The Initiative. has developed from a relatively mediocre medium sized Alliance into one of the most creative and still often underrated entities in the game. I first encountered The Initiative back in late 2014 when they moved to Curse and were actually making an effort to fight pandemic Legion head on. At the time that wasn’t really heard of unless you were Black Legion. And even BL at its height had to be creative about how they did that. The ever constant presence of NCPL was the factor that I believe pushed Initiative closer and closer toward joining the Imperium. As the universe became more and more polarized, it only made sense. Since then, the Initiative has used the Imperium as a kind of political and Military meat Shield while mostly doing their own thing. They operate with a broad level of autonomy within the Imperium and carry out some of the Imperium’s most successful operations.
During World War Bee, The Initiative. more or less abandoned their space in the far north and opted to take Syndicate region resources from the OSS who in turn were taking space in the Deep North. What initiative essentially did was trade space with the invasion force. Perhaps not the most useful thing for the Coalition as a whole but to Initiative’s credit, they looked like they could provide counteroffensive results while minimizing the impact of losing their own space.
In the months following the Imperium eviction from the north, The Initiative. remained a force in Syndicate. They continued measured success and seemed untouched by the Imperium eviction and the hardships that followed. Instead, they opted to use Syndicate as a base of operation skirmishing and fighting the numerous pirate entities within range. Through their conflicts, they helped pioneer new tactics such as “Snatch fleet” making extensive use of Command Destroyers and their unique jump drives. Most of the rest of 2016-2017 would see Initiative on multiple fronts usually remaining elusive and developing their record as the most militarily successful alliances of the Imperium coalition.
Initiative’s presence in Syndicate was removed as a result of PanFam but saw a resurgence during the “Fizzle War.” Imperium command devised a strategy by which Initiative would strike at Mercenary Coalition assets in Syndicate, while the rest of the Imperium would threaten PanFam space in the north. The idea was to “force Panfam to choose between their assets in 0.0 and those in Syndicate.” PanFam naturally chose to defend their sovereignty. While the Imperium through billions of subcap ships into the PanFam supercapital meatgrinder, Initiative retook Syndicate. Within a month these gains in Syndicate were reversed, and the Imperium’s attack on PanFam resulted in complete failure aside from the “free ported Astrahauses” that littered the north dubbed “roach motels.” Relatively speaking Initiative once again looked the better having accomplished their objective.
In October of 2017, The Initiative would later take advantage of The Culture’s collapse in Fountain quickly taking over the resource-rich region for themselves. With that space secured, the Imperium potentially had a highway to strike at the north. A few months later during April of 2018, Initiative Titans would go head to head against Pandemic Legion’s dreadnoughts. PL ended bloodied losing 80 dreads and various other subcapital ships totaling 250 billion ISK. The Initiative of 2014 which struggled to fight Pandemic Legion in Curse, was now dropping Titans on them successfully. Throughout the rest of 2018, the Initiative solidified their hold over Fountain giving the Imperium a route to move their supercapital forces north which they sorely lacked during the “Fizzle War.” Their presence in northern Fountain and relationship with Cloud Ring Gallente Militia alliances provided the Imperium the beachhead they needed to strike at the north. This has made all the difference in the current Imperium vs. Northern Bloc war.
The Initiative continues to play a starring role among Imperium alliances being at the forefront of coalition success and showing unrivaled ingenuity among their peers.
