Independence War Update

Circle of Two betrayed and disbanding; Impass is Lost

Co2 is disbanding after its leader GiGx was martyred by CCP and permabanned for some dubious remarks made while raging against co-leader the Judge's betrayal. The Co2 directors decided without Gigx it was pointless to stay together and received gigx's blessing for their corps to move on to new alliances. Co2 alliance meeting soundcloud here

There is no excuse for what Judge did. I guess he wanted to be a big man in internet spaceships--but he will likely fade into obscurity in game as no one will take him seriously ever again, especially inside goons. Never trust a traitor, even one of your own making, etc etc... It goes without saying that the co2 line member is the biggest loser out of all of this. However, it is yet another reminder that EVE is an unforgiving place but thats what keeps it interesting. Our support goes out to the Co2 members and we hope that they find new homes in the game, whatever they decide to do.

After Judge transferred the Co2 keepstar to Goons, TEST gleefully blued Goons who have moved into Impass and began to hellcamp the Co2 keepstar. Impass is lost but at least they can use asset safety to magically teleport their supers and personal items out to lowsec. The PVP powerhouse that is BRAVE will finally get the Impass sov they coveted while planning to backstab Co2 with Legacy for the last half year. TEST will probably stay out west another couple weeks to facilitate that grind.

The Current Status of our Fight

The largest impact on us is that we lost our war's western front and our main distraction against Legacy co. If Test is keen on making their members entosis more regions and grind hundreds of structures, there is now a high chance that they can choose to come after us directly and add to the blob.

We started the war in the expectation that co2 would be with us in Tenerifis against FCON/friends and didn't know that, not only was TEST lying to us about helping against drf or fcon, but that TEST was actively conspiring against us with secret "defense" pacts with the DRF. We have been rolling with the punches admirably and been winning fights across the board despite the situation. We've cleaned out Detorid and killed a number of solid FCON objectives like fortizars and a titan on their keepstar undock. Frankly we have FCON dead to rights and the only thing saving them from being bulldozed is DRF moving its entire coalition to sit in their keepstar and babysit them for hours on timers. Killing these DRF fleets is something we will keep trying to to do, but with Co2 out of the war, the opportunities to do so will need to be carefully chosen as we are now outnumbered than ever. FCON and DRF will get a large morale boost out of the Co2 self destruction but that doesnt solve the problem that they cant win timers against us outside of 1 major euro time zone blob a day.

We started this war to pre-empt the impending winter invasion of us by the DRF and their mercs/allies, fully understanding that the odds were stacked against us from the start. Our reason for fighting has never changed: we are fighting to survive against all the people that want to see us torn down because they have a grudge, or they think itd be entertaining, they were paid, or they think we're a threat to their RMT empire; it doesnt matter. This is our independence war and no one said it would be easy. In fact, we did it because it was going to be a huge challenge.

I havent bothered to add up the dotlan member count from everyone who has been willing to dogpile on us + mercenaries, but I'm sure its somewhere in the 50k-75k+ player range. For comparison TRI is now the largest its been in years at 1600 players on record, Shadow Cartel is 1000, Fraternity 3000, and Lumpy 481. As always, paper numbers dont tell the whole story but the takeaway is that with that 50-75k player count comes many different groups and FCs who are able to try and bury us under swarms of competing timers and fleets. So far we have managed this aggro successfully and won nearly every timer we cared enough to contest. That is entirely thanks to your efforts throughout all the good fights and annoying blueballs to make this happen so successfully. Keep it up!

Frankly I don't see an increasing blob as a threat--I see it as an opportunity. The worst thing that can possibly happen to us is our keepstar explodes and then we counter-attack our exponentially growing list of enemies without any of the defensive considerations we have now. There is no way we come out of this war, win or lose, without a ton more good fights and pvp fun, both during and after.

However, we are not there yet. In fact, if Co2 hadn't collapsed 48 hours ago, I'd still argue we were winning this war in the long run. We are going to keep fighting and keep having fun. Good ol' Chesty Puller sums it up nicely:

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Our Strategic Way Forward

The Plan™ is simple: keep doing what we are doing because its working. Its been weeks since we have had Co2 with us on a significant timer. Co2's removal from the war is a strategic set back, but the enemy still has to win the fights against us in the months to come. If the time comes to reposition our staging or modify our strategy, we will announce it in the future. For now IAS is still home and we are still on the attack!

Our priority continues to be to find ways to keep the enemy on the defensive while mitigating our own defensive aggro from DRF mercs like skills kills and Horde. Just like everyone else, CCP gameplay mechanics with citadels time zone tanking, asset safety, citadel defenses, and sov works to our defensive benefit as well. Any serious attack on insmother or Detorid will be long and painfully drawn out for the enemy while we can choose where and what to engage on our own terms. That means when Stalin goes to bed or is busy on the other side of the region, we get to haze another abaddon or hurricane fleet at will.

Time is on our side and there is no end game possible for our enemies where TRI loses some sov and suddenly stop being a pvp alliance to go sit in a corner and leave them alone. Fraternity, Lumpy, and Shadow Cartel are still with us and in it for the fights and fun too. Let the rest of EVE sit in their coalitions and be bored, thats not our concern anymore. We will show their members that an alternative gameplay to stagnation is possible by leading by example in wars like this one.