Li3 leaves the HBC: Drama and Trolling incarnate.

On or around February 14th 2013 our alliance leader Jadecougar received an offer, a most unusual offer. He was being contacted by the CFC, by Goonswarms Corps Diplo, and being offered territory in Vale of the Silent. Apparently while we weren't looking, the primarily AU timezone alliance Convicted [AIF] had some leadership problems and was made to leave the CFC. With a new sector of space opened, they asked Li3 to join and take Convicted's old space in Vale.

Jade, who originally came on the podcasting scene with Lost in Eve was at that time the CEO of  a wormhole corp Z3R0 Return Mining. He later went on to form Li3 Federation as a cross security type of alliance, attempting to integrate corps from all walks of life into a single community. While that was largely unsuccessful he did place an alt into Multiplex Gaming. After a time he decided to make Li3 into a nullsec sov-holding alliance. He formed a new corporation Li3's Electric Cucumber and they started as a small corporation inside SMA. He got to know the ins and outs of nullsec politics and already knew many of the important Goons from interviews on Lost in Eve. He campaigned to have his alliance join the CFC as a member but was turned down, as there was no available space and the alliance was inexperienced in the vagaries of nullsec life. The Goons suggested joining the then starting HBC as they were prosecuting a bloc war in the south against the nullsec alliance Against All Authorites and their smaller neighbors, and would surely have space to give an up and coming alliance. Upon hearing this the Cucumbers left SMA and rejoined L3F, joining the HBC's forces in Delve. After a time Li3 was given sov in Querious and contuned to perform in HBC's subsequent campaigns.

All the while I think some part of him longed to return to the CFC. The Goons are many things, one of them is well organized. It was clear to me at the start that the HBC was decidedly lacking in this area, they didn't have the experience or organizational skills to transition from running one alliance of 9000 characters to suddenly running a coalition spread across several regions, 15 alliances and 30,000 characters. Jade had some communication issues with HBC leadership, and was by and large given the cold shoulder. When the offer came Jade met with his directorate and it was decided that Li3 would accept the offer to join the CFC. Corp CEO's were notified at a meeting shortly thereafter, as well as Montolio himself.

Jade endeavored to keep things above board and make a clean break with the HBC. While that was largely successful as far as the sov mechanics and leadership went, the line members of Test and the rest of the HBC went into some kind of rabid shitposting frenzy the likes of which I've never experienced. The mongoloids were crawling out of every corner it seemed, the worst aspects of Reddit and Kugutsumen combined into a Voltron of venom and shit spewing, and that was just the external factors. Several corps had no intention of following Jade back to the CFC. One corp, had been on the CFC blacklist and thus didn't want to consider it. Some of the corps were just old fashioned Goon haters, others were alts of characters in TEST and Pandemic Legion and others simply didn't want to follow Jade, despite saying prior they were up for the journey, wherever it took them. Those corps were the majority, but as Jade was the executor, and thus the autocrat it was his decision where his alliance went.

Of course there was a cost to this, a 1300 man alliance saw over 700 of it's members leave. While disheartening I was not surprised, it's times of adversity that determine who one's friends truly are. MPX stayed committed to Jade and we made preparations to move across the map, again.

Li3: New beginnings with old friends

After joining Li3 and moving to Querious MPX set out to rebuild. Some members decided to stay in SMA with other corps, others left nullsec entirely, and others were simply burned out after the previous 3 months of unremitting sov warfare in Tribute. After this the corp was purged of inactives by Frfrmpukin and we set about rebuilding. We started out with the constellation K-JO26 in Querious, basing out of the recently deployed outpost in OGY-6D.

Over time the alliance grew and acquired most of the H-6HGD constellation just above our current pocket on the map, a reward from our side campaign in Esoteria. While the majority of the HBC attacked from Stain, we inserted from Paragon Soul in the south. We used fleets of bombers and battlecruisers to attack targets of opportunity and take sovereignty in the FY6-NK constellation. We renamed the only station in the pocket in honor of the one pilot from Coven who was there to respond to our ops. It was clear he was only there to whore on structure mails, but he kept turning up at every op.

At our peak we had 1300 members in 38 corporations. MPX was getting back into the swing of things and getting used to life in the south. Then something happened that none of us were prepared for.

