Providence region has been the birthplace of many pvpers, serving as the original testing ground for ambitious players who were ready to jump into EVE’s scary, high-end content, null-sec. For ages, Providence “holders” (local alliances) defended a “Not Red Don’t Shoot” (NRDS) policy, much like local police.

After years of stability, one of those holders unilaterally decided to attack their neighbor, Against All Authorities Alliance (AAA), in Catch region. That attack was the first kick from a newborn null-sec entity, Nulli Secunda (Nulli). Nulli would go on to represent the extremes in EVE: bravery, ambition, freedom, betrayal, and a controversial cultural split.

Pre Nulli

Before Nulli was Nulli, it was the 101st Space Marine Force corporation (101SM) from Libertas Fidelitas (LFA), a Providence “holder” (Provi). LFA were good fighters but not great politicians. They attacked Catch and caused AAA to come down hard on Provi block, evicting them all. Something that had not happened before.

After that debacle, the 101SM moved to Gentlemen’s Club in Wicked Creek in 2010 and served as pets (junior ally), along with their neighbor, Cult of War, for Atlas. That was short lived, as Atlas lost influence to invaders weeks later. The whole area was in collapse. The 101SM, along with their new friends, corps from Cult of War, broke away to create Nulli Secunda. A new gang-pvp alliance that largely formed around the FCing of progodlegend (Progod) was born.

Nulli went back to their old stomping grounds, Providence, to help the “holders” retake the space they lost. Nulli excelled at combat and caught the eye of an EVE superpower, IT alliance (essentially Band of Brothers (BoB)). IT alliance gave Nulli a constellation in order to patch a hole in Querious, near the Khanid border. They settled down, putting themselves on the map for the first time. Coincidentally, corporations from both of Nulli’s early benefactors (Atlas and IT) formed the NCdot of today; more on that later.

Scrappy PVPers

Nulli quickly made a name for themselves by taking all fights, winning and having a good attitude too. After any given battle, local chat was full of “GG”, “GF” and “o7” from Nulli. Fleet comms were relaxed as Progod’s cool speaking style (New Orleans, but suburbs) set the tone: smooth, excitable, but controlled.

Example fleet comms of early Nulli: Progod and Kharna Earthshaker during alliance tournament match.

Nulli’s fighting style was also unorthodox. Fleet compositions and tactics were creative, throwing off opponents that expected the usual Drake fleet. Fight after fight, Nulli was building a name for itself as hard-nosed brawlers and goodsports. This was a sharp contrast to another new kid on the block that had thousands players that were bad at the game, and trash talkers: TEST Alliance.

TEST was too big to be called a pet, but their leaders put them under the influence of Goonswarm (Goons), who had pioneered spergy (Asperger) behavior. Together they were over 20,000 of mostly inexperienced pilots which made them a desirable target for any group that wanted fight outnumbered. TEST and Goons were a prime enemy for Nulli, but they would have to wait. The first order of business was to survive.

Null Politics

AAA had wiped out Provi, angering most of null-sec in the process. Retaliation came swiftly as IT alliance backed a rag-tag group of low-sec PVPers, along with Pandemic Legion (PL) on contract, to relieve AAA of their home. Before the work was done, PL’s contract expired and IT focused on other matters, leaving AAA and allies to march right back in, taking it all back. Some of the defeated low-sec corps moved to Nulli.

IT alliance was buckling under the weight of splintered leadership and a two-front proxy-war against a vengeful AAA and prankish Deklein Coalition (Goons and TEST). Nulli saw the writing on the wall and opted to trade sides. They joined with AAA hot on the heels of their comeback. Nulli’s first act was to turn on fellow IT pet Systematic Chaos, and kill them off. AAA rewarded them with choice ratting territory on the border between Delve (C3N-3S) and Period Basis. With the southern wars over, it was time to cash in and rat. The alliance grew to over 1,000 members.

Nulli’s territory (shared with close ally Vera Cruz) was stable, and there were plenty of PVP groups that in Delve. PL stalked the area in search of rare moons and good fights. They faced off with Nulli many times and earned their respect.

