme, but Earth & Beyond was a year older than EVE Online.

So while EVE Online was just getting started, players were heavily invested

in Earth & Beyond.

But on March 17, 2004, Electronic Arts announced that after two years,

Earth & Beyond would be shut down within six months. With its servers

gone, the game would no longer be playable, and everything that had

happened in that virtual universe would essentially be erased.

Like refugees, entire groups of Earth & Beyond players began leaving the

game for the stability of EVE Online. Many of those who started in Earth &

Beyond already had strong social ties with each other, and they had a ready-

made community when they arrived in New Eden. The mass departures

from Earth & Beyond were the critical force that shaped the south of New

Eden from 2004-2006.

Several player organizations were transplanted directly from Earth &

Beyond into EVE Online. A large contingent of players left Earth &

Beyond to join Stain Alliance. Another large block formed a corporation

called Celestial Horizon.

This mass arrival of E&B players turned Celestial Horizon into one of

EVE’s early “mega-corporations.” The pilots of Celestial Horizon generally

weren’t hardcore players yet, but they had among them many leaders who

understood how to run large gamer organizations and had mastered the art

of keeping hundreds of players together as one entity.

Under the leadership of Celestial Horizon’s second CEO, CYVOK,

Celestial Horizon became extremely wealthy and large in Empire space,

and CYVOK decided to make a play for territory in nullsec.

CYVOK was nothing if not a hard worker. He usually played EVE from

various United States Air Force bases throughout Europe where he was

stationed as a satellite communications expert. Between his high-stress job

with the US military and providing direction to hundreds of pilots and

builders in Celestial Horizon, he was working about 100 hours a week.

Nonetheless, in an interview he described his times with the alliance as

some of the best of his life.

He identified the region Feythabolis as a potential starter home for Celestial

Horizon. It was technically under the control of a German alliance called

Xetic Federation, but Feythabolis was so remote that it was essentially

uninhabited.

CYVOK rallied Celestial Horizon’s military wing and set out on an

exploratory expedition to Feythabolis. He was venturing out into unfriendly

territory, so he couldn’t risk bringing everybody along, but he did need to

show Xetic that Celestial Horizon was serious about controlling

Feythabolis.

The arrival of a squatter corporation in Feythabolis angered Xetic, but

Celestial Horizon gave Xetic a choice: either go to war with our thousands

of members, or let us give you money. Xetic chose the latter. Celestial

Horizon was so wealthy that it was able to buy Xetic’s leaders off, and it

began renting Feythabolis for itself and established a de-facto alliance with

Xetic.

The two became business partners, or allies of convenience—whichever

term you prefer. Unknown to Xetic Federation, Celestial Horizon had no

intention of honoring this arrangement for long.

SCHISM

With their new and uneasy alliance, Xetic and Celestial Horizon formed one

of the dominant powers in New Eden. They continued absorbing other

groups and charging them for access to Xetic space, until the now massive

alliance tallied more members than any other group within EVE: roughly

2,000. The total dwarfed the numbers of any other group in the game, but

there was a crisis of governance.

“Xetic was convinced Celestial Horizon was evil, and we were just trying to

take over the alliance,” CYVOK said.

Although Xetic had allowed CYVOK to purchase the rights to live in

Feythabolis and become an ally, Xetic never fully trusted him. Many within

Xetic believed it was only a matter of time until Celestial Horizon became

even more wealthy and tried to capture the rest of Xetic’s territory.

“They were correct from the standpoint of we were trying to take over the

alliance,” said CYVOK. “They were wrong from the standpoint that we

were evil. We had no say in leadership. We had no say in how things ran,

how things were organized. Xetic basically would rent out their territory

and get fat and happy on the slaves.”

CYVOK oversells his point a bit when he describes Celestial Horizon as

Xetic’s “slaves.” What he means is Xetic didn’t have to do any work to

continue collecting taxes from Celestial Horizon in Feythabolis. The renting

of Feythabolis was a good deal for Celestial Horizon at first, but after a

while Celestial Horizon pilots began to wonder why they were still paying

rent to an absentee landlord.

The uneasy alliance became heated when two attacks struck Xetic and

Celestial Horizon’s territory simultaneously. An enemy alliance called The

Five—flush with power after the collapse of Curse Alliance—attacked

Celestial Horizon territory in Feythabolis. Meanwhile, G Alliance had come

down from the north to invade Immensea, which was Xetic territory.

This placed Xetic and Celestial Horizon at odds. Because Xetic was leasing

Feythabolis to Celestial Horizon, it had less of an emotional stake in its

well-being. So Xetic’s leaders commanded CYVOK to abandon Feythabolis

and move his fleets north to protect Xetic’s assets in the region of

Immensea.

Celestial Horizon opted instead to split its forces in half and attempted to

defend both regions at once. Those left behind in Feythabolis fought tooth

and nail to keep The Five at bay. This was a tall order because The Five

included some very good combat pilots, while Celestial Horizon was far

better known for its accomplishments in industry than in warfare. For

weeks it held off raiding attacks from The Five in Feythabolis while half its

forces were off fighting in Immensea against the G Alliance invasion.

All the while, CYVOK’s resentment grew. After weeks of endless raids by

The Five, CYVOK had an epiphany and found a way to end the war. Those

who have come to conquer your territory, he reasoned, are never going to be

sated by a ceasefire. No invading army cheers, “We fought them to a draw!

Huzzah!” So CYVOK appealed to The Five’s conqueror’s instinct and gave

them a better target: Xetic Federation.

CYVOK offered The Five a deal: leave us alone, and we’ll stay out of it if

you head north and attack Xetic Federation.

CYVOK told The Five’s leadership that Xetic had grown weak and

complacent living off the taxes from Celestial Horizon, and that it wasn’t

capable of defending itself from an organized attack without the aid of

Celestial Horizon.

It turned out he was right. The Five invaded Xetic territory, and without

Celestial Horizon’s forces to back them up, Xetic crumbled from the

pressure, allowing The Five to annex both Immensea and Tenerifis. The

crushing of Xetic Federation briefly turned The Five into the largest

territory-owning alliance in EVE Online’s history, as it now controlled five

regions and would soon capture four more from Red Alliance.

With Xetic in complete disarray, a number of corporations defected and

joined Celestial Horizon, while others joined Stain Alliance or left the south

entirely.

The former vassals of Xetic Federation had overthrown the lords of the

land. Celestial Horizon now found itself the sole owner of Impass and

Feythabolis. With two regions all its own and a cadre of member

corporations following its lead, Celestial Horizon formed a brand new

alliance: Ascendant Frontier.

Ascendant Frontier prospered in Impass and Feythabolis, and it set to work

building an empire. With the civil war currently raging in the nearby region

of Stain, it opened the door for Ascendant Frontier to fill the power vacuum

left by the conflict. In February 2006, Ascendant Frontier was able to annex

most of Esoteria and Omist.

A month later, however, Ascendant Frontier judged it had become too big

for its own good. It controlled four regions and boasted upwards of 3,000

players by some estimates. Some within the alliance started to worry that its

smaller social groups were starting to lose their identity. Ordinarily this is

the start of problems for an alliance, as the struggle for representation leads

to coups and civil wars.

Ascendant Frontier decided to handle its internal strife with diplomacy

rather than force. One of the most widely recognized Ascendant Frontier

leaders alongside CYVOK, named Steel Rat, was given the go-ahead to

splinter off and form an entirely new alliance called Axiom Empire. Axiom

Empire was given complete, no-strings-attached dominion over Impass, and

any Ascendant Frontier member was allowed to join Axiom’s ranks if they

pleased. Reports indicate that about 1,300 went to Axiom. Generally,

Axiom’s members were those who preferred to fight more than build.

Giving away a quarter of your territory and personnel is a risky gambit, but

it paid off handsomely for Ascendant Frontier. The two alliances became

inseparable allies, and they operated almost as one entity. Drawing a rift

between the two actually brought them closer together.

WEALTH AND POWER

Along its path to power in the south, Ascendant Frontier’s leaders

recognized that their might depended entirely on their alliance’s massive

size and wealth. It wasn’t their pilots’ skill in battle, but the alliance’s

strength of arms that kept its enemies at bay. This reliance on numbers

rather than prowess fostered an affinity for others who wielded power the

same way. In particular, it led Ascendant Frontier and Axiom Empire to

look fondly upon the Goonswarm Alliance that was coming of age in

Syndicate.

But CYVOK was no fool, and he understood that diplomatic ties needed to

be maintained with traditional powers as well. Band of Brothers was the

name on everybody’s lips at the time in 2006, and it was Ascendant

Frontier’s neighbor to the west. CYVOK worked hard to stay on the good

side of the alliance that everyone in EVE considered invincible. This wasn’t

an easy task. BoB leadership had developed a very high opinion of itself,

and its pilots believed they were the game’s elite combat force. Logically

that meant everyone else was mediocre at best. Band of Brothers worked

together with CYVOK on occasion, but its members held little respect for

Ascendant Frontier.

That was due in part to the fact that Ascendant Frontier was not focused on

expansion or military endeavors as Band of Brothers was. Ascendant

Frontier had come to own a huge swath of territory in the south, but its

members’ true passion was in industry and commerce. Ascendant Frontier

wanted to create a prosperous hub of trade and commerce in nullsec. It was

working, too. It was pumping out space stations, outposts, and capital ships

at a rate many times faster than the next closest industrial powers of the era.

Yet despite their differences, Band of Brothers and Ascendant Frontier did

work together from time to time when it was mutually beneficial.

One day, in April 2006, Band of Brothers approached Ascendant Frontier to

inform its leaders that the northern alliances were building a mothership.

Those alliances comprised many of Ascendant Frontier’s enemies, and they

continued to be a thorn in its side. CYVOK saw two opportunities. First, he

could weaken enemies in the north who sought to disrupt his industrial

empire in the south. Second, he could shore up ties with Band of Brothers

and bond with its leadership over a week of cooperative destruction. This

was the “EC-P8R Incident” detailed in the previous chapter in which

Ascendant Frontier and Band of Brothers worked together to blockade and

ravage the northern system of EC-P8R.

THE BIRTH OF A TITAN

After returning from the destruction of EC-P8R, Ascendant Frontier put the

focus back on its own endeavors. CYVOK and alliance leadership were

steadfastly focused on quietly building New Eden’s first Titan-class ship.

They’d been building it for months, and it was finally nearing completion.

The secret Titan project was a marvel of engineering regardless of the fact it

took place in a video game. The plan for the project was laid out by

CYVOK and a very small group of others, but the construction necessitated

the labor of thousands of other individuals. An equipped Titan consists of

about 19 separate parts which each need to be individually crafted using

huge quantities of smaller parts and rare minerals. Only a behemoth alliance

the size of Ascendant Frontier had a hope of building one of these

monstrosities in a reasonable time frame.

The only thing harder than assembling thousands of people to contribute to

the task was keeping the whole thing a secret. Nobody yet knew how

powerful Titans were in combat, but it was understood that a single Titan

could change the balance of power in the entire star cluster. Ascendant

Frontier’s enemies would never have allowed it to be completed. They

would have rallied together in common cause and crushed the shipyard

where it was being constructed—just as Ascendant Frontier did to the

mothership in EC-P8R.

This information had to be kept out of the hands of every potential spy, and

that meant keeping it a secret even from devoted Ascendant Frontier

directors. Loose lips, after all, sink ships. And so, like a digital Manhattan

Project, the architects toiled and plotted in secret while the actual laborers

who mined the materials and built the components had no idea what they

were actually working on.

From the start, CYVOK and his lieutenants knew the deck would be

stacked against them as they worked to complete the Titan. By this point,

all the other organizations in EVE had become aware of the massive

industrial power of Ascendant Frontier and its passion for being the first in

New Eden to achieve great feats of construction. CYVOK knew he needed

not one, but several backup plans as well as covert misinformation

campaigns to pull off a project of such scale.

The massive cost of the Titan was no issue for the ultra-wealthy Ascendant

Frontier, so it took an extraordinarily devious step: contracting out the

construction of a second Titan at the same time as a distraction.

Initially, Ascendant Frontier had contracted out the project to an industrial

corporation called NAGA, which was extremely well-known as a major

industrial contractor. Its efficiency at coordinating thousands of players

around hundreds of simultaneous construction projects allowed it to flood

the marketplaces of EVE Online with products set at dirt cheap prices.

NAGA was the obvious choice for a construction project of this size, but it

wasn’t a tightly-sealed nullsec power. Word of the Titan contract leaked

through NAGA, and its capital shipyards were destroyed by a well-known

gun-for-hire organization called Mercenary Coalition—working for an

unknown client—just days before construction was to begin on Ascendant

Frontier’s Titan. If Ascendant Frontier’s leaders weren’t scared before, they

were now. CYVOK and his lieutenants were dismayed that the ruse had

failed so quickly. It negated months of cover and distraction that NAGA

could have provided.

The new plan was to build the Titan in the last place any spy would expect:

in the dead center of Ascendant Frontier’s nullsec territory, the most

obvious place imaginable. It was one of the most heavily traveled systems

for both alliance members and enemy raiding parties. CYVOK knew hiding

the Titan wasn’t feasible, so he built the thing right under everyone’s noses.

All the while, Ascendant Frontier agents spread false information to throw

people off the trail of the Titan.

The first step in getting construction back on track with the plan was to

build another decoy—a brand new capital shipyard in the heart of

Feythabolis. Both the region and the system where it was built, JO-32L,

were guarded like a fortress. The outpost was useful for many things, but its

main purpose was to draw the gaze of Ascendant Frontier’s enemies and get

spies whispering about the secret new facility.

“It worked,” said CYVOK in a 2006 progress report about the Titan project.

“Goonfleet was 100% convinced this is where Ascendant Frontier was

building its Titan and intel suggests that this information was also passed

onto Band of Brothers as well.”

MANY BOTHANS DIED

Ascendant Frontier had five capital shipyards in its main block of territory.

The Titan project was the main focus, but it also had the time and the

resources to build a mothership as well—another decoy.

CYVOK tasked the construction of the mothership to one of his member

alliances he knew to be rife with enemy spies. They were former members

of Xetic Federation who had joined Ascendant Frontier after their former

alliance was destroyed. CYVOK wanted word to leak about the mothership,

because nobody would believe Ascendant Frontier was wealthy enough to

build both a mothership and a Titan simultaneously. He knew it was only a

matter of time until a disgruntled Xetic member leaked the information.

It was September 2006, and the Titan was well underway. Massive mining

operations involving hundreds of people had stripped the asteroid belts of

nearby regions clean daily. Hauling efforts took more than a week simply to

load up the raw materials from the warehouses where they were being

stored and ship them off to the secret factories where the components were

being built.

A portion of those materials were diverted to the mothership project.

Privately, CYVOK confessed to personally causing delays in the

mothership’s construction. The sheer amount of material Ascendant

Frontier was shipping to its factories and shipyards was bound to tip off

enemy covert scouts and spies. If it finished the mothership before it was

done moving so much material, it would quickly become obvious that

another major ship was being built as well. CYVOK wanted any spies

confused, and he wanted to give them as little time as possible to solve the

riddle.

The Titan was nearing completion toward the end of September 2006, and

the stress was beginning to wear down the few in Ascendant Frontier who

knew the details.

“The stress and paranoia of the security situation was nearly breaking me,”

said CYVOK. “The nine days (between eight and fourteen hours a day) of

component hauling was the most boring thing I have ever done in EVE. The

two months of mineral compression killed my drive to ever build again. I

had help of course, but only one other person, and he was losing his mind

also.”

After three long months of planning, deception, and labor, Ascendant

Frontier was finally ready to complete the Titan. The countdown began, and

the few elite leaders of Ascendant Frontier who knew about the Titan

gathered to watch the countdown. All eyes were on the capital ship

assembly array as they waited for the Titan to appear in space. Three

minutes to go. Two minutes. One minute.

In what would have been the final moment, the gears of the shipyard came

to a halt, and nothing happened. Rather than a finished Titan slipping into

space, everything stopped. There was a bug.

Ascendant Frontier had actually been so efficient that it had finished

building the Titan before CCP Games had finished all of the code to

implement Titans into the game. These ships were such colossal

undertakings that CCP assumed they had time to complete the code before

anybody could actually build one. The bit of code that allowed Titans to be

launched from a capital shipyard hadn’t been written yet.

