Shadow of Cerberus EVE Community Forum

The War in Fountain - Divide and Conquer

The war has slowed. Not in activity, there is still lots of ship-on-ship conflict in Fountain. The war has slowed in terms of systems taken. The CFC is still trying to secure the J5A-IX to 4-EP12 pipe. Two systems in that pipe, notably EI-O0O and Z9PP-H are still in Test Alliance hands. EI-O is especially notable since it is part of Test's jump bridge network. Taking it, I think, will put a real damper on their ability to defend against the CFC setting up shop in Fountain. While the bridgehead into Fountain is fairly secure, as long as EI-O exists, it is not totally secure.

It is still another 30 days until we can create our first jumpbridge out of J5A, perhaps into 4-EP, where we have a relatively new outpost set-up. (Jump bridges require a sovereignty index of three, which happens 35 days after a system is claimed.)

In terms of taking moons. Most of that is still a hazy mystery. The CFC claims 20 or so taken. Test & Pals claim that they've recovered a bunch. Test also disavows even wanting the moons or acknowledging their importance. Nobody is talking much, other than lines of propaganda. There are no Dotlan's available to analyze the situation. Moon control is not APIable, so the folks owning them keep them close to the vest where possible.

While the war turns into a bit of a briar patch, Goonswarm has been busy on the diplomatic front, culling some of our many enemies from the herd. First was Fweddit, who were pulled under the CFC umbrella for, at least, the duration of this war. Although the furor has died down, it did have its effect on Test Alliance's morale for a few days, Already, Fweddit has earned their stripes in the coalition. Doing completely the opposite of what DurrHurrDurr suggested, Fweddit spies in Test stole a value SBU in 4-EP and flipped it over to CFC control. Durr, of course, wanted Test spies in Fweddit to do exactly the opposite, and undermine CFC advances.

After Black Legion flipped a system in Tribute to their control, specifically Q-CAB2 ? the first system that the CFC has lost control of since October 2012 ? the Goonswarm diplomatic corp went into overdrive.

Within 48 hours a deal was struck. Black Legion would leave Tribute alone and concentrate its efforts in Fountain upon Test Alliance. No standings would be set between Black Legion and the CFC, there would still be some fighting between the two groups, but it would happen in Fountain, and would not have strategic implications. The largest headache up north had been neutralized, and in doing so the hope was that their smaller buddy, The Retirement Club [4O1K], would feel less willing to attack CFC assets up north without Black Legion backing them up.

(Q-CAB2 has still not been returned to the CFC, so allowing Black Legion to keep it might have been part of the deal.)

Unfortunately, 4O1K were not put off by Black Legion's backdoor deals. The CFC lost control of H-W9TY on June 19, and 4O1K briefly took control of the outpost in that system. The CFC has since taken the outpost back.

What's interesting is that Black Legion, and now 4O1K, were concentrating on a system pipe that separates Vale of the Silent and Geminate from the rest of CFC space. Of course, just taking a connecting series of systems is not how you divide territory in sov nullsec, you have to take the systems that contain the jump bridges between regions. Q-CAB and H-W both had jump bridges, but neither were vital to traffic passing along the east-west corridor of CFC space. Those systems are certainly a start, if it were originally Black Legion's intention to divide CFC space. On the other hand, they might have just been systems of opportunity, both are within convenient travel distance to Venal.

(Jump bridges are important because they reduce travel time. Consider a trip from VFK (Deklein) to TVN (Vale). With the CFC jump bridge network, 11 jumps; without that network, 25 jumps.)

(After 4O1K dropped sovereignty in H-W, Montolio had a hilarious comment to make on Twitter: "So does 401k get a prize package for taking a CFC station now too?")

Whether 401K continues with Black Legion's Tribute campaign remains to be seen. Although H-W9TY was lost, it never fell completely into 4O1K hands. The CFC reacted well enough, if not fast enough, and it looks like the system will be back with a CONDI tag in a day or so.
Source: The War in Fountain - Divide and Conquer