Mitten’s State of the Goonion has come and gone and a number of things warrant discussion. He began the event by playing “Hell’s March” and afterward the Soviet anthem. Although not surprising for some reason he seems to have a deep appreciation for Communist aesthetics. Mittani then proceeded to remind his alliance members of their perpetual victimhood. This is his typical tactic of framing the Goons as always being assailed. Dirty dark casino RMT child gambling money funded the cheater’s victory in WWB…ahem sorry “The Casino War.” He even brought up the T20 scandal, literally something 10 years ago that had little relevance and was fixed by CCP in any case. But staying true to his Communist aesthetics he continued the narrative: You Goon members are made victims by the rest of the universe which seeks to destroy you, and I, the Mittani, am the way, the light, your protector. It’s a common play, one for the lowest common denominator. In today’s world where so many seek to be professional victims, is it any surprise people like this would likewise exist in Eve as well? Or that someone would step up to take advantage of such people? Well played Mittens, well played.
Let’s dissect some lines just for the fun of it.
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“For more than a decade now, our people have been hunted, we are hunted because we are different. We are hunted because we do not belong. Most of all, we have been hunted because we will not obey. We are not like the rest of the galaxy.”
So painting his members as victims because they are different, but also that that difference is a strength. It’s a play on their ego. “You’re unique.” Sorry Goons but you’re really not. Having been in a number of other alliances through alts, and currently a proud “unique” member of Goonswarm Federation myself, I can say that you’re quite typical and common. It’s hard to play the special snow flake card when you’re the size of a mountain.
“We refuse to play this game by the rules of our enemies. We refuse to conform to their demands and their hypocrisies.”
I’ve seen this before and I’m not quite sure what he even means about “rules of our enemies” and “demands.” Who is demanding what? What rules? This is inane rambling. The Soviet Wooden Tongue. Talk but say nothing.
“We believe in merit, we believe in talent…”
Unless of course they’re long standing members like Endie who happen to disagree with the direction you are taking your multi-dollar media empire, or Blawrf whose time and dedication in GSF is rewarded with a swift boot and calling him “mentally unstable” behind his back among your yes-men like some middle school gossip queen. But hey like Stalin said, if you want to make some Soviet omelets, you gotta crack some Trotsky skulls, and you gotta do it with an icepick.
“…we embrace our newbies and treat them as brothers and sisters, because they are. We do not spit on our young. We do not dismiss our newbies to live as second class citizens in a segregated alliance, keeping the best for our so called elite. We do not think of ourselves as better people simply because we happen to own a Titan.”
I have a theory that our modern day political divides are due to feels vs reals. Essentially people who have a disposition toward feels tend to stray toward collectivism and those who espouse reals tend more toward individualism. Of course there are rules to the exception but I digress. Mittens is definitely employing some feels over reals here telling people they are not worse for not owning a titan. Let’s be real here, someone with a Titan or a Super or a bunch of alts is much more effective and useful in that regard. It’s not the only metric by which someone has value. If it were I’d not be where I am. In some situation a skype chat with your strongest ally can cause you to lose more than any battle. In any case my point is that once again Mittens frames the situation in a particular victim frame.
Mittens goes on to explain that two main conflicts are occurring of interest to GSF. One is the conflict in Syndicate between Mercenary Coalition and the Imperium coalition member known as Initiative. The latter were recently kicked out of Syndicate a few months back but seem to desire returning to Syndicate to some capacity. The other conflict involves TEST’s campaign in the north vs the Darkness led GOTG coalition. Mittens speaks of an “elite pvp entity they are attacking” that is supposed to be the receiver of all this righteous and just fury, but is intentionally vague. Either he’s trying to seem mysterious to create the illusion of power or they haven’t quite yet nailed down what the narrative is regarding campaign goals. In any case their “enemy” whoever that ends up being, is supposed to lose one way or another by either giving up one front or the other.
In reality this is the typical “big talk low expectation” narrative Mittens spins out. Make it seem like the accomplishment is inevitable and very meaningful, but if nothing comes of it, they can play it off as “haha just content fights, no big deal, haha made you form” etc damage control. Despite this, Mittani presents GSF’s position now as the attacker.
“Now, we, are the ones with the largest capital fleet in the game. Now, other alliances who embrace their newbies have grown up and begun to build their own capital fleets. Now it is time for us to hunt those who once hunted us.”
If by “once hunted us” he means right during his speech, he’d be right.
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Sure technically it’s not “real Goons” but it is kind of a smack in the face to have your coalition members eviscerated right under your nose. As this happened Mittens switched from “loving our members” to shitting on them contradicting his own narrative. Oh well. In any case he seems very confident in the abilities of his alliance to perform. Jay Amazingness is held up as the golden boy of FC leadership among the propaganda. It’ll be interesting to see how his capabilities have developed in the past year. Since before WWB, GSF has had massive brain drain and it’ll be interesting to see if it’s been replaced.
Aside from the lack of concrete objectives, the other aspect of note is the friendly pivot toward TEST. Mittens has “forgiven” TEST for their role in the “Casino War” and seeks to build upon the NAP established in the south. It remains to be seen how that develops. The key aspect Mittens uses to reinforce all of the above is the “muh mining ticks” narrative that’s been echoing in Delve for the past year. What is “muh mining ticks?” It’s the reply given from Goons when someone points out a weakness in their coalition. For example, just lost a bunch of rorqs to a dread bomb? No big deal, look how much mining Goons do. You’re one of the largest coalitions but you only own one region and can barely project out of your corner? Mining ticks…off the chart. Just lost some supers? No big deal “muh mining ticks.” Up until now the spin has been used defensively. It seems Mittens is now feeling confident enough to use this narrative on an offensive manner. “We can out fight our enemies because muh mining ticks will carry us” essentially. It’s this misguided belief that resources directly translates to power.
They do not. Before translating into power, there’s this in between phase composed of the people and quality you have. For example if your FCs are trash, your campaign goals are unattainable (or vague) and your leadership lacks forethought, all “muh mining ticks” really translates to is killboard padding for the oh-so-hated “elite pvp” entities Mittens likes to rant against. The quantity might be there, but without any quality in the leadership that quantity will just be quantity of loss mails at the benefit of NCPL and others. I started writing this article just after the 250 bil isk loss of rorqs in Delve and I’m ending it just as the Imperium loses yet another eleven rorquals. Off to a great start.
My prediction, despite the grade A-salt 10/10 hurf’n’blurf that Mitten is spinning, the Imperium will get farmed hard, they’ll retreat to Delve with their tails between their legs smugging all the way about how “objectives” have been met just like they did during the Viceroyalty campaign. And if their enemies don’t get enough of their fill of Imperium blood, the trouble might follow them home WWB style. The Imperium’s greatest strength was the illusion that they were in an unassailable position in Delve. With this external campaign, failure may just be enough to motivate a more satisfying conclusion than WWB. If however they manage to do something surprising, it could also usher in a new Goonaissance.
Friendly reminder how this went last time.
