“Six months ago, the commentariat was espousing the consensus that the Northern Coalition was almost embarrassingly invincible, that particular flavor of power which causes its enemies to beg for CCP to intervene on their behalf; now that same group heralds the Northern Coalition’s imminent doom. What the hell happened?”
–The Mittani, CEO, Goonswarm
BY THE FALL OF 2010, the memory of a time before the Great War was fading beyond recognition. Nearly two years since the war’s conclusion, the details were starting to get a little fuzzy. For the players of the Northern Coalition at this time the principle story of the Great War was not about Band of Brothers. It was a story about how a malicious force had tested the might of EVE’s true fortress in the north, twice, and even after supposedly conspiring with CCP Games to conquer New Eden, Band of Brothers had failed to breach the walls of Vuk Lau’s “Fortress Tribute.” The North saw itself as a battle-tested fortress, the stability of which was beyond question.
Counterintuitively, this dominance made the Northern Coalition into a relatively docile superpower. It had no ambition to continue to conquer territory unless that territory belonged to people who were once involved in Band of Brothers.
“The Northern Coalition’s political stance was always uncompromisingly hostile towards the [Greater Band of Brothers Community] to such an extent that it often used that relationship to define other standings,” reads the EVE wiki’s entry on the Northern Coalition. “At the height of The Great War of 2008-2009 the Northern Coalition openly operated a ‘With BoB or against BoB’ politics.”
As long as you had opposed Band of Brothers when it mattered, the Northern Coalition had no problem with you. It lived in what it believed was a sort of post-history era in which the great oppressor of EVE had been overthrown. Now the people of EVE could live in peace, free from threat, fighting only for fun. Best friends forever.
The Northern Coalition traditionally saw itself as an alliance of carebears who simply wanted to play EVE in collaboration with a peaceful community. Though its alliances directly controlled one-third of the conquerable star cluster, 200+ technetium moons, and likely more than 250 Capital Ship Assembly Arrays in constant production, there was a sense of benevolence about the Northern Coalition’s largely European union. The arrival of the Goons and TEST complicated that reputation. The reason for its docile nature, more than one person has alleged, is because the Northern Coalition leadership was making huge sums of money selling their wealth on eBay.
RMT
In 2003, it was common to call your enemy a “dishonorable pirate,” but in 2010 the common slur was “dirty RMTer.” RMT is an acronym meaning “Real Money Trading,” and there wasn’t a single leader in EVE who wasn’t accused of selling ships and ISK on Ebay for cash. It’s also hard to sort the true accusations from the weaponized ones, because often players were just trying to drum up an RMT scandal against their rivals to prove a player had broken the EULA and should be banned.
Vuk Lau himself was wrapped up in a scandal after some incriminating chatlogs surfaced alleging that he was openly discussing the “good old days” when he could sell a billion ISK for 60 Euro while nowadays he could only get 20. He claimed it was all a joke taken out of context, and to this day he denies ever selling ISK. With that said, that price does line up with the going rate of ISK at the time. He categorically denied the accusations when I asked him about it.
“I was one of the biggest opponents of ISK selling,” Vuk Lau told me. “I even broke a couple of real-life friendships because of that. That said, I understand why people branded me as an ISK seller and partially I was to be blamed. The only thing people saw at that time was the Northern Coalition holding 200+ technetium moons. Also we had a lot of enemies without a proper reason to hate the Northern Coalition so I was the perfect target.”
It was scandals like this which were slowly turning the Northern Coalition into the new BoB; an ancient and unimaginably wealthy coalition held in power by perceived corruption. RMT accusations had a way of inspiring a unique ire from the community, and it was often the first attack on an opponent’s reputation. Players from countries with lower-paying jobs were more frequently accused of the practice, even without proof, because the exchange rate difference can be massive. In 2010, 60 Euro went a lot further in Belgrade—where Vuk Lau lived—than it did in London, so the motivation was believed to be higher.
The true target of an RMT accusation is the alliance’s membership. The message an accuser is trying to send is that an alliance leader is siphoning off funding for their own personal enrichment rather than using it to help the alliance as a whole. The hope is that some people will start to question their loyalty to their leaders.
There are others who think it’s a good thing that some players were able to make large sums of cash selling their stuff outside of the game. They usually say it’s because it turns those players into “event creators” who will plan long war campaigns and sacrifice their time to coordinate huge battles for their players to participate in so they can get their money. Usually that argument tends to come from people known to be the ones getting the money. CCP has never agreed, and has always maintained that real money trading is bad for the health of the in-game economy and harms average players by inflating the currency and diluting people’s savings.
