Disclaimer: The opinions within this article are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of EN24, its staff or writers. EN24’s opinion is neutral but we welcome everybody to share theirs! This was written several weeks before The Mittani announced that he would be closing down the kick starter project.
I’ve been an Eve player for several years focusing on covert ops warfare, and the “piracy and mercenary” play style. I’ve been a critic on EN24 for almost as long. That means I write opinionated pieces about things in Eve rather than “report the news.” I can be fairly harsh.
Some people may feel as though I am being critical of the Fountain War kick starter based on some “anti-goon bias.” Of course it’s very popular to promote a victim narrative in Eve as it is in the real world, as that often justifies some sort of counteraction aimed at meeting one’s goals. However, I’m not some idealist, I’m attempting to speak from a strictly realist perspective when addressing the issues and concerns regarding this book. My over all concern with the book is that it will be an attempt at self promotion to further a particular narrative at the expense of historical accuracy. Now I know the whole line about how the victors write history, and I’m certainly not idealistic enough to realize that’s not how the world works. Even so that does not mean it has to be just so blatant and cringe worthy.
When first hearing that this book will be written about the Fountain War between the CFC and TEST my question was “why THAT particular war? Especially when there are several other much more interesting alternatives. For example, the fall of the “Old” Northern Coalition in early-mid 2011 (not to be confused with NCdot) was a much more consequential event with longer lasting implications. Old NC was comprised of several alliances and as the name implies, they lived in the north and spent much of their time getting rich off of moon goo and ratting, much like the current CFC. However, unlike the CFC, the old NC built many supers and titans. Many of them were sold to the Drone Russian Federation to their east, other super power in Eve at the time. The DRF hired PL and pushed against the Old NC shattering the coalition. A little known alliance called Goonswarm had at the time been invited to crash on Tau Ceti Federation’s couch in the northwest. The fall of the Old NC sat just fine with the Goons who opted to sit out the war and let the north burn. White NoiseDOT, a Russian alliance along with Raiden as a semi-successor to the old Band of Brothers which the Mittani always seems to mention, were the two dominant sov holding powers. They had a few clashes in which the two more experienced alliances used “blap titans” which were fit for tracking to slaughter masses of Goon ships. Of course, the Goons felt that this was extremely unfair and lobbied heavily to nerf the tracking titans. Eventually White Noise had some internal issues causing a schism and spawning a splinter alliance called “Black Noise.” This weakened both alliances and ultimately spelt their end. Raiden lacking any strong ally opted to retreat from the area. Pandemic Legion briefly attempted to headshot VFK with their supers and titans. But they were overwhelmed by Goon numbers and had to log their caps off in hostile space. Allegedly, after some back-door dealing PL was allowed to evacuate. It was the result of these events which allowed the Goons to expand their coalition in the north, absorb many of the Old NC members/allies and develop its hegemonic role we see today. Certainly this is a much more interesting story, however I would assume it was not considered by Mittens because, well quite frankly his side didn’t really play a central role.
The next conflict that comes to mind is the Tribute War of mid-late 2012. CCP had managed to create a production bottleneck around T2 products based upon Technetium, a moon mineral predominantly found in the north. The CFC, NCdot, Evoke etc formed a cartel around it and sought to inflate the price. It’s debatable if the cartel mechanisms themselves worked, or if the speculation was enough to ramp of demand. Whatever the case, prices soared and the cartel profited. However, there were disagreements between NCdot and the CFC and the two would go to war. Joining NCdot’s side would be Black Legion, a highly effective and pvp focused entity that had been ravaging the CFC from their NPC 0.0 base in Venal. Nulli Secunda, recently pushed out of their holdings in the south west by TEST and PL (informally the “Honey Badger Coalition”) joined them after a brief stint in lowsec. They would become known as “The Dotbros”, a more or less predecessor to N3.