Within two minutes CCP developers were on the scene and privately met

with CYVOK. They audited the build operation, verified that everything

needed for the construction was present, and manually materialized an

Avatar Titan next to the shipyard.

Still paranoid, it took CYVOK six hours to announce the completion of the

landmark warship, fearing somehow he could still jinx the months-long

project.

The completion of the Avatar represents another true first for EVE

brought forward by the hard work and dedication of all the members

of the Ascendant Frontier and Axiom Empire community. Together

there is no challenge we cannot accomplish. The face of warfare in

EVE has just changed forever.

Now, let’s name the bugger!

—CYVOK, CEO Celestial Horizon, Ascendant Frontier

September 25, 2006

And they named it Steve. Steve the Titan.

A wave of panic hit EVE Online. Wannabe economists, theoreticians, and

Ascendant Frontier rivals breathlessly prophesied that the power balance of

the game would be broken. In the past, alliances focused on industry,

production, and building were formidable entities, but were generally

bested by military-focused powers. Small groups of talented combat pilots

could take down industrial alliances many times their size.

This was good for the in-game economy because it meant that everything

exploded eventually. Industrialists would build immense defensive

structures and enormous stockpiles of ships in their home regions, but it

was only a matter of time before a force of enemies would assemble to

break down at least some of what they’d built.

Ascendant Frontier’s shockingly quick construction of Steve the Titan

threatened to bring a new paradigm. What if the alliance could just keep

building Titans? A Titan was meant to be an extremely rare type of ship,

and the community had assumed that only a few would be created within

the first year or two. Ascendant Frontier had shown that it could potentially

build a half-dozen Titans within a year. Everyone was afraid of what

Ascendant Frontier’s now over 3,000 players were capable of if they

committed to building an entire fleet of Titans.

Many EVE Online players were convinced that just one Titan’s Doomsday

weapon was enough to win any battle single-handed. Doomsday weapons

didn’t even need to be aimed. They inflicted an enormous amount of

damage everywhere within about 500 kilometers of the Titan, a huge

distance even on the scale of fleet fights between hundreds of pilots. It

essentially made smaller ships useless, as they’d disintegrate after a single

Doomsday blast. Now New Eden faced the prospect of a fleet which could

strike with multiple Doomsday weapons every single engagement.

The militaries of nullsec shuddered at the thought of their territory being

invaded by miners and factory workers who knew little about combat, but

who bulldozed all in their path with superior weaponry. War profiteers of

New Eden likewise dreaded an end to war—or at least a drastic slowdown

—caused by the proliferation of Doomsday deterrents.

The potential threat of Ascendant Frontier’s Titan made it the most high-

profile target in all New Eden. Band of Brothers began immediately making

plans to invade Ascendant Frontier and kill Steve the Titan.

In 2014, CYVOK described to me three-way informal meetings between

himself, SirMolle of Band of Brothers, and Seleene—the leader of an up-

and-coming group of professional soldiers called Mercenary Coalition.

Seleene’s Mercenary Coalition had gained a reputation as one of the best

fleets in the game, and Band of Brothers was one of its steadiest employers.

Together the three of them controlled almost the entire south of New Eden.

“Myself and Seleene used [the EC-P8R Incident] example as an argument

of why it would be so good if Band of Brothers and Ascendant Frontier

worked together,” continued CYVOK. “We didn’t need to be allies. We

didn’t need to follow the same code of ethics. We didn’t need to play the

game the same way. But we could interact strategically so it could benefit

both of us.”

SirMolle was unswayed. Ascendant Frontier now had a bullseye on its

back. It was symbolic of a frightening new dawn in EVE Online where the

chaos of nullsec was ruled by engineers rather than militaries.

Ascendant Frontier was aware of this, and its spies relayed information

about the impending Band of Brothers invasion plot. CYVOK began

making plans to defend his alliance from an imminent attack by Band of

Brothers. War was coming to the south.

I have said many times that Ascendant Frontier is not perfect.

Despite that fact we have achieved an amazing amount in a very

short time. All the credit for everything we have achieved goes

directly to our citizens.

We have chosen to meet this latest challenge head on, as always,

and we will not back down.

Once again we call upon our leaders and most of all our Citizens to

build our front lines and take those lines to our enemy. Ascendant

Frontier was built on the backs of our citizens, now its fate is in

your hands.

Ascendant Frontier will once again earn its freedom and its right to

exist in this universe. Ascendant Frontier is Strength. We are Unity!

Strength through Unity!

Honor & Serve.

—CYVOK, Director, Ascendant Frontier

Date unknown

CHAPTER NINE:

THE ASCENDANT FRONTIER WAR

Band of Brothers had just returned from the first part of its “Pendulum”

plan in Cloud Ring, and was now planning an invasion of Ascendant

Frontier territory.

Ascendant Frontier had recently unveiled its mightiest creation and was

well aware of the impending invasion. It didn’t have a strong spy network,

but it had sufficient informants to recognize preparations for a massive

offensive. But with EVE’s first Titan on its side, Ascendant Frontier pilots

felt confident going up against the most feared military power in nullsec.

“I have been debating for several days now how much of this to

share with the entire population of Ascendant Frontier. It’s a hard

decision, but one I have made. The day we have been expecting is

close at hand. We will not launch a preemptive strike. We will allow

our ‘honorable’ friends in Band of Brothers to make the first move,

if indeed that is what they have decided on.”

—CYVOK, CEO Ascendant Frontier

September 26, 2006

“The time frame that was quoted was within 30 days,” said CYVOK,

relaying the words of his informants to the rest of the alliance in a blog post

just days after the Titan was announced. “However, if any of you have been

paying attention you will have noticed that Band of Brothers and the

Mercenary Coalition have already moved at least 50 capital ships into

northern Stain. They started to do this in a big way about two days ago.

[They] have also been running freighters all over the southern regions

loaded with [...] gear and what appear to be entire hangars [filled with

ships]. Axiom Empire has been kind enough to be tracking and scanning

several of them over the last few days. My personal judgment: they will hit

us starting this Friday.”

CYVOK knew that his alliance had the firepower and the personnel to leave

Band of Brothers’ entire fleet a smoldering rubble. It didn’t matter that

Ascendant Frontier had less skillful pilots. It had built such a large armada

that it could lose ten times more ships than Band of Brothers in every battle

and still prevail.

The challenge lay in convincing miners and builders to show up to defend

the alliance. It was all too easy for a player to simply not log in during a

battle, or to ignore the fighting and continue mining, or to leave Ascendant

Frontier entirely to go play EVE in a more peaceful location. CYVOK

knew that the challenge wasn’t besting Band of Brothers in battle or

firepower, but in convincing his civilians to fight, and to fight for

Ascendant Frontier.

“There has never been a force in EVE that has successfully built an alliance

to the strength and accomplishment of Ascendant Frontier,” he wrote in an

alliance-wide blog post. “Never has an alliance of alliances been established

in such a way that they act as one like that of Ascendant Frontier and

Axiom Empire. Never has one organization been able to establish a feeling

of belonging to something bigger than their own corporation like this group.

Never has any organization ever done the above and remained honorable,

honest, fair and respectful to the rest of the EVE player base.”

But there was an ominous tone to the letter. It ends with, “Corporations that

decide to leave during this conflict will be immediately blacklisted.” He fed

them the carrot, and threatened the stick.

IMMINENT DANGER

CYVOK’s prediction that Band of Brothers would attack on Friday,

September 29, 2006 turned out to be exactly correct.

On Thursday the 28th, SirMolle posted the following cryptic message to the

EVE forums:

“As of today, the whole of BoB goes into full war mode.

The pendulum, with brazen din,

Proclaims the midnight; we begin

To call to mind, ironically,

What uses we have made of this

Dead day that drops to the abyss:

Today, O date prophetical,

Friday, twenty-nine, in somber folly

Maugre the truth our heart maintains,

We, seeing still the light that sains,

Have walked in ways heretical.

The Pendulum is about to swing. It begins.”

— SirMolle, Director, Band of Brothers

September 26th, 2006

The poem is an excerpt from Clark Ashton Smith’s “Examination At

Midnight,” except with the date in the seventh line changed to Band of

Brothers’ date of invasion. Notably, SirMolle posted this just two days after

CYVOK announced the birth of Ascendant Frontier’s Titan and alerted his

alliance to the threat of invasion.

At this time, nobody else in EVE knew exactly what SirMolle meant. But

CYVOK did, and he fired back within minutes: “If you surrender now we

will consider letting you guys keep Fountain.”

Friday the 29th came, and hundreds of Band of Brothers pilots massed in

Period Basis. They began their assault on Paragon Soul, targeting the

Ascendant Frontier station near the border in GQ2S-8. If Band of Brothers

had been attacking from Mexico into the United States, GQ2S-8 was like El

Paso.

The traders and miners that inhabited GQ2S-8 saw their entire in-game

lives brought to a halt. Everyone who flew out of a station was shot down

by the Band of Brothers’ fleet. An hour later, Ascendant Frontier fleets

showed up and set up defensively until their enemies left. This was just the

opening shot, not a credible attempt at conquest. It was a test, like two

boxers throwing light, safe jabs in Round One. Nobody wants to get greedy

and end up knocked out in the first round.

The next day, as Band of Brothers fleets arrived for Round Two, SirMolle

posted a message to the citizenry of Paragon Soul in the local chat

communications channel:

“We know that you do not really want this,” he wrote. “We know that you

are suffering from the siege of your system. We know that it’s hurting you.

We will offer you a way out, the non-hostile way, before we lay total siege

to the system. Lay down your arms, and drop the sovereignty claims on the

system, and you will be allowed to stay. This offer will go off the table in

one week.”

In spite of the intimidation, the rank and file of Ascendant Frontier held

their ground.

The full weight of these two massive alliances came down on GQ2S-8, but

the early battles seem to have been relative stalemates. The major factor

was that Ascendant Frontier wasn’t willing to put its Titan at risk. CYVOK

wouldn’t put it into the middle of a fight, but preferred to pop off a

Doomsday on the outskirts of the battle and retreat before the enemies knew

what hit them. It resulted in only a handful of Band of Brothers ships

destroyed.

The timidity with which CYVOK was piloting Steve the Titan became a

problem when Band of Brothers unveiled its own Titan, which it dubbed

“Darwin’s Contraption” (following in the theme of its main corporation,

Evolution). These mammoth warships were still very new, however, and

nobody knew enough about piloting them to be cavalier. Even Steve was

only two weeks old.

Rather than gambling on head-on attacks, Ascendant Frontier began

sending fleets into Period Basis to attack while the bulk of Band of

Brothers’ players were asleep. The problem was that this wasn’t even Band

of Brothers’ space. It belonged to Mercenary Coalition, which played no

part in this war. Most people listed Mercenary Coalition as an ally of Band

of Brothers at this time, but it worked hard to maintain its impartial

mercenary roots. That said, you can make an argument that by allowing it to

live in Period Basis—the backyard of Band of Brothers’ empire—Band of

Brothers had included Mercenary Coalition in a more or less permanent

alliance. Not everyone in Ascendant Frontier saw the mercenaries as

independent, and some occasionally ran raids into Mercenary Coalition

territory. Seleene—the leader of Mercenary Coalition—had to work to stay

neutral in this conflict, and sometimes that meant threatening military force.

“Over the last several weeks, the leadership of the Mercenary Coalition and

elements of the Ascendant Frontier High Command have worked very hard

to maintain our mutual positive standings despite the current political and

military situation between [Ascendant Frontier] and Band of Brothers,”

wrote Seleene in a message to Ascendant Frontier’s pilots. “The Mercenary

Coalition has no stake or interest in the war currently being waged and has

gone to great diplomatic lengths in order to maintain our neutrality. Yet,

despite these efforts, some of your fellow alliance mates see fit to continue

to push the boundaries of our patience and understanding. We are not

looking for a fight. Quite honestly, as [Ascendant Frontier High Command]

well knows, we have plenty to do without this nonsense but enough is

enough. So, to the rank and file of Ascendant Frontier: stay out of our

home, unless you want us to come visit yours.”

After the threat from Seleene, Ascendant Frontier curbed its attacks. The

very last thing Ascendant Frontier’s leaders wanted was to find themselves

at war with Mercenary Coalition alongside Band of Brothers. Instead,

Ascendant Frontier turned to a new attack strategy and began splitting its

efforts. The order was to hold the line in Paragon Soul while a secondary

fleet made its way through Stain and attacked Band of Brothers’ home

systems in Querious and Delve.

These attacks led to no major victories, but it was enough that Band of

Brothers had to bring its fleet home to push back the assaults. This served

two goals for Ascendant Frontier: first, it could annoy and tire the Band of

Brothers pilots, and second, its leaders could claim they had Band of

Brothers on its back foot. From a propaganda standpoint, Ascendant

Frontier spun these attacks to say that this was now an Ascendant Frontier

invasion of Band of Brothers’ space, rather than the other way around.

Propaganda is exceedingly useful at shaping the conditions before and after

a battle, but it does little to alter the course of the battle itself once the

missiles start firing and the lasers begin to rip through ship hulls.

For a month, this was the war everyone assumed it would be: a stalemate.

The two behemoths couldn’t budge each other from their respective

regions. Band of Brothers couldn’t be bested on the battlefield, but

Ascendant Frontier barely cared. Its ships were replaced so fast they might

as well have been recyclable. Band of Brothers could hit with extreme force

in one spot, but Ascendant Frontier had the ships and the manpower to

strike back in three places. Band of Brothers attacked Paragon Soul.

Ascendant Frontier attacked Delve, Querious, and Fountain simultaneously.

But eventually, the unstoppable force began to push back the immovable

object. On October 29, Axiom Empire’s home region of Impass came under

attack, and it was forced to stop assisting its staunch ally Ascendant

Frontier in the defence of Period Basis. Without their strong military ally—

when Axiom and Ascendant Frontier split, many of the combat-focused

corporations went with Axiom Empire—the volunteers and civilians of

Ascendant Frontier lost their grip on both of the major space stations in the

region of Paragon Soul. Not even CYVOK’s Titan had been able to turn the

tide of the war thus far. A month into its life, the beast that everyone feared

was being used too timidly to make much of a difference.

SirMolle’s rhetoric was excessively self-congratulatory that day as he

browbeat Ascendant Frontier for not providing the challenge he’d hoped

for. In the following quote, Ascendant Frontier is referred to as “ASCN,” a

common abbreviation for the alliance.

“In attacking ASCN, we fully expected to pay a dear price. An

irresistible force versus an immovable object, perhaps. It is with

great distaste that we found the first reaction of Ascendant Frontier

to our assault was immediate and unseemly panic.

If there is anything apparent in this war so far, it is that Ascendant

Frontier is feeling the cold, chilling tendrils of fear creep into the

hearts of their alliance. Upon the reptilian wings of this fear fly the

spectres that are so vivid, that there often is no recourse but to deny

reality and cling to illusions.

It is the slow march of madness that follows next.

A madness that strikes out at phantoms in all directions, mistaking

them for manifestations of the fear in their minds. Yet the very

source of the darkness lies clearly in front of them. They are just

unwilling to face it.

Fear is the mind killer.

GQ2 and H8-ZTO are ours now. They are the price you pay for

believing that dividing a disorganized force and carrying out attacks

with no purpose is a superior strategy to dealing with the

inadequacies of your fleet. The division of your forces has only

served to our benefit, as your various groups will then enjoy a mix

of inconsequential victories and horrendous losses. Being goverened

[sic] by the fear of taking responsibility for a focused effort, your

High Command has chosen instead to cleave deep gashes in your

ranks. Who is to blame now for the loss of GQ2 and H8-ZTO? Who

shall take responsibility?

You have lost Paragon Soul. The name itself symbolic in that BoB is

now as a paragon of the soul of war, fighting a leviathan that has no

spirit. BoB does not trifle with unfocused attacks, we go straight for

the throat. On the other hand ASCN has only made enemies of

alliances that were not even part of this conflict.

[...]

The great sorrow in this war is that there are numerous members in

ASCN that have shown the spirit to fight, yet are left hanging

without support. The losses are not out of a lack of valor on the part

of those in the front lines, but the lack of sensibility in those that

give directions. Yet those alone are not harmful. What is harmful is

that those deficiencies are coupled with a fear of accepting the need

for improvement, fear for accepting the bewilderment of strategy,

fear for being found wanting. Your warriors are ill served, and they

fall vainly on the field of battle.”

