“lol good luck with that […] a bunch of newbies aren’t really going to be able to or even know how to do anything worthwhile.”
–Comment replying to the original post suggesting the creation of a Reddit-based EVE corporation
IN THIS COMPLEX AND multi-layered game every decision has unintended consequences, especially decisions made at the top level of the game. These consequences ripple throughout EVE’s galaxy, and occasionally into the real world as well. In late 2009–just a couple months before Karttoon’s devastating betrayal of Goonswarm—someone posted on Reddit to ask if anyone else was interested in forming an EVE Online corporation. Shortly afterward, a Reddit user named Vittorios started a “subreddit” (a place for discussion of a specific topic) called r/eve.
Two months later, Karttoon’s betrayal came to pass, and as the Goons collapsed in Delve, EVE Online was once again a media darling. Interest skyrocketed as it had many times before as the next chapter in the story of nullsec was published in news outlets across the internet. This time, however, there was a Reddit community waiting for those who Googled EVE Online. Previously, the EVE curious would have to download the game and figure out life in the cold, dark, and harsh stars for themselves. Now, they found an out-of-game community on a well-known website where they could learn the basics and find friends.
EMPIRE STARTER
Two weeks after the Karttoon betrayal, another Reddit user—Fletcher Hammond—posted asking if he should found a Reddit corporation in EVE. The response was overwhelmingly enthusiastic, and one commenter suggested the name “Dreaddit.” Within hours, Hammond had founded the “Dreddit” corporation.
The corporation reached 125 members within an hour, and everyone was deeply annoyed when Fletcher Hammond announced that he hadn’t trained the Corporation Management skill yet so everyone would have to wait 3 days for more space to open up. Not wanting to miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ride a Reddit wave, Hammond transferred ownership of the Dreddit corporation to its second CEO, a dummy character controlled by the same player named “Empire Starter” who had the necessary skills to allow hundreds more members to flow into the corporation. Once the members had successfully joined, Empire Starter swiftly re-appointed Fletcher Hammond as CEO the next day. The corporation’s by-laws were written the day after that. Many members had been witness to the historic collapses of BoB and Goonswarm, and had learned from the ordeal. The top upvoted comment on the by-laws thread reads, “Upon attaining stability the Dreddit monetary account is to be split across at least 2 different shell corporations. No single Director is to ever have access to more than one shell money corp.” EVE’s social evolution was growing ever more sophisticated, and organizations were devising new ways to inoculate themselves against rogue leaders like Haargoth Agamar and Karttoon. Dreddit even adopted an open spreadsheet accounting system which would allow anyone in the EVE community to see where its money was going, designed to shine light on fraud and incompetence.
On Dreddit’s first day as an official corporation in New Eden, Fletcher Hammond was tasked with figuring out where the alliance would headquarter itself. He had heard in news reports that the Goons had all packed their bags and headed up North to live within the borders of the Northern Coalition in the Northwest. He decided to break ground on Dreddit’s home as far away from the legendary griefers as he possibly could: in the Southeast with the 4000+ stars of Empire Space between them. It’s staggering to think of all that will happen because of one simple problem: Fletcher Hammond’s map was upside down.
The star cluster New Eden doesn’t have a natural north or south pole, and so Fletcher Hammond inadvertently led Dreddit to a new home just 9 stargate jumps away from Goonswarm’s HQ in the Northwest region of Deklein. As Dreddit headed out for one of its first mining convoy operations to gather some seed money for the natal corporation, it was descended upon by the entire Goon capital force, which crushed the mining fleet in ludicrous fashion. But what happened next surprised the awe-struck Redditors even more.
In Dreddit, Goonswarm saw a flicker of themselves long ago, before the “bitter struggle” of the Great War (as Darius JOHNSON had called it.) Bitter struggles make what is known in EVE as “bitter vets,” a phenomenon whereby players who have seen everything become depressed, unmotivated, and often irritable. But that same bitterness gave them a certain feeling of kinship with the new and excited alliance. Dreddit’s members were internet-dwellers first and foremost—just like the Goons—and their “lulz-first-ask-questions-later” attitude made them a cultural fit for the Goons, who saw a bit of their younger selves in this new alliance’s origin story.
When the Goons had first arrived in New Eden they were villainized by the old guard of EVE as a foreign virus. “There are no goons,” SirMolle had infamously declared in 2006, before BoB’s initial extermination campaign. The Goons wanted to avoid the mistakes of the past, and to offer an olive branch to the nascent group. The Goons gifted Dreddit with a hangar full of cheap beginner ships so it could get started.
Meanwhile, Dreddit’s membership exploded, and the early members felt as though they were riding a surging wave of enthusiasm that was pouring new life into an old virtual world. Where the wave would crash no one yet knew, but as the first week of Dreddit’s short life came to a close they had made some friends, and that was enough.
