Today has been a very welcome day away from the frontlines and I’m sure that my alliance mates and our allies are all taking the time to re-equip, move ships to the front lines, and even earn some funds for their war chests. Well, that’s what I’ve been doing, anyway. Something else I want to do during this break is give all my readers a quick introduction to the politics of null sec space. To do this I will use Verite Rendition’s excellent Eve Influence Map. In this case I will use the map from 11th January, 2010.
Against ALL Authorities, Red Overlord, and the Stainwagon
The obvious place for me to start is with my own alliance. Traditionally -A- has been dominated by Russians under its leader Evil Thug. Despite the fact that Evil Thug has stepped down as leader -A- still have a very strong Russian presence and this has lead us to be friends with Red Overlord, another Russian alliance. Against All Authorities hold regions of Catch, Impass, and Tenerifis while Red Overlord live in Feythabolis.
As well as their own provinces, Against All Authorities also play host to two alliances. Ushra’Khan are our guests whilst AAA Citizens is a holding alliance for corporations that rent space from us. Since Dominion it is prohibitively expensive to claim sovereignty in three whole regions. Because of this ‘renter’ alliances have started to actually take on sovereignty of their own and appear on the Influence map.
The Stainwagon are a collection of alliances who used to live in Stain and have now moved into Esoteria and Paragon Soul since the Goons moved to Delve. The main elements of Stain Wagon are Systematic Chaos, C0ven, Stain Empire, and Stainless.
Provibloc
Moving anti-clockwise around the map the next power block to consider is the so-called Provibloc. This is made up of Curatores Veritatis Alliance and their ‘holder’ alliances Paxton Federation, Libertas Fidelitas, Sylph Alliance, Cold Steel Alliance, and Sev3rance. CVA are a role-playing alliance and they enact an NRDS (not red, don’t shoot) policy in Providence and areas of Catch. They view themselves as guardians of these territories on behalf of the Amarr Empire.
Since -A- let their claim to a handful of systems near HED-GP (the empire gate to Catch) lapse, Libertas Fidelitas have moved in and laid claim to them.
Atlas
Atlas is a relative newcomer to the influence map. They rose to promince during the invasion of Delve by Goons. With the defeat of Band of Brothers and the sudden relocation of the Goons there was a power vacuum and Atlas rose to fill this.
The Drone Regions
The Drone Regions, as they are known, are held by a pair of Russian Alliances known as Legion of xXDeathXx and Solar Fleet. Both have their own renter alliances. Here you will also find the remnants of Red Alliance in Etherium Reach as well as the relocated Intrepid Crossing in Cobalt Edge. While these alliances will fight each other for control of the drone regions their politics are very insular. They appear to have no desire to push beyond their boundaries and likewise no-one seems to be very interested in invading the drone regions where the rats drop minerals rather than having ISK bounties.
The Northern Coalition
The northern coalition is a very well established power bloc. Its principle members are Majesta Empire, Morsus Mihi, Mostly Harmless, Razor Alliance, Stella Polaris, Tau Ceti Federation, and Wildly Inappropriate. Like all other power blocs they have guest/renter alliances who live amongst them with their permission. The coalition was formed as a response to the aggressive stance of Band of Brothers. Like the Drone Regions residents they seem happy with their lot in life and are content to hold onto the space that they currently occupy.
Fountain
For a long time Fountain was held by the Sons of Tangra and Pandemic Legion. Both are essentially pirate alliances who stumbled into sovereignty warfare when they defeated Brutally Clever Empire (BRUCE). Pandemic Legion in particular are known for their innovation tactics and have won two Alliance Tournaments running as well as playing an instrumental role in the defeat of Band of Brothers.
IT Alliance has risen from the ashes of Band of Brothers. At the moment they are in the final stages of conquering Fountain and re-establishing themselves on the map as major players in the world of null sec warfare and politics. Where they will go next remains to be seen.
GoonSwarm
After a defecting director disbanded Band of Brothers the Goons moved to Delve and Querious to complete the transition. Since then they have settled in and fortified their domain so that they can enjoy the riches in the wake of their victory other the alliance who once said “there are no Goons.” Zenith Affinity live in Period Basis and regularly fight alongside the Goons. The Goons have strong ties with Pandemic Legion and Sons of Tangra as well as fighting with the Northern Coalition to destroy Band of Brothers.
