I’ve been reading around a bit and thinking about it and I think I’m now able to discuss the Providence-Catch situation in a nice balanced fashion. This is a huge topic and I’m not going to attempt to tackle it in a single post.
On 17th December, 2009, Against ALL Authorities allowed their sovereignty claims on the 9K0E-A, WD-VTV, SV5-8N, and F9E-KX systems to elapse. Under the new Dominion mechanics there is no point in paying for the maintenance of systems that aren’t actively used. These border systems are away from -A-’s heartland in central Catch and their principal purpose was as a defensive buffer for the strategically important high-sec gateway system HED-GP.
At the same time the Providence residents were beginning to eye up a way to expand their Empire. From what I can make out from Aralis’ interview with Hallan Turrek their reasons for this seem to be a little bit confused. Their initial pronouncement said that they deemed Providence to be fully “delivered” and were now looking to bring the godless region of Catch under Amarrian rule. If they are looking to expand their borders Catch makes good sense. It is the only nullsec region that borders Providence and the Holders (especially Sylph Alliance and Sev3rance) have a strong presence from the border all the way down to 2J-WJY. In fact, this region of Catch has plenty of unclaimed systems which would have opened up the way for an expansion into the sparsely populated Immensea region. Instead, CVA and LFA chose to strike into the border systems and directly threaten -A-’s empire logistics. It should be pointed out here that Providence is unusual in that is has not just one but three empire exits, including one to high security space. As soon as -A-’s logistics were threatened then a swift retaliation became inevitable. A move for some of the systems in eastern Catch would have been a far safer way of testing the water and getting experience of the new sovereignty mechanics.
Once the retaliation begins the reasons for the initial attack become confused. In his conversation with Hallan, Aralis suggests that this was a strike against -A- not because the Providence residents need more space but because “the core reason is them giving bases to UK in their space.” Okay, so now this is a “war against terror”. If that is the case why was the initial assault limited to just four unclaimed systems? If they really wanted to take the war to -A- while they were occupied in Querious, then surely they would also have set up SBUs in HED-GP and 36N-HZ not to mention claiming the other systems in that pipeline. A few lines later he says “AAA are a big alliance beating up their neighbours as they have always done. AAA were and are our enemies dedicated to our destruction.” So now the reason is self defence. -A- is out to destroy CVA and therefore CVA needs to expand “such that no one has bases within jumprange of your core systems.”
So as you can see, CVA’s reasons for the initial assault seem to be confused. Was it a strike at -A- for harbouring their enemies? Was it because Providence is now under the rule of God and the message must be spread to the next region on the map? Was it because -A- roam in Providence and threaten their very existence? On the last note it should be pointed out that when CVA lost sovereignty due to an account hack, -A- very vocally and forcefully stood forward and declared that they would defend Providence until the reason for the disband had been discovered. This is how Aralis responds to Hallan’s questions on the subject:
Hallan Turrek > Wait, during the dissolution of CVA by hackers, didn’t they help protect Providence?
Aralis > Well they certainly didn’t abuse the situation.
Aralis > An honourable gesture and respect to them for that.
Hallan Turrek > I was to understand they actually camped gates to protect your space.
Hallan Turrek > Is that not true?
Aralis > I don’t actually know it wasn’t in our space. It could have been.
He doesn’t know whether -A- put themselves between a crippled CVA and the slathering hoards! Where was he, under a rock?
Anyway, looking at what happened and some of the leaked responses from other Holders such as Paxton Federation, it seems that LFA and CVA saw some vacant systems on their border and made a grab for them. In support of this the LFA sovereignty claim began at 8:16 am on 10th January but CVA did not announce their official expansion of Operation Deliverance until a week later at 00:50 on 17th January. They do not seem to have wanted to make a direct attack on Against All Authorities and seem to have acted without the consensus of the entire region.
Itarulde has posted an excellent analysis of the tactical flaws in CVA’s assault over at Scrapheap Challenge. It is definitely worth a read.
