Happy Birthday Lord Vaari!

(Better Late than Never)

Hashu Blog: Old Guard?

Recently Boopa on Kugutsmen made a comment about 'Old Guard' FCs within CVA.

Hidetoshi wanted to bring CVA into 2012. He wasn't the best FC in the game or even top-tier, however, he was better than anything else the coalition has sitting around. The old guard FC's (who collectively call themselves the Warhawk Generals, FFS) kept talking shit to him and trying to undercut his initiatives. He got frustrated and left. So now we're left with old dogs like Wildcard Trek and Sollana, who are both garbage as people and FC's.

Not a failcascade, but not a positive development either. (http://www.kugutsumen.com/showthread.php?9800-Providence-Snoozelum&p=456057&viewfull=1#post456057)

As a member of Imperial Dreams, and CVA for almost five and a half years, I found this comment really amusing.  Why?  Because every single FC that he was talking about who had anything to do with the subject at hand had been members of CVA for a max of perhaps two years.  Infact our current FC manager has only been a part of CVA for a year and a half.  Yes I realize in most alliances that longevity would be considered Old Guard.  But for an alliance that has existed since the dawn of Alliances, whats a couple years?

So how do I break down "CVA" ' s Old Guard?  Well I tend to break it down into Old/Middle/New Guards'.  In fact I could probably break each of those into a High and Low if I wanted too.  Each 'breakdown,' I feel, has a distinct difference in expectations from the individuals who joined during those eras and in their views on what "CVA" is all about.

Old Guard
CVA Old Guard is ancient and archaic.  The 'Old Guard' has historically been used to refer to members of CVA who joined prior to the fall of 9UY and the successful reclaiming of Providence.  These folks were hardline amarrian loyalists.  Their priorities were for the empire and the expanding of Holy Amarr.  Within this catagory you could also split into High Old Guard and Low Old Guard.  High Old Guard can refer to members who joined while the alliance was still restricted to Ammarian characters while Low Old Guard can refer to members who joined after that restriction was listed.  (I believe Garreck and AMDEF would be the first group of "Low Old Guard").

Middle Guard
Middle Guard is the group that I as an individual relate to.  To me this generally refers to any one individual or group that joined CVA between the Fall of 9uy and the loss of Providence to the Southern Coalition.  I can break the Middle Guard into a High and Low grouping as well.  In this case the difference is less of a specific time and more split along the lines of attitude and values.  High Middle Guard are individuals and groups who for the most part joined CVA fairly close to the fall of 9uy (I joined Imperial Dreams the week after 9uy fell for example).  During this time most new individuals still held fairly strong amarrian loyalists values and tendencies.  Golden Fleets meant something, and we had little to worry about politically coming from other Null Sec groups as we had a strong connection to IAC and Sylph on our Catch Border.  While High Middle Guard were loyalist and still Amarrian focused.  The Low Middle Guard can be viewed as more Null-Sec and NRDS focused.  During this time the emphasis of new members slowly shifted from being amarrians to being NRDS pushers.  New groups were also less "loyalist" orientated and much more 0.0 focused.

New Guard
In my eyes the 'New Guard' are for the most part individuals and corporations that joined during the Squatter Wars and after the Reconquista of Providence.  With perhaps two exceptions on a corporation level, new corporations have nearly nothing to do with being amarrian loyalists nor do they have any interst.  New Guard tend to be completely Null-Sec orientated, many even bemoaning Fleet Ops that happen in low-sec.

There really is less of a reason or difference amongst 'new guard' groups to separate into a high/low group at this point but as time goes on and 'new new guards' form bemoaning 'old guards' who are themselves fairly new, differences will be sure to emerge.

In conclusion, the folks who bemoan the 'old guard' today really are just complaining about the previous group that came before them, who themselves likely complained about 'the old guard.'
Most people who would be old guard according to my definitions stopped played or have removed themselves from positions of power years ago.  The current power structure of CVA is for the most part in the hands of 'Middle' Guard and 'New' Guard individuals.  However despite that there is still the ever-present feeling of 'the old guard' looking over your shoulder and keeping you in line and I recognize for newer groups who come into the 'system' this can be very uncomfortable.  The best advice I can give you is just stick with it, even if you bump heads, eventually someone newer will come along and they will likely have the same opinions of you.

CVA wishes two of its own the best of Luck as they move on.

This week saw two prominent CVA FC's move on.

Danny John-Peter

Danny John-Peter of The Legion of Spoon announced earlier this week that his Thursday TWEEED fleet would be his last fleet as a member of CVA.  Danny is taking a break in Sebiestor Tribe before joining a wormhole corporation with some friends.  We wish Danny the best of luck with his new carebearing career in unknown space.  As a FC and member of CVA Danny was instrumental in helping organize our fittings section on theCitadel forums and keeping doctrine information up to date for the alliance and the region as a whole.