Nulli Secunda, I’ve always enjoyed fighting on TQ (Tranquility Server). – CCP Fozzie, as Raivi of PL in 2011 on the panel of ninth Alliance Tournament.

Nulli always took the fight, even outnumbered against PL, but for good reason: Nulli liked the action and were flying inexpensive ships they could easily replace. But always fighting was also politically good. PL farms other alliances and if they don’t produce fights, they get kicked out of their territory. Nulli earned the right to hang around and grew to 1,500 members in the process.

Delve Thunderdome

Eventually the major wars in EVE settled down as the original Northern Coalition was defeated and merged into Deklein Coalition, mutating into the ClusterFuck Coalition (CFC). The one-time giants of Northern Coalition and capital ship aficionados, Morsus Mihi decided to come to Delve to remind themselves how to PVP in small ships. The demoralized ex-giant could not regain its confidence and was driven out of Delve by Nulli and other locals.

By this time, Nulli’s reputation as an “alliance to watch” caught the eye of famed FC Elo Knight. He took his corp (Origin) of out Black Legion (BL) and put it into Nulli. There was huge fanfar. “Nulli – now with Origin!” Unfortunately, the rapid growth of earlier months meant the new pilots were not well trained yet. Elo backed out and Progod was left to do damage control by chalking it up to “cultural differences.”

In the far east, the Drone Region wars had displaced even more big alliances, one of which was Red Alliance (RA). RA was a traditional ally of AAA and was invited to take space landed in Delve. Nulli was furious. They were growing with the purpose of taking Delve for themselves. AAA was unable to secure an agreement between its ally RA and its now overgrown pet, Nulli, which now had 2,000 members.

Nulli and RA went to war over Delve. In a decisive battle, Nulli killed a couple titans and that caused RA to basically quit, leaving their gains on the floor. Nulli closed-in to snatch up the systems when PL jumped in to deny them an easy victory. One of PL’s favorite pastimes is denying SOV to ensure fights. The two fought over RA’s territory like predators over the body of a kill. Nulli could not win and the dream of owning a region slipped away.

By this time, Test Alliance had grown ambitious, too, riding high with allies Goons and Pandemic Legion. TEST took Fountain, but had so many members they could use a second region, Delve. With PL’s help, they attacked the region. Nulli was torn, on the one side there were lots of TEST pilots to kill, on the other, they were protected by PL. The arrangement turned into a brief “Thunderdome” where fights would be for fun, not territory. But like children in a friendly slap fight, someone hit too hard and it got out of hand, turning into a real SOV brawl. TEST and PL moved in and evicted Nulli.

Nulli blamed AAA for the RA debacle and weak support defending their Delve holdings. This would be the end of Nulli’s “pet” status.

New Leadership

While Nulli was known for taking fights, it would prove to be just as famous for resilience. Normally alliances fail cascade when they lose SOV. Corp CEO’s desiring stability leave for alliances that can better guarantee it. But Nulli didn’t cascade because the CEO’s felt that Nulli’s best years were in front of them. When they were exiled from Delve it didn’t feel like a defeat, just a setback.

Nulli’s unity was also a testament to Progod’s popularity. His upbeat but real analysis of their situation kept everyone moving forward, even as they toiled through a few weeks of buggy Faction War. By now, Progod was a true figurehead, but he only had interests in FCing. His partner Guderian3 was a teenager and often dismissed. Gorga, CEO from a new large corp, took the reigns.

DOTBros and N3

Nulli’s anticipated return to null-sec arrived. They moved to Tribute to join NC-DOT and Black Legion-DOT, forming a new coalition called DOTBros, only Nulli didn’t have a dot. Fleets were FC’ed by NCdot’s Vince Draken, SuperTwinkey69, and BL’s Elo Knight. Progod was mostly sidelined.

