Sensitive Dependence On Initial Conditions

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

With IT Alliance spiraling into oblivion, it’s only proper to look back and try to trace our steps to where it all went wrong.

In a sense, IT Alliance was formed with a specific mission in mind: taking back the space that was lost when BoB was disbanded. IT succeeded in that mission because participation was high, leadership was active, there was a clear goal, and we also had some exceptional fortune along the way to aid us in conquest (both in Fountain and Delve).

With our space restored, some time was set aside for empire building, but soon things got dull. Until Max 2.0, IT was asleep. There were not enough ops being run to maintain cohesion and keep up participation. This period wasn’t all bad though, making ISK and building supers helped us stay ahead of the curve when the super-capital buff came along, but many of them became personal toys that didn’t ever see much fighting.

When Max 2.0 happened, we slow-played our invasion, and our own players started to get bored. Instead of going for a blitzkrieg in coordination with our allies, it was a gradual invasion, and we ended up working independently. This allowed the NC to out-blob each enemy fleet as they came.

When we finally made a serious move in H-W, the plan drawn-up by Manny and Perseus was implemented wrong by Molle, who inexplicably started things off at the end of a weekend instead of the beginning. This made a huge difference and favored the home team.  When H-W became a perma-camp with many friendly super capitals trapped in system, relations with -A- and Atlas were strained to say the least.

After Max 2.0, confidence in IT plummeted. Our public stock was trading at an all time low, and internally people had serious problems with the way the campaign was conducted. Many also blamed our allies, some with good reason, but certainly we deserved a large share of the blame.

The NC showed the world that they were a far cry from the days of the original Max campaign, and we were – quite frankly – an underwhelming invader even with the best coalition the South has (and likely will) ever muster due the Southern cultural proclivity against building super-coalitions.

After Max 2.0, the seeds of our downfall had been planted. We had already achieved our mission to retake the homeland, and it was established that we could not wipe out the NC. What purpose remained for us?

IT’s imminent downfall has taught me that even small events can influence players in a way that spreads quickly, gaining force and momentum like a snowball that turns into a violent avalanche. Indeed, a huge part of the problem was that IT’s top-level leadership were too focused on BIG EVENTS to do the small things that make an alliance feel like a fun gaming community worth fighting for.

In the face of ever-growing opposition from the northern collective and their allies, there was an extent to which our troubles were beyond our control long before any corps left IT Alliance. The game has never seen a coalition as vast as the current “Extended NC Family” (old NC + Clusterfuck) and there is no clear sign that they will ever consider a reset or NIP arrangement so long as even one other alliance holds sov somewhere on the map.

And yet, despite the numbers difference, I don’t think there is a single person in IT that feels we fought back to our full potential. After all, paper numbers mean little when there are hostile alliances bringing only 20 people to major ops on average out of their 1000 members. What matters is morale & who wants to win more. That’s the key. A big part of sustaining morale is actually having fun in the process.

Needless to say, people in this alliance DID notice issues along the way. They brought them up, offered solutions, and were often met with silence or a couple empty posts full of posturing.

In the (defensive) Fountain campaign, which is now at an end, there were several FC meetings where profanity flew freely. Both sides of an argument would leave teamspeak channels pissed off and full of nerd-rage. That’s a sign of internal issue that are not being addressed by the high-level leadership.

The question people in IT have been asking recently is simply, “What can we do at this point?”

We can certainly fight and face the coming siege of Delve. I don’t see any reason why a well-motivated IT Alliance + friends (even without X13 and Finfleet) couldn’t make it interesting for several months if we had wanted to. Alternatively, we can just bail and take whatever isn’t tied down with us.

It seems many corps are going to cut out the posturing and leave. At the time of writing this, BNC + DICE + SUITS have publicly announced they will be following Dark + X13 and Finfleet.

This still leaves some of the more determined corps behind, but our fleet strength will be diminished beyond the point where it will be possible to field a large enough BS fleet to challenge hostiles over infrastructure. We will likely be confined to bombers and other gangs suited to hit-and-run tactics.

