Seeing the Forest through the Trees

Over the past twenty-four hours, our corporation leadership made a decision which was a bit rash.

Some background - New Jovian Exploration Department has advertised itself as a corporation for teaching pilots in EVE about exploration and wormholes.  We specifically advertise that we are open to brand new members joining the corporation.  This core principle of the corporation is one which I as the CEO overlooked during a conversation with the other director over the weekend.

Recently, A Band Apart. (-ABA-) had war declared upon us by The Bastards.  There was a call to arms by our executor Rixx Javix and specifically a request for all pilots of the alliance to make their way to Ishomilken to defend the alliance and seek out the war targets for combat.

I put out a notice to the corporation that we should all make our way there, and many pilots have made appearances in the system over the course of the war so far.  However, we in the leadership have noticed that the presence of NJED members in the system is not at the same levels in comparison to the other corporations in the alliance.  However, there is a reason for this.

The feedback among corporation members is that they have made themselves available and unfortunately the war targets are either not online when we are, or they will not undock from the station.  So, our corporation members are left spinning ships in the station themselves.  I myself have elected to undock ships and to go searching pvp opportunities in low sec, but I have failed to stick with one of the core concepts of our corporation - "you can do what you want, when you want, where you want".

All of our corporation members are fully in support of this war and participating in the defense of ABA.  What they are not fully in support of is to go searching low sec looking for neutral pilots to engage, where you will incur a security hit as well as possible get a kill right.  Most of our members navigate high security space in times when there is no war, so to mandate that they participate in low sec pvp is not an issue.

Unfortunately, I and the other director of the corporation tied overall participation with low sec pvp together.  I did not seek feedback from corporation members on the war and their involvement so far.  And, I developed a negative opinion of members who did not stay in Ishomilken with me and go seeking pvp in low sec.  For this, I regret my opinions and my subsequent actions.

You see, we currently reside in a C2 wormhole with static exits to high security space and C1 holes.  Many members have enjoyed living in this hole as it has allowed the ability to get your feet wet in wormholes, but also constantly provides the ability to exit into high sec (except for when we get a lame high sec on an Aridia island).  With us recently joining ABA, we now will be cohabitating with another corporation in a C4 wormhole.  We felt we could maintain 2 holes and not have any issues.  However, the perceived lack of participation by corporation members in our war along with the logistical challenges of maintaining 2 holes led me to make a decision to close down the C2 hole.

As you may be able to ascertain, that decision was met with some very informed opinions on the war in general, our decision to close the C2 and some of the basic core concepts behind NJED.  It was pointed out most clearly by Zilzin:

"Also as a last note: Im pretty sure many (newbro) members joined with exploration in mind.  They dont have much SP and experience yet, and they sure didn't sign up for pvp.  You can't just expect them to forfeit usual activities, and join pvp, otherwise they get punished."

It was at this time that I saw the general tide of opinions coming into our forum thread announcing the closure of the C2.  I realized that I had failed to see the forest through the trees.  We have prided ourselves on being a certain type of corporation, and we have allied ourselves with a like-minded alliance which shares many of the same core principles.  I acted rashly and did not fully understand that our members have made efforts only to sit in a station and spin ships.  I also unilaterally decided to close a hole that less than a week earlier we had ensured the membership would remain open.

For this, I am sorry.  It takes a lot to realize that you have made a mistake AND to admit to the mistake and own up to it.

I have attempted to reverse course on the decisions which were made over the weekend and to get myself and our corporation back onto course.  We will still be participating in the war and attempting to keep the name of ABA and NJED in a positive light.  But, I cannot punish members of our corporation for not being in Ishomilken when the war targets are either not online or will not undock.

I suppose, you could say that this goes back to the content with Nashh stated that The Bastards would be providing.  Unfortunately, that content has been lackluster at best and has lef our members wanting.  So, as explorers, when you are left without the ability to fight in the war, what do you do?  You go exploring.

I now can say that I have seen the forest through the trees.

Galvanization

One of the effects of our recent war declaration by The Bastards. was a call to arms from our charismatic leader Rixx Javix.

You see, A Band Apart. is a very different alliance from any others that you will see in the game of EVE.  We have multiple corporations that all tend to go off and do their own things.

