High casualties were suffered, and for no reason besides personal gain of a few determined members. I couldn’t blame them; we hadn’t so much as peeked outside the station in over a week. Funds were starting to dwindle, and none of us knew of a way to make any income at all besides betraying orders. Seeing no choice but to try to get out temporarily, we launched a few unsuccessful defense attempts.

Having no idea what an Exequeror does, we ignored it. Instead, we turned our tiny fleet’s meager damage on an infinitely armored war target frigate. It was seemingly being attacked already anyway by a suspect cruiser on a gate in high security space, right at a gate in our home system. What a gift! An enemy war target, vulnerable, isolated, and under attack!

I lost a ship in the attack, as did a few others I remember. Luckily for us, the conclusion of the battle brought us very close to our own home.

Awakening back in activated clones in orbit around Horaka VI Moon 1, we were forced to do a little reflecting. No one had recorded anything so we were relying purely on our memories, coupled with whatever clues our ships’ logs would reveal after the fact. As it turns out, Exequeror-class cruisers are specialized at repairing other ships remotely under fire. Although it looked to me like it was shooting at the enemy war target, it was actually repairing its armor. It Hangs Starboard was woefully unprepared for a major battle against an enemy this much more experienced.

We’d lost multiple mining ships before the industrial sector abandoned us outright and joined the enemy. We’d lost a few security vessels, crewed by desperately starved men, having been locked inside a single station for weeks with no income for far too long. Despite multiple fumbling efforts to coordinate any kills throughout the entire war, It Hangs Starboard lost the war against Slaver’s Union/Dickwad Squad miserably.

Long before the end, the previous CEO, Dacronis, had decided that he had done everything he could to convince us to join the neighboring groups. Out of frustration with those that preferred a more violent route, he’d quit the corporation himself. By theis time he’d made his grand reveal I’d already suspected that he intended to avoid fighting at all costs all along. The admission that he wanted us all to disband came as no surprise. Good guy, but good riddance, I’d thought. By the time we had just about no one left, I inherited the remnants of the corporation from Helios Dacronis. I didn’t care that we’d lose or that there were barely any of us left to muster. At last, it was time to mount a long overdue defense.

High Stakes In EVE Online

The fighting went about as you’d expect. the enemy’s attacks eventually spread to other nearby corporations since they saw no incentive to leave. The others fared much better than did we in their limited engagements! A very small force was left to patrol Horaka while the enemies wrought limited havoc nearby. The mercenaries, seeing no need for diplomacy of any kind against IHS, turned their focus back to us, already defeated, and offered us their terms.

They proposed to end the war under the circumstance that we disband our corporation and join theirs. Within their corporation, their leader proclaimed, we would be totally free to continue mining, just for their profit and benefit. Hilarious.

Sure, we’d already lost a few battles; but our opposition was trying to force our industrial corporation to tirelessly mine for them in exchange for being allowed to exist. I couldn’t believe anybody would go for a deal like that, but Pookie Mayaki and dap Witch did, seemingly without hesitation. They gave it up sweet. With both of them having gone to the side of the enemy, we had no hope of equipping any additional forces or manufacturing any ships at all.

While things were happening to us, everything was confusing, unrelated, and devastating. In retrospect, we can see at least some of their plan; enough to discern that theirs was a relatively ambitious one:

• Take a mercenary contract against a single group on an isolated island.
  • Our corporation had ballooned in size and was competing for scarce resources that had previously been plentiful in a relatively limited area. The other corporations and groups nearby had grown agitated with the tactics of IHS and possibly wanted a return to pre-IHS normalcy.
• Defeat the target and absorb its members
  • We probably couldn’t have beaten them in a fight, but there was still no reason compelling us to join them. Pookie and dap were being vocal about wanting ISK, more and more ISK, with no plan to do anything with it except for to buy things to make more ISK. Joining the attackers was an ideal situation for them. They got out of the station siege and they got to start generating income.

• Use the increased numbers to subdue the other nearby groups; rinse and repeat until the entire galaxy is won.
  • And it all probably could’ve worked, if everyone involved just put their heads down and did the logical thing. Besides, to deviate from the terms, we were warned, would cause these pirates’ griefing to become exacerbated and inflamed. And by now, those left were painfully aware that there was almost no point in resisting; they’d use our ignorance of the EVE Online and its mechanics to exploit us indefinitely.

I’d certainly never played at anything like this.