(Full disclosure here, at the time I was helping develop the NPSI community known as Bombers Bar where I served as a diplomat for the patron corp and was involved in coordinating a merc contract against NCdot renters in Tribute, E3-NLE constellation. While the character that contacted me was not affiliated with the CFC I all but assumed that was more or less who our employer was.)
The Tribute War saw colossal casualties for the numerically superior CFC during much of the conflict. The smaller but higher skilled Dotbro force punched way above their weight class. Since the CFC could not actually win direct fights with the Dotbros, they opted to overwhelm the defenders by focusing on poses and sov itself through a multi-TZ offensive that contributed to a steady gain of territory. It was fairly interesting to see Mittens engage in some open air meta gaming. He threw praises at Elo Knight, leader of Black Legion, easily the most effective fleet commander the Dotbros had, and disregarded other Dotbro FCs as mostly incompetent. This is a classic move by which you inflate the ego of your opponent’s general while introducing internal rivalry and tension by making the others feel like the praise may be undeserved. It’s questionable whether this was effective or not. What was more concrete was the fact that there was tension between BL and NCdot. The tensions involved Wicked Princess as a supposed love interest as well as the comical “Falcon incident” in which Vince Draken (NCdot head) allegedly used an alt flying a Falcon to move some blueprints was attacked by BL members. This breathed a new meaning into the old Eve adage of “Because of Falcon.” At the same time, Vince Draken came up with the brilliant notion that while they were losing territory on their western front, the best thing they could do is attack SOLAR bordering their east. The combination of these issues crumbled the short lived coalition seeing NCdot lose their assets while BL returned to Venal aiming to exact revenge upon the CFC.
This would have certainly been a very interesting conflict to have a book of. There’s political intrigue, romance, betrayal, and drama. However even though the CFC won this war, it was a Pyrrhic Victory which didn’t exactly cast the CFC in the best light. They suffered enormous casualties to a smaller force. This allowed NCdot, but especially BL, to come out of the conflict looking even more like an effective fighting force. It was during this time that the phrase “Not winning fast enough” was being thrown around. Mittens opted to use it as a sort of a joke while the real meaning behind it was never lost on more perceptive observers. Essentially what it boils down to is that the CFC was expected to win considering its much larger size and extensive wealth. Not winning fast enough can easily turn into slowly losing. Even today most people have no idea just how close the CFC was to coming to an agreement favourable to Dotbros and pulling out of Tribute. Had the Dotbro leadership had some more foresight and carried themselves with a bit more discipline, the conflict could have been an utter defeat for the CFC. Even though they lost their territory, their reputation grew where as the CFC were seen as “the dirty blobbing cowards.” These are essentially meaningless impractical notions. Eve isn’t a game that’s about fair, but a game of tangible results. However reputation itself, while intangible, can have some very real effects in how members view themselves as part of a community. I’m certain Mittens is aware of the role that reputation plays and why he wouldn’t really want a book written about a conflict in which the much larger CFC barley managed to win a war in, where they were man-handled by the Dotbros in most of the combat engagements.
Seeing a pattern yet? No? Let’s try one more.
The project could have even focused on the largest war in Eve history, the humbly named “Halloween War” of late 2013 and 2014 where literally half of the Eve 0.0 universe fought the other half. N3PL had destroyed the Russian political structure of SOLAR and its allies in the eastern regions. They then succeeded to set up their own expansive rental dominion. TEST had been expelled from Fountain along with their Period Basis ally, Tribal Band. Their fall allowed the Against ALL Authorities along with other southern groups to re-emerge in Catch and elsewhere. AAA and Solar, historic enemies, (referred to as RUS or “RUSRUS” in this conflict) felt that it would only be a matter of time before N3 (composed of NCdot, Nulli, Nexus etc) and PL would invade the south so made moves to strike first. N3PL managed to hit RUS staging systems first with the CFC jumping to support RUS. There was a somewhat brief secondary front opened up north with EMP on behalf of N3PL facing off against CFC forces. But for the most part almost all of 0.0 was concentrated in the southern regions. N3PL were pushed back into the east and once the CFC felt that it made good showing, they withdrew from the conflict. N3PL then reconquered all lost territory and completely conquered RUS sov. The details of B-R are noted elsewhere in detail, but for those that do not know it was the most expensive battle in the history of Eve.
