On September 23rd two titans owned by The Bastion pilots tokkig and maelle salazard were destroyed by forces from Hard Knocks Inc. and Pandemic Legion. Apparently subterfuge was used to lure at least 1 titan on field with a doomsday tanked Rorqual. The Rorqual pilot, Rajnikanth, who was neutral to The Bastion, was apparently contacted by Searbhreathach and given 5 billion ISK, a Rorqual and was told to set up a tower in Vale of the Silent.
The PYFA fitting tool, with all skills at level 5, shows this fit having 2,75M ehp with 2,11M hitpoints in hull. Depending on Doomsday skill level of a titan pilot, it might be theoretically possible to single DD this Rocqual. The killmail shows 72,6% damage from tokkig’s DD.
[23:34:54] Rajnikanth > someone approached me
[23:35:03] Rajnikanth > and gave me a rorqual and a bunch of stuff
[23:35:12] Rajnikanth > and said he’d pay me to put up a POS in vale
[23:35:32] Rajnikanth > i actually dont know what happened except i died and stuff died
[23:36:36] Aon Flux > so who contacted you? someone red, blue or neutral?
[23:36:41] Rajnikanth > ill link the name
[23:36:42] Rajnikanth > one sec
[23:38:08] Rajnikanth > Searbhreathach
[23:44:16] Rajnikanth > he was the neutral contact
[23:44:22] Rajnikanth > that gave me the rorq and paid me to do it
[23:44:23] Aon Flux > right
[23:44:32] Rajnikanth > idk who the PL FC was
[23:44:36] Rajnikanth > or what actually happened
[23:44:56] Aon Flux > how much did he pay you?
[23:45:08] Rajnikanth > 5b
[23:45:34] Aon Flux > how long did you have the POS operational?
[23:53:19] Rajnikanth > they killed my first pos
[23:53:29] Rajnikanth > right beforehand
According to Reddit a neutral haulers was spotted in the system of V-OJEN setting up a faction tower. It was destroyed by a large titan and super fleet. Just 20 minutes later, the Rorqual was spotted in system apparently attempting to set up another tower in the same location. So naturally, tokkiq then dropped his Erebus and fired his doomsday at it which the Rocqual tanked. An Avatar piloted by Maelle Salazard jumped in afterwards and finished off the Rorqual with its own doomsday. In the description of any doomsday weapon, it says: After firing, you will be immobile for thirty seconds and will be unable to activate your jump drive or cloaking device for ten minutes. Given the fact that, as soon on the first tower killmail, there was a superfleet within jumping range, credit must be given to the initial tacklers on field for quickly deploying a mobile cyno jammer. This prevented them from calling in support despite both Titan’s having been fit with Cynosural Field Generator’s.
It has not been possible to get a comment from Maelle Salazard, but Tokkig from Strange Energy was very forwarding and provided his point of view of the events.
[23:19:20] Aon Flux > from the killboards, it looks like you jumped a Roq and a cyno was lit and you were counter-dropped.
[23:19:30] Aon Flux > Is that what happened
[23:20:53] tokkig > sort off
[23:21:32] tokkig > went to DD a rorq, jumped titans in to DD, hostile fleet comes through wh
[23:21:54] Aon Flux > through a wormhole?
[23:22:24] tokkig > yeah
[23:22:29] Aon Flux > I assumed they were bridged in due to the number of ships.
[23:22:54] tokkig > well, the first tackle came through a hole I think, not sure about the others
[23:23:07] Aon Flux > ok.
[23:23:31] Aon Flux > how long have you had that titan?
[23:23:44] tokkig > eeehm, think about 3 years
[23:23:56] tokkig > It survived B-R even in like 30% armor 😛
[23:24:27] tokkig > I missed the cyno inhib and when I saw it it was already online, otherwise it would have been fine
It has not been possible to get a comment from Searbhreathach, who was the initial instigator and financier of the bait operation, but it seems that V-OJEN will see more action, due to another tower kill, owned by Rajnikanth’s corp, just 5 hours after the titan losses.
A great thanks to Tokkig and Rajnikanth for interviews. Also a thanks to all the players from public channels, who provided names for this article.
