The official stats (?!?) aren’t
in, but I’m sure this is the largest battle Eve Online has ever seen. It included bomb runs and welps. Fleets fighting to the death (kudos, Tribe),
panicked efforts at escape, and doomed remnants taking down a final
target. It showcased all the things Eve
is about.
I wasn’t there. My wife and kids take priority on the
weekends, and I couldn’t log in until it was all over. But I was watching Dotlan and saw the
killmails start to pour in. I was
gnashing my teeth at missing it.
But I’m not going to rehash a
battle I didn’t see first-hand. Even if
I did, I would have experienced only one piece of it. The whole report can be found here.
The point of this article is
character.
Looking at the CFC preparation for
the battle (Goonswarm towered every single moon in the system ahead of time to
deny Test a safe POS, for instance), it would have been easy for Test to stand
down and save their resources for another time.
Their ship replacement program is behind, they’ve had to resort to donations
to keep it going, and their finances are tapped out after about seven months of
constant warfare. Trolling aside, the
smart – and completely understandable – move would have been to stand down and
wait until their allies could come help them with defense of another timer.
But Test wanted the fights, and
their allies stood by them.
I had planned to write an article
about this battle talking about how Test’s donation drive depended on one fatal
flaw in their logic: that their pilots had other choices for continuing to
fight the CFC – other corps or alliances they could join – and wouldn’t sacrifice
all for Test. I expected their numbers
to be anemic. I’m not sure how their
numbers compared to turnout earlier in the war, but that doesn’t really matter. My pre-planned narrative changed completely when
they brought their full might into this battle.
They were sending a message. They
should have stood down. It was a fight
that didn’t need to happen in the long view.
But they wanted to send a message that, while they recognized they were
outnumbered in pilots, they refused to have their will broken.
You can’t control how often you
fall down. It’s whether you stand up
that matters most. And Test showed that
they were willing to keep standing up, keep fighting as best they could. Their performance is proof of their character.
As a Razor pilot, I’m bound by a
policy of no talking in local chat. It’s
a policy meant to prevent us from burning any bridges with alliances or players
who we might deal with in the future. It’s
meant to demonstrate our professionalism.
We aren’t trying to embarrass or shame anyone. We’re playing the game with established mechanics. We jump in, murder you (or get murdered) drop
a “gf” in local, and leave. Business. But I do compliment pilots who perform exceptionally
well, either in character or skill.
I’ve seen a lot of tears, and a
lot of bad behavior from Test pilots in local.
Smack-talking and insults abound.
From their local chat, you’d think they were a bunch of children smashing
their keyboards when they lose ships.
That image is entirely erased after
yesterday. Clearly, Test may lose this
war, but their will may never be broken.
And to prove the point, they killed an Avatar that wandered
too close to a POS shield. WTF, buddy? I was four jumps away in a Wolf when the ping
for a rescue fleet went out, and you were dead by the time I landed on the 6VDT
gate. You could have bought two Titans
for that fit, and you went down so fast that the officer mods clearly didn’t help.
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