I take breaks in EVE. Sometimes, the breaks are quite long. Once you stop logging in, it becomes very difficult to force yourself to even open the client. Due to this, I often miss out on a lot of things happening such as big updates or drama and politics. My isolationist hunting playstyle did not help as it made it very easy to stay ignorant, ignore what was not impacting me directly, and just mind my own business. Therefore, the main reason I joined the corp was to be more engaged in EVE universe, relearn things I've forgotten and build friendships. After some discussions with corpmates I've learned that drama in wormholes was quite a big topic recently and a lot of evictions were going on. Of course, I refer to TDSIN and HK squabble. While Epicentre Syndicate was neutral, we did discuss the topic of eviction on numerous occasions, and mentally, at least some of us were always prepared to face the music.
On a personal level, all these eviction stories felt crazy and unreal. Being in wormholes, it always felt like being a part of a community. And while some corps hated each other, we still "got" one another. At the risk of sounding like a bittervet, one unwritten rule in wormholes was always respected. You don't evict active PVP corps. Not at least without a very good reason. The content was always hard to come by in w-space and make it emptier would do no good to anyone. It seemed like "old fashioned" approach went out of style and big cleansing was underway. So what does this have to do with us being evicted by Inner Hell? Probably not much, but I thought it would be interesting to mention. There is also a chance that due to other evictions ongoing, the list of whom to evict for Inner Hell became much shorter.
Inner Hell is famous for its playstyle which specializes in evictions. It's what they do and what they are good at. And we got to experience that first hand. While I dislike this playstyle, I do have to respect the commitment they put in. While we caught initial scanner checking out timers of our structures, the first iteration of hole control fleet caught us completely off guard. It all started with a miner gank. We thought it was a random encounter but quickly realized there was an eviction force present in our system.
The last stand
Epicentre Syndicate leadership was working around the clock to deal with a sudden crisis. It was clear that our corp alone won't have a chance to stand against the hostiles in the system and we would need help. But if you have been involved in wormhole warfare, you probably realize that it is extremely difficult to get help inside the system if you have no hole control. Even if there are volunteers to help the cause, it's useless without a way to get inside. We joke around that the only way we stand a chance is a frigate hole to our system since they can't be rolled and it's extremely hard to control the incoming traffic.
The very next day, Bob answers our prayers and blesses us with 2 frigate holes. The biggest evidence of Bob watching us if I ever saw one. Batphone goes out and soon we have over 100 pilots docked in our main Fortizar. Evening comes and I see the biggest fleet I have participated in wormhole space so far. We are ready to make a claim for the right to stay in this c4 system.
We start off well. We pick off some of t3s and force the enemy fleet to warp off and successfully defend the timer. As Inner Hell can't win the direct confrontation on a station, they warp around and we play a game of cat and mouse for a short while.
While we could defend the timers of some of the stations, it was clear that this would be the battle of attrition if we kept it up. We could defend today, but what about tomorrow? Next week? Enemy fleet has fully committed to this invasion while people that came to our help took time from their schedules, burned to our system, and spent most of the day in it. It was unreasonable to expect and even ask them to stay longer than that. Therefore a decision was taken for the "final" battle. We would warp directly on the enemy fleet and brawl it out. We either incur big losses to the enemy that forces a regroup or go out in style. It's a win-win. We undock everything we can, align, and warp on the enemy. The big battle starts.
It all starts out great. We pop some good amount of t3s, Drakevacs, Ikitursas. However, as the battle drags on and we lose the majority of the fighters, it becomes noticeably harder to get kills. The fact that the fleet is fitted for long-range did not help shooting high-resist speed tanking ships. Especially after the enemy fleet picked off our webifiers, the damage output started to stagnate. It became clear that the fight was lost and we were just feeding kills, it was time to salvage what we could and bail.
Aftermath
Despite everything, the mood in the corp was on the upside. Everyone was feeling good for having a chance to organize a good fight and even inflict some moderate losses on our evictors. The zkillboard report shows 43 billion worth of ISK damage done and 93 billion lost.
With some random picks before and after, it's safe to assume we have done over 50 billion ISK damage. While it may not sound much in the grand scheme of things, we can say with confidence that Epicentre Syndicate members and allies gave their best to stand our ground with no regrets. It was time to go with our contingency plan - deny as many resources as possible, by self-destructing ships and logging off valuable assets on inactive characters.
We self-destructed, trashed, and evacuated assets that we could. Finally, it was time to say goodbye to our home. Even with victory at hand, Inner Hell diligently was watching the wormhole connections. To deny even a chance of catching our pods and shiny ships such as my scanning Proteus, most of the corp Yeeted out with Needlejack Filaments to null-sec and made our way to high-sec. In a way, it feels refreshing. We are no longer tied to our assets and are free to choose the next path. What does the future hold for Epicentre Syndicate and myself? Who knows, but we will make sure to use this opportunity and make the best of it.
Additional notes
1) Thanks to everyone who came to help to defend our home! Epicentre Syndicate members are very grateful and will not forget if some of you will be in a need.