It is with a somewhat saddened heart that I tell all my readers what they probably already know. Paxton Federation is effectively no longer in Providence space. The last of the old NRDS Providence holders fell over the weekend to the combined forces of Ursha’khan, Noir. Daisho Syndicate, Sodalitas XX, Agony Empire, Opticon Alliance, and Chaos Theory Alliance. The main members totally a little over six thousand players working against us. And in the end, it was a combination of factors, including the numbers the U’K Coalition was able to field, inter-alliance communication issues, and general war fatigue that finally did us in. Still, all in all, we had a good time.. but like all good things, they must end. It was a good, hard fight and I salute all those who fought, whether it was for us or against us.
It will be interesting to see how -A-‘s experiment will work and if it does work. There are two big problems that I forsee on the horizon. The first is expansion. At least some of these alliances that -A- has installed will probably be looking to expand eventually. Will -A- take space from one of their neighbors (which will lead to bad blood), or will they have to move out (which would also lead to bad blood)? What happens should -A- disappear from the political map?
I do see some potential in the experiment, however. The U’K coalition was able to get itself organized enough to kick Paxton Federation out of Providence, and I think the region as a whole will be better for it. Daisho apparently has the leadership chops (and the capital ships) to organize any serious threat against the region as a whole. Ursha’Khan is in its transition stage, deciding to probably move all into Providence. Recapturing Unity Station was a major morale booster, one that they will probably be riding on for quite a while. Agony Empire will probably do well because they seem to be very adaptable and have a good track record for training. Noir. will be interesting because its a true Merc corp, and its been a while since a real Merc corp held space. The modified NRDS policy though probably won’t work very well. Still, Noir. are proven and capable fighters and able to field higher quality pilots. This victory also will help Opticon Alliance, which was very hastily formed at the start of this year.. though I imagine they have some growing pains they will undergo. Chaos Theory Alliance can finally relax a bit and get itself situated in 0.0 space. Sodalitas XX will also have a bit of a rest too, though I still think there is some bad blood between them and Daisho.
All in all, I think that if Ursha’Khan can keep the alliances on a steady keel, they shouldn’t have any problem fending off attacks by CVA, even if they get to be more serious Sov contests. However, Ursha’Khan will need to reign in some of their more vocal posters, like Butter Dog. Treating the new holders with disrespect will bite you.. just like it did with CVA, and I can say pretty substantially that Ursha’Khan wouldn’t have been able to kick us out without their new holder’s help.. so give them the credit they deserve.. even if all they brought were numbers.
For Paxton Federation though, now is probably the time that most pilots hate. Many folks in Eve have understood that leaving can be a hard thing, and the longer the time you’ve stayed the harder it can be to pack up and ship out. PVP corps tend to have the easiest time because their assets move. Industrial players however, have more static assets and need to make many more adjustments.. and those take time. As many have guessed, Paxton Fed has already gotten most, if not all, of their assets out of Providence.. or at least the ones they plan to take. Now we search for a home. The High Command has not said anything in particular about what our plans are.. but they don’t involve CVA anymore.
The last battle that involved CVA was described by one of the combatants as not a PXF/CVA fleet versus the U’K coalition, but PXF versus the U’K coalition, and some other ships flying around. CVA had apparently decided that it was beneath them to use Paxton’s voice comms. Its rather sad that CVA chose to treat Paxton like this, but it doesn’t surprise me. While Aralis is certainly a nice guy in person (and I’ve seen him with us on multiple ops, including the more boring station repair operations).. but perhaps the RP factor just got out of hand at the alliance level. Or more accurately, I think the fake RP arrogant attitude turned into real arrogance. I don’t think CVA has what it takes to rebuild itself.. and while the alliance membership numbers haven’t dropped, their participation certainly has not improved. They will likely lose a few of the PVP players, but it will be a while before the realization that CVA has too much fat and even more time will pass before they can get to where they need to be.
