And now, at last, if history is anything to go by, it's time to tell a story.
It's not just any story, of course - this one is your story, dedicated to all of you that participated, that made were ultimately integral in making this great undertaking a resounding success.
Casus belli: The reason for war
Back in June, the University received a declaration of war. This alone would not be quite as uncommon, yet something was strange. The particular attacker here was a complete unknown by the name of Global Warmers Corp, with no particular history of high-sec aggression. We inquired through diplomatic channels, but to no avail. Thus, we shrugged and began standard response procedures - including seeding alts into enemy channels, which will allow us to offer some exclusive glimpses into the mind of the enemy later on.
Target locked: Do I even need to do any work myself anymore?
Of course, we always like to keep our eyes peeled for immobile targets that allow us to force the hand of our elsewise-slippery opposition. In this case, a lot of our work had already been done for us, as a lovely pilot named Michael Alderman had correctly identified GWCO's two home systems of J132418 and J220338 in a wonderful intel report he assembled. Once we had gained access to the enemies' comms, this information was quickly verified, and the corporate office list, accessible to any corp member (bless CCP), allowed us to easily identify the structures being used - a Raitaru in J132418, and (far more importantly) an Azbel in J220338, which was primarily used as an industrial base and PI source.
At this point, a plan began to form in my mind. We hadn't killed an Azbel before, and some cursory research revealed a Moros dreadnought was also present. All in all, tasty targets that made me decide to take my proverbial structure FC hat off of my proverbial hook and announce an operation for July.
Interlude: A glimpse through the eyes of the enemy
Some time later, the Uni's Highsec Campus completed a structure bash of their own. This did not go unnoticed by our one-sided friends in GWCO, who pondered the implications of this extensively. However, their extensive deliberations came to a simple conclusion - something like this could never happen to them. After all, their wormhole was well-defended, with their Control Tower full of ECM, dampeners and neutralizers, and their Moros dreadnaught.
Sure, their tower had no way of autonomously delaying a bubble wrap from locking down any assets inside, and their Moros was stored in that tower, but at least their Azbel had two of its twelve fitting slots filled, allowing to easily fend off any attacking fleet....as long as said fleet consisted only of frigates, and said frigates voluntarily moved within the 2.5km range of its point defense system...
You know, let's just give them points for optimism and return to our story, shall we?
Backroom deliberations: Deciding on a doctrine
In the past, when the Uni has indulged in operations like this, we've typically employed very bashing-focused armor kitchen sink fleets mainly composed of Oracles and VNIs (with Prophecies and Vexors as low-SP options).
However, in the time since then, we've added the BLAP training program, which offers a HML Caracal as a structure fight option. Having never gathered experience with that variation of the doctrine, I figured this operation might mean a good chance to rectify that. As such, I made a decision to focus on a Cerberus/Caracal HML doctrine, which should give us enormous control over any grid with ridiculous range projection while our opposition would be pseudo-tackled by the objective being contested, and announced this in late June to allow members time to train into their favorite fit.
However, in this train of thought, I made a grave error by neglecting a crucial statistic which would come back to bite us in a big fashion on the first day of the actual operation. We'll talk about that in a bit.
Well, actually - we'll talk about it now. Let's get to it.
Operation Day 1: Things are going worryingly well
During the actual insertion, we had a number of crucial objectives to fulfill at the same time, so plans were made ahead of time and then amended on the day to suit the actual situation in the hole.
Finally, the big day rolled around. Due to the target Azbel's vulnerability schedule (Mon-Wed 00-02, 22-00), we were forced to schedule for a Wednesday, choosing 19:00 as the departure time to give plenty of time to lock everything down nice and tight before the actual structure contest needed to begin.
Despite this, turnout was lovely, with fleet member counts peaking just shy of 150, with - after some prodding - a nice distribution of roles. We depart (roughly) on time, also a pleasant surprise, and arrive at the lowsec entrance after only 12 jumps, which is also better than expected.
So far, beyond the obligatory E-Uni structure OP frigate hole spawn, things are going very much optimally. We enter the wormhole, and still no adversity as we immediately establish control over all connections and lock down the enemy starbase with the Moros still inside. As the Moros exits the safety of the POS shield and commits suicide via siege mode (which we are happy to oblige), I am starting to feel increasingly worried - this is going too well. Something needs to give. The center cannot hold.
And here is where we will, finally, encounter our great adversary for this story: the concept of structures having a humongous HP pool that needs to be depleted.
Operation Day 1, Part Two: Please Let Our Torment End
You will recall that we briefly discussed doctrine selection above. During insertion, our Caracal setup has prevented any possibility of hit-and-run interference by the defense, and we're now starting to incapacitate starbase modules to remove any real risk of opposition. However, as it quickly becomes apparent - if a single starbase battery has 1.6 million HP to grind through, and you have 70 Caracals shooting it, and even if you make a very optimistic assumption of each Caracal doing 300 DPS, you will still take more than 10 minutes for each battery you kill - and a tower can be (and this one is) equipped with upwards of 30 of these. Needless to say, these are not nice numbers.
