“It is purely upon us to choose the fate of ourselves.”
–Vuk Lau, Morsus Mihi, Northern Coalition
THE RUSSIAN INVASION ROLLED on, and throughout mid-May 2011 there was rarely a ray of hope for the Northern Coalition. Despite Goonswarm pledging its assistance, the situation was so bad that the Northern Coalition was now having trouble finding talented fleet commanders willing to sully their reputations with what were sure to be catastrophic losses.
In the midst of this, Pandemic Legion’s Shadoo opened a private chat line to Vuk Lau late one night for a talk. After telling Vuk Lau that his coalition’s current situation was a result of the Northern Coalition growing “stale sitting on the same shit for fucking 7 years” Vuk Lau took the comment back to his coalition for a rallying cry.
“Now comes the important part,” he wrote on the forums. “Starting from Sunday 22nd of May we will stop sucking or at least die trying. I will do the only thing I am good at—delegate stuff and make your pewpew experience enjoyable.”
Vuk Lau announced that he had uninstalled his other favorite video game “World of Tanks,” giving his account to two teenagers to grind items for him, and that he would be fully focused on EVE going forward.
But in the other half of the Northern Coalition—The Deklein Coalition—it was obvious that The Mittani was already planning a new future without the Northern Coalition. On May 26, he published an installment of his popular “Sins of a Solar Spymaster” blog series which detailed his exploits as a shadowy back-channel operative. In a post titled “The Crisis of the Northern Coalition” he wrote at length about the galling flaws in the organization, and the mistakes it had made along the way. He criticized the coalition’s diffuse leadership structure, unfocused fleet strategy, and, of course, the way in which they’d managed to piss off the Russians. The column ended on a starkly direct note:
“Speaking at a personal level,” The Mittani wrote, “in years past the NC was invaluable in aiding Goonswarm in our war against Band of Brothers, and we owe them a great debt; because of this, we have been committing many fleets to keep Tribute secure. Yet our efforts will be for naught if these issues are not addressed; already there are indications that the Northern Coalition bloc is entering the early stages of a failure cascade. Stern, engaged autocratic leadership is needed to save the day.”
Whatever else one might say about The Mittani as an apiring despot, he was certainly clear about his intentions.
On May 30, Vuk reached his breaking point. With Pandemic Legion gank squads swarming Tribute and constant assaults hitting Northern Coalition capital shipyards, Vuk Lau issued a missive to the Northern Coalition. He announced that an all-or-nothing defense must be made in H-W9TY, or else the Northern Coalition must admit that it was a broken organization unable to withstand this enemy. He was fed up with his allies refusing to commit their supercapital ships to the defense.
(Note that English is a fluent but secondary language for Vuk Lau, and when he says “friends-with-benefits” he likely misspoke and meant something akin to “allies of convenience.”)
“As you witnessed, more than a dozen Tribute [Capital Shipyard Assembly Arrays] along with several important towers were reinforced in Tribute core. I doubt we can do shit today (Monday) but if we don’t field EVERYTHING we have including ALL SUPERCAPS on Tuesday evening and defend everything that is reinforced, we can be realistic to say that we lost this war. We need to admit to ourselves that the Northern Coalition is broken in several areas, and it’s sad that we had to face reality in the worst possible way, but that’s life.
What we have—and none can take that from us—are our communities and friendship built between us over the years. At least, after this we know who are our real friends and who are friends-with-benefits.
Anyway at this moment war is not lost YET. As I said Tuesday is “to be or not be” for the Northern Coalition in its current structure, in the true meaning of that expression. It is purely upon us to choose the fate of ourselves.”
–Vuk Lau, Leader of Morsus Mihi, Northern Coalition
May 30, 2011
The Northern Coalition leadership posted a well-known video clip of Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek: First Contact, in which Captain Picard—pushed to his breaking point by the merciless invasion of the Borg—smashes a glass case and gives an impassioned rallying speech.
“We’ve made too many compromises already, too many retreats,” says Picard. “They invade our space, and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds, and we fall back. Not again! The line must be drawn here! This far, no farther! And I will make them pay for what they’ve done!”
Pandemic Legion fleet commander and frequent scribe of battles and conflicts, Elise Randolph, wrote at the time that at this moment, “the gauntlet was thrown.”
“PL’s own Sky Marshall, Phreeze, accepted the challenge,” wrote Elise Randolph. “Together with DRF allies NCdot, Merciless, Raiden, and the relentless warriors of [Intrepid Crossing,] [Phreeze] formulated a bold plan. As the server loaded, the rambunctious PL forces amassed with their trademark fear-inducing Thundercat fleet.”
Randolph wrote of how the Northern Coalition successfully assembled its blob fleet once again—the blunt-force club which had got them out of a hundred jams before—an excellent and formidable fleet of 900 pilots.
“Fortune favors the bold,” Pandemic Legion Skymarshal Phreeze is said to have written in fleet chat to the Pandemic Legion pilots. “The road to glory is paved with brave souls, and you have enough spirit to pave that road forty times over. We can stand down now and say we got to the brink of glory and nobody would question our fight. Hey, we just about got there—that’s something right? Wrong. Nothing succeeds like success. I say we fight our way into the light, make our dreams become their nightmares.”
Elise Randolph’s description continues: “The NC gang still had cold feet; mistaking bravery for foolishness they unsuccessfully tried to goad the PL forces into giving up their position. The Northern Coalition were at the precipice of redemption, staring fortune squarely in the eyes, and yet they still were reluctant to take the final plunge. Riddled with self doubt, the NC began to convince themselves that they were going to lose everything; it was clear their hearts were not in the fight. Plagued by their indecisiveness and an unwillingness to fight for something, the NC disbanded all 900 members.”
