Brutally Clever Empire (Player alliance)
| | |
| Name | Brutally Clever Empire |
| Ticker | BRUCE |
| Type | 0.0 |
| Founded | 13.10.06 |
| Status | Disbanded |
| Contact details | |
| Alliance CEO | |
| Diplomat(s) | |
| Public Channel | |
| Website | [ ] |
| Corporations | |
| Executor | Da Bruce |
| Members | |
"A place where boldness and determination is rewarded; where duties are shared;
and leadership rests in the hands of the corporations which make us great.
A place where the Alliance serves the corporations, not the other way around.
A place where every hand helps carry the load, and every voice is heard."
Contents
Aims
As described by the founder and leader of BRUCE, Friedrick Psitalon:
"The alliance is founded on the idea that well-run corporations with careful, thoughtful leaders can band together and achieve things far greater than their numbers or game history might otherwise indicate. It is a "White Hat, Tin Star" alliance - not only do they not tolerate piracy among their membership, they actively and aggressively maintain an anti-pirate doctrine.
BRUCE corporations work together towards a focused goal, and although all parts may not be identical, every corporation does as much as it can in order to support the goals of the alliance. They are a multi-purpose, self-sustaining alliance; the corporations mine, manufacture, fight, mission, and trade. It is far wiser to ensure that you have a steady supply of ships before you commit them to war, and far wiser to ensure your goods will be bought and sold well before creating them. As a result, corporations of all stripes are welcome in BRUCE: Industrial corps, missioning corps, PvP corps, etc. It is expected that all corporations will contribute to the common defense, but it is understood that not all corporations will be as skilled or numerous - merely that they try as best they can."
Background
Aeschee - Trial by Fire
As The Dead Parrot Shoppe Inc. (FOOM), the founding corporation behind BRUCE, moved into the Essence region they envisioned to create a place for new pilots who believed that careful, intelligent play could outdo the masses of grizzled capsule veterans. The initial move into Aeschee was not without troubles, but FOOM managed to grow and adapt to the many pirate entities inhabiting the area. Eventually the area was secured well enough that FOOM felt it was time to invite like minded corporations. Together with The Raging Armada, Tadakastu-Obata Corporation and many others, BRUCE was formed on Friday, October 13th, 2006.
Its resilience was immediately put to the test by the local pirate alliance 9th Fleet. The conflict started badly for BRUCE, being outgunned, outskilled and out-experienced by the 9th Fleet's gangs. Through the assistance of a local mercenary group, Turbulent Subversion as a diplomatic and military entity, sections of 9th Fleet were removed from the conflict through diplomacy and others destroyed. 9th fleet went on to hire several small mercenary corps (including MENTL) to aid them in the latter stages of the war, but TBSV and BRUCE were able to defeat these and claim total victory.
Shortly thereafter, 9th Fleet was unable to handle the now highly-motivated wrath of BRUCE], and was forced to move away, facing total collapse. BRUCE and TBSV pursued them for a time, and 9th Fleet essentially collapsed as a result, falling to 6 members and going inactive. They have since rebuilt.
In response the 9th Fleet hired the arguably best pilots-for-hire in the Eve Universe, the Mercenary Coalition. Obviously, BRUCE as a fledgling alliance was no match for the likes of MC. BRUCE avoided suicidal fights and learned what it could whilst weathering the storm. No decisive victory was won by either side, MC impressing BRUCE with the skills shown and BRUCE impressing MC with the resilience shown in the face of complete superiority. BRUCE survived; no mean feat for a small alliance.
Hardened by its experiences and armed with its lessons learned, BRUCE set out for more dangerous pastures as life in Aeschee became easy. Syndicate was to be the next stop.
Syndicate - A Turbulent Start
When BRUCE first arrived in Y4Y7, a constellation in southern Syndicate at the invitation of COE, they were forced to also become friends with Anarchy Empire - a rather unpleasant group of pirates that COE had befriended. BRUCE held a closer philosophy to that of the OSS at the time and became blueboxed to both OSS and the COE/AE pair. This was a strange step as the OSS faction and COE/AE faction were hostile to each other, and led almost immediately to problems in the area.
This very early diplomatic challenge for BRUCE was, in their own words, handled poorly. BRUCE ended up dumping the OSS bluebox less than a week after gaining it because they, understandably, did not want to fire on COE whom invited them to Syndicate. Despite BRUCE's loathing of Anarchy Empire's philosophies they valued their word to COE more.