• Stay Frosty - The original corporation of the alliance and low security space pirate corporation.  however, even though they are a pirate corporation you will frequently find their pilots off conducting solo pvp and not very large amounts of small gang or coordinated activities.
• Lucifer's Hammer - The corporation who has members conducting mission running, mining, manufacturing, and any other activities which take place in high security space.
• Voodoo Children - Wormhole corporation, along with mission running, pvp.
• SUPREME MATHEMATICS - Wormhole corporation who reside in a C4 hole.
• New Jovian Exploration Department - Exploration/Wormhole corporation who train newbies to explore and live in wormholes.

The great part about A Band Apart (ABA) is that you the individual pilot can elect to do anything you want on any particular day.  Feel like scratching that low sec pvp itch?  Spend a weekend with SF down in The Citadel.  Want to run some missions in high sec and get some LP for a faction?  Go spend an afternoon with LH in high sec.  And, if you are looking for fat loot that is available in wormholes, the wormhole corporations have an open door and a spare bed for you to use for a day tripping into the hole.  We are different, but this is one of the greatest qualities of this alliance.

So, the declaration was sent via CCP mail and one of the first interesting things identified was a low sec pirate corporation declaring war on another one.  However, a bit of context was placed onto the declaration via Ithica's blog post last week:

Still not entirely sure exactly the reason for the declaration, but Nashh Kadavr provided some additional context on the first day that the war kicked off:

Now, some individuals who are involved in this war have failed to grasp the comment that Nashh has given.  The interpretation from the my point of view and of others in ABA is that The Bastards are providing content to ABA via this war declaration.  Yet, when we seek this content or actually look for their pilots to provide it we are left wanting.

The one piece of this war that is a true positive is the galvanization of ABA, it's corporations, the leadership and the individual line pilots.  I am not sure if Nashh or The Bastards intended that or thought that it might occur, but for whatever reason we are a much stronger, resilient cohesive group of pilots and corporations.  We are teaching members to fly ships they have never had to previously.  We are losing ships and killing ships, but morale remains high among membership.  Individual members have expressed enthusiasm during this war and seek to inflict losses upon The Bastards.

Galvinize - shock or excite (someone), typically into taking action

For your part in this galvanization, I say thank you to Nashh and The Bastards.  Still seems silly for one low sec group to declare war on another, but vOv.  We still are looking for that content, but for now we remain satisified with the after effect of you galvanizing ABA.

o7

AAR - One System Too Far

Day 2 of the war with The Bastards. and I decided that we would try something during West Coast USTZ.  You see, on Thursday (Day 1) there were no war targets online and available to provide us with content.  I fit a few ships we had imported for the war, but was tired and called it a short night.

So, in the morning of Friday, I announced that we would be having a fleet.  If the war targets decided to grace us with their presence, then we would try to accept their content generation (and provide Bob with his required sacrifices).  If there were no war targets available, then we will go look to pick a fight.

We formed up the fleet at 03:30 with one war target in system with us, Michael Pancake.  Seeing as though we outnumbered him like 20:1, I decided to act honorably and request a 1v1:

