The Second Great EVE War: Lies, Spies and Treason (Part 4)

The tension builds to a crescendo as HVAC Repairman continues his breakdown on the Second Great War and the Fall of BOB. You’ll want to read parts one, two and three first

(Disclaimer: These articles are being written from memory, so while the events themselves as detailed are largely accurate, single events may have been skipped or remembered incorrectly. This is also written from the perspective of a single Goonswarm pilot, so keep that in mind.)

Over the course of three and half months, countless fleets had been lost on all sides. Capitals were dying on a fairly regular basis. Pilots were exhausted from the sheer number of ops called for on any given week. Alliance logistics were being stretched thin to keep fires contained. Burnout was taking its toll, but nothing can crush a campaign as quickly as poor morale. During the Second Great EVE War several events took place that had shifted morale during the southern campaign.

Goonswarm had always been known for having a fairly robust directorate. Turnover was high, but the alliance had never really had to deal with defections or spying at the leadership level. The illusion of security came to a crashing halt when Iromei, the Goonswarm capital director, was caught spying for Band of Brothers. At random times throughout the war, sov claims from POS towers were randomly dropped. Capital intel had been leaked in real time, leading to random dead capitals all throughout the south. The random sov drops had been troublesome to the line members; all the work going into defending systems meant nothing as sov would be dropped regardless. One key jumpbridge was lost specifically because of this.

Iromei had finally been caught after he attempted to offline towers in DG-8VJ in northern Detorid. Jake Noble, Iromei’s handler in Band of Brothers, had attempted to break the sov in system so assets that had been stuck in the station since 2007 could be liberated. This backfired, and Iromei was kicked immediately. The decision to attempt to break sov was puzzling; Iromei had a titan in build and risking that for breaking sovereignty in a single system was questionable. It backfired, and now Goonswarm had not only kicked a director-level spy, but owned his baby Erebus.

Of course, in typical Goonswarm fashion, the drama from that titan didn’t end there. To avoid problems and to raise funds to replenish the warchest, Goonswarm had originally intended to sell the Erebus out of the alliance. That idea was curbstomped when Shutupandshave had borrowed it from a director who had been temporarily holding onto it. Morale in the alliance plummeted when the announcement had been made that Suas had gone “fuck goons.” Suas was a very popular FC and a hero dating back to the first war against BOB. Shortly after the theft, he released an EVE parody song called “I Robbed a Goon.” Though the Erebus would be returned later and fences would be mended, the event cast a dark shadow over the war effort and Goon morale plummeted to its lowest point since the first war.

However, Goonswarm wasn’t the only entity having troubles with one of their own. During the final days of the Suas debacle, a Band of Brothers director successfully got an alt into Goonswarm, which would trigger a series of events that would forever change the face of New Eden.