The Initiative Falls Victim to Failed Imperium Diplomacy (Again)

This is a breaking news story and continues to develop over time. As such, there may be grammatical or other errors in the reporting that will be edited as more of the story comes to light.

In the system of Y-2ANO, Fountain, the site of many a battle previously fought, a new asset was gained by the PAPI coalition, specifically Pandemic Legion. Earlier today, a PL fleet commander named DJ Aldard was casually burning a perch in the system with a plan to drop a Fortizar and noticed that there was already a neutral Fortizar in the system.

With some quick detective work, DJ found a member of the holding corporation had joined up with LORDE (a group near and dear to our hearts in PanFam). That member connected DJ to a director in the corp and they set up a purchase agreement. Thanks to this next-level spy move, PAPI has all they need to project power back into Fountain, meaning the Initiative may now be back on the chopping block which means that Gobbins, the leader of Pandemic Horde, could get his wish of purging Fountain again.

According to a post by Vily on reddit, this Fortizar was used as a staging point for the Initiative as they evacuated assets from Delve. These assets were momentarily held by a neutral corporation and are now being held by one that is remarkably hostile. It is highly unlikely that any of these assets will be available for some time as they will need to be retrieved via asset safety. Vily also goes on to say that “we are starting to see the mass unanchors of INIT structures in Fountain” which makes perfect since as they now have no ability to defend the region since their ships are inaccessible.

One commenter, however, states that: “[The Initiative] moved most of their stuff a few days ago… bypassing that system. There [were] very few things actually left in that [Fortizar].” Conflicting reports abound in this story as both sides scramble to declare themselves the winners or the not-losers in the situation.

Other posters in the thread, all displaying Initiative or Goonswarm flair, are chiming in with the to-be-expected comments of this Fortizar not mattering and no divide being created. These are, in fact, line members and not alliance leaders so the actual feeling in the room may be different. In either case, PAPI having a staging Fortizar in Y-2 already established spells trouble for the region of Fountain if they choose to make it so.

Regarding the corporation, The Dysfunctionals, who flipped the Fortizar, it appears as though they have been with the Imperium for quite some time, joining in November of 2017. However, they are without an alliance as of 07:45 this EVE morning. Initial reports (read: rumors) say that the corporation was actually removed from Goonswarm for buying “suspicious numbers” of supercapitals. Later in the same post Vily made on reddit, user angry_mustache comes in to clarify with the Imperium’s side of the story:

Believe whichever side that you want but, either way, this is another example of the Initiative being let down by their allies in the Goonswarm Federation. Whether by kicking out a corporation holding the structure holding these assets or providing a less-than ideal environment for this corporation to flourish. Opponents of the Imperium have been continuously accused of attempting to create a rift between the Goons and their allies in the Initiative. However, it is hard to create rifts when they create themselves with situations like this.

We will continue to keep you updated as this story develops, if it develops any further.

UPDATE: DYS leadership has come forward in a post on the initial reddit thread made by Vily. The response is here. According to the response, the corporation was essentially limping along and losing members up until a point where they had around 5 active people. As they watched their leadership in Goonswarm avoid fighting, it got to the point where the directors wanted to leave and start something new, taking any willing linemembers with them. They began to evacuate their assets starting with the biggest ships and working their way down. According to this poster, they were found out after getting the biggest ships out of the area which forced the corporation out of Goonswarm.