Coming in Part 2: The Battle for D-GTMI.
February 11th, 2010 at 5:36 pm
A very well written post, and I’m on the other side
. I think that somewhere along the lines someone in power in CVA had an ego trip and it appealed to another alliances ego in the same way and thus they forged ahead. I’m pretty sure not all alliances wanted this especially the guys who lost their system first.
The only problem I see is how to end all this before it gets blown massively out of hand without any side losing face, although in someways maybe the agressors need to be taught lesson, or the main instigators.
Out of sense of duty the holders can’t just let CVA lose all their space and accept new overlords, and I think many people really want to go back to how it was but unfortunately it seems an impossible outcome.
For some of us, myself included the extra pew pew from some of the small gang warfare has been great fun, including a few pot shots at the author;). I’m not bitter towards -A- or UK, we started it and your finishing it. I haven’t been in 0.0 long and the time spent border skirmishing with you guys has been great fun, and generally good hearted.
Let’s hope that we have dome fun together over the coming times, and that EVE doesn’t lose a valuable asset that is a great entry point to life in 0.0.
To the author: well done on writing a great piece, which is quite balanced for someone who is on one side of the fighting, along with Kirith you both make great reading from both perspectives.
Fly safe (and bugger off back to your own space I want my d-g base back)
February 11th, 2010 at 5:44 pm
Wensley,
If you can make sense of this I would love to hear it, as a pilot on the other side of the fight I can’t seem to make a rational understanding of why CVA has tried what they tried, other than someone’s ego got bigger than their alliance and friends. The real funny thing is they all seem comfortable in letting it all burn down.
Keep up the great writing, I enjoy reading you blog very much.
Trixie
February 11th, 2010 at 5:04 pm
Nice summary of everything so far. I’ve added you post to the ProviWar feed (http://www.eve-druid.com/ProviWar) and will add the D-GTMI post when you put it up.
Well done mate!
February 11th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
What a fabulous read!
February 12th, 2010 at 12:01 am
One God. One Amarr.
February 12th, 2010 at 8:52 am
Wow. Thanks for all that information. I wasn’t aware that Aralis was operating someone else’s plan. I agree that U’K in Unity is an excellent outcome and the whole region should be very exciting for a while to come. I hope you like the next couple of posts.
February 12th, 2010 at 11:12 am
Good write-up, Wens, looking forward to your next installment. You got a nice grip on the realities of politics and who does what why.
February 12th, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Great read bro. Got up to HED yesterday but things had died down a bit and I had to log early. I for one do nto understand how one guy in the whole CVA could encourage people to act in such a foolish manner, as important as HED is. BTW hats off to the -A- Nyx pilot and the Carrier pilot that broke a 14 man camp with a Nyx + carrier…that was a spectacular show
February 12th, 2010 at 10:22 pm
I have been following your blog for a long time, but never commented before.
Recently I joined a corp that is part of an alliance who operate in Provi, they Alliance make no secret of the fact they would like to become a holder. My problem stems from the fact that I really like my corp and my corp mates, we are mainly an industrial corp with a PVP wing and I would really rather not leave my corp but CVA and their pets are a bunch of pompous assholes. In fact the only part of the CVA doctrine that I believe in is the NRDS.
So anyhow, even although I am technically the ‘enemy’ I am secretly rooting for you guys. You need to teach those arrogant f*ucks a lesson
February 16th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
[...] is the second part of my analysis of the Catch – Providence war. In the first part I discussed the possible motivations for CVA/LFA’s attack and looked at the tactical mistakes [...]
February 16th, 2010 at 11:30 pm
[...] uneventful. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of letting my guard down in a little system called HED-GP, the last jump before high security space. I hit a gate camp just as I was about to jump, and in [...]
February 18th, 2010 at 2:06 am
Keep up the good work mate, it really helps me catch up through my hiatus!