—SirMolle, Band of Brothers

October 29, 2006

This was how SirMolle conducted wartime diplomacy. He cast shame on

the leadership of his enemies while stroking the ego of his enemy’s average

members. This was his strategy for sowing dissention. He told the average

pilots that they were brave, skilled, and strong warriors that were simply

being led by fools. He tried to chip away at the fragile authority of

Ascendant Frontier’s leadership.

KEEP THE FEYTH

Ascendant Frontier had failed slowly over the past month to turn back Band

of Brothers, but it’s important to note that Paragon Soul was backwater turf.

It was a region where Ascendant Frontier more or less stuck its weaker

allies. For the proper alliance, Feythabolis was home. It was where its

journey in nullsec had begun more than two years earlier, and it was the

only region that truly mattered to its pilots. Its own alliance motto was,

“Keep the Feyth.”

Ascendant Frontier intended to live up to that motto too. During the month-

long war for Paragon Soul, it had built Feythabolis into the most heavily

defended region in the New Eden star cluster. Practically every moon in

every system was outfitted with top-of-the-line defensive starbases.

The system for determining sovereignty was much different in this era of

EVE than the modern day. At that time, sovereignty of any system was

determined by which alliance had the most starbases around that system’s

moons. The system became an alliance’s property when the EVE Online

server reset at “downtime,” the one hour per day that EVE Online is shut

down. When the server came back up, it counted the active starbases and

awarded sovereignty to the alliance with the most.

Because Ascendant Frontier had starbases around every moon, there was no

single system that was vulnerable. Band of Brothers would have to fight

several major battles to capture a majority of the moons, which meant it

could take days or weeks to capture just a single system. Given that there

are 89 systems in the region of Feythabolis, a traditional invasion could

theoretically take years.

On the homefront, CYVOK’s biggest challenge was keeping morale high.

He posted long missives sent to the entire alliance to keep Ascendant

Frontier’s fleets strong and its pilots loyal to CYVOK’s vision.

“Since its inception the Ascendancy has faced many challenges and

created many firsts in the history of New Eden. We were the first to

build a market in deep 0.0 space that rivals those in the heart of

Empire. The first to build a new station in 0.0, the first to build a

Titan-class vessel. Now, we are the first to draw a line in front of

evil and say NO MORE.

We have built 14 New Stations in deep 0.0 space, built a robust and

thriving market so our citizens do not need to return to empire for

their goods, we have built hundreds of Capital Ships, a Titan, and

tens of thousands of space vessels. Yet our dream is in danger.

The Great Evil pushes against our borders with all of its might. It

calls in help from the forces of darkness that reside in every corner

of space. For nearly three months The Ascendancy has held the line

against the darkness, another first. No other organization has ever

stood in the path and not crumbled in a matter of days. The

Ascendancy is looking for fighters, builders, miners, haulers and

free citizens to hold the line against the Evil that consumes New

Eden.

Join us. Fight at our side and win your place in history. Be a part of

another first in New Eden, the first to defeat the Evil and build the

new frontier.”

—CYVOK, CEO Celestial Horizons, Ascendant Frontier

December 9, 2006

The major theme of CYVOK’s propaganda was to paint Band of Brothers

as the great evil of New Eden. He mythologized his adversaries as

borderline demonic. Reading his posts to his alliance it’s clear he knew his

people’s weakness was confidence. In the previous post, he reminds his

pilots of what they’ve accomplished. His challenge was to make them feel

like they were part of a greater whole, because when it came to the skill of

their individual pilots Ascendant Frontier was sorely outmatched, and

everybody knew it. Instead of telling his pilots that they’d crush their

adversary easily, he tried instead to make this seem like a war worth

fighting. He wanted his inexperienced pilots to feel like Luke Skywalker

signing up to fight the Empire.

FORTRESS FEYTH

Band of Brothers faced different problems. Band of Brothers had crushed

empire after empire, but it had no chance of breaking into the home region

of Ascendant Frontier, Feythabolis.

“There was no way to get in,” SirMolle said in 2014. “Feythabolis was a

fortress. There was absolutely nothing you could do to break that. So we

had to just add pressure and keep hoping that they would break internally

from the pressure.”

With Feythabolis out of the picture for now, Band of Brothers slammed into

Esoteria, the weakest of Ascendant Frontier’s territories since it was still

somewhat contested with another group. It hoped to be able to batter its

enemy’s morale, and maybe even crack its pilots’ allegiance by continuing

to conquer territory.

The Band of Brothers fleet made steady progress through Esoteria, and had

the region essentially within its grip in a few weeks. It was now December

2006, and the war had begun to drag. For a sovereignty war, Band of

Brothers had been making good progress by conquering most of two

regions (Paragon Soul and Esoteria) in three months, especially given that

the territory was being taken from arguably the most powerful alliance in

the game. But it also meant that the current pace Band of Brothers was on

was unsustainable. If it took 90 days to conquer Paragon Soul and Esoteria,

then how long would it take to beat down the vault door in Feythabolis? Six

months? A year? And that’s if it was possible at all. Band of Brothers

needed a foothold in the region, but its leaders saw no way of getting one.

Ascendant Frontier wouldn’t go down easily, and Band of Brothers could

still lose this war. The key to victory was Feythabolis, and Band of

Brothers’ pilots still needed to find a way through its iron wall. Luckily for

them, they wouldn’t have to wait long. They caught a break sometime in the

second week of December. Knowing that it couldn’t break Feythabolis

through military might, Band of Brothers endeavored to “put pressure” on

Ascendant Frontier and hope it made a mistake. This meant destroying

everything in sight in Esoteria, but it also meant using spies to their greatest

potential: sowing dissention, clogging communications, and messing with

Ascendant Frontier’s ability to coordinate.

CYVOK claimed his alliance refused to use these types of “meta-game”

tactics. Ascendant Frontier preferred to prove itself through engineering and

combat inside the game. Band of Brothers didn’t see it that way.

One night in early December, a Band of Brothers spy managed to get

control of the Ascendant Frontier starbases in 0OYZ-G, an important

system in Feythabolis near the border with Esoteria. The spy shut down the

defensive starbases in that system, which allowed Band of Brothers fleets to

swoop in and destroy them all with a surprise attack. As happens so often in

EVE, a single spy achieved what hundreds of warships could not.

With one swift motion Band of Brothers had acquired the foothold it so

desperately needed in Feythabolis, but the tangential benefits turned out to

be much more valuable than the capture of a single system.

THE BATTLE OF C9N-CC

Ascendant Frontier needed Band of Brothers out of Feythabolis, but its

leaders weren’t keen on a direct assault to reclaim that territory. Ascendant

Frontier instead launched a retributory attack and retook a different system

—C9N-CC in nearby Esoteria—a crucial Band of Brothers staging base.

Without C9N-CC, Band of Brothers’ ability to hit Ascendant Frontier was

greatly reduced.

Band of Brothers moved to take back C9N-CC. Its fleet was small—only

about 40 ships—but there were more coming up through Esoteria to

sandwich the 70 Ascendant Frontier ships guarding the entrances to C9N-

CC.

SirMolle’s Titan, “Darwin’s Contraption,” was the first Band of Brothers

ship to enter the system and he immediately attacked. The massive guns on

the Titan incinerated a handful of Ascendant Frontier battleships and

managed to destroy a half dozen more as Ascendant Frontier support ships

gave chase, trying to jam the Titan so it couldn’t get away. They were

unsuccessful, and SirMolle managed to escape as the rest of the Band of

Brothers ships made their way into the system in the chaos of the Titan

chase.

The two fleets clashed, and SirMolle turned his Titan around to re-enter the

battle. Band of Brothers took the skirmish victory, and Ascendant Frontier

retreated and regrouped a few planets away to gather its reinforcements.

At the time, Titans had the controversial ability to remotely launch their

titanic Doomsday weapons from anywhere inside the star system. A

friendly support ship could drop a “cynosural field” (effectively a wormhole

which allows friendly capital ships to warp to that point) and the Titan pilot

could choose to fire the Doomsday weapon through the cynosural field. So

if a pilot could get their ship near the enemy fleet and ignite a cynosural

field, the Titan could theoretically destroy that fleet without ever coming

into attack range.

The Ascendant Frontier fleet was extremely far away, but a cynosural field

opened up directly on top of the Band of Brothers fleet. CYVOK’s Titan

Doomsday weapon erupted from within it as Steve the Titan’s presence on

the battlefield was now revealed. The blast missed. Band of Brothers ships

scattered in the blink of an eye once the cynosural field appeared, and only

about three ships were destroyed by the Doomsday. CYVOK pulled back

immediately, warping his Titan to a location in deep space inside C9N-CC.

The rest of the Ascendant Frontier fleet scattered to their own deep space

locations. (A deep space safe spot is a location far away from any

landmarks or planets within the star system. They warp so far out that it

becomes essentially impossible to be found.)

What happened next was a turning point in the history of New Eden. No

one battle has had such profound effects on the EVE universe at large as the

events in C9N-CC on December 11, 2006. In this case, a mere sixty seconds

were responsible for changing the entire shape of the game for years to

come.

Band of Brothers had control of the system now. SirMolle had retreated in

his Titan to regroup with reinforcements. Support ships were salvaging

scrap materials from ships destroyed in the battle. And one Band of

Brothers pilot—named Valora—was patrolling and scanning the outer

edges of the star system to make sure there were no Ascendant Frontier

fleets waiting to ambush them.

THE MINUTE THAT CHANGED NEW EDEN

At 4:14pm GMT, CYVOK of Ascendant Frontier fired his Titan’s

Doomsday weapon and retreated to a deep space safe spot. At 4:28, Valora

conducted a third scan of the deep space area surrounding C9N-CC and

found Steve the Titan. CYVOK was offline.

Why is the timing important? Because EVE Online has a system called a

“combat timer.” Whenever you attack or are attacked by another player, a

timer marks 15 minutes. Your ship remains in EVE space for those 15

minutes regardless of whether you log out of the game or are disconnected.

It’s mostly devised to prevent players from logging out as a tactic to save

their ship if it’s on the brink of destruction.

There was a quirk to the timer though. If a player attempted to log out

before the 15 minute timer elapsed, the timer would reset.

What happens next was the subject of controversy. The most commonly

believed story is that CYVOK was having some computer trouble and tried

to switch to another PC. Either by mistake or by ignorance of the combat-

timer reset mechanic, CYVOK logged out of the game with between one

and two minutes left to go on his combat timer (initiated when he fired the

Doomsday) which caused it to reset for another fifteen minutes.

The entire Band of Brothers fleet was warped in, and Steve the Titan was

all alone without its pilot or support fleet. The Band of Brothers

dreadnought fleet went into siege mode and began pounding on the lifeless

hull of Steve.

CYVOK logged back in, found the entire capital fleet of Band of Brothers

pounding on his Titan hull, and logged back out. It was over.

Five minutes later, the most expensive ship ever built in EVE Online, the

first Titan ever constructed, and the flagship of the game’s mightiest

alliance was in ruins just 77 days after it was completed. Its hull still floats

in the space of C9N-CC to this day, and can be visited by players looking to

pay homage to one of the great wars of yesteryear.

Video of the destruction of Steve the Titan still survives and shows the

Band of Brothers fleet laughing and celebrating the kill while trying to

maintain order so SirMolle could acquire evidence of the kill to show the

rest of the EVE community.

“Let Molle get excited guys, the rest of you can shut the fuck up, please.

Thanks,” said Dianabolic in the video.

Two minutes later, SirMolle posted on the EVE forums.

“TITAN DOWN. ‘nuff said.”

CYVOK recalls things a little differently, and eight years later he still says

the conventional wisdom (which describes the above circumstances) is

false. He says he was cheated out of his Titan.

He alleges that CCP developers who were members of Band of Brothers

used their administrative privileges to find the Titan when they shouldn’t

have been able to. He says he was kicked offline by those developers and

prevented from logging back in while his Titan was destroyed.

It’s an intriguing story, but it’s not a version of events that I can find

evidence to support. The simplest and most likely version of events is that

CYVOK simply made a mistake and logged off too early. He had handled

Steve with the utmost care until that moment when one tiny slip-up changed

everything. Had he waited one more minute to log off, the Titan would have

been saved.

The details of these types of controversies and debates are not important.

It’s probable that the men and women involved in these stories will be

fighting over details and minutiae on the forums from their retirement

homes. However, the ramifications of this event are clear and indisputable:

two days later, CYVOK announced his retirement from EVE. A subordinate

named Gungankllr made the declaration on the EVE forums.

“By leaps and bounds this is the hardest release I have had to write.

Today the Ascendant Frontier lost not only a leader, but a good

friend.

Outsiders can say whatever they want about CYVOK, but I know

him to be one of the most honorable, caring people I’ve had the

distinct pleasure of calling my friend in over ten years in online

gaming.

CYVOK made the Ascendant Frontier what it is today. Without his

leadership, Feythabolis would be an undeveloped wasteland.”

—Gungankllr, Ascendant Frontier

December 13, 2006

In an interview eight years later, CYVOK recalled the decision to leave the

alliance in the middle of a war.

“At the time it was a big part of my life, but I also was advancing in my

career, and I had less and less time to put into the game,” he said to me in

2014. “I know it showed to my members. It was a good, opportune time to

call it quits, at least officially. I didn’t want to, but that’s the way it

occurred. Everything after that is history.”

CYVOK walked away from the virtual world he’d spent thousands of hours

in over the past three years. He handed the reins to a subordinate named

Virtuozzo.

He left with complete confidence that the alliance was in good hands and

that the members of Ascendant Frontier would keep up the tough fight

against Band of Brothers. He knew that Ascendant Frontier was the

wealthiest of all the alliances, and that Feythabolis was a long way from

being conquered. The alliance would be fine with one less politician, he

figured. He was wrong.

In EVE Online there’s an influential theory known as a “failure cascade”—

initially developed by Goonswarm’s The Mittani—which describes how

large-scale social groups disintegrate. The idea behind a failure cascade is

that a social group is like a stack of bricks. Remove a brick, and some

others that relied on it for support might come tumbling down. On their way

down, they might dislodge other blocks, and so on. The chief tenant of the

failure cascade is that no individual in the alliance knows they’re in the

midst of one until it’s too late to stop.

After years of watching other alliances tumble, the focus in EVE Online

shifted from militarily destroying your adversaries to crushing their social

bonds from within. Band of Brothers never had any illusions about truly

assaulting the battlements of Ascendant Frontier headquarters in

Feythabolis. Band of Brothers instead opted to merely put pressure on

Ascendant Frontier, testing the strength of its social bonds. If Ascendant

Frontier was like a stack of bricks, then Band of Brothers didn’t try to

knock the stack down with one blow; it nudged it persistently and waited

for the bricks to start tumbling.

Everyone involved underestimated the importance of CYVOK as a leader.

While he was in command, everyone fell in line. When he left, it was like

yanking the load-bearing foundation out from Ascendant Frontier’s stack of

blocks. The ramifications were felt in every corner of the largest empire in

the south.

Ascendant Frontier had put up a strong front against Band of Brothers for

months, but now it had to go through its toughest trial yet: a leadership

change in the middle of a war. It was failing. Almost instantly, the social

fabric that bound Ascendant Frontier’s pilots together began to unravel.

CYVOK personally hosted the web discussion forums of all the

corporations in Ascendant Frontier, but he generally had a policy of staying

out of other corporations’ forums and letting them conduct their affairs in

private. A few days after he left the game, though, he peeked in on several

corporations to see how the alliance was weathering the transfer of power.

In short, it was a disaster. The leadership was weak, and morale was at rock

bottom. CYVOK found many Ascendant Frontier member corporations

scheming to steal assets and money as the alliance went down in flames. It

was like civilization itself was falling apart and the citizens were planning

which stores to loot in the impending chaos.

To the outside observer, Ascendant Frontier was in a troubled state, but was

still a mighty force. But on the inside it was obvious that the failure cascade

was now in full effect and could not be stopped. Everyone was

maneuvering their own corporation to be in the best possible position when

the fall came. No longer was there any thought given to Ascendant Frontier.

CYVOK and Ascendant Frontier, it seems, were one and the same. When

he left the alliance died.

