Dominion Offensive (Player event)

Event Details

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Event Title	The Dominion Offensive
Location	Fountain, Period Basis, Querious, Delve, Geminate
Start Date	2009.12.13
End Date	2010.01.31
Attacking Forces	IT Alliance Against ALL Authorities Atlas Alliance Red Alliance RED.OverLord Triumvirate White Noise. Circle-of-Two SOLAR WING
Defending Forces	Goonswarm Pandemic Legion RAZOR Alliance Morsus Mihi Mostly Harmless Wildly Inappropriate Tau Ceti Federation KIA Alliance Cry Havoc Zenith Affinity Rebellion Alliance
Result	Effective Southern Coalition victory on the 26th of January at the disbanding of Goonswarm, the last outpost under Goon control falling to IT on February 11th. Red Alliance and SOLAR WING acquire control over majority of Geminate from Wildly Inappropriate.

Prelude to War

Following the cataclysmic events of the Second Great War that ended in February, EVE's political conflicts went into a prolonged state of relative dormancy under effective RSF/NC hegemony. The reasons for this were a mixture of fatigue from the siege on Delve and the upcoming Dominion expansion and its massive but unpredictable impact on the EVE political landscape made all major powers unwilling to place themselves at risk.

Goonswarm occupied itself during this period by pursuing the punitive Drone Regions War upon Ethereal Dawn and Intrepid Crossing for their attempts to seize fellow ally Red Alliance space during the siege of Delve. It was successful at this but failed to preserve Red Alliance's presence in the area against a combined ATLAS/-A- assault in the eastern vacuum that Goonswarm's relocation to Delve left behind. Also attempted was an abortive invasion of nearby Esoteria against the Stainwagon coalition in pursuit of nebulous goals that never really went anywhere.

Pandemic Legion soon reset standings with their anti-GBC allies and began hunting down one-time ally's NC capital ships for sport, feeling that the demise of their common enemy made their ties to the NC pointless and obsolete. At this, PL found great success, soon racking up over a hundred capital kills, coming largely at the expense of nearby Mostly Harmless in. When not pursuing this goal, they occupied their time by skirmishing other neighbors and sharing Fountain with vassals Sons of Tangra.

The NC, when not defending members against PL were fighting a protracted war against Ev0ke, who was eventually joined by Circle-of-Two as Triumverate. abandoned its southern holdings in Wicked Creek to wage war on its hated foe in the North once again.

ATLAS and -A- worked frantically to capture the space that Goonswarm left behind both during and after the war, embroiling themselves in a vicious conflict with the Drone Russians alongside Red Alliance, resulting in RA being forced into Etherium Reach as all non-drone space in the East and South fell to the growing and triumphant Southern Coalition.

During all this, the defeated and homeless ex-GBC forces consolidated under a new banner - IT Alliance. Through mass recruiting that ran counter to the old BoB's policy, IT rapidly grew to be the second-largest alliance in the game in a matter of months while EVE wondered when and where they would make their move.

Pre-Dominion Surge

IT Alliance, now 7000+ strong, seized the initiative in early November 2009 by attacking Pandemic Legion's high-end moons in outlying pirate space. At the time, IT's reasons for doing this were unknown, as the value of moon minerals were in flux due to the upcoming Dominion release and Pandemic Legion were considered a dominant force on the battlefield, one that the GBC wasn't able defeat at the height of its strength.

The reasoning behind this move revealed itself - PL, though the most skilled, was also the smallest in number of all the major Coalition forces. Even more significant, the aggression PL displayed towards the rest of the Coalition after the war had soured their neighbors to the idea of coming to their aid in their hour of need.

After the first few weeks of war, it was clear that Pandemic Legion alone with Goonswarm's non-conscripted assistance could not match the sheer number of pilots and capital ships that IT brought to the field. And as the day of Dominion approached, IT began its invasion of Fountain proper...

Multiple Fronts

To ensure that IT's siege of Fountain met with little interference, IT, -A-, Atlas and associates agreed to open multiple fronts against PL's nearby allies.

- Atlas, accompanied by associates Gentlemen's Club and Cult of War would attack the eastern flank of the NC.

- While Atlas deployed forces to the NC's east, RED.OverLord would journey from distant Feythabolis and join already present forces in Triumverate., White Noise. and Circle-of-Two in assaulting the NC's western front.

- -A- tasked itself with attacking Querious and luring Goonswarm's attention away from Fountain. Unforeseen however was the normally passive CVA along with the Providence Holders taking the opportunity to invade northern Catch.

Siege of Fountain

In early December 2009, as the new Dominion form of sovereignty was applied to the EVE galaxy, the unfamiliarity of its maintenance by space holders proved to be the opening that IT Alliance needed. PL neighbors and vassals Sons of Tangra accidentally let their claim to some systems drop, a mistake that IT pounced on and gave them the foothold necessary to begin capturing PL systems.

Although Pandemic Legion had vast reserves of ISK, capital ships and on average far more skilled pilots, they were unable to find an answer to IT's enormous superiority in number of pod pilots able to fight.

The siege of Fountain continued to rise in intensity until climaxing a month after Dominion's release in the unexpected and unparalleled Battle of Y-2ANO. This singularly devastating loss ended PL's will to engage further, instead deciding to evacuate from the region where it was swept up quickly by IT forces.

Goonswarm Implosion

What noone could have foreseen was the mass loss of territory suffered by Goonswarm only two weeks following Pandemic Legion's loss of Fountain. Negligence and absence of Goon leadership left sovereignty bills unpaid, resulting in claims on dozens of systems being dropped, including those holding the majority of Goonswarm assets.

IT Alliance, and to a lesser but still significant extent -A- and Stainwagon threw themselves upon the vulnerable systems with stockpiled Territorial Claim Units reserved for such a contingency, resulting in a massive foothold in Delve and locking down the majority of Goonswarm's capital fleet before any Coalition allies could assist.

Finally, Goonswarm executor Karttoon, after having leadership qualities questioned for allowing this to happen, tendered his response by disbanding Goonswarm after doing everything he could imagine to seize every alliance asset he could possibly access, totaling in trillions of ISK. Goonswarm membership, now led by Darius JOHNSON, had no option but to abandon whatever was left and move into Syndicate.

Northern Advance

While these developments in the Southwest were happening, Atlas was making great gains in territory in the north on Northern Coalition member Wildly Inappropriate. However, retaining these gains in a region so distant from Atlas' home territory in remote Detorid seemed unfeasible.

This problem was solved by Red Alliance and SOLAR FLEET agreeing to fight alongside Atlas and allies, in exchange for Red Alliance and SOLAR keeping Geminate and access to RA assets locked down by Atlas in mid-2009.

Result

Southern Coalition defeat and eviction of Pandemic Legion, Goonswarm, Zenith Affinity, KIA and Sons of Tangra. IT Alliance gains suzerainty of Delve, Querious and Period Basis. Northern Coalition loses Geminate to combined ATLAS/Drone Russian forces.

CVA and the Providence Holders' invasion of Northern Catch during -A-'s strike against Querious escalates into the Providence War immediately after Goonswarm's demise.