The “Halloween War” began when AAA, Solar, Black Legion, Darkness and others joined into the third largest coalition. This was a move surprising to most although it seemed like the most logical conclusion to others. This prompted N3 to strike at AAA’s staging system of GE- and off kicked the “Halloween War.” Its been over a month now and the lines on the map have not moved much. There have been some notable kills including a PL Titan, 70 or so BL dreads and various capitals and super capitals from both sides. GENTS did an impressive job of splitting up N3’s forces by invading from the north but their progress has been reversed in equal measure by Insidious Empire’s fleets. A notable gain perhaps was the loss of an N3 bridge although the defenders claim that the relevance is over stated by the opposition. Naturally both sides will either tout the trade of the system as either a major victory or an irrelevant side event.
Rather than make an article recalling the events that have already taken place, of which we have many fine examples on various Eve media sites, I prefer as usual to take into consideration what those events may or may not lead to. One thing that I have found impressive was the resilience of N3. Many people assumed they would fold like a deck of cards up against the combined forces of “DTF” and the CFC. In truth they seem to have been quite a bit more organized than expected. Although they certainly have more mileage than the new “DTF” Coalition, it seemed as if the CFC would push them over the edge easily enough.
So far that doesn’t seem to be the case. I don’t have a horse in the race but I certainly want to keep this war going for as long as possible. Peaceful Eve is boring and gives me little to do and even less to write about. I get the impression that N3 has a very big club which it has to time well to hit its mark. If not, DTF can easily parry and overwhelm N3. That club is of course the massive super cap fleet that N3 has. Between NCdot and PL we have one of the largest, if not the largest super fleet in game. While we may assume that the resources the CFC has compounded has allowed them to build up their own sizable cap fleet, they certainly lack the experience N3 has. DTF has their own large super cap fleet as well, but for one reason or another their effectiveness just doesn’t seem to ever get to the level of N3. Sun Tzu may have said that all war is deception, but a very big part of it is logistics as well. N3’s resources are an over whelming advantage for them vs “DTF” Coalition.
So what can we expect for the rest of this war? Well we may want to consider the most important development in recent memory of the war: Legion of Death joining N3 and tossing to the wind their ambiguous relationship with the CFC. We can expect their holdings in Geminate to be the focus of GENT’s resources very soon. It certainly wouldn’t be surprising. It certainly doesn’t hurt to have an extra 1500+ pilots on your side. The CFC’s presence has kept an air of fear over the battlefield ensuring N3 doesn’t escalate completely in any of the battles but if that is enough to give “DTF” the winning advantage is debatable. N3 simply needs to hold onto what it already has. Any gains are a plus. N3 also has a large propaganda advantage. The narrative of “fighting the evil Goons and their pets” holds the attention more than what any of the other sides can feed their pilots from “honorable third party” mantra to “take back our Drone regions.”
All N3 needs to do is simply stay alive and hold the line. With that they can claim “defeating the CFC and DTF.” A bit of a stretch but a potent propaganda piece nonetheless. My concern is that DTF’s “joints” are going to crumble in the conflict. It’s very improbable that at that point the CFC would escalate their commitment in the war. After all the whole point of being an “honorable third party” is that if your side losses, there’s no fault to you. Truthfully it would be a sad day of N3 lost all their sov. We’d then have Solar and other CFC friendly entities in the east as well as the south. It might be interesting for a while to see what N3 would do homeless. It isn’t as if you can build a great wall to keep them out of 0.0 forever. And it isn’t out of any idealism that I hold that opinion. N3, CFC, DTF, they’re really no better than one another. Those who hold themselves as morally superior, especially in a video game, are delusional. It’s just role playing.
Although the CFC will affect the course of this war, their influence is still dependent on what DTF and N3 do. A strong surge on the DTF side may see the CFC capitalizing on N3’s failures. Conversely, if N3 manages to sever DTF’s coalition through the added pressures of war, the CFC may not be interested in investing too much of their time and resources in the conflict. While some think “the point of this war is to see who wins” real strategists think “the point of this war is to see how the pieces of the next war will be set up.”
It is all together possible that a DTF/CFC victory would make 0.0 dull. As a student of history however, I can’t help but refer to the times when China was unified in the past. You still had the barbarians on the borders and human nature is so that there is always internal drama for this and that opponent to take advantage. I wouldn’t worry too much of the doom sayers. Big blue donut is a myth to scare the kids at night. As long as Eve is played by humans, we’ll have conflict.
– Seraph IX Basarab