“I honestly thought that I wasn’t the glue holding Ascendant Frontier

together,” CYVOK said in 2014. In our interview his tone of voice

alternated between prideful and irritated, depending on whether he was

talking about Ascendant Frontier or Band of Brothers, respectively. But

now his voice took on a note of somber reflection.

“I really thought there were enough good leaders in the game, in the

alliance, that it would go on without me. The alliance pretty much

immediately fell apart.”

The spy-wrought foothold that Band of Brothers had previously gained in

southern Feythabolis extended now to a string of four systems, all with

important space stations. This chain of systems was only a small corner of

Feythabolis, but it was essentially a bridge that connected Esoteria with its

southern neighbor region, Omist. As Christmas neared, and with Ascendant

Frontier in complete disarray following the departure of CYVOK, Omist

fell almost instantly.

The empire of Ascendant Frontier was reduced to just one last region, the

citadel of Feythabolis. The structure of the alliance had crumbled, but even

with huge losses and departures it still had thousands of loyal pilots.

Massively weakened and with its home region under assault, Ascendant

Frontier prepared for the final defense.

The hope was that Ascendant Frontier could make Band of Brothers pay

dearly enough for assaulting Feythabolis that it would go home, content

with the three regions it had already conquered.

But letting the prey slip the noose wasn’t SirMolle’s modus operandi. In his

mind, he was SirMolle: Slayer of Empires. Feythabolis would fall no matter

the cost.

FEYTH MUST FALL

With four systems in the south of Feythabolis under its control, Band of

Brothers went straight for the jugular. Its pilots didn’t want to slowly grind

down the remaining 85 systems in Feythabolis. They wanted to take

Ascendant Frontier’s home system in AZN-D2 and end the war. Band of

Brothers mobilized its fleets for constant strikes against the Ascendant

Frontier capital system.

One night, at an off-hour when most Band of Brothers pilots were asleep, a

fleet was mobilized by the few pilots who were actually online under the

command of a player named Blacklight, CEO of one of Band of Brothers’

mainstay members, Black Nova Corporation.

It was not an active hour for Band of Brothers—who were mostly European

—but it was a strong hour for Ascendant Frontier, which was more global.

A 40-ship Band of Brothers gang set out from the south of Feythabolis to

raid the Ascendant Frontier home system in AZN-D2. The fleet arrived in

the system, deployed a starbase, and started to harass the locals, setting up a

makeshift blockade around the main station in the system.

It took Ascendant Frontier some time to organize enough pilots to shoo the

modest Band of Brothers task force away. The reason was that Ascendant

Frontier didn’t just want to shoo the gang away, but to crush it and send a

message that these little raids wouldn’t be shrugged off. The Ascendant

Frontier fleet was organizing in a deep space spot far from the station, and

outside of scanning range for Band of Brothers’ scouts. Roughly 110 ships

had gathered, including 25 battleships and ten powerful dreadnoughts.

The Ascendant Frontier fleet warped in on the Band of Brothers raiders and

forced them to retreat to the starbase they had deployed.

Ascendant Frontier, its fleet now revealed, moved into position on the

starbase and began to unload the power of its dreadnoughts’ siege weapons.

As the big guns pounded the starbase’s shield, Band of Brothers stayed out-

of-range and sent the word out to gather every available pilot into the

system and prepare for a fight. Its leaders doubled their numbers—to 80

against the 110 Ascendant Frontier ships.

The numbers were now somewhat more even. Band of Brothers had better

pilots, but with its dreadnoughts Ascendant Frontier had better guns.

Blacklight sent in a cloaked scout ship right into the middle of the

Ascendant Frontier fleet. The entire Band of Brothers fleet then locked onto

that scout and warped directly on top of Ascendant Frontier, unloading

everything it had.

Ascendant Frontier had a big advantage in support ships and electronic

warfare, and within moments the Band of Brothers battleships—its main

firepower—were scrambled and disrupted. They could barely move, but the

order came from the fleet commander, Blacklight: do not warp out. Stay in

the fight.

The fleets mashed together; slowly the Band of Brothers battleships were

able to recover from the electronic warfare that had disabled them. They

turned their guns on Ascendant Frontier’s battleships and began whittling

down their numbers, one at a time. All the while, the ten mammoth

Ascendant Frontier dreadnoughts pounded away at the starbase.

Blacklight did not want to be responsible for losing that starbase, and so

with the battle still raging he committed a chunk of his electronic warfare

fleet to attack and scramble the dreadnoughts. Rather than cutting his losses

and retreating he took the big risk of doubling down on this battle.

The superior Band of Brothers discipline was winning out. Ascendant

Frontier’s battleships were now gone, and its support ships were now sitting

ducks without the battleships to back them up. These were wiped out in

short order, and Blacklight turned his eye toward the dreadnoughts.

Ascendant Frontier had lost the main battle, but it started to regroup. It was,

after all, on its home turf. A fresh Ascendant Frontier fleet arrived, and it

posed a significant threat to the Band of Brothers gang, which was now

weakened from the previous battle. The now smaller Band of Brothers force

was trying to take out ten dreadnoughts stuck in siege mode, but its

numbers were so few that it couldn’t keep them all scrambled. Five of the

dreadnoughts managed to escape just before destruction; so far, only one

had been destroyed.

The Ascendant Frontier fleet prepared to move in to defend the remaining

dreadnoughts. As their numbers massed to crush the remaining Band of

Brothers forces and save the siege ships, a beacon of hope arrived for the

Band of Brothers fleet: SirMolle had just warped in with his Titan, which

they now named “Evil Steve” to taunt Ascendant Frontier.

Lag was running rampant. All the fighting and ship wreckage was

slamming the systems’ servers, and when SirMolle arrived his screen was

blank. Nothing could be seen on screen, but a message from Blacklight

came swiftly over voice communication.

“FIRE, FIRE, FIRE. FIRE THE DOOMSDAY,” Blacklight screamed.

SirMolle didn’t even know what he was shooting at, but he obeyed and

blindly loosed the Doomsday weapon. Fifteen Ascendant Frontier ships

were instantly destroyed, and the rest of the fleet retreated. They abandoned

any hope of saving the embattled dreadnoughts, which were swiftly

destroyed by the remaining Band of Brothers ships.

This wasn’t the battle that broke Ascendant Frontier’s back, but experiences

like this broke its pilots’ morale. Even considering Ascendant Frontier’s

amazing achievements in production and engineering, it could not afford to

lose multiple dreadnoughts to a small fleet it should have been able to best.

Pilots simply stopped showing up for fights because there was too high a

probability they’d end up destroyed.

“Paragon Soul has fallen, C9N-CC is about to fall, AZN [AZN-D2,

Feythabolis] looks nice for Christmas.

The clock is about to chime for the last time. Ascendant Frontier

corporations, for those of you who wish to leave in peace, and move

your assets out, you have 72 hours from this post to arrange it, and

you will never be offered this again.

With the death of Steve, and the evacuation of your leader, there’s

nothing more to hope for.

Leave in peace, with your head held high, and with something left,

or, don’t leave at all, with nothing left. Some may be refused this

offer. Most will not.

Your call. 72 hours are starting. Tick Tock.”

—SirMolle, CEO Evolution, Band of Brothers Alliance

(Altered for clarity)

December 17, 2006

Band of Brothers took AZN-D2, and Feythabolis fell with it. The region’s

massive defenses meant little when there weren’t enough capable pilots

willing to defend it anymore. The taking of Feythabolis turned into a clean-

up operation. The hundreds of starbases in Feythabolis were now simply a

chore, a mess left behind by the previous tenant.

The alliance once known as Ascendant Frontier was now dead. Its

destruction marked the swiftest downfall of a major power in the history of

EVE Online. Only two months earlier it had been the predominant power in

the south, controlling Paragon Soul, Esoteria, Omist, and Feythabolis.

In its place rose Band of Brothers, which now controlled the largest swath

of territory ever conquered in EVE Online.

CHAPTER TEN:

FALLEN FRONTIER

Feythabolis. Esoteria. Paragon Soul. Period Basis. Querious. Delve.

Fountain. The entirety of the west and south now belonged to Band of

Brothers. It was twice as much territory as any organization in EVE had

ever conquered. The Brothers and their close allies now ruled 561 star

systems.

Band of Brothers was able to keep control of this massive amount of

territory—despite having only between two and three thousand members—

by instituting one of EVE’s first rental systems. It installed vassal alliances

in its territory which then paid taxes back to Band of Brothers in exchange

for the protection of BoB’s skilled fleets. Band of Brothers stayed in its

home region of Delve. But the “Greater Band of Brothers Community”

consisted of a half-dozen other alliances which were in lockstep with the

mother alliance.

When Band of Brothers took over Ascendant Frontier’s territory, it

essentially left things to run as it always had. There was a regime change,

but for most players, it was business as usual. Many of the old corporations

that populated Ascendant Frontier territory were allowed to stay and join

the alliance as taxpayers with protection from Band of Brothers. Others

were banished, usually because they had personally offended Band of

Brothers’ leadership.

Even some of Ascendant Frontier’s military had been given an offer to join

the elite combat brigade of Band of Brothers. The spoils of war for Band of

Brothers in its conquest of the south was a larger tax base and a swath of

highly-trained personnel.

IN THE NORTH

During the war against Ascendant Frontier a coalition had risen to power in

the northern territories that was now at odds with Band of Brothers.

For the last two years following the Great Northern War, the north had been

splintered and divided between half a dozen minor powers, but that was

beginning to change. When Band of Brothers and Ascendant Frontier

assaulted the north in mid-2006 with the great blockade of EC-P8R

(detailed in “The Capital Age”), the leaders of the northern powers began to

take notice.

Each individual northern state was completely powerless against the might

of superpowers like Band of Brothers or Ascendant Frontier, and fighting a

coalition of the two was laughable. But if the northern states came together

as one coalition, they would be a credible threat to even the mightiest

alliances and coalitions. And so they joined together to form Dusk and

Dawn, a new state that sought to fill the gaping power vacuum in the north

and unite the tribes.

Dusk and Dawn served as the military backbone on which the other powers

of the region could rely for support. The industrial groups from other

alliances now had allies that could defend the entire north.

The northerners had huge numbers, but numbers are useless unless they

have proper direction. Four alliances of thousands of unskilled pilots might

as well be made of paper if they can’t cooperate in the face of a proper

military force.

But that changed when they became one coalition of 6,000 players acting in

the common good under competent military leadership. It wasn’t the finest

fighting force EVE had ever seen, but it was able to amass huge fleets that

packed so much firepower that skill and tactics barely mattered. It was good

enough to ensure their common defense. The alliances involved in this

mutual defense agreement became known as the Northern Coalition.

Mutual protection was only the first goal of the new Northern Coalition

though. Its leaders were building this group with the goal of eventually

destroying Band of Brothers. They prophesied that it was only a matter of

time until the political situation in New Eden wrapped up every alliance,

and a war dragged in every coalition in the game. With their new coalition

working together as one, they’d be ready for this hypothetical war.

By the beginning of 2007, the Northern Coalition was firmly in control of

the north. Its forces had cleansed the region of pirates, and its civilians were

moving toward a more prosperous future. Like true New Eden northerners,

the Northern Coalition pilots weren’t interested in conquest. They just

wanted to safeguard their own territory, and had achieved the means to do

just that.

The Northern Coalition was now one of three major power blocs in New

Eden alongside Band of Brothers and the rulers of the southeast, Lotka

Volterra.

LOTKA VOLTERRA

Mid-to-late 2006 was perhaps the most critical and complicated time in the

history of EVE Online. This is when Band of Brothers began its assault on

Ascendant Frontier, but it’s also the time when the many forces that arose as

a result of the breakup of the Curse Alliance went to war.

Within the span of only a few months, the mostly-Russian group Red

Alliance arose as the dominant force in the southeast, and then was crushed

and removed from its territory. This is covered in-depth in the opening

chapter of this book, “The Siege of C-J6MT and the War for Insmother.”

Just a couple months before Band of Brothers would invade Ascendant

Frontier, Red Alliance had lost a war against a swath of powerful enemies

known as the Coalition of the South.

The Coalition wanted only to remove Red Alliance from what it viewed as

its rightful territory, and once that was achieved it divvied up the turf and

went along on its way. Of its members (Chimaera Pact, Knights of the

Southern Cross, Lotka Volterra, and Veritas Immortalis) Lotka Volterra got

the best picks: it staked its claims way down south in Tenerifis, Omist, and

part of Detorid. This was rich territory, and it was far from the front lines in

the north. Wicked Creek and Insmother were still battlegrounds, but Lotka

Volterra’s territory bordered only Ascendant Frontier which, as previously

mentioned, was largely isolationist and posed no threat of invasion.

In its southern cocoon, Lotka Volterra grew wealthy and powerful. Its ranks

included a corporation called Shinra that was known as one of the best

fighting forces in New Eden, and now its new territory gave it a chance to

build as well. While Red Alliance was making its stand at C-J6MT, several

of the top corporations in Chimaera Pact voted to transfer and become part

of Lotka Volterra. In the terms of the deal, Lotka Volterra was also gifted

the regions of Detorid and most of Insmother.

As the owner of three and a half regions, Lotka Volterra was now second

only to Band of Brothers in the breadth of its empire.

But before we can move on to what happened in the wake of the fall of

Ascendant Frontier, we have to briefly go back to 2004. Because in 2004,

far away from the Great Northern War, something happened that would

change EVE Online forever: the Goons arrived in force in New Eden.

CHAPTER ELEVEN:

ENTER GOONS

Up to this point in the history of EVE Online there is a relatively clear

progression of power. For the most part, those who began playing the game

in 2003 had clear advantages over those who started in 2004. Their

knowledge of the game was far greater, their pockets were far deeper, and

their hangars were filled with more advanced ships.

However, that began to change in 2004 with a unique event: a migration.

Many new players from all corners of the Internet began to experiment with

EVE. All of the original powers of EVE Online migrated from different

games that preceded EVE (Earth & Beyond, Homeworld, Jumpgate, Elite,

etc.) but this was one of the first major arrivals of new players since then.

These types of player influxes had been rare in the past because for about

the first 18 months of its lifespan, EVE Online was sold in a box in stores.

The game was originally published by Simon and Schuster Interactive, a

branch of the well-known book publisher that dabbled in games

distribution. But the “interactive” branch of the company was shut down.

That meant EVE Online’s distribution rights now belonged to a company

that no longer distributed games.

It took CCP Games some time to negotiate and buy back the rights to

distribute the game. EVE Online was not yet a hit, and CCP Games could

have simply let EVE perish and moved on to creating a new title. But the

company stuck by it and opted to negotiate for the right to continue working

on their own game.

CCP Games got the rights back in its possession, but it was hardly capable

of distributing a boxed video game internationally from its Icelandic

headquarters. And so the company decided to take a big risk—it began

selling EVE exclusively through the Internet. This gave EVE the ability to

become a viral hit. On several different corners of the internet, established

EVE players began recruiting others to join since they could now easily

download it over the Internet.

This allowed for a new influx of players from many different backgrounds.

No longer was every major player group a descendent of a different space-

based online strategy game. One small group of players hailed from the

forums at the site SomethingAwful.com, whose members call themselves

“Goons.” The Goons that joined EVE Online would one day be legendary,

but they began humbly.

EIGHT FAILED DREAMS

The first Goon corporation was torn apart by internal squabbling, but the

Goons reformed elsewhere as Red Hammer Industries, which was similarly

shattered. This time it wasn’t drama that hobbled the nascent Goon presence

—but theft. A Goon with access to the main corporate hangar absconded

with billions of ISK worth of materials, mostly minerals and mining yield.

The thief was never caught and the resulting fracas tore the young

corporation apart.

The next Goon alliance, called Free State Project, fell apart after a Goon

stole ore from a larger enemy corporation that then used the theft as cause

to begin killing any Goon they saw. The members scattered shortly after.

On and on it went. Eight times the Goons organized themselves and eight

times they were scattered for different reasons.

“Goon corporations in EVE have been a history of failed dreams,” wrote

Remedial, the Goons’ first major leader, in retrospect.

Eventually a few Goons came together to form yet another corporation

called Goonfleet. At its core, Goonfleet had several veterans of EVE

Online, but the bulk of its membership were new players in the game who

had been encouraged to join EVE by their friends at SomethingAwful.com.

In a series of recruitment drives, Goonfleet pilots invited other Goons to

join the game. The organization didn’t have grand ambitions of space

conquest. The Goons just liked to get as many people online as possible, in

the crappiest ships possible, to see what they could pull off.