GUDFITES
As the Northern Coalition’s power grew there was only one group in EVE that truly made them nervous: the Russians. Many of the groups in the eastern half of the Northern Coalition (as opposed to the Goons, TEST, et al in the West) also happened to be Eastern European, and there was often nationalistic friction along the eastern boundary as Serbs, Poles, Slovaks, Ukrainians, Estonians, and Russians slung insults and threats back and forth across the border dividing the regions Geminate (Northern Coalition) and Kalevala Expanse (Legion of xXDEATHXx.)
The Northern Coalition didn’t have complete information on what the Russians—particularly Solar Fleet—had been doing all of this time, but after seeing what the Russian community and Pandemic Legion had done to Atlas Alliance, the Coalition became convinced that the true purpose of the Russian supercapital armada was an eventual invasion of the North.
The Northern Coalition was rarely involved in territorial warfare, so Vuk Lau opted instead for a preemptive strike that would hit Solar Fleet’s Capital Ship Assembly Arrays in an attempt to slow down its supercapital production. Since this wasn’t a full-on attack, an inexperienced fleet commander named Cobra2K was put in charge of the attack.
One Northern Coalition member spoke out against the attack, however. The Mittani and Goonswarm had grown friendly with many Russian figures during the Great War against BoB. The Mittani voiced a hesitation to ever confront the Russians or get involved in their internal affairs.
“I said, ‘have fun with that,’” said The Mittani in an interview. “We don’t fight Russians because that’s dumb.”
The Mittani believed it was unwise to risk provoking the Russian community in the delicate political sphere of nullsec. The main Russian alliances were divided and squabbling right now though nobody yet knew why but The Mittani had worked with many Russian figures and alliances during the Great War and had seen what they were capable of when properly motivated. The Mittani said that provoking the Russians was “just not wise.” He advocated for containing them by keeping them fighting amongst themselves rather than united against an external threat to their community.
But Vuk Lau would not be moved, and the pre-emptive strike proceeded. With thousands of pilots rallying to his banner to slow the Russian threat, Cobra2K lead the charge into the East to take Solar Fleet down a peg.
But as he planned the campaign, Cobra2K realized that in order for these attacks to be viable, he needed to capture a system on the border called LXQ2-T in order to access Solar Fleet’s territory. The system was owned by Legion of xXDEATHXx. He messaged Death and told him that this was not a serious attack, but rather a necessary staging point for creating fights against Solar Fleet’s structures. A mostly good-natured shoving match between regional rivals (gudfites, as EVE players sometimes call it.) Death didn’t hear it that way.
“Northern Coalition came to us and said, ‘We want to destroy Solar Fleet, can you promise to stay out of it?’” said Death in an interview. “We said no. Because once you kill him why not go after me? It would have been a stupid idea to let him get killed. So I said no.”
For days before October 30, Cobra2K was hyping his major offensive on LXQ2-T. This was an attack on a major strategic chokepoint into the Drone Regions, and he wanted as many people there for it as possible. Instead of standing aside, Death put out a Call to Arms of his own, spreading the message to as many pilots in the disunited Russian community as possible.
The rumblings of the impending attack were so big that CCP Games even heard the commotion, and their service technicians allocated extra processing power and server bandwidth to prop up what they expected would be a major battle. The wider gaming world was fascinated by the enormous battles in EVE, but in the recent past CCP had been embarrassed when it attracted a great deal of attention to a certain battle in Y-2ANO only to have the whole community watching when the server crashed. This time, they’d be monitoring the stability of the servers live and hopefully making fixes on-the-fly.
For ten hours prior to the iHub (the center of a star system’s infrastructure, and the main focus of an attack) coming out of reinforced mode, Cobra2K piled as many ships into the system as he could. The day wore on, and the Northern Coalition’s numbers continued to swell as the hours passed, eventually reaching a peak of around 2000 ships. The blob was finally revealing its full form.
The Russians arrived in LXQ2-T late, their own fleet numbering 982. It was a historic gathering, and yet the lack of unity between the Russian alliances placed them at a vast numerical disadvantage. Being massively outnumbered was the least of their problems, however. The Russians were facing a now classic EVE Online conundrum: will the server crash if we try to jump the fleet into an already crowded system? It was a steep gamble which had seen numerous fleets destroyed throughout EVE history, but the combined Russian fleet was too bullheaded to gather all these people together just to cede the system.
