(The author of this is the Executor of Diplomatic Immunity and may unintentionally be biased)
Major Eve brawls frequently make the news. People get excited about massive super fights, billions of isk killed, and various alliances getting “dunked”. These events, although frequent, are not the overall norms in Eve. Small fights, little wars, and grudge matches keep Eve’s sandbox moving in between the momentous occasions.
One of these little wars sprung up in the space Ghetto known as Wicked Creek. Diplomatic Immunity (DIP) moved into the area as Phoebe Freeport Republic (PFR) were conducting a campaign of sorts again RANE. PFR had made significant gains taking away LP1M-Q and were in the process of taking 3Q-VZA as well. DIP saw an opening, and a long day of fighting ensued. A EN24 article was published here about the events of that fateful day.
DIP and PFR had skirmished previously in the normal roaming gang fight style. This was the first time either entity had clashed throwing more significant assets into the fray. Both sides walked away from that day, with a mutual respect for each other and “friendly enemy” style.
Wicked Creek became a major hot spot as TEST moved in and the ensuing ruckus laid waste to the region for a significant portion of time. A full historical relevance article was written previously here. Overall the region has mostly settled down, with overall control belonging to TEST and their allies. However, this put some constraints on other smaller entities, such as PFR and DIP. DIP was unable to expand in Wicked Creek due to TEST being able to block them, and PFR was unable to open new freeports for the same reason.
This led to PFR attacking DIP’s station system in 3Q. Behind the scenes, there was leadership drama involved as Walter and Kasken had different opinions of the DIP/PFR relationship. DIP repelled the attempt with the help of their Red Alliance (RA) allies. The fallout of the leadership arguing started a down path for future relations that was inflamed both by reddit and the Kasken Kronicles, a blog written by Kasken from his perspective.
Still, at this point, not much intensified quite yet between the two entities. Roams and fights still happened, and DIP pulled back to Insmother into their new pocket of space. Hostilities remained at a normal minimum, and until PFR launched another offensive into 3Q. DIP managed to repel this attack as well with some very entertaining fleet fighting with PFR at the time. Battle report.
In retaliation of this even DIP launched what they dubbed as “Operation Payports” which was designed to mock the PFR name. The goal of this campaign was to get PFR to back off from attacking DIP’s assets. DIP’s goal was to get PFR to understand that harassing DIP would have consequences. It also served the additional purpose of giving a narrative to DIP pilots of the bad guys to go fight and unify the PvP. Kasken stated he wanted to take away some freeports, however not 4-CM8I as it was PFR’s home.
The campaign began with DIP reinforcing LP1M. The IHUB, station, and PFR JB bridge were all reinforced. This occurred while PFR was in 3Q working on reinforcing DIP’s station. After DIP and allies finished in LP1M, they arrived in G9L-LP and killed the defensive SBUs that were placed there. Finally DIP headed down to 3Q, reinforcing the PFR staging tower and killing the SBU.
There was a hiccup with LP1M however. TEST came in, repaired the station on the shield timer and DIP was unable to contest at that time. TEST killed one sbu and planted their own, a fact that Kasken entirely missed the next morning when his yolo Moros reinforced the station again as the shield hadn’t full regenerated. TEST did not contest the IHUB or JB tower as it was destroyed, nor did PFR. TEST did contest the final station timer allowing it to be saved. TEST put up defensive sbus and left system in PFR hands.
DIP chose to focus their efforts on G9L at this point, and with the help of RA supers reinforced the system very quickly. The next day the IHUB came out in later US TZ which has typically been DIP’s weakest TZ. PFR formed a fleet, DIP formed a fleet and a three hour brawl began. Positioning, repositioning, repping, and some extremely close calls occurred. At the end of the night, the IHUB was reinforced into final timer and DIP managed to escape the newest PFR fleet landing. Battle Report.
The following night was the station timer, in which almost 200 people were in local. Not everyone was there to help TEST / PFR defend or fight for the station, however Kasken chose to not contest it as the entirety of local was neutral to DIP. G9L was saved and DIP decided to focus on towers instead of SOV.
A “Hellcamp” (the term is used loosely as to the size of the entities involved) was established in the PFR home system of 4-CM81 allowing DIP and allies to freely roam reinforcing towers. Offlined towers were killed, several reinforced, and station services were incapped. At the end of the day billions were lost. Battle Report.
DIP chose to attempt and contest the final G9L timer for the IHUB, when it was discovered PFR had capitals lurking that might be used to rep. DIP and some allies showed up, which ended up leading to a fight with TEST & PFR. Battle Report.
Several additional fights had occurred over the course of these events, including the Revelation fight PFR had invited other entities to enjoy. DIP and their allies self invited and went to enjoy the festivities. Battle Report.
Quietly behind the scenes, LP1M was still contested, as the TEST defensive SBUs were destroyed, and as new ones were put up they were also destroyed. Once TEST chose not to put new ones up the system was once again reinforced. LP1M fell without resistance, however the TCUs were onlining during TEST prime time. TEST took control of the system, and set their own TCUs onlining. The delay cost them, as RA was able to take back and finish killing the TEST TCUs with literally minutes to spare and regained control of LP1M.
The war in space was light compared to the reddit war that was also ongoing. Kasken’s blog continued to be extremely controversial and as many shots were fired via reddit as there were in space. The propaganda war was more terrifying to behold than the spaceship violence. Victories and trash talking were proclaimed on both sides of the conflict via redditors.
Shortly after LP1M fell DIP knew that taking any additional PFR systems would be extremely difficult, and the DIP diplomats reached out to PFR who negotiated a POS/SOV/REDDIT NIP. Yes, the out of game propaganda war will also end.
Overall the fighting saw billions destroyed, and Wicked Creek remained extremely content heavy for weeks. As what started as a small war between PFR and DIP has escalated to a possible larger conflict between TEST and RA, Wicked Creek does not seem to be slowing the pace of destruction down anytime in the near future. These small scale conflicts will continue to give pilots a focus, and narrative to keep playing Eve.
This war only involved a few hundred pilots, no supers were harmed during the making of the war, and the battles themselves were not the stuff of legend. The fights were extremely enjoyable, and small scale conflict without the Tidi. Content was provided to small alliances, the market for certain ships in Jita probably went up a bit, and good fights were had by all.
At the time of this writing, unsubstantiated rumors of “Dreddit is recruiting” are ongoing.