Well, I probably won’t be posting very much until after we find out new home. Both because of the time, and because I need a good place to field test combat fits. But until then, keep your guns loaded and your enemy running.
2nd Anomaly From the Left 
Well said. I for one am glad to see us breaking from our relationship with CVA. I never had much respect for them in the first place, but whatever I had was lost when they did their dance with LFA. And now, watching it all unfold again, is a little much to take.
From a personal perspective I am a bit sad to see you guys go. We’ve had good fights and the last couple of battles have been great. We became, for lack of a better term, “Purple”. A reference to when Red vs Blue had a wardec against one or both sides. Come back when you get back on your feet. We would love to skirmish some more.
Thanks, I know that many in Paxton would agree. But, to be honest, while I think we can get our momentium to take back our old space.. most likely that would require us to deal with CVA, and because of that, it probably won’t happen. If CVA ever disappears (which will probably not happen) or moves far away (also not likely to happen), then we might return. But then again, I’m just a grunt.
Well my PXF friend, commenting form the point of view of CVA pilot: we had absolutely no way of contacting with your leadership. Waiting for minutes in your POS while your fleet warped around, us trying to chase you and landing on the grid to find only hostiles cause you already decided to bail out – was not fun. Asking in chats and convos what is the plan, where you want us to go and what happens next – no answer for long minutes. Many CVA pilots exactly like you describe about how we were treated by PXF. Very bad stuff, especially when irresponsibly vented…
@KM – That sounds alot like the second engagement at MH9. However, if CVA had been willing to be on PXF comms (which they should have already had, mind you, Paxton has been using TS for several months by this time), alot of that may have been avoided. The last three major engagements CVA was involved with PXF, the Paxton pilots (the ones in communication) have said the exact same thing regarding CVA and their lack of willingness to work in Paxton Comms. Blaming Paxton for “leadership” problems, when CVA refuses to work with the majority of pilots and the FCs is just a bad excuse. Why is it unreasonable for Paxton to control comms? It isn’t irresponsibly vented when multiple pilots (and not the average grunt pilots, mind you) say the same thing. It isn’t irresponsibly vented when, if the shoe was on the other foot.. we would take the blame and work to make changes. No, KM, CVA needs to take a step back and start shouldering the blame for the fall of Providence and its determined unwillingness to work with allies.
I think that the Providence 2.0 alliances will begin to eat each other. Originally, -A- said no to sov warfare, but then it’s “Well, except for PXF.” What will be the next exception? Stay tuned… 🙂
It’s a pity its all over, even if just for the fact that we won’t get to read about it anymore. It’s been very enjoyable to read about on the while across multiple blogs from multiple perspectives.
“CVA had apparently decided that it was beneath them to use Paxton’s voice comms.”
PXF had apparently decided (in previous fleets) that CVA wasn’t good enough to even join their fleet.
There might be a place you could regroup and renew … A place in need of good combat pilots, a place where solid FC’s and leadership working together prove that numbers can be overcome and are willing to share in the care-bear way =D
Not a valid argument – like posted many times over and discussed with PXF leadership many CVA members have trouble using TS3 to the point it simply crashes their PCs. I admit there were serious participation issues with helping PXF, but likewise happened to you when for a few ops we announced we got PXF turntout of about 2-3 pilots. So I guess the lack of interest in defending our space was a common feature of both alliances. My experience of working with PXF leadership is very mixed – on some levels it was stunningly good. Unfortunately the potential of these was totally wasted when the very few compotent FCs had to spend more time on correcting the flaws rather on actually doing what was supposed to be their duties. Mind you this is the opinion of someone using your voice comms (which are pretty bad tbh with all the fails of tossing whole fleets from one channel to the other) and responsible for getting CVA group into your operations. In the past weeks there was not a single case of your leadership actualy letting us know what you need, when etc. There were a few ops to which we had to form ad hoc as no one form PXF bothered to tell us we were needed. Most of the times pilots from CVA welt simply unwanted in your operations and there came a point when our FCs couldn’t even cme up with valid reasons to form and move to your space. All the response we got from our pilots was pretty much – PXF is gonna suicide us again. That happening after I myself read PXF official saying that one of the defence ops was not meant to be successfull but just fun for PXF to loose the ships some had left in sieged station. Very bad attitude.
