The Kinetic Regret hung just outside tether range, cloaked in that familiar pre-fight silence—a silence thick with dread, caffeine, and unspoken regrets about doctrine choices.
Captain Gobbins stood in the situation room, pointer in hand, mug in the other, and a projection of the southern front pulsing over the table like a migraine.
“Well,” he began, “Imperium’s finally done it. They’ve set up shop on the edge of Insmother and are now lovingly punching it in the face. We’ve restaged to our southern border to say hello.”
A low groan rolled across the table. Brin was already halfway through her stim pack.
“We’re both hitting each other’s peripheral regions,” Gobbins continued. “Us, with surgical sig deployments. Them, with the full sledgehammer approach. I’m told that’s called ‘doctrinal identity.’ I call it expensive.”
The map flickered slightly, then zoomed out. Regions lit up like an arcade screen.
“I’ve seen some people refer to these regions as ‘floodplains.’ Cute. But if I catch anyone else saying that, I’m going to throw you into a fleet full of unfit Griffins and walk away.”
Gilthune Aideron raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you the one who called Tenerifis a ‘lightly scorched buffer zone with delusions of grandeur’?”
Gobbins waved her off. “That was poetry. This is war. Look, not every region’s a crown jewel, but that doesn’t make them disposable. Insmother matters. It’s not just about stalling—it’s about showing up.”
He tapped a flashing system on the map. “The fights have already started. EU timezone? Delve’s on fire. Join the BRO sig if you like long burns and moral superiority. US timezone? Home turf. Most of you will be bleeding on our side of the gate.”
Gilthune leaned over the table. “And other timezones?”
“Scattered. Sporadic. Chaotic. Just the way we hate it.”
A pause. Then the map shifted again, this time highlighting ship silhouettes.
“Let’s talk escalation,” Gobbins said grimly. “We’re slightly outnumbered overall, but we can still pick smart fights. What’s trickier is how we escalate. Caps and supercaps—there’s a bit of a… paradigm issue.”
Gilthune groaned. “Oh no. Not another meta shift.”
“Oh yes,” Gobbins replied. “We built around dreads. We’ve got good dread numbers. We were going to use that to punch up against titan-heavy fleets. But then—surprise!—the last patch turned titans into actual nightmare gods.”
He flicked to the next slide. “Doomsday damage? Up 50%. Tank? Buffed to hell. Fax penalties? Lightly massaged away. It’s like someone at CONCORD said, ‘What if we made the terrifying superweapons even more terrifying, and also cheaper to heal?’”
The lights dimmed ominously as a massive golden silhouette of a Leviathan rotated slowly.
“So yes,” Gobbins said, “while our dread meta was sound a month ago, now we’re back to playing ‘how many titans can you not afford?’ Spoiler: it’s still most of them.”
He took a breath. “Which brings me to: Titans. And why Horde needs more of them. We came up in the 40b dread era. The old alliances got their titans for a fraction of what they cost now—while we were still flying Brutixes and talking about drone bandwidth.”
Gilthune muttered, “I miss when doctrine updates meant changing ammo, not selling organs.”
Gobbins nodded. “Same. But here we are. The focus is shifting. We’re pivoting from dreads to titans—specifically Ragnaroks and Levis. No Avatars, unless you want to look cool and die confused.”
He looked around the room, then fixed his eyes on the back—where, once again, Gallente Citizen 4586793463 was seated with a notepad and a neutral expression. No questions. Just observation.
“Anyway,” Gobbins concluded, “more info on titan building will come next week. Until then: hold the line, defend the south, and stop saying ‘floodplain.’ You’re not hydrologists. You’re capsuleers.”
He turned off the map, leaving only the glow of the room and the soft scribbling of one anonymous journalist.
A Pixel Nomad 