Early in the evening of USTZ Sunday, Guardians fleets formed to go investigate an ongoing brawl in the Cloud Ring system of F7C, the location of the 8th goonie Astrahus to die this week, destroyed by allied forces just the day prior.

A diplomatic incident had spawned as the result of The Culture working together with CFC alliance The Initiative in order to resolve the battle and bring down several extremely well tanked TISHU Apostles. The brawl started when TISHU capitals travelling to a nearby objective got caught by TC, who then quickly formed up a Ferox fleet to take down the vulnerable hyperspatial Archons and FAX machines.

An INIT fleet staged in the area discovered the battle as it broke out, and quickly formed Tempests and raged toward it, looking to 3rd party on all the kills. However, while en route, INIT discovered TC dreads also moving into position, and offered to avoid shooting them in lieu of a more complete resolve of the battle by hyper-dunking TISHU capitals. The move has been regarded by some as evidence of cracks appearing in MBC, despite members of TC claiming on the reddit thread that they have never received compensation from the contractor, and therefore not being formally part of the MBC. Regardless of this, an obvious rift has been caused between the groups, who had been friendly skirmishing in Fountain, Cloud Ring, and Syndicate up until now.

BN24 connected with FCs and leaders from each of the groups, in order to gain more perspective on the battle and find out what went wrong or how it might impact the future of World War Bee.

Cracks in the MBC? Find out here!

First person I was able to get in contact with was raknor bile (FC for The Culture during Saturday’s brawls), who described the action as nothing more than opportunistic kills and a chance to get back at an over-zealous TISHU capital fleet.

Boki > I saw your posts on /r/eve today, I got the synopsis already from your perspective, seemed like just a one-time thing that got taken a bit out of context?

raknor bile > Yeah pretty much. TISHU have been using caps pretty much non stop in some dumb situations, so we just went for it.

Boki > You and Adversity have some history together right? You at least worked very closely together during the Fountain invasion last year, spearheaded by NC and BL. Had you met them prior to that? Or how long have you known each other?

raknor bile > We have worked together in ops against cfc plenty of times, the night before this we worked with TISHU to reinforce some INIT moons and kill the first Fortizar in k-space.

Boki > Was this brawl something that you would have expected to blow up as it has? How did the battle start?

raknor bile > Well I went in with Ferox, and that’s about my weakest subcapital doctrine, as I wanted the fight. TISHU straight up dropped more fax and triage. While I was moving dreads, INIT showed up and as I had formed to kill TISHU, I decided to just finish up killing TISHU [instead of shooting INIT].

Boki > No capri / raknor tensions prior to this? It wasnt like some personal vendetta to dunk him specifically? =D

raknor bile > Nope. Capri only showed up to reinforce the orginal archon we tackled. Now while he ended up losing both his Archon and his Apostle, that’s just icing on the cake.

Boki > You dont seem very conflicted on the idea of your former friends being neutral for content. However, it does seem like that’s the focus of the reddit drama, would you agree?

raknor bile > TISHU and TC have never really been friends. Before we both got involved in the goon war we would reguarly fight each other over mostly 3rd party timers. Reddit is great, it is the prefered platform that tishu use to let the world know of its autism. Upvotes win wars afterall.

Boki > Certainly seems to be the trend these days. With the shoe on the other foot, if you had gotten caught out and TISHU batphoned a CFC alliance, you’re upset? Or quite fine with it?

raknor bile > I’m fine with it. TISHU has been the batphone for other groups in the past, so acting surprised that the shoe is on the other foot is foolish.

Boki > A couple TISHU dudes on the reddit thread made the comment that they [TISHU] were overdue for a dunk anyway, you think that’s fair assessment?

raknor bile > Well it was going to happen at some point, you cannot be dumb in your off time zone and expect to get away with it.

Boki > with groups streaming to battle, this could have actually escalated longer and been drawn out, TISHU might well have had the chance to turn the battle by dropping supers you think?

raknor bile > Dropping supers would have lost them a super fleet. If Lex really thought that dropping supers would have saved anything, he would have done so.

Boki > Any plans to work with INIT or other 3rd parties in the future if the chance to dunk TISHU comes along again? =D

raknor bile > I never had any plans anyway.

Next I caught up with Sister Bliss, FC for the INIT Tempests that arrived to 3rd party on the ongoing battle, whose diplomacy ending up the topic of controversy as the alliance (housed by CFC) is seen by the community as breaking off to pursue content in other regions. He felt a few dead caps shouldn’t get between friends, as the field was under his control right from the get-go.

Boki > Your scouts found TISHU caps around the same time as raknor’s, and you moved into position to hit them when you noticed TC dreads? That about right?