This conflict having been relatively recent in memory would have certainly been easier to write about. Unfortunately this conflict was one which the CFC lost the war. Sure, the narrative goes that the CFC was only there for third partying, along with the cliché “didn’t want X anyway” but at the end of the day, their side lost the war. N3PL created a huge rental empire with profits so large and undeniable even the CFC went against their historical hostility against renting by creating their very own alliance specifically for that purpose. In effect N3PL won the war so soundly that the CFC had to change their cultural beliefs in order to be able to compete. No amount of state media spin or kool-aid can change that fact.
Still having trouble seeing the pattern? The pattern is not “what do all these conflicts have” it’s what they do not have. None of these conflicts show the CFC in a context in which they play a main and central role in a victory that cast them in a particularly good light. They played a scavenger role regarding the fall of the Old NC, the Tribute War was an embarrassing Pyrrhic victory in which the losers came out looking better, and the Halloween War was a sound defeat and failure to uphold CFC’s interests. Why is that important? Because reputation is important and of course Mittens knows this. It’s only natural that the chief of his space tribe is going to have an ego as well. You don’t run an empire by being Mother Theresa and I can’t fault him for wanting to self-promote. However, there are certain ways to do this in a classy manner rather as opposed to crossing some lines and doing it in a cringe inducing manner.
To give an example solely so that we may understand where one would cross such a line, it would be as if I were to take EN24 and change its site format in a way that mixed its articles with advertisements so that people accidentally press them and generate revenue, or if one were to hide such links on the borders of the articles with the same effect. Worse still if readers were to complain about it, I would call them stupid and mock them for their opinion. Meanwhile, I’d also be trying shove non-Eve related products down their throat, much of which was of poor quality or unfinished, in a blatant attempt to maximize profits in a no-class manner. Even if you had no idea who I was or had no particular strong feelings toward me or my beliefs, you’d rightfully condemn me as being pretty cringy and self-centered no?
So what was the Fountain War about? Well to understand the conflict, one has to understand the relationship between Goons and TEST. Goons are a much older alliance that had their origins in Something Awful forums. TEST, specifically the executor corp, Dreddit, originated from Reddit. The Goons groomed TEST as their sort of client state settling in Fountain and covering the CFC’s south/western flank. There were many common features originating from a forum. There was a similar sort of culture and the fast and easy access to new recruits. TEST looked up to the Goons as a parent figure. Goons had gone through many of the struggles an early alliance would have to and helped TEST avoid many of the problems they had. This allowed TEST to find its grounding much faster and establish itself as a strong force sooner than otherwise. Living in the extremely profitable region of Fountain ensured they were well supplied and line members were happy.
The downside to this was that TEST never really developed some of the strong leadership corner stone type individuals that the Goons had. Having a role as a leader among its coalition, the Goons could do things like ‘promote’ individuals from allied entities into the Goons. TEST was numerous but more or less dependent on Goons and the CFC on a political and cultural basis. This relationship would eventually grow to spoil TEST and its leader, Montolio. The relationship between Goons and TEST would rift more and more over the course of a few key events.
TEST wanted to emulate its bigger brother and opted to form its own coalition of sorts. They had had enough of blocking out the sun with their Drakes and instead wanted a taste of “elite pvp.” In comes cool kid Pandemic Legion, super capital powerhouse and an entity more than willing to take TEST under its wing to form the “Honey Badger Coalition.” Now around this time two major Russian alliances were fighting, one being Against ALL Authorities in Catch along with its allies against Red Alliance to the east and their respective allies. As AAA began to defeat RA, a deal was struck in which RA would cease hostilities and in exchange AAA would grant RA territory among its allies, Nulli Secunda, in the south west. Nulli and RA did not get along and started to fight which drew in PL. RA was knocked out of the war fairly early while Nulli and PL went head to head with each side drawing in their allies AAA and TEST respectively. Eventually Nulli pulled out (this was when they went to FW and later on would eventually join up with Dotbros to fight in Tribute) and the HBC would take over Delve and Period Basis installing emerging ally, Tribal Band, in the area.