-MVN- is not among those who have left, and we will not be leaving until the end as long as Avi is calling the shots. However, as is only prudent, our pilots have been mitigating their risk by spreading out assets.

I think it would be fair to say that most IT Alliance assets are in NPC Delve/Fountain or in low-sec currently. When you have to resort to such measures, it’s never a good sign.

A few weeks ago, I could have honestly said that I felt we had a small chance to somehow hold the line. Perhaps at Y-2 or 5-C. Unfortunately, the loss of another wave of corporations puts us well past any measure of reasonable hope of winning.

I do not think there can be any question at this point that the alliance will be handing over sov without  making much of a fuss. A recent Kugu thread suggests one corp even tried to sell their space and others are trying to get in on selling off infrastructure/sov. I have no idea if it’s true, but I don’t see why anyone would pay for what will be free in the near-future.

-MVN- will be there for this last chapter of IT, but I would by lying if I said I’m expecting there to be any effective opposition to the legions that will inevitably descend. Bombers and small gangs, sure, but I wouldn’t expect to see many IT Maelstrom fleets up. Here’s hoping our scorch bombs strike true and hard.

Again the question arises, how did we fall so far that corps aren’t even staying to make a last stand in Delve?

Dissent, division, and a lack of clarity in purpose set forth by the leadership are the opposite of what a successful alliance needs when facing a larger enemy coalition.

I have waited a long time (out of respect to my corp) to write about what was wrong with IT.

Small indignities from arrogant has-been members of “old-BoB” corps that hardly run any ops of their own, baseless pride from untalented nobodies who were put into positions of power, and the pervasive sense of superiority over far more active and vibrant alliances: all of these things have I endured (mostly) silently.

Almost as bad as the culture in IT was the resistance to improving our fleet doctrine, which had changed little since 2007 by the time we were fighting the second Max campaign in 2010. It took many threads and conversations to get this alliance to open up to new ideas after our defeat up North, some of which (like bombers) we never perfected by our FCs, despite their incredible potential to influence large-scale fights.

Our fleet doctrine, for a very long time, was based around using long range “sniper” battleships with “mid-range” battle-cruisers providing anti-support fire against tackle & dictors. Flying anything else  was sacrilege to some, and it took far too long for this to change.

The biggest change came when a Finfleet member was appointed (by what process I have no idea) to revise our fleet doctrine. Gery Zon devised a Shield BS fleet composed principally of Arty Maelstroms, Pulse-Apocs and HML Drakes w/ e-war. The Drakes were later replaced with tracking disruptor scorpions.

We were bringing Maelstroms en-masse well before the enemy because we were constantly going up against drakes. Having superior range and high-alpha to counter logistics was the prefect recipe for dead battle-cruisers. The pulse apocs were initially included as a counter against a-hacs, which were FOTM among NC and PL gangs, and the apocs could also melt any light support that came near us during the fighting. When the BS were in close range, apocs were the top damage dealers, although heavy lag was more favorable to maelstroms.

Drakes were mostly there for e-war support and – honestly – those who couldn’t fly a proper battleship.Time and again, we had far too many drakes, but after weeks of yelling at people the maelstrom numbers rose significantly. Adding a non-T2 gun setup to the reimbursement list was also a big part of that.

The high-alpha was a strong counter to logistics, which were seeing greater use both with A-HAC fleets and drake blobs. Overall, it wasn’t a bad fleet doctrine, though I felt we should have stopped allowing drakes and apocs eventually.

For all its flaws, IT Alliance was not a joke. If you put IT up against an alliance with an equal number of pilots without allowing either to bring help, I think IT would win more often than not. Our problem was more complex than simply being too arrogant or too slow to change tactics.

I think many people would say diplomacy has actually been our weakest point. Bobby Atlas and Manny blamed Molle for failing to orchestrate a successful campaign in the North. Much like an unsuspecting sophomore who agrees to go to prom with the captain of the football team, they said they were rushed and weren’t ready when the big night came along, but that they were forced anyway.