[ 2015.02.14 03:07:22 ] Kiri Jol > Michael Pancake 1v1 at planet 1?
[ 2015.02.14 03:08:37 ] Michael Pancake > nice joke
[ 2015.02.14 03:08:45 ] Draiv Solregard > no joke, he's serious
[ 2015.02.14 03:08:52 ] Marq Aideron > nah dude, we'll honor a 1v1
[ 2015.02.14 03:09:03 ] Marq Aideron > no links, no ecm, no backup
[ 2015.02.14 03:09:09 ] Kiri Jol > Michael Pancake so, is that a no?
[ 2015.02.14 03:09:12 ] LoKi Wackenbush > I'll stay at the station..
[ 2015.02.14 03:09:23 ] Raoul Herrington > Me too
[ 2015.02.14 03:09:28 ] Michael Pancake > LoKi Wackenbush you are my smallest problem
[ 2015.02.14 03:09:58 ] Kiri Jol > no?
[ 2015.02.14 03:10:05 ] LoKi Wackenbush > didn't I blow you up already tonight?
[ 2015.02.14 03:10:14 ] Argos Gelert > Aww, I was hoping to be your smallest problem...
[ 2015.02.14 03:10:18 ] Kiri Jol > wow, i was told that The Bastards are all about honour
[ 2015.02.14 03:10:30 ] Raoul Herrington > I thought I was the small problem
[ 2015.02.14 03:10:42 ] Matthew Kalidan > I AM the smallest
[ 2015.02.14 03:10:56 ] Michael Pancake > Kiri Jol when im looking on your kb i dont know if you are sure what is 1v1
[ 2015.02.14 03:11:09 ] Kiri Jol > np
[ 2015.02.14 03:11:17 ] Kiri Jol > clearly you refuse a request for a 1v1
[ 2015.02.14 03:11:24 ] Michael Pancake > haha
[ 2015.02.14 03:11:43 ] Draiv Solregard > what's funny is if we didn't honor it you could whine about it on twitter
[ 2015.02.14 03:11:53 ] Kiri Jol > no, just nashh
[ 2015.02.14 03:11:55 ] Draiv Solregard > but I guess that needs to be pointed out
[ 2015.02.14 03:11:59 ] Michael Pancake > some of guys young, some drunk and some just dump
[ 2015.02.14 03:12:02 ] Kiri Jol > he is all about the honr game
[ 2015.02.14 03:12:02 ] Michael Pancake > srsly

Clearly he was not in the mood to provide us with content, so we elected to take a roam out.  We debated whether to go in Frigates or Cruisers, and finally decided upon Frigates.  We got about 12 dudes in the fleet with 2 Inquisitors for logi and 2-3 ewar frigates as well.

We set destination for Heydieles, but prior to leaving I decided to take care of some house keeping.  We had a "few" (honestly about 40% of the fleet) rookie pilots who were literally going out on their first PVP roam.  We discussed broadcasting for repairs, turning off safety, and other items.  With all of that sorted, we set out for Heydieles with our scout +1.

Things were relatively light until we got to Kedama,  Our scout reported that there was a Tristan in a plex and he warped in to obtain the initial tackle.  Unfortunately, he was going down pretty fast and went down as our fleet was landing in warp at his postion.

-1 Scout

But, we were able to kill the Tristan and pod him back to Bob:

Tristan
Pod

Things remained very quiet as we waited for our scout to re-ship and for another member of the fleet to catch up from Ishomilken, except for some slips in operational security and the pre-requisite shooting of blues due to overview settings (most likely from a rookie pilot):

[ 2015.02.14 04:12:08 ] Kiri Jol > this is making for a fantastic blog post tomorrow
[ 2015.02.14 04:12:20 ] Kiri Jol > opsec in local, shooting blues due to overview, etc

Our scout caught up to us along with the additional member of the fleet, so we continued on towards Heydieles.  It was there that we caught our next action.  Unfortunately, the length of warp from the in gate to the plex led to us losing two scouts:

Scout #1
Scout #2

At this point, we had reached our destination.  We had gotten one kill for the fleet, and we were about even in the ISK war.  I should have turned us back and headed home.  But, there was a report of a Kronos in Old Man Star agressed on a station.  Clearly in hindsight this was obvious bait, but seeing as our war targets had refused to provide us with content, I went all Leroy Jenkins and had the fleet get onto the Old Man Star gate.

I had another member of the fleet become the 3rd scout and had him warp to a station at 100km.  He reported an Exequror on station, so I had the fleet jump in.  Ruh ro (in the scooby voice).  Gnosis and Ishtar on the gate.  We primaried the Gnosis as he was red and i had the logis and ewar setup.  Within a few seconds, additional hostiles warped onto the grid, so I gave the command to disengage and get clear.  Shockingly we only lost 3 ships and no pods.

FC
Griffin
Inquisitor

Loot fairy said no, and did not drop my scrambler.

So, I had the backup FC get the fleet back to Ishomilken while I went AFK for a few.  Fleet arrived safely back in Ishomilken with no further losses.

