Blood in the Water

"Battleships are picking up speed. Raven in warp. Megathron warping. Everything is warping off. They're all in warp," our scout called on comms. All hell was about to break loose and Cold Moon Destruction would be right at home.

Of course, this type of thing doesn't start out in the middle of an operation. The beginnings of this were quite innocuous and to be honest, boring, but in wormhole space boredom is the mother of invention.

I had logged in Monday night to find the chain already scanned down so I hopped into a cloaky Proteus and did a bit of patrolling, but there was nothing to be found. We had no more use for our static connection so decided to roll it.

Fischey (a rapidly-improving scout, btw, so props to him) and I went down the chain in our Covops boats. Our static, C4s, was occupied, but showed no signs of activity so I jumped into a connecting class 2 system while Fisch finished up the static.

I quickly noticed a variety of ships and some activity in the system so started getting eyes on all of their POS's. They had quite a few people on, but not everyone was in the same corp or alliance so it was unclear what exactly was happening in here, if anything.

We noticed that all the POCOs were reinforced and that there had been some recent Sleeper kills as well as player kills. It looked like an invasion, but as far as we could tell there'd been no hostilities between the groups that we'd put eyes on.

Fischey and No'Wai, in a covert Proteus, soon joined me in the C2. The locals were primarily flying battleships and battle cruisers with one or two tech 2 cruisers here and there, one of which, an Abso, was sitting on their critical-mass hi-sec connection doing nothing as far as we could tell.

Maybe he was fail-scouting. Either way this turned out to be the first of many instances in which these pilots were either lost or high. No'Wai was soon watching them switch back and forth between Ravens and battle cruisers, warp back and forth between POS's, log on different alts, etc.

It was all very strange, but soon enough they reached new lows when one of their pilots began slow-boating a Tempest out of their POS. This was very good news, but all we had in system was a cloaky prot and two covops, so in order to keep from embarrassing these guys too much by insta-blapping their battleship with my single Hobgoblin II I decided to go reship.

While all this was going on we were forming up a small, but respectable little gang of T3's and logi in C4s. The goal was to engage this Tempest at the POS and lure more of their people into a fight. No'Wai was closing the distance between himself and Tempest and when he gave the word everyone jumped into the C2 and warped.

40AU. Yolo-swag, as No'Wai would put it.

By the time we landed he'd decloaked and tackled the Tempest. The pilot was also sent on his way.

Unfortunately, none of his friends came to help. To be honest it was rather fast, so we all burned off the POS and headed back to the wormhole leading to C4s, but held in the C2.

The locals continued to perform their odd behavior but showed no sign of interest in a fight. After their hi-sec collapsed Fischey quickly scanned down the new one and managed to pull his probes before they had a chance to see them.

It wasn't long before one of their scouts jumped out to see what system their new static exit lead to. At this juncture we determined that Fischey actually has prescient mental abilities that allows him to call a wormhole activation before one actually occurs. This revelation was discussed in detail while we all sat uncloaked on their hi-sec connection for about 2 minutes "waiting for the scout's de-cloak timer to burn off."

The scout did jump back, though, proving Fischey's new found ability, and got himself polarized for a few seconds. It was long enough to liberate his pod of the burdensome Anathema.

We waited around for a bit, but they showed no further signs of activity. Still, we knew they were going to have to deal with those POCO's and had a pretty good idea what all those battleships were going to be used for. Since the system had a hi-sec static we decided to leave a scout and head back to Swagshack.

Their sick and weak had been picked off from the herd. The next day we'd return for the rest.

Upon logging in the last night (Tuesday) we had a few hours before the POCO reinforcement timers expired. Our fleet commander, Fuegooooooo Paaaaantaloneeeeeeees (yes, it must be typed just as it is spoken), decided to go with heavy DPS rather than stealth, so I headed out to hi-sec and refit my Proteus into beast-mode.

Meanwhile our scout was providing intel that gave us pause. The locals in system were showing massive amounts of firepower. There were 14 piloted battleships and a few more supporting cruisers and battle cruisers. We were going to need help.

I don't know how this transpired, but at different points throughout the night we were flying with some good guys from End of Line, Fighting Carebears and Trimen Explorations. Maybe No'Wai tempted them with his butt or disconcertingly good Smeagol voice. I don't know.

At any rate, we headed toward their hi-sec system in Amarr space and held one jump out. The wormhole was once again at critical mass so we decided to jump in a hole closer under their noses. This worked better than expected since the pilot was able to slip past a faction cruiser. Our scout got the new hi-sec connection and we all burned 15 jumps to wait one system out.

We didn't have to wait there very long. The locals had just warped their fleet of battleships to the planet 7 POCO and we were given the word to move. Upon arriving in the C2 we all warped to the target area. Our scout was sounding off that their fleet was moving to evacuate the area.

They were too late.

Our fleet of cruisers landed in their midst and unleashed a wave of hate and discontent. An Abaddon and its pilot were the first of many sacrifices to Bob that night and were quickly followed by a Navy Raven and its pilot. Another Raven, its pilot, an Oracle and a pod were dispatched in rapid succession.

