Disclaimer: The Author is a Line member of one of the Alliances involved
Were your humble narrator to attempt to live up to his original self proclaimed tag as the Worst Propagandist in Eve…. he might start along the lines of “We didn’t want that Keepstar Anyway”.. Yet, despite holding a minority view on this, I believe in granting credit where it is due to adversaries that fight well and honorably on the field of battle. That elements within the DRF reciprocate this attitude is evidenced by notable DRF FC in a high-scoring reddit post.
The conflict is the Northern front of a conflict known as the “Blue Donut War” to some and has involved DRF, (Drone Regions Federation), Legacy Coalition, and others for some time. GOTG Coalition’s participation is in support of Trimvirate is very recent and partly motivated by the consequences of the actions of a single DRF diplomat .
The battle over the MT02-2 Keepstar on October 11th was a titanic struggle with over 900 Billion Isk destroyed on both sides, with a razor thin edge to GOTG in the ISK war.
The DRF Forces achieved their objective last week: the GOTG keepstar was destroyed, GOTG capitals were somewhat bottlenecked. The Reddisphere had its buckets of laughs. The MT02 gate was a permacamper’s dream come true. Lessons were learned to be implemented at a future date.
Yet an odd pattern emerged. After such a strong showing, there was a drop-off in DRF responses to what is, make no mistake, a full-scale deployment. Bouncing back from defeat with raids into Perrigen Falls and Oasa, not only were 2 Rorquals killed by a few dozen Interceptors led by ‘Notorious’ GOTG raiding FC night lancer, but additionally, a GOTG Cerberus fleet caught and killed a DRF Wyvern. That operation was led by Vlade Randal , CEO of Kenshin.
Subsequent events have therefore unfolded in a way that may result in the MT02-2 keepstar fight of Oct. 11 going down in Evestory as a tactical victory at best for the defenders.
During the 1st battle, certain DRF capital Pilots lost multiple dreadnoughts and jumped back in to the fight up to 7 times.
Admirable?
Without a doubt.
Heroic?
Also, yes.
Accumulating maximum Jump Fatigue on Capital pilots during the first engagement while fighting a 3 front war?
Maybe not so advantageous. Depleted dreadnought stocks don’t help either.
Even a befuddled Planet Miner like myself can surmise that much.
Less than a week later, GOTG has successfully dropped a Fortizar in MT02-2, the gateway to Perrigen Falls. Over the past 7 days, not only has sovereignty been disputed across two constellations, but many POS have been erased and, more ominously, multiple DRF fortizars have been driven to final timers.
The Fortizar fight itself is by now well known, though the full October 17th MTO2-2 battle report wasn’t fully uploaded at time of writing. A special note of recognition need be made the many ex-CO2 pilots, the bulk of whom have by now moved many capital assets directly from their former abodes to the current theater of operations. GOTG and PL fielded titans and Supercapitals, Macharials, & Lokis The DRF Side included Machs, Feroxes, Abaddons, & bombers. Legacy Coalition brought Bombers & Jackdaws, with Pandemic Horde Hurricane Fleets and Goonswarm Cerberuses 3rd partying.
Readers can also view the highlights of my participation as well as Another perspective of the fight on Youtube.
In the absence of any Capital support, the defenders’ most potent strike was the Test Bomber fleet or “Goku” doctrine that engaged the GOTG Machs on landing at the Fortizar. [Update: the Macharials were baited by a Jackdaw Fleet and hit by pre-positioned Bombers] The battle report timeline clearly illustrates that the majority of GOTG Machariel losses occurred during that initial engagement.
Those were the first of several tense moments. The most notable of which was the GOTG Titan that got caught on the MT02-2 in-gate that could have ended up as the redditspheres dream come true but proved to be a blessing in disguise. Fleets on both sides frantically diverted to cover (or take out) the asset. Whatever plan the defenders had to prevent the Fortizar from onlining was pretty much undone by some well placed Doomsdays which decimated the DRF Abaddon fleet. With half the opposing force’s mainline DPS removed, achieving the strategic objective was assured.
Jump Range from MTO2-2:
With over 2200 in Local, The load on the server was such that modules could take minutes to respond and broadcasts broke down completely at times. Naturally, the grid got extremely messy, with many pilots losing their connection to the server. Among them, a GOTG Nyx pilot. Possible power outage because the first we heard of it was when someone spoke up on comms and said he was watching it on a stream. Even so, with Tidi down to about 50%, there was a lively skirmish over its wreck for the remaining subcap fleets.
The Nyx loss (Along with PL being PL & doomsdaying a few of their own ships) did much to reduce the allied forces Isk efficiency. Macharial losses were indeed heavy enough to spur on the inevitable speculators and war profiteers. That said, the strategic success of the Fortizar onlining means we have an interesting week ahead of us, when the timers created so far go critical.
Contested Systems In Perrigen Falls:
Was jump fatigue from other ops and capital shortages why DRF & friends brought subcaps to a super fight? Why they had to batphone Test for a bomber fleet? Since DRF is engaged in a multi-front war, they may very well prefer to preserve capital ships by choosing their engagements wisely, or be pre-positioning for something only time will reveal. We can only speculate at this time. Alliance’s favorite CSM candidate and senior Diplomat Afropty has yet to receive the DRF’s surrender in writing, which is hardly surprising as so many corps in the opposing alliance have the famed Russian reputation for fierce defence to live up to.
What we are sure of is that the coming weeks are sure to provide a wealth of content as the many timers created by our dedicated FCs and pilots can now be easily backed up by Capital Fleets and the odd FC [Definitly Not] bait Rorqual.
Contested Systems In Oasa:
Winter, has come to the dronelands. Not bad for a War we didn’t want anyway.