The conflict between the HBC (PL/TEST) and AAA and its allies escalated into a fairly bloody conflict. TEST could roll in blobbing casual fleets here and there and PL was more than happy to use them as a meat-shield and fly their super-caps relatively risk free. But when it came to an extended sov war against an experienced entity that had been in a grinding deadlock with RA for so long, things didn’t go as smoothly and TEST had to call in “papa goon” to help grind out territory. Long story short, AAA loses.
Familiarity breeds contempt is a proverb that means that when one becomes more familiar with another, they tend to notice their faults and tensions can arise. Goons were not used to being in a “support role” for such a war. They came in because TEST needed help and the logistical and military machine that the Goons have went to work establishing jump bridge networks, taking key systems for staging and grinding territory. What this meant depends on who you ask. Mittens felt that he was providing his ally with the help he needed. Montolio felt that this was Mittani’s way of taking too much control of the situation and not respecting TEST’s independence.
Tensions continued to rise between TEST and Goons through another CFC member alliance called Fatal Ascension lead by Zagdul. TEST/Montolio and FA/Zagdul did not get along. They shared a border and even though they had standings with the Goons, that protection did not extend to one another. Mittens stepped in order to try to get the two sides to play nice. Some basic rules were put in place such as not cloaky camping ratting systems or attacking jump bridges. Both sides carried out extensive cov ops attacks against each other’s members. Mildly annoying? Sure. But this is where TEST and Montolio fucked up. Montolio began speaking about outright destroying FA under Goonswarm’s nose and more or less handed Mittens his justification for a war by acting like an unreasonable child. When Montolio was removed from alliance channels for his behavior, he made it public knowledge that he’d be contacting N3 and other parties implying an invasion of CFC space. However Montolio lied to himself thinking anyone was really going to back him. TEST by itself was grossly incompetent perhaps slightly more powerful than Brave Collective at its height. Shadoo of PL urged Montolio NOT to go to war with the CFC and that PL would not be putting their all in such a conflict.
This is basically where the “Fountain War” began, where we could assume the book would mostly be set in and at the same time where the whole situation would become much more boring than many of the previous aspects discussed. The CFC and TEST would go to war while PL and N3 would provide tentative and partial support in the conflict. Mittens would presented this war as “The CFC defeating TEST, N3 and PL” but in reality N3PL lent only token support. Even worse, PL was actively recruiting much of the members of TEST leadership that actually was competent to any degree leaving TEST as an alliance itself even less competent. To make things even worse, Black Legion was also hired by the CFC to support their objectives against TEST. Sure the number of players involved in the conflict was high but without N3PL’s full support there was no question who would win.
Essentially the Fountain War was the 280 pound CFC beating their 120 pound red headed step child while bystanders in the form of N3 and PL stood around saying things like “aww geez ease up on them” and “hey man I know you’re getting your ass beat but I’m gonna borrow your car for just a sec.” The truth isn’t exactly a compelling story to read.
An accurate and more in-depth analysis of the situation would go even further and state that this was a civil war that existed due to the Goon’s intelligence and diplomatic failure to either topple Montolio while maintaining its ally or a failure to recognize that TEST had no capability to stand against the CFC, let alone invade, without N3PL taking a more proactive role.
