Category: EVE

Filed by Gallente Citizen 4586793463

Captain Gobbins announced he was stepping down.

Not gone, exactly — just stepping down, in the same way a capsuleer says they’re taking a break from EVE and then logs in six hours later to check the market.

The announcement dropped into the alliance broadcast system mid-cycle, sandwiched between a doctrine reminder and a mining tax clarification:

[Alliance Broadcast]:
“I’ll be stepping back from leadership for now. Continue business as usual. Train Maelstroms. o7”

And that was it. No fanfare. No farewell fleet. Just an oddly understated endnote from the man who’d led one of New Eden’s biggest coalitions for years.

Within minutes, the ping was buried beneath hundreds of messages arguing about whether the new staging system in R-AG should have a Keepstar emoji in the MOTD.

Business, as ever, continued.

---

Meanwhile, in the same constellation, something strange was happening.

Captain Broseidon — multiboxing mining specialist, self-proclaimed industrial visionary, and chronic overachiever — had been busy. He claimed to be “strengthening the region’s infrastructure.” What he didn’t mention was that his idea of infrastructure involved anchoring an entirely new Keepstar right beside Horde’s existing one in R-AG.

When questioned, he reportedly told someone in fleet chat:

“Don’t worry, it’s strategic redundancy.”

By the time anyone noticed, the structure was already anchoring — a massive, gleaming citadel parked less than a grid away from Horde’s own Keepstar, the space equivalent of building a rival’s palace directly across the street and spray-painting your name on the front.

A director pinged the leadership channel:

[Director’s Channel]:
“Anyone else seeing this anchoring timer in R-AG?”

[Another]:
“Yeah, it’s… ours?”

[First Director]:
“Not exactly. It’s Broseidon’s.”

The silence that followed could have frozen a sun.

[Director]:
“You’re kidding.”

[Reply]:
“Nope. And rumor says he’s talking to Goons.”

Three minutes remained on the anchoring timer.

Three minutes between “strange personal project” and “diplomatic catastrophe.”

The directors moved fast. Broseidon was expelled from the alliance before the timer hit zero, and the structure’s fate was sealed — it would now take six days to finish anchoring, and Broseidon was now a man without a home, staring at his half-finished citadel from the outside.

---

But if the story ended there, it wouldn’t be EVE.

Because Goons came.

They didn’t just come — they hell camped R-AG. Carriers, dictors, titans, bubbles stretching across every gate. Horde pilots logged in to find local spiking like a fever, and pings flying faster than cynos.

[Alliance Broadcast]:
“Do not undock capitals in R-AG. Repeat, DO NOT. Broseidon has made… choices.”

As the siege dragged on, someone updated the MOTD:

“Welcome to R-AG: now featuring two Keepstars, one alliance crisis, and an existential question about leadership succession.”

---

Some whispered that Gobbins’ decision to step back had somehow sparked the chaos. Others said it was just Horde being Horde — that entropy was the natural state of things, and leadership changes were merely punctuation marks in an ongoing farce.

Gallente Citizen 4586793463, sipping their lukewarm coffee from a borrowed station office, summarized the situation succinctly:

“Captain Gobbins is stepping down, but no one’s sure what that means.

Captain Broseidon defected to Goons and built a Keepstar beside ours.

The Goons hell camped the system in solidarity.

Horde is fine. Everything is fine. Nothing is on fire except R-AG, and that’s probably normal.”

They paused, saving the report to their datapad before adding one last note:

“New title suggestion for the alliance newsfeed:
‘The Broseidon Gambit — or How to Lose a Keepstar in Three Minutes.’”

