When I checked in the week before last about null sec, the Imperium had just successfully dropped a Keepstar in the system U-QVWD, on grid with Pandemic Horde’s Keepstar, leading to an unprecedented situation, and one with only a single possible conclusion: One of those Keepstars needed to go.  Story about that here.

There goes the neighborhood!

The led to a dramatic call from Pandemic Horde’s leader Gobbins, who declared they were going to… fight?  No.  He called for a general evacuation to the Keepstar in 1P-WGB, ceding the field to the Imperium.

The Imperium Keepstar onlined successfully with minimal Pandemic Horde or Fraternity interference and the Imperium moved into it, making it our staging station in Catch.  The story up to that point here.

But we still had to blow up the Keepstar in U-Q.  The battle over the armor timer happened during the work week, during working hours for me, so I missed out.  We won the objective while our foes patted themselves on the back for actually putting up a defense and inflicting some losses.  That set the final timer, after which their Keepstar could be destroyed.  This timer, as is their habit, was set in the Chinese time zone where PH and Frat are strongest.  That meant an early morning event.  But it was on s Saturday.  I could manage that right?  It was just going to kick off at… 5:00am?

My alarm went off at 4:45am for this fight.  My wife had been teasing me the night before about this, asking, “You’re getting up before the sun to do what tomorrow?  Explain this to me again? There is going to be a big fight?  No?”

The sacrifices one makes to live in California.  But that was 12:00 UTC and the rest of the coalition to the east of me was able to rise at a more reasonable time.  Also, the joke is on my wife, because I wake up between 5:30am and 6:00am on my own anyway, so it wasn’t much of a struggle.  She remembers me when we first met, when getting up before 10:00am on a Saturday was something of a chore for me.

It probably also says something that I know which alarm to use on the iPad to keep from waking her up.

Hillside is a gentle trill

I think I last used that alarm… set for 2:45am… when we beat PH and Frat at X47L-Q in a battle that had to straddle downtime about a year and a half back.  That event ended the same way this one was expected to, without a fight.  For the structure, the battle is always over the armor timer, because the defenders can still evac at their own pace if they need to.  The hull timer, which ends with the destruction of the station leaves you hanging in space with the might of your foes already massed against you.

I got up when the alarm went off and started up my computer and logged in.  The forming up of fleets had already begun, the first being called at 4:09am my time.  By the time I logged in the Raven Navy Issue fleet was full.  I was planning to try and get into that, because you might as well shoot the biggest weapon system you can.  There was a Rokh fleet as well, but I didn’t bring a Rokh because you can only fit so much in a fax SMA.  There were two Ferox Navy Issue fleets, one was full and the other was struggling to find any logi.  I didn’t want to fly logi.  I need to get on a kill mail every month before I swap over to logi… and I wanted to be on the Keepstar kill mail.

Then I noticed there, in the middle of the pings, a fleet on Asher Elias using our Flycatcher doctrine.  That doctrine is an experiment to find out what happens when you give everybody a chance to bubble the fleet.  But I’ll always pick Asher if I have a choice of FCs, and it turned out to be a good pick.

Most people were just going to be sitting around waiting for the timer to down to a point where they could warp over and get on the kill mail.  There is a damage cap, so anything beyond that is wasted effort unless there is a fight.  However, no opposition was expected, and none was offered.  But being a weekend people were piling in to get on the kill.  There were about 3K people in system when I logged in, and that number climbed past 3.7K over the course of the morning.

A mass of capitals waiting for their moment

I did a dscan at one point and counted 641 capital ships on grid.

While so many people were hanging around, our fleet had a job to do.  We flew on out to the gate that led into the system from the far side of Catch where our foes were staged and camped the gate… which, in a fleet full of interdictors meant deploying ALL the bubbles.

That gate isn’t going anywhere!

So we got to goof around and try to put bubbles in dead spots… and we even caught a few people coming and going.  There was an Arazu that was dead set to get into the system.

No more Arazu

There was also somebody in a Jackdaw… who showed up twice.  So it kept us busy while we waited.

When the Keepstar got down to 15% we warped back over to that and joined in with everybody trying to get on the kill.  There were ships all over.

Titans shooting the PH Keepstar

With everybody shooting the tidi ground right down to the 10% mark and then some, but the end result was preordained.

Another Keepstar explosion… with ours bearing witness

So far the kill mail hasn’t showed up on zkillboard.  I’ll link to it when it does, but sometimes when that many people get on a kill… and the server also has to process all the asset safety changes… and a staging Keepstar will have a lot of leftover stuff… it takes time and sometimes the kill mail doesn’t generate at all.  This won’t be the first Keepstar kill mail of mine that was swallowed up by the server, never to be seen again.

There was some cleanup to do after, some bads to chase down, but for the most part it was just a standard structure shoot… where 3.7K people want to get on the kill while the hostiles stayed away.

Also, I already have a lime green Flycatcher SKIN

There were some other things going on while we were focused on that.  Fanatic Legion ran around while all eyes were on the Keepstar and finished off three Astrahus, an Athanor, and a Fortizar on their own.

But we were not done for the day.  Shortly after the Keepstar shoot was done our Flycatcher fleet, now under an alternate FC and Asher had to get on and deliver a special early Fireside address, was bridged over to the EM-L4K constellation where there was a sovereignty contest kicking off for the sov hub in 1P-WGB.

I mentioned that system above because that is where the next hostile Keepstar is anchored.  We went and covered those operations as the coalition turned the system.

Sov change in three images

Out there we were less of a blocking force and more in the traditional role of interdictors, which is warping into the middle of hostiles to pin them down so some big guns can show up and finish them off.

Joining in on the shooting part

I got on a few more kills there.  But, if you’re flying an interdictor you are exposing yourself to the enemy who very often would like you to stop bubble and takes it personally that you’re doing that, so you move way up the priority list of things to shoot.  As such, I ended up getting popped after a couple engagements.  It happens.

That was the end of things for me.  By the time I was back in our staging… because I forgot to move my death clone… the sov battle was over and fleets were just covering the sov hub deployment.  Op success.

The next target is the Keepstar in 1P-WGB, which already had a timer counting down when we passed by it, stopping on the Fortizar anchored on the same grid.

Clock is ticking

That will be another armor timer, so may end up actually being a fight.  We shall see.  However, that fight, which will have kicked off before this post goes live, would require me to get up at 3am… and even I have limits.  However, if it does turn into a contested armor timer, the fight will drag out so I will be able to join a reinforcement fleet if it is still going when I do get up.

Our foes have already set their plan in motion… which was the same as the last plan… retreat.  This time they are falling back to the Utopia system in Curse.

Gobbins announces the advance to Curse

No Keepstar to kill there and no sovereignty to lose.  I guess that is a plus.

Anyway, we shall see what the next operation brings.

Update:  Pandemic Horde and Fraternity opted not to contest the Keepstar armor timer in 1P-WGB.  No fight today, so I was good to sleep in.