The only way this book is interesting is if the author were to embellish some things and give it the Mittani spin; “CFC fights war with ungrateful ally who has called upon vast enemies. Through skill intensive operations, meta gaming and strategy, the CFC is victorious.” But that’s NOT what happened and portraying it as such is exactly like the aforementioned cringe inducing self promotion. “Your Story, Your History, Make Sure it is told” comes off as fairly dishonest once we apply some critical thinking to all of this. Even Mitten’s nice words in his video about how “we need to share our story and show our friends what it is that we do” comes off as insincere when critically considering the aforementioned details.
I don’t blame the author at all and quite frankly I’d love to see him work on an Eve project. I’d just advise that he finds better material and that he’s not used for ulterior and selfish motives. Nor do I blame CCP as this would be a great opportunity to promote Eve, something I’m all for. But the only way to turn this into an exciting story is to make it a dishonest propaganda piece as the truth is much less inspiring. We have much better examples of what Eve is, and those stories shouldn’t be side stepped because of one personal attempt at self promoting.
There are also some basic questions regarding funding. 90,000 for the writer is fine, we won’t debate that, but some of the other prices are a bit questionable. Let’s say everything is spot on (even though there are some problematic numbers), but the question remains who else is making money off of this? If it’s the author and CCP fine…but is anyone else? Jeff Edwards (the author) stated he was not a liberty to say as part of the contract agreement. I don’t know about you but that sort of deal leaves me feeling uncomfortable.
Total money distribution:
60% Author Expenses ($90,000)
20% Publishing and Distribution ($30,000)
10% KS and processing fees ($15,000)
5% to Merchandise ($7,500)
5% to Marketing ($7,500)
So 90k goes to the author. That’s fine. But it would really go far to establish trust for the project if one could explain specifically where the rest of the money is going. “KS and processing fees” for $15,000 or $30,000 for publishing and distribution could be broken down more. What part of the “processing” costs $15,000 and so on and so forth?
But maybe I shouldn’t worry about any of this. Hey it’s a good thing regardless because it promotes Eve and that’s good! Nobody is forcing anyone to buy the book or to give money. This is true. Yet again as I stated above the only way this is even really an entertaining war story rather than the one sided massacre is by throwing in spin…and if we do that then is this really authentic Eve, or just Eve flavoured propaganda?
***UPDATE***
As noted at the beginning this article was written several weeks before its posting. This was because even though some of our writers and editors had a critical opinion of the KS much the same way a lot of the Eve community did, we did not want to be an impediment to the possibility of the book coming to fruition. If the project could stand on its own, so be it. We certainly did not want to sway anyone against it.
However, now that the project is done and over with we’re more than free to express our views. I still hold the view that rather than the Eve community being toxic, as Sion claimed, it was the poor management and bad public relations that the CFC has earned itself over the years that killed this project. The KS not only pushed non-CFC members further away, but even high profile individuals of GSF which have either left completely or have stepped down or gone afk. Mitten’s half hearted “apology” which basically amounted to “I’m SORRY that everyone else around me is such a complete idiot and I’m SORRY i didn’t step in and tell them how stupid they were.”
This is not the end of us seeing an “Eve book.” In fact we already have a book detailing the history of Eve coming out soon. However, the way Mittens has handled this project simply reinforces the notion his critics have stated before: Mittens is a tainted brand and if CCP would like such a work to be published, they are better off finding someone within the community who can represent the project in a much less hostile and incendiary manner or using an entirely neutral party.
Of course I’m going to be accused of being “Grr Goon” a term referring to someone being unreasonably upset with Goons. The term is a dismissive tactic in order to deal with external criticism much the same way the cognitive dissonant phrase of “didn’t want X anyway” works. “It isn’t that I’ve acted in a certain way that galvanized the community into being critical of me. Everyone else is just unreasonable and misunderstands me!” It’s pouty entitlement. If you want to be liked and respected it is no one else’s responsibility of your own to make that happen. There’s plenty of people still left in the CFC/GSF that realizes that and hopefully they’ll be allowed to speak and help present a meaningfully positive image out there.
~Seraph IX Basarab