This isn’t a story about covert ops ships, which I adore, but instead it’s about Pandemic Horde and their handling (or lack of) un-anchoring forts and their heavy desire for secrecy to their own members (yeah yeah, spai, I get it). I understand that things need to be kept quiet so that we don’t entice Goons or other NullSec blocks to come after structures that may be un-anchoring, but there were barely any messages sent out that not only was MJ un-anchoring (this has finally completed and MJ BEANSTAR is no more), but that many other forts scattered through PH territory were also un-anchoring. Places where folks do industry, mining, and ratting. On a whim I happened to check the system I spend most of my time in – and yes, the fort there was un-anchoring, too. There was a tiny little brief discord message buried with a single line that we were somehow supposed to infer as to the scale of these changes, and that was it.

Thankfully I got all of my ships out of my ratting / mining systems and hauled them to other structures along with the new home of R-AG. I feel bad for the swaths of people who were unable to get their stuff out in time, who were away, who were wining at EVE, or whatever other situation happened to occur. I feel like there wasn’t a clear -> ‘here’s what’s happening’ message, instead it was “we don’t trust you, we don’t trust anyone in this discord, therefor here is a cryptic message about what’s going on but really no message about what is going on”. Instead of being all secretive we could have flaunted the un-anchoring, and arranged for our people out in force to protect it. Put up some sort of fight instead of what PH has been doing, which feels a lot like rolling over. Yeah, I’m frustrated with the state of Pandemic Horde lately. Looking at the amount of older members who are jumping ship to INIT and other blocks, it doesn’t feel like I’m alone in that thought. Ah well.

Fly your way o7

The feed had gone galactic.

Live relays from New Eden’s largest newsnets flickered across the command deck of the Kinetic Regret, each one centered on the bright burning corpse of the 1DQ1-A Imperial Palace—the Imperium’s long-standing Keepstar, now in its final moments. Years of history, thousands of pilots’ stories, and enough market tax revenue to fund a small war were vanishing in a hail of ceremonial autocannon fire.

The terms of the sendoff had been simple: bring a Rifter.

And bring Rifters they did. Over 3,800 pilots descended on the Keepstar in a rust-colored swarm, celebrating the final breath of the station that had, for so many, meant something. Top damage and the final blow were both delivered by Rifters, as per tradition.

There were no dread bombs. No gate camps. Just a mass of enemies and allies, sitting shoulder to shoulder in tribute.

Except, of course, for Pandemic Horde.

Back in E8-4, Captain Gobbins stood at the front of the deck, holding a datapad with far too much smugness for a man in Crocs and a ratting shirt. He tapped the display like it was a punchline.

“No way,” he said, grinning. “We stole the 1DQ Imperial Palace Keepstar Core. And got away with it. LMAO.”

The bridge crew exchanged glances. Someone coughed, uncomfortably.

“Massive props to Nestor X85, by the way,” Gobbins continued, undeterred. “Dude just yoinked it right out from under them. In front of three thousand Rifters.” He let the number hang in the air like a trophy. “Imagine going to a funeral and coming back with the casket.”

Ensign Brin cleared her throat. “Sir, if I may… that Keepstar was—”

“A monument to hubris, Brin,” Gobbins cut in. “Let’s not forget what they did with that thing. Endless ganks. Nullbloc politicking. Remember when they charged 3% market tax and called it a deal?”

“Still,” she said cautiously, “it was meant as a tribute. To an old director of theirs, I heard. The Rifter thing was symbolic. An homage.”

Gobbins waved his hand dismissively. “If they wanted it to be sacred, they shouldn’t have left the core in. That’s like building a shrine and forgetting to lock the donation box.”

From the corner, Gallente Citizen 4586793463 blinked, then returned to typing quietly. The title on their notepad: “When a Warlord Steals the Gravestone.”

“I’m just saying,” Gobbins went on, pacing now, “this sends a message. We’re not just winning on the map. We’re winning in the mind. Every Rifter in that system was firing blanks. We were taking.”

He held up the datapad again. A grainy image of the core being dragged out of the dying station, pixelated and triumphant.

“No structure is sacred,” he said. “No space is safe. And no farewell is without cost.”

“Sir,” Brin said after a moment. “Should we… say anything? You know, public comms. Condolences, or…”

Gobbins raised an eyebrow. “You want me to issue a condolence ping for a Keepstar we robbed during its funeral?”