Now, that stuff happens at war – you win, wou loose. But please don’t make a case of CVA being arrogant or unwilling to work with you when very little was done to make this cooperation possible. And believe me – I blame both sides, as I see many errors made by CVA. It is good recognize the flaws and seek improvement. It is not good to say your allies screwed up, while you were fighting perfectly well. We both lost this war and the last thing we need is throwing s**t on each other just to proove we ourselves did well. We did not, we lost. Face it and move on – I for one would welcome PXF staying around and working with us on improving cooperation for common aims. There is a lot of frustration on both sides, last thing we need is giving in to it.
What a pile of crap about CVA. Ops were not even properly announced to us, yet some of us (including me) came anyway again and again and joined *your* fleet and *your* comms, but ofc we were not wing warped with you because we probably didn’t deserve it? No instead we had to beg minutes and minutes long for snipers warpin, with peasant silences and no answers, just to get slaughtered on arrival because you already warped off the field.
I can’t remember CVA has treated any of its allies like that when inviting them in their own fleet.
Seriously get lost, and I still wish you the best for your future.
I’ll give you some of those arguments, and let me re-iterate that a.) I am glad the CVA helped when it could, b.) The CVA was the only alliance ever to setup a reasonably successful NRDS – something that probably helped me keep playing Eve, c.) That I appreciate the constructive criticism, whether its on my writing or my opinions, d.) that from the beginning, despite my lingering anger at CVA, I would rather have seen CVA successful, then to fail.
Now, back to the argument. I will partially give you the TS problems with the PC (because Vent does that to some computers too), but I can’t believe that EVERYONE in CVA who came to fly with Paxton had problems with TS, maybe a few, but certainly not all.
As far as the few ops you announced, though, CVA announced quite a few.. and the killboards show that our involvement in your ops sometimes far surpassed CVA’s involvement. In those operations we came when called and went on your comms when requested the majority of the time. I watched the engagements that happened in Providence (those that I wasn’t able to make – stupid PST), and you can see the pattern as CVA slowly brings less and less ships.. even to their own operations. There were times when CVA didn’t even field as many ships as non-holders who joined. And lets not forget that after Balinn and Ramm left (excellent FCs who got far too much of the blame for the D-G fiasco), CVA fielded some pretty poor FCs of their own.. it also didn’t help that the CVA leadership were listening to the likes of Shadowandlight, people who crashed their own alliances.
But, what really gets me is that through all this, most of CVA has not tried to stir itself out of its own slumber. When it NEEDED to happen, CVA couldn’t do it. I’m sure you saw this as well.
Did Paxton do everything right? Certainly not. I could probably name the FCs you were refering to. Or the reality that there have been times recently where a sizeable portion of our pilots were AFK rather than paying attention. We are not without blame, and you’ll see in my previous posts that we take it when we deserve it. Shoot, I take it when I deserve it (Read my Epic Failures..)
But, as much as I would like to see CVA make changes, I don’t see anything that says it will. I have fought on CVA’s side for a year and a half on various fronts, under various capacities. I have seen CVA look upon us as a necessary evil, much like one overlooks a worm when they are in their garden. I have overlooked that ignorance on CVA’s part for a long time. Tell me why I should believe these latest claims of improving cooperation?