The Russians jumped their fleet into LXQ2-T, and miraculously, the game didn’t immediately crash. Lag was crushing, but the server was operating and they could see what was going on—far more than many fleet commanders throughout EVE’s history have had to work with.
Outnumbered 2:1, the Russians still felt they had a strong chance to defend this iHub. The Northern Coalition were supposed to be the “carebear” alliance with little experience in player-versus-player combat. The Russians, on the other hand, saw themselves as EVE’s most fire-proved force, born in the crucible of the Siege of C-J6MT.
The ships finally clashed late in the day on the night before Halloween, and as the Russians refused to cede LXQ2-T to a much larger force, live reports came in through EVENews24.com.
RECORD BROKEN: 3100 + 600 IN LOCAL
“A new record has been set in New Eden. 3100 pilots at the same time in one system with 600 more trying to log in. Accurate numbers are hard to get, but this should be verified by CCP. LXQ2-T (Etherium Reach) brought Northern Coalition against Drone Russian Forces in the biggest clash ever in EVE history. The result is unknown atm, as lag is very heavy and no one can do anything about it. The servers are still going on, but it’s a powerpoint presentation at the moment.”
–Czech Lion, EVENews24.com
Numerous commenters on that article offered their own experiences as pilots inside the fight. Most of them just wanted to complain that they weren’t able to log in, or that it was taking 50(!) minutes for their ship to get a lock on an enemy target.
The ships clashed late into the night on October 30, and over the final few hours before server downtime came around, more than 1200 ships were destroyed in a frantic melee. The losses were disproportionately Russian.
As the scheduled daily server shutdown time came around and the battle continued to rage, both fleets prepared to be simultaneously logged out. The powerpoint presentation came to a halt, and for 30 minutes both sides reorganized themselves for the next phase of the battle when the server came back online.
Thirty minutes later, pilots from both fleets were slowly getting back online in staggered numbers, breaking their formations. The battle continued with neither side willing to cede the field.
LXQ—OCTOBER 31—KILLING GOES ON AND ON
“LXQ system on October 31. Over the whole day, continuous fighting is happening. Many pilots got caught after logging back in in the aftermath of yesterday’s monster battle. Several fleets have been chasing each other in and around the system. One staging tower down as well. Kills/losses are equal for both sides. There should be 74 Drone Russian [Federation] (DRF) supercarriers and 24 DRF Titans logged in system.”
–John45, EVENews24.com
However, as the fighting continued, the Northern Coalition gained a grip on LXQ2-T and forced the Russians to log out their supercapital fleet.
More than 1200 shipwrecks littered LXQ2-T, and the Northern Coalition celebrated a historic victory. Its leaders bathed themselves in glory as yet more evidence compiled of their indomitability and destiny. Perhaps, they thought, the myth of Russian power truly was just a myth. Perhaps they were so weak that this playful campaign into the Drone Regions might incidentally cause the Russians to fall apart once and for all.
In truth, this victory was a double-edged sword. On the plus side, it demonstrated that the Northern Coalition blob reigned supreme in nullsec fleet combat. However, it also incidentally demonstrated—from the Russian perspective—a huge level of commitment from the Northern Coalition.
What Vuk Lau and Cobra2K hadn’t taken into account was that the Russians had a completely different perspective on this situation. From their point-of-view, a huge number of Northern Coalition pilots were flooding over their border in military hardware. Viewed from the Eastern half of the map, the Russians saw an all-out invasion that was destroying their rental fiefdoms and damaging multiple members of their coalition; an enormous threat backed by the largest and most powerful coalition in the history of EVE. Vuk Lau’s repeated assurances that this invasion was nothing to worry about looked to Death like deception and ambition.
Because they entered into this fight with relatively innocent intentions, the Northern Coalition had no understanding of how existential this threat appeared to the Russians. It’s even possible that some of those Russian leaders understood this was not a full-on Northern Coalition invasion, but saw some personal benefit to using this crisis as an excuse to bridge old divides in the community. In particular, multiple sources suggest that PsixoZZ Kahi, leader of White Noise, had an axe to grind with the Northern Coalition, and wanted to use this to spark a full-on Russian invasion. Some would later allege that he was an agent of a rival ISK seller who was hired to take down Vuk’s technetium monopoly.