Hidetoshi Rushd

On Saturday Hidetoshi Rushd of Pentag Blade announced that his Fast n Furious fleet would be his last fleet.  Hidetoshi is leaving us for 4S corporation in Razor Alliance.  Hidetoshi has been an extremely active and energetic FC who helped with the formation and running of the regional Reimbursement program that was run with Phineas Freak of TETIC.  He also was a major factor in the creation and development of fittings and doctrines that the region has adopted. We wish Hidetoshi best of luck with his new path.

These two will greatly be missed as they made major contributions to the region and we thank both of them for the time they gave us.

4th District POS Defended!

Several hours after Downtime this morning Tribal Band made an attempt at a 4th district POS in Ziriert.  While the defense fight was a bit messy at first due to provibloc logistics orbiting in and out of pos shields, disrupting reps and cap chains, reps finally stabilized allowing the Providence Abbaddon fleet to wreck havoc on the Tribal Armageddon fleet assaulting the POS.

Fraps by Nyoris from Firestar Inc. of Curatores Veritatis Alliance

Fraps by Sandra Voi of Humantarget of Curatores Veritatis Alliance

Losses Value wise were roughly equal isk wise while kills/deaths was nearly two to one in favor of Providence Holders.

Killboard: http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=15180255

IG Mini-Campaign

At the beginning of November a member of Imperial Dreams had his alt-corps low-sec miner POS attacked by local pirates Impending Judgement and Axiomatic Dominion.  After repairing the POS with a Welpest fleet on stand-bye Providence Holders went to issue punishment, only to find the Impending Judgement cobalt POS already reinforced (It was latter confirmed to have been reinforced by another local KOS group).   Upset at not being able to reinforce the POS, we settled for returning when it came out and made sure it was destroyed (http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=15130245).  Impending Judgement quickly replaced their small tower with a large Minmatar Tower.  This was found unacceptable and promptly reinforced by a large hellcat fleet supporting a capital wing.  While the timer was not good, Providence Holder forces were successful in destroying the tower (http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=15167460).  The capstone to this mini-revenge campaign in the end was not a result of Imperial Dreams but of our friends who were baiting in Gemodi.  While the bait carrier was lost Friendly forces were successful in destroying a Moros class dreadnought (http://kb.cva-eve.org/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=255408).

Altogether over the past week Impending Judgement and Axiomatic Dominion received 4-5 Billion isk, mostly as the result of a response for the assault on IG's alt corp.

Imperial Dreams would like to thank the Provi Holders and allies who helped in the reinforcement fleets and in the POS kill fleets.

Standing Slot Petition

Yulai Federation have started a forum petition requesting CCP to increase the standings limit from 2600 which it is currently at to 10,000.  Currently the ProviBloc Kos list is over 2600 and we have had quite a few instances of KOS individuals and corporations not being set red because we simply have no standings slots available for them.  CVA is well known for being very  hesitant to grant blue status to anyone for specifically this issue.

Don't believe me when I say how long our standings list is?  Check out a snapshot of our standing list on eveskunk, dated from October 16th.

Umiea from Yulai Guard 1st Fleet is requesting that people respond to the thread supporting the request.  For those who are lazy the following is provided for you to copy paste:

**********************

CCP please could you help us, we really need you to accept this.
It becomes urgent as we can't set up any other standing tag.
Please forward this thread to the concern person. " developers / directors "
That would be a very nice Xmas gift.
We really thank you for your consideration.

**********************

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=168853

In Response to the Mittani

In the article 'What's Going on Down South?" by Baghei posted on TheMittani, several comments were made involving CVA and the Provi Bloc.

Meanwhile, TEST’s Montolio and diplomatic team were hard at work making sure that -A- could not easily escape North through CVA space by conducting secret negotiations that led to CVA being promised ¼ of Catch to box in –A-.

In response Equinox Daedalus released an internal memo and a comment on theMittani denying these comments.

Well being as I'm the XO of cva its news to me : ).

TLDR - only merits/convo's with people in test as far as i'm aware were in regards to retaining our agreements with regards to "new" next door neighbors along the same lines we had with -A-.

CVA as an alliance strives to maintain our NRDS tenants as well as our goal of Operation Deliverance in providence, be it through diplomatic means or force if needed.

I'd assume if we had some sort of arrangement to drive -A- out of catch TEST and their associates wouldn't be removing CVA assets from providence on a regular basis that would only make it more difficult for us to do any task along those lines.

