Hydra Outpost Conquered by Reunited Triumvirate Alliance | EVE Online

Hydra Outpost Conquered by Reunited Triumvirate Alliance

2008-08-17 - By Svarthol

TVN-FM, Vale of the Silent - Triumvirate. [TRI] alliance recently announced the conquest of Hydra Alliance's [HYDRA] "Hydraponics" outpost in TVN-FM, a system straddling two routes into Tribute and close to areas of useful resources. The fall of the outpost marked the culmination of a startlingly swift campaign... or was this just the beginning?

Birth of an Outpost

Splagada of Tides of Silence corporation was in charge of Hydra Holdings Inc's finances at the time, which made him responsible for project managing the construction of Hydraponics and its sister station in ZAOL-U. He explained a little about the scale of such an endeavour:

"Building a station is something unique. It involves so many logistics; isk and "man-hours", and it is something permanent, that stays there. TVN station was about 200 hundred man-hours with our limited manpower at the time, and there were not 200 of us on the project.

"To cover the isk investment, we opened a share program for it, and every corporation helped. We chose a Gallente Outpost as we had many corporations and it was for hangars.

"An interesting point, perhaps, is that over the time taken for such a project, alliance politics can change quite a lot, but something like [building an outpost] once started, cannot be taken back. TVN Outpost was the first outpost we built together, as an alliance and it was built through 2 or 3 different alliance leaders. It was a real mess to organize, but once you get started on a large industrial project, well you have to stick to it, whatever happens. Our corporation was pulling night-shifts mining for it.

"It was a big achievement at this time, for us at least, personally I was very proud to see it appear."

The Invasion

After their departure from The Requiem [RQM] alliance, there was speculation among avid observers of 0.0 politics as to what TRI would do next. That question, for the time being, would seem to be answered. Splagada sketched out HYDRA's perception of events:

"Triumvirate. are rather special for us. They have been long-term raiders in our space. As far as I know, previously they had no interest in conquering our space, so we had like daily raiding gangs, and we fought, lost a lot but also won battles. It was not exactly the 'conquest fleets'.

"Burn Eden [UDIE] are well known for their incredible stamina - how they can camp somewhere for a very long time. What we missed was that the Burn Eden camp we saw wasn't the typical camp that comes and goes.

"It's not like a new alliance forming; it's an old alliance reforming with Burn Eden in it... so they get the whole "fresh feeling" of new alliance, and they went like a bulldozer for TVN. A tower was anchored, our cynojammer was shot then before we realized it was a real invasion, they were in TVN. [It was] very different from what we have faced before with TRI. We had considered them as a great combat teacher, but no real harm, if you catch what I mean.

"Now it's a bit different. The new TRI is much more efficient and organized. We faced 40 or so assorted capitals with a 100 battleship fleet, and the capitals included 2 motherships plus a titan."

SATAN of Triumvirate. views it thusly:

"[The capture took] maybe a week. The North came to fight a few times and got slaughtered. It's just a matter of how fast we can kill their towers."

SATAN claims that Triumvirate. fought whilst heavily outnumbered in the one major defence HYDRA tried to mount on the system, and they were still triumphant. He put their victory down to one factor and one only:

"All we do is fight."

Doyenne, of HYDRA, has vivid memories of that battle:

"The main fight happened in P3EN-E a day before the outpost fell. I was in a falcon, cloaked 100km from the gate [that TRI was camping]; I never even saw the titan jump in nor the Gjallerhorn doomsday."

Aftermath

Burn Eden chose to re-name the outpost "Sort Your Lives Out" after a private joke within Triumvirate. Perhaps the greatest irony, however, is that TRI now have an outpost they don't want. SATAN explained:

"Honestly, no one in the alliance wants it, so maybe we will sell it, or rent it out. [The main downside is] having to maintain it.

"There is no enjoyment in holding space. It's all about the fight. [We will] take the rest of HYDRA space. Then we'll decide what to do with it."

But HYDRA don't think it's over for them yet. Splagada said:

"Before, we maybe lacked pressure. Now pressure has come. If we survive, it will be the best thing that ever happened to HYDRA.. though yes, at the moment we're outgunned, its no surprise.

"HYDRA command, namely Gashon, and many corps are pulling all they can to bring supplies, ships, POSs etc for our defence. There will be more systems lost but I'm confident we will find a way."

Asked for his final thoughts, Splagada shared this message:

"All HYDRA and all Tides should have a great time in this war. I know we are all now facing a big threat and fighting as hard as we can, so I wish us many mothership and titan kills.

"Triumvirate., may you rest in pieces! If we cant win, we will die trying! And good fight so far!"


External GalNet References

Triumvirate's GalNet Announcement
Triumvirate Campaign Records
Triumvirate Main Site
HYDRA Main Site