IMPORTANT UPDATE: CoE SUCCESSFUL STRUCTURE DEFENSE

Greetings fellow Empyreans,

CoE has successfully defended the first threat to our infrastructure. 

For nearly a year of explosive growth and accumulation of members, wealth, and political power, CoE has endured several threats to our projects. Atlantis and our lowsec holdings have both been destroyed by our enemies. We have always held firm that these were experiments, which meant that we decided to let them go when they were attacked. Some doubted us openly, suggesting that we could not defend. The days were numbered until Pew Bears would come under fire in Highsec, and we might lose everything. Many said we couldn’t defend our home.

They were wrong.

When PNS wardecced us, there was major confusion about the cause of this war. While they were known to be EDENCOM loyalists, Xenuria appeared to claim credit for this attack, long before the war was widely known. PNS and their allies have consistently denied this, and since then Xenuria has continued to subvert both the Kybernauts and CoE, and his prior treachery has also been exposed. At this time we no longer believe he was actively involved in this war, merely opportunistically sewing confusion and unrest. We will likely have to deal with him again.

In reality, the history between Kybernauts and CoE has been touch and go. What was once a dream of working together to provide access to this newest content in EVE has increasingly become a source of misunderstandings, drama, and division. In spite of that, the public connection between CoE and Kybernauts has been observed, and though we have failed to actually work together much, the perception was enough for PNS to attack us. Even those who remained in CoE and were actively promoting EDENCOM were now forced to fight other pro-EDENCOM forces to defend their home so they can mine unimpeded by this in the sites. For the majority of the conflict, the politics were mired in confusion.

At first, we attempted to defend and that went quite poorly, the details of which were reported in my short AAR. The sum of it is, we ended up with our main manufacturing hub and our refinery coming out of hull timer. This woke us all up since this was in fact the credible threat we had all been preparing for. All of CoE kicked into gear.

Too many people to mention volunteered to help. Previously, I had not considered the impact of having our Raitaru be the thing knocked into low power, and I simply could not have brought things together without the incalculable effort put in by our members and friends during this short window, within three days we had a fully functional Machariel + Praxis fleet with Leshak support. It was stressful and fantastic.

However, I also found out something that made it much more difficult than many realize. 

About a week prior to this our much-beloved member of the leadership team GoJess stopped being as active as before and people were starting to notice. The same day I received the wardec, I learned she had a seizure that landed her in the hospital, and that she has scheduled for surgery. 

I won't lie, I didn’t want to do it. Given the circumstances, the last thing I wanted was to throw time and effort into a video game. I worried about my friend. I worried about all of those who put trust in me.

What stood with me the whole time was that you all deserved it. We needed to do it, regardless of how I felt, or what else was going on. If I was capable of helping, I needed to. You all put your trust in our leadership team, and if we fail, I have failed you. If you were willing to form to defend, you deserved a fighting chance. 

So, together we stood, with help of NOIR (who I hired to help). We knew the enemy would come with a counter to our fleet comp, I knew they would know our comp, so I drilled in my head how I would deal with various situations. We had every reason to believe they would bring an armor comp again. However, they brought shields to the timer in Caslemon. They had used Cerberus in the past, and as I prepared I continued to ask myself “but what if they bring the Cerbs?”

The showing was spectacular. Our allies ERB and CoE numbered just under 100 strong. One system away NOIR sat, waiting to refit as necessary to bring disruption and dismantle enemy logistics. 

The call came out from the scout: Cerberus and Stormbringers. 

We all quickly adjusted our fits to adapt for the fight. Thankfully a diligent member had made a veritable cloud of bookmarks around our structures, allowing me to warp the fleet to and cut off the enemy fleet with good effect, and we split the two fleets apart. In the end our allies and the Helldawn fleet who had come to get some kills, managed to dismantle their attack fleet enough that they were forced from the field twice and ultimately conceded the object. The first-timer was saved and our kills nearly doubled our losses:

https://zkillboard.com/related/30004978/202010302200/

The next three hours between timers were long. We passed the time playing some Among Us with my son, thanking those who had to leave, and welcoming those who were joining for the second timer. 

The second report was Abaddons and Guardians. I expected them to be somewhat Kite-y again, but they were Pulse not Beams. However, our Machariels had swapped to autocannons which allowed us to take the slug out and hold the line in spite of taking some costly losses. We knew we were putting extra ISK on the line to defend our home, and they punished us by gutting it. 

The thing is that this is Crimson Harvest now, and 90% drops means a lot of our fits were recoverable. In addition to that, we also recovered a lot of ISK from their own wrecks. 

More importantly, our home was safe:

https://zkillboard.com/related/30004978/202010310300/

Inspired by our victory our fleet decided to take the fight to the enemy HQ, scouting our way past their fleet through the two jumps of lowsec to their highsec island. The infil went without serious event, and while we kept eyes on the 30 or so reported enemies in systems around us, only one lone Structure pilot attempted to stop the reinforcement. 

However, as I had feared the enemy had used this time to secure the lowsec chokepoint out.  It was either log out in the system, or go through the trap. It was obviously a setup to put them in an advantageous position, but we wanted to test ourselves, and we were feeling pretty good. 

As we jumped in they pointed several of us and after we killed a couple of ships, they dropped the first round of capital ships. Once they decided they were having trouble holding us, the second cyno went up and in came the Nyx. We were burning out of the range of the points but soon after enough was enough and with the bagpipe music playing I warped the fleet away to leave my Damnation to be destroyed by the enemy fleet. 

https://zkillboard.com/related/30003044/202010310500/

Though invigorated by our victory, I remained distressed. This was a solid win, but was also spiraling into a deeper and deeper conflict. I was inspired by the strength our members mustered when the time was needed, but I also knew that I could not betray them by using that to drag them into a protracted conflict out of false notions.  I reached out through our neutral leadership to them to explain the situation, and decided to move the Kybernaut Directors out of the fight and informed them that we would not be attacking their timer, as a sign of good faith.  They responded with a willingness to negotiate for peace. While it was not required by PNS, I offered to end the formal connection between Kybernauts and CoE. 

Kybernuats wanted to be their own thing, CoE never wanted to have to get dragged into this forever war, and PNS was willing to back down if we surrendered the war dec. 

Surrendering is a mechanic in which the target of a wardec can effectively request an end to the war. By accepting the surrender the war ends in 24 hours, and cannot be resumed by either side for at least a week. For CoE, this is over. 

Kybernauts channels have been removed from CoE Discord. We still are friendly with Kybernauts, as we are with many organizations across all of New Eden. The Convocation of Empyreans stands together, safe once more. 

Now stronger than ever.

o7