Throughout the last week and a half, you’ve likely seen reports of the new war in EVE Online. It’s a repeat of a war long since fought (World War Bee) and has been aptly named World War Bee 2 by the attacking forces (Legacy and PanFam+Winter). Since the dissolution of a non-invasion pact (NIP) between Legacy and the Imperium, TEST Alliance Please Ignore has been spearheading a campaign in the southeast of space in the region of Period Basis in an attempt to push in and get closer in range of the Imperium’s assets. Though that region has seen a stark stalemate since the war has begun, the region of Fountain shows a different story. In Fountain, PanFam+Winter forces have been pushing in from nearby lowsec region Aridia. As of today, the 15th of July, Fountain infrastructure hubs (IHUBS) in the Taurus and Wyvern constellations have begun to fall.
As of this writing, 3 IHUBs in these constellations have broken. The systems of YRNJ-8, 9D60-M, and AC2E-3 have been successfully reinforced, attacked, destroyed, and replaced by PanFam groups. Northern Coalition holds the reins on YRNJ-8 and 9D60-M and Pandemic Horde has just replaced the IHUB in AC2E-3. The significance of this change of sovereignty, specifically YRNJ-8, is now attacking forces can much more easily drop forward citadels in the systems, bringing them ever closer to projecting their reach deeper into Fountain.
Shown below is the jump range of one of the systems taken, YRNJ-8. As you can see, this system projects well into the region, including the staging system of The Initiative, the region’s holding alliance. The other two systems are moreso for bragging rights by the attackers.
This recent upshift in momentum is no doubt the result of PanFam’s success in the first large-scale battle this war has seen. On the night of 7/14 and into 7/15, the system of L-A5XP saw around 4 hours of constant fighting as Imperium and PanFam+Winter/Legacy forces clashed over the recently replaced IHUBs. This battle resulted in the destruction of 270 billion ISK with 51 billion being lost by attackers, 170 billion being lost by The Initiative, and another 48 billion ISK being lost by Goonswarm Federation and it’s member groups (they are split on the battle report). This fight featured PanFam fielding carriers and dreadnaughts with little to no capital response from the defenders even though supercapitals were called and quickly stood down. After this fight settled, smaller skirmishes took place throughout the region giving us a finalized battle report summary. This night was preceded by the fight in MN5N-X, which we reported on earlier.
As the invasion continues, many members of the attacking forces are bringing question the presence of the Goonswarm Federation in the defense of their allies in The Initiative. During the engagement in L-A5XP, it would appear that Goonswarm was preoccupied with destroying a TEST control tower in Period Basis rather than bringing their capitals into Fountain to engage the hostile capital force. They brought a two subcap fleets led by both Elo Knight and Asher Elias. Their engagement resulted in one fleet being almost entirely destroyed while the other escaped with Initiative’s reinforcement subcap fleet. PanFam and Legacy forces were left to clear the grid of ships and wrecks– Brave is a part of this new mega coalition, after all.
As we continue to see action in this region, time will tell whether or not The Initiative will be able to defend the onslaught in their home region or if they will leave the area, opening the door for PanFam to begin the invasion of Fortress Delve.
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[…] where PanFam forces pushed in from nearby low-security system Hophib. By July 15th, PanFam had cracked the walls of Fountain and began controlling infrastructure HUBs (IHUBs). Three IHUBs were destroyed and replaced, […]