A Letter From Garst Tyrell

A couple days ago, FCON announced to their alliance that a mystery entity was coming to save them if their members could just avoid evacing for a few more days, everything would be ok!

FCON: Since your leaders don't trust you enough to tell you what is happening, I will:

TEST is coming to do FCON's pvp for them so FCON doesnt have to PVP itself, as XIX has demanded from PGL, and he has obeyed, speaking for TEST as he always likes to do. So now thanks to PGL, TEST is sucked into a new epic grind of hundreds of structures/citadels/sov systems across multiple regions for the next 6 months for someone else's war while PGL leaves to go on vacation in real life. And Vily is stuck cleaning up the mess with TEST. Thanks PGL!

But there's some more spicy details on this evolving World War in the south that the EVE community should know about.

TEST (read: Progodlegend) sold their soul to XIX for permission to stage in MTO2 to attack Guardians of the Galaxy last month in exchange for joining a secret mutual defense pact with the DRONE REGIONS Federation that they told no one about. TEST and XIX eagerly established blue standings.

But XIX played Progod while Vily was gone.

Because what TEST didnt know at the time, was that XIX was also separately talking to Phoenix Federation on the side to create blue standings for Phoenix to join the DRONE REGIONS Federation from the deep south. Immediately at the start of July after I told XIX that we were looking to peacefully leave the DRF, and XIX saw their opportunity to punish us for leaving DRONE REGIONS Federation by immediately blueing FCON since we were discussing attacking them for a fun temporary deployment. Literally during the same moment on the Meta Show that Cpt Pat and I announced our friendly reset of the DRF, FCON/XIX put out their statement acknowledging FCON's admission to the DRF. The goal of XIX and FCON had become to contain TRI from having any meaningful pvp in the short term, with FCON going so far as to extend blue standings/defense pacts to unaffiliated Wicked Creek alliances like Manifesto, until they could amass enough allies to destroy Vanguard in a winter war at XIX's urging.

The DRF Blue Donut now stretches from Paragon Soul up to Cobalt Edge, echoing all the bad old days of olde tymes of BOTLORD and northern associates(DOT). But the RMT spice must flow.

Defacto, this now means TEST is obliged to defend every random Phoenix pet alliance in the deep south, far away from the DRONE REGIONS Federation, or else break up their new blue agreements. LEGACY coalition is just collateral damage.

Since XIX cares so much for TEST membership's PVP enjoyment of the game, XIX told TEST this week to go home and grind TRI structures/sov and get the hell out of MTO2.

Why?

Because Sort Dragon threatened XIX with WAR! if they didn't, and since XIX leadership needs as little unpredictable PVP in the game as humanly possible (to maximize the profits and safety of their rental empire business), XIX leaned on TEST to leave, and PGL quickly kowtowed and obliged. If XIX starts paying TEST and throwing money around, oh TEST line member, how much is your personal cut of the isk going to be for all the grinding you are about to do? I wonder.

CO2 and Legacy Coalition face an awkward choice to continue supporting the war for their own individual strategic interests in it, or back off and go AFK like XIX wants. Well, you know GigX. He doesnt run from confrontation. It's going to be very interesting to see what happens to Legacy here soon :) I hope its everything PGL wanted, because its certainly what XIX does. PGL is busting up Legacy and Vily is gonna have to contain the damage, if he even can.

But wait, there's more!

Unfortunately, I've since found out that on the the SAME DAY I told UAxDeath (leader of XIX) that TRI would be leaving DRF a month later through a friendly neutral reset, Uaxdeath immediately ran to Elise Randolph to discuss hiring PL against us. He then reached out to manipulate other groups like FCON and TEST to get ready for an anti-TRI blitzkrieg when the time was right. TRI gave XIX a 1 month notice out of respect for them, voluntarily withdrawing all our sov and 99% of structures out of the drone lands, and XIX used that same 1 month to plot our destruction for leaving. Smiling to my face while grasping a dagger behind his back.

All he saw was TRI leaving and the smallest chance of potential threat someday to his EVE $$$ business by the change in the strategic situation. He didn't give a shit that the stagnation in the game was hurting groups who like to undock and PVP once in a while outside of canned fights. TRI left the DRF and it seems not a moment too soon.

When you dance with the devil, you get burned.

People are making money off the status quo, and the people with money dont care about PVP content or the health of the game or anything else. To them, a blue donut isn't a sad side effect of their politics: its the end goal they are actively working towards each day. And they are close to succeeding because its easier to go along with the easy wrong then to make a stand.

So where does that leave the war?

With TRI's back to the wall, we chose to strike first and break this strategic cordon by immediately attacking south against FCON. The best defense is always a good offense, and so we planned to destroy FCON before DRF was ready to use FCON as disposable meatshield against us. Ironically, FCON's decision to blue DRF specifically to stop TRI from invading FCON, was exactly the trigger that showed us we had no choice EXCEPT to invade them because the writing was on the wall and the clock ticking against us. FCON is the weak link of the DRONE REGIONS Federation (if you can call it that with a straight face anymore), and a tool for Russian greed that I genuinely don't think they even understand the implications of their own decisions.

As we suspected would happen, TRI's aggressive move against FCON triggered an immediate hiring of mercenaries, batphones, and cashing in of favors from FCON/XIX against us, but so far that hasn't stopped us. TEST's new slavery to the blue donut due to PGL's screwups is a game changer that shows how dynamic the situation in the south is. Its safe to say that even if XIX doesnt pay PL and others to come down and cock block content in the south, PL and the rest will eventually migrate south on their own volition because that's where the content is. And the content is only here thanks to TRI starting a new war again.

TRI got the real war we wanted. XIX got the war they wanted. FCON got the war they didnt want. TEST gets sucked into an epic structure grind for someone else's profit while PGL goes on vacation. All the other alliances bandwagoning in against us get a war they want. All the third parties get the content they want. RA/SW get to shoot esoteria and TEST rorquals while TEST grinds insmother.

This southern war is what EVE WORKING looks like. Not stagnation, but chaos.