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

Phase Five: Collapse and Recovery

There is a significant stigma against being a corporation who flees an alliance 'too soon', so the collapse of an alliance at the terminus of a failure cascade resembles an avalanche. No corporation wants to be the first to go, so when the first corporation finally screws up the courage (or, more usually, finds a likely-seeming excuse for how they've been wronged by the alliance leadership) to leave, they are rapidly followed by those who were holding back. The collapse has an incredible inertia, as it provides its own motive to leave for those corporations who did not originally intend to. Remaining in an alliance which has cascaded is extremely dangerous as it has no more military power, and since the majority of the member corps already left there is no shame in exiting. Often there will be a small core of corporations who stick with the collapsed alliance, usually those corps who wielded the most power in the alliance.

The post-collapse alliance has two options remaining besides disbanding. It can try to make a life for itself in non-conquerable 0.0 space, claiming to be 'free of the shackles of POS warfare.' History is full of cascaded alliances moving to NPC 0.0 vowing to return, only to dissolve within a matter of months. The raison d'etre of the nullsec alliance is to hold space, and after being stripped of this common interest the core corporations of the failed alliance often find they have nothing to hold them together any longer. In addition, there is a significant public stigma associated with cascaded alliances, and usually the process of the cascade has seeded significant animosity between the remaining corporations.

The other option is to become an alliance of temporary refugees, with the post-cascade core of the alliance moving into the territory of a stronger, stable ally. Depending on how patient the caretaker alliance is, in these circumstances it is actually possible to recover from a cascade. This is not only because the refugee alliance is no longer suffering from inescapable adversity but also because having allies who will aid a defeated alliance is enormously reassuring (and rare).

In either situation, the impact on the former corporations and pilots in the aftermath of a cascade is minimal. Most alliances in EVE end up collapsing due to hostile invasion, and if the experience was that traumatic, the losers would stop playing the game en masse. In truth, the experience -is- traumatic, judging by the posts made by the helpless pilots in the moments of their suffering. But as soon as they have escaped from their helpless state and their failed alliance, the soothing balm of rationalization comes to the rescue, and memories are helpfully adjusted. Post-cascade pilots remember that they put up a great fight and never lost hope, while it was those other guys in that other corporation who ruined everything. Regardless of the circumstances, a cascade is always the other guy's fault.