The key difference between Goonfleet and the failed corporations that came

before it was an emphasis on teaching beginners. Goonfleet lavished

attention on players who were just joining the game, and took time to teach

them the basics. While others in EVE would scoff at new players and

refused to recruit anyone who wasn’t a trusted friend or a renowned

veteran, the Goons welcomed new players, provided they were true blood

“Goons” with a history on the SomethingAwful.com forums. The new

approach to dealing with new players drove hundreds of new pilots to join

Goonfleet.

With the direction of their leader, Remedial, more and more players joined

the game under the Goonfleet banner. The corporation grew to over a

thousand members—too large to simply fall apart from internal drama—

and it became the sideshow of EVE Online. The veterans of EVE Online

laughed at the naivety of this swarming pack of new players in terrible

ships. Goonfleet embraced this idea, and co-opted the idea of the “swarm”

for its own self-image. Its pilots adopted the mascot of a chubby, cigar-

smoking bumblebee wearing a World War 1-era German helmet, which they

appropriately named “Fat Bee.” Their battlecry: “We’re terrible at this

game!”

Many in the EVE universe at the time wrote off Goonfleet as a swarm of

internet trolls who just wanted to ruin everyone’s day. There was some truth

to that. The Goons would openly use coarse language that made many

people uncomfortable. To be clear, the use of slurs and other harsh language

is common in many online communities and EVE Online is no exception.

What made the Goons unique in the EVE community wasn’t their use of

this kind of language, but their use of it in alliance-level communications

and in leadership speeches. The Goons refused to change the way they

talked or acted regardless of whether their audience was a few friends, a

few thousand alliance mates, or tens of thousands in the wider EVE

community. They mocked the pomp and pageantry with which other leaders

at the time carried themselves. There was an authenticity to the blue collar

attitude of the Goons, and it proved to be a great social strength of the

organization.

But behind the irreverent attitude, there was a social genius to the way the

Goons approached the game. In essence, their morale was unassailable

because they deliberately under-inflated their self-image. According to

some sources, the name “Goon” was intended as a way of turning the

stereotype of basement-dwelling internet cretins against itself by publicly

owning it. The Goons of EVE Online demeaned themselves publicly and

claimed to not care what happened to their ships or their territory.

This was in stark contrast to how things had been run before the Goons’

arrival in New Eden. For some of the best player groups in the game, pride

was a resource. Skilled pilots could build up their egos after winning a

string of battles, but it was only a matter of time until they were humbled.

And when they were, the illusion of mastery could unfold and unravel the

social fabric of the group. If your corporation is based on being the best,

what happens when you lose?

The Goons prided themselves on being the worst. So when they lost, they

laughed. When they won, they laughed harder. The Goons represented a

new crop of EVE Online players, and some of the old guard didn’t like

them at all. Groups like Band of Brothers tended to view them as

disrespectful of the history and power structure of the game.

“They had this attitude of, ‘We can do whatever we want; we can say

whatever we want; nobody is going to hold us accountable for our

actions,’” said Band of Brothers’ SirMolle in 2014, who was essentially the

most powerful person in New Eden at the time Goonfleet was founded.

But Goonfleet was fueled by this dislike, and began to see itself as fighting

against the established order. Its leadership decided to actually buy

advertisements on the Something Awful forums to attract new recruits.

Goonfleet’s ranks soared and eventually reached 1,300 players, the

population cap for a corporation in EVE Online in 2005. By contrast, Band

of Brothers was the most powerful organization in the game at that time and

had about 1,000 players.

This isn’t to say Goonfleet could have put up a fight against Band of

Brothers. The Goons were still largely teaching their brand-new pilots how

to fly their ships, and trying to figure out exactly what to do with this

absurdly large mob of people.

Despite Band of Brothers’ disdain for the Goons, when the massive

Goonfleet began to take shape, many leaders of EVE Online’s biggest

empires took a liking to them. Goonfleet was a fun-loving and interesting

group compared to the very serious alliances that populated nullsec. But

Goonfleet’s reputation among the other major groups of the era began to

erode. The most notable moment came when Goonfleet’s leader, Remedial,

had been seen explicitly mocking the real world death of a Band of Brothers

member—this attracted the ire of Band of Brothers’ leadership. This event

would come back to haunt Goonfleet later as it continued to be a source of

anger between the two.

CLOUD RING

By now, Goonfleet had taken up residence in the region of Syndicate.

Syndicate is ruled by a fictional in-game pirate faction. The region can’t be

conquered by player groups, but the Goons based their operations here.

Syndicate was the crib of Goon-kind. The Goons would say that this was

where the little bees learned to fly.

With constant training, Goonfleet soon became a proper corporation, and its

leaders wanted to take territory of their own in nullsec. Goonfleet’s

numbers had grown past the maximum limit for a single corporation, so the

Goons started multiple new corporations under the alliance banner

“Goonswarm.” Whereas most alliances were conglomerates of corporations

from many different groups of players, the Goonswarm was an alliance all

to itself.

With starry eyes, Goonswarm invaded the nullsec region nearest to

Syndicate and found itself fighting NORAD, veterans of the Great Northern

War, in Cloud Ring.

The invasion went quite well for Goonswarm. This was a minor event in the

grand scheme of nullsec drama, so details are scarce, but the first battles

were reportedly won by Goonswarm. The Goons taunted NORAD and

called them a waning power that could no longer hold its own territory.

The leader of Goonswarm, Remedial, made a private offer to the CEO of

NORAD: surrender this space, and we’ll give you 72 hours to evacuate

your assets. However, Goon spies under the direction of their intelligence

officer, The Mittani, discovered that the NORAD CEO never delivered the

terms of surrender to the rest of the alliance.

Goon-leader Remedial deemed that this was a failure of leadership, and

decided to publicly announce the terms of surrender on the EVE forums for

all NORAD members to see. It didn’t go over the way he hoped. Other

leaders in the world of EVE saw the surrender conditions as premature and

arrogant. The surrender conditions were still rejected, the war continued,

and it hurt the reputation of the Goonswarm in the eyes of other leaders.

It was at this same time that a member of Goonswarm posted a crude stick-

figure comic online depicting the death of the Band of Brothers player that

Remedial was caught mocking, and poking fun at Band of Brothers’

outrage. The player—named Vincent van Weert, or Smoske in-game—

played EVE Online with his father, who was still a member of Band of

Brothers. The drawing was posted on SomethingAwful.com, but eventually

leaked to the rest of the EVE community.

Band of Brothers was furious at the continued lack of respect shown for one

of their own. Still today, Band of Brothers leaders recall this as a time they

let their emotions get the better of them. They declared their intent to move

north to Cloud Ring, aid the embattled NORAD, and put an end to

Goonswarm’s nascent nullsec ambitions. NORAD itself also banded

together with northern allies as part of the new northern military coalition,

Dusk and Dawn. The other major power nearby, Ascendant Frontier

(located in the South) wasn’t willing to risk angering Band of Brothers and

aligned itself against the Goons as well.

OPERATION GOONICIDE

After a month of battling, Goonswarm was putting up a good fight in its

attempt to take Cloud Ring from the newly-formed Dusk and Dawn alliance

(which would eventually form the military backbone of the Northern

Coalition), but its opposition was too strong. The Goons had even managed

to become the temporary owners of the capital system in the region (XZH-

4X), but Dusk and Dawn regrouped, took it back, and began sweeping

Goonswarm from the region. There were huge losses on both sides. Over

2,000 ships were reportedly destroyed in the war for Cloud Ring, but Dusk

and Dawn alliance had held fast. Goonswarm sounded the retreat and

evacuated its assets back into Syndicate.

However, the furious Band of Brothers fleet was now on its way to

Syndicate, and it was about to drop the full might of its established war

machine on the embattled Goonswarm. The Goons had just lost a month-

long campaign for Cloud Ring, and now would have to fight a war in their

own territory against an even more powerful adversary.

As he so often did, SirMolle took to the EVE Online forums to announce

his campaign against Goonswarm in one of the most famous posts ever.

“There are no goons,” he wrote. “This is as personal as it will ever get.

Goodbye.”

What happened next could barely be called a battle. Band of Brothers

arrived at the Goons’ home in Syndicate in vastly better ships and with a

veteran’s command of the game. It steamrolled Goonswarm and set up

blockades around all of its stations in the region. Band of Brothers wasn’t

preventing the Goons from entering the stations; it was preventing them

from leaving. For an entire week, Band of Brothers organized round-the-

clock blockades to ensure no Goon could fly. The Goons, for their part,

mostly wanted to wait out Band of Brothers, to see if its pilots would get

bored enough to leave. They made a hobby out of flying the cheapest ships

in the game right into the waiting arms of Band of Brothers’ blockade.

Band of Brothers left the Goons’ home after flexing for a week. SirMolle

couldn’t eradicate Goonswarm entirely, but he’d made his point.

Not everyone believes that Band of Brothers came to Syndicate just to get

revenge for a despicable joke made by a Goon.

“As soon as we demonstrated that we were a threat to the established order,

[Band of Brothers] dropped what they were doing, concocted an excuse,

and said that we were terrible people and a cancer on EVE, and that we

needed to be removed from the game for the good of the community,” said

Goonswarm spymaster The Mittani in 2014. He believes firmly that Band

of Brothers’ leadership was feigning offense as an excuse to attack the

Goons.

“There was a lot of clutching of pearls and cases of the vapors,” he said.

Regardless of the true casus belli, Goonswarm had been stopped cold in

Cloud Ring, and now was being hit hard in its home region.

Dusk and Dawn would say it won the battle that counted the most by

breaking the Goons in Cloud Ring. Band of Brothers would say it delivered

the final blow in a vicious one-two combo. But Goonswarm would also

claim victory in this conflict, because for the Goons this was a proof-of-

concept. The Goons were beaten and bloodied, but they showed they could

go toe-to-toe with a major nullsec power, and even take their territory for a

short time. They had proved that experience, skill, and technology could be

trumped by sheer numbers and willpower.

This was the first time Goonswarm and Band of Brothers had come to

blows, but it wouldn’t be the last. This small skirmish in Syndicate was the

opening shot in what would become EVE Online’s most historic rivalry,

and which would one day come to shape the face of the game.

But before the Goons could hope to challenge the strongest powers of

nullsec, they needed to form alliances. They examined their options for

political partnerships, and reached out to the one group in the game who

seemed to have everything the Goons could want in an ally: the Russians.

CHAPTER TWELVE:

UNHOLY GOONION

In June of 2006, three men sat at the bar in a dimly lit Irish Pub called

Fado’s. The pub was on a busy street in Washington D.C, but it had an old

soul. There were black stone walls and a fireplace with a black cauldron.

Not that you’d light a fireplace in a humid D.C. summer.

One of the men was a young D.C. corporate defense lawyer. The second

was a computer specialist who worked in information security for a

company that prints Bibles. The third was an IT expert for the US State

Department who was between missions to far-flung US embassies.

You wouldn’t know it judging from the volume of alcohol they were

consuming, but this was a diplomatic meeting. They were waiting for a

Russian-born construction worker from Brooklyn who represented the

struggling-yet-powerful Russian spaceship union Red Alliance. His name

was Mikhail Romanchenko, but everyone in EVE knew him by his

character’s name: UAxDeath. “Death” for short.

The three men at the bar were the leaders of the Goonswarm Intelligence

Agency: Alexander Gianturco, Sean Conover, and Sean Smith. They’re

better known by their names in EVE Online: The Mittani, Darius

JOHNSON, and Vile Rat.

They met up in this Washington D.C bar because they’d been asked by

Remedial, the leader of Goonswarm, to size up a potential ally. They’d

negotiated with Death many times in EVE, but the trio had been spying and

hunting spies for so long they no longer trusted anyone through a computer

screen. This was a deal that needed to be sealed with a handshake.

Death walked into the pub. He shook hands with the three men, and the deal

was done. They ordered another round. There wasn’t any negotiation. The

terms of the deal had already been laid out and were well understood by this

point. Vile Rat in particular had been in touch with the Russians for weeks

to structure the agreement, and the Goons’ leader, Remedial, had already

signed off on the proposal. Vile Rat had brokered a deal that had enormous

potential for both the Goons and the Russians, and the terms were simple:

The Goons and the Russians would fight as one. The handshake was the

final part of the deal. Both parties needed to prove to each other that they

had the conviction to give their word in person, face to face.

RESURGENCE

After being crushed by the Coalition of the South in early April 2006, Red

Alliance leaders understood that they couldn’t go it alone anymore and still

hope to be a power in nullsec. Their tenacity would only take them so far.

The Russian community was largely reviled by much of the player base of

EVE. In retrospect, much of it seems to have been basic xenophobia.

Certainly the Russians had been demonized by the Americans and

Europeans in the Coalition of the South. As Russians, their diplomatic

options were limited simply because of the stigma that was attached to the

Russian identity in this era of the game. Russian players were frequently

stereotyped, accused of cheating, or of having mafia connections. It’s likely

impossible to prove if Russian players cheated at a higher frequency than

people of other nationalities, but personally I find it difficult to believe.

So when Red Alliance leaders Mactep and Death went searching for allies,

they looked for someone who was just as hated as the Russians. They

wanted to form a coalition of pariahs. They found Goonswarm. The Goons

had just been crushed in their home region of Syndicate by Band of

Brothers, and they were looking for a new strategy.

“They were hated by fucking everybody,” Death said to me in 2014.

“Goons were so hated. We talked, and figured we had a lot of mutual goals.

Goons had nothing to lose because Band of Brothers kicked them up so

bad.”

Goonswarm couldn’t have asked for someone better to take control of these

negotiations. Sean Smith, aka Vile Rat, had spent much of his career in

close proximity to some of the best diplomats in the world, working in

places like Baghdad and Pretoria.

In a matter of weeks, Death and Vile Rat had brokered a deal. The more

they talked, the more they began to understand how perfect the union

actually was.

The Russians of Red Alliance were few in number, but they were passionate

and highly skilled. They were grizzled old veterans who knew the game

inside and out. Goonswarm was the opposite. It had an incredible number

of pilots, but they flew in cheap ships and had little in the way of game

knowledge. Goonswarm would have been the underdog that everyone

rooted for if it wasn’t intentionally uncouth.

Beyond being complementary assets in battle, they were also from opposite

sides of the globe. The primarily American Goons matched well with the

entirely Russian Red Alliance because they could cover each other’s back

during their respective off-hours. While the Goons slept, the Russians were

wide awake, and vice versa. Both organizations would still be independent,

but they agreed to work together toward the same long-term goals.

In the following note, Goonswarm’s The Mittani laid out his own reasons

for agreeing to the union with Red Alliance in a message to the Goons.

Chronologically, this took place before the events of the previous chapter

“The Ascendant Frontier War.”

“The way I see it, there are five superpowers in EVE. If we’re to

withstand the fact that most of the galaxy hates us, we need to buddy

up with one of them. Not necessarily be slaves or whatnot, but work

closely with one of them as long term partners versus the rest of the

galaxy.

Our options:

1: Band of Brothers: lawl.

2: Dusk and Dawn: Lose too many [dreadnoughts], not really so

tough after all.

Ascendant Frontier: Only wants to make money, no strategic

initiative, sold us out to BoB

4: Southern Coalition/LV: Sold us out, can’t beat the Russians with

a 6,000 to 800 ratio

5: Red Alliance: Have fought for three years against approx ten

thousand hostiles and survived/prospered, have no allies at all, and

are accused of everything we Goons are accused of.

What really scares me about the Reds is that they don’t follow the

normal rules of alliances. Usually if you defeat an alliance they

shatter. The Reds have lost all their territory and still come back

with disciplined, vicious, and effective assaults against innumerable

foes, and they’ve been in non-stop combat for almost three full years

now. It’s just insane.

Endgame, I see Goons as a superpower. We’ll be one of that group.

And when we’re throwing down in the final battle to divvy up the

spoils of the universe, we’ll either be allied with the Reds and

wreaking havoc, or we’ll have allied with one of the other

superpowers and we’ll have to be fighting against the Reds. And

while I see us beating all the other superpowers, I do not see us

beating the Reds. So we’ll have to ally with them. ^_^”

— The Mittani, Goonswarm Spymaster

September 8, 2006

This was a prophetic, groundbreaking moment in the history of New Eden.