PsixoZZ moved White Noise to the front line and became infamous for diving his ship into the middle of Northern Coalition fleets then typing things like “guys come save me” in Russian, just to trigger battles when others were too tentative.
As evidence mounted of the Northern Coalition threat Red Alliance joined the front as well in a show of solidarity with those who had sheltered them during the Atlas Alliance attacks on Insmother a year earlier. Even the reclusive Solar Fleet pledged assistance, but its own members would later say it was mostly symbolic. “The fifth wheel of a cart,” they called Solar Fleet.
The Russian alliances retreated after the battle for LXQ2-T. The four leaders of the principal Russian factions realized that the Northern Coalition threat was far more serious than they had believed. Furthermore, they were disgusted by what they thought were craven tactics from the Northern Coalition. The Russians saw their 2000-person fleet, and felt like the Northern Coalition was blobbing the server to death before the Russians even arrived so that they couldn’t have a true fight in which both sides’ fleets were working at full function.
“The thing about the Russians is you don’t want to interfere in Russian politics, because when you do, the Russians get together and take it personally,” said DaBigRedBoat of Goonswarm. “They may fight each other all year long and then that one day when someone [insults them] they get together and they go, ‘hmmm… fuck you.’ That’s what happens.”
“We had three main alliances that were working as part of the same machine,” said Death about Legion of xXDEATHXx, White Noise, and Red Alliance. “We took away all of our ambitions. We took away all of our differences. At the first losses, we sat down and tried to figure out what are the weak points, why are we losing? So, at this meeting, three of us agree that I’m going to be the political leader. PsixoZZ is going to be the general, the pusher, the field general, the guy on the field who inspires people. And the Dodger, he was more like a backup guy for bringing supplies, managing small stuff and shit like that. That’s how we agreed. I was the strategic guy. Making decisions about how to do it and when to do it.”
For reasons I didn’t understand during our interview, Death didn’t mention the “fifth wheel of the cart”: Mactep and Solar Fleet.
Though the Russian leaders had been separated by messy internal politics for the last five years, they had now found a true common cause again. Here was the existential threat to Russianness necessary to unite their clans.
Their leadership—Death, Mactep, PsixoZZ of White Noise, and Silent Dodger of Red Alliance—begrudgingly joined the same Jabber channel again, and began making joint plans amongst themselves to restore stability to the Russian renter farms and subdue the carebear threat. They called themselves the “Solar Legion of Red Noise,” but the rest of EVE would come to know them as the DRF: the Drone Region Federation. Or “Drone Russian Federation.” Nobody could ever agree.
FATIGUE
The newly united Russians believed strongly in their ability to ultimately win this war in the long run, but they needed time. Their pilots had just been through the war with Atlas Alliance, and while that was a great morale boost, it also had an effect on their battle readiness because many of their best pilots were fatigued by the drudgery. The later months of the campaign had turned into a long series of cleanup operations to sweep the area of old Atlas stuff.
This “fatigue” is an interesting word in EVE parlance. It doesn’t exactly mean the same thing as battle fatigue would ordinarily imply. In practice it’s more akin to what people refer to as “burnout” in the tech and video game industries. Jobs that require lots of computer usage often cause an analogous symptom. The person often loses any sense of joy in what they’re doing, and taking any virtual action feels like walking with concrete shoes. Irritability skyrockets and patience plummets. The average Russian member needed a break in order to reach their full potential. Usually when players in EVE feel this way, the solution is simply to stop playing the game for a little while. They use their spare time to catch up on work/school or be with their families instead of using it to show up for fleet operations.
The nascent Drone Region Federation needed time to get its pilots organized and its war fleet to the northern front, but time was exactly what it didn’t have. Thousands of Northern Coalition pilots were already bearing down on its strategic crossroad systems. The Russians needed help.
SHADOO
It was at this moment when Pandemic Legion—the mercenaries who had served the Russians so ably in the war against Atlas—approached both Vuk Lau and Death with an offer. They’d seen the reports of battles in this area, and they wanted in on the gameplay content. The offer was simple: “we’ll fight for the highest bidder.” The most effective mercenary fleet in New Eden was now a rogue piece on the chess board that either coalition could purchase.
“When they offered to ‘assist’ us, at that particular moment I disliked the team leading Pandemic Legion as they were all but honorable, and spaceship honor was the only thing important to me in EVE,” said Vuk Lau. “They were trying to play both sides bargaining for extra ISK.”
