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Submission: FCON – feeling the strain

December 4, 2014

Disclaimer: The following piece was submitted by Tridgit

Yesterday one of the most active per capita corporations in FCON has made the decision to leave. While this in itself is not truly anything of note, the reasoning and the attitudes surrounding the decision are.

Phoebe has hit CFC strategy directly in its weakest point. The individual member alliance ability to fight and defend their own space is not out of reach, but out of plan. One can easily see that part of the CFC’s success is vested in the control asserted over everyone under the goon umbrella. Part and parcel to that is forcing all of the member alliances to participate in fleets together, as one. Allowing an individual member alliance to defend its own space is dangerous, as they may entertain thoughts of independence. Post-Phoebe the CFC leadership has to struggle with the status quo on overall strategy and losing space because of physical travel constraints.

The Mittani announces a campaign of vengeance against black legion in venal, immediately before having to redeploy to counter NC(dot) on the southern front. These actions have made line members in FCON feeling a little bitter.

“FCON on the whole has been unhappy with the CFC’s lack of commitment to helping FCON defend its space from Black Legion. The CFC was very active in the region before NCdot started applying pressure in the south, but since has been almost non-existent in the region. Is the CFC playing favorites?”

I interviewed a member of Veritas Theory, who for the moment will remain anonymous to protect his extraction from CFC space.

Recently how has life been in FCON?
“I can’t speak for the entirety of Verty, my perspective has been that FCON has been required to assist the CFC in the south by sending members and assets to help in systems like LBGI. We rountinly had FC’s coming into Alliance chat telling us to get off our asses and get to TEG, Jabber pings yelling for “max dudes”. When we show up, FCON fleets got the shit jobs, killing drones and that sort of thing and when our fleets would get wiped (because we have no logi assigned to us, surprise!) we would get laughed at, called FailCON, FCON-BESTCON LUL, and we we’re actually told to go wait in station. That’s our thanks for pitching in and helping. “

That’s down south, how about within your own space?
“When it came to our space, we were then left to our own devices when destroying Black Legion SBU’s and responding to reinforcement timers and such. .Because of the low numbers supporting us, we resorted to killing these with 50-60 man stealth bomber fleets with no support at all.”

How long would these ops usually take?
“Normally 3 SBUs to a system, each one would take 20-30 mins to kill. We would be racing so that we didn’t run out of time to kill the last one.”

Run out of time?
“We would always wait for some reason or another until the timer was 1.5 hours from on lining. So we had to race both to kill them before then, and before BL would show up and force us to hide cloaked. We tried to run from BL one time and most of us got killed.”

Did you ever fight BL directly?
“FCON has not been able to raise a fleet on it’s own capable of standing up to Black Legion that I’m aware of. Our tactic has been to do what we can as fast as we can and when BL shows up, hide. I would assume that if Black Legion wanted to take a large gang and burn the entire Branch region down, they wouldn’t meet much resistance. To hold that much space and to barely be able to police it makes FCON look like glorified renters.”

How often do FCON fleets have to go out to sweep SBU’s?
“Recently a lot. I got sick of this and haven’t been on a fleet in a week or so though.”

How do you feel the overall FCON stance on the CFC is right now?
“I think most of the leadership is still on board, but I think the FC’s and the average line pilots are pretty tired of it. Towards the end I saw fewer and fewer FCON pilots in CFC fleets, and I noticed more and more people hanging out in the branch just ratting.”

Including high leadership?
“Haha yeah, so you saw the ping.”

The ping in reference was when FCON skymarshal AARC got caught ratting in a carrier during a stratop.

Show up to tomorrows op : viewtopic.php?f=10&t=2028
One of our dear leaders decided he would go ratting instead of join a Strat-Op that was pre-posted and Broadcasted via FCON jabber multiple times.
https://kb.fcon.us/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=521511
While 190 fcon dudes formed up to defend our space : https://adashboard.info/intel/local/view/1y3cbJXQ amazing !
This saddens me. Don’t be that guy. 😳
[ 2014.11.29 14:35:49 ] plaing nice > 5-0WB9 heating up dramaticly
[ 2014.11.29 14:36:09 ] AARC > NO SHIT, tackled here
[ 2014.11.29 14:37:34 ] plaing nice > carrier tackled by ceptors ishtars and others
[ 2014.11.29 14:37:53 ] Negrutza Keikira > no1 around to help…we’re all on fleet
[ 2014.11.29 14:39:51 ] La Galana > there is a strat op going….

Right now what are you most annoyed at with how the CFC runs your game?
“Denying people SRP for bullshit reasons, yelling as us because we aren’t in fleet over jabber, making fun of newer pilots that might not know what’s going on, putting down entire alliances because we died on the field with no support and then making us go sit in station like 5 year olds.”

Do you think FCON will be given the same choice other CFC alliances in the past were? The o’l Mittani Merge n Join?
“Honestly I don’t know. I don’t think FCON has done anything so bad that they would be given an ultimatum”

Right on, well good luck in your future endeavors! Thanks for the corp meeting audio.
“No problem, cya”
From an outsider’s standpoint on the state of the CFC, I can see the fractures forming. Line members getting bitter, leadership not reacting to the change of environment, and the pressure of a two threats on opposing borders.
Time will tell of course, it seems maybe sooner rather than later.

Soundcloud Audio:

17:55 SambaSol “I hope the CFC falls apart”
26:15 Reklan (Diplo) “FCON might pull out of the CFC being that we can hold down our own sov…”