EVE Online at Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMOG Gamers to the Next Level!

To briefly recap the events of the last month for context's sake: On February 4th, 2009, the Band of Brothers alliance, long-time enemies of Goonswarm, was disbanded, leaving all their space vulnerable and open to invasion. The next day, in a move publicly heralded as 'complete madness' and a 'horrible mistake' by the EVE commentariat, Goonswarm announced that it was immediately abandoning all of its space, comprising a sprawling empire of five regions in the southeastern arm of the galaxy, in order to invade and occupy the former home territory of BoB, Delve. This all-or-nothing gambit created an unprecedented power vacuum in former Goonswarm space, as suddenly five regions were up for grabs, with no goons around to even attempt a defense.
 

The Goonswarm left a Titan nearly defenseless against threats.

Some months prior to the abrupt resumption of the 'Great War' between BoB and Goonswarm, Against All Authorites (-A-) alliance switched sides from being a staunch Goonswarm ally to working actively on BoB's behalf. Territorially, -A- bordered the Goonswarm regions, and with the sudden evacuation of Goonswarm from its old space, the leader of -A-, 'Evil Thug', moved rapidly to break down the sovereignty defenses and seize whatever he could. Due to an agent, -A- knew that more was up for grabs than merely valuable space; in the process of rushing to Delve, Goonswarm had abandoned a Leviathan-class Titan in an Assembly Array deep within its former capital system of XGH, a Titan which had 21 days left before it would be completed and evacuated. If -A- could break the sovereignty defenses of the XGH constellation before February 25th, it could easily destroy the Titan - and it wasn't just any Leviathan-class, but one intended for the CEO and leader of the Swarm, Darius JOHNSON. The military and propaganda coup would be palpable, according to -A-'s directorate, despite Goonswarm having laughed off a previous Titan loss almost a year ago.
 
In order to render XGH vulnerable to attack, -A- had to break 'constellation sovereignty'; the shortest path to doing this was to seize one of the two other stations (T-AK or G-D0N) in the constellation in which XGH resides. If even one station was lost, after seven days, XGH would be vulnerable and the Leviathan would be quickly dispatched by an -A- fleet. Evil Thug chose T-AK for the assault; overnight, many -A- towers were erected in the system, and unless somehow stopped, constellation soverignty would be broken on February 21st - a full four days before the Leviathan was due.