SMA and MPX: Deception, Betrayal. and Exile

On the night of October 11th 2012 Ex River the executor of the Space Monkey's Alliance issued a decree during an alliance meeting. He leveled over thirty allegations against one of it's member corporations, Multiplex Gaming. These accusations, accompanied by no hard evidence, were used as an excuse to kick the corporation from the alliance and enable Sion Kumitomo, the new head of Goonswarm's Corps Diplomatique to send the following Jabber broadcast.

directorbot@goonfleet.com/58b86481:  From our friends in SMA:
"Multiplex Gaming has been kicked from SMA. Monkeys do not tolerate treason."

If you're keen on exploding the recently blue, GSF has has been cordially invited by a largely typo free handwritten letter (that smells only faintly of bananas and feces) to lend our considerable expertise to SMA's first ever :commissar:  

So feel free to destroy MPX guys trying to get their stuff out of their station in J7YR! Or JTAU! Or really wherever you see them, if you see them. Whichever.

*** This was a broadcast from sion_kumitomo to all-all at 2012-10-12 0


At the time I was a junior director of a sort in BSC Legion, a member of TNT. I had worked closely with the leadership of MPX on the podside podcast and knew from my own conversations with them that there was no intent to take over, or otherwise harm SMA. I sat on their mumble server consoling their line pilots as Frfrmpukin and Cyph3r, their CEO and XO, were both at work when this happened. After some arrangements were made the line pilots were allowed to join a different membercorp in SMA for the purposes of standings while evaccing assets. Only Pukin and Chyph3r were not allowed to do so.

Once the corp and it's assets were secure from Branch, I left BSC Legion as I could not stomach the fact that my friends had been so cleanly betrayed without so much as a whisper from Corps Diplo, and indeed it was them feeding the bloodlust by involving the coalition in prosecuting an accusation that was flimsy at best.

After approximately two weeks in empire consolidating assets and reimbursing line pilots for jump fuel MPX left Empire and joined Li3 Federation, the alliance of Jadecougar from the Lost in Eve podcast. Li3 lived in Querious, a member of the fledgling Honey Badger Coalition. It was seen as a way to start over, to get in on the ground floor of a growing alliance, as they had when they joined with EXPCS to help form SMA. I initially decided to join them in Querious with my alt corp, taking my various research and mining characters as one corporation. After some time however I decided to join MPX as a line pilot.

Deklien: There and back again.

After some consideration, and a few months of eye-blisteringly awful isolation I have returned to the fold and rejoined my first corp; BSC Legion. All the old mates were glad to have be back and I noticed some new but familiar faces in the corp chat, including Quivering Palm, the executor of our previous alliance.

That night I set up some jump clones in various systems and bought one of the new DrakeFleet setups in VFK. An op was called with DBRB as the FC, so I went.

http://tnt.killmail.org/?a=pilot_detail&view=kills&plt_id=819229&m=2&y=2012

It's good to be back. My absence made me remember who my friends were, and retaught the lesson I thought I had learned the first time. Eve is harsh without allies.

I'd like to take this opportunity to give a shout-out to Shevai Asan, CEO of The Night Crew and his directors for annoying the living shit out of me in their recruitment channel and reminding me just how valuable it is to have people who know you for who you are, and who don't try to glean a person's character from a comment on a blog.

Without them prodding me to a near homicidal rage I would have never had to confront the fact that people can be total bags of dicks, be somewhat justified in doing so, and to not bother dealing with them if they can't respect you for who you are.

Deklien: BSCL joins the Clusterfuck

After a week of downtime in our staging/evac system BSCL joined the Tactical Narcotics Team Alliance. TNT is based in Deklien, Goon Country. So we made the journey across the map in caps and sub-caps to our new staging system to move into our new home in CU9-T0.

Once situated we began to work our way through the arduous task of registering for various services.
All CFC voice comms are API verified as are access to forums, Jabber servers and the TNT and Goon wikis. This took about 3 days for most of our corp mates to iron out.

Once this was out of the way it was time to join all those intel channels the coalition has. There were at least 5 I remember joining (I'm sure there were more.) It seems a little much, but when you have that much territory it's kind of essential.

BSCL was certainly not anything special in TNT, they were just another schmuck corp and we were in constant competition with other corps as well as goons for resources, and trying to get anything at a decent price was impossible thanks to our neighbors buying out our station orders and resisting them at higher prices.

It was in light of these problems, with the recent departure of Asander that I decided my time in nullsec at the behest of a corporation was over. If I came back it would be my way on my terms.