The Russians, on the other hand, were flush with cash from their massive renter empire and had no qualms about making an obvious choice. Vuk Lau saw extortion; Death saw a lifeline. He had seen first-hand the devastating effectiveness of Pandemic Legion’s new close-range Heavy Assault Cruiser fleet strategy, the “ArmorHAC,” and had even given Pandemic Legion Titans to use against Atlas Alliance. The Russians didn’t want to be on the wrong end of their own Titans. They pooled their funds and signed a massive 600 billion ISK deal with Pandemic Legion. In exchange, PL agreed to lead their war effort.
The Drone Region Federation, wary of trying to share strategic command between the four of them, gave Pandemic Legion’s Shadoo control over the battleplan. Shadoo devised a plan to re-establish a defensive front line in the Drone Regions while driving the tip of the spear deep into the Northern Coalition’s wallet. All of this would be combined with a political campaign spearheaded by Death designed to split the Northern Coalition in two: the Deklein Coalition led by TEST and Goonswarm, and the western allies led by Morsus Mihi and Razor.
The first stage of the campaign was a two-pronged attack. While the Russians prepared to take back LXQ2-T and regain control of their lost system, Pandemic Legion went behind enemy lines into the Venal region and struck where it would hurt the Northern Coalition the most: its technetium moons.
Venal is a region of space that can’t be officially conquered by players, but infrastructure can still be built and attacked and resource collection can be shut down. Mining towers would shut down and cease operating if they were attacked by a fleet, then come back online 36 hours later and resume collecting the “moon goo” that formed the backbone of the Northern Coalition’s finances. Pandemic Legion methodically shut down every technetium-producing moon every 36 hours and established a firm military hold on the area, stopping the flow of technetium to the Northern Coalition members.
As the defeats piled up, the Northern Coalition realized that Pandemic Legion’s ArmorHAC fleet concept couldn’t be beaten. It could only be matched, and the Northern Coalition began trying to imitate its success. But Pandemic Legion’s fleet concept had a secret weapon that nobody could imitate, because nobody knew about it: an extensive spy support network.
Spy networks were already commonplace in this era of EVE, but they were mostly used for intelligence collection and keeping tabs on enemies. Occasionally, an agent would see a particularly glaring opportunity to turn off some defenses or steal a fleet of ships, but for the most part their job was to relay information they’d read on the forums or seen in alliance chat.
Pandemic Legion’s spies took things one step further. They infiltrated their enemies’ organizations at the low-level, and would dutifully show up for fleet operations. These spies would simply listen to the enemy fleet commander’s instructions and do as they were told. But simultaneously, they’d be in another chat window with Shadoo. As the Northern Coalition fleet commander barked out orders to focus the attack on certain Pandemic Legion ships, the spy would relay that information to Shadoo who gave the command to his support ships to start repairing that ship, often before the Northern Coalition fleet even began firing. When the Northern Coalition tried to ape Pandemic Legion’s ArmorHAC concept it was frustrated to find it wasn’t working nearly as well, because the coalition lacked the invasive spy network required to make it work at full efficiency.
To make matters worse, Pandemic Legion quickly saw that the ArmorHAC was finally being copied so it developed a new fleet concept designed specifically to dismantle its own ArmorHAC. It was essentially the same idea, but this time PL would fit its ships for long-range engagements. While the short-range ArmorHAC fleet chased after them, the all-new “Hellcat” fleet kept them at sub-optimal range. As the Northern Coalition ArmorHAC fire continuously missed, the Pandemic Legion Hellcat fleet chipped away at them from perfect safety. The EVE community shuddered at the sheer domination on display in some of these battles.
The Northern Coalition was on its back foot trying to deal with these attacks behind its lines that were disrupting its moon income. The Pandemic Legion Hellcat fleets were unbeatable unless the Northern Coalition managed to summon overwhelming reinforcements (such as one battle in which their forces were reportedly supplemented by nearly 600 Goons to force off a Pandemic Legion Hellcat fleet of 100.) The Northern Coalition was hemorrhaging funds, and the battles were nowhere near cost (or time) effective.
The wider EVE community jeered at the Northern Coalition and said their “blob” was a craven strategy of population over skill. The Northern Coalition pilots usually took it in stride, and would snipe back something like, “the blob is coming for you next,” and often signed with the ever-present alliance motto, “Best friends forever!” Suddenly, however, it seemed that quality was triumphing over quantity.