As Anarchy Empire was driven out of the TA-A7V constellation by VLINC, a long time ally of the OSS at the time, war erupted between BRUCE/COE and the OSS.
Syndicate - The First War
Once again, BRUCE entered a war with a veteran alliance, and again the odds did not favor them. It is believed that at the time, BRUCE had no capital resources available and extremely limited battleship resources. OSS and it's allies easily won the initial period of the war with heavy battleship gangs and superior tactics. BRUCE changed tactics and resorted to using very cheap cruiser/frig sized fleets to engage their opponents. Providing both a cheap yet effective counter platform and increasing their tactical repertoire the balance of the fights shifted more to an even plane.
During the second phase of the war OSS and allies were still winning a considerable amount of the battles, but were also losing increasingly higher numbers. This was caused by several factors: the increasing tactical ability of BRUCE, the increase in BRUCE's numbers and the unrelenting attitude of BRUCE to bring in reinforcement ships no matter what. In response, one of OSS's allies, TFC, put up a POS within the Y4Y7-Q constellation. Countering that, BRUCE responded by hiring The Cartel, a mercenary alliance which has since disbanded.
With The Cartel assisting them, BRUCE got a first introduction into large-fleet and POS warfare. The POS in the Y4Y7-Q constellation was destroyed and a new phase in the war began; Pandora's Box had been opened - OSS had elevated the war to POS combat, and BRUCE had learned how to fight on those levels.
During the third phase of the war the battleground shifted more towards the home systems of the OSS. BRUCE now actively began searching out and marking OSS POS's. Two OSS and one OSS-allied POS's were taken into reinforced by BRUCE shortly after. OSS's response to these events was a measure beyond BRUCE's coping abilities. An estimated 150 support ships and 20 capitals attacked a BRUCE POS in the JH-M2W system. Unable to resist these numbers, the POS was destroyed. OSS then struck into the heart of BRUCE's space, putting three other POS's into reinforced within a span of two hours. OSS and some observers felt this called BRUCE's future into question, but BRUCE leadership was quick to point out the grisly losses of supporting vessels going into and away from the POS siege system. OSS's inability to return to finish the POS's blunted the impact of their otherwise impressive counterattack. As POS strikes occurred from both sides the war degraded into the 4th phase, timezone warfare.
With OSS and allies being prominent in European timezones and BRUCE in the US timezones both sides resorted to only striking in their prime time. This resulted in lighter skirmish warfare that lasted an estimated one month, with one OSS POS falling during this timeframe, and several going into reinforced, but BRUCE lacking the ability to finish the job. After this period clear reporting on this event becomes unclear. One story goes that OSS was losing significantly larger numbers and was driven back into their home cluster, where BRUCE recon groups harassed their industrial backbone. Other rumors persist that OSS simply grew tired of camping BRUCE in their home system.
No matter what the reason, it is known that there was internal dispute within the OSS. Exact details are unknown but several pvp corporations left the OSS. Furthermore several of their allies took a new stance to the war. Again, sources go both ways but a NAP, no aggression pact, was agreed upon by both sides. The OSS would inhabit the JQV5-9 constellation and BRUCE/COE would inhabit the Y4Y7-Q constellation.
Control of the semi-lucrative TA-A7V constellation, held by both No Trademark and The Greater Goon at the time, was brought up during the negotiation, yet BRUCE declined the offer. At that time, the Syndicate 10/10 complex was located in the UTK system of the TA-A7V constellation, and there was near constant conflict among several different groups over control of the area. However shortly after the NAP was settled, complexes were changed with the new exploration system and were no longer permanent fixtures, resulting in GROON among others moving on, leaving only No Trademark remaining. At this point, BRUCE leadership encouraged its membership to make a move towards occupying the constellation, their stated goal was for access to the crockite found there. Unfortunately only a very small contingent of BRUCE membership made any effort to occupy this space, and hence never put forth an organized effort to drive out the NOTR residents, a fact which would lead to their abandonment of this constellation all together later on to acquire a much more lucrative one.
Syndicate - The Exquisite Malevolence War
With a relatively long stretch of peace in lower syndicate, disturbed by the occasional (and apparently usual) skirmishes with pirate factions, BRUCE continued to expand in numbers in the Y4Y7-Q constellation. Around July 2007, Exquisite Malevolence started to conduct large amounts of raids into lower syndicate including BRUCE controlled space. As per the BRUCE M.O. they took large numerical losses against a, shall we say once again, superior opponent in both age and tactical ability. Exact details of the first few weeks are hard to come by, though it is known that losses for BRUCE were heavy at the start. Once again following their M.O., BRUCE began adapting to the tactics of EXM, though no counter attacks had been made into the nearby low sec home or the arguably EXM controlled MHC-R3 system. It was only at the start of August, one month into the conflict, that BRUCE began active engagements in EXM space.
