Chapter 7
The Frontlines Era
Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may scurry who reads it.
I. Watch This
Just after midnight, EVE time, on the fourteenth of January YC127, Watch This, a small-gang pirate group, was in Amamake in Harbingers, killing the Amarr militia's Vexor Navy Issues. It killed five in a minute and a half, and one of them belonged to Kanari Xadi, back in Amarr colors by then.
The group's Python, an Alliance Tournament prize ship with a cloak and a rack of officer howitzers, was on none of those killmails. It was thirty thousand kilometers away, near the spot where Watch This had killed a Local is Primary Harbinger twenty-five minutes earlier. The killboard would value it at over a trillion ISK.
Fifteen FL33T pilots in frigates and destroyers were on it. Aliventi in a Malediction and Elex Asturh in a Stiletto held tackle and did no damage. Davey Oaks took the final blow in a Retribution, and BearThatCares was on the killmail in another Malediction.
The Python died between the fourth Vexor Navy Issue and the fifth.
In its cargo hold were two mobile depots and a Rejected Ship Replacement Program Request.
Its pilot, Grarr Dexx, still links the killmail in his public biography. The caption is one word: "oops."
II. Two Years In
Six weeks earlier, Minmatar Fleet had published its annual report for YC126, addressed to the Republic's tribal council. The census counted four hundred and three capsuleers. Three hundred and seventy-five times that year, someone had pinged everyone.
The operations section listed eight teams, most of them with plain names: fleet commanders, People, Thinkspeak, Technology, Supply, Conversion. Two of the teams were listed only as Redacted, six capsuleers each.
The industrialists kept their own ledger. At the turn of the year the alliance's industrial arm, Minmatar Fleet Associates, published "What it takes to feed the Rats — 2024 edition". The tritanium alone came to eleven and a half billion units.
Three days after the report, the alliance's propaganda changed its name: Metropolis Daily News became Frontlines. Two days later, the masthead explained the upgrade:
FRONTLINES! NOW WITH A 100 MORE EXCLAMATION MARKS
The Blood Brawl went ahead that December and got an issue of its own, FRONTLINES! BLOODBRAWL EDITION!!!, and most front pages that winter kept the masthead's promise. By mid-January one ran FC I'M DEAD without a single exclamation mark.
III. Strong, Independent Imperium Pet
On the first of February, FL33T met RMC again. RMC was now affiliated with Goonswarm Federation, and BearThatCares titled the battle record accordingly: "STRONG, INDEPENDENT IMPERIUM PET VS MINMATAR GAMERS".
FL33T won the fight.
The argument over the title ran considerably longer.
IV. The Mobile Depot Wars
The next day, BearThatCares published the record of a war that had been running in Auga for nearly a month.
It was about mobile depots.
Watch This had been anchoring them in Auga, and had discovered that the humble refitting structure doubled as a flag, planted in a system that did not belong to them.
A depot was worth about two million ISK, less than a faction frigate, and FL33T hunted them anyway. On the twenty-ninth of January, Vengo Rin, alone in an Exequror Navy Issue, killed twelve of them in under five minutes.
Five days after the record went up, Faye Vaelent cleared the last of them out of Auga the same way.
V. Five Hundred Billion Down in Siseide
On the nineteenth of February, Sedition came to Siseide, in Auga's own constellation of Hed. BearThatCares titled the record for the five hundred billion ISK that died there, and described the neighborhood:
Heimatar continues to be one of the hottest regions in the game, with tons of alliances moving each day.
Both sides had built their fleets from the same parts: Tempest Fleet Issues for the subcapitals, and dread wings of Revelation Navy Issues and Zirnitras. Over a hundred FL33T pilots were on the grid, and nearly as many from Sedition.
The dreadnoughts did not die evenly. Most of those tons of alliances were shooting Sedition. Ushra'Khan was on the killmail of every Sedition dreadnought that died, in Scythe Fleet Issues and Vedmaks, and Wild Geese came in Thoraxes. A Sedition dreadnought usually went down with twice as many names on its killmail as a FL33T one.
Sedition brought twenty-seven dreadnoughts to Siseide and took one of them home.
FL33T lost nine.
Even the industrial arm had come in dreadnoughts.
VI. Dreadbrawl with Bubbles
On the twenty-ninth of March, FL33T met Dragon Riders Legion in Sahtogas, in their home constellation of Tandoiras. They had brought dreadnoughts.
Deepwater Hooligans came too, and mostly shot the Dragon Riders. Lowsec had bubbles by then, and all three brought interdictors to launch them. BearThatCares titled the record "350B DREADBRAWL WITH INTERDICTOR BUBBLES".
FL33T's line was Cyclone Fleet Issues and Tempest Fleet Issues. The Dragon Riders brought Abaddons alongside their dreadnoughts and lost fifteen of them. The capital fight ran for most of an hour.
Near the end, three Dragon Riders dreadnoughts died in seven seconds, one to Ibn Khatab and two to Casper Sullivan.
The Dragon Riders lost nineteen dreadnoughts and about two hundred and forty billion ISK.
FL33T lost nine dreadnoughts again.
Hours later, Goonswarm came to Sosala in Hurricane Fleet Issues and left nineteen of them there.
On the thirty-first, Frontlines put DRAGON RIDERS FEED DREADS on its front page, with a word of advice: "Pilots, remember: dreads are not throwaways!"