Rather than sacrificing the alliance’s supercapital fleet in a vain last stand Vuk Lau made the decision to disembark the fleet and give up hope of saving the Northern Coalition.
The last defense of Tribute failed before it even got started, and like other great last stands throughout EVE history, Vuk Lau didn’t want to ask his members to risk assets he knew the coalition could no longer replace in a vain attempt to stave off destiny.
Over the next week, the Northern Coalition continued to bleed Titans as members in chaos made mistakes and were caught unaware by Pandemic Legion specialist gank teams. The classic signs of collapse were now deeply evident throughout the Northern Coalition, as fault lines which had been widening for months now suddenly sprang open and a sort of Doomsday evacuation from the north began.
The age of the Northern Coalition had come to its end. Vuk Lau and Morsus Mihi, one of the oldest institutions in the EVE community, no longer had any credible claim on power. Morsus Mihi soon split apart and the corporations went their separate ways. Two of the largest including Vuk Lau’s corporation joined up with the Deklein Coalition, while another faction fled the north entirely. As they retreated, the DRF/Pandemic Legion forces moved in and took H-W9TY. The Eastern Northern Coalition’s pets were fleeing in droves. Meanwhile, The Mittani repeated for any who were interested to listen that the collapse of the North was democracy’s fault, and a dictator was needed to stem the tide and keep the North safe from the “rapacious business” which now headed a largely-Russian coalition that controlled half of nullsec.
As the mass of Russian forces consolidated the eastern half of the north it at last approached the border of Deklein Coalition territory. Pandemic Legion—still leading the DRF fleet—argued that they should continue the invasion and use this critical momentum to destroy the Deklein Coalition and cut Goonswarm down before it could fill the power vacuum left behind by Morsus Mihi and Razor. But Pandemic Legion’s Elise Randolph was surprised to find the Russians had no appetite left for conquest. Unbeknownst to Elise Randolph and Pandemic Legion, The Mittani made a deal with Death: as long as The Mittani didn’t attack its new DRF neighbor White Noise then the invasion would stop.
“They made a deal with the Russians behind closed doors,” alleged Elise Randolph and confirmed by Death. “After this unstoppable invasion ripped through the rest of the Northern Coalition, the Russians just stopped on the border of Goon territory and went home.”
But Pandemic Legion didn’t want to waste a golden opportunity. The Goons and the Deklein Coalition as a whole stood to gain immensely from the collapse of Morsus Mihi. Left unchecked, Pandemic Legion feared the Deklein Coalition would form the core of a new and potentially more dangerous northern bloc. And so, without the knowledge of its Russian allies, Pandemic Legion began planning an operation to capture and “headshot” the Goon capital, the station “Mittanigrad” in VFK-IV.
Unsupported by its Russian allies and deep behind enemy lines, Pandemic Legion planned a daring operation to shut down the system and keep the invasion rolling. Perhaps it was even hoping that a display of strength might convince the Russians to bandwagon and help destroy the Deklein Coalition.
However, the attempt on Mittanigrad was an abject disaster. The operation got off to a halting start as Pandemic Legion had trouble organizing this particular fleet. Far from headshotting the station, Pandemic Legion never reached the station. Instead, a swarm of angry Goons had been rallied to the station’s defense, quickly seeing it (correctly) as a direct threat to the coalition’s survival.
Instead of blockading Mittanigrad, the Pandemic Legion fleet was instead completely overwhelmed by a classic Goon swarm, and were forced back into their own headquarters station. This was a particular problem because they were staging out of a conquerable station. If they allowed Goonswarm to blockade them inside they could lose everything.
Trapped inside its own station, Pandemic Legion was forced to think fast to figure a way out of the dire situation. There was no way to fight the vastly superior Goon-led force and no chance of reaching a peace deal after the surprise attack.
However, Elise Randolph remembered that old quirk about starbase shield permissions: if the password is changed, the ships inside will be rocketed into deep space. The starbase shield password was changed and the Pandemic Legion ships were fired like bullets past the Goon blockade and into deep space where they escaped, rendezvoused, and retreated.
To Pandemic Legion it was one of the most spectacular “welps” of all-time, and Goonswarm would never forget—regardless of the attack’s failure—that Pandemic Legion’s goal was to drive them out of existence.
Pandemic Legion, for its part, was forced to admit its plan to capture Mittanigrad was laughably half-baked, and pulled back to reconsider its future.
DENOUEMENT
Some of the remnants of Morsus Mihi abandoned the north altogether to seek refuge elsewhere. It attempted to evict a smaller alliance in the south named Nulli Secunda, deep in former IT Alliance territory on the opposite side of New Eden. Nulli Secunda proved more capable than Morsus Mihi had anticipated, however, and Morsus Mihi left nullsec shortly afterward. Most of Morsus Mihi’s main corporations opted to join Against ALL Authorities to help rebuild that old nullsec stalwart as it recaptured the deep south from White Noise.
With Pandemic Legion now officially repulsed and the Russians heading back to the Drone Regions, The Mittani, Goonswarm, and the Deklein Coalition faced an altogether new dynamic in the north of nullsec. They now found themselves in sole control of their own independent coalition without the oversight of Vuk Lau and the old Northern Coalition council. But their new neighbors were White Noise and Raiden (the latter of which was full of old BoB members,) both of which had deep grudges against the Deklein Coalition.
On the upside, however, a number of splinter groups from the old Northern Coalition were now joining the Deklein Coalition in droves. The Deklein Coalition became a vast mess of various corporations and alliances lacking coordination or coherent ideology: exactly the kind of loose coalition The Mittani had long sought to avoid.
With all of these new recruits flowing in, the Deklein Coalition was appropriately renamed “The ClusterFuck Coalition.”