I don’t want to harp on the H-W debacle, which I mentioned above, but this was the move that effectively ended any hope of working with Atlas in particular in future campaigns. I think this might be one of those “tipping points” that could be singled out in the story of our demise.

Others might point to Syndicate, where we retallited against an “enemy of my enemy” over a few moons that we didn’t really need. By driving off Evoke, we cleared the way for Test/GSF to expand into Cloud Ring.

Personally, I think everything was still in salvageable condition until PL attacked AAA. I will admit that I laughed, and made no attempt to help them. Supporting Initiative seemed the best course of action at the time.

In hindsight, we could probably have pressured Initiative to join us in defending AAA, and thereby earned-back a powerful ally. I think Blaster Worm essentially asked Molle to do this and was ignored, but I can’t confirm that. The problem was that AAA seemed worthless back then, and we also held a grudge from their half-hearted participation in Max 2.0.

Later, AAA would be renewed and reborn by this crushing defeat. They rose like a phoenix and assaulted Initiative systems countless times, showing impressive determination. Much like IT Alliance, retaking their space was a clear goal that resonated with the members.

Facing a war on two fronts, the top-level leadership in IT Alliance had to make a choice very early in this war. It was a simple decision, but it set the stage for many of our current problems, both internally and as a result of the impact on our enemies.

In late 2010, Initiative was feeling the blow-back from conquering more space than it ever really wanted. AAA had gone from being a sleeping bear to an active force, and they had significant backup from their oldest allies.

During this time, Fountain was being invaded by the “Western” NC alliances (later identifying as the “Deklein Coalition,” and today as the “Clusterfuck”) while the Eastern NC was occupied with the drone region residents and PL.

After being picked on by elite small-gang PvP groups like GK inc, the Fountain alliances had a weak public image, and internal morale was dampened significantly. Despite this, I have always felt our weaker allies were really no worse than any “guests” in the NC. I’m not saying they were amazing, but it was simply a mis-match for them to face the Goon-lead coalition without IT involved.

All coalitions have their major and minor powers, and the Fountain war was for quite a long time a one-sided fight between GSF/WI/TEST (major NC powers and 3 of the largest alliances in-game) and only minor powers (Blade, Talos, Blast, Hun) from the IT block.

In contrast, Init were in the big boys club by this point, with their own minor powers and indeed even renters within their orbit. Though they may have deserved “major power” status, Init + Initiative Mercenaries and friendly neighbor Sys-K were still not a match for the enemies they faced, and were slowly losing ground.

IT leadership faced two questions: (1) Should we divide forces and fight both fronts? (2) If not, which front do we deal with first?

The conclusion was that we would handle Catch first, with full force, and then regroup in Fountain to repair whatever damage was done. This decision caused major fallout internally, to say the least, and it would ultimately prove impossible to put the genie back in the bottle.

[As a quick note: This following is as accurate a depiction as I can give from my personal knowledge and conversations with people who were present at the time these decisions were made, but I don’t claim to be infallible or omniscient. I welcome any corrections.]

Dark Rising left IT over a combination of the Fountain issue and some long-standing grievances I am not sufficiently knowledgeable about to elaborate upon. Dark was responsible for the part of Fountain that was first to come under assault, and the loss of several key Fountain jump bridges due to improper preparation for their departure was a very real disadvantage. Perhaps even more important was the lack of a presence of “locals” from IT to set timers and generally provide a direct envoy to Fountain alliances with their home-constellation alts while the alliance was fully-deployed to Catch.

With drama brewing at a CEO level, RKK either limited its deployment or flat-out refused to participate in Catch. I believe it was limited to sub-capitals, but it could have been a flat-out refusal later on (I’m happy to see a comment clarifying it from RKK on this issue).

This defiance infuriated our lead FCs in the European timezone (most notably The Supremacy and Nuker Payback from X13). Later on this would lead X13 (a super-capital-heavy corp with strong E.U. timezone leadership) and Finfleet (the corp home to IT fittings/fleet doctrine masterminds Gery Zon and Cflux) to retaliate by limiting and/or flat-out refusing participation in Fountain.