The most notable, and only, large battle in this conflict took place in MHC-R3. Referred to as the 'MHC Armageddon' an estimated 350 ships were destroyed in the course of 6 hours. The running up to the fight, as per public availability of data, is considered the following:
Whether known or not to BRUCE that EXM had a spy within BRUCE ranks (later confirmed by public data) they intentionally distributed information through public channels that a POS strike was imminent. Incidentally, the POS designated to be struck was the incorrect one as one might expect from disinformation. Nevertheless, this allowed EXM to prepare for arrival of the BRUCE fleet with multiple warp disruption fields in place and sniper groups at the ready. After an initial skirmish at a gate leading into the MHC-R3 system the BRUCE fleet warped to and attacked the actual EXM POS they intended to destroy. The main EXM fleet warped in on the BRUCE fleet and battle ensued.
The resulting statistics point to a 2-1 favor for EXM kill ratio, including 2 capital kills. BRUCE did hold the field and collected loot from the wrecks. It is to be noted that the EXM POS was not destroyed due to exhausted pilots and waning numbers of capital pilots going into the late hours of the night. It should also be noted that the EXM fleet was 70 +/- Ships with no capital support and the BRUCE fleet was 150 +/- ship including up to 15 capital ships. The EXM pilots would return with new ships from the neighboring low sec system after being destroyed, while Bruce pilots would bring in new ships from PC9 system. This is noted from several pilots losing multiple ships in the long battle. The pipeline from PC9 to MHC system was camped by opportunist pilots from Fire Mandril and Huzzah, who favored the EXM group, resulting in extra losses for BRUCE. This is said to be considered a Pyhrric victory for BRUCE, suffering severe losses yet holding the field at the end. The advantages of the EXM formation was superior pilot skill and training allowing them to field T2 fitted battleships that out ranged the BRUCE fleet, while the advantage of BRUCE was its superior numbers and zerg tactics to outlast its enemy.
After this battle, the largest in BRUCE history, the war returned to skirmish warfare for the most part. A battle of note was fought in the PC9-AY system (BRUCE home system) resulting in the destruction of an EXM fleet with minimal losses for BRUCE. Three EXM capitals were lost in this fight and it is reported to be caused by a major tactical error by the EXM Fleet Commander at the time, and superior tactical response from the BRUCE fleet commander.
Later, BRUCE struck at two EXM POS once again in the MHC-R3 system. Both were successfully destroyed without EXM resistance.
Soon, EXM joined forces with the HUZZAH Federation and Fire Mandrill and formed the unofficial alliance known as Cross Swords to continue the bitter war against BRUCE. At this time, unable to fight BRUCE in large fleet engagements, EXM declared war on BRUCE. On October 8th, EXM scored its first major kill in empire, destroying an un-escorted Obelisk class freighter. Late on Tuesday November 6th, a small Huzzah gang entered PC9 to conduct raids on BRUCE pilots. Reports came in that a BRUCE Aeon class mothership was in PC9 on the JH gate. The Aeon was a privately owned warship, bought by a weathly BRUCE member who tried to engage the raiders solo without informing BRUCE commanders. Huzzah decided to engage the Aeon and proceeded to call for backup. EXM responded immediately, fielding a Moros class dreadnaught, along with several support ships. Huzzah also fielded two Chimera class carriers. As more Huzzah and EXM forces trickled into PC9, the Aeon began to break. BRUCE responded quickly, fielding numerous capital ships and many suppport ships, but it was already too late. The Huzzah fleet command ordered all fire be focused on the Aeon. The Cross Swords capital pilots were destroyed, but not before killing the Aeon mothership. This proved to be an enormous moral victory for Cross Swords.
Syndicate - Old Feuds return: The OSS
Mid-September 2007, relations between BRUCE and the OSS crumbled fast. When asked for the reason, OSS commented that BRUCE wanted to wage war on the OSS and broke the NAP with an excuse to further that goal. BRUCE's comments were somewhat more extensive: They stated that the reason for the war lay in a territorial dispute over the TA-A7V constellation.
