Hello, my name is Seraph IX Basarab and I’m an opinion piece writer and analyst of Eve politics and war here at EN24. The thoughts and opinions written here are mine and not meant to represent anyone else’s.
In this article, I will be addressing some of the more comical attempts by the Imperium to control the narrative of their current campaign of vengeance against the “dark money RMT cheaters” in the north.
In every war, each side attempts to control the narrative being told. The responsibility mostly falls upon the shoulders of the attackers. They set the metric by which they decide what they want success in. So it is of little surprise that attackers tend to limit their goals, at least initially, and if they meet some fortune expand upon their success. Most major wars’ narratives start as “haha just gudfites” and if one side wins it becomes “this was part of a massive and well organized plan.” The current conflict instigated by the Imperium is no different and the goalposts are ever shifting… or perhaps in this case ever spinning. It can be comical to point out the various inconsistencies.
Up until recently, both sides had taken their heavy share of losses. First the Imperium’s home region of Delve was littered with the wrecks of numerous Rorquals and even a few Supercaps. Although such losses aren’t anything new in Delve as PanFam forces have farmed the region fairly consistently for a year now, with the Imperium being deployed up north it has become even easier. On the PanFam side, a handful of NCdot supers and titans were destroyed as a result of a late move op gone wrong. There’s really no excusing it as it was just plain stupid. Snuffbox were quick to capitalize on the mistake. Thankfully, Init took some time away from hitting afk towers in Syndicate enough to get on the kills getting the Imperium some “points.” Not “comical pile of rorqs dead” ISK amount but certainly helped close the gap somewhat.
Unfortunately for the Imperium, the gap between the two sides became very much apparent during the recent battles in Hakonen over an Imperium Fortizar in the system.
With numbers being fairly equal, the Imperium was handed an almost hundred billion ISK defeat at the cost of 36 bil for the defending forces despite Mittani’s confidence in his forces:
THE ENEMY WANTS TO BLOW UP OUR CITADELS IN HAKONEN TONIGHT – 1:30 EVETIME (OR PERHAPS EARLIER GIVEN HOSTILE FORMS – BE THERE)
WE ARE ONLINING A FORTIZAR AND INSTEAD OF GOING ‘OH HEY THIS IS RIGHT IN THEIR STAGER MAYBE THIS IS A BAD PLACE TO FIGHT’ GOBBINS AND DARKNESS AND VARIOUS ASSORTED IDIOTS THINK THEY CAN CONTEST US IN USA USA USA FREEDOMZONE
Here is a tilde: ~
US TZ TONIGHT – HAKONEN – EVERYTHING – BE THERE
~ This was a broadcast from the_mittani to all at 2017-08-07 EVE ~
According to some Imperium members, the loss was all part of the plan.
[04:36:13] Arcadia Kain > I hate to break it to you, but we are still here with most of our shit. Good job taking down 1 citidel haha. you ever stop to think that maybe you did exactly what we wanted you to do?
This is the kind of desperate narrative spin some of us from the Fade/SMA campaign would remember at the beginning of WWB. It’s not uncommon and in some cases it’s really the only thing one can do. Pandemic Horde’s Gobbins wrote a fairly good write up regarding some of the aspects of this conflict.
The main three points he made was that Typhoons are a terrible doctrine for the Imperium to use in major fleet fights because of TiDi, the Imperium is acting timidly, and that they lack a coherent plan or goal. On all points he is correct but I’ll focus mostly on the last two. Mittens and other Imperium members have been beating the drum about revenge and having the largest capital force in the universe but have failed to deliver. For those that were around during WWB, you might remember some of these false promises, narrative spinning and goal post moving. Sure it’s a leader’s responsibility to keep and maintain morale. However, Mitten’s been consistently proven wrong in his assumptions over and over again. Only a fool makes threats he’s not capable or prepared to carry out. Each time you make such a threat and fail to carry it out, the value of your word lessens.
These massive battle losses along with over 60 Rorquals and several supers destroyed in a seemingly defenseless Delve since the start of the conflict has really shown this campaign to be arguably the worst in Eve history. I mean when the Viceroyalty Campaign the Imperium attempted to carry out crash and burned, it was awful and yet somehow they have managed to surpass it with an even more catastrophic failure.
Of course no one in GSF command will admit to such a thing. The staggering Delve losses are explained away as just idiots dying/already replaced while the battles lost in Hakonen are actually part of a secret plan. “Key objectives” are being met. I mean the amount of mental gymnastics is just mind numbing. I know I’ve said this before but it’s DPRK-tier Kool-Aid. People whine “oh Seraph why are you always picking on Goons hurrr ur so grr goon.” I mean come on this is comedy gold. As a commentator and critic of Eve stuff, how do I just not take note of this kind of thing? I’ll give you a perfect example of the kind of nonsense coming from GSF staring one of INN’s very own propagandist, Moomin Amatin:
“Unlike some places I could mention I am pretty confident that The Imperium simply respects the right of their members to fly and do what they want at a personal level. Some people may not have time to do anything other than a bit of mining or ratting when real life presents the opportunity. With an organisation as large as The Imperium it is to be expected that some remain back in the homeland.
The really interesting things about all of this though is twofold. Firstly for the PanFam to even feel the need to apply any pressure on Delve. Especially as they are all about “gud fites” and “content”. So why go to Delve at all?
The second is that PanFam prefer to fight people either not overly well informed or not even at their keyboard. Is this the elite PvP that PL represent? More than likely this must be the case, else they would be inclined to show us all these amazing PvP skills they claim to have. Instead safe in the knowledge that The Imperium has not brought up its titans and super carriers the PanFam huddle in the shelter of their capital umbrella.
If the PanFam were truly the masters of PvP, as is so often claimed, then fighting as Spartans would be the preference every time. Outnumbered, in battle against more numerous foes. Holding the line with skill and expertise. That would be glorious for any true warrior.
Instead weak arguments are thrown forward such as “well you would out number us in sub capitals”. The Imperium has fought twice now in Hakonen knowing that the PanFam capital fleet would be fully deployed each time. Yet The Imperium did not back down from the engagement at all.
So I expect such losses to continue whilst The Imperium is deployed. Personally I would even go so far to say that it actually serves The Imperium rather well in the long run.”
Can you imagine actually drinking the Kool-Aid so hard you believe this? Killing hundreds of billions of rorqs and supers “serves the Imperium” in the long run? Well I do believe Panfam is obliged to continue serving the Imperium in such a capacity for however long your alliance exists.
Okay, enough of this for now.
Previously, I had provided four options for what the Imperium would do before deploying, and they picked one of the options. (Apparently at INN, 4 is a big number of predictions.) My prediction regarding the campaign would be that it would be largely ineffective and Goons would return to Delve while morale posting and spinning some victory. With two major losses handed to the Imperium and a mass grave of wrecks in Delve I feel even more confident in this prediction. Going forward into the next week, expect a lot of spinning about how “it’s all going according to plan” and possibly a diminishing in use of battleships while relying more on interceptor and Jackdaw fleets. The only ace in the Imperium’s sleeve would be if Snuff were to snag some supers with a dread bomb. Aside from that Mittens will just hurf and blurf about Init taking afk Syndicate moons, which they’ll likely lose weeks after the Goons return to Delve.
I’m actually going to do something unexpected. Do yourself a favor and watch the meta show this Saturday. I’m serious. Yeah I know Mittens will get more views for his terrible propagandist rag of a site. I think I’ve seen two halves of an episode since the show aired. But I’ll actually make an effort to watch it this Saturday because I’m dying with curiosity to see how the aforementioned failures are going to be spun into some part of a ~masterplan.~
