Saturday, June 25, 2011

Report:Your Starbase in J144725 is under attack!

I don't even know where to begin with the events that unfolded today. I started my day mostly as normal, but the few things I did out of the ordinary made things either highly more annoying for me to get defense to my wormhole, or actually severely hurt the attacking force. I only still hold our class 3 through exceptional luck and coincidences. I salute the attackers, Sephray Industries, for a very well planned assault that should have succeeded.

I really only have our new alliance, Talocan United, and their allies in Transmission Lost, to thank for saving our wormhole. Without their quick reaction to the invasion, they would certainly have returned their home to their ownership. But I digress, for it is an interesting tale, and I hope I do not miss the details.

I have always thought there was something odd about the C3 wormhole that I bought it a kind of backroom deal last month. I expected to find drugs and dead bodies inside. But instead I found null sec K162s, busy high sec connections, and dangerous unknown corridors that led to places I dared not tread. But from all these came the greatest threat: knowledge that we lived inside.

Over the past month or so, I noted that we just seemed to have alot more traffic than was normal, that mayhaps someone was inside, opening holes and letting people in. I wasn't certain, but I was right all along.

I woke up late this morning, not knowing the attacking force was already at work, and in fact counting on my hours of normal play. I logged in, messed around with PI a bit, and did not bother checking the evemails that were, in retrospect, obviously sitting in my Notifications box, trying to tell me I needed to pay attention.

I logged off.

A few hours later, I decided to log in and do some scanning for the day, which I normally do when I get up, but had neglected to get it done til late. Wait, what's this in my inbox.....under attack? For HOW MANY HOURS!?

I quickly shifted accounts, finding a group of ten battleships and stealth bombers at work on my POS guns. Panic began to set in, but I calmed myself, I had the high sec already scanned from yesterday, didn't I? Yep. A short warp later, and no wormhole. Rats. Well better start my scanning then. Over the course of my scanning, I ended up with four wormholes. I contemplated what to do.

Taking stock of the situation, I realized I had two PI alts and a scanning alt in the system. The scanning alt could not fly a cov ops, nor was there one in system. I had Onyxs on scan near what had to be the static to high sec. I decided I couldn't lose the scanner, so fitted out a magnate with the single afterburner I had, and prepared to try to bust the gatecamp.

By this time, I had already mentioned in alliance that our POS was under attack, and the response was amazing. We had been members of Talocan United for less than a day, I hadn't even gotten a bill for dues yet, and they mobilized a large fleet and waited for me to find where the high sec exit was. I was quite embarassed that I had allowed such a large invasion to go un-noticed, even in my secondary wormhole, and on top of that I did not have the tools to try to extricate ourselves of the situation.

By that time, I was warping the poor Magnate to it's fate, and hoping at least the pod would make it into range through the bubble.

I landed 18 km out from the wormhole and aligned and pushed the afterburner button as soon as the interference from warp dropped. I rocketed up to 800 m/s and managed to catch the hole campers off guard. At near 10k, they began to lock me, and near 7k the rounds began to fall, but barely was my speeding ship's shields were scratched when I was through!

I called out the system to the alliance and the fleet was moving. As I sat outside in high sec, metaphorically huffing and puffing, a number of ships jumped out. Orcas. Yep, they were trying to close the hole.

Bah, it'll take alot more than....uh oh, more Orcas. Maybe they can.

At that point, alliance and ally ships started showing up, and we all started bumping the huge industrial command ships away from the wormhole. Annoyed and obviously not getting in, they warped off. More alliance members showed up and took the fight inside, driving out the few enemies who were camping inside, ceding control of the WH to us.

And by "us", I mean loosely "us". All I had by then was Sgt Ramerik in a Magnate. :) But it was a FIERCE Magnate!

Back in the C2, I was blissfully unaware how I'd "forgotten" I had the B274 open the previous day, so it was long gone, and I had to scan to even get out of my home. And did I mention I was in a HURRY?

Finally I was on my way with a few choice ships, a Legion, Devoter and the Anathema. 22 jumps later, we arrived and headed in to help in any way we could.

The alliance had it pretty wrapped up by then, and were sieging their POS and holding negotiations. In the end, they came to an agreement that let them leave the wormhole, with the option to join the alliance.

Turns out this corp had lived in this Class 3 before, and had been run out by a massive Russian invasion. And then the bastard russians sold the wormhole to me. Oooh, dirty, I got some on me. Ick.

So after chatting with one of them, Greygal, at some length, a convoluted web of intrigue and stalking emerged. Apparently they had been watching me for 11 days prior to their assault. They had found the best spots to sit for my guns, they had scouted out my corp's characters and playtimes. They had followed me around high sec trying to get a spy in our C2.

And they should have won. I had no assets in system, no backups in place, none of the things I normally have set up to at least mitigate anything that happens. I was lax, and a trifle lazy. They used excellent intel opportunities, planned the operation down to the fine details. They were undone only by chance, and my lack of posting of late. Just a few factors changed, and they would have carried the day.

I was quite impressed by their tenacity, and hopefully we will cross paths and not lasers in the future.

The insaneness of the day carries on, and it's far too late now. I know details have been lost, and to be frank, forgotten.

1 comment:

  1. Wow, what a day it was today, Forgotten! :) Granted, my day started much earlier than yours - sorry about how long it took to repair your defenses :) Gah! Those damn'd white noise batteries - major pita!!

    Regardless, it was a hell of a lot of fun to "meet" you and many of your Talocan allies - the compliments of all of my team to you and your Talocan allies today. That was a seriously impressive response fleet and time! Sheesh, it was *this* close... a minute difference here, a few seconds difference there... damn close! Eve's butterfly effect at work... so many little decisions on the parts of both sides leading to the end result. A result, that while it was not the one we intended, we are satisfied with.

    To Talocan, it's particularly refreshing to come across a group of people that negotiate with honor and are true to their word. It's Eve, after all :) Honor can be a rare thing, and is always to be commended when found.

    I really did enjoy chatting with you, especially about spawn theories and look forward to future chats - with less pyrotechnics, of course :)

    Take good care of our old home, Forgotten, treat her well. We named her The Zoo as no other name was ever more appropriate. I hope you grow as fond of it as we were for over two years. I'll miss our old home for much time to come, but 'tis now time to look forward, not past.

    P.S. Did you remember to turn your hardeners on? :)

    ReplyDelete