Since anchoring their Keepstar in NPC Delve, PAPI has had no shortage of momentum in attacking Fortress Delve. Staging out of YZ9-F6, PAPI forces have pushed into the surrounding constellations reinforcing infrastructure hubs (IHUBs). As of writing, 15 IHUBs belonging to the Imperium have been destroyed and replaced by IHUBs belonging to various members of the attacking coalitions.
According to the Mittani on last week’s episode of “The Meta Show”, this is something that is to be expected and this phase of the war is all about losing the IHUBs and then taking them back, preventing the attackers from anchoring any sovereignty structures (like cynosural field jammers and Ansiblex Jump Gates) in the systems. However, though reinforcements have happened, we’ve yet to see any IHUBs taken back by the Imperium.
In other regions, the Imperium’s holdings have fallen as well as Period Basis has been largely overtaken by TEST Alliance Please Ignore. At this point, it seems the Imperium has planted themselves in Delve and committed to only defending that region (as much as they can).
PAPI leadership has publicly stated that the goal here is to whittle away at the infrastructure by killing any structure that isn’t a Keepstar while holding critical Keepstar IHUBs long enough to install a cyno jammer. This means that PAPI can control when capitals can and cannot jump in, allowing them to position their supercapitals on grid and then remove the ability for the Imperium to do the same. It’s a safe assumption that this will greatly limit the potential for a large-scale supercapital engagement on any of these Keepstars.
This spells a certain level of defeat for the Imperium narrative as they’ve sounded the Horn of Goondor and brought on any interested parties with the promise of a large Titan battle should PAPI engage one of their Keepstars. In order to create one of these battles, the supercapitals will have to use a stargate to enter a system, making them susceptible to being trapped by interdiction and open to ambush.
Another stark reality is that some member corporations of Goonswarm Federation are beginning to look to pull their assets from space rather than have them be destroyed. A very public amount of drama ocurred in the last few days where a member corporation, Shadow State, began the process of unanchoring one of their Sotiyos. The service module was removed, cancelling all current jobs without refunding the materials used to start them. Reports, and the amount of industrial sobs, indicate that there was at least 1 trillion ISK worth of materials in this Sotiyo that is now lost to the wind. We also heard there was potentially a faction supercarrier, a Vendetta, in build in the Sotiyo.
As the anaconda continues to constrict its way through and around Delve, we’ll keep you updated on what other situations develop.