DOTbros was a mixed blessing: Nulli finally had super capital support from allies that were willing to use them, as opposed to AAA who kept them docked when PL was chewing up Nulli. It also marked their arrival to “elite” PVP status, but the fights were over moons, with mostly capitals. Nulli was a supporting role since since it lacked a capital fleet. They also weren’t used to the FC’s styles: Elo repeating every order 10 times, Twinkeys ragefest, and Vince terse orders that sounded like he could climb through your headset and into your brain. Nulli grumbled that they wanted null-sec under Progod FCing.

The coalition didn’t last long. Elo got involved with Vince’s actual female assistant (Wicked Princess) and that broke up the party. There were rumors of inappropriate alliance wallet maneuvers by Vince as well as Elo “white-knighting it,” and so on. Nulli watched BL get kicked and reset. Now NCdot and Nulli were fighting the CFC and BL, and Vince opened up a third front against SolarFleet. It wasn’t long before their territories vanished.

Vince and Gorga decided to take what was left of DOTbros a new Coalition: NCdot, Nulli and a third N, Nexus Fleet. N3 was born. Gorga grabbed up as many allies as he could and declared a new day in EVE politics: N3 would represent a coalition of equals, with no pets, that would share the wealth. They eyed the weakening AAA territories in the south. It was time to return home and kill their old master.

In late 2012, CVA had retaken Providence and -A- was on the ropes due to leadership problems. The wolves were gathering. Nulli and others attacked and conquered AAA territories and divided them up among the N3 alliances. NCdot stayed behind fighting Solar Fleet over moons.

Gorga set up S2N Citizens as rental corp. The shining new example of mutual respect and liberty came with fabulous new rental opportunities. That didn’t change. Goonswarm looked on in disgust. They abhorred rental regimes and refused to follow that business model, until they saw that it worked. In a way, Goons were closer to true mutualism than N3 was on domestic matters.

Leadership Struggles

Gorga’s was a well-meaning leader but events overtook him. On one occasion, in a state of the alliance speech, he indicated that N3 was not out to extinguish SolarFleet. The subtext was that that if Solar chose to retreat to low-sec, there would be safe passage. This was a way out for Solar, at a time when NCdot, N3 and Pandemic Legion were cornering them in Outer Passage region.

When Solar announced they were leaving to low-sec, Shadoo of Pandemic Legion immediately called for a dead-zone (when a station is trapped and sealed like a vault). This would essentially lock up hundreds of billions of Solar assets. Progod followed PL’s lead and marched everyone to hellcamp Solar in R3P0-Z. Solar was given a way out, and then betrayed because PL called the shots at the end of the day. (Years later when the station was retaken by Solar, it was basically empty. No one knows if the assets were ever there, or if some ransom was paid to PL.)

At this time, the Fountain war had begun and TEST was in open rebellion against Goonswarm. N3 supported TEST. Progod said it was Nulli’s best chance to defeat the Goons: This was the life mission of Nulli. The CFC, lead by Goons, were too strong for TEST and its allies, and it collapsed. Nulli returned home and Progod looked for other types of victories He ran for CSM (interview).

Culture Shifts

EVE in general has shifted from a game where patients and hard work no longer pay off. Entertainment is key to participation. Not trusting EVE alone to provide that, FC’s and leaders feel like they must provide entertainment to keep people active. This pressure led to a dark path for Nulli.

The old guard of Nulli were not as strong as a new contingency of low-sec fighters that had recruited from Nulli’s training corp. In an alliance, power goes to those that show up and Gorga made allies of the super active, League of Non-Aligned Worlds (LNAW): A group who’s behavior resembled the worst parts of TEST; entertaining to some, infuriating to others. The forums were overwhelmed with bad posting, racial insults, personal attacks, and general ugliness, making them useless as an information center.

