Here we are on Reaver’s founding day. I’ve always pegged the date as around the middle of October, but somebody said on an op that October 15th was the date and that is good enough for me. So happy fifth birthday to the Reavers SIG.
Reavers forum bee
I have a special affinity for Reavers. I happened to wander in and join right as it was formed from the remnants of Freedom Squad. I flew ops with Freedom Squad, but never joined officially, so Reavers was the first Imperium (or CFC back then) group I became a member of.
Also, being there from the start I feel like I know a lot of the story of the SIG. While I have not been on every op, I believe I have gone on every deployment.
Finally, being a member of Reavers has let me experience a lot of things that you don’t always get to do on main fleet or homeland defense or during big war operations. There have been a few points where I have felt tired of New Eden, but a new Reavers deployment has refreshed my interest and kept me going.
So, as I do every year, I will try to summarize what the SIG has been up to over the last twelve months. You can find past summaries here:
To go along with the now established tradition of these posts, I’ll start with a look at the null sec influence map, comparing the current state of null sec with what it looked like last year.
October 2018 and 2019 compared
Delve and surrounding regions stayed largely the same, with Red Alliance disappearing from Period Basis. The region fell to the Imperium to hold, lest somebody else try to move in. The north and east saw quite a bit more change. Dead Coalition (formerly GotG) shook up its membership, with Slyce leaving, while Pandemic Legion and Northern Coalition were driven out of the north due to the “Glass Tribute” campaign this past spring, sending them to reform in Malpais, which was their rental space. Further south, new names have popped up around Fraternity, which remains at war with TEST and its Legacy Coalition.
As for Reavers operations, it was a fairly quiet year for a number of reasons.
To start with, the shape of war has changed. Back in the day Reavers would go off behind enemy lines during a war to act as a distraction. We did peace time operations as well, but those were more to keep us busy and annoy some of our traditional foes than part of any grand strategic plan.
Circumstances have flipped Imperium doctrine on its head. SIGs and squads are now the harbingers of war, going out to camp in hostile space and stir up trouble until a war sees possible, at which point the fleets mass to come join us and our operations are folded into main fleet. And all the more so with Reavers, as Asher is the war time sky marshal, running all the big strategic ops. So, things like the “Glass Tribute” campaign Reavers end up in main fleet rather than having their own deployment.
And then there is Liberty Squad, new US time zone group that formed up about a year or so ago. There is a lot of overlap between the Reavers and Liberty Squad rosters. Being on a Liberty Squad op is almost like being on a Reavers op, as almost all the voices on coms are the same.
Because of this, Asher put off doing deployments for a while to let Liberty Squad come together. So my posts for this year cover more Liberty ops than Reavers.
Still, it was not a year without operations. So I will run down the list I have based on the last twelve months of posts.
In December we went to wormhole J115405, otherwise known a Rage, to help evict Hard Knocks. This was setup by The Initiative, who deserves all the credit.
The Initiative logo in spaceships
However, they invited other groups to come participate, and Reavers went as a group.
- Waiting for a Hole – Dec 9, 2018
- Fort Knocks Way Down in the Hole – Dec 12, 2018
- Sotiyo Boom – – Dec 13, 2018
- A Keepstar Waits in the Hole – Dec 14, 2018
- The Other Keepstar Falls in Rage – Dec 15, 2018
- Out of the Hole and Back to Delve – Dec 19, 2018
After that there was a long dry spell for Reavers as Liberty Squad deployed out to harass Pandemic Horde in Geminate.
We did have a couple of Reavers races, set up by Ranger Gamma.
- The Reavers Drake Race – Dec 30, 2018
- Reavers Gnosis Racing – Apr 22, 2019
After that there was the war in Tribute, which ran up to the Drifter invasion of null sec and the launch of the Chaos Era. Liberty Squad did a bit during that, and I spent some time on Zungen Ops, which I get pings for by being in Reavers, but there were no Reavers deployments until recently. With things quiet elsewhere, Asher formed us up and we went out to Insmother, passing through Legacy Coalition space to join in against Winter Coalition, moving to Cache there after.
- On The Road Again in New Eden – Sep 16, 2019
- A Tower Bash in Cache – Oct 7, 2019
- Further Structure Bashing in Cache – Oct 8, 2019
- A Wormhole Home from Cache – Oct 13, 2019
That was an old school Reavers deployment, with us living in space without a station or structure to base from. Mobile depots for everybody.
Swapping out my cloak
However, that also put a bit of a crimp on the numbers. People who missed the move op out had to find their way out into the middle of hostile space, some opting not to bother. Numbers were low for ops at times and we ended up coming home this past weekend.
And that is where we stand currently at the the end of five years, back home from a venture out in the wilds of Cache, where we were living in space, shooting at structures, and looking for fights.
My posts do not cover all the Reavers ops. I know I missed a few out in Cache, and some good ones too from what I hear. But I believe that covers the deployments the SIG has done over the last year.
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