Since the fall of the Curse Alliance, the Russians hadn’t been too keen on

using diplomacy to achieve their goals. The in-fighting and civil wars of the

fall of Curse had seemingly left them unwilling to trust outsiders. But now

they were using the olive branch as well as the laser cannon. After the

invasion by the Coalition of the South (detailed in the opening chapter of

this book) Red Alliance was left with no choice but to seek out allies.

The Goons had a lot of trust issues to get over as well. For the past year, the

Coalition of the South had been spouting anti-Russian propaganda to hurt

the reputation of their enemies and feed negative stereotypes around the

Russian nationality. It had worked, and some people within the ranks of the

Goonswarm were hesitant to ally with people they’d come to see as

untrustworthy cheaters. That the two sides didn’t share a language didn’t

help matters.

“It was like speaking to angry aliens from the planet of Murder or

something,” The Mittani told a journalist from the website Shacknews in

2007 about two of the Russian leaders, Mactep and Nync. “Russian is an

extremely unusual language to listen to if you’re not used to it. Mactep has

a very deep voice and sounds like a gangster... He would speak in a bunch

of Russian and [his lieutenant and translator] Nync would ‘speak for’ him.”

It took a master diplomat to cross these divides, and luckily, the Goons had

one. Vile Rat, one of the Goons sitting at the bar in the Irish pub, was a

busy man in those days. Most people who play EVE engage in a variety of

activities like mining, fighting, exploring, and tooling around in spaceships

with friends. For Vile Rat, EVE was only ever about espionage and

diplomacy.

He wasn’t just investigating Red Alliance as possible allies. He was

investigating just about everyone who might sign a treaty with the Goons.

That included Red Alliance’s blood enemies Lotka Volterra. Vile Rat owned

many characters in EVE Online. Like a man with many passports, he used

these alternate characters to infiltrate and hide himself within the ranks of

Lotka Volterra, assessing its wealth, its territory, and its military

preparedness. When Lotka Volterra spearheaded the Coalition of the

South’s attack on Red Alliance at the Siege of C-J6MT, Vile Rat was there.

He would later recall that day as one that helped convince him that the

Russians were the future of Goonswarm. He watched Lotka Volterra fail to

crush a pest that was one-tenth its size.

“On one hand you had a group that had all the power in the world, but just

not enough willpower to enforce their will upon their enemies,” Vile Rat

told Shacknews in 2007. “On the other side you had a group that had little

power left at all, but enough drive to take on the universe alone.”

It was to be a union of thousands upon thousands of players, including

some of the most devious spymasters and ruthless tacticians the game had

ever seen, but they still maintained a self-image of the bullied nerds.

Eight years later, the Goons still echo these sentiments, and they remember

Band of Brothers as the bullies. Darius JOHNSON described Band of

Brothers to me as jocks who bragged about their fighting skills and their

beautiful girlfriends. It was a stereotype that was just as unfair as any

stereotype, but it came to represent Band of Brothers in the eyes of many

Goons after one Band of Brothers member alluded to being a kickboxer

with an attractive sexual partner.

It’s very hard to imagine the kickboxing-jocks label being an entirely

accurate assessment, but as with so many things in EVE Online its veracity

isn’t as important as its impact.

REDSWARM FEDERATION

Just three weeks after their epic stand at the Siege of C-J6MT, the Russians

of Red Alliance now had a new hope: RedSwarm.

The Russians only controlled between six and ten systems in the heart of

Insmother. With the Goons now by its side, Red Alliance planned to re-

conquer the whole of the southeast. Goonswarm wanted to move past its

defeat in Syndicate and take its place as one of the major powers in nullsec.

Though he wasn’t able to be there at the bar for the meeting, Remedial

announced the plan in one of the first “State of the Goonion” addresses.

“I ask now that we accept Syndicate not as our true home in the

universe, but as our shared memory: a flicker of light in EVE’s

darkness and isolation. I ask not that we throw it aside, or toss it

into the trash like so much crumpled paper, but that we lay it to rest

with honor like a retired flag. Syndicate will always be ours in

spirit, for it once stood for our dreams of unity and hope for the

future.

But all good things must come to an end. As we once lived amongst

the stars of JQV5-9 and called it our home, that chapter of our

history has come to an end. The first volume has been written, and I

lay it on the altar of the brotherhood of Goons for all to judge. I ask

for a moment of silence now, for our sacrifices here, and for

Syndicate, our first homeland.

It is time to begin a new chapter in our lives. This tale will be one of

conquest. Of strife and exaltation, of seemingly insurmountable

challenges and impossible victories, captured from the jaws of those

who once hunted us for sport. It is our turn to write the future of the

South, and we will go not to hunt our enemies for sport, but to

extinguish them forever.

We will approach this new adventure as Goonswarm always has: by

biting off more than anybody else could chew, and surpassing all

expectations. We will invade the South, take their outposts, build our

own, and lay waste to all who oppose us.”

—Remedial, CEO, Goonswarm

September 28, 2006

The Coalition was still trying to figure out how to deal with Red Alliance

following its resurgence in the southeast after the Siege of C-J6MT, and

now it would have to contend with the formidable manpower of

Goonswarm. The Coalition believed that the best way to prevent this

situation from getting out of control was to prevent Goonswarm and Red

Alliance from uniting their fleets. The Coalition moved its pilots to the key

systems that connected the eastern nullsec territories to empire space,

hoping to blockade the area and prevent the Goons from reaching the

Russians with their reinforcements and supplies. The move ultimately

failed, and the Goons were able to run the blockade and unite with Red

Alliance.

The arrival of the Goons marked a new stage of the war against the

Coalition of the South. It was like a slow motion domino effect.

The Coalition of the South began in early 2006 as a unification of Lotka

Volterra, Knights of the Southern Cross, Chimaera Pact, and Veritas

Immortalis. While Lotka Volterra and Veritas Immortalis were focused on

cutting off the Goons’ route into the southeast, Chimaera Pact guarded the

rear in Immensea and Detorid. Knights of the Southern Cross focused its

defense on a single system in Insmother: N7-BIY. There are three systems

that truly matter in Insmother: C-J6MT, F2A-GX, and N7-BIY. After the

Coalition lost in the Siege of C-J6MT, it also evacuated F2A-GX, which is

just four jumps away. But in N7-BIY, the Coalition of the South battened

down the hatches and got ready to defend against the RedSwarm advance.

With 20 starbases anchored in the system, the battle planners in Knights of

the Southern Cross thought they could defend N7-BIY easily. They were

wrong. The Red Alliance/Goonswarm fleet that assaulted the system

outnumbered the defenders six to one and overran the stronghold. Knights

of the Southern Cross begged the Coalition of the South High Command to

commit its most valuable capital ships—dreadnoughts—to the defense of

the system, but the request was denied. The Coalition of the South leaders

declared N7-BIY and the entire region of Insmother a lost cause.

Knights of the Southern Cross hastily began evacuating everything it could

from N7-BIY, sneaking by in the hours when RedSwarm forces weren’t as

active. It managed to get about 70 percent of its assets out, but was forced

to leave behind all of its starbases, an important loss for the Coalition.

Knights of the Southern Cross regrouped in the nearest major system and

prepared its new line of defense. Its members were outraged that their allies

in the Coalition of the South did not come to their aid; about half of its

personnel decided they’d had enough of this toxic situation and left the

alliance. Naturally, this created distance in the relationship between Knights

of the Southern Cross and the larger coalition.

Abandoned by its allies, Knights of the Southern Cross became increasingly

bitter. Constant argument erupted between the alliance’s leaders and the

other leaders in the Coalition of the South. Eventually, fighting broke out

and Knights of the Southern Cross ships were engaged in combat with other

ships from the Coalition of the South. In the aftermath, Knights of the

Southern Cross not only renounced its alliance with the Coalition of the

South, but formally allied itself with RedSwarm Federation.

To make matters worse, Veritas Immortalis was now dealing with its own

local war to the north in the Great Wildlands. By November 2006, The

Coalition of the South was falling apart. The showdown in the southeast

was now coming to a head between the last major power—Lotka Volterra—

and RedSwarm Federation.

RedSwarm Federation worked hard to consolidate power in the south and

east. It found many new allies as it convinced smaller alliances that the old

guard of the south was dead. The new face of EVE Online, it boasted, was

RedSwarm Federation. These smaller alliances signed up in droves to get in

on the ground floor of a brand new power in EVE Online. Joining Red

Alliance, Goonswarm, and Tau Ceti Federation were Interstellar Alcohol

Conglomerate, United Legion, SMASH Alliance, Roadkill, and Ka-Tet.

None was particularly powerful on its own, but together they became an

imposing force.

The 70 Russians that held off the Siege of C-J6MT were now among the

leaders of a coalition that represented as many as 15,000 players.

But Lotka Volterra was still very wealthy, and it had focused all of its

attention on defending against the armada at its doorstep. Lotka Volterra

was an alliance that defied easy description. It didn’t have the elite combat

pilots of Band of Brothers or the master builders of Ascendant Frontier, but

was someplace in between. Lotka Volterra was considered an industrial

power, but it was also at the head of a coalition that had swept Red Alliance

off the map two months earlier. It seems from a historical vantage point that

Lotka Volterra’s talent was for diplomacy. It had managed to secure itself a

fortress in the deep south completely surrounded by allies. Lotka Volterra

built the Coalition of the South, and it was also previously allied with

Ascendant Frontier and well-liked by Band of Brothers.

THE BATTLE FOR SCALDING PASS

By late November 2006, the war against Knights of the Southern Cross had

ended. RedSwarm Federation had effectively driven a wedge straight

through the middle of the Coalition of the South and could now aid

insurgents in nearby Scalding Pass in taking down Veritas Immortalis, a

staunch ally of Lotka Volterra and one of the few remaining members of the

Coalition of the South.

RedSwarm managed to gain its first foothold in the Scalding Pass region

thanks to a negligent mistake by Veritas Immortalis. With the war raging,

Veritas had agreed to allow an ally named OPUS to take over management

and maintenance of the valuable system JLO-Z3. The system contained a

refinery and was one of the gateway systems into Scalding Pass from

RedSwarm-held territory.

In order to give OPUS control, Veritas needed to move its starbases out of

the system and OPUS needed to move in its own. Veritas Immortalis began

shutting down its starbases and moving out of the system, but it never

bothered to check to see if OPUS’s directors were online and ready to move

in their own starbases. Without any active starbases anchored, the system

had no owner, and RedSwarm caught wind of the mistake. Within hours it

gathered a fleet of hundreds of pilots, shut down the system, set up

blockades around every stargate and starbase, and started anchoring its own

starbases. Within a very short time, RedSwarm had seized control of a

foothold in Scalding Pass.

But it was only a foothold. The real target was 1V-LI2, the heart of the

region and the headquarters of Veritas Immortalis. On December 8, 2006,

RedSwarm Federation rallied its fleets and made a move to hit 1V-LI2. If

successful, the offensive would close out the northern front of the war and

deal a devastating blow to the Coalition of the South. Veritas Immortalis

and Lotka Volterra knew it was a crucial system, and they were committed

to defending it.

From the newly acquired stronghold in JLO-Z3, just a few systems to the

north, RedSwarm Federation moved in with a fleet of 200 battleships and

dozens of capital ships and besieged the defenses of Veritas Immortalis. The

armada moved as one unit from starbase to starbase, enforcing its will upon

the home system of its archrivals. The RedSwarm ships blasted the

infrastructure of the system unopposed until a small enemy probe frigate

appeared in the middle of their fleet. It was shot down almost immediately,

but not before it could deploy a cynosural field. A cynosural field looks like

an electric ball coursing with pink light, and it is used as a navigation point

for capital ships and subcapitals teleported from a Titan many systems

away. The RedSwarm fleet commander assumed Veritas was getting ready

to warp in its forces for a major engagement. It gathered up and prepared

for a huge fight.

Suddenly white light engulfed the monitors of three hundred RedSwarm

pilots, then darkness, then a log-on screen. The EVE Online server crashed.

In a frenzy, all 300 rushed to log back into the game as quickly as possible,

and one by one they discovered why the server had crashed. The wreckage

of 217 RedSwarm Federation ships littered the system. The cynosural field

had been used to remotely detonate the Doomsday weapon of a Titan.

RedSwarm Federation had not prepared for this possibility, because its

leaders had no idea Lotka Volterra possessed a Titan in the first place. The

valuable warship had been built in secrecy in the heart of Lotka Volterra

space. Nearly every RedSwarm battleship that had been brought to 1V-LI2

was now a wreck, and worse, the more durable capital ships were now

completely exposed with no support fleet. But the fight wasn’t over.

RedSwarm’s carrier fleet rushed into the system carrying an armada of

reinforcements. Goonswarm’s own leader, Remedial, flew one of them and

doled out new ships to the eager RedSwarm pilots. Within minutes, the

entire RedSwarm fleet was replaced, and the fight was back on.

RedSwarm was unstoppable. The most devastating blast in the history of

EVE Online by a multiple of ten had only served to momentarily stop the

advance of the RedSwarm Federation. With its fleet ready for battle once

again, RedSwarm continued its siege of Veritas’ defenses and overwhelmed

the system. Lotka Volterra’s Titan was able to retreat, but the capital system

of Veritas Immortalis fell into the hands of RedSwarm.

Goonswarm wasn’t just showing off the power of its swarm-tactics. It was

showing off the discipline of its pilots and the strategic mastery of its fleet

commanders. It was the fleet commanders who had the foresight to

stockpile an entire second fleet’s worth of ships, and the dutiful

coordination of the grunt pilots to get re-shipped and back in the fight in a

matter of minutes.

Veritas Immortalis fell into a failure cascade after the loss of its

headquarters at 1V-LI2. Even after causing the most destructive single

moment in the history of EVE Online, it had lost the battle, and its morale

was broken. It continued to defend Scalding Pass and the Great Wildlands

into the new year, but by mid-January Veritas Immortalis was erased from

the map.

THE GREAT WAR LOOMS

This war against Veritas Immortalis gave Lotka Volterra about two months

to reinforce its home territories, and it used that time well.

It was January 2007 now, and Lotka Volterra had built up its capital fleet.

The Titan it had unveiled at the battle for 1V-LI2 was its great hope. It was

the flagship around which the alliance would rally in the defense of Lotka

Volterra’s sovereign territory.

Armed with a Titan, Lotka Volterra was a formidable fighting force, but

diplomacy was its strength and its leaders were lobbying for support from a

powerful new ally: Band of Brothers. Lotka Volterra and BoB’s leaders

were on friendly terms, and the fact that Band of Brothers hated both

Goonswarm and Red Alliance made it highly interested in supporting Lotka

Volterra. Lotka Volterra was going to need SirMolle’s help to win the

coming war.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN:

THE GREAT EVE WAR BEGINS

The New Eden star cluster was now more or less evenly divided into three

main power blocs: Band of Brothers and Lotka Volterra in the south and

West, RedSwarm Federation in the southeast, and the Northern Coalition in

the north.

This triumvirate might have brought some stability to the game, but the

politics were too messy. There was bad blood to spare, and many scores left

to settle. New Eden was once again a powder keg, and the fuse was about to

be lit.

THE INTELLIGENCE WAR

As Lotka Volterra and RedSwarm prepared for an epic confrontation, one

rogue agent contacted The Mittani of Goonswarm to offer his services as an

intelligence agent. He was no ordinary agent. He was a hacker, and he was

selling his unique services to the highest bidder.

The hacker went by the name Kugutsumen, and he offered to break into

Lotka Volterra’s out-of-game forums and emails to expose its plans and

weaknesses. The Mittani declined the offer. He already had access to a

sleeper agent—a high-ranking official who had secretly defected to

Goonswarm—who provided all the intel he needed on Lotka Volterra.

A few days later, The Mittani’s sleeper agent sent an urgent message:

private Goonswarm communications were being discussed by other Lotka

Volterra leaders. There was a leak at the highest level of Goonswarm.

“It began with emergency private director meetings, because at first we had

no idea if the leak was evidence of a traitor or something worse,” wrote The

Mittani. “After a frantic phone call to our server admin, we determined the

truth: we had been hacked.”

After being turned down by Goonswarm, Kugutsumen had approached

Lallante, a high-ranking fleet commander in Lotka Volterra, and made him

the same offer he made The Mittani. Lallante accepted and agreed to pay

him a huge sum of 500 million ISK per week for access to the Goonswarm

director forums. Kugutsumen even got him into the account of Remedial,

Goonswarm’s leader.