Gorga took control away from old guard moderators (Totalani,Guderian3) that tried to stop it, and installed his deputy, Jean Leaner, to oversee the forums based on his IT skills and moderator experience at Kugutsumen forums (EVE’s old version of Reddit). The fight was fierce:

[GRDE] Jean Leaner: Hey totalani, you were fired from moderator for being fucking terrible, so how about you stop banning people so I have to undo every personal rage induced ban you put out, faggot. Fucking nigger turkish living in sweeden go kill youself you retarded peice of shit. [3.14-] Totalani: Moderation isnt ban you fucking idiot. [GRDE] Jean Leaner: Heres some logs to make your look even more retarded ‘(6:07:30 PM) [GRDE] Gorga: dont suck like our normal moderators and go on the personal ramapages. Added you and wusti to the goodposting crew to fix things’ Guess who he was talking about. [3.14-] Totalani: I moderate anyone that remotely attacks someone else personally, atleast outside this posting zone. Kugu is the only thing you got anyway, I hope it brings lots of joy in your life. [GRDE] Jean Leaner: Oh is that so? THen why was I never moderated in the months upon months of personal attacks I’ve levied against people? You’re either terrified because I’d shit down your throat, or you solely target posters from specific corps. Considering every moderation attempt you’ve ever preformed was against a member of LNAW, I’d say you just have a hatred for another corp and take it out by using you’re only way to be relevant. No one gives a fuck about you, you’re a sperg who the vast majority of this alliance thinks is a joke, and the fact that you’re a diplomat is shocking considering you have a complete lack of social skills or politcal awareness. [3.14-] Totalani: I havent moderated you becuase you are literally the biggest sperg this alliance ever had and will immediately run and cry about it to an admin… And you are definitly the person to judge someones social skills lmao. [B0MB] Guderian3: LNAW wins. I will no longer post or ban. Totalani either. [GRDE] Jean Leaner: Surrender accepted. [GA0L] Wusti: Good decision. No moderation > attempted moderation [LNAW] Mogg Karaatu: BE IT KNOWN that henceforth the 17th of June shall be known as LNAW Liberation Day. [LNAW] Taawuz: [Nulli], the first alliance to (shit)post itself to death.

The trouble that started in the forums eventually spilled into other forms of communication. One weekend, Jean and others pinged 210 times, using the tool as a comedy stage instead of a Call To Arms tool. Even the command channel became toxic, interfering with fleets.

The old Nulli leaders had been sidelined while Gorga and Jean, with a few others, fully endorsed the spergy culture. Forum bans were used to silence critics.

[GRDE] Jean Leaner: LNAW are our culture

Progod stayed above it all, dedicating himself to FCing and rubbing shoulders with allied FCs. His cool style of FCing started to get punctuated with angry outbursts that were normal for other elite FCs. He sometimes sounded like he resented being stuck with his fleets.

Some of this audio was featured in the, “This is EVE Trailer.” You can hear the slow boil until 17:30 where Progod finally losses it.

A second FC, Canaris Roshaak, had taken much of the workload and was getting good results with a laid-back style. This allowed Progod some breathing room, but he was still overwhelmed and offered to pay an assistant to help him personally.

Meanwhile Guderian3 was collecting the original Nulli corps that were now inactive and pushing them to merge into one large active corporation that would propel him back into Nulli leadership.

Betrayal

The culture problem came to a head when Gorga, attempting to bring Nulli up to standards, asked all pilots to give up their full API. Most did it, but LNAW and others rebelled.

[LNAW] Kitt JT: lol you’re not getting my full api. I used to do paid recruiting for hisec indy corps. I asked for their full APIs. I have made many billions exploiting people’s full APIs. [FSR] Gilbarun: full api ? fuck you [LNAW] Aram Kachaturian: Gorga knows I will never accept to give my full api key. Totalani / Guderian / Gorga having access to my full api ? Goddamn conspiracy [LNAW] Xenophilius Lovegood (Nulli Leader) : who will have access to these APIs? Very important question. You have made a massive misstep in alliance communication with the dissemination of this shit.

Gorga stood firm, for the most part, but didn’t like being openly challenged. So he finally moved to contain his own supporters by restricting them to a specific “Free Posting Zone.”

[LNAW] Aram Kachaturian: Move this alliance mail to “Free” Posting Zone. You can’t mute us you cunt. Go fuck yourself with your stupid section and Third Reich leadership. Xenophilius Lovegood for alliance leader.