Bob was pleased but demanded more and our thirst for chaos was not yet sated. We warped our fleet to one of the newly-erected POCOs and began the process of reinforcing it in hopes of forcing the locals' hand.

They began launching ineffectual waves of stealth bomber attacks. I thought we managed to kill one of them on the first wave, but I can't find the kill.

Shortly after this our Fighting Carebear associates had to take off in order to meet prior obligations. This left us with roughly half of our fleet: 4 strategic cruisers, an Absolution, an Armageddon and a couple of Guardians. We did have some stealth bombers en route from hi-sec, but the locals had home-field advantage and were making use of it.

Many of their battleships and battle cruisers had escaped our initial contact, remarkably enough, and now, in light of our reduced numbers they were reforming with logistical support in the form of Ospreys.

"Battleships are picking up speed. Raven in warp. Megathron warping. Everything is warping off. They're all in warp," our scout called on comms.

Our force was outgunned and outnumbered. The enemy fleet of battleships - about a dozen of them - landed on top of us and I was down to about 60% armor before I knew it, my shields having been stripped off as an afterthought faster than you can say "Tijuana Crack Whore."

Our Guardian pilots were on the ball, though and kept me alive, forcing the counter-attacking fleet to switch targets, but their time was running out.

We'd already sunken our teeth into an Apocalypse and were switching to their Megathron. As we began our relentless work on their Armageddon the last vestiges of their fleet were escaping our clutches, probably having re-aligned for a quick exit as soon as they landed in the engagement area.

With their supply of ships rapidly dwindling and suffering massive losses the locals showed no further signs of aggression, though they did remain logged in. This allowed us to continue our reinforcement of the POCO and bring in our End of Line stealth bomber contingent who'd been making best speed to the hi-sec entrance from across the cluster.

I had to leave shortly after this point, but I intend to rectify the situation of enemy battleships being able to escape a wolf-pack of strategic cruisers if we return to that system tonight. They do have a reinforced customs office to deal with, after all.

Malception's Law

Malception's Law (alternately referred to as the Law of Caldari Navy Ravens, the Law of Nubs Flying Billion-ISK Navens or the No'Wai-Malception Law) describes the tendency of low-skill pilots in care-bearing wormhole corporations to fly officer-fit Navy Ravens.

This law can be stated thus: the absolute tendency of a pilot to fly an officer and/or faction-fit Navy Raven is inversely proportional to his amount of skill points as it approaches zero, such that at zero the tendency is infinite and the pilot is only prevented from doing so by his physical inability to board the spacecraft.

This bent was first observed in Katherine Upton of Weyl Manufacturing on 1 August 2013 in J224401 and the hypothesis was confirmed on 24 August 2013 in J111557 when Ander Elbow and Jonas M Bonamigo, both from Tenebris Venators, were observed flying expensive Navy Ravens.

All three instances resulted in the destruction of the Navy-issue Raven.

337

Every once in a while there arises an opportunity for self-sacrifice such that the gains are so incredibly massive that their scale is difficult to grasp. Consider the fact that had Adolf Hitler's father carried little junior in loving arms to the front porch and caved in his infant head with an old, but serviceable ball peen hammer that the entirety of World War II would likely have been avoided. The emotional cost to the father, no doubt, would've been severe, but when compared to the immense gain in later years there's no question as to its worthiness and honor.

This same character of self-sacrifice can also be seen in the holiest of all space: Anoikis. One might even risk saying that the self-sacrifice witnessed by the lucky few in w-space is even more glorious and worthy than that in the previous scenario.

Just recently our small, but savage group of pilots in Cold Moon Destruction, sustaining ourselves in spartan quarters and living off of what little could be found in our immediate vicinity were ruthlessly set upon by a horde of Bolshevik homosexuals.

Our elite pilots held the invading horde at bay for as long as they could, reducing the available mass on the wormhole with skill and cunning, but the onslaught was overwhelming. We were forced to fall back and regroup.

Knowing the communist dogs for what they were - a malignant infestation of Bob's holy cosmos, ever-seeking to spread their Marxist filth to all non-believers - we summoned our bravest pilot.

With his strength bolstered and senses dulled by delicious red wine he boarded the hole-closer (known to everyone else in the entire game as a pvp Phobos) and proceeded without delay to collapse the wormhole before those Slavic mongoloids had a chance to seed our system with scouts and blasphemous idols of their precious Rasputin.

Our beautiful Swagshack was saved, but the same could not be said of Malception.

On the far side of the wormhole he was surrounded by a vast armada of war ships. Unwilling to show any fear he targeted the largest of their brood, a Navy Dominix, and charged forward.

Guns and missiles and lazorbeamz erupted for as far as the eye could see. Only after vast swaths of the enemy fleet had been cripplingly reduced to the narrowest margins of buckling structure did the Phobos succumb to the massive amounts of terrible firepower arrayed against it.

Malception's sacrifice saved countless internet spaceships that day. We should all look to him as an example of righteousness and how to die in a glorious fire, selflessly sacrificing himself and his worthless Genolution implants in defense of the realm.

As for those Russian suck-tards...