Pretty simple – we as CVA really have no other choice. Of course it will take some time to realize that for many, there is a lot of anger for the recent failures (and I agreed – our numbers and participation sucked many times, but so did your in our ops *recently* – the few POS defenses were totally failed) and a lot of distrust. A lot of people are furious because they feel betrayed by the ally their counted on or because they feel the ally that called them to help caused their death and wants to blame it on them. The point is we have to look beyond that. The easiest thing to do now is walk away from each other and from now on pretend we are friendly but don’t really give a damn about each other. Yeah, that’s easiest, maybe even needed to take a break and breath soem fresh air for the time. But it is like NBSI and NRDS – easy doesn’t mean good. You played on because of proper NRDS – the most hardcore mode of EVE tbh. Well, go further then that, do the most difficult thing in a war time – stick by your allies then they fail. I can guarantee you that many in CVA advocated for abondoning PXF cause as we would only be slaughtered. Still we came with what we could, few as we were. That is because there are a lot of people who believe we can and should work together. Many others will have to realize that if they want to stay in the game for OUR (CVA + PXF + others) Providence. Sure we made mistakes and sure we can just yell at each other about them. That the NBSI mode. NRDS in that case would be to calm down, see the errors and try to straighten them up. The war is not over (let’s not go into reasons for the war itself… treason and stupidity are eternal is all I can say) and we can surely still benifit from each other. It will take time and if PXF leadershiop decides to stick around I can promise you you will be more than once infuriated by level of retardness from CVA. This works both ways. What we need are people who can look over the differences and aim at bringing us closer together by common aims and methods. The changes in CVA will occur, they have to or we will perish – those changes have to also deal with the way we treat allies. A lot of talk about that, but it all takes time. Making hasty and rushed decissions… well this is what started this war. Not cool stuff.
I am certain there are many angered and many cool-headed people in PXF, likewise in CVA. We lived together through easy times of peace, now is the real test for the friednship we wanted to buils.
Hmm.. your words make good and wise sense. In that regard, I will stop harping on CVA both here on my blog as well as on our forums (CVAs, Paxtons, and M3s). However, we are well aware that CVA at many levels did abandon us. The lack of capital support (capitals, including supercaps, were offered many times.. yet I can only recall occasion where the did came.. and only to have our FCs botch the situation..), the times where CVA, instead of stepping up, threw the holder’s agreement in our face. But, I imagine that El T and Gib saw more people like you in CVA, than I did.. which if CVA had more heads like yours would probably function far better. But, the fact is, the war is over. CVA and its holders lost..
Course, the doesn’t mean their can’t be another war. And if there are still people like you, KM, in CVA.. people like me just might come back.
I am glad to read that.
As for the support… many things are left untold. A few times over the capital fleet (tho with great effort and in too low numbers) was as ready as we could get it on short notice (as PXF would let us know we’re needed 20min before the op) but we would just be there, not used actively. This goes to show what we both agree on – mistakes were made on both sides. PXF should have informed us sooner, we should have our fleets ready for allied assistance anyways. No point arguing whose fault is greater – changes are needed and that need is recognized. However, changes do not happen overnight – the flaws that led to this dire situation both CVA and PXF find themselves in, are not sudden events but rather problems piling up over years. Will take time, hard work, and iron will to get this mess under control. Above all that I guess we both need each other.
@Kirith Darkblade
You say that PXF was exception on no-sov warfare. Well – they weren’t. PXF had made a deal with -A- and even tho U’K might not have been happy about it, it was going to NIP with PXF as well. This changed however when PXF deployed SBU’s in Providence where they shouldn’t. After that it was fair game.
@OP and PXF
Was great fighting against you (although personally I was unable to participate in the last few fights). You put up better resistance than CVA ever did, and as such would (in my personal opinion) have deserved the right to stick around. Fate had it otherwise. But I’m sure we’ll see you around – either sides of the gun – and I welcome you back when the time is right.
@rest
The life in Providence is going to be different, both in good and bad. CVA keeps already boasting how U’K fail and how the new holders will eat each other. I can’t say that CVA is wrong, but I can’t say they are right either. We are in the beginning of a new, long, hard, bumpy road. CVA didn’t build Providence and it’s (now extinct) way of life in a day or week or even a month. Neither should you expect that the new Providence will be build in anything less than months. There are lots to be dealt with – inner and outer wise.
