A very rare faction supercarrier was killed in combat yesterday in the Fountain war. This was the first ever revenant to be killed in combat. Less than 100 Exist. The ship was worth a real life equivelant of 10,000~$ In July alone the cost of the war has exceeded the equivalent of 54,936.85$ With no end in sight. This was the most expensive kill in the history of eve [quote] Our Story starts with StarConquer212 and Bandwidthh, the two people at the center of the plot. 7 months ago, the two were in the same corp, Tri-gun, a former member of Lost Obsession and Convicted. Tri-gun eventually disbanded, and the pilots went their separate ways, with StarConquer212 joining Verge of Collapse, while Bandwidthh went to Pandemic Legion. However, Bandwidthh found Pandemic Legion was not quite the land of milk and honey that he thought. While Pandemic Legion can be incredibly accommodating to its members once they’ve proved their mettle, showering them with subsidies and welcoming back former Legionnaires with open arms, Bandwidthh was finding their activities not to his liking. He had joined PL full of enthusiasm, believing he had reached the pinnacle of achievement, and then realized that winning EVE meant not logging in. The high profile of PL meant small gang operations quickly escalated or were avoided by targets, and sitting on a titan or at the login screen proved not to be his cup of tea. Lastly, he was snubbed of subsidies on his Aeon supercarrier by the alliance, however, fellow Legionnaires pitched in more than 15 billion isk in loans. This did little to help Bandwidthh’s disillusionment with PL, and he began to make plans to leave the alliance. In the meantime, StarConquer was enjoying his Time in Verge of Collapse. StarConquer had joined the game upon hearing the tales of the Great War, how Haargoth and The Mittani changed the galaxy with a few pushes of a butan. StarConquer was looking to do the same, and Bandwidthh’s imminent departure from PL gave him just what he needed to accomplish his goal. StarConquer contacted people who would help facilitate the supercapital gank. Elo Knight’s Black Legion were believed to be one of the only groups with the dreads and balls to drop PL supers, and Snuff Box had a standing grudge from the “Kings of Lowsec” debacle. Drunk ‘n’ Disorderly was to be involved too, but were left out of the plan after StarConquer was kicked off their comms on charges of being an AT spy. But most importantly, StarConquer had an insider who would be able to deliver the supers on a silver platter. [b]THE PLAN[/b] The plan was quite simple but quite brilliant. PL frequently drops supers on unsuspecting lowsec targets, as supers have superb mobility, and decently sized groups of them cannot be held down without a dedicated heavy interdictor wing. Intel would come in from around the galaxy, either from groups unable to contest enemy capitals, or from PL’s own spies. A supercarrier fleet would be called and dropped on the enemy caps/supers, quickly overwhelming them, and moonwalked out before the victims could even update their clones. Over their years of hot-dropping, PL has become very good at this; their last supercapital loss was during the battle of Asakai (a BDCI Titan was killed by Black Legion in April, the writer was told “BDCI losses don’t count”). Key to PL's success was their operation safeguards. First, multiple midpoint cynos would be in the fleet, both to provide extraction should things go wrong, and to bring in additional reinforcements. Second, before starting the op, the FC asked about the activities of entities with the power to counter drop, i.e. the CFC, Drunk ‘n’ Disorderly, and especially Black Legion. Lastly, other supercarrier pilots would be notified, allowing PL to escalate the fight at a moment’s notice. Properly obeyed, these measures ensure very safe operations for the Fishing Fleet, allowing it to retreat when attacked or bring overwhelming force to bear. Of course, none of this means anything if the FC is actually trying to ensure the fleet’s destruction rather than handing cap kills to his compatriots. StarConquer aimed to turn one of these routine fishing trips into a slaughter. To do this, he would set up a large tower in lowsec Space, but not set a POS password, giving the impression that the tower was offline - not an uncommon sight in lowsec. Then bait carriers would be dropped on the tower at zero to give the impression that this was just another 2 carriers looking for a killmail. When the PL fleet arrived, the midpoint cyno would drop fleet, stranding the supercarriers in system, and the waiting dreads and hictors would counterdrop the trapped supercarriers. In addition, should the PL reinforcement fleet arrive sooner than expected, the tower would be immediately passworded, bringing its force field online and pushing away the PL fleet while shielding the friendly fleet under its protective bubble. No warp disruption bubbles in lowsec meant it would be impossible for the tower to be “-blam!-caged” with warp disruption fields (or “bubble wrapped” for a more politically correct term), and every cap in the tower would be home free to cyno out at will. It took little convincing for Bandwidthh to be brought on board, but once he was, all that was left was to wait for the right opportunity. The plan was hammered out months in advance, but the perfect opportunity never presented itself. The first time the bait was planted, the chosen location was 2 cyno midpoints away from the PL staging system, and the fish didn’t bite. Undeterred, the bait was set again, this time only one midpoint away from the PL staging system of CIS-, in Odamia, which also happens to be in direct jump range of the CFC supercapital staging system of B-DBYQ. It was entirely possible that another Asakai would have happened had PL escalated the fight, but we shall never know. [url=http://cdn1.tmcdn.org/sites/default/files/styles/inline_stopgap/public/Battle%20map.png?itok=FxzmM0t3]Battle Map[/url] (The map above shows the routes taken by forces for the battle. The dotted red line represents the possible route for PL JDC-V Carriers; all other capital ships must use a midpoint. The dotted blue line shows how close Odamia is from B-D, where the CFC supercapital fleet is staged. Image from GARPA Topographical Survey.) The stage was set. Ron Mexxico of BL. had set up the tower and cynos for the “Crystal Army," Brick Squad carriers were called in to shoot the POS while VoC/Snuff dreads and hictors waited in the nearby system if Isie. At the same time, N3+TEST were engaged in a battleship brawl with the CFC in Fountain , delaying another potential response force. All that was left was for Bandwidthh to deliver the supers, which he did in short order, pinging for a fishing fleet to go kill the Brick carriers. 13 supers answered the call, but critically, none of them knew where the destination was, and relied on a second party and the FC to provide the entry and midpoint cynos. Their assumption was that the FC had already taken all necessary precautions, which of course he hadn't. On cue, the supercarriers jumped in, minus Bandwidthh’s own, as he was not yet at jump cap. To everyone’s amazement, TSID’s Revenant jumped in with the traditional Nyxs and Aeons. The trap was sprung hook, line, and sinker; dozens of HICs and Energy Neutralizing ships cynoed in, followed by over 50 dreadnaughts and 22 BL. supercarriers. The Revenant was immediately called primary for its massive price tag, and by virtue of being a shield super in an armor fleet, and it dropped in short order. With the overwhelming amount of DPS on field, supers were popping at a rate of one per minute. Pings for a rescue fleet were broadcast to PL, but BL. dictors were repeatedly bubbling and docking in PL’s staging system, delaying triage from arriving on field. With the old midpoint gone, a new midpoint cyno had to be burned for supers and dreads to chase off the gank fleet. PL decided it was not worth it to throw good money after bad, and in the end only burned a cyno for the extraction of 3 supercarriers that managed to escape. Beyond the sheer scale of success of the gank, it’s also notable for being the first combat kill of a Revenant supercarrier, of which only 3 are believed to have been built to date. This rarity contributes to its extreme value of 300 billion isk, almost 4 times than of a titan, and only exceeded by the early Alliance Tournament reward ships. [/quote]