Catch On Fire

…The Imperium has thrown their pets in Initiative to the wolves…

Shattered Armer, ping to Brave Collective

What we have here is a dramatic misunderstanding as to who the “wolves” are in this situation.

PAPI has long been playing the concern troll card in an attempt to split The Initiative from the Imperium as part of Vily and Legacy Coalition’s oft repeated goal of driving Goons from the game because we are all bad people. (Pro tip: Calling The Initiative “pets” isn’t helping with that plan. That is a term you use to insult an alliance, not woo it.)  But this attempt takes the cake.

The Initiative likes do to its own thing and has that freedom within the Imperium.  They had previously joined The Bastion and Ferrata Victrix in Esoteria to harass TEST home space, taking ihubs, blowing up structures, snapping jump bridge networks, and dropping on the locals when they are careless.

They decided to change that up and moved to Curse, an NPC null sec region that is next door to Catch, home to several Legacy Coalition alliances, including Brace Collective.

Since arriving The Initiative has gone into Catch and carried on as they had been in Esoteria taking ihubs, blowing up structures, bringing down the jump bridge network, dropping on the locals, and even reinforcing a Keepstar.  They have been behaving as wolves do when the farm has been left unattended.

Another Ansiblex out of service

This has caused Brave to announce an about face in the war as they have sent out the call to return to Catch to defend their homeland, presumably pulling them out of the front line in the war.  They have a wolf problem to deal with.

But I think you can legitimately ask if they have ever really committed to the war.

One of the Imperium attempts to form a schism between our foes has been to point out that, for all the talking Vily does, he and Legacy Coalition have not been holding up their part in the war and that the PandaFam coalition (Pandemic Horde, Fraternity, NCDot, and Pandemic Legion) has been doing most of the heavy lifting.  The thing with this claim is that we have the receipts, the battle reports, to prove it.  PandaFam has put in the yeoman’s effort and the numbers bear out that claim.

A typical battle report from a large engagement since Fountain fell… because Legacy was largely absent from that campaign… tends to show Pandemic Horde with the most members on the field, usually by a large margin, followed by TEST, NCDot, and Fraternity.  Then there is a generally a sizeable number gap after which, fighting over fifth place, are usually Pandemic Legion and Brave, followed by all the other alliances.  Here is an example from one of the big fights in 319-3D:

Battle Report Header

Here is another from the fight at YZ9-F6.

Battle Report Header

So numbers in fights tend to rank like this:

1. Pandemic Horde
2. TEST
3. NCDot
4. Fraternity
5. Brave
6. Pandemic Legion

But if you look at the actual membership count of these alliances, they stack up like this:

1. Pandemic Horde – 23,418
2. TEST – 16,208
3. Fraternity – 15,237
4. Brave Collective – 12,383
5. NCDot – 3,737
6. Pandemic Legion – 2,238

Brave, the second largest alliance in the Legacy Coalition after TEST, is consistently and significantly out matched in participation by NCDot, an alliance that is less than a third their size, and they vie with Pandemic Legion for numbers, which is less than one fifth its size.

Brave lives in Catch, which is not a long drive from Delve, unlike Pandemic Horde, NCDot, and Pandemic Legion, who are staged far from their homes on the other side of null sec, and has most of its members in EU or US time zones, unlike the primarily Chinese Fraternity.

So where is Brave?  The ping I pulled that quote about wolves from also references the apocryphal Yamamoto quote about waking the sleeping giant.  That certainly implies that Brave hasn’t been pulling its weight if they cast themselves as being asleep.  After all, we’re coming up on six months of World War Bee.

Will they actually wake up now and show up to fight?  And if they pull back to Catch will they be able to handle The Initiative?  Facing an alliance almost half their size might be a challenge for Brave given their showing so far.  They might need help, which will pull more people from Delve.  Their allies certainly seem to think they won’t be able to manage it on their own, as Progodlegend seems to be announcing a Legacy-wide advance to the rear to fight The Initiative in Catch.  The move op to support that plan should give The Initiative a week or so to keep setting fires in peace.

And PandaFam will once again be left to do the heavy lifting on the main front.

Another region to report on in my weekly summary.