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The H74 Debacle and the conquest of 3BK, June 4th -> June 11th

The respite of the Purge ended on June 4th with the second KenZoku invasion of H74. For their third major attempt to recapture the region, RKZ attempted a novel strategy. Rather than slowly adding towers at the rate of five a day in the target system - the maximum allowed per alliance per day - Sir Molle assembled nine separate alliances, mostly KenZoku pets, and gave each of them five towers. H74 has 65 moons in the system, and only twenty of them had coalition towers on them; in one stroke, each of the nine alliances would deploy five towers and block every free moon in H74, forcing the coalition to destroy enough KenZoku-aligned towers within a week or lose the system. On paper, simultaneous multi-alliance tower spam was a winning strategy.

In practice, things went somewhat less swimmingly. -A- and RKZ assembled and disabled the jump bridges into H74 before downing the jammer, then prepared to jump logistics ships into the system to commence the spam. But in the time it took to disable the jammer, a massive coalition fleet had formed; when the jammer was downed, the coalition fleet also jumped into the system, scattering the RKZ logistics teams. In the midst of a massive fleet combat, the nine separate teams of RKZ-aligned logisticians performed with varying degrees of effectiveness; while Executive Outcomes managed to get their five assigned towers fueled and operational, KenZoku, Red.Overlord and several other alliances didn't even manage to get their online before they were destroyed. KenZoku had control of H74 for only two hours; by June 5th, every tower they had placed had been destroyed or stolen, and the third KenZoku Querious offensive was over before it truly began.

The Purge of Querious continued. KenZoku was taken down to only two R64 moons, both of which were located in 49 and thus seemingly unassailable. The KenZoku form-up points in 49 and KFIE began to be camped by small gangs of coalition stealth bombers and other 'irregulars' at all hours of the night. Station services in 49 were repeatedly disabled, forcing RKZ to repair them again and again. By June 9th, the 'Querious Spam' spreadsheet listed less than twenty-five hostile towers in the region outside of RKZ's last stations in 3BK and 49. During RKZ's primetime on the 9th, the coalition invaded 3BK and met no resistance. Over the next two days, the system was purged and captured; on the 11th, RKZ was left with only one station, 49-.

The Last Bastion: June 11th-> June 16th

After the fall of 3BK, coalition harassment concentrated on 49-. With 49's station services kept constantly disabled, RKZ pilots could not change the fittings or repair their ships, nor could they use the cloning bay to prevent skill loss after death in combat. While RKZ expected an immediate assault after 3BK fell, forming up several times to defend against an invasion which was not coming. Instead, the coalition opted to rest their pilots and continued the low-intensity siegework of cleaning up the rest of Querious, letting RKZ stew in a barely-functional outpost.

On June 14th a small coalition fleet achieved superiority over the defending forces in 49 and proceeded to take down the 49- jammer on a lark. This was not part of an organized invasion. Experimentally, several RKZ towers were reinforced. The next day, 49 faced a full-scale invasion; 25+ RKZ towers were sieged and kited, some set to exit reinforced mode in US primetime - a sure loss. After downtime on the 16th, KenZoku began losing towers in 49, allowing the coalition to set up staging points for its titans. Unless system control was reasserted within the next 24 hours, the station would be lost.

At 15:00 EVE on June 16th, Dianabolic announced the evacuation of 49 on KenZoku's IRC network: "Evac what you can from 49-, Darwin is watching you. Bridge from 49- at 1800." Shortly therafter, Sir Molle acknowledged KenZoku's defeat on their private forums. Rather than accept responsibility, he blamed the failure on KenZoku's own allies:

"Vacate your stuff. As it is, we are playing the sacrificial lamb the whole time, we're not doing that anymore.
Pull your stuff out from 49- and Delve. Thats the standing orders. Place it safely somewhere. and we'll work from there.
Expect no ops posted for a week."

Being a respectful adversary, I helpfully cross-posted the announcement to CAOD for all to enjoy. On a personal note, I feel somewhat lost, like Colonel Kilgore contemplating the end of Vietnam in 'Apocalypse Now'. Who knows, perhaps RKZ will rise from the ashes and we can begin the whole delightful process once more.