For those unfamiliar with the composition of Syndicate's constellations, the lower half of the region only contain two constellations with the mineral Crokite: TA-A7V and JQV5-9. The latter is considered the richest constellation in the region, with large crokite abundance, refineries on location, several lvl 4 Q20 mission agents, and the lowest security rating.
The JQV5-9 constellation was unquestionably under the control of the OSS. The TA-A7V constellation on the other hand was shared by No Trademark, a member corporation of the OSS, and BRUCE pilots, though significant disagreement exists over which party utilized the area more. (And indeed, this may be part of what led to the conflict.)
Reasons for the escalation to war are heavily disputed by both sides and can not be quoted here. Considering that, in the larger scale of things, this is irrelevant to history, it is not discussed in this article.
With several of their better PVP corps recently leaving the OSS to pursue action in the nearby fountain region, the OSS adopted a tech 1 cruiser and frigate spawn tactic for fighting the BRUCE military to minimize their financial losses. This tactic was largely ineffective, and Bruce responded by sending large groups of recon and cloaked attack ships to disrupt the OSS home in JQV. After some time of this harassment, No Trademark, The Greater Goon, and other corporations began leaving the OSS due to internal conflict. The alliance experienced a severe reduction in numbers. Realizing the inability of OSS to defend their home regions, BRUCE turned their attentions from TA-A7V altogether and changed tactics from recon raids to full invasion of the more lucrative JQV5-9 constellation, after which NOTR took control of TA-A7V. Consequentially, quoting Eve-TV Episode 17, the OSS war finished at the end of October 2007 and BRUCE took control of the JQV5-9 constellation.
Syndicate and Fountain - A New Era
In the final week of November 2007, the Mercenary Coalition were contracted by an undeclared party against BRUCE. BRUCE has enjoyed limited success using their time-honored "inexpensive fleet swarm" against MC's usual expensively-fitted operations, but it is clear that MC has been successful in disrupting standard BRUCE operations in the area. It is unclear at the moment what goals MC may be furthering.
On December 1st, 2007, the Mercenary Coalition unveiled their new Erebus-class titan by detonating a superweapon and destroying an estimated 150 BRUCE ships (including 86 battleships) in PC9-AY. [1] The damage done to BRUCE in this brief moment was considerable, but BRUCE's ability to endure significant punishment and continue allowed them to move forward with their goal for the evening regardless, which in reality, had nothing to do with the MC or the Syndicate region at all.
Later that evening, a 250-ship BRUCE fleet with an unknown but apparently very sizable capital fleet struck the Unicorn constellation in Fountain, targeting the outpost held there by R I S E, a satellite entity or "pet" of the Band of Brothers. Within one hour, all R I S E POS's in the system had been put into reinforced and the Outpost captured by BRUCE, who apparently had shown up less than twelve hours before RISE would have secured the Outpost with Sov 1. BoB's response to the situation was never publicly known.
Approximately one week later, BRUCE attacked the Southern Cross Alliance outpost in PNQY, and began POS-Spamming BoB's 7BX Outpost a day later. The PNQY outpost was captured without a fight, probably due to an overwhelming size advantage in BRUCE's favor. For whatever reason - possibly BoB's heavy involvement in other systems - BoB did not stop BRUCE's takeover attempt of 7BX as well.
The dawn of 2008 marked the end of BRUCE's presence in Syndicate, and saw them a new, major power in Fountain, claiming approximately half of the region under NBSI doctrine.
Fountain: Early 2008
The well-known campaign against the Band of Brothers was the major focus for the month of January for BRUCE, the North, and other entities. Their combined efforts, lead by Morsus Mihi, resulted in BoB's final expulsion from the area. BRUCE's intentions since then were to secure the borders of their new home, and begin fortifying their systems from future attack as they were seen as a small fish in a very big pond of alliances. Their combat operations have been against various small red groups in the area.
Territorial claims
In a rare public announcement on the Corporations and Alliances Summit channel, BRUCE claimed the following constellations in Fountain on 29.12.2007:
Unicorn, Chimera, Sphinx, Pegasus, Wyvern, Centaur, Taurus, Manticore
In the vacuum left behind by the absence of BoB in Fountain, BRUCE spread quickly, building up industry and a jump bridge network linking the three Outposts. At the same time, the alliance aggressively recruited pilots and corporations to fill the vast amount of space claimed as home. In the end, this was part of their undoing.
At the end of January 2008, BoB gave up their last Outpost in Fountain, Y-2ANO. It was subsequently held by Morsus Mihi.
