My name is Johann Landier and I am the CEO of Diplomatic Incident (Darkness Alliance/GOTG Coalition) and have been in the middle of what I am about to write since May. For this article I am writing from that perspective and as such this article should be viewed as my personal work and not an official position of Eve News 24.

For those who maybe have not been watching the killboards or Reddit today you might have missed the spark of war brewing in the north. A series of battles occurred over the last two days in which the Guardians of The Galaxy destroyed the DRF IHUB in MTO2-2 and anchored a offensive keepstar. If there is any confusion as to the intention then the following ping and statement by GOTG Coalition Commander Sort Dragon:

Ping sent this morning by Sort:

Timestamp: 2017-10-10 18:05:42 From: Sort Dragon To: All GOTG So some times in this game. You make some plays to see how fun life can be. Today is one of those times. All the work over the past week Boki has been doing gods work keeping one side confused as to what is going on making everyone think that dark was being couped by him. DRF had been accusing myself and boki of whatever they could to create a narrative. In response. We shall burn it all. The first step is to get the keepstar online tomorrow. Our formup is now changed to 09:00. If you can take the day off work this will be a crazy one. I see them throwing everything at us. Lets make this a big one.

Statement given to me by Sort:

Guardians of the Galaxy is like a family and when you fuck with our family we fuck with you. Death should not have let Jay (Maricadie) be involved as a diplo. Now what will be will be.

Wars start all the time either due to boredom, resource acquisitions, and on occasion a good old fashioned grudge. This war, however, started out with none of that and it’s spark goes back months. The DRF has maintained a position of neutrality and for the most part have been pretty decent neighbors to whomever they live next to in the north. However, earlier this year, the DRF appointed Jay Maracadie as their new Head Diplomat and entrusted him with a lot of leeway in speaking and negotiating on behalf of the Drone Region Federation and their allies. Both the current wars are a direct result of his actions and machinations. What’s truly interesting is that this conflict could have been avoided, but the Diplo himself managed to alienate and burn pretty much every chance he had to stop it.

So this article could go on for hours but as I am still recovering from Eve Vegas I will hit the highlights and timeline the events:

July 2017 – I am new to GOTG and being the EIC of EN24. I was researching the Triumvirate leaks and was put in contact with Jay to get the DRF side. What I found was someone willing to provide logs and leaks with the intention of painting Triumvirate into a corner. Jay described himself as a “behind the scenes guy” who master minded the “Lemba Files” from WWB. He stated that he was worried Goons were about to attack the North and he was trying to stop the Imperium. Initially everything checked out and as GOTG had just fought Triumvirate we had no lost love for them. He also began to enquire as to my relationship with Sort. (To be clear I am not a leader inside GOTG with exception to my corp.)

July 2017 – Jay indicated he would like to sponsor EN24 and that he would also like to discuss diplomatic relations between GOTG and DRF to include a mutual defense agreement. Sort approved me working on a agreement and exploring the possibility. He voiced concern through with Jay’s involvement. He also voiced concern that the DRF leader (UaXDeath) seemed to be AFK and never communicated with anyone except “through Jay”

July/August 2017 – War between DRF and Triumvirate seems to be pending and their main target seems to be FCON. Triumvirate breaks off diplomatic ties and cancels all agreements between them and DRF and FCON. With Triumvirate signalling their intention is to fight FCON and they have no issues with their former DRF allies, Jay (DRF Diplo) breaks what is seen as years of neutrality and forms a super coalition including FCON thus drawing a line with Tri and picking a side.

August 2017 – While this is happening DRF begin looking for allies to assist them and Jay begins a negotiation with TEST Alliance to assist them with Tri in the event hostilities break out. This is where things started to turn sour between the DRF and the GOTG. We (GOTG) received news that TEST was deploying and would be allowed to stage from DRF space. We assumed that this was a move by them to attack Tri. In my communications with Jay he feigned ignorance as to where TEST was going and that they were “allowing” TEST to move through their space. However, it became apparent that TEST was moving north with the intention of attacking our coalition. It was later learned that not only did DRF know this was the intention to begin with but that Jay had recommended the system and approved the deal. All the while misleading myself and GOTG. We love to fight in GOTG and will never complain about the chance to blow things up. But the fact that we were in the middle of a diplomatic agreement with the DRF with the intention to form a mutual defense between us only to have our potential ally to allow an alliance to stage in their space and attack us left a very bad taste and created a atmosphere of distrust. Jay insisted that the agreement was meant to ‘protect’ us and that he had TEST under his control and they were only in the north to assist with Tri rang hollow.

August/September 2017 – Jay kept pressuring us to accept an agreement with the DRF and that his “Star Room/Chamber” spy had direct evidence that goons had spies in our alliance and NC and were trying to destroy us. No logs were ever provided and no evidence was ever made. He intimated that our alliance XO Boki had been flipped and worked for the goons. He also stated that Vily and PGL of TEST Alliance were working with the Mittani to bring TEST into the Imperium. He asked we leave TEST alone for now and stated he could care less what happened to TEST after the war as long as they helped him finish off Tri. He further stated that he could just turn TEST space into more renter space for the DRF as TEST were likely joining the Imperium.

Around this time Jay also told me I was on a list the Black Hand (Imperium) had of their most wanted. This list was shortly thereafter published on Reddit here. It was discovered later that this was posted by Jay himself pretending to be someone else and trying to pressure us into a deal to join the DRF in fighting Tri. At this point I recommended to Sort that we do not accept any agreement with the DRF as long as Jay was the Diplo as he was faking documents and conversations to try and pressure us into fighting a war he started with Tri.

September 2017 – C02 falls and TEST enters the war to assist DRF. I am directed to run a counter operation on Jay to gain as much information as possible. Jay continues to make claims that he has direct evidence that Goons are behind all the threats but can’t provide any of the evidence.

October 2017 – I work with another person to distract Jay and extract as much intel as possible. At this point we (GOTG) now see the DRF and Jay’s actions on their behalf as a clear and present danger to our alliance. Multiple attempts are made to contact UaXDeath but are not answered and the only conduit to DRF leadership goes through Jay who stated he is running the coalition and everything is to go through him. As Eve Vegas started our forces began attacking the DRF IHUB in MTO2-2 under the command of Boki. I used my sources to flood the DRF with intel that Boki had gone rogue and that it would all be fixed after Vegas. As far as Jay knew I was working hard to stop the war. That said Boki was at all times carrying out the express orders of our Coalition Commander Sort Dragon and had not gone rogue.

It was during Eve Vegas Jay then contacted me on an alt pretending to be “Beaches” and saying he had been told directly by Digital Ebola that Boki was a spy and that he had multiple spies in the Northern Alliances trying to destroy us for the Goons. Again no evidence or logs were provided.

We kept feeding Jay misinformation and anchored our keepstar

This was not a war that was wanted by the GOTG. We have always gotten along well with the DRF but the tactics, manipulation, fake reddit posts, fake messages, and outright lies used by their diplo to try and manipulate us while all the time allowing a hostile alliance to attack us from their space broke that faith and trust. Furthermore his willingness to throw TEST under the bus after they help him win a war he started shows any agreement with the DRF while he was diplo was not one in good faith. We actually believe this is a war the DRF does not want or desire but alliances are responsible for the actions of their leaders and as such they are responsible for Jays actions. His inability to operate in good faith leaves no recourse but to believe his actions reflect the DRF as a whole and as such are a threat that must be dealt with.