On the 22nd of March, Test Alliance Please Ignore [TEST] held a state of the alliance (SOTA) where they announced their departure from the HERO Coalition. TEST had been a founding member of the HERO Coalition and with HONOR’s recent closure + Nexus Fleet closing down at the start of last year, Brave Collective is now the only remaining founder of the coalition. [TEST] announced during their SOTA that they would be moving to Wicked Creek in order to seek content, good fights and sovereignty. [TEST] have had drama with Brave for a long time however [TEST]’s CEO; Sapporo Jones claims this has not been a factor in influencing [TEST]’s decision. Wicked Creek has lately been turning into a very active PvP zone with Almost Awesome., Diplomatic Immunity. and Phoebe Freeport Republic all making moves on Rebel Alliance of New Eden [RANE] sovereignty holdings. [TEST] claim to be moving to assist [RANE] however whether this will be the case or not is yet to be seen. Almost all of the local entities have welcomed [TEST]’s arrival and hope that it will further enhance the amount of PvP already happening in the region. [TEST] will be staging out of U-HVIX (currently owned by [RANE]) and have announced that they will be gifted the entire constellation of J-9M7D which is considered to be the best constellation in Wicked Creek and is largely held by The Gorgon Empire at the moment.
Recording of the SOTA: https://soundcloud.com/eddicted/state-of-the-test-alliance-mar-2015
Associated Reddit thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/2zxvg0/cya_hero/
EN24 got in touch with [TEST]’s CEO; Sapporo Jones to have a chat about the SOTA and [TEST]’s goals for the future.
> What were the main points of the SOTA?
The main points were that the content in Catch clearly was not sufficient to hold TEST’s attention, and that while we may or may not be making the right decisions to get people to do helpful things, they were voting through participation to show us they weren’t interested. We also observed that the only real narrative strong enough to get TEST en masse in to fleets was the defense of our capital system. So we figured it was time to find a place to live that we could call our home and that TEST would want to both live in and defend.> Was your decision to leave HERO influenced by your often sour relations with BRAVE?
Not at all. Our relationship with Brave has gotten stronger and smoother over the last three to four months as Brave and TEST worked to defend Catch against PL. It’s just a content thing but also TEST of today is a radically different animal than TEST of when we joined HERO a year ago. It’s time to put that new TEST to work building something for itself. As I said in the SOTA, we are extremely appreciative of all that HERO and Brave specifically has done for us in the last year. They’ve been amazing allies and we would happily work with them again. It’s just time for us to find our own way.> What are TEST’s goals in Wicked Creek?
Rebuilding in to something even better than we’ve become. We are hanging out in our constellation, relaxing and enjoying our new Sandals Resort style vacation home. We will likely have fights with PFR who are great to brawl with, and I’m sure NOFUX will want to fight us too at a certain point. But short term, we’re relaxing.> Why have you blued all soverignty holding entities in Wicked Creek (+ Gentlemen’s. Club) par PFR and DIP?
Because I want our transition period in to Wicked Creek to be smooth and easy on TEST. We still have things to wrap up in Catch as we transition out, and things to handle in WC as we transition in. I thought it would be best to get some agreements setup so this can be as painless as possible end to end. In the future we will have to evaluate those agreements and see if they remain mutually beneficial. For now, it’s just being prudent.> Does TEST intend to hold large amounts of sovereignty long term?
Nope. Not even a little bit. Our dream is to have our little home carved out for us, and to have two adjacent systems with a jump bridge connecting them. It’s looking like we will have that. If organically it happens we take more sov then that’s fine, but we certainly have no intention of leaving Catch to get in to a protracted sov war with the residents of WC. We just want our little Sandals Resort, our Hedonism Island, our Island of Misfit Autists, that we can call home while we make TEST big and strong again. Then we will see what TEST wants to do and what is realistic for TEST to accomplish and go from there.> Can you could think of anything else that might be relevant?
There is one last thing, yes. I’ve seen some remarks regarding TEST having attempted the independent thing some time ago and it not working out for us, even going so far as to say Wicked Creek will be the same. I would like to address that as I did in the SOTA by saying the situation TEST was in during those initial deployments were plagued by problems not relating to TEST trying. We were trying to put Fountain behind us, trying to build a wallet, trying to organize and be effective but we were learning how to do all of that as TEST alone. It’s a difficult thing to learn how to do effectively, and the problems we faced we couldn’t work around due to myriad issues we faced organizationally and financially. Where TEST is at today we don’t face the same hurdles, the obstacles we faced then we don’t face today and the challenges we have in front of us are ones we can easily overcome. I think it’s important for people to remember that TEST is not what we were post Fountain.
[TEST]’s arrival in Wicked Creek will be sure to shake up the entire region aside from the massively increased roaming PvP activity that is sure to ensue, we may see some of the locals band up together against what they perceive as a large entity coming in to stomp on their small/medium PvP grounds. What [TEST] plan to do in Wicked Creek as mentioned above is unknown, however if they intend to help [RANE] in defending their sovereignty then they have one heck of a job on their hands as so far [RANE] have been unable to stop themselves slipping into inactivity and irrelevancy.