A major undercurrent of discontent among FCs was growing because of boisterous CEOs and many long-since un-subbed veterans talking big and doing nothing in-game worthy of note. Even among FCs, we were not often of a single mind about how things should be done, but there was certainly a greater level of pragmatism among those actually involved in the war than those on the sidelines.

Let’s examine the reasoning behind the decision to go to Catch:

The general feeling was that our space in Fountain, while perhaps guarded by a weaker force in our absence, could be more easily reconquered by a strong counter-offensive. In comparison, the newly-emboldened AAA/Stain coalition were attacking an ally that had only recently started to tighten its grip on a new, vast empire.

With a bad reputation for letting other alliances lose their space while protecting our own, the alliance made a decision that broke with the expected course of action. We would allow the Goons/NC to do their worst in Fountain, perhaps even taking large portions of it, while we went on an official deployment to save our strongest remaining ally at that time.

Some at the top-levels hoped that demoralizing Stain/AAA/Others would be possible. While we were present in Catch, there were some good fights, and it was clear AAA/Stain would not be able to win a war against IT/Init together.

However, there was also no possible way for us to “win” a war against a foe living in NPC space. It was effectively a standoff. Realizing this, we would eventually pull out, but not before the Fountain situation had worsened significantly.

Meanwhile in Fountain, the Clusterfuck Coalition was rolling along. As victories were earned, people x’d up in greater and greater numbers to kill our allies. New corps were attracted to the bandwagon, and various NC alliances saw a good opportunity to win a chunk of space for themselves in the South in exchange for sending as little as 10 or 20 pilots on a daily basis to help Test and Goons.

The first battle after we moved back from Catch was the final timer for PNQY. We had lots of people miss the convoys up from Catch, and there were other mistakes including the choice of ships. When the system fell, people started to realize that Fountain would present a serious challenge, and would not be an easy area to cleanse.

Talos lost a station next, with little resistance from our side. However, the offensive slowed to a crawl at this time.

Our U.S. timezone crew was spamming SBUs everywhere, all day. The enemy had to shoot these, or else we would have opportunities to re-take lost systems. We were also ninja-dropping capitals on any infrastructure we could find to create additional timers for the enemy to worry about.

Things seemed to be improving when U.S. timezone efforts were matched by a strong Aussie prime-time crew, usually lead by Zammas, who was working to continue our daily efforts all the way through downtime before handing off the baton to the Euros.

The problem was, the traditional IT Alliance European prime-time advantage had disappeared. We weren’t capitalizing on opportunities created by the U.S. and Aussie-based players. In the past, this timezone was when we won our major victories, but increasingly our defensive timers were being set for Aussie prime to reduce hostile participation.

Fast-forward to a couple weeks ago. It’s the battle for Z3 (part 2 from my perspective, but there were other fights here as well). We’re going all-in with supers on field for the second time in this system. In the previous fight, we edged-out the enemy and scored a GSF super-carrier kill with no supers lost on our side. This time around, we’re losing, and the non-participation by several corps is no longer funny to anyone. Our resounding defeat influences morale on both sides of the war, and internal tensions rise.

With the disputes at the CEO level not resolved by this time, X13 and Finfleet made their exit.

The enemy had only taken two major systems by that point, but the result of the war was looking rather certain to many.

-MVN- continued stepping up. PK and Cardking ran snipe hac gangs and did what they could to cheer up IT pilots with some minor victories wherever they could be found, but it just wasn’t enough. The alliance was so far gone that morale plummeting.

Molle’s speech had a major impact, but his brief presence was a rare exception to the rule.

Honestly, if you’re getting married and moving to another country in real life, Eve shouldn’t be a priority. I get that, and most people in IT do too, but the truth is that his absence exacerbated other serious problems that might have been resolved if the alliance had his normal level of attention and involvement.

