Seriously? Who Does This?

Well yesterday was an interesting occurance in the wormhole we share with another alliance corp. A small POS appeared at the outer planet in the time span between both our playtimes.

I started the day out by logging in and restarting my PI, having a good chat with the guys who share our second C2 home with us. We mentioned we were scheduled to come back to the hole from our main C2 this weekend, and everyone was looking forward to trying to run joint C3 ops and hanging out. After I ran my PI, I headed out to get my day started.

In the afternoon, I logged back in to do some more Planetville jostling. I decided we really needed some better POS Bash fit battleships, and started inquiring on our alliance boards for the best ship and fits, to which I received some good responses. From those and after talking to a couple of my corpmates who logged in, it was decided to get some more characters cross trained into Ravens for serious POS bash fun. Until then, I sorted through our available battleships, no less than seven Armageddons are sitting in this hole due to me using them for hole closing. I checked out two Armageddons, an Apoc, and an Abaddon, and made sure all were properly fit for maximum DPS output or as PvP gank BSes.

I logged in later and happened to check DOTLAN for both wormholes and noticed a large numbers of shipkills in the second C2, 6, and 4 podkills. Ouch. Someone just had a bad day. I logged in the scanning alt, who wonderfully is in an Anathema now, lessons learned. Scanning around, there was a hostile Legion on DSCAN.

Hmmm. Better go check the outer planet.....that's not our small POS. I headed in and found a small Minmatar POS, two small arty batteries, one medium arty battery, three ECM, two warp scramblers, and an online explosive hardener. The Corp had been created only days earlier, and the pilot appeared on numerous low and high sec killmails of various, mostly T1, ships.

Hmmm, either these guys aren't the smartest, or this is a bait POS. Either way, I got the alliance warned, and a fleet gathered up immediately.

I logged in Forgotten in one of the max DPS Armageddons, Nyslia in the Devoter, and Firtilis in one of our Dominixes fit for remote armor rep and Sentry 2s and rolled out of our home towards the growing alliance fleet. I also managed to get my mic working, so was overjoyed to be able to effectively communicate with the fleet on Teamspeak. Nothing replaces the ability to effectively communicate immediately with those you are PvPing with.

After an interesting look through the C3 where a Rorqual and Orca, plus two Mining Drone 1s wer on scan, it was concluded after I took a look at the POS that it was some bait for their guns and we got back to bringing down the wrath.

We staged out of our POS, and managed to make myself useful dealing out some serious damage in the first assault as we took out both Warp Scramblers first. Forgotten and Firtilis dished out some hefty DPS numbers that I was really happy with, while Nyslia tagged along with an alliance Loki as it watched the C3 connection.

As we banged down the few modules the invading corp had erected, the Loki went into the C3 connection to look around. After a few minutes, a warning was raised from the Loki; a hostile fleet was inbound on him inside the C3 consisting of numerous T3s and supporting Guardians. As well, an Arazu had been watching him at the hole, and he barely jumped through ahead of him with time to escape. Nyslia also headed into warp and both got back to our POS safely ahead of the hostile fleet.

The alliance restaged into our POS and we gathered intel, learning that this was a group the alliance had run into before, and had dealt with handedly, although most of our ships were not fitted for PvP at the time. I dug through our Corp array and handed out numerous Disruptors and Webbers for our plethora of battleships. I then hopped back into the Anathema and watched the C3 entrance, finding both an Arazu and an Anathema that dropped combat probes. Most likely finding our fleet waiting, they gathered their probes and headed back to whence they came. After that, I stayed in the Anathema and banged on DSCAN inside the C3 to give us plenty of warning if they decided to come back. They never did.

I re-shipped Nyslia into a Zealot and the fleet returned to flinging ordnance at the hostile POS. More alliance members showed up and the shield quickly fell to 25% and it went into reinforced, which actually greatly surprised me. If you ignore the two Large POSes from a well established wormhole alliance, why bother stronting up?

After incapping all the guns, most of the alliance logged inside our friendly POS, waiting for the POS to come out of reinforced.

Today, the owner of the POS attempted to contact the alliance, and wanted the chance to move everything out, to which his response was "Not a chance." This is another clear example of people not treating wormhole space with the proper thinking. He didn't try to contact either of our corps, nor our alliance, before moving in. Because he "assumed" our POS was for shipbuilding, due to the Advanced Medium Array, no doubt, and that no one was active because there were no NPC kills for 24 hours. There were some within 48, however, so I'm not sure how that translates to "inactivity".

This is the third time this has happened to us, a Small POS appearing in our system without any warning or contact, and the people who put it up are "surprised" by the reaction it garners. The last time this happened, our carrier showed up as they were onlining the tower, and their response was "We wanted to see what would happen". What?! Really?

This guy was extremely surprised we were so hostile. I'm completely baffled by this, as how can putting up a POS in a system without contacting the people living there be construed as anything but hostile?

The Small POS comes out of reinforced in a matter of time, and the alliance will be there to blow it to smithereens. Another example of poor planning, no common eve sense, no attempt at previous intel, and an obvious attempt by too few to do too much. In the end it's costing them alot of isk, so there's a lesson there in itself, as many of you reading this will either already know, or will learn from this example entirely.

Of course, the real lesson to draw from this is don't expect a Talocan United wormhole to allow you to do stupid things, like this.

Seriously? Who does this?

Thanks to all those who came out to defend, I hope I can repay when the call goes out to defend your home.