“Sala Cameron and MrBlue had been working on [surprising] a small CFC Sub-Capital group lead by Dabigredboat for about 3 days now, and by looks of it tonight was the night when all the stars aligned. With nothing at stake both sides threw caution to the wind and went all-in.”
–Shadoo of Pandemic Legion speaking to Alizabeth for TheMittani.com
MANY OF EVE ONLINE’S biggest battles and most important turning points were the result of years of planning and diplomacy and tactical maneuvering. This one happened out of the blue and for what seemed like no good reason in the middle of nowhere. The ships that are destroyed won’t have a drastic impact on the fleets of any side, and the result won’t markedly change anything. But the psychological impact it will have and the circumstances that will result from it will be profound. It began simply.
On January 25th, 2013, a fleet made up of two small allied alliances called Drunk N Disorderly and Lost Obsession was flying around space looking for something to do. The fleet meandered from system to system throughout low-security space, looking for a suitable fight. Not much was going on in this part of New Eden, and the three dozen or so pilots were searching for anything fun to occupy the evening.
After hours of searching for a suitable fight for their combined forces, a scout relayed word that ClusterFuck Coalition fleet commander DaBigRedBoat had been spotted nearby leading a sub-capital fleet.
Drunk N Disorderly and Lost Obsession didn’t like Boat, and decided to screw with him a little. Their much smaller fleet made a detour to the system Boat was staging out of. On a lark, the Drunk N Disorderly gang surprise-attacked Boat’s much stronger force, and inflicted a bit of damage before Boat called up his emergency reserve of carriers to push back the attack. Little more than light-hearted harassment. The Drunk N Disorderly/Lost Obsession fleet took heavy losses, but the cheap ships wouldn’t cost that much to replace, and it was worth it just to mess with DaBigRedBoat and make something, anything exciting happen on an otherwise dreary Friday night roam through lowsec. The pilots laughed among themselves imagining Boat panicking and getting all mad. They flew back to their alliance’s HQ station and logged off for the night.
But DBRB was less than amused that he’d had to call in carriers for a silly slap fight, and he decided he needed to make a point. So for days afterward he kept one eye open, searching for Drunk N Disorderly so he could send a message as old as power: you can’t mess with us and get away with it.
Unbeknownst to either side, however, the political situation was about to get more complicated than anyone had anticipated.
While Boat was searching the nearby systems for Drunk N Disorderly fleets to make an example of, he received a message from one of the group’s local enemies: the Liandri Covenant. Liandri ambassadors said that their alliance would be willing to keep tabs on Drunk N Disorderly’s movements if DBRB agreed to have his pilots on standby to help out if Liandri itself was attacked as a result.
Drunk N Disorderly soon figured out Liandri was spying on them, and predictably began planning a revenge attack to destroy Liandri’s staging base in this region. But since Liandri now had the backing of the CFC, an attack was exactly what they were hoping for. Liandri Covenant would just call DaBigRedBoat, who would reinforce them with a fleet of carriers.
Drunk N Disorderly knew it needed an ace-in-the-hole. So its leaders quietly contacted Pandemic Legion and told active fleet commander Hedliner that if he made his supercapital fleet available at the time of the battle there was a chance that he would get to surprise an ill-prepared CFC carrier fleet. Drunk N Disorderly said it’d have a Heavy Interdictor ship (used in preventing enemy ships from escaping) on the field to trap anything the CFC brought that was worth killing. What DND didn’t mention was that because this was a spur-of-the-moment operation it only actually had one Heavy Interdictor.
To review: Drunk N Disorderly pissed off DaBigRedBoat for funsies. Their rival Liandri Covenant took advantage of that by offering to spy on DND’s whereabouts so DaBigRedBoat could get his revenge. DND learned Liandri and the CFC were trying to set a trap for them, and saw an opportunity to lure DaBigRedBoat into a counter-trap. Drunk N Disorderly contacted a nearby Pandemic Legion fleet to be on standby in case DaBigRedBoat tried to intervene with his carrier fleet.
Liandri Covenant mentioned—maybe bragged—to one of its small allies that big things might be happening tonight, but that comment leaked the entire operation. A spy overheard the details and relayed that information back to DaBigRedBoat, who now knew everything Pandemic Legion was planning. In other words, everyone knew that everyone else had set a trap for everyone. And that made them all that much more interested in triggering it, because everyone thought their trap was the better one.
