OOC Entry 87 - The War of Asakai

-- Credit goes to Ali Aras of CSM8 and recently co-host of Declarations of War for providing the title of this post.

About a year ago I bet a corpmate with the challenge that by the time of the next summer expansion (this one 2013) the Goons will be destroyed.

Not as an entity in EVE, not even necessarily as a sov-holding alliance but as the major power player they have been in the past years.

Well, the jury is still out, but admittedly the Goonswarm Federation and the CFC have never come closer to being actually threatened in their existence-as-they-know-it than they are now.

The danger that they might actually be facing a foe that can successfully beat them back or even beat them completely has never been more real since the days of the Great War.

I have been out of the loop for some time, and many things have happened which lead to this. Back in the day when I made my bet, I could not know about the Moon Material Rebalance that would come with Odyssey and how it would reshuffle the deck of nullsec politics.

What I did base my prediction on was purely two things:

1. Eventually there will come a time when the Goons will piss of more people than they can make friends with.
2. There will be a time when a critical mass of players will be fed up with playing European Union in nullsec.

In fact, in retrospect, it almost happened like I assumed it would when Montolio - until recently leader of Test Alliance Please Ignore - tried to pick a fight with the CFC.

He ended up being declared crazy for wanting to do that and decided that RL is more rewarding than being called a loony in EVE for your efforts.

Then the moon rebalancing happened and suddenly the story had changed.

The OTEC cartel, which had guaranteed peace and prosperity for it's members, was no more than an attempt to monopolize 5mm screws while there are also 6mm and 4mm ones that do the job just as well. Sure Technetium would still be valuable, but certainly not the single bottleneck in production that it once was.

Promptly The Mittani declared the CFC "destitute" (I just love the dramatic choice of words this man has) and while he would not vilify TEST, he did declare that it was them who sat on the richest store of Moon Materials in the game and therefore they had to be invaded.

All of a sudden a sov-war had turned from "a tedious and unnecessary grind" into "economic survival." The suggestion of a major war - a suggestion that had lead to Montolio's deconstruction - had become the cause of The Mittani.

Why?


The truth about the RMT Empire

Ha! I got you with this sensationalist heading, didn't I?

Of course I am not one of the tinfoil-hat crowd who think that the CFC leadership are impersonating Scrooge McDuck and swim in RMT money.

What I am aware of is the fact that a large number of the CFC playerbase maintain multiple accounts which are supported by PLEX that they are able to finance in-game because of the prosperous and secure position they have. What I do know is that the GSF had offered free skillbooks and carriers to anyone who would train for them. What I know is, that they have created an in-game lifestyle for themselves as a collective which can only be supported by a massive income stream.

The very real and actual threat to GSF and the CFC is not having to drop sov and go sleep in a cardboard box in NPC nullsec or lose RMT income. The economic threat they are facing is not being able to pay for the in-game equivalent of their plasma TV, five bedroom villa, three cars and holiday bungalow on the Seychelles anymore.

Tomorrow they might actually have to work for their ISK like every pubbie.

Imagine that.

The Mittani is nothing if not a leader who is aware of the needs of his constituency and what it takes to keep them satisfied. He can't afford to have the Goons in a position where they have to give up their perks. More importantly, he can't afford to have his allies reconsider the value of being allied to him.

Don't forget, many of the CFC are people who once were enemies of the Goons. Former members of the Northern Coalition who were ground to pieces and sued for peace with a more powerful enemy to be given a second lease of life.


There is no BoB

There is a persistent meme saying that Goons have become the new Band of Brothers. Of course that is not actually true. The organizational principles and diplomatic approach of GSF are very different from the old BoB Empire.

However, they have become some things that BoB once were.

They have become a seemingly unbeatable and unassailable powerstructure. They have become rich and powerful beyond the dreams of most other EVE players. Also, and there is the main factor, they have developed a level of self-righteousness and smugness that was so characteristic of the old BoB Empire.

I personally identify The Mittani himself as the main culprit behind this last and newest attribute of the Goons and their allies in the CFC.

This man has - very skillfully - constructed a narrative that has lead the GSF from being a collective of tongue-in-cheek trolls and iconoclasts into a new era of being a well-established community supported by a bureaucracy which rivals some small RL states in effectiveness and organization.

That would not be a problem in itself if it wouldn't have remained coupled with the rampaging adolescent offensiveness the Goons have made their calling card since their first appearance.

You can be a cheerfully destructive agent of chaos or you can be a sinister overlord, trying to be both at the same time will spread you thin, especially if there is someone who challenges you at one of those roles.


The Dawn of the (new) Iconoclast

Enter TEST. A large collective that now is what Goons once were: A mayhem loving chaotic mess of trolls, griefers, blobbers, scammers and general fun-loving-criminals in it for the lulz.

Compared to them the Goons began to appear about as inspiring as a European Council meeting when compared to Occupy Wallstreet.

The Mittani himself has used words to the effect of "we will take the fun out of their game" (sue me if i didn't get every single word right). This says very clearly how much the Goons have been divorced from what they once were. (Anybody remember Darius Johnson's line "We don't want to destroy the game, want to destroy your game" Quite a different approach.)

While The Mittani would do everything to keep his "ducks in a row" TEST basically just flipped it to the HBC and kissed the idea of big coalition metagaming goodbye.

Now this bunch of crazies is under attack by the most powerful coalition in the game. Interestingly enough, we see EVE history repeating itself. All kinds of entities come to the aid of TEST, not because they love them so much, but because they support their irreverent attitude which has become a staple of EVE gameplay; which - ironically enough - has been established by the Goons (among others).

They want to see the big power of the CFC tremble, maybe even feel fear for their existence. Just like once people allied themselves with the Goons just to bring BoB down.

Of course this alliance is a loose one, and entities like Black Legion are just as happy to blow up TEST ships as they are to blow up CFC ships, but one thing is for sure: This is a moment for another great experiment in EVE.

The last time the question was whether the Northern Coalition can be brought down. Before that it was the Empire of BoB.

Now the question is, can the Goons and the CFC be brought to a fall?

I personally have only one fear in all of this: I fear that there might be a stalemate and a peace that re-establishes the boring distribution of power in nullsec.

Every other outcome can only be more dynamic than what we have seen in the past years.

Right now it is.

I hope it stays that way.