LNAW was further inflamed when their leaders were removed from the High Council for being “inactive.” This was seen as a power grab by Gorga so LNAW reacted. One of their leaders, Xenophilius Lovegood, went rogue after being removed from Nulli’s High Council. He still had roles in Nulli’s renter alliance and training alliance, so he stole the wallets and closed them both.

[LNAW] Quiggvia: Best Troll award for 2013 goes to LNAW (yet again), for disbanding our entire rental alliance.I can’t wait to see what they’ve got in store for next year! Ahahahahaha The apocalypse is here thanks aram What will be amazing is the stories that come out of this from years to come of how hard LNAW trolled

NCdot manager, LadyScarlet, quickly stepped in and transitioned the renter’s over to Northern Associates, while Nulli fleets worked overtime to frantically recapture the former renters territories before anyone else moved in. It was an amazing feat that many LNAW linemen were involved with. Gorga’s reaction was amnesty for LNAW. They were allowed to stay under a different name, League of xX420BLAZEITSWAGGOTXx. [YOL0O].

[LNAW] Quiggvia: LNAW is dead guys but we shall rise in the new league of more epicness, LNAW is daycare compared to the new league [TACT.] Fredricktonville: Lnaw is not dead, it has simply evolved. [LNAW] Jherik: Never fear bitches the lnaw party bus is back and just like Chris Rock bigger and blacker [NUL-L] sidicious reign: LNAW is staying? Glad to hear dudes… [GRDE] Gorga: hell yes they are staying what do you think we want those dudes gone? Notice ya’ll niggas still have forum access.

Some Nulli members thought leaving LNAW in, in any form, was a mistake, but they were silenced by Jean the forum moderator. The old guard managed to merge together to form a larger corp, Infinite Point (3.14-), giving them more political power. Jean Leaner countered by merging 3 corps, resulting in his and Gorga’s positions staying even stronger. The corp was called Common Sense Ltd (GORGA). Guderian3 never regained leadership.

Again, Nulli survived another crises that might have cascaded other alliances. Good thing LNAW didn’t have the keys to Nulli itself or the story might have been different.

Alliance Tournament

Nulli always made a fairly good showing at the tournament, but they were not trained tournament pilots, so they never made it anywhere near the final rounds. Then a corp called FREE GATES, from long time allies HUN Reloaded, was brought into Nulli. HUN Reloaded was a former champion of the AT, beating PL’s team in AT IV. Members of FREE GATES took control of the Nulli team because they knew how to train for a tournament.

Nulli’s performance immediately jumped to that of a top-tier team, eliminating PL (AT XII), and getting them into the semi-finals. Nulli now had a world class tournament team.

Halloween War

By the time the Battle of B-R5RB happened, Nulli was living at ground zero, Immensea region. That Titan brawl was really over in 4-6 hours, with the remaining 16 hours serving as a slow death to all the Titans that could not extract. Grath Telkin, leader of PL, once gave major credit to PL’s training corp, SniggWaffe, for freeing a lot of their Titans. Had Nulli been able to bring their sub-capitals out to free the supers, there would have been far less casualties. Terrible TiDi (10%) and the CFC camping their staging system and surrounding system gates, made that impossible. All Progod could do was joke in PL comms that he was the only FC that didn’t whelp today. The joke fell flat.

After PL paid the CFC to retrieve assets from in B-R5B, Nulli regrouped at a safe station in Detroid (0-W778). Goons had assured Progod they could withdraw, but he was deceived. Goons never said what they would do after Nulli settled, so they camped Nulli in and dead-zoned the station, just as Nulli and PL had done to SolarFleet. “A lot of people lied to make this happen” Progod said.

The Mittani predicted the end of Nulli, but Nulli survived, yet again.

