The system of CT8K-0 was property of Nulli Secunda after they originally took the system back in 2013. Although it seems that Nulli had not given enough effort to maintain the system as the IHUB and station were already badly damaged by the time the PFR op occurred.
Below is the AAR post in it's entirety.
This after action report chronicles the next major development after we onlined the ihub in the first system claimed by the Phoebe Freeport Republic. PFR is a new entity moving to claim space and open freeports in sov null.
Shoot first, check sov guides later
On Saturday afternoon, our Etherium Reach scouts reported juicy intel: the station and ihub in CT8K-0 had no armor EHP. Whoever had last fought for the system must not have repaired the structures, meaning they could be conquered with less grinding and just a single timer per structure. Flush with victory after claiming and ihubbing the worst system in New Eden, a PFR crusading fleet formed without a moment’s hesitation and reinforced the system’s station and ihub. Without clearing the hostile SBUs first.
Yeah.
So we put an ihub and station timer on the board, but the implications of not owning the SBUs were dire: until the reinforcement timers clicked down, the SBUs were invulnerable. As soon as the timers were finished, hostile forces could simply offline the SBUs and make our targets, the ihub and station, invulnerable to attack.
This SBU mechanic wasn’t a complete surprise, but sometimes the rampaging horde demands immediate structure shooting satisfaction (for whatever reason) while the people who “understand” sov are sleeping or briefly logging out to handle real life.
Curiously, CT8K-0 was in a unique diplomatic situation: the owners of the sov were far away with their capital fleet’s wings clipped by Phoebe’s jump drive changes, but the SBUs themselves were owned by a different alliance entirely. A series of delicate and quiet messages were dispatched to probe for information on the situation.
The grind was done, but questions remained. Would the system’s owners show up for the timer? Would the SBU owners show up to thwart our efforts – if only to collect the tears? Would other locals put up resistance or try to ninja the system?
Come together
Jabber pings and mails went out to the alliance advertising fleets for the coming timers. The ihub came out of reinforcement early Monday morning, the station timer luckily came out right around PFR's late-EU/early-US primetime.
Recruitment surged on the heels of our early victories, and the Etherium Reach locals began to express interest in – if not outright support for – our actions. This pocket of Etherium Reach, as it turns out, has been all but abandoned by its nullsec “owners.” The only pilots in system were ever PFR crusaders or sovless third parties basing out of nearby lowsec systems. As much fun as shooting each other in the face had been, it became clear our true existential threat was the shadow to the east – absentee landlords who had “bought” the region from its prior owners, but were nowhere to be found except the dotlan maps.
Chat channels and TeamSpeak servers came to life with introductions. Conversations turned to talk of a common enemy.
Danger close
Monday morning, we made short work of the ihub and were met little resistance. When the time for the final op Monday night, PFR saw its heaviest showing yet: more than 50 members were in our voice coms, despite us being a band of strangers who could barely form 10 moas a week ago. In total over 70 pilots (some of whom rushed to our aid and received blue standings just minutes before the battle) streamed into CT8K-0 to flip the station and grind down the hostile TCU. Speed is always important for such ops, but we were racing to finish before anybody had a chance to turn off the SBUs and render the system temporarily invulnerable. If they had wanted to, they could have the moment the timers ended. The longer we took, the more risk we had of having sand kicked in our face.
Wasting no time, the glorious crusade fleet opened fire on the station. We formed bombers, catalysts, a few special snowflakes, and a guy in a raven. I still don’t understand that, but it was awesome. 10 points to the guy who brought a raven to a structure shoot deep in hostile territory.
After a relatively short grind (Phoebe significantly lowered the EHP of many sov structures, including stations and SBUs), our targets were reduced to kill mails. Triumphant, we prepared to online a TCU of our own.
We’ll be back after this short interruption from sov mechanics
So, hahahaha, remember those SBUs that we didn’t own? Well, as we well know, you can’t online a TCU in a system with SBUs onlined, but the only way to offline the SBUs we didn't own was... more grinding. And so the celebrating crusaders polished their F1 keys, warped to the first gate, and continued the grind.
At last, the SBUs fell and our TCU was anchored within triage range of the station (because we totally have carriers, and can totally get them through all of the gates and/or half dozen+ cyno jumps needed to move into null), and 8 hours of onlining time were put on the clock. The crusade fleet went to shoot some nearby targets, and watchful eyes were set around the station and TCU.
TCU CTA
About an hour into the TCU timer ticking, two Tristans – at least one of which with a GSF pilot – warped in and opened fire. Grrrr goons. We ignored them.
An hour after that, a true threat arrived in the form of a Serenity Initiative maller fleet. By then it was late enough Monday that our numbers couldn’t realistically repel them, and they happily sat on the TCU tearing into its shields.
The mallers could chew through the TCU well before its 8 hour online timer was finished, but they seemed more interested in a fight than flipping the system. We formed what we could: moas and scythes engaged outnumbered in an effort stall, and once again our focus turned out of necessity to guerilla sov warfare. Blockade runners, POS modules, and corporation leaders flooded the system (as only one TCU can online in a system per corporation) alongside our moas. As the second and third TCU began to online for Phoebe Freeport Republic, our moa fleet sustained enough losses to force a switch to hit and run bombers. Every time our moas were driven away, the maller fleet snapped back to place in orbit around our slowly melting TCU.
None of our efforts, of course, would have stopped a fleet of capitals. But dropping them would expose them to significant risk, and – for most parties in the region – be a logistical nightmare. As with all of EVE, our fate depended on somebody with a hammer deciding to swing it somewhere else, but we were out of time and out of options. Hours into the engagement, we managed to produce four onlining TCUs and several amusingly well-defended POSes on top of waves of harassing bombers and ECM ships.
Exhausted and down to our last pilots, the enemy’s will finally broke. With just an hour left before the first TCU went online, the maller fleet disengaged and left the system.
Freeport One
As downtime loomed, our mortally wounded TCU flickered to life. With our control over the system complete, we immediately opened docking privileges to all of New Eden (...for a price). Less than a week after the patch hit, Phoebe Freeport Republic placed a welcome sign in the window of its first freeport.
Terms and conditions
Docking for blues, corporation members, and allies is free. Docking for neutrals costs 10 isk per m3, and docking for hostiles have the cost multiplied by 10 times their negative standing. That comes to around 5 million isk to dock a neutral (0.0 standings) battleship and billions of isk to dock a hostile (-10.0 standings) capital. I think. Lol. Please feel free to complain about it “not being a freeport” in the comments. Fee may be lowered later if this seems unworkable.
Our propaganda sucks less now: And we're not even shitting /r/eve up with it multiple times per day! Check it out.
Want to know more? Check out our subreddit, http://www.reddit.com/r/PhoebeCrusadeWarRoom.
Ready to join the crusade? Our sub's sidebar has info on joining up. Join our public channel, talk to a recruiter, send an application to the corporation. Corporations looking to join the alliance should contact Tarus Slothenstein.
We’re really, really broke Sov is tragicomically expensive. We claimed one tech moon (only took two tries!) and have some docking fees and ratting taxes flowing in, but I think our alliance has earned like 100 million or so isk total. Yeah. I hate to sound like a guy in a santa costume ringing a bell, but we’re running on fumes here.
If you want to fund more misadventure and after action reports, we would be eternally grateful for any isk you can spare. Please send it to the corporation Dutch East Querious Company or character Coelomate.
Lovingly and eager for more content on the horizon,
Your faithful servant,
~Coelomate
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