DaBigRedBoat requested a supercapital force to be on stand-by in case Pandemic Legion showed up.
BLACK RISE
On January 27th, 2013, a fleet of Drunk N Disorderly players was forming up and preparing to siege a Liandri Covenant starbase orbiting the 14th moon of the 4th planet in the Asakai system, in the Kurala constellation of the region Black Rise.
The starbase itself was mostly worthless. It had been placed there to serve as a forward operating base for Liandri Covenant in EVE’s “Faction Warfare” territory (a more structured wargame zone that sees players fighting for the in-game lore empires.) Even for Faction Warfare space it served little strategic purpose or value. Tiberius Stargazer, a member of Liandri Covenant wrote, “It couldn’t have even called itself an ammunition cache, because it didn’t have any, it didn’t even have any guns.”
It was this empty tin can of a starbase—operated by an alliance that had little real influence—that would be the catalyst for one of the biggest battles in EVE history.
DABIGYELLOWTITAN
A setup attack the previous day by Drunk n Disorderly had put the worthless starbase into its reinforced mode. It was set to come out of its reinforcement cycle and become vulnerable at about 1am GMT.
“The POS (Player-Owned Starbase) came out of reinforcement and the Liandri Covenant fleet of some 30 cruisers and frigates waited for their enemies to show, and they did,” wrote Liandri’s Tiberius Stargazer. “Drunk N Disorderly, according to released battle reports had, due to an administrative oversight, almost forgot about the [battle and] had only engaged due to sheer boredom. DND, knowing Liandri fleet tactics, fielded smart-bombing battleships which countered a portion of the Liandri fleet’s frigates leaving only the remaining cruisers to duke it out with the DND battleships.”
As the small battle unfolded, DaBigRedBoat kept his fleet in a holding pattern several systems away, waiting for the right moment to open up a cynosural warp bridge into Asakai, bridge in his carrier fleet, and exact his revenge on Drunk n Disorderly and Lost Obsession. Keeping idle fleets entertained and attentive to fleet communications was said to have been DaBigRedBoat’s legendary strength. He’d tell stories, crack bad jokes, and screen movies that the fleet would sync up and watch together until something happened.
To lead the fleet he was using two EVE Online characters at the same time. One account (“DaBigRedBoat”) was in the carrier fleet that was waiting to warp into the system, and the other account was his Titan character Oleena Natiras. Oleena was logged in just to create the portal through which DaBigRedBoat and his carriers would bridge into Asakai where the Drunk N Disorderly fleet was just beginning to take control of the battlefield around the worthless starbase.
“After a couple of running skirmishes it became clear Liandri […] did not have the heavy guns to break the formidable tanks of the larger ships,” wrote Stargazer. “Out-gunned, the first call was made and was answered by the CFC.”
When the Liandri Covenant fleet began to disengage, DaBigRedBoat’s moment came. He looked at his screen and hit the “jump” command to warp his carrier fleet into the battle.
But there was a problem: he was using two monitors and clicked on the wrong screen. Rather than jumping the carrier fleet, he jumped his Titan—far more expensive and far less prepared for battle—leaving the carrier fleet behind. The only ship that arrived near the starbase was the transport Titan flown by Oleena Natiras, a 2.3 billion kilo surprise for the combatants in Asakai.
The pilots from the two low-sec alliances stared in amazement at the sheer size of the Titan which they assumed was just the first of many CFC Titans about to arrive. Titans usually only travel in convoys.
“A number of Liandri’s rookie pilots (myself included) chattered in awe,” wrote the Liandri Covenant pilot Tiberius Stargazer. “I hadn’t—many had never—seen anything larger than a carrier.”
Drunk N Disorderly quickly sent word to the on-call Pandemic Legion fleet commander, Elise Randolph, that the intelligence was accurate, but that something far juicier had appeared on the grid: DaBigRedBoat’s Titan, alone. Within moments, the Drunk N Disorderly Heavy Interdictor burned toward the Titan, activated its warp scrambler, and trapped DaBigRedBoat in place.
“Boat’s [original] plan was simple: hot drop the militia forces in Asakai, kill what he could, and get out,” wrote EVE writer Alizabeth on TheMittani.com. “Once on field, he was tackled by DnD [Heavy Interdictor], who reported the Leviathan to Elise Randolph of Pandemic Legion. Elise decided to go for broke and committed 40 Pandemic Legion [supercapitals] to the fight.”