Sister Bliss > Not quite. One of our roving scouts came across a small gang <20 of Culture subcaps which had tackled a few Carriers in Cloud Ring. We started flash forming into our fun ‘classic’ skirmish doctrine (shield Tempests) just to go and kill everything we found. Our portal basically took us past the Culture staging system entrance and Culture were bubbling our fleet on the way there. When we arrived, TC had the TISHU caps bubbled and were trying to break them, but they already had 3 Apostles on grid. We were prepared to kill TC as well since we had a stronger config already up and running but when we saw the escalating FAX coming in from TISHU we just mutual convoed and said ‘do you wanna kill these together?’ We then started to break the first Apostle when TISHU portalled in their Machs…so we switched focus to the Machs, and were able to 1 volley them with our Tempests. When all the Machs died, TISHU came back in T3s, and we killed those as well in the same way. While we were killing the T3s, TC decided to jump in Dreads and speed up killing of the remaining caps. As soon as the last TISHU ships died, we extracted and honoured our agreement.

Boki > the agreement with TC was really just to help get more DPS onto field and resolve the battle then? Something like: “bring dreads if you want, I wont dunk them” sort of thing?

Sister Bliss > Yes exactly that. Tbh we didn’t really need the dreads, we were already able to break the caps, I guess they just wanted to bring them in and blap. Since we came in our Tempests, their Apostles made no difference to keeping their subcaps alive as we were just 1-shotting the Machs and T3s, Which was great fun.

Boki > Could this have escalated further were it not for TC dreads being able to dismantle the apostles so quickly? Or do you think the outcome was locked in regardless?

Sister Bliss > The outcome was irrelevant really insofar as the caps are concerned. Since we just vollyed their subs one by one. Initially we killed some caps, then they brought in subs, so we switched to subs (Machs), killed those. Then we switched back to caps, killed another, then they brought in more T3, so we switched to subs again and were easily killing those. That was when TC came in with caps, but tbh in literally 1 min or so, we would have finished killing the T3’s anyway and melted the remaining TISHU caps, so the outcome was already decided easily IMO. TISHU had no means to bring anything in to stop it unless they escalated another batch of FAX and supers etc.

Boki > You’re probably aware of the community’s feelings towards INIT, being a CFC alliance everyone kinda labels you as “the bee guys”, which was the subject of the drama on reddit. How do you feel the public perception of being the bad guys effects the alliance trajectory for INIT?

Sister Bliss > Yeah, absolutely. We’re just an alliance who has a few allies, who are coincidentally in the Imperium. It’s a good thing for us, more hostiles is always better. And really it doesn’t change anything practically for us. What I mean is for the 2 years we have been allied with Imperium, we have always been deployed away in other regions like Delve or Curse, which are far far away from Imperium core. So all the guys who are calling us out for being blobbing whatever have no clue. Since we’ve always been on our own really fighting our own campaigns mostly outnumbered ourselves.

Boki > No problems working with non-CFC groups? Not like, morally or ethically compromised as a result?

Sister Bliss > We often work with non CFC guys, we spent the last 1.5 years in Curse even though we had sov in Tenal, but that was only used by a minority for making income. During that time we manage our own politics, in fact we always manage our own politics, so we are always up for working with other people if it makes sense. That said, we are very much against big blue lists, and the current situation is not something which we think is good for the game.

Boki > It certainly seems like you were the catalyst for change in this example, can we expect more from INIT in the way of twisting knives in the future?

Sister Bliss > We are more than happy twisting knives and stabbing faces. But we are also very aware its pretty much just us out here in Syndicate (with RZR crashing with us atm), and we’re surrounded by so many hostiles that getting a gf is pretty hard work. But our guys are having an amazing time with all the content. We didn’t deploy here because we would have loads of blues after all, we deployed into the middle (or rather behind) of hostiles.

Running a PVP alliance within the CFC is probably a daunting task, Sister Bliss felt like this was really just par for the course for a group that behaves as the anti-goon, seeking content and undocking regularly. I was really quite interested to hear what TISSU had to say about INIT being able to come out victor alone, so I found fleet commander Capri Sun KraftFoods to ask him some questions about yesterday’s brawl.

Boki > Wanna summarize briefly how it all transpired from your end?

Capri Sun KraftFoods > So, we were out doing some sov timers in casual ships. We’ve had this kind of daft thing where we just use warp speed fit carriers (like 4au/sec) as small gang ships, no tank, just dps and stuff to warp fast. One of them randomly got tackled in a system he shouldn’t really have been in, then we got intel TC were bringing a smallish (30-40 man) Ferox fleet, so I asked how many people we had with carriers, was like 7 and a couple faxes, so i was like #yolo lets all jump in. Culture brought more, and INIT got wind this was going down, and we started trying to deagress and extract, but Culture were pouring crazy amounts of dictors into system. At some point, be it a batphone, convo, w/e, INIT and Culture decided not to shoot each other and kill us together. At this point I need to express that it was ~8 carriers and 3 faxes vs 50 Culture and ~100 INIT. Lex happened to pop on about this time, so he started forming a Mach fleet but numbers were bad, and INIT were in Tempests so they started alphaing machs. In the end we lost like half the machs, all the armor carriers (we called the shield ones to jump out) and a few faxes. Was actually a fun fight, was just really gay Culture teamed up with INIT despite us both being MBC nerds and forming up together regularly to help OSS deal with them in Syndicate.

Boki > Now, that concept of MBC seemed like an undercurrent on the reddit thread, some guys felt like TC weren’t actually MBC (as they hadn’t been paid), some guys said they obviously are, what do you think about that grey area of MBC membership? Did it impact this situation?