THE SOUTHERN COALITION
Meanwhile, in Delve, SirMolle and IT Alliance’s core commanders congratulated themselves on bouncing back from the humiliation of the Great War. Now they would take the fight back to the Northern Coalition, who not only had fought against them in the war but had now taken in the fleeing Goons. It was a chance to rewrite another embarrassing era of BoB history: SirMolle’s failed MAX Damage campaign. But this was two years after that fateful campaign, and IT Alliance was feeling stronger than ever.
“We had Titans coming out every day,” said SirMolle. “We were fielding full fleets of 256 capitals. We couldn’t believe it. And this was in 2010.”
SirMolle planned a renewed offensive on the northern regions, called MAX 2. IT Alliance rallied its allies in the Southern Coalition, and embarked on a campaign of revenge against the northerners. The campaign was an even bigger disaster than the original MAX campaign, however, as the three main members arrived in the north weeks apart from one another and had trouble coordinating simple things like attack timings. SirMolle’s new strategy of letting just anyone into the coalition seemed to be hurting IT Alliance after all.
According to IT Alliance fleet commander Sort Dragon, “the chaos set in.”
The Northern Coalition’s recent addition of Goonswarm and its new pal Dreddit, on the other hand, swelled the coalition’s numbers beyond its already massive size. They were able to force IT Alliance back with the sheer weight of their “blob”—the demeaning name given to the barely coordinated mass of pilots who often showed up for fleet operations. Since they were defending their home territory, their lack of coordination was less of a problem than it was for the attackers.
In addition to the blob, fleet commanders in the Northern Coalition focused in on making life a living hell for SirMolle. Their ultimate strategy was to force him to retreat by sapping all the fun out of the game for the pilots of his fleet. Goon fleet command Mister Vee had fought SirMolle at the disaster of Y-2ANO and had no compunctions about using every tool possible to win.
“We had this Dutch guy, Porky,” said Mister Vee in an interview. “He was so deeply embedded into [IT Alliance] that he was always in their fleet, and he was our main source of intel. He was so good at reading what [SirMolle was going to do] next that it gave me and our [bomber fleet] time to get setup exactly [where SirMolle was headed.] There were times when SirMolle was so afraid of our bombers that he would jump his fleet through a stargate one letter at a time. Like, literally, ‘if your name starts with an A, jump now, and then the B’s went, and the C’s went. [Editor: he’s describing a process of SirMolle spreading out the fleet so they were never a ripe target for bombers as they would be if they all jumped through a stargate at the same time.] So what would usually be a 10 minute travel time for them would be stretched up to an hour. They were completely demoralized by the end of it.”
Mister Vee was able to keep tabs on SirMolle’s mental state because he met with Porky regularly to discuss which of his tactics had most effectively gotten under the commander’s skin.
“Tribute is falling and it came down to the staging system, the headshot attempt by IT Alliance on H-W which was the home of Morsus Mihi, the place the entire North had moved into to defend it,” said DaBigRedBoat. “Somehow, someway we pulled off a miracle.”
“When H-W[9TY] was threatened, it was like walking into a bear cave in the middle of winter and popping off a few rounds for lols then sticking around to see if you get eaten or not,” said Bobby Atlas who was flying under SirMolle’s command. “Well ladies, we got eaten.”
When the invading forces made their final attempt to capture H-W9TY—the capital of Vuk Lau’s home region of Tribute—the Northern Coalition’s enormous membership overwhelmed the attackers and forced a retreat. “Fortress Tribute” held secure once again. One loss led to the next, and the next, as the Northern Coalition’s blob overwhelmed both the IT fleets and the Dominion-era server. The second MAX campaign became a mirror of the first, a quagmire that threatened the nascent coalition’s confidence. The Goons pecked away at SirMolle’s patience while Deklein Coalition members like Circle-of-Two and their infamously firy fleet commander “Gigx” (pron. “gigs”) pushed the invaders back out of the north.
“The problem with IT Alliance is that we never got a hard win,” said one of IT Alliance’s main fleet commanders, Sort Dragon. “Too many easy wins. The Goons disbanded so we won Delve. We got the massive disconnect in Y-2[ANO, against Pandemic Legion.] When we tried the MAX campaign we got our shit kicked in because it was an enemy that actually fought back.”
As the young Southern Coalition’s coordination gradually dissolved it was left with lingering distrust and disrespect between the leadership. Each was certain it was the others’ fault. Respect began to dwindle, and egos began to grow. Bobby Atlas, especially, was beginning to believe the disastrous campaign was evidence that SirMolle had lost a step.