Occasionally, by sheer numbers, the Northern Coalition was able to push Pandemic Legion’s sub-capital fleets off the field. All this meant, however, was that it was time for PL’s supercapitals to arrive. The pulsing mass of Titans looked like a thing occult. Titans are intended to be the biggest ship in EVE, but a single Titan looks almost silly next to a fleet of them. With minimal ability to maneuver delicately, the fleet of dozens of ships mashed together, their 3D models clipping through all the others and forming a great spiky ball of ships slowly dissociating, occasionally causing one or two to glitch and bounce away into space. Pandemic Legion had a blob of its own, growing stronger all the time, and it knew how to use it better than any other alliance in EVE.
Throughout November and December both sides jockeyed for position on the borders of their former territories. The battlefield in the Drone Regions looked mostly the same, but notable success had been achieved by Pandemic Legion, which now claimed the moon-rich region of Venal as its own.
“As of 23 December all Venal tech moons are owned by Pandemic Legion,” a spokesperson wrote in a publicized announcement. “70 tech moons producing 90 billion isk a week. All alliances but the original Goonfleet will be hunted down and killed if entering Pandemic Legion’s region. For renter agreements and buying the tech moons contact Pandemic Legion.”
As 2010 came to a dramatic conclusion, the Russians were readying for the true assault. It would begin on December 29, 2010, when the Drone Region Federation unleashed its long-awaited supercapital invasion of Northern Coalition-held Geminate.
ATTRITION
The Drone Region Federation wanted to start off its renewed invasion with a bang, but early attempts were frustrated by failure.
On the first day, a fleet of 400 members pushed forward into Geminate and managed to trap a Northern Coalition defense fleet consisting of members from its border with the Russians. The alliance, called Rebellion Alliance, was non-coincidentally also largely Russian and had been placed there to guard the Northern Coalition in the Russian prime time zone. Once trapped, the Rebellion fleet put out a call-to-arms to the larger Northern Coalition community and two more fleets were coordinated which pincered the DRF fleet into the system and destroyed it.
On the very next day, in nearby O2O-2X, a DRF trap again went horribly wrong. Pandemic Legion was tracking a Northern Coalition fleet moving through the region, and wanted to ensnare and destroy it. The Pandemic Legion Hellcat fleet waited patiently near a Titan, intending to use it to jump the fleet right on top of the supposedly clueless NC fleet.
But the Northern Coalition fleet commander, by the name of Yaay, knew all about the trap, and called up additional capital and supercapital forces to be ready nearby. Then Yaay ordered the fleet directly into the Pandemic Legion trap. Pandemic Legion’s Hellcat fleet jumped to optimal range and began trying to destroy the NC fleet commander. Yaay triggered the trap and brought down a full complement of dreadnoughts and Titans. But Pandemic Legion wouldn’t blink. Shadoo saw Yaay’s raise, and responded by fielding his own supercapital force.
Yaay directed his Titans to begin targeting known Pandemic Legion fleet commanders and logistics ships that provide buffs to the entire fleet. Shadoo responded by focusing Pandemic Legion’s fire on one Northern Coalition Titan in particular, flown by Vuk Lau himself.
Vuk Lau’s Titan was destroyed first, and another Northern Coalition Titan went down next, but reinforcements tipped the battle out of Pandemic Legion’s control. In exchange for their two lost Titans, the Northern Coalition took down six Pandemic Legion Titans, an unprecedented sum even for a coalition (let alone a single alliance.) By the end of the day, Pandemic Legion was down 600 billion ISK, the entire amount of their contract with the Drone Region Federation.
In one grand maneuver, the Northern Coalition leveled the playing field against Pandemic Legion after being pushed around by its mercenary fleets for months. The legend of Northern Coalition dominance was still growing.
Throughout the first month of 2011, Pandemic Legion was able to maintain supremacy with its Hellcat fleets, and yet continued bleeding Titans largely due to innocent mistakes and clever Northern Coalition maneuvers.
In the Drone Regions, the Russians recaptured the last of their lost territory, and were able to join forces with Pandemic Legion on a campaign of retribution. PL wanted revenge for O2O-2X. The Russians were united. Both wanted to ensure the NC could never threaten them again. The campaign to safeguard the Drone Regions was now openly advertised as a campaign to destroy the Northern Coalition forever.
