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

The Goonswarm directorate met and considered how to counter -A-'s move. Traditionally, one responds to an invasion by having a fleet of capital ships destroy the hostile towers, but the Goonswarm fleet was by now in the western half of the galaxy, consumed with the seizure of Delve; the Swarm would have to choose between success in Delve and defending the Leviathan. Unconventional methods of defense were also considered - a secret capital fleet piloted only by Swarm directors, attacking the -A- towers in T-AK in the darkest hours of night - this idea was tried, but Swarm directors valued bedrest more than Darius's Leviathan, and none bothered to show up at the scheduled time. In a more comic vein, an 'outpost egg' was purchased for 20 billion isk from an ally; the plan was to create an entirely new station in the XGH constellation on the night of the 20th, a station which would be almost immediately taken by -A-, but which would preserve the capital of XGH for long enough to evacuate the vastly more expensive Leviathan safely.
 

Despite the relative ease with which they could have destroyed the Titan, -A- failed.

A public relations offensive was mounted as Goonswarm's enemies began publicly mocking alliance members about '2/21', suggesting that on this date the war, which was not going well for the former BoB forces in Delve, would experience a sudden shift in fortune; Goonswarm would 'get its due' on this date, a Sword of Damocles that would somehow seal their fate. The Goonswarm directorate prepared their mad outpost prank and waited for the inevitable. On Sunday, 2/15, T-AK sovereignty went neutral, meaning that the station could be captured. The Swarm directorate began waiting for the T-AK station to be captured, which would set the stage for XGH to fall. Taking a station once a system falls requires a fleet to shoot the station to 'flip' it, a boring if necessary duty. Hours went by. The system was not being defended, so -A- was in no rush; the station would be taken by downtime, no doubt, when -A- got around to it. Yet the -A- fleet never came on 2/15.  On 2/16, -A- claimed sovereign control over the T-AK system. The station remained uncaptured.
 
It is often said that what separates players on the highest level of alliance warfare is the understanding of fundamental gameplay mechanics. EVE is a notoriously complex game, but the documentation is available in voluminous form; keen understanding of sovereignty mechanics is practically assumed at the level of an alliance leader. After all, sovereignty is the core mechanic in alliance warfare; the game is all about taking, breaking, and holding sovereignty. -A- was considered at the time to be an alliance of 'elite PvP' players, yet at dawn on 2/17 we realized that the 'big surprise' on 2/21 was not going to surprise Goonswarm, but -A- and KenZoku (the former BoB forces). Out of an alliance of approximately two thousand players, apparently no one had understood that to break constellation sovereignty, one needs to not only control a system, but capture the station itself.
 
On 2/25, Darius JOHNSON launched his new Titan from a still-intact XGH and entered hyperspace, leaving the former Goonswarm holdings behind forever, piloting a Leviathan which by all rights should never have been born. No secret director-only capital operations or midnight deployment of outposts were required, only a tremendous, alliance-wide failure of understanding about how EVE works. As of the moment I write this, on 2/27, the T-AK station still has not been captured by Against All Authorities, weeks after it should have fallen to them.