Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Scenes from the Saranen Undock

We have lost our homes.  We have been driven out of null sec.  We are hold up in the back room of a soda warehouse in a low sec system .  And yet we have not given up.  We form up around the clock.  We send fleets out into our former homes to harass and reinforce structures.

So the Moneybadger Coalition has come to Saranen to try to make us say, “uncle.”.

First it was just Pandemic Legion and NCDot.  They moved from 93PI-4 in Pure Blind to come and camp us.  They hung that Fortizar citadel on the same grid as our undock.

The Fortizar looms

The Fortizar looms

Then the rest of the MBC started showing up.  More citadels were hung in space around our home station, the Quafe Company Warehouse at Saranen V, moon 9, with Darkness and Mercenary Coalition adding their own to the scene.

You can see three Fortizars on grid now

You can see three Fortizars on grid now

Even TEST hung one up, though they didn’t join the club fully, opting for an Astrahus directly above the station.

Key players declared war on us, so as to take station guns… which will shoot aggressors on the undock… out of the equation.

Not pictured: TEST, which was late on the scene

Not pictured: TEST, which was late on the scene

The MBC settled in to camp us into our station in Saranen.

Singing songs around the campfire

Singing songs around the campfire

(image from this thread)

In their effort to defeat us, our enemy has had to become us.  As the CFC/Imperium had often been called Band of Brothers 2.0, the Moneybadgers have begun to look a bit like the CFC 2.0.  We have a coalition with overwhelming force made up of mutually blued alliances which hold the north… you have to be in denial not to see some parallel there.

Meanwhile, our groan worthy name for the conflict, the War of Sovless Aggression, had flipped meaning as well, since we are now without sovereignty and attacking those who hold it.  I didn’t like that name before, and it hasn’t aged well for me since.  I’ll stick with the Casino War, which goes back to the flash point that started the whole conflict back in January.

Over at EN24, it was announced that we were being “Hellcamped” nearly a week ago.  And then a few days later it was announced at EN24 that the siege had begun.  The MBC was going to sit on the undock in Saranen and… something.  Kill us I guess.  Make us give up, maybe?

On our side of the divide the loss of all our sovereignty has had an upside.  We have become something else as well.  As Asher Elias noted in his latest podcast, we are free to choose our fights now as opposed to being objective driven all the time.  If the enemy is out in force, we don’t give them a fight.  If they get bored and their camp of the undock dwindles… and this is why they are not the CFC 2.0, because the CFC of old didn’t get bored so easily… we undock and chase them off.

If the enemy puts an expensive bait ship on the undock, we can flash form and kill it before they can bring in their response fleet to reply.  With no objectives to defend, we get to measure our success in ISK efficiency, in causing more damage to our enemies than they do to us.  And when the enemy forms up their might to overwhelm us, we dock up again and the fight is over.

This hasn’t been ideal for everybody.  People who joined up to do null sec PvE are justifiably dissatisfied with the situation and have been leaving for greener pastures.  And I cannot imagine that the capital ship pilots are happy.  But for layabout subcap line members like myself, who barely lived in their own space when we had it and just want to fleet up and shoot things while suckling on the SRP teat, the situation has been almost ideal.  We could easily echo some of TEST’s post 6VDT-H sentiments.

Which isn’t to say that the MBC doesn’t get kills as well.  The fights are often bloody for both sides, and we generally win on ISK efficiency alone, having exchanged a pile of cheap ships for a few expensive ones.  And they own the undock when they want to and are able to pick off even those with insta-undock bookmarks with fighters now and again.

The question now seems to be who can outlast whom in this situation?

For the moment I lean towards us.  We are able to undock when we can win and get the sort of morale boosting fights that can sustain us while also keeping the supply train flowing into the station to make good our losses.  Even if we lose our citadel and the convenience that goes with it… a scenario which seems likely… we can still pick and choose our fights.

Our foes seem to have three courses going forward.

They can give up, which clearly isn’t a winning strategy.  I doubt that will seem viable to anybody in the short term, though there could be a long game possibility in it I suppose.

They can carry on as they are now and see who gets tired of this first.  That hasn’t been a winning strategy so far in Saranen, but tactics could change.  They might find their angle with the current level of effort.

Or they can try harder.

One way would be to sit on the undock with more forces more often.  Or, alternatively, they can use their economic muscle to buy up our doctrine contracts to keep us from re-shipping, denude the market in Jita of Harpies, Hurricanes, and the fittings that sustain us.  With all that IWantISK money behind them, they could starve us out by simply making everything too expensive for us.  I do not think we can out spend them head-on on that front.  The problems there are the Jita market and how much ISK it might take to conquer us via that route, especially when we can trade out doctrines.

Anyway, as I keep saying, the war goes on.  Saranen remains a busy place judging from the kill boards.  And, to go with the title, some screen shots from around the Saranen undock, including that bling fit Phoenix we got last night.

Apostle sitting on the undock Cormorants tethered on our citadel Harpies on the undock Harpies hanging on their tethers Hostile Vultures out of range of our citadel Bling fit bait Phoenix under fire Bait Phoenix fight Bait Phoenix fight Bait Phoenix fight Wreck of the bait Phoenix

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