This wasn't all we've had to put up with this week, what with the ongoing personal vendetta of Musashibou Benkei - the Renegade of Khanid - and his ex-Bergmann/ex-Darwinism followers that all have the attention spans of children.
Politics...
Back on topic: Ashmarir is one of the gateway systems to the soon-to-be-established Independent Empyrean Republic of Khanidistan. It is at the 'east' end of Khanid Lowsec and is otherwise an unremarkable system with no mainstream stations, three uninhabited terrestrials (uninhabited as far as can be determined, although you can never rule out uncharted pockets of madness, survivalism, religious extremism and hermitry), and token capsuleer industry based around a handful of resource-poor moons.
Ashmarir is not that big a deal, or at least it wasn't until we put our Citadel there.
Earlier this week, a CVA fleet manifested in Ashmarir and attacked our Citadel. We left them to it because of the Citadel's ability to withstand an initial assault. CVA made their statement and left.
We had 24 hours to prepare for their return.
When they returned, we were ready in ways we've never been before. In other words, we put some thought into it instead of winging it. The ultra-reliable Lowsechnaya Sholupen also showed up to assist us on the premise of any excuse for a party.
We were outnumbered at least 2-1 by CVA , but we still repelled them because we had Dreads and they didn't. Check out the cam drone stills and telemetry below.
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| FACE-OFF! |
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| IT BEGINS! |
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| APOSTLES! |
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| [DRWIN] & [LSH] KICKS [CVA] ASS!! |
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| CVA WITHDRAWS! |
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| SALVAGE OPERATION AFTERWARDS |
We won.
Noteworthy: Lowsechnaya deployed some examples of the new Apostle-class Force Auxiliary ship - the new paradigm in capital starship combat. I never saw one in the flesh before so I never appreciated how damned big they are. I mention the Apostle because the Imperial Fleet's naval architects went to the trouble of designing the Apostle with armour that depicts a stylized mural of the 'Martyrdom Of Empress Jamyl At Safizon by the Drifters'.
A design statement like that is only ever about propaganda rather than operational requirement, so there is intense irony here in that we used Apostles against an Amarr loyalist alliance. Few other capsuleers involved in this skirmish would have given this issue a moment's consideration, but I look for stuff like this, which is why the idea of CVA's motivation for this attack was, to use a Ni-Kunni idiom, filling my head with sand.
As Darwinism's media & PR rep, I thought about asking them. I fired off some comms; as and when I get a response from them, I'll update this post. I'm not holding my breath though...
Until then, it's Darwinism 1 - CVA 0.
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[PHP1] is recruiting! Seriously, we're in a bit of a golden age at the moment and are experiencing a recruitment surge. Not just that, I woke up today and found out that [FCON] are our allies. When did that happen??
