Disclaimer: The opinions within this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of EN24, its staff or writers. Seraph IX Bassarab is a member of Angry Dragons, Psychotic Tendencies..
“We are the thinkers, the builders. We are the strength and the conviction. We are the shield and the sword. Defenders of the north and the aggressors of those that would bring harm to our own.” ~ SpaceMonkey’s Alliance description.
SpaceMonkey’s Alliance [SMA] recently hosted their SOTA (link below the fold.) Normally I would not put myself through listening to an hour of corporate motivational speaking but due to being deployed to Fade for the past week or so, I forced myself.
Read and listen along as I step through it piece by piece. The SOTA itself begins about 10 minutes in, so feel free to skip the Ricky Martin.
River firsts starts off his speech by detailing the many respectable accomplishments SMA has achieved in 2015. He claims that while the rest of 0.0 “piddled their pants”, SMA was able to brain storm tactics in the new sov and watch as their enemies “threw themselves against the walls of fortress Fade.” River reinforces the point remarking “all of Eew Eden watched.” Along with this accomplishment, the line members are reminded of a time when NCdot dropped Rattlesnakes in Fade and SMA crushed them and how Cloud Ring has been purged by them on several occasions.
The key aspect to take note of in this list of accomplishment is the language River is using. They “stayed on grid to continue the fight” all while “before the Imperium decided to be part of the content.” Again and again through these assertions, River is underlining that SMA is capable as a stand alone alliance. He claims that even though SMA has a lot of industrialists and players that prefer to shoot rats, they are “carebears with teeth.” He invokes pride in the fact that SMA is so active, a feat that should be expected of the 2nd largest alliance in Eve. (Goonswarm Federation [CONDI] being the largest.) River assures the line members that SMA is not merely just “bloated up” but have skillfully recruited quality players through their diplomatic core. SMA’s record regarding security, auth and organization is also praised despite the recent awoxing spree carried out by TISHU.
“Psychotic Tendencies are assholes.” ~ SMA Executor, River
River continues to address security concerns in SMA. Apparently there were members in SMA that were kicked but River claims that their software allows them to see past transactions that go far beyond what CCP’s tools do, and thus the spies were kicked. Of course nothing close to proof is provided since it’s all opsec. The interesting thing is, TISHU has only been in Fade a week, and no one’s actually been “paid” to spy. The trash throw away spy alts, some of which were able to join multiple SMA corps setting up multiple awoxes even after being kicked were ones meant to be burned and use for the initial shock and awe. Despite these facts, a sense of security and competence is assured for the line members who have been a touch rattled due to recent events.
“They don’t know the power of SMA…and they’ll know what that means.” ~ SMA Executor, River
Certainly a strongly worded threat with dire implications.
“So now back to some more positive stuff!” He continues discussing combat accomplishments. A year ago SMA would put 30 in fleet and now they are up to 200. Certainly an impressive feat of recruitment. River assures members that they are doing it because they want to and that no whip is being crack and no threat is being made. Some may disagree considering how pap links and corp taxes factor into your level of activity. Less activity means a higher corp tax.
“I love going to evewho and seeing that our alliance is ‘obnoxiously active.’ GSF’s level is the one below that.” ~ SMA Executor, River
There is a flat PvE tax of 10 percent. Then there is a structure tax that for every pos a corp anchors they get taxed a certain amount. This method is praised as a “bottom up income stream” and that River’s goal is for the alliance not to hold any moons instead preferring to allow corps to hold them. Personally I’m uncertain why this is a new method for SMA and not already implemented.
“It is an alliance goal that we put an extra large Citadel in each constellation.” ~ SMA Executor, River
The new structures have a large priority in SMA’s future. POCO taxes will be eliminated and buy orders will be put out by the alliance for members to sell to. SMA is extremely keen on focusing their industrial capabilities in this new venture. Due to the way ADMs work, River also wants corps to spread out over space in order to hold what they have currently. As he talks about people moving out, a line member remarks “And now we’re getting camped!”
“…it’s happening because you guys aren’t paying attention. If you’re going to rat in front of reds you need to do it with groups not by yourself. Be adaptive, move around, be flexible. It’s nullsec guys it’s not highsec.” ~ SMA Executor, River
Someone else asked about their sov. River acknowledges that TISHU does not care about their sov in Cloud Ring. However, River still states that they will still go and shoot it. In fact SMA is going to push into Cloud Ring, take all the stations and freeport everything setting it open to non hostiles. River continues, “Then we’re going to get on the forums and let people know that they can come have the space for free. No rent, no bullshit, if they don’t have negative standings with SMA, they can come have the space.” ~ SMA Executor, River
Having been GSF’s meatshield it seems SMA would like its own version.
