This is a multi-part series detailing the events which culminated in Circle-of-Two defecting from their coalition in late March. I have interviewed prominent individuals as well as the people directly involved in the diplomatic process. I posed a variety of questions regarding their involvement, what sort of effect the defection had and what factors they believed contributed to its eventuality. It is truly fascinating how opinions contrast or reinforce one another at different portions of the story. The following articles will combine these interviews with analysis and provide a strong account of the event.
*Throughout the article the term “CFC” and “Imperium” are used interchangeably to refer to the same group.
There are a few reasons I’m choosing to document this critical event. The first is that in the aftermath of this war, narratives tend to form. This is not necessarily done in an insidious dishonest manner but I would prefer that the full story came out. Years ago when Haargoth left Band of Brothers contributing to its downfall, The Mittani formed a sort of myth around this event. Darius JOHNSON has written better than I could have regarding this matter elsewhere. Suffice to say Mittens spun an event where his contribution transformed from simply being a guy in the room where this all went down, to being the spymaster meta genius that brought down the largest most evil Eve empire that ever existed while giving everyone else the “Stalin photo retouch special.”
Instead I looked to give as many people involved a chance to address the subject.
Secondly, there tends to be a propensity to connect dots in retrospect. When looking at the past humans quickly find the patterns and connect events into a seamless continuation. In actuality much of what occurs can vary in levels of control and are subject to the whims of random events. You will see how different individuals have differing opinions on just how much control or lack of there was.
Lastly most would agree that this was one of the key critical events that shaped the conflict and deserves to be documented and analyzed for the record itself.
Lenny who funded much of the MBC referred to it as “the critical point where goons no longer felt they could fight the MBC. After that happened they completely switched to the blue ball strategy instead of fighting tooth and nail for everything.”
Sabre A who lead Mercenary Cartel against Co2 stated that the defection, “stopped the only major alliance fighting and in my opinion it was what won us the war at that point.”
Lex Arson, leader of Psychotic Tendencies provided a more tamed opinion stating, “I think the only end-game effect it had was to reduce the amount of time it took Mittens to realize how fucked he was. MBC form ups were still easily dunking full Imperium form ups. Co2 defecting may have had some immeasurable impact later on about other alliances taking their cue and bowing out from the imperium but we’ll never actually know the true extent of how much it played into that.”
The leader of Bastion Carneros remarked to it as, “Unquestionably relevant. I personally feel like it had a substantial effect on the conflict. One of the effects it had was to shorten the length of the active hostilities.”
Endie, former head of GSF Intelligence and current member of PL stated that the defection “robbed the Imperium of their most aggressive and competent EU force and of their most competent remaining supercap leader. It shattered the illusion of imperium unity and the ensuing vindictive war of words did much to reveal how unpleasant imperium culture could be, and gave the lie to the “all friends together” narrative. It encouraged the attacking forces in the belief that having done this, no imperium member was safe, and more importantly it did the same thing to Imperium members, who suddenly focused on saving their assets and looking for exits.”
Grath went into further detail stating, “I would say it was pretty much the tipping point in the war. Co2 has very large fleets for its alliance size, much less an Imperium alliance. Them leaving showed some of the other Imperium alliances that they didn’t have to deal with the shit given to them and that they could live apart and away from the Imperium without being hunted like dogs. The narrative that Imperium leadership spun for the longest time was that if its members left, they’d be hunted down and killed for their years of service with the Imperium. Only that hasn’t happened at all. In fact most of the alliances are doing well. Fcon’s fine, Co2 is fine, Init, while still with the Imperium has shown that operating at arms length has kept them strong. So it was pretty much another crack in the façade, and probably the last one. After they left there weren’t really any fights of size to care about. There wasn’t enough meat left in the Imperium grinder and it lost massive number of players over the weeks after. So yeah, big, huge.”
From my own analysis I would contribute these three points:
1. The CFC had just retreated from Vale withdrawing both LAWN and Bastion from the region leaving Co2 to hold the front in Tribute. The CFC leadership could have spun Vale as a strategic withdrawal but the defection compounded the retreat into something more and CFC leadership was both visibly angered and surprised. It also underlined how far CFC intelligence had fallen. Endie who formerly led the CFC intelligence stated elsewhere that the intel network was fairly exaggerated for the sake of clout. By now according to Grath, CFC intel had shrunk to about “7 or so people.”
2. Co2 was GSF’s strongest ally holding the only successful front against the CFC’s opposition. While SpaceMonkey’s Alliance suffered heavy losses in Fade from prolonged Psychotic Tendencies Black Ops followed by Pandemic Horde’s cloaky campaign, and the far north was burning with The OSS and Out of Sight offensive, Co2 was managing victories on their front.
3. Lastly, when Co2 defected, they provided the build timers/locations for super carriers and titans to MBC forces. When Co2 defected, MBC fleets bypassed the sov and prioritized the many poses that were building massive multi-billion war machines for the CFC. This combined with the fact that many CFC supers and titans are still “pos trapped” throughout the north had essentially defanged a large portion of heavy CFC assets during a period of time when capital ships were updated by CCP. When I asked Grath about it he stated, “I wasn’t involved in that level of it but yea they did dump the dirt on all the building CSAA’s and as far as I’m aware “All of them” are the number that died. We’re hoping CCP release a number because the number jeff thinks died would surpass B-R.” I asked Da Winci if he felt the B-R comparison was accurate. He stated, “More. You’ll have to take into account all the types there. I mean you have the ones killed – the ones aborted by mbc – the ones aborted by the builders themselves – the ones never started because of reasons… All those combined is a bigger massacre.”
The series will continue next time with more interviews and analysis.
*Head Diplomat of the “Imperium” Sion Kumitomo declined offers to comment.
~Seraph IX Basarab
