Early this morning, a fight erupted over multiple structures in the High Sec system of Perimeter in EVE Online, one of the most trafficked and important systems in the MMO.
EVE Online is known for its player escapades, with large battles between the player-led empires forming the stuff of history - so much so that there are two history books written about them. This morning's clash is once again between the forces of New Eden's strongest player power blocs: The Initiative, The Imperium, WinterCo and PanFam.
The target are two Sotiyos and a Fortizar that are docked in the High Sec system of Perimeter. What makes this system special is it's one of the few entry points into the Jita system, which houses the most heavily trafficked trading hub in EVE Online, Jita 4-4.
As to how and why the combat sparked, EVE players need no reason, especially ones who are as antagonistic towards each other as PanFam and The Imperium for example, but it seems it's arisen over market taxes and profit sharing between the large corps.
Roughly 5,000 pilots from The Imperium, The Initiative, WinterCo, and PanFam are currently engaged in the system of Perimeter over the fate of 2 Sotiyos and a Fortizar.If a Sotiyo in high-security space is destroyed, it cannot be replaced. #Tweetfleet #EVEOnline pic.twitter.com/Vf7xB2PZIC
— EVE Online (@EveOnline) March 22, 2024
The Tranquility Trading Consortium, or TTC, is a player-run group that operates a trade hub that helped the large corps effectively evade the taxes of Jita 4-4. It is at the heart of all this, as one player explained on Reddit this morning. Ancient Gaming Noob has an incredible series of articles about last year's TTC drama, for those interested.
I actually tried to go catch the action since I was just in Jita next door, and I'm fairly certain my Stratios is just gone now. This was my view of the battle from my MacBook Air (I'm at GDC right now, gotta log in where I can) this morning as I was unpacking all the drama. Lots of greys.
Goonswarm and their allies pulled out of the TTC last year, while Pandemic Horde and their Fraternity allies stayed within the TTC. To put it quickly by redditor Phoenix591, these structures were "generating income for our enemies," so they attacked.
"Pandemic Horde and Fraternity decided to keep running the TTC highsec market ( and for a while the TTC industry) using the sotiyos and for months now on and off Goons and their friends have been shooting these structures when their conflict has heated up in nullsec. Recently Goons and friends lost an armor timer against a Catch Horde/Frat keepstar in exchange for winning the armor timers of these sotiyos, giving an opportunity to kill them today."
What makes this extra interesting is that CCP Games made a change to how XL structure mechanics work in High Sec: you can no longer drop new structures in these regions of space, while older ones were allowed to keep operating. So once these Sotiyos and the Fortizar are gone, that's all folks.
The battle is still ongoing, and we're still scratching the surface of what led Capsuleers to bleed their Null Sec conflicts into one of the most trafficked highways of New Eden, so we'll be updating and reaching out to the major players throughout the day and the weekend to find out more. If you want to watch some of the action, you can check out the various streams on Twitch from each perspective (or jam out to Mind1 while the battle rages, as I am).