“…Right,” Brin muttered. “Never mind.”

The bridge fell quiet again. Outside the viewport, a Rhea freighter drifted past—likely full of “salvaged” Keepstar fittings. The war went on. The map changed. And in some forgotten subchannel, three thousand Rifter pilots raised a toast to the fire they’d lit, unaware that the core had gone missing while their backs were turned.

Aboard the Kinetic Regret, Docked in E8-4

Captain Gobbins stood at the main holotable, fingers steepled, a faint smudge of blueprint toner still smeared across one knuckle from some earlier encounter with a stubborn industry hub. The map of nullsec hovered above the surface in flickering 3D, glowing with the aftershocks of recent upheaval.

“Delve and Querious,” he began, his voice echoing slightly in the command deck. “Officially evacuated about a week ago. The region’s been a bit like a nullsec garage sale ever since.”

Several crew members chuckled quietly. One of them—Ensign Brin, possibly regretting her transfer from Jita customs enforcement—tapped through ownership changes on a side console.

“So who’s moving in?” she asked.

Gobbins zoomed in with a flick of his fingers. “The biggest chunk’s gone to a new mid-sized coalition—XIX, Siege Green, OnlyFleets, SYN, and a few others. Not bloc-aligned, working together, and from what I can tell, not completely exploding yet. Promising start.”

He tapped again.

“Streamer Ahront—yes, that Ahront—and his crew took a decent slice too. Remember those guys that anchored the BWF Keepstar way back? Looks like they finally carved out a piece of Delve for themselves. Credit where credit’s due: they did it without bloc support and somehow didn’t implode. Yet.”

Another swipe.

“The rest? Sold off to Init. Classic Goonswarm move—sell the furniture before the house catches fire.”

A quiet ping sounded as Gallente Citizen 4586793463 entered the room, datapad in hand, taking notes silently from the corner. No one greeted them. They didn’t expect it.

“But here’s what isn’t being talked about,” Gobbins continued, walking slowly around the glowing map. “The way Goons pulled out. Or more specifically—how many neutral groups they shoved out the airlock on their way.”

“Wasn’t XIX neutral?” Brin asked.

“They were,” Gobbins said. “So were Siege Green. SL4GS. All of them made deals just to be left alone. Gave up space. Agreed to neutrality. Guess what it got them?”

“Nothing?”

“Eviction,” Gobbins said flatly. “Goons demanded they give up the rest. No more pretexts, no more lies about ‘Panfam pets’ or jump bridge fairy tales. Just straight-up ultimatums.”

A ripple of silence moved across the bridge.

“And yet,” Gobbins said, “compare that to what we did when we had the South. From the collapse of FireCo in early 2023 to late 2024, we held the strongest force down there. Did we evict neutrals? No. We protected them. SEA agreement. Even when it ended, we left them alone. When we pushed Catch, we didn’t demand space or bridges. We just flew smarter.”

Brin raised an eyebrow. “So what changed?”

“They overextended,” Gobbins replied. “And that gave us the opening. Their reach into Delve and Querious cost them everything they tried to hold. And now—neutral entities can thrive there again. Irony’s a lovely thing, when properly aged.”

He tapped the map off. The lights rose slightly. In the pause that followed, Gallente Citizen 4586793463 scribbled a single note:
“When Goons go full tyrant, the void grows fertile.”

“Oh, and before I forget,” Gobbins added, turning back to the room, “local notes: industry hub is now active in E8-. New ratting areas are going live around us. Our allies who lost ground are being resettled in Outer Passage—which also makes the region tougher to crack.”

He looked directly at the crew.

“Train Maelstroms. Buy Titans. And for the love of Bob, stop asking if MJ- is still safe.”

With that, he walked out, coat flaring slightly, trailed by a muted chorus of murmured “Yes, sir”s and one distant ping of someone trying to buy a Revelation off-contract.