Kugutsumen wasn’t finished though. The Mittani’s spies in a Band of

Brothers ally called Xelas Alliance told him that The Mittani’s emails were

showing up in Xelas Alliance’s forums. It turned out that Kugutsumen had

also approached Xelas, and as a demonstration of his abilities, he had given

them screenshots of The Mittani’s email discussion with his spy inside

Xelas Alliance.

“We discovered in a fury of research in the aftermath of the hacking [that]

Kugutsumen was the ‘real thing,’” wrote The Mittani in retrospect. “While

a teenager in France, he had been convicted of defrauding the FBI of

$250,000, and had since fled to Jakarta, Indonesia—a place where the anti-

hacking laws are so hilariously lax that it has become an international

center for the ‘computer security’ industry. The man was a security

professional (with a penchant for setting up swanky nightclubs in his spare

time, it turned out), and we had no legal recourse whatsoever.”

What happened next surprised even The Mittani. Kugutsumen contacted

The Mittani again and told him everything he’d done. He told The Mittani

that when his hack into the Goonswarm forums was discovered and shut

down, Lallante refused to pay him for the service. Now all he wanted was

revenge against his deadbeat client, so he was willing to dig into

Goonswarm’s enemies for free.

“That act of hubris may come to be known as one of the most foolish and

self-destructive decisions made in the game, because Kugutsumen promptly

outed Lallante to me and began actively working against Lotka Volterra and

its allies,” The Mittani wrote.

Now seeking revenge against Lotka Volterra, Kugutsumen turned his eye

toward its allies as well. Namely, Band of Brothers. As he hacked into Band

of Brothers’ private accounts, he scanned through its members’

communications until he found something that would change the face of

EVE Online forever.

THE T20 SCANDAL

February of 2007 is one of those rare moments in the history of EVE where

the true version of events is likely lost to history. The drama was so chaotic

and politically charged that even seven years later it’s hard to know whom

to trust to tell the definitive version of the tale—if anyone can.

On January 30, 2007, Kugutsumen published the first part of a series called

“Reikoku makes its own luck.” Reikoku was a key member of Band of

Brothers. Throughout six installments, Kugutsumen showed off alleged

private messages and communications from high-ranking Band of Brothers

directors engaging in illegal actions like account sharing—several players

sharing the use of high-value in-game characters, which violated CCP

Games’ Terms of Service. Most of them were relatively mundane

accusations (most high-level player groups shared characters,) but a couple

stuck out as highly scandalous.

The most shocking accusation was that Band of Brothers had in its ranks an

employee of the game’s developer, CCP Games. It was common for

developers to join high-level corporations, but their true identity was

supposed to remain a closely guarded secret. Both players and CCP Games

saw value in developers playing secretly alongside everyday players

because that would ensure the developers understood what the game was

like for the average EVE pilot. The developers would share all the average

players’ complaints, and ideally would be more effective in improving the

game. As long as nobody knew the developer’s true identity then the

practice was considered mostly harmless. If their identity was known,

however, alliance leaders might be tempted to ask for favors or come up

with schemes to use the developer’s power to secure their alliance an

advantage. The developer would have the power to spawn new items into

the game that shouldn’t exist or to give information on enemy alliances that

players shouldn’t have access to. Even little things like being able to use the

developer to fix in-game bugs and glitches faster than other alliances was

considered to be an unfair advantage. This situation was significant because

the evidence suggested Band of Brothers’ directors knew who this

developer really was.

Band of Brothers denied everything. “We play the game on a high level, we

have a high profile, this isn’t the first accusations of [cheating], [hacking],

and god knows what else that has been flung at us,” said SirMolle, leader of

Band of Brothers, in a forum post at the time. “The tinfoil hattery is

amazing, I know that you would love for us all to be framed for some

conspiracy. Since we are all still here, all the accusations are totally

baseless. There will be developers in every alliance in the game, and I for

one do not want to know who is a developer or not. I want them to be in the

middle of everything, from low level gaming, to high level gaming, so that

they see the issues we all face, from day to day. Face it, you love the drama

and the conspiracy theories, and that’s all there is, drama and conspiracy

theories.”

One of the posts by the hacker Kugutsumen identified a CCP developer by

the name of “CCP T20” as a high-level member within Band of Brothers.

Worse, the post alleged that he had illegitimately used his developer powers

to spawn items in the game which could create wealth for his alliance.

After an internal investigation, CCP Games determined that this particular

accusation was true, and the company decided that the best way to deal with

the situation was to come clean and resolve the situation publicly. T20

himself—whose real name was never revealed to the public—was made to

write a post on CCP’s website apologizing for the impropriety.

“Regrettably, my actions inevitably led to a shadow of suspicion being cast

on a number of my co-workers, as well as Reikoku and Band of Brothers,”

read the confession, in part. “I wish to make it clear that I acted alone and

my co-workers and corp/alliance mates have been cleared of any alleged

wrongdoing. As much as this is a confession it is also a request for your

forgiveness for events of which I’m truly sorry.”

The T20 scandal sparked the most intense controversy and outrage that

either EVE or CCP had experienced. Players across the game were

incensed, and the conventional wisdom spread that Band of Brothers was

the pet alliance of CCP Games. This, many players thought, was the perfect

explanation for BoB’s success over the past four years. Almost all of EVE

Online now believed Band of Brothers to be cheaters, and this triggered a

grassroots movement to drive it out of nullsec altogether.

The anger against Band of Brothers was real, and the fire was stoked by its

enemies in nullsec. BoB the Conquerors became BoB the Cheaters. To

stand against Band of Brothers became a social proxy for opposing

developer overreach in favor of fairness. The community was enraged, and

the anger united players who ordinarily would have been enemies. In true

EVE fashion, the anti-Band of Brothers message became co-opted by rival

leaders to serve their own ends as well.

“The Mittani, as much as hubris just drips from his every pore… he knew

politics,” Dianabolic, one of the highest ranking leaders of Band of

Brothers, recalled in an interview. “He knew propaganda. [He was]

excellent at it. Without guys like him, [the controversy] would have petered

out.”

Band of Brothers’ own coalition held fast though. Not everyone believed

that the revelations of developer impropriety were worth a holy war, and so

the Greater Band of Brothers Community maintained a healthy roster of

allies.

This event also brought RedSwarm and the Northern Coalition into an

alliance of convenience. They were so far apart geographically that they

didn’t have to like each other; they just had to mutually agree that “Band of

Developers” was too much of a threat to be allowed to survive. The T20

incident was the spark that set off this explosion, but Band of Brothers itself

had created the conditions that allowed this type of mega-coalition of

enemies to come together against it.

Band of Brothers was constantly antagonistic. It fought against everybody

and schemed to conquer every star system possible. SirMolle had created a

political climate in nullsec where Band of Brothers was feared and hated

across New Eden. This was manageable when his enemies acted alone,

because Band of Brothers could mop the floor with any single adversary.

But the T20 malfeasance was a crystallizing moment that brought all of

Band of Brothers’ enemies together. The adversaries of Band of Brothers

knew that at this moment they had the political momentum needed to unite

in a grand coalition to destroy Band of Brothers forever. Nothing else

mattered more than destroying SirMolle’s empire. The stage was set for

what we now know as the Great War.

THE GREAT WAR

This is where most people will tell you that EVE’s Great War began, but the

true beginning of the war could be charted back to the dissolution of the

Curse Alliance in 2004, or to the formation of the Coalition of the South to

drive Red Alliance out of nullsec in 2005. This was a war that had been

smouldering for years, and now had become a raging inferno that had the

potential to bring every region of the game into a single massive war.

Band of Brothers was the largest empire the game had ever known.

RedSwarm Federation was on the rise but lacked the firepower of the larger

alliances. Lotka Volterra had demonstrated enormously effective use of its

Titan’s Doomsday weapon, and the Northern Coalition was an untested

force when it came to warfare on this scale. Nobody knew what would

happen when these titanic forces collided, but everyone knew that the

resulting conflict would shape the face of the game for years to come. The

war was inevitable, and every alliance was trying to put itself in the best

position possible once the situation spiraled out of control. RedSwarm

decided that a quick attack was the best way to throw off the nascent Band

of Brothers/Lotka Volterra coalition.

Goonswarm’s The Mittani described his alliance’s decision to invade Lotka

Volterra despite the risk of it spiralling into a massive conflict in the

following blog post.

I tend to think in terms of worst case scenarios. When we discussed

the war, Remedial sold me on it with this simple logic: What is the

worst current possible scenario we as an alliance could face? The

answer is a combined Band of Brothers and Lotka Volterra strike. If

Band of Brothers attacks us, it is absolutely 100% certain that LV

will bandwagon with them to wreck us and our allies.

By contrast, if we attack Lotka Volterra, it is not 100% certain that

Band of Brothers will suddenly come to save their bacon. Is it a

possibility? Yes. But [it] is far from certain that Band of Brothers

will intervene, while by contrast it is absolutely certain that Lotka

Volterra would bandwagon against us should Band of Brothers hit

us first.

This war is not about territory, it is about annihilating a threat to

us, breaking their will and their morale and their conceptions of

themselves to the point that they cease to be a strategic threat to us.

I’m aware of the [risk] that Band of Brothers will attack us in the

middle of the Lotka Volterra campaign. But already Lotka Volterra

pilots are showing strain from all the other anti-coalition

campaigns, and I stand by the argument that it is better for us to go

on the offensive and cut down the risk Lotka Volterra presents to us

as much as possible before Band of Brothers intervenes, or could

intervene.

— The Mittani, Goonswarm spymaster, RedSwarm Federation

Date unknown

THE INVASION OF LOTKA VOLTERRA

On January 22, 2007, RedSwarm Federation began its assault on Lotka

Volterra’s sovereign territory. RedSwarm had already rolled over every

other faction of the Coalition of the South, and was extremely confident

going into what it viewed as the final stage of the war. RedSwarm

assembled an impressive 300-strong fleet and made its way toward Detorid,

the northernmost tip of Lotka Volterra’s empire.

This didn’t come as a surprise to the leaders of Lotka Volterra, who knew

very well that the enemy fleet was on the way. Lotka Volterra formed a

strong defense in the chokepoint system 4NDT-W, the logical RedSwarm

attack point. All entry points into the system were sealed off, and Lotka

Volterra even took the risk of fielding its Titan, piloted by an alliance leader

named Chowdown. RedSwarm had no hope of succeeding with a frontal

assault.

In response, RedSwarm split its forces and sent a flanking fleet 25 jumps

out of its way—a detour of more than an hour—in order to attack the

system from multiple entry points. When the forces finally arrived, they

coordinated their attack on the system like a SWAT team busting down both

the front and back door simultaneously.

Once inside the system, the RedSwarm flanking fleet ran headlong into the

bulk of Lotka Volterra’s defense force. Just as quickly as the flanking fleet

had arrived, it turned around and scampered off far into deep space to

regroup and plan the fight. Meanwhile, Sesfan Qulah—Goonswarm’s top

fleet commander—took the bulk of RedSwarm’s fleet and mounted an

attack on the main Lotka Volterra fleet. Qulah’s pilots warped in as close as

possible to Chowdown’s Titan flagship and fired their cannons.

Though initially RedSwarm took a beating from the Titan’s Doomsday

cannon, it slowly began to gain an edge, and Lotka Volterra’s fleet numbers

were dwindling. Without an adequate support fleet, Chowdown’s Titan was

forced to withdraw as well. With a growing battlefield advantage,

RedSwarm felt comfortable bringing in its dreadnought fleet to start beating

down Lotka Volterra’s starbase infrastructure in the system. RedSwarm’s

dreadnoughts managed to take down several Lotka Volterra starbases that

night—and replaced them with their own—before they were forced to

retreat for the evening.

The next night, Lotka Volterra’s pilots showed up with its own capital ship

fleet and besieged the RedSwarm starbases that had been erected the night

before. Lotka Volterra did enough damage to put the RedSwarm starbases

into reinforced mode, and it retreated with plans to return later to finish the

job.

By mistake, one of the RedSwarm starbases had been loaded with the

wrong amount of strontium, and was now set to come out of reinforced

mode during Lotka Volterra’s prime time the next day.

The information leaked to Lotka Volterra that RedSwarm was weak during

this time, and a major attack was planned to take advantage of the opening.

The information happened to be wrong. Through a mixture of coincidence

and sheer dedication, a critical mass of RedSwarm pilots were able to wake

up early and join the fleets before working hours in North America. Both

Lotka Volterra and RedSwarm gathered their fleets and made their way to

the vulnerable starbase. RedSwarm got there first, and its fleet commander,

Sesfan Qulah, ordered two-thirds of the fleet to log out of the game. These

forces were essentially hidden in the system. Those pilots could still receive

orders from the fleet commander through external chat programs and voice

communications, and were waiting for the signal to log in and enter the

fight.

Lotka Volterra arrived in the system a short time before the starbase was

scheduled to run out of strontium. When the Lotka Volterra fleet

commanders scouted the RedSwarm fleet they saw exactly what they

expected to see during a weak RedSwarm timezone: a relatively small

defense force. The Lotka Volterra pilots had no idea they were charging

headlong into a trap.

As the starbase came out of reinforced mode, Sesfan Qulah gave the order

for his fleet’s logistics ships to warp in and begin recharging the shields on

the starbase. At the same moment, Lotka Volterra’s 23 dreadnoughts began

unloading munitions into the starbase’s armor even as it was being repaired.

Then RedSwarm sprang the trap. A single Goonswarm pilot logged in next

to Lotka Volterra’s capital fleet and deployed a warp disruption bubble—it

looks like a giant blue bubble coursing with electricity, and it prevents any

warping within it—so Lotka Volterra couldn’t retreat. At that instant, a

force of 150 RedSwarm ships—a Goonswarm support and battleship fleet

and nearly two dozen Red Alliance dreadnoughts—logged into the game

and unloaded their weapons into the stunned Lotka Volterra fleet.

It was a classic log-on trap, and RedSwarm was quick and disciplined

despite its pilots’ lack of sleep. Its electronic warfare ships jammed exactly

the right targets at exactly the right times, and its support ships kept nearly

every enemy locked down and immobilized. RedSwarm had become a well-

oiled machine. When the smoke cleared the RedSwarm starbase was still

standing and 16 lifeless Lotka Volterra dreadnought hulls floated through

the grim darkness of 4NDT-W—the most dreadnoughts ever lost in a single

battle. By comparison, RedSwarm lost just two dreadnoughts of its own in

the fighting.

“They had staged a particularly well-done log-on trap and destroyed almost

twenty of our dreadnoughts, which just destroyed morale,” said Lallante, a

high-ranking Lotka Volterra fleet commander. “After that, they just

steamrolled system after system after system.”

With this, RedSwarm had both the foothold it needed in Detorid and the

decisive victory it needed to justify a continued war against Lotka Volterra.

Every alliance needs wins to build morale, and RedSwarm had proven to its

pilots beyond any doubt that the war could be won.

BABY TITAN

Lotka Volterra’s only advantage against RedSwarm was its Titan. Whatever

its faults, Lotka Volterra knew how to use Titans better than anyone.

Immediately after finishing its first Titan, Lotka Volterra began constructing

another. Only three Titans existed in the game at this point, but Lotka

Volterra was on its way to building its second. Even with a massive victory

at its backs, RedSwarm shuddered at the prospect of having to survive two

Doomsday blasts in every battle. It could not afford to let that happen, and it

set its sights on Lotka Volterra’s capital shipyard in JV1V-O—where the

second Titan was under construction with mere weeks to go until its launch.

There was no mad search for the Titan’s location as had been the case when

Ascendant Frontier was building Steve. RedSwarm intelligence agents had

discovered exactly where it was being constructed.

Having already chewed through much of Detorid, RedSwarm attacked

JV1V-O, hitting its infrastructure and putting all four starbases into

reinforced mode on February 8. If RedSwarm ever had any doubts that this

was where the Titan was being constructed, they were put to rest when just

one day later Band of Brothers declared its intention to formally enter the

war and commit fleets to defending Lotka Volterra’s territory. It was

obvious that this was not a battle Lotka Volterra could afford to lose, and it

had enlisted the help of Band of Brothers to make sure JV1V-O did not fall.

