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Political Structures: Red Tide: The Flow and Ebb of Red Alliance

Published on 24. Aug, 2009 ... written by Securitas Protector, Tags: Articles, Political Structures

Before I begin, I’d like to say that I am no innocent bystander. I was a participant and fleet commander in this war on the side of the Ethereal Crossing Coalition. The purpose of this article will be to highlight mistakes from both sides, politics, and analyze the war as a whole. For a shorter, very powerful, and non-text version of this piece, look at this video, which was not made by me: Youtube Video

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The beginning of the Drone Wars is not clear…not even to the ones that fought in this long and bloody conflict. Red Alliance maintains that it came under attack from Ethereal Dawn/Intrepid Crossing, while ED/IRC says that Red Alliance initiated it all by allowing various pet alliances to attack ED/IRC.

What everyone can agree on is that a Lucky League(Red Alliance pet) pilot shot at an ED/IRC pilot, ED/IRC pressured RA for letting this happen, and that touched off the entire war. At first, ED/IRC appeared to heading for a massive, decisive, and most importantly quick victory. With relatively little interference from any other forces than the Red Alliance bloc, ECC (Ethereal Crossing Coalition) forces smashed into Insmother, even taking a newly built station in EUU for a few hours. Morale was high, and fleet after fleet moved farther into RA space every day.

One thing that went unnoticed was that for the numbers in alliance chat, fleet numbers were low; even though the ECC was winning, participation rates were extremely low. What IRC and ED did not realize that while they pounded RA from the north, RA was unable to pressure AAA from the East, thus making harder for Goonswarm to attack KenZoku. GoonSwarm had to do something quick, so in an effort to push the ECC out of the Drone Regions war, they coerced the Northern Coalition to send some of their newer, (then) smaller alliances to attack ED/IRC’s home turf.

At that time, I, like most ECC members, believed our home space entirely safe, and thought that at worst, we would simply fail in taking Insmother. How wrong we were. Suddenly, the newly built XB- station in Etherium Reach was under heavy capital and POS attack from Majesta Empire, while DYPL- in IRC space was besieged by the Initiative. Roaming gangs of Wildly Inappropriate began buzzing through our home regions. Mining and ratting ground to a virtual standstill. At this time, the name ECC was a bit of a misnomer, as Intrepid Crossing and Ethereal Dawn were virtually (though not quite) the only members. (For outsiders who don’t know, IRC and ED are so close that they are essentially one alliance.)

As the rest of New Eden saw, the situation had very quickly changed. ED/IRC had gone from an offensive position to a highly defensive one. The Northern Coalition pounded the previously impenetrable “loop” (a constellation with many ED stations and only one entrance) during our active timezones while Red Alliance and friends hit it during our inactive timezones. It was a recipe for utter disaster. Within a day, all forces had withdrawn from Insmother and the pressure RA had previously felt on their home turf was gone. They were now able to hit us without fear for their home region.

Morale dipped and pressure mounted on Etherium Reach. We lost our XB- and R-6 station systems, then TP-, and then finally 3H5 and 1H5 in quick succession. Fleet participation was abysmally low, but curiously, people did not leave. All hope seemed utterly lost, but even though morale was somewhat lower than it had been during our string of victories in Insmother, it did not fall very far. Finally, at our lowest point, a few motivational speeches with a true vision of the future got us back on our feet. Most importantly, our morale did not drop further…if it had, we simply would have lost very quickly. We knew we had made mistakes, whether it be in politics, trust, stront timing, FCing, or the stupidly low amounts of towers in our station systems. Everything had to change and it had to change yesterday.

After managing to kick Majesta Empire out of XB-, the ECC kicked The Initiative out of DYPL with a VERY decisive battle, and Majesta made an official statement saying that it was surrendering. Not only was the coalition as a whole much more confident, even though Red Alliance still stood very firmly against us, but it had grown, with the addition of Raining Doom, Blackguard Coalition, StarFleet Federation (they left), and finally Arcane (later.)

Though we had kicked the NC out and the mood was jubilant, Red Alliance now had a spot on the influence map in the middle of ED space, and this was on the mind of all of our alliance members. We almost immediately initiated a campaign to retake our space, and within only a week or two, TP-, 1H5, and 3H5 were under Ethereal Dawn control once again. Only R-6KYM, the famous station system, remained balefully red. Things were looking up, though, as Atlas Alliance and their allies were smashing into Red Alliance space from the south, up to the point where they literally had no stations remaining in Insmother, and indeed only a few systems at all. The Ethereal Crossing Coalition’s Black Ops team, founded by me, scored a massive victory and made history when they destroyed an entire fleet with only bombs, scoring some 56 kills.

For a few weeks, it seemed that we were back on track and the past months had been worth it. We were poised to get our own space back and much of Insmother as well, and we had nearly defeated the famed Red Alliance. If only things were so simple. Suddenly, the Delve War II ended, with KenZoku and it’s allies pulling out of Delve and the coalition led by GoonSwarm suddenly having the time, space, and resources to go defend their friends. At first, only small numbers of enemies, namely the GoonFleet Foreign Legion, appeared in our space. The first two waves were annihilated, but by less than a week later, our space was once again flush with reds. The Initiative had returned to attack us as well, while another small alliance started chewing on us from the West. The end came very quickly; only a few weeks from the end of the Delve War and we had gone from glorious victors to evacuating completely. Shadow of xXDeathXx and Legion of xXDeathXx had both reset us, stating that Atlas were using our stations as a base to attack their space, even though Atlas quite obviously had enough space and had no interest in X.I.X space.

To this day, I do not know why Legion of xXDeathXx reset us, but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. With the Northern Coalition returning, GoonSwarm projecting force, Red Alliance continuing to fight, and other smaller entities, there were even more enemies than the “first round.” Legion of xXDeathXx beat us soundly in less than a week, mostly because of lack of willpower and fight left in the Ethereal Crossing Coalition. After fighting overwhelming odds for 5 months straight, we simply did not have it in us. XDeath and GoonSwarm were fresh and on the offensive, XDeath having no other conflicts and having built up for months. The decision was made to evacuate shortly after an alt of Oldma, who was IRC’s alliance leader, lost 150 Billion ISK in blueprints to a Goonswarm gatecamp.

At the time of this writing, Ethereal Dawn and Intrepid Crossing have evacuated and are now living in Curse with new allies, Intrepid Crossing having mostly dissolved into a new alliance: Wicked Nation, and Ethereal Dawn having survived remarkably well. Red Alliance has begun to gather in strength again, having regained much of it’s former space and most of Etherium Reach as well. Thus, it appears the tale of Red Alliance is not over yet: it still continues to flow and ebb like a red tide.

Tags: 0.0, drone wars, politics, Red Alliance, sovereignty