Capri Sun KraftFoods > I mean there’s certainly a fuzzy edge to membership in the MBC, but Culture are well within it. We weren’t blue with culture and if they’d just dropped dreads or w/e and killed our carriers it’d be whatever. There’s no actual fallout within MBC though.

Boki > you and raknor go way back, would it be fair to say you used to be friends even? Has this situation changed anything between the two of you?

Capri Sun KraftFoods > raknor’s not a bad guy, we just have very strong disagreements on how to play EVE Online: A spaceship game. raknor’s got a very “friends don’t drop friends” view on things. I’m just like w/e NBSI. The last year particularly there’s been a kind of unspoken known between pretty much any big group in EVE that if the CFC comes to a fight, everyone shoots them first. It’s not a diplo thing or whatever, they’re just gay and no one likes them.

Boki > Speaking of NBSI, few dudes on the thread yesterday were being critics of the TISHU decision to reset standings just a short time prior to this. Do you give any weight to that argument that TISHU shouldn’t have reset and/or should have expected this as a result?

Capri Sun KraftFoods > Not at all. Anyone posting that in the thread is working off false information, the last 2 weeks TISHU has been going down the MBC list doing mutual resets, all very above board. We’re still in all the channels, still helping out if needed etc. At the moment we’re only blue with NC, PL, Horde and TEST, and TEST only because no one’s actually got a hold of their diplo to do it mutually.

Boki > Sister Bliss of INIT went on record to say that they are actually the antithesis of the goon, typically working outside the context of CFC on their own campaigns and shit, actually undocking and getting content. That concept resonate with you?

Capri Sun KraftFoods > INIT have always been a very strong independent group, I respect what they’re about. I mean if you look honestly, when Phoebe was coming up they looked at where they’d be sitting Tenal and noped the fuck out of there. But at the end of the day, they’re still CFC.

Boki > So even if fiercely independent, they should still be primary in any 3rd partying?

Capri Sun KraftFoods > The reason they are in Syndicate was to create “a distraction” to give the rest of the CFC some room to breathe, so yeah INIT are a very strong independent group, but it’s disingenuous to imply they’re not CFC.

Boki > INIT felt like they had enough on field to resolve the battle without TC dreads being involved, that the drop really only made the resolve quicker, thoughts on that?

Capri Sun KraftFoods > if they hadn’t dropped dreads our remaining faxes would have tanked the field easily until they ran out of cap boosters. So basically yeah, they’d have just sat there shooting faxes for like another 30 minutes. CO2 were on the way the whole time, and that might have been enough time for them to get there before we were cleared off the field. If I’d remembered to grab more exile before he fight I’d probably have tanked. Idk I’d have dropped dreads if I was in their position, doesn’t seem like a bad call.

Boki > You mentioned that Lex arrived partway through the brawl to form machs, is it possible the battle could have been drawn out longer and gone favorably if the decision was made to escalate with supers?

Capri Sun KraftFoods > You know, it’s funny you ask that because like an hour after the fight I was spit balling that exact question with Lex. I’m fairly confident if we just went all in with Supers and HAW titans from the get go we’d have won, but it was just a fun fight with someone was ostensibly an ally, so no reason to do it really.

Boki > TISHU has been described as being pretty loose with caps, talking about the decision to use ships rather than building castles to let them rot, having to lose a few carriers in the name of content, worth?

Capri Sun KraftFoods > Yeah basically we’ve spent so much time being dumb with those carriers and had a lot of fun, and that fight was fun too. No one was actually fussed about the loss, just the context was frustrating. I actually just got SRP on my FAX as I was chatting to you here and already bought another one 😛

Boki > #alreadyreplaced. Anything else you want to add about the brawl or the trend in WWB atm?

Capri Sun KraftFoods > shout out to Gigx for being a baller. I poked about the fight to a few people not really expecting anyone to come, he pm’s me back 10 mins late because he was afk and is like “I’m forming”. Not like “how is the fight going?” or “do you have a dscan?” or “who else is coming?”, just “I’m forming”. Balls of steel.

Boki > Are you worried at all about the Fountain invasion being discussed atm on /r/eve?

Capri Sun KraftFoods > I know that post on reddit is a troll but I’m sure they’ll do something like that eventually. I saw it right as it hit and I’d been hearing some stuff from other people so I legit bit for a couple hours. You see stuff like that all the time: “haha wouldn’t it be funny if haha xd lmao…… but no really tho”

Boki > guess we’ll have to wait and see =)

I thanked Capri for his input on the article, and we talked a bit about the decline in space journalism in the last few months. It’s my hope that BN24 can stand alone among the composite of compost that has become /r/eve and get to digging up the real news, writing real articles, and talking to actual people. Hopefully you stay tuned!

As for the TISH-cident, it seems like all is fair in love and war. Hopefully Guardians will make it to the next event (providing Ironwulf undocks in something bigger than a pod), and who knows, maybe we’ll even see Sister Bliss on the other side of the battle in the name of #glorious #space #content.

Until then, BN24 over and out.