The Provi bloc runs a rather strict policy of neutrality in all major conflicts of New Eden.  While we are not above working with KOS entities for individual incidents (Goons Vrs -A- Dreads in HED, Goons vrs Tri in 09, IT vrs Provi Squatters, etc.) we try very hard to stay out of larger conflicts and to provide a place for people to fly and live without getting involved.

The agreement referenced but Equinox was a no-sov warfare agreement which was limited to not dropping SBUs and assaulting sov structures such as TCUs, IHUBs, and outposts.  Generally JB infrastructure was also not touched although there was an incident or two involving cyno jammers.

D-GTMI JB lost to HBC Bait Attack

Elements of the HBC reinforced the D-GTMI jumpbridge this weekend in an effort to prompt a fight.  Alas the timer of the jumpbridge POS ended up latter than ideal.  Regardless ProviBloc geared up to attempt to defend the POS with the key handicap intention of denying capital kills.  ProviBloc formed a 110 man Naga/Nado fleet with around 10 logistics.

HBC deployed over 150 (including 7 dreads and 2 supercaps for the POS kill) men including a Rail Rohk Fleet and a Geddon fleet.  While Provibloc attempted to skirmish the firepower and size of the HBC fleet was too great and ProviBloc was forced to withdraw and seed the field, resulting in the loss of the Caldari POS and jumpbridge.

CVA and ProviBloc elements thanks those who were involved and notes those who didn't show up for a bloc wide CTA.

EVE-Kill BR

(Video from a HBC pilot POV)

Oracle Videos

I've got two Banana Videos, both Oracle fights between Provi Bloc forces and HBC groups for ya'll today.

The First Video was created by Maximille Biagge from TETIC [CVA] and covers this battle from October 29th in 4B-NQN

The Second Video, created by Star Cloud from FROG [RIBIT], covers this battle from November 3rd in SV5-8N

Trouble in Voltland?

As many are aware, there was a bit of excitement last week in North Providence.  Last weekend, Snigwaffe reinforced a CSAA pos in the Volition Cult's system of SI-I89, prompting several days of CTAs, counter sieges, and fights.

The inital fight on the 28th saw the POS being reinforced with a rather evenish subcapital fight (http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=15015825)

On the 29th a neutral staging POS that provibloc had reinforced came out of Ref and was very quickly dismantled by a major Provibloc CTA (http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_related&kll_id=15031301)

Things came to a finale on the 30th when the CSAA came out.  Around 15:00 another staging Pos was destroyed (http://eve-kill.net/?a=kill_detail&kll_id=15043432).  Provi forces locked down the system with the newly installed cynojammer and a heavily bubbled entrance.  However hostiles brought a signficantly larger force.  With 150-170 hostile Fox-cat fleet using massed logis instead of triage carriers, they quickly forced the Provibloc fleet off the field and destroyed the csaa pos.  What was actually in build changes depending on the rumor one hears.  While a nyx bpc was reported to have been dropped by the csaa the report from the owners (that I am aware of) was that the supercarrier in build was a wyvern.  Regardless the loss was felt by the owners and our sympathies go out the the owner.

Despite the loss of the CSAA good fights were had.  The Volition Cult extends it's thanks to all those who helped participate in the attempted defense.

Hi guys. I just wanted to pass on my thanks for your support of  VC and VOLT in SI on Tuesday. Your effort and losses were appreciated by all. Good to know we have friends who will try to help even though the enemy can be overwhelming.  It will be an honour to fly with you all in the future.

~Goggles Deudigren, Volition Cult, The Volition Cult, TheCitadel Forums:Allied Discussion 

More importantly, those who failed to show up have been noted.

Edit Note: Thank you to the anon commenter who correct my mistake, hostiles were in foxcats, not slowcats (slow cats = sentry carriers foxcats= navy apocs).  Too many cats I say!

Hashu Blog: Burn Out/Tanks/Outside Eve?

So some of you may have noticed my disappearance lately.  Fear not I still am here, just suffering from a bit of burn out that I tend to go through rather regularly these days.  This latest bit started at the beginning of October and came into full force during the last two weeks.  As a few personal friends and corp mates may know, i'm a bit of a anime fiend so I can often disappear for a few days to marathon a show (or catch up on airing stuff).  Alas October was the beginning of the Autumn 2012 airing season and this year its loaded with good titles (always willing to talk about anime if anyone is interested, just hit me up in-game).  One of the shows, Girls und Panzer has similar mechanics to World of Tanks which resulted in me spending two weeks grinding out my KV-1 crew to 100%.  In combination with work this meant I disappeared a bit and there hasn't been any news reporting.  That will be getting fixed this coming week as I return to fuel POS' etc so hang in there.