Band of Brothers brought SirMolle’s own Titan to the war effort, and

RedSwarm now had to fear that the birth of the baby Titan would mean

facing three doomsday blasts in every battle. RedSwarm redoubled its

efforts to take down the shipyard in JV1V-O. In a surprise late night attack

the RedSwarm pilots gathered a hold on the system, put Lotka Volterra’s

starbases (and the attached shipyard) into reinforced mode, and logged off

nearby. Logging off inside the system meant they wouldn’t have to barge

through the front door: their ships would already be in the system, right

near their target.

Then they noticed something very strange. The starbase and the capital

shipyard were set to come out of reinforced mode at 5 a.m. in Europe, a

terrible time for Lotka Volterra. RedSwarm was confused. Was this a trap?

RedSwarm still hadn’t seen the full force of a Band of Brothers/Lotka

Volterra joint mission. Were they being lured into a false sense of calm?

Judging by the state of affairs on the Goonfleet forums, the

directorate was expecting a massive Lotka Volterra/Band of

Developers offensive. It was quite obvious that we expected an

assault on [RedSwarm territory in] Scalding Pass. The obvious

counter to this was a spoiling attack. If your enemy is winding up

for a roundhouse knockout punch, give him a quick jab to the throat

and ruin his day. When the reinforcement timer was announced over

TeamSpeak, speculation ran rampant. Was this a massive fuck up on

the part of Lotka Volterra, or an incredibly daring trap?

Either way, [TeamSpeak] and the forums explode with speculation.

Sesfan Qulah gives the order for the gang to safespot and log off in

JV1V-O. If the Titan is a trap, we’re going to charge into it at full

speed. We were expecting a massive assault on Redswarm positions

at about 21:00 [GMT] on 15 February. The fact that this [starbase]

with an embryonic titan in it comes out of reinforced a mere seven

hours after this supposed offensive kickoff time causes many to

speculate that this is a capital trap on a massive scale from [Lotka

Volterra/Band of Brothers]. However, nobody in RedSwarm can

resist such tempting bait.

—Goonswarm public history

To wit, the Goonswarm history files quote a Red Alliance pilot’s rallying

cry—written in the best English he could muster—to take the risk and

attack in full.

“We have great forces in our Red Coalition. We know that strontium timer

is not wonder, it’s a fucking trap, and we take hard losses,” he said. “And

now we have 22 hours to think how [will we] survive three Doomsdays and

fuck joint [capital] fleet of Lotka Volterra/Band of Brothers and baby Titan.

Let’s see who have better tactics and more surprises.”

THE BELATED VALENTINE

’

S DAY MASSACRE

It became obvious that the war between Lotka Volterra and the RedSwarm

federation was going to be decided here, in JV1V-O, out in the dead-end

rear of Tenerifis. Everyone in Red Alliance—which had nearly been

destroyed by Lotka Volterra just six months earlier—was going to be there.

Even interlopers who were merely friends with RedSwarm pilots (or simply

hated Lotka Volterra) showed up just to be part of the destruction of the

Titan. Lotka Volterra’s leaders knew this too, and were at a heightened state

of alert.

In the night, RedSwarm moved about a third of its forces to JV1V-O and

logged off inside the system. RedSwarm now had more than 300 ships

waiting to log on in the system, and as many as 600 more would be ready to

charge through the stargate when the battle began. Meanwhile, Band of

Brothers had been forced to retreat to deal with multiple unrelated attacks

on its territory, a critical setback for Lotka Volterra.

Every Lotka Volterra player available was logged in for the battle at JV1V-

O, and the alliance managed to gather a fleet of 500 pilots. This was almost

more than the game’s server could handle, and the lag was already spiking

with just Lotka Volterra’s defense fleet online. Nevertheless, the defense

fleet stood guard over the only entry point to the system. Five-hundred

warships ready to incinerate the first scrap of metal unlucky enough to jump

through that gate.

When a force as large as RedSwarm’s fleet was trying to use a single

stargate to enter the system, the stargate functioned a little bit like how a

toll booth in the real world can clog up a highway. As RedSwarm trickled

through the stargate, their fleet would be momentarily divided as some

ships made it through the stargate but others waited in line.

Lallante, the Lotka Volterra fleet commander, was piloting the alliance’s

flagship Titan and had hidden the ship in M-RPN3. Lallante knew that the

majority of the RedSwarm fleet would get clogged up in M-RPN3 while

waiting to jump into JV1V-O. At that point, he’d detonate his Doomsday

blast and annihilate the mass of RedSwarm pilots that were still waiting for

their turn.

“The idea was that we’d achieve a sort of sandwich affect, and those who

were able to jump through the gate would die to the fleet, and those that

couldn’t would die to my Doomsday,” said Lallante.

On February 16, RedSwarm Federation arrived in force to assault JV1V-O

with 600 ships. As the fleet began jumping through the stargate, Lallante

moved in and fired the Titan’s Doomsday. Lallante waited to see the

massive explosion, but the screen went blank. Everything stopped. The

server snapped like a twig, and the whole region went offline.

CCP developers were roused from bed and tried to get things working again

by dedicating extra server processing power to JV1V-O. EVE Online is a

very unique single-server virtual world, so there aren’t standard industry

procedures for how to deal with the unique problems it faces. When EVE’s

players push the game to its limits, CCP Games’ engineers have to figure

out brand new ways to accommodate them on the fly.

Within minutes the server was repaired and came back online, and as it did,

a massive log-in queue began. What was sure to be a climactic battle

between the two mightiest armies ever assembled was now a complete

mess. The over 1,200 pilots at the Battle of JV1V-O were now standing in

line waiting for permission to enter the battlefield. Their ships, meanwhile,

floated lifelessly in the system as their pilots struggled to get online to pilot

them.

The problem was that the RedSwarm ships were higher on that login queue,

because they had already been trying to log in. Consequently, RedSwarm

got a fleet of hundreds of ships online inside JV1V-O while Lotka Volterra’s

pilots were getting in a few at a time.

“What ensued was a complete slaughter,” said Lotka Volterra’s Lallante.

One by one, the defenseless Lotka Volterra ships were destroyed as

RedSwarm gleefully took the opportunity that was presented to them. When

the Lotka Volterra defense fleet had been destroyed, RedSwarm moved into

position in orbit around the shipyard with the incomplete Titan and let loose

a torrent of ammunition. Within minutes the capital shipyard that was

building Lotka Volterra’s second Titan—its best hope at turning back the

RedSwarm advance—was gone.

“The Goons had a fully loaded 400- to 500-man battleship fleet, and our

500-man battleship fleet, our incredible camp, this huge incredibly powerful

fleet was logging-in in ones and twos because there was a server queue to

log-in. Eventually, after hundreds of losses and very little coordination—

because none of our fleet commanders could log-in—we stood down. And

that was the end of Lotka Volterra.”

Seven years after the assault, one grunt pilot wrote down his recollections

of the whole affair.

“I’ve never seen anything like [the battle of JV1V-O],” the pilot, named

Sentille, wrote. “I couldn’t believe how many capital ships there were. The

stargate was littered with bubbles, comms were literally buzzing. But when

the smoke/lag cleared, the system was lost. Some rear guard action took

place but the fall of JV1V-O broke Lotka Volterra.”

This battle directly led to the downfall of a thousands-strong alliance of

players. Morale for Lotka Volterra was already on the ropes, and it had lost

a number of key battles. Band of Brothers hadn’t been there to back Lotka

Volterra up at JV1V-O, which may have led to the loss of its in-construction

second Titan. Worst of all, the RedSwarm Federation had paraded an

unthinkable amount of support for its campaign. The number of pilots it had

rallied to its side at JV1V-O was far beyond anything seen before.

Militarily, Lotka Volterra had already been bested several times, and this

was the moment that its morale broke.

It’s always difficult to get people to commit long portions of their day to

fleet operations, doubly so if you’re losing the war. Imagine how hard it

would be to convince people to spend their Saturday following your orders

if it was likely the enemy would show up with so many ships that they’d

crash the server and destroy your assets while you were stuck staring at the

log-in screen.

The war went on for a couple more weeks, but it was clear that Lotka

Volterra was broken and in the process of a failure cascade.

On February 20, the Lotka Volterra starbases in an important system (77S8-

E in Detorid) suddenly went offline without fuel, allowing RedSwarm to

swoop in, destroy them unopposed, and capture the system. Once

RedSwarm pilots had the station under control, they renamed it the “77S8

Failure Cascade” as a taunt at their enemies. Lotka Volterra leadership was

losing control, and important things—like making sure you fuel your

starbases—were falling through the cracks.

“Lotka Volterra morale has shattered, it’ll be all downhill from

here...

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a failure cascade. I repeat, we have

a failure cascade.”

—The Mittani, spymaster, Goonswarm Intelligence Agency,

RedSwarm Federation

February 20, 2007

Over the ensuing weeks, Lotka Volterra spent most of its time retreating

while making half-hearted attempts to strike back at RedSwarm with

smaller 75-100 ship fleets. But the lackluster effort wasn’t nearly enough to

stop the bulldozer that had pushed Lotka Volterra out of Detorid and was

now taking Tenerifis, system by system. It took time, though, as there was

plenty of Lotka Volterra infrastructure that needed to be destroyed before

the region officially came under RedSwarm Federation control.

Reports began to emerge that Lotka Volterra was evacuating its assets from

hot zones under the belief it could no longer protect them. But RedSwarm

wasn’t about to accept surrender. Lotka Volterra was part of the same

coalition that had tried to eradicate Red Alliance eight months earlier. They

would receive no quarter.

“The Lotka Volterra leadership is basically MIA. Their ability to

field fleets has been greatly reduced, and their [capital ships] are

spread out, badly supplied, and lacking in coordination. Lotka

Volterra CEOs have ordered the evacuation of tenants from Omist,

even though we haven’t yet arrived there in force. Lotka Volterra

corporations are beginning to tear down starbases in several

Tenerifis systems in order to save member assets, and Red Alliance

reports a huge increase in Lotka Volterra carrier activities around

stations in Curse. Currently it appears that they are in full retreat

and although they may make some stands if we attack their

remaining starbases, they have decided to give up most or all of

their conquerable space in the short run.

Our goals in the immediate future will be to maximize losses to

Lotka Volterra corps and members as they retreat. Fleet

Commanders should focus heavily on preventing Lotka Volterra

from unanchoring starbases in safety, as they will almost certainly

run out of fuel soon without a top-down logistics infrastructure in

place. Station [blockades] should be par for the course, and we

must take every action to inflict pain on fleeing carebears and

PvPers alike. We will not be [offering a ceasefire,] and we will take

every system which they do not empty of starbases, by force.

Your duty is to prevent Lotka Volterra from carrying their assets out

of these stations before they are captured by GoonSwarm and its

allies. I estimate that we will control 16 or more stations within the

next three weeks.”

—Remedial, Goonswarm director, RedSwarm Federation

Date unknown

Over the next three weeks, RedSwarm fleets besieged every Lotka Volterra

system of consequence and flew in its space with impunity. RedSwarm

pushed the remnants of Lotka Volterra back through Tenerifis and out of

Omist before coming back to seal the deal. The final system still flying the

Lotka Volterra flaming skull insignia—DG-8VJ in Detorid—was conquered

by RedSwarm on March 18, 2007. It was symbolically handed over to Red

Alliance as a token of its year-long struggle against the forces of the

Coalition of the South. Nine months earlier, no one in their right mind

would have anticipated this outcome. In May 2006, Red Alliance held just

one space station with 70 pilots. Now it was at the vanguard of a coalition

that numbered in the tens of thousands, and once again ranked as one of the

strongest forces in all of EVE.

“As of today, every system [in] former LV space has been taken,” wrote

The Mittani. “That includes 9-980U, JV1V-O, XGH-SH, G-D0N3 in

Tenerifis, 77S8-E and 0-G8NO in Detorid, and all five stations in Omist.

We would like to publically recognize the invaluable assistance of our allies

in this short yet brutal campaign, and thank them for their continued and

unflinching support. So long Lotka Volterra, and thanks for all the

outposts.”

There were plenty among Lotka Volterra who wanted to continue fighting,

but they were too few to buoy the alliance. Lotka Volterra shattered, and

many of its most powerful corporations immediately joined up with Band of

Brothers, seeing it as the best opportunity to get their revenge on

RedSwarm. Critically, that included the corporation Shinra, which owned

Lotka Volterra’s surviving Titan. RedSwarm had conquered a huge swath of

territory—three whole regions—but Band of Brothers was also a winner in

the short-term: it gained hundreds of passionate, skilled recruits who hated

RedSwarm, as well as a fleet of capital ships and a Titan.

In retrospect we can see that the prophecy of Remedial and The Mittani

ultimately came true. They correctly foresaw that there was a brief window

of opportunity to attack Lotka Volterra without Band of Brothers’

intervention.

EAST, WEST, AND NORTH

With Lotka Volterra in ruins, the Great War—as it was becoming known—

became much more focused. It was now a fight between the Greater Band

of Brothers Community and the rest of New Eden.

Lotka Volterra fell in mid-March 2007, but Band of Brothers had been

defending against attacks by the Northern Coalition since January when the

T20 scandal hit. Trapped between RedSwarm in the east and the Northern

Coalition in the north, Band of Brothers had to come up with a plan for

fighting a two-front war now that the fall of Lotka Volterra had allowed

RedSwarm to encroach on its eastern border. Band of Brothers opted to stop

the advance of RedSwarm—and aid the fleeing Lotka Volterra—while

hiring Mercenary Coalition to head north to engage with the Northern

Coalition. Mercenary Coalition’s leader, Seleene, announced MC’s invasion

of the north on the forums.

“For the last few weeks, my alliance has been taking care of some

internal matters. With that now resolved, we turn our attention back

to an area of space the Mercenary Coalition has not seen in quite

some time.

Mercenary Coalition has declared war on [the Northern Coalition].

Good luck to all. This should be a lot of fun. Be seeing you boys and

girls soon.”

—Seleene, Executor, Mercenary Coalition

January 25, 2007

For its size—just a few hundred members—nobody in New Eden was more

feared than Mercenary Coalition. It didn’t have anywhere near the

thousands of members Band of Brothers had, but it was able to strike with

the same intensity. It made sense then that the two would fight back-to-

back, and that Band of Brothers would trust the mercenaries to single-

handedly get the northern front of the war under control.

Mercenary Coalition was renowned for its ability to disrupt its enemies’

operations, and for fighting outnumbered, so it was the perfect choice to

head north to take on the large, inexperienced fleets of the Northern

Coalition’s home front defense.

While Mercenary Coalition’s members viewed themselves as guns-for-hire,

the rest of the EVE universe viewed them as Band of Brothers’ lapdogs. In

exchange for a chunk of Period Basis, it agreed to pay Band of Brothers

with one month of free mercenary time per year. Band of Brothers could

call in a slice of that debt whenever it was needed.

“When SirMolle really called the chips in was when he wanted us to go put

a dent in the NC in the north,” said Mercenary Coalition’s leader, Seleene.

“This was when things were really kicking into high gear.”

Mercenary Coalition was outnumbered by the massive Northern Coalition,

but was able to fight above its weight and hold its own. For its part, the

massive Northern Coalition wasn’t concerned about this small-scale attack

from Mercenary Coalition. It designated one of its constituent alliances to

deal with the mercenaries, and business went along as usual in the north—

except for Mercenary Coalition’s notable success in shutting down trade

routes to empire space.

But while this was happening, the Northern Coalition as a whole was

preparing itself for what it knew would be a war of epic proportions. One of

its main leaders addressed the pilots of his corporation, and asked them to

prepare for an unprecedented war.

Pilots of Morsus Mihi. Within the next 24 hours we will begin

moving forces against our most hated enemy. This will be the

hardest fight you have ever had in your history in EVE. It will be

bloody and a long campaign. But we will not fail.

Band of Brothers as an alliance is the target. The total destruction

of them is the only objective. We will not stop until victory is

achieved.

Good Hunting,

—KOTH Fluf, leader of Morsus Mihi, Northern Coalition

Date Unknown

While Mercenary Coalition was still in the throes of combat against the

Northern Coalition, all the way up in Pure Blind, it was attacked in force in

its home region of Period Basis by the fleets of the notorious Russian

player, Evil Thug, and his alliance Against ALL Authorities. Evil Thug

targeted Mercenary Coalition for being a Band of Brothers ally. Usually