Darkness of Despair Disbanded; N3 Steps up Offensive in Six Regions

The sudden disbanding of Russian alliance Darkness of Despair, an integral member of the StainWagon coalition sent massive shockwaves throughout the EVE community today as many sought to come to terms with the lightning dissolution of a core member of the Russian-speaking EVE community and bulwark of the StainWagon/RUSRUS bloc. The disband, which occured at 20:44 GMT on the 10th of March was followed immediately by speculation from various commentators that there was a definitive correlation between the Crimean crisis and the decision to disband Darkness of Despair.

However, Whitmore, a director of Far East Inc, a Darkness of Despair corporation revealed today that the decision to disband had little to do with tensions between the Russians and Ukrainian contingents within the alliance. Instead, the disband was triggered by Ghost Storm/James Dimmick from Russian Thunder Squad, a co-leader in the alliance and holding corp director, who had previously been on hiatus and who appeared to have been frustrated with alliance participation numbers.

The context behind this decision lies in Darkness of Despair’s leadership structure following the decision of former alliance CEO Unionn to leave EVE Online 3 weeks ago, citing problems in real life. The leadership baton was then shared between Ghost Storm and Zumzat, also from Russian Thunder Squad. However allegedly both alliance leaders disappeared from the scene due to real life issues, and a quartet of leadership figures from various corporations stepped up to fill the leadership vacuum. Consequently, this devolved into infighting and a power struggle as there was no single figure or clear direction in which to drive the alliance. Upon returning, Ghost Storm sent the call out for a CTA fleet. Upon discovering that barely a quarter of active alliance members (around 60 individuals) were ready to go, the following message was sent out in the -DD- command channel:

[09.03.2014 22:13:05] Ghost Storm: DD in a weekend day and prime time

[09.03.2014 22:13:08] Ghost Storm: got 60 people in fleet

[09.03.2014 22:13:25] Ghost Storm: perhaps its time to press a button in order to avoid 
further stagnation

The aforementioned message was not taken seriously by the Darkness of Despair leadership as Ghost Storm had threatened on many occasions to disband the alliance whenever CTA fleet numbers were significantly lower than the number of players in alliance chat. It is not immediately clear what prompted Ghost Storm to proceed with his threat on this occasion, but the results became clear 20 minutes following his message in the command channel. He logged on his character in the holding corporation, proceeded to eject all Darkness of Despair corporations, and then shut down Darkness of Despair as a functioning entity. 77 systems in six regions – Impass, Immensea, Catch, Feythabolis, Esoteria and Tenerifis immediately became vulnerable.

In the aftermath of this incident, an order was given by xEvilHunterx, the interim Darkness of Despair leader to transfer all sovereignty and corporations to Darkness of Despair’s alliance Hand of Despair, supported by this following forum post by TreantProtector:

1. I can name various reasons for disbanding, but none of them included the unexpected sovereignty drop and leaving all of alliance members’ assets. We won’t know the reasoning behind the person who did this before he tells us.
2. The shadow of the -DD- of the past has finally dissipated.
3. The button was pressed by someone who is most likely Ghost Storm, but this is not 100%.
4. The details of this aren’t important.
5. Tomorrow (more accurately, today), most likely there will be a directors’ meeting, where questions about joining the new alliance during the crisis will be resolved (most likely it will be Hand of Despair). This will simplify the question of standings and the asset recovery process. At the time of writing, all former corporations are getting standings from DARKNESS. and .-A-. (SOLAR FLEET is still neutral now). What I suggest is setting these at individual and corporation level. Cyno alts should be moved to preferred systems. DARKNESS systems in the south (for example, DZ6-I5) or Feythabolis (DB1R-4 and nearby) are viable carrier destinations; old Gypsy members can use Curse and Y-DW5K and station systems nearby should be in dread range.
6. N3 TCUs will be up by 10:20 am Moscow time. In your best interests, make instawarp and tactical spots around the station. Pack all your assets in your carrier and jump out, and go into TS and talk with alliance members, at least on a corporation level. Packs of dictors and a cyno on the undock fuels paranoia.
7. If our allies are able to kill TCUs, we will have precious time and you will better be able to organise your retreat; if they don’t kill them, we will patiently carry out a series of CTAs to retake our assets.
8. TLDR; tomorrow will decide the fate of your assets. Take your cynos to NPC space, .-A-. space, HD or DARKNESS. space, make bookmarks in DR-. If there is a possibility to jump out CAREFULLY with your carriers – do it. JFs should stay docked – your corpmates will need the cargo space. Maybe we will be able to save the station, but don’t hope too much. Evaluate the risk and make the right decisions: the CFC is far away and NC. won’t miss this chance, as we didn’t miss it in B-R5RB. It will be hard. Keep in touch, do not do it all alone.

(The above post was translated by Whitmore and edited by Deviance Incarnate)

As of the time of writing, according to Northern Coalition. FC Yaman, N3/PL is in the process of taking possession of the majority of station systems in the six regions that became available upon the sovereignty drop created by the disbanding of Darkness of Despair, including the -DD- staging system of DR-427. Yaman announced that Northern Coalition. currently does not have plans to hellcamp the station as their military planning is based upon the assumption that the situation in Darkness of Despair was created by the conflict in the Crimea region of Ukraine. There are also confirmed reports that  -DD-‘s sister alliance, Against ALL Authorities is withdrawing from their new staging system of  Y-FZ5N to GE-8JV in Catch due to their currently untenable position in Immensea and in order to assist their Russian comrades with damage control.