Teneriffis: Split Infinity unravels

After the DRF retook their sovereignty in Detorid they began a campaign in the south assaulting Against ALL Authorities and their neighboring alliances. In addition, our alliance lead Quivering Palm lost his job. He lives in Greece. (eek) This, in addition to mounting pressure put him out of action for a time and Hallan Turrek was put in charge in his absence.

Unfortunately some key issues were not taken care of prior to QP's departure, namely roles in the holding corp. Noir. came down to assist the alliance in the end, but by that point S1. was a demoralized shadow of it's former self. I was able to assist on one op with them before I ended up in the hospital for two and a half days with a severe case of dehydration. I came back to find the orders given to pull out. Many members were getting the summer doldrums, some were apathetic due to the events of the Summer of Rage. Others were in a holding pattern until QP returned (by this time he was a week overdue).

BSCL led the charge and focused on getting player and alliance assets out of 0.0 as quickly as possible. For this they were rewarded with several new members from the smaller corporations of the alliance. I returned to KW-OAM for the last time to extract the BSCL Orca from it's hangar in the station and using wormholes scouted by Andish Libby, then CEO of GLA Armaments, convoyed with 2 other Orcas, ending up in a lowsec system in Placid.

Once everything was extracted there was some debate about the fate of the Alliance. BSCL decided it was time to move on and began putting out feelers. We had gained strength and purpose as a part of S1, but with no clear leadership and an alliance lead who needed to sort things in the real world, we felt it best to leave. Little did I know just where we'd end up.

Everything that has a begining has an end, and that end is a new beginning.

I have recently decided to leave BSC Legion, the corp I have been in since almost the day I started playing. It wasn't based on drama of any sort, and there was no massive theft to herald my exit. In fact I sold a rigged Drake to one of my corp-mates for 30 mil and donated a rigged Iteron Mk V to the corp.

The null-sec life can at times be more of a hassle than it's worth. And the only reason I was there was because my friend Asander was there. He has since gone quiet due to personal issues, and while I don't blame him for that, it's not exactly fun when you barely know anyone else in your corp, most of whom are EU timezone anyway.

While I bear the Legion no ill will, and may still do things in high-sec to help them, I'm not interested in being tied down and enduring the vagaries of a game play style that for me at least, is not fun. One of the great things about EVE is that it is so open and undefined. While most people see sov holding null-sec as EVE's "end game" I consider that little more than chest thumping. Some will argue w-space is EVE's true endgame given the greater limitations imposed by the environment (no local, stations, ice, moon mining, belts, and the overall tougher rats (sleepers) who offer no bounties.) And while I appreciate those difficulties, they are ultimately self-imposed.

EVE's endgame is, in the end, whatever you make of it. 

Like null-sec kill mail whoring to a fault? NCdot would love to hear from you.
Like the thought of hot-dropping a Merlin with a titan fleet. Pandemic Legion is calling your name.
Think camping outside Jita 4-4 with wardecs on random alliances is the pinnacle of PvP? The Orphanage has you covered.
Have a good combat record and like the thought of working for the highest bidder? Noir. Mercenary Group is the place for you. Tell Alekseyev Karrde or Nidia Masters I sent you, then wait for the riotous laughter.

For me at least, this is a time to go try my hand at some things I've always wanted to try. Perhaps some RP? Maybe some Incursions? What ever it is, it will be me choosing what to do and on who's terms.

Uziphel99, Urizel99, Teneriffis and Split Infinity

With the fall of Geminate and our return to Empire, I went back to doing what I do best. Mining. Some people Just about everyone finds mining to be about as exciting as watching paint dry. I personally find it relaxing and it gives me time to talk to corpmates on comms. It was also a good chance to learn more about New Eden, it's people, it's politics, and it's complexity.

For this reason I created Uziphel and Urizel to be miners primarily. They ran a dedicated skill queue to fly Hulks, later picking up the additional skills needed to be competent ice miners as well. They sat in empire, while their training progressed. Meanwhile, BSCL had joined Split Infinity Alliance and I sent Urziel and Uziel to their station system in Teneriffis.

It was in S1. that I was first able to really get involved in operations at an Alliance level. The culture we found was more open and accommodating. The Alliance leader, Quivering Palm was an amiable sort and we felt like we were having more of an impact than we had as a "guest" of the NC. We were welcomed, and valued as a corp and as individuals. Which for me atleast, was a welcome change of pace.