DaBigRedBoat saw he was pinned down by the Drunk N Disorderly Heavy Interdictor and panicked; This ship was equipped for bridging carrier fleets, not for surviving bombardment.
“ALL CAPITALS SUPERS TitanS EVERYTHING LOGIN JUMP TO MJI3 THEN JUMP TO FIGHT SIEGE GREEN 20K FUEL,” he posted in a flurry, ordering his entire fleet to come to his aid and attempt to save his Titan.
They were able to arrive quickly because Asakai was essentially on the doorstep of the CFC. But it was a fairly long trip for Pandemic Legion and those of their southern allies. So the CFC reinforcements (including DaBigRedBoat’s carrier fleet) arrived in system just ahead of the first wave of Pandemic Legion supercapitals.
“Once PL supers were committed, jabber pings went out all over the CFC for fleets. The operation had turned from saving Boat’s Titan to destroying the PL fleet. Subcapital fleets were formed and capital pilots logged in. One of the effects of Time Dilation (TiDi) is that it affects not just the system the fight is taking place [in], but several systems out. Capital ships were able to arrive much quicker than usual since they jumped in from outside of TiDi effects. When PL saw that the CFC was going ‘all in’ to Asakai, they reached out to other groups. They started out by contacting the N3 Coalition. When N3 agreed to assist, PL contacted TEST who started to make their way up north as well.
However, neither group was initially close and Asakai is located in the CFC’s front yard, so to speak. It was a simple matter for CFC capitals to use cyno beacons to move to the battle and CFC subcapitals could use the highly developed jump bridge network. So, in the initial stages, the CFC had local superiority and was able to down one PL Nyx while three others warped out in low armor and even one at eighty seven percent structure. [The system population] was well over a thousand and climbing.”
–Alizabeth, writing for TheMittani.com
When the TEST Alliance fleet left its base in 6VDT-H in Fountain with 500 pilots headed to Asakai to kill DaBigRedBoat’s Titan because it was hilarious, Montolio reportedly said only: “Make me proud.”
DaBigRedBoat’s allies streamed into the system to help extract his Titan, but the arriving pilots were terrified to find a growing Pandemic Legion fleet of more than 40 Titans and Supercarriers. CFC fleet commanders were undaunted, however. They ordered their pilots to form up fleets, sound the “Horn of Goondor,” and get everyone in a ship, because something big is going down tonight in Asakai.
A great stirring was happening across New Eden as word started to get out to the rest of the playerbase about the bizarre spontaneous battle that had broken out in low security space just a few jumps away from the newbie zones. With Time Dilation now in full-swing, even light-speed laser blasts streaked slowly across the tangled mess of the emerging battle, and missile barrages crawled in slow motion toward their targets. All sorts of pilots were intrigued, and a lot of them got the clever idea to journey out to the battle for themselves to take a peek, just to be a part of the commotion between great nullsec powers. This was the type of battle they’d read about in the news and attracted them to EVE in the first place. Now that it was so nearby, and with time moving at such a pace, people would have hours to get online, travel to Asakai, and see it for themselves.
It quickly began to dawn on both the CFC and Pandemic Legion fleet commanders that this was turning into something big, and both sides could now plainly see that with time itself slowed down, the only strategy for winning this impromptu battle was going to be to out-escalate the other.
The race was on between the two juggernauts to get their people organized and into Asakai before the battle reached a tipping point or the server crashed. Pandemic Legion leadership knew they had a strong chance to win the escalation battle because it was offering the head of DaBigRedBoat as a symbolic prize. As a long-time Goon fleet commander, Boat was someone a lot players all over New Eden wanted to see humbled. As an added incentive, Pandemic Legion offered to keep the peace—for one night only—with any of its rivals who wanted to get in on the destruction of the CFC Titan. Pandemic Legion put out a Call-to-Arms, and the fleets of N3 and TEST Alliance were finally beginning to arrive.
To make matters worse, it was Saturday. Not even working hours could interrupt the ever-growing scale of the battle. CCP was behind the scenes working to keep the servers up.
“Once it was clear that the fight was large, in charge, and not going anywhere, we took the only action that we really have—we moved other solar systems away from that [server] node,” said developer CCP Veritas to EVE journalist Alizabeth. “Moving a system like this disconnects everyone in it, so moving the fight system itself isn’t acceptable, as those in the non-favorable position simply won’t log back in. This didn’t make a big difference on the performance of the fight, as those systems were mostly empty, but it did at least make those other systems fine after the move.”
