I was about to say "unknown" at this time and be a good boy about this. And while I do not know exactly what is going to be happening this week, I have a pretty darn good idea. And while I was away the forums were busy with the news anyway, so who am I trying to protect here?
Let me be clear, I do know exactly what my Corp is doing and that will have to wait until later to talk about. But as far as the Alliance goes, while the ultimate answer might be days away, the end result will still be the same. Total failscade. Again. Boy I sure can pick 'em huh? Last week's decision to evacuate Impass to a fall-back position in Catch was exactly what it looked like. Our regional "partners" have more important problems right now and Circle of Two is in no position to do much of anything on its own. Two months of intense fighting has taken its toll. I've been thru this too many times not to know what is going to happen, more than likely. I say "more than likely" because no one can know for certain, but like I said, I've been down this road before.
This is how it happens. The war starts out decent enough, everyone is playing nice and we're all one big happy family. The losses are mounting, but systems are falling, so no one cares all that much at first. The enemy doesn't die, he just backs up. Again, no one seems to notice that at first. Already some of the more "carebeary" Corps start whining in Alliance chat about not making any money, when can we upgrade systems? when can we start ratting? No one pays this much attention at first, cause seriously, people need money to fight a war right? The enemy starts hot-dropping those that are out trying to make money, this makes the carebears extremely nervous. The war starts to slow down and slog a bit. Some of the partners get distracted by stuff they have to deal with and don't show up on some ops for support and a few of those ops go badly. SBUs pop up in systems that you thought were safe. No problem, we'll just take those down. But now a Station is in RF and lo and behold a few enemy POS Towers pop up here and there. Now the enemy is seriously hot-dropping and camping stations, and while you seem to be dealing with it ok enough, the momentum is seriously swinging the other way.
Now, at that moment, is when you either win or lose in this game. Because no one wants to be a loser or a quitter, the worst possible thing of them all is next. The AFK Pilots, the station-spinners, the RL concerners, the people with something more important to do, those players will start not showing up for awhile. Participation is down, suddenly fleets that had 200 pilots now have only 75. And what you don't know is that many of those AFK pilots have moved their assets to Empire, "Just to be safe". And then, some of the Corps start doing the same thing, moving their assets to Empire. They don't tell you this, you only find out about it later. Once that starts, you've already lost.
Every cloud has a silver lining though and this one is no exception. For one thing, I was not personally invested in this Alliance like some of the Alliances I've been a part of in the past. That isn't saying anything 'bad' about Co2, but it also isn't saying anything good either. A little over two months in is not an investment, and while we moved to enjoy Providence, a week in and we were in a War for Impass. Not exactly what we signed up for. But we did our best as a Corporation and led the Alliance in PvP while we did it. Which is something to be proud of.
This week should be interesting and I'm sure the coming months will be even more so. I'm excited about some things I can't talk about right now, but let me say this much. Our Corp has had a plan in place for the past six months and this is simply another step in that plan. What is the next step?
Stay tuned.