I learned then that the station was under the ownership of the mercenary alliance, Noir Mercenary Group. While I didn't know at the time why such a group would allow a comparatively small alliance such as ourselves to control the station. It made sense that they would not be able to safeguard it while on contracts and thus needed someone else to hold sovereignty and repel attackers. With the majority of the DRF up north dismantling the NC piecemeal and being blue with most, if not all our neighbors, including the powerful southern alliance Against ALL Authorities, it seemed that aside from the occasional roam that the home front was largely secure.

Then things changed.

Teneriffis and Detorid. Sov Warfare 101

After about two months with our new alliance the decision was made to make a land grab on the unoccupied lands claimed by the DRF in Teneriffis and Detorid. The Drone Russians were busy hastening to collapse the last regions of the NC's holdings and we were confident they would not come back to reclaim the much lower value systems they were losing in favor of establishing their new prize land in the north (the only source of the valuable moon mineral Technetium). Initially there was no response during the Teneriffis campaign, systems were taken with impunity with SI getting a constellation a few jumps from our home system. Detorid however, was a different story.

We took sovereignty easy enough initially. The system's PoS structures were long ago abandoned and there was little if any resistance. When we took the station system in 3-LJW3 however, there was resistance and an epic battle that is dutifully retold by QP himself here.

Sadly it wasn't to last. By this time the DRF had eviscerated what was left of the once great Northern Coalition. They then turned to look back on us. And they were more than a little pissed. Apparently that part of 0.0 was special to them. I personally think they just want all of it at any cost. Needless to say they were able to turn back us and our Imperial Order and Dirt Nap Squad allies with little effort. Within a month S1. held no sov in Detorid.

Uziel99 and the fall of Geminate

Shortly after arriving in Geminate, as a guest of Brick Squad, I created Uziel99 to be my primary combat pilot. He began humbly enough, using a variant of the ten-hour hero trick I bought him several Merlin frigates with a MWD, point, web and two cheap railguns. It wasn't much to look at, especially in a fleet of battlecruisers and battleships but it was something.

http://bscl.eve-kill.net/?a=pilot_detail&view=kills&plt_id=819229&m=2&y=2011


I was sadly unable to participate in the major battles of the Geminate campaign, but I learned a few fun lessons about null-sec and sovereignty. I also started realizing just how much money these large coalitions threw around. I remember looking at the battle reports from Uemon's "Valentine's Day Massacre" and wincing. It was then I realized I would need something much bigger than a Merlin or Caracal. And that meant getting more ISK and a lot more experience.

As SOLAR FLEET began moving in, we left our guest alliance and briefly returned to Empire before setting out on our next nullsec excursion.

OK, who the heck is this guy?

I am Urziel99 and I welcome you to my blog. Here I will chronicle my experiences in Eve Online. Both in-game and in the metagame.


I came to Eve in January of this year by way of a different MMO, Fallen Earth. I had just left WoW after having spent two years there as a raid leader and guild officer and was ready for a change. What first struck me about Eve was that it was incredibly non-linear. After being in a game where the "end-game" was clearly defined as either high-end PvE, (25-man Raids) or high-end PvP, (Arena Teams) the thought of being able to go out and make your own fun appealed to me.

In my time in Fallen Earth I meet a fellow by the name of Asander. He was a member of a multi-game clan (Wolves of War) that I had recently joined. I would see him occasionally in the Eve Ventrillo channel alone. Being the curious type I decided to see what the game was really all about.

He gave me a 21-day trial, along with a couple of other members of the Wolves. I eagerly signed up and downloaded the client. I completed my first few missions with no difficulty. Then that I encountered the infamous Learning Cliff. But I had an ace in the hole. Asander (who uses different names in this game) had 3 accounts that were several years old. He was a vast fountain of knowledge and was able to break it down to essentials quite well.

After a few weeks I was mining with my mentor and our two other pups in high-sec watching his 2 Hulks and Orca in jealous awe as they made asteroids vanish. Meanwhile, I was relegated to a Tormentor class mining frigate. During that time I learned more about the game, it's mechanics, and it's politics. About that time the other two pups gave up and I had joined the corp Asander was part of, BSC Legion. The Legion was at that time based in Kador low-sec and would shortly thereafter be moving to Geminate. At the time I was not aware of the existence of the Drone Russians or the Northern Coalition, to say nothing of their conflict. I would find out on the battlefield.