By sheer chance, a fleet of 60 dreadnoughts from the small-but-mighty mercenary alliance Black Legion also happened to be in the region conducting a fleet exercise when they got the news about what was happening about 10 jumps away. Its fleet commander Elo Knight swiftly made a detour to get those ships in on what was now one of the biggest and most bizarre lowsec battles in memory, and almost everybody’s guns were pointed at DaBigRedBoat’s Titan.
“Throughout the battle, Drunk N Disorderly and Lost Obsession’s [Heavy Interdictors] were key to trapping CFC ships in Asakai. As Heavy Interdictors are soft targets for heavily armed capital and supercapital ships, DnD and Lost Obsession quickly found themselves dangerously low on [Heavy Interdictors]. At this point a member of Lost Obsession devised a clever plan to get more—travel to Jita, the trading hub of New Eden, buy as many Heavy Interdictors as they could stuff into the hold of the fastest freighter they could find, and park them in the neighboring [system named “Prism.”] Before the end of the battle, DND and Lost Obsession would purchase every Heavy Interdictor for sale in the regions around Asakai and in Jita. According to Drunk N Disorderly head Sajuk Nigarra, they lost well over 20 of them before the battle was over.”
–Addie Burke, GamingTrend
The CFC continued to escalate the battle as well, bringing in many of its own Titans to provide cover for their ships and keep things from turning into an all-out slaughter. But the odds continued to grow in favor of its enemies as ships poured in from around the star cluster.
At the peak of the frantic melee, 2754 players from a litany of more than 270 alliances were in Asakai, one of the largest such events in EVE Online’s history and the history of online gaming.
When DaBigRedBoat’s Titan became the focus of the entire star cluster, everyone mostly forgot about the worthless starbase that had originally sparked this event. The Liandri Covenant pilots sat safely inside the shield of the tin-can starbase as all hell came to bear on their home system.
Those sheltering pilots must surely have been awed by the power and interconnectedness of this video game community. Liandri Covenant was like a gang of neighborhood toughs whose beef with a slightly larger rival gang escalated into a proxy battle between nation states on their front stoop. No one was even paying attention to Liandri Covenant anymore as the nullsec powers targeted each other’s most expensive supercapitals at close range. From inside the bounds of the thin blue shield of their starbase, Liandri Covenant saw a jagged tangle of 3000 ships slipping and lurching through space in a laggy, time-dilated ballet.
As the battle began to slip out of control, the CFC began to pull its ships out one by one, feeding trapped ships enough capacitor power to engage their jump drives and escape the battle.
Pandemic Legion fleet commander Hedliner noted after the battle that had this fight taken place in nullsec instead of lowsec, their Heavy Interdictors would have been able to create warp disruption bubbles that would’ve destroyed 60% of the CFC fleet. Instead, the CFC managed to evade many of those losses. That’s not to say the CFC emerged unscathed, however. Three Titans, including DaBigRedBoat’s Leviathan, were destroyed along with 6 supercarriers, 29 carriers, 44 dreadnoughts, and 450+ sub-capital ships.
The near-trillion ISK cost of the battle was far from an existential blow for the ultra-wealthy technetium kingpins, but Asakai was a moment that forced the relationship between the ClusterFuck Coalition to come to a head. After the battle, many of the combatants—including TEST—kept positive standings with Goonswarm and the CFC in spite of the fact they’d just destroyed 850 billion ISK of CFC property. But the Battle of Asakai seems to have put a question in the back of everyone’s minds: if we’re on the same side, then why weren’t we on the same side in the biggest battle of the year?
DaBigRedBoat and the ClusterFuck Coalition as a whole limped away from Asakai. The CFC, an aspirational superpower, had been defeated in a very public battle, witnessed both by the EVE community and by the press who had raced to document the unlikely conflict. The battle wasn’t geopolitically important, but it became a widely-reported sensation because it encapsulated the specialness of EVE into a single story. DaBigRedBoat was temporarily banned from piloting Titans by his CFC contemporaries, who also teased him mercilessly.
Tiberius Stargazer wrote in his retrospective on Asakai: “The battle is the ultimate lesson that even the smallest of rivalries can spiral out of control in the universe of New Eden. Ironically, the [starbase] that was the start of this engagement remained intact until the following morning when it was destroyed by a 3rd party pirate fleet.”