We end the war between the RUS and N3 by stabbing N3 in their heart over and over and over again until they stop moving. We go to their staging system in 0-W778 in Detorid – that system where they have evacuated three regions worth of assets, all the filth and all of the dross from Immensea, Tenerifis and Omist – All the Kadeshis, all the Whysos, all the Unthinkables, and of course Nulli Secunda, who proved themselves in B-R5 by leaving Pandemic Legion and NCdot to die, putting less Titans on the field than Triple-A, retreating before anyone else and abandoning their allies. This is why we allowed N3 to evacuate I-N in Immensea. Not ~mercy~, not some Sun Tzu bullshit about golden bridges of retreat. We let them consolidate all their assets from all their lost regions in one place, and if you give us this next week, if you commit absolutely to this operation, they will lose not only a tremendous amount of assets, but their entire active capital fleet. For the next week, we will live in 0-W778 23/7. We will trap them in their staging system and crush the life out of them. We will repel any attempts to spring them from their coward’s prison, because they deserve this fate. Nothing will live, nothing will escape. – The Mittani, leader of Goonswarm and CFC. in Call to Arms.

N3 as a whole did recover from the battle of B-R5RB, and after the CFC left the area, N3 reconquered all the territories lost, if not more. That marked the end of the war, and an amazing comeback for Nulli, surviving yet again.

Phoebe Hits

With Phoebe expansion came reduced travel for capital ships, which lead to alliances spreading out to extend their power projection. NCdot and Darkness moved to Delve area, while Nulli and a reformed Gentlemen’s Club stayed in Immensea. From there they were able to help usher in a new coalition lead by Brave Collective.

As time passed, Nulli kept the area pacified but was taken by surprise when Brave attacked them. This caused a diplomatic nightmare for Brave, which lead to some of Brave’s FCs leaving to form Pandemic Horde.

Gorga was mostly gone from the game, and Progod was a CSM member now rubbing shoulders with the devs. He was mostly retired, but would occasionally FC Canaris returned to low-sec. The work was left to Killah Bee and others, but the burden of running the alliance was taking its toll and leaders started to burn out and leave.

Jean managed to lose his Titan, ironically after railing on people who almost lost theirs. When EN24 reported on it, Jean kicked the writer out of Nulli, stranding him in null-sec. Progod was finishing his term as a CSM and did not to run again, so Gorga came back to run for CSM. He won.

Darkness, NCdot and Black Legion attacked the CFC in Fountain, so the CFC hired Pandemic Legion to attack Nulli to ensure they were not able to contribute to the assault. Nulli had won fights against neighbors, but PL was a different beast. PL had already driven out the massive Hero Coalition. Nulli was chased out of nullsec again by PL, but this time there was no energy left to stay together. Gorga announced Nulli’s five-year run was over after the alliance tournament, where it was expected they would do well. Hopefully ending on a high note.

Nulli was eliminated from the tournament. Gorga was kicked off the CSM for being absent. Progod left Nulli and parked his character in LNAW. Jean was able to bypassed NCdots recruitment rules and spared a public recruitment app, causing a minor uproar among some in NCdot about double standards. He has remains quiet to this day, serving as their IT manager and forum moderator. Killah Bee went to PL.

The End

Nulli is finally over. It died a peaceful death, alone, surrounded by no one. It had over 500 comments on its farewell Reddit thread, but now that thread has quieted down, too. All that is left is the legacy: The echoes created when Nulli was alive and kicking.

Progod, like other leaders, followed the natural progression to achieve whatever the next level was. After being CSM, it is hard for a player to find a “next level.” After a while, even the recognition of peers fails to satisfy. Some veterans decide to teach new players like Brave Newbies, but even that runs its course. So Progod retired and moved on, but promised to visit.

Like many alliances, Nulli was built by its figurehead and when he stopped, so did Nulli. Alliances without their leaders drift. The truth about EVE is there are only a few people that really make a difference. CCP Seagull calls them “content providers,” the players that make things happen, and Progod was the key to Nulli.

The great thing about this story is that it all started with reckless pilots from Providence, making their own path to dominate in null-sec combat. The spark that lead to a five-year trek for thousands is seen everyday, all over EVE. The next Nulli may be well underway, with a new group of players catching fire and kicking their way into existence.

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References

Nulli resets IT alliance

Formation of N3

Nulli Faction war

Nulli Theft

evelopedia

Beghi writing on Nulli