So while we incapacitate batteries, then shoot the Azbel, then go back to the batteries without actually experiencing any serious contest, the hours drag on, the fleet member count wanes and every battery takes even longer than the previous one, and we haven't even started on the 52.5 million EHP that the control tower itself has before it enters reinforced mode. Decisions are made, and a few haulers offer to move Oracle battlecruisers into the hole.
However, hauling ships takes time. The hours drag on. 3 AM, 3:30 AM, 4 AM. The first four Oracles finally arrive, and the batteries are finally exhausted as work on the control tower starts. 4:30 AM. The control tower EHP moves at a snail's pace, and serious concerns about passive recharge rate are being raised. 5 AM. A second set of four Oracles finally arrives. The HP now moves at a steady pace, but it's still not a quick one. My sense of time started blurring a long while ago - sometimes, it feels like the HP is dropping rapidly, then again what feels like a few minutes later I check back to find that only a single percent point had been taken off. 50%. 45%. The clock shows 5:30 AM. 40%. 35%. Please let this actually be stronted, I pray. If not, I fear I might not be able to last for the hour it would take us to finish off the entire tower. 30%. 29. 28. 27. 26. 25%. The magical number, yet the tower is still attackable. Worries build as the number remains stationary, yet the tower is still a valid target, for what feels like an eternity. I check again - still at 25%. Lasers keep hammering the shields. Finally, the target lock breaks and the control tower displays the "Reinforced" text. I log the timer, hand off command to one of the relatively fresh reinforcements, and fall into bed. The clock is showing 6:14 AM, my time. I am asleep within seconds, and will not wake until ten hours later.
Operation Day 2: In for the long haul
I rejoin the Operation at just past 1400 EVE time on Thursday. Incredibly, some brave holdouts had actually committed to forcing
Operation Day 3: What we've all been working for
I wake mostly refreshed and rejoin the Operation still in the same state as when I left. During the last eight hours, not much has happened - the connections have remained under control, our targets have resigned themselves to logging off the occasional stealth bomber from within the Azbel's tether, and destroying their own pods as a way of returning to known space. Again, the hours begin to drag, though real life drags me away - not finding me entirely unwilling, I will my admit to my shame - at roughly 16:30, as I leave the operation in capable hands yet again.
I return at just past 19:30, with the Control Tower already having exited reinforced mode, and join in on the firing squad. Luckily, armor and structure are significantly less bulky than shields, and the tower succumbs shortly thereafter. Loot, however, is extremely sparse, with only a single (T2 fit) Buzzard to show for our troubles.
Operation Day 3, Part Two: I give you - explosions
We maintain control, and I begin to disassemble our staging tower, trying to avoid another all-nighter as the final remains of the enemy POS are wiped from the map. On the hour at 22:00, the enemy Azbel finally exits its final reinforcement cycle and we pile on until 22 minutes later, a series of small explosions builds into a sequence of larger blasts and, finally, the Azbel delivers the fireworks show we've all been desperately needing. In addition, we are graced with a deluge of station containers ejecting the contents of the doomed structure, which we immediately begin to gobble up as if our livelihoods depended on it. As opposed to the starbase, which had been stripped bare, it appeared that our friends had not been quite as orderly with their Azbel, and we quickly realize we've stumbled across quite the haul.
The aftermath: Who wants to own a spaceship?
As a swarm of hungry
At the same time, while part of the fleet commits to sticking around and seeing the final POCOs burn, a deluge of ships departs to the (very conveniently situated) lowsec static, causing its remaining mass capacity to rapidly deplete. We do one final excursion to move members' second ships out, then I ask everyone remaining to stay so that the hole (whose mass status was critical at this point) could be used by the last remaining Orca once it had gathered up the remains of the staging tower. However, after some further complications involving being unable to unanchor the staging tower due to tens of thousands of m³ of fairly worthless PI materials clogging the CHA module (which we disposed of into the endless abyss of an unanchoring PHA), the Orca finally exited through the connection, which collapsed shortly thereafter. The god of wormhole must've been pleased by our commitment, as the next static opened within 1 jump of highsec as well, allowing the remaining battle-weary warriors to leave the killing fields at long last. Three days had finally gone, and the operation was over.
The final tally: Our pecunia still does non olet
On the financial front, I'm happy to say that the operation was a resounding success. The total profit from the firesale was just shy of 5.3 billion ISK, all of which has been forwarded to the University's coffers - not included are the various other nonliquid assets that were retrieved but not yet sold.
While no value can be given for the total losses inflicted on GWCO, the data we do have tells us that it'll easily reach into the tens of billions.
Final words: We've done it again - you're all awesome
So here we are. Above is a story of three days as experienced through my eyes. However, my pair of eyes is only one of many, many pairs that were integral to the tale I've just told. By no means am I the only one who worked until the wee hours of the morning to ensure that a control tower was destroyed, and by no means was I the only one to camp a wormhole until my senses screamed for relief. There are so many of you out there who also went through the same, even though you may only function as the scenery in my viewpoint above.
However, none of it couldn't have happened without you, and none of it will ever happen again.
In the end, this is why we spend hours, days and years on this silly game of internet spaceships - because while this is but one of the many stories that are told in it, this one is your story. You're the ones that wrote it, and you're the main characters in it. I'm so incredibly honored to fly among all of you.
There are many stories out there. But this one is ours. We made our own piece of history, something we will never forget. We were there, and it was awesome.