NPC Regions
There are several NPC regions that are home to a wide range of corporations and alliances who have no interest in holding and contesting sovereignty in their own right. They are often aggressive with a strong focus on guerilla raids on larger entities.
I know this has been a very quick tour of the map. I hope it gives you some idea of the general politics of the regions. I will write another post soon that talks about the conflicts that are taking place around the cluster. It is more than likely that I’ve made some mistakes in this. After all, I am pretty new to all this. Please post any corrections in the comments section and I’ll adjust the main post as necessary.
Related posts:
January 13th, 2010 at 4:27 pm
Thanks for this overview. IT (the original, not BoB) is just starting to look towards 0.0 again, admittedly in NPC space for now, and having not been around when they were big down in Querious, it's good to have as much 'book-knowledge' as possible to keep up with everyone elses 'real-world knowledge'.
January 13th, 2010 at 4:30 pm
Thanks for this informative post! IT (the original, not BoB) is looking at 0.0 space again, albeit NPC controlled for now, for the first time in a while, and having not been around when they were a power down in Q, I want as much 'book-knowledge' as possible to go with my corpmates experiences.
January 13th, 2010 at 7:03 pm
Great roundup all over the map! IIRC SoT is no longer friendly with the goons , although I am no where near positive about this. Great job though mate I applaud your work!
January 13th, 2010 at 6:41 pm
Fantastic overview!
January 13th, 2010 at 10:57 pm
It's really nice to get a simple, straightforward assessment of the current situation from someone who isn't embroiled in the details of history. I look forward to more updates along these lines.
January 13th, 2010 at 11:59 pm
History maybe not, but the present I am very much involved in. I am literally dashing from one front to another whenever I log on!
January 14th, 2010 at 12:00 am
Not so much looking at 0.0 space as cleaning up the last bits of Fountain. I would guess that once they have a home base established they'll look at revenge…
January 14th, 2010 at 12:03 am
very nice overveiw
it tells you a lot about the areas while being very simple to understand
you sould do sov reports wensley you be good at it <jk>
January 14th, 2010 at 11:33 am
Great overview
Its fun to have u blogging about the area i have spent alot time in. I see we lost SV5 to you guys last night 
We had the numbers ready to move into SV5 but with 650 in local allready we where to afraid off the lagmonster. We will back again.. i'm looking forward to a great weekend with alot of pew pew 
Cya in battle 
January 14th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
I think we're hitting that misunderstanding again. IT (The original one) is Imperium Technologies, a corporation formed in 2003. NOT the IT Alliance of super-recent times that was once BoB.
January 14th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
Not really. They are IT Alliance, you are Imperium Technologies. Therefore they get called IT.
January 14th, 2010 at 3:49 pm
Looking forward to a great weekend of fighting too. Between you guys and GoonSwarm I think its going to be a very busy one.
January 14th, 2010 at 11:01 pm
*chuckle* certainly not implying that referring to them as IT is unusual, just explaining that I wasn't referring to them in my original post that you replied to.
January 14th, 2010 at 11:10 pm
*chuckle* I'm not implying that their being referred to as IT is incorrect or unusual, just that the IT I was referring to (corp ticker of [IT] for 6 years now, 2 years by my name it's habit to refer to em that way) in my original comment was NOT the IT you were referring to when you replied to me.
Thanks again.
January 15th, 2010 at 3:42 am
This is something I've really needed. Great post!
January 15th, 2010 at 10:58 am
Fair enough. Stop double commenting, damn you
January 15th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
hey im pretty new to eve but i was wondering what the red lines were on the map are those player made gates? if not what are they
January 15th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
The lines are inter-region stargates.
January 18th, 2010 at 11:34 pm
GREAT overview, excellent details. I do a weekly sov intel roundup for the empire-based corp I'm in, and my knowledge of some alliances and the histories and relationships between them is often vague at best – CAOD is not much help in clearing the picture, either. This post was a FANTASTIC help in filling those knowledge gaps. Succinct and rich – awesome work. Please do keep this up, it's very helpful!
January 28th, 2010 at 2:14 am
I'll just say I like this
January 29th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
Was a dirty fight in D-G, I tackled your Thanatos and called you primary.
Were you at all able to control the ship or where you lagged to hell and back ?
I was for some reason expecting a SB to explode and find myself in a station