The Cloud Ring campaign
BRUCEs hold on the claimed constellations in Fountain was relatively uncontested for some time, and the only major attacks came out of Cloud Ring, which was occupied by The Reckoning. (RECON) and Black Core Alliance (-BCA-) at the time. Reportedly, The Reckoning. was conspiring with others on an attack on BRUCE space. BRUCE leadership decided for an pre-emptive strike into Cloud Ring, instead of supporting anti-BoB forces in Delve. In the first week of March 2008, BRUCE deployed considerable combat resources into Cloud Ring, taking the G8AD-C conquerable station on March 10. The Reckoning. had to leave the region, and subsequently disbanded. Black Core Alliance switched sides and aligned with BRUCE, and several BRUCE-friendly groups tried to settle in the region.
Although the campaign was a massive success, it also showed major deficiencies in BRUCE. Combat lead and supply management were driven by only a few people. Participation outside of major ops was low, and BRUCE had considerable problems removing assets after the campaign was finished.
Mid-2008: Drama and Failure
After leaving Cloud Ring to it's allies and taking over management of the Y-2ANO Outpost from Morsus Mihi during March 2008, BRUCE began cracking at it's seems. The organizational structure, based on a corporation representatives forum, couldn't hold up with the alliance's massive growth. The decision making "leadership" of the alliance was now made up of over 100 representatives from the 35 different corps with BRUCE. Policy making moved at a snail's pace as infighting took place, and representatives fought for their own agenda. The Executor of the alliance, Friedrick Psitalon, became little more than the figurehead and voice of the inflated Rep Council, as he had prevented himself from having overall control of the alliance with the style of government he chose for it. BRUCE was now - nominally - the second largest alliance in the EVE universe, but it was also immobilized by the representatives' indecisiveness. During May 2008, BRUCEs lead diplomat left, piling even more work on the Executor to babysit the failing Council. First Burn Eden, and then Pandemic Legion and Goonswarm elements started harassing BRUCE space, leading to frustration in the alliance membership. At the same time, fleet command staff was reduced drastically as FCs burned out from long and numerous logistical operations, their lack of involvement of the development of the alliance military fleet requirements for its pilots due to the Rep Council shutting them out, and leadership failing to train competent replacements in an orderly fashion.
In April 2008, the alliance was still holding Y-2ANO, but the system was not linked to the rest of BRUCE space via jump bridges. Pandemic Legion put up a POS in 75FA-Z, the system that was required to complete a jump bridge link to Y-2. The reaction was one of the last large-scale fleet engagements in BRUCE history. While Pandemic couldn't understand the attack on this - for them - rather unimportant system, they managed to hold their POS and shredded a BRUCE fleet including several capitals. Due to the prementioned loss of FCs with valuable experince, the Bruce military was disorganized and lead by novice commanders. With this, any hope of successfully defending Y-2 was lost, and the Outpost was effectively abandoned.
On May 3, 2008, a post to the internal representative forum by the alliance Executor was leaked to the public through the infamous Kugutsumen. In this post, Friedrick Psitalon announced to step down as Executor, and to leave the alliance with his corporation, the Dead Parrot Shoppe. Earlier, Psitalon had set an ultimatum to the representatives, proposing a radical reorganization of the alliance as a condition to continue leading the alliance. This proposal had been turned down by the internally bickering Rep Council, who did not want to do what was needed to be a successful alliance living in the cut throat world of outlaw space. Several other internal communications turned up on the Kugutsumen forum, leading to further dissent among BRUCE members.
BRUCE under new managament
As FOOM left Fountain, Serena Hennessy of Koshaku stepped up as the new Executor.
Pandemic Legion continued to apply pressure on BRUCE space, and the new alliance leadership never managed to get the situation under control, due mostly to his own inactivity in leading the failing alliance. The majority of the 35 corps within BRUCE began to leave the alliance at a rate of several a week. Finally, Fountain was seen as a lost cause, and a last attempt was made to relocate back into the Y4Y7-Q constellation in Syndicate. The rather feeble invasion was immediately squashed by Huzzah and other Syndicate residents who were now stronger than the remnants of the Bruce alliance.
Current status
The alliance is disbanded.
Remarks
BRUCE keeps its killboard strictly private. They present the following reasons for this decision:
- They do not wish to reveal tactical data to their opponents
- They believe public scrutiny only serves for flame and pressuring members into not posting embarrassing losses
The author can confirm that upon request, BRUCE will provide screenshots of internal statistics as long as those do not include tactical information such as ship builds.