“When our new scouting tool is done all of new eden is going to understand what it feels like to have SMA set your whole world on fire and disappear, because that’s what needs to happen.” ~ SMA Executor, River
River’s tone grows a bit defensive here stating how “everyone on forums states that SMA is shit, but nobody has been attacked by SMA. They’ve never experienced SMA showing up and lighting their shit on fire. They’ve never experienced what it is to fight an SMA fleet. They don’t know what it’s like to fight an enemy that kicks your ass and then stands there and waits for you so they can kick your ass again. And we’re going to show them what that feels like. Then the all the naysayers can get on forums to talk shit while their whole world is on fire.”
Absolutely terrifying.
“I want to talk to you about DMG. You’re all listening to it on the radio right now. The deal with DMG you guys is it’s not the mittani dot com. It is not Eve News 24. It’s none of that shit.” ~ SMA Executor, River
Not sure if perhaps he meant to take a swipe at the executor alliance’s media site or if he simply chose his words poorly. In any case he goes on to remark that DMG is not bias but for monkeys by monkeys. It’s a community site specifically for SMA. Their honesty is certainly to be respected.
“You guys like dota. Put x in chat if you like dota.” ~ SMA Executor, River
River announces that they will be hosting dota tournaments and that hardware manufacturers are supposedly interested in sponsoring DMG. World of Warships, Archage, Planet Side, Space Engineers are other games mentioned. Certainly all viable distractions when one may feel somewhat uncertain about undocking.
After promoting his site, River passes it off to Bobby, SMA’s new Skymarshal who again recounts SMA’s pvp accomplishments in Providence and “holding against NCdot.” Bobby remarks that SMA were recalled back to coalition space to defend it being called “…defenders of the north. Not our term but what Reddit and TheMittani called us.” Aside from some general cheerleading, Bobby expresses that SMA will continue toward a Arty Tempests. After the meeting, SMA is to go to Cloud Ring.
Next up Ralos of the diplo department with more lists of accomplishments, this time focusing on their stability. The word stability is again and again repeated by Ralos contrasting with the term chaos.
“SMA has their stuff together.” ~ Ralos, SMA Diplomatic head.
It’s also announced that SMA will have their own CSM candidate to represent the alliance, something not done yet.
Not much else all that interesting is stated. Over all SMA is growing quickly but may have competition from TEST which is closing on it’s 2nd place spot in terms of numbers. After a good week of safari hunting through Fade my over all impression is that they strongly benefit from their relationship with their coalition allies. Thus far they’ve had difficulties dealing with TISHU tactics both in space and in stopping our spies. Instead they have opted to offer insight in how they view the past week. It generally ranges from “You don’t own sov, we do” to “None of the things you destroyed are alliance assets. They belong to individuals.”
This SOTA comes after the Syndicate-based alliance known as Psychotic Tendencies. (TISHU) decided to go on a black ops safari in Fade against SMA. In the course of just one week, TISHU has destroyed 60-70 billion ISK in SMA assets through a mix of black ops drops, small gang attacks and a multitude of spies producing several notable awoxes.
Regarding this attack, SMA’s Winet an alliance level director in SMA remarked, “I wasn’t aware you attacked our space… haven’t seen any notifications generated by you guys” and “…except I don’t care about the players at all never been a secret…”
Another SMA member stated, “Losses to TISHU are negligible on the scale on SMA’s Gross Weekly Product. They haven’t even had a major impact on the Gross Weekly Product. If anything the economy is up as the warfare stimulates sales. Obviously local raw material production is down as the risk factors substantially increase, but that’s driven the prices up to compensate. Sensible people in SMA space are speculating on jump fuel prices and investing in the import market, as that sector is increasing in value to compensate. Interestingly the actual price per m3 on a Jump Freighter is stable – roughly a consequence of an increased number of Freighter runs & maximum demand. The Freighters are coining it in based on sheer volume as demand surges. That’s a fairly elastic sector (at least at present).”
At least from this interaction, it seems that the directors and market players in SMA are either indifferent or even happy to profit off of the market speculation that the TISHU assault has caused. When the point was made that SMA is made up of its players, rather than numbers, the reply given was “Its cute that you don’t know how economics works.” As usual Eve is made up of plenty pseudo-intellectuals and economics is one such platform that finds many such individuals. The assumption here is that TISHU destroying SMA assets gives the producers a job to build more ships which in turn gets that individual a profit. Unfortunately among even the most basic of economists, this is known as the “broken window fallacy”.
What our SMA market speculator sees is that his fellow members are losing a ship which he in turn either builds or imports and flips on the market. Profit for him right? However if one happens to take a broader view, they would also notice that due to the line member losing his ship, the money used to replace it was not invested elsewhere, perhaps in buying a cloaky hauler and PI components that would further grow the real value of the alliance.
Due to TISHU’s Black Ops recent presence in Fade, SMA Executor River recommended that people need to “rat in groups, spread out, move around, be adaptive…it’s nullsec guys not highsec.”
I for one look forward to seeing how SMA will make the universe tremble and set New Eden on fire. I hope you do too.
