The Fountain Revenge

The war on The Imperium, or “World War Bee” as it has been dubbed by the community, has exploded onto the EVE Online scene in the last few weeks. Over 50,000 individual capsuleers have sided up to wage war on the 35,000 current Imperium members and the fighting is getting nasty. One of the alliances, TEST Alliance Please Ignore, was very eager to launch head first into this war, for reasons you may not expect that date back years.

Local spiked to over 4,000 as pilots of TEST alliance stared down their ex-allies, their old friends, who had betrayed them and tried to kill them off

It’s July 30, 2013.  The shield station timer for the 6VDT-H, home of the TEST Alliance, had been reinforced by the Clusterfuck Coalition (CFC) and TEST decided to form everything for its defence. Both parties had massive fleets, each numbering in the thousands. The day before, the CFC had anchored starbases on every open moon so TEST would not have a safe place to hide during the battle. Just before the station timer expired, TEST was able to work their way into system and avoid the lethal CFC blockades on every entrance to the system by allocating titans to bridge their pilots into the system safely, despite having no safe starbase. Local spiked to over 4,000 as pilots of TEST Alliance stared down their ex-allies, their old friends, who had betrayed them and tried to kill them off after they became friendly with other groups who gave them an anti-CFC view of the universe.

Unfortunately, the firepower of the CFC was too strong and TEST was destroyed to a man, their fleet shattered by the enemy’s superior firepower

The fight began to rage shortly after the station exited reinforced and both sides showed no sign of wavering. The CFC had formed with superior numbers and, with their bombers ripping apart the TEST Alliance Prophecy fleet, things rapidly descended into chaos. Smelling blood in the water, the CFC command turned the knife by deploying their impressive capital wings, including dreadnoughts and triage carriers. With these new assets exposed, TEST capsuleers began to fall faster than their logistics could repair them. The TEST command group realized this and gave the order to scatter, but every exit point in 6DVT-H was blockaded by enemy forces. Their attempts to retreat failing due to the previously placed CFC towers catching anyone who was able to escape the battlefield, TEST Alliance decided to go out in a blaze of glory. A fleet warp was given on top of the CFC dreadnoughts with the intention of taking as many as possible with them. Unfortunately, the firepower of the CFC was too strong and TEST was destroyed to a man, their fleet shattered by the enemy’s superior firepower. CFC dreadnoughts made quick work of the station’s remaining shield and the station was once again reinforced, but in armor this time. TEST’s capital system was in flames.

Shortly after, TEST announced the evacuation of Fountain and retreated to Delve, their cataclysmic loss marking the ending of not just the Fountain War, but also the end of an era. TEST Alliance had occupied this space for over 2 years and many had become fond of it, thinking of Fountain as home. Masses of pilots had invested billions of isk into Fountain, and suddenly it was gone. The loss of this war also caused many of its active capsuleers to withdraw from TEST, dropping their numbers critically low. The results of this battle began the long-standing rivalry between TEST Alliance and the CFC.

Fast forward to March 19, 2016. It’s been nearly three years since the TEST defeat in Fountain. They haven’t been idle in the meantime. Along with occasional allies such as HERO Coalition, they had launched campaigns in Delve, Catch, and most recently, Wicked Creek. But a whole new era was about to begin for TEST and content would be plentiful.

TEST Alliance was going to enact revenge on those who had done them wrong.

Sapporo Jones, current executor of TEST, had just delivered a stunning State of the Alliance speech in which he announced that the TEST Alliance would be deploying on a contract from an undisclosed source to Obe to fight the CFC, who at this point had rebranded to “The Imperium”. Immediately after this announcement, move operations went up for capitals and subcaps alike. Morale was high, and over 900 pilots logged in to participate. Later on in the day, a fleet moving Maelstrom-class battleships led by l2azor Clear was passing through Messoya on the way to Obe. Upon entering Akora, they were greeted by a cynosural field on the gate, waiting for them. Through this cyno came thirty Pandemic Legion supercapitals and titans, equipped with deadly EMP smartbombs, the Maelstroms’ weakest resist. The ensuing engagement ended in a bloodied battlefield where two dozen TEST Maelstroms lay dead,  but this did not deter them. TEST Alliance was going to enact revenge on those who had done them wrong.

The invasion of Vale of the Silent, the region bordering The Forge (where Obe was located) began as soon as pilots started to arrive in Obe. Small entosis fleets were formed and sent to go reinforce anything they could. As the day went on, more pilots trickled in and more small gang entosis ops trickled out. Almost immediately reinforced was the system of P3EN-3, just one jump from Obe.

The next few days were quite trivial for TEST. They had some troubles settling in along the way, including a lost supercarrier, but morale remained high, for they were sitting at the Imperium’s doorstep, challenging them to fight back. Progodlegend and Vily led several fleets over the following days. A fight in 2DWMM-2 a few days later resulted in the loss of an Imperium supercapital ship assembly array which was supposedly carrying titans in the making. The Imperium also suffered the loss of an an entire Machariel fleet, totalling up to over 135 billion isk lost, which was a massive morale boost for TEST. Following this bloody battle, entosis timers everywhere started popping and the first system of sovereignty was claimed under the TEST flag on the night of March 23rd, just four days after moving in.

The next day it was announced that effective immediately The Bastion and Get Off My Lawn were abandoning Vale of the Silent

The next day, The Meta Show stream on TheMittaniDotCom aired and it was announced that effective immediately The Bastion and Get Off My Lawn were abandoning Vale of the Silent and evacuating to Saranen to meet up with the rest of their coalition. Pings were sent on jabber and instantly massive TEST entosis fleets spread all over Vale of the Silent in celebration of their seemingly uncontested victory and began taking their new dominion. Much to their suprise, the evacuating alliances did not attempt to contest them. Constant gate camps in IPAY-2 and P3EN-E by TEST prevented the evacuating Imperium members moving out safely. Things were looking up for TEST, they had successfully moved and had been reinforcing several supercapital assembly starbases while also teaming up with other anti-CFC alliances to kill other Imperium members.

Following this battle, Circle of Two made the decision to reset the Imperium at 00:00 on March 30th UTC

On the evening of March 28th, over 3500 players gathered to do battle in M-OEE8, as Circle of Two (a member of the Imperium)’s home system was exiting reinforced. Earlier in the day the station was saved, but a full fleet of TEST members had formed to support their coalition mates in this battle against the Imperium. The system rapidly entered time dilation, Tranquility’s way of keeping up with massive amounts of calculations being done at one time. Before long, the game was running at a steadfast 10% of normal speed as 3,500 people clashed in M-OEE8 and over a thousand others doing battle around the constellation. The combined firepower of Rattlesnakes and Maelstroms, as well as Proteuses from the anti-Imperium coalition was simply too much for their Machariel fleet, and it was almost like the Fountain War was now in reverse, with TEST tearing apart The Imperium. Despite TEST losing their primary FC, Progodlegend, the backup l2azorclear was ready to take over and ensured that Machariel after Machariel kept on exploding. Eventually the Imperium forces decided that they had taken enough punishment and retreated, but not before sustaining over three hundred billion isk in losses. Following this battle, Circle of Two made the decision to reset the Imperium at 00:00 on March 30th UTC, after losing one of their main staging systems and tens of billions of ISK trying to defend M-OEE8.

From a TEST Alliance perspective, this war is going very well. They are only two weeks in and have made more progress than most alliances make in a month. Over the next few months this war could show massive gains for TEST Alliance, as they have already taken up to two pockets in Vale of the Silent and show no sign of stopping in their conquest to return to the homeland of Deklein. Only time will tell where TEST Alliance ends their conquest.