Then, while in Ishomilken I made one final request to our war target to provide content to us.  Again, he refused:

[ 2015.02.14 04:52:14 ] Kiri Jol > Michael Pancake 1v1?
[ 2015.02.14 04:52:25 ] Michael Pancake > to late mate
[ 2015.02.14 04:52:36 ] Gori Thane > Kiri Jol frig 1v1?
[ 2015.02.14 04:53:08 ] Kiri Jol > :(  Michael Pancake
[ 2015.02.14 04:53:23 ] Michael Pancake > its rly late in my TZ
[ 2015.02.14 04:53:29 ] Kiri Jol > k
[ 2015.02.14 04:54:07 ] Kiri Jol > Gori Thane planet 1
[ 2015.02.14 04:57:53 ] Gori Thane > haha wow gf
[ 2015.02.14 04:57:55 ] Kiri Jol > gf

Very nice 1v1 at the planet.  Once I killed off his drones, his DPS disappeared.  And, a very friendly exchange after the fight:

[ 2015.02.14 04:58:37 ] Gori Thane > do you know what your targeting range was>?
[ 2015.02.14 04:58:44 ] Kiri Jol > about 20k
[ 2015.02.14 04:58:52 ] Kiri Jol > never had a problem when i got in that close
[ 2015.02.14 04:58:54 ] Gori Thane > hmm ok cool, thanks =)
[ 2015.02.14 04:58:57 ] Kiri Jol > np
[ 2015.02.14 04:59:12 ] Gori Thane > also thanks for not gang raping me lol
[ 2015.02.14 04:59:22 ] Kiri Jol > ABA honors 1v1 requests
[ 2015.02.14 04:59:29 ] Gori Thane > good to know =)
[ 2015.02.14 04:59:35 ] Kiri Jol > fly safe!
[ 2015.02.14 04:59:39 ] Gori Thane > o7
[ 2015.02.14 04:59:42 ] Kiri Jol > o7

We made one final attempt to have our war target provide us with content, and this time it worked:

[ 2015.02.14 05:19:23 ] Sanders Schmittlaub > Where's the honourable 1v1 Pancake?
[ 2015.02.14 05:19:39 ] Michael Pancake > im to tired
[ 2015.02.14 05:20:14 ] Sanders Schmittlaub > Then you should probably go to bed :)
[ 2015.02.14 05:20:21 ] Michael Pancake > what are trying to achive?
[ 2015.02.14 05:21:13 ] Sanders Schmittlaub > Fights.
[ 2015.02.14 05:21:38 ] Michael Pancake > but only with friends as backup?
[ 2015.02.14 05:21:49 ] Sanders Schmittlaub > Haven't called them.
[ 2015.02.14 05:21:59 ] VanHellin Krovchenko > gf
[ 2015.02.14 05:22:11 ] Marq Aideron > gf
[ 2015.02.14 05:22:13 ] Raoul Herrington > GF to you as well
[ 2015.02.14 05:22:39 ] Sanders Schmittlaub > I'm enjoying this war so far, how about you?
[ 2015.02.14 05:23:15 ] Michael Pancake > some content for you, for me nothing special tbh
[ 2015.02.14 05:23:34 ] Marq Aideron > the smugness...
[ 2015.02.14 05:23:52 ] Dragon blizard > Raoul Herrington thanks
[ 2015.02.14 05:24:11 ] Sanders Schmittlaub > Do you usually cower out of every fight?
[ 2015.02.14 05:24:14 ] Raoul Herrington > NP
[ 2015.02.14 05:25:14 ] Michael Pancake > i will not call friends lol
[ 2015.02.14 05:25:29 ] Sanders Schmittlaub > GF :)
[ 2015.02.14 05:25:50 ] Michael Pancake > dont write gf after blob
[ 2015.02.14 05:25:54 ] Michael Pancake > dont
[ 2015.02.14 05:26:05 ] Michael Pancake > this general rule :)
[ 2015.02.14 05:26:12 ] Sanders Schmittlaub > Call me after the war and we'll 1v1
[ 2015.02.14 05:26:34 ] Michael Pancake > im numnut at pulled 7k range with blasters
[ 2015.02.14 05:27:05 ] Sanders Schmittlaub > Kill: Michael Pancake (Merlin)

With that, the fleet toyed around in the surrounding systems but there really was not much activity at all.

We are still waiting on that content you stated you were going to provide.  We'll be waiting at Ishomilken V - State Protectorate Logistic Support.