In Molle’s absence, the active FCs were the closest thing people got to alliance leaders that would actually talk to them on a regular basis.

When PK was banned for spamming local and Goons started camping 6VDT, people in IT started pondering the best way to save their assets in Fountain.

The last area where we failed as an alliance was in the area some might call “Soft Power,” which has been described as “the power to attract and persuade others.” I think that some alliances play the mind-game / meta-game / cultural war game far better than others.

Propaganda is a small part of being successful, but most people can smell bullshit. This kind of media is important, but only so far is it can get your own side excited about what they are doing.

Forums are a part of any cultural effort. For some alliances, far more than others. Some forums are also more important that others.

BoB was pretty active on Eve-O in its hey-day, and I seem to remember a pretty dynamic set of personalities that projected an image of strength. The fact that IT leaders felt they could assign a few alts to “handle PR” shows how limited our thinking was on this front.

Finally, a huge part of being successful – and perhaps the most overlooked by IT –  is communicating with your own members and having a “message” that articulates clear goals. We just haven’t had the kind of encouragement and communication that we needed to get maximum participation.

Eve players are not salaried employees, they need to be motivated on a personal level to show up for things, even when those things are in their own self-interest.

I might post again about the importance of alliance cultures, but for now I feel it suffices to say that many problems in IT Alliance stem from apathy in these aforementioned areas.

Other power blocs have embraced these tools and are thriving.

Numbers. Numbers? Numbers!!!

It’s plain to anyone that the North is growing in numbers, accepting into its arms numerous corporations and alliances who were either removed or choose to leave the south. The most notable examples would be Goonswarm (taken in by TCF and later inheriting their region) and the many former providence residents who almost exclusively NC guests.

With improved organization, teamwork, and downright better piloting than they had in MAX 1, the MAX 2 campaign showed everyone that the NC was more than formidable before growing. They’ve now grown to a size far greater than any other sov-holding coalition, without many serious threats left to work again.

However, the real story of this campaign is that of the resurgence of the Goons and the rise of Test Alliance as a major 0.0 player. At the time of writing, both alliances had surpassed IT Alliance in membership. Once they hold several new regions, I can only imagine their ranks will swell even further, as ours did.

*Several Corps Now Leaving Are Still Counted Here as Members

In my opinion, the NC is something like N.A.T.O. in the real world. It is an organization whose original mission has passed it by. BoB is no longer traversing the galaxy crushing empires, in large part because everyone else can fly capitals and T2-fitted ships now too.

PL is perhaps a substitute “boogeyman” for the NC, but the only remaining empire that really threatens them is the drone region coalition, which I do not think would survive a long war with the current NC in its current form.

In contrast, the South has stuck to the traditional Eve Online mindset: cold dark universe, trust as few as possible, revel in dangerous lifestyle of a feudalistic universe in chaos, and so forth.

If IT alliance only had to deal with the Clusterfuck, but not the “old NC” or AAA/Stain, then I think things would never have turned out this way. However, it was a foregone conclusion that the rest of the NC would support them.

That suggests that the most critical factor was our ability to get support from other strong Southern powers like Initiative or AAA. The existence of a 2nd front tied up both of those entities, and eventually drew us away from the bigger threat descending from the North.

We are truly saddened that half the alliance is bailing before a single shot has been fired in Delve. It is starting to feel like this region has some kind of curse for its holders, as many have remarked, but the reasons for our current troubles are not so mysterious.

In conclusion, -MVN- is here for the remainder of this rather bumpy ride in the clown car. I wasn’t always thrilled with our alliance, but there were much worse places we could have been, and staying with Atlas would not have allowed us to grow the way this opportunity did.

IT Alliance was where -MVN- grew from a desirable null-sec corp to an invaluable one. We’ve gained great new members, our FCs are more numerous & active than ever, an incredible number of new supers were built, and we will take with us great set of lessons that we will absolutely refuse to allow anyone to ignore in our future endeavors.

Comments and factual corrections to this post are more than welcome.