Over the last few days Northern Coalition. [NC] and Black Legion. [MEN.] reaffirmed their friendship to each other by setting each one another blue and both changing their staging systems to that of Hophib, a low sec system in the region of Aridia. Hophib is on the border with the CFC held region of Fountain and it is rumoured that it will be used as a platform for this force to attack into the Fountain region.
It also seems that DARKNESS. [DARK.] and The Kadeshi [THOR] may be looking to get in on the action by attacking Fountain on a second front, that of it’s border with [DARK] and [THOR] held space in the Delve region. According to sources the two alliances have, or are in the process of deploying to ZXB-VC on the Fountain/Delve border.
This is not the first time that the N3 alliances and Black Legion. have been on the verge of an all out attack on Fountain. At the end of last year, just after the Phoebe patch, it looked as if [NC] and their allies were invading Fountain, however it came to very little and those on the attacking side said they were not looking to take SOV, they were just looking for content.
A similar message is coming out of the [NC] propaganda team this time as well. A member from the Northern Coalition. alliance who wished to remain anonymous told EN24;
“We’re here to poke around and have fun, not on a warpath, not on a mission.”
Defenders of the Fountain region will mostly include pilots from the CFC alliances of Fatal Ascension [-FA-], http://evemaps.dotlan.net/alliance/Forged_of_Fire and Get Off My Lawn as these are the resident CFC SOV holders.
EN24 managed to secure this leak from the Fatal Ascension forums;
Fatal Ascension seem to be gearing up for an all out defense of their home lands, and also seem prepared to do so with only their local neighbours for support.
However, earlier this evening a post appeared on an official CFC forum by Blawrf McTaggart. It seems to indicate that the CFC will redeploy it’s entire fighting force to the Fountain region to counter the incursion of the N3 alliances and Black Legion.
With the CFC apparently bringing its full might to bare on this situation we will have to consider the possibility that the N3 alliances, who are not currently involved in the Fountain invasion of March 2015, will be drafted in to do so. If this is the case we could be seeing the last large scale war of the Dominion SOV era. Alliances like Nulli Secunda [S2N] and Gentlemen’s.Club [GCLUB] may decide, or get drafted by [NC], to get involved with the fighting in Fountain.
Black Legion. had an Alliance level meeting this evening and the notes from this meeting are interesting;
According to the Black Legion. alliance CEO, Elo Knight, this deployment is indeed an invasion and not just [NC] and friends looking for content. Black Legion. are also looking to shake off any rust that they may have from being out in Venal for a while. This wasn’t helped by the fact that the Sakht deployment didn’t generate much content. The Black Legion. pilots are finding it difficult to flash form like they were before their month break in Venal and they have been set a target for flash forming to try and get them back to their best.
[NC] have been busy over the last couple of days and SBU’s have been going down in key systems, including PNQY-Y.
Black Legion. this evening also went out in an Ishtar gang and started helping an NC. Tengu fleet to seed SBU’s around the region in systems like 6VDT-H and L-1SW8.
Do remember however, that over the next week or so a lot of the main FC’s and people behind the scenes will be making their way to a little gathering in Iceland and won’t be available for all the timers. This will leave a number of secondary or junior FC’s to continue the war effort, either defensively or aggressively.
Also if CCP announces any major changes to super-capitals during Fanfest and indicate that they may be coming in the June patch along with the new ‘FozzieSov’ or in a patch soon after, you could also see the last large super-capital fights of the era. Of course this depends on what those changes may be.
We will try and keep you informed of the latest news in Fountain as and when we have more information.
If you have anything that you think should be reported on EN24, please contact me at @mail_lite on Twitter, email at [email protected] or Eve Mail me in game.