Seven Years of Reavers

Another year has flown past, so fast that I missed the actual anniversary date, which is October 15th.  But I am still in the right month.

Reavers forum bee

I have done a series of anniversary posts about the SIG, noting what we have been up to each year.  Those past posts:

• A Year of Reavers
• Two Years of Reavers
• Three Years of Reavers
• Four Years of Reavers
• Five Years of Reavers
• Six Years of Reavers

Seven years is not an exceptionally long period of time in a game that is rounding the corner and headed towards its nineteenth anniversary.  There are corporations and alliances that have lasted nearly as long.  Goonswarm Federation, the CONDI version, is past the eleven year mark, and is predecessors go back to 2005.

SIG and squads though, they can be more transitory.  They are groups that do not exist strictly within the framework of the game.  EVE Online doesn’t know my various affiliations in that regard.

Some are almost stolid or venerable.  CapSwarm or GSOL or Corps Diplomatique are part of the framework of the organization, legs of the stool that keep Fat Bee from sprawling on the floor.

Others are more mercurial.  Some rise up due to a specific situation, then fade when the crisis has passed.  Others rise and fall only to return again later.  Some rise and fall with amazing rapidity.  I think there was a point where Bomberwaffe was getting purged and reformed every few moths.

The key for these groups seems to be the leadership and a core group of players who have bought in on the mission.  Black Ops and MiniLuv seem very consistent.  Liberty Squad fell when its leadership went off on a different adventure.  Bomberwaffer was mercurial because DBRB was running it, and mercurial is his middle name.

And in all that Reavers abide.

We are not as active as we once were.  There were a lot of ops on that first year summary as we deployed behind enemy lines.  This last year has been less active… at least as a group.

There was, after all, a giant war going on for most of the past 12 months where most of the rest of null sec grouped up and attacked us.  There was plenty to do on the home front, and with Asher being the Imperium sky marshal he couldn’t necessarily take us all off once more into hostile space for weeks at a time.

But still, we did some things.  We robbed some space banks when that became a thing.  We setup out in Catch and ran some ops with The Initiative to help put pressure on Brave and other Legacy alliances.  Eventually they abandoned the region and tried to live in our space.  But at the time Progodlegend accused Asher of abandoning the war.

Asher’s traveling trouble in Catch at Christmas

Of course, in the end, we know who really abandoned the war, undercutting his allies by starting to unachor structures even as they were making one last assault on 1DQ1-A.

A bunch of new groups formed up in the Imperium during the war, and some old ones revived. I joined a couple, flew with some more when they called for backup, but Reavers remains my home group.  Even when we aren’t officially doing something, it is a place where Asher can find some people to pick up a task that needs to be done.

I ended up in a Damnation boosting for one of the super fleets during the first battle of M2-XFE because Asher put out the call for help in our channel.

My Damnation in the the thick of our supers

I could have just stayed in a Rokh and gotten on a dozen more hostile titan kills, but sometimes you go where you are needed.

Furthermore, it is not uncommon to see names I recognize from Reavers now further up in the ranks of the coalition, punishment for showing competence in the face of need.

And our Mumble channel remains active.  I mentioned the anniversary earlier in the week, linking one of our early super kills, and there were people online who were there and remembered those early ops.

Since the end of the war things have been quiet.  I haven’t logged into EVE Online much at all over the weeks since then.  I think a lot of people are tired, and there is rebuilding to be done and ISK to be earned to build up reserves for the next war.

But eventually something will come up.  Some of our groups are already out in hostile space shooting our recent foes.  We may ride again when the time is right.

Our favorite ship and SKIN

The early days of Reavers, when we were out blowing up hostile titans in build and the Imperium was denying our existence (there is Progodlegend again) represent some good memories in New Eden.

An explosion from 2014

We will have to wait and see where we end up next.