In the end, I do believe the new Providence will work. It’s not the same as CVA’s – but it’s not completely different either. It’s just… well… more free. Only restriction being – no sov warfare. And we will see, if that will stick…
– JF –
P.S. Any of you that think this is a -A- “project” need to wake up. -A- drove CVA out of Providence with the help of U’K and other alliances. After that – they gave the area to U’K to toy around and have since then pretty much lost interest in the area. To -A- the new Providence is nothing more than a place to keep roaming and shooting stuff – and if needed, help the holders to protect the Non-Sove warfare mandate. It’s now U’K show (and other holders) – both in good and bad.
@Jennahia Fox
Please at least try to get your facts straight.
1 No deal was made with -A-, they returned D-G without any terms being agreed other than us not shooting the pilots who entered system to conduct the handover.
2 PXF have not deployed SBU’s since the battles in XHQ when one was place in D-G at the request of CVA High Command
We can argue the intricacies of non existant agreements all you want. The simple fact of the matter is PXF consider all of the new Providence residents hostile and dealt with them as such. The response was to band together to eject us. Desperate attempts to put a positive PR spin on that making out the losers were involved in an aggressive sov war just make you look foolish.
No SBU’s were deployed some sovereignty structures were destroyed when due to incompetence one of the new residents dropped sovereignty themselves making the structures vulnerable.
I am in U’K myself and I must say that I am sad PXF is gone. They have put up a good fight, I have never seen them smack in local, and I respect them. Provi will be different without Paxton. We’ll see how the things shake out.
I’m -7- Member, and we’ve been thrown out of providence first. It was a hard time, and hard to accept that all stations are lost, and our home gone. It causes frustration and anger, there was a lot of anger about the events in catch after we got thrown out. It’s hard to get numbers together if you sit in an empire station, with lots of wars running. It needs time to accept the facts. But now with a new home (trying to get on Atlas caps killmails), I remember the good things about the time in providence. I remember the XHQ fight, for me the last great effort we pulled off. I was proud of being there, fc’ed by one of the best CVA fc’s, a fleet with good numbers from PFX/CVA/-7- and Steel. A team effort, the remaining holders as one force, there was no bitching about voice coms or who’s gonna fc it. Everyone pushed in the same direction.
It saddens me, reading all the arguing here. I had a really great time in providence, I had so much good fleets with CVA (not much experience with pfx tbqh.).
I can keep my head high about the time in providence. I’m proud of many things we achieved as holders, I’m proud of the victory in xhq (even we paid hard for it), I’m proud of the level of security we were able to provide to a whole region and I’m extremely proud of the whole nrds way.
I hope Paxton will find a new home and new goals. I wish all the best to the guys I had the honor to fly with for years. Don’t be bitter, hold your heads high and keep on walking. I hope we will meet again, and then we can all look back at providence with a smile.
@ Randal Alba
About the “deal” – correct, I don’t know exactly what was said and agreed with -A- and PXF.. but I do know, that at the time we were NOT (afaik) planning to remove PXF.
And also might be true that you did not deploy SBU’s (I fail in fact check as I wrote the original mail at work in haste and had to do it out of memory). But the fact is that you did break the non-sove idea (even tho you never agreed to follow it). Up until that moment, PXF was not on the “mop up list”. After that… well.
Anyway – I, like many of my brothers in arms, are kinda sad, that PXF had to be gone. Have lots of respect. And I hope we see again, either sides of the guns. =)
– JF –
Jennahia, I’m merely challenging some misinformation which you are inadvertently spreading. If I permit the claims of a deal with -A- to go unchallenged people will assume they are true.
D-G was returned without any strings or preconditions beyond us not shooting the guys involved in the actual transfer operation. Whether or not some understanding would have been reached at a future time had Providence stabilised is a matter for conjecture and may have depended on how serious the offer from -A- to turn over another station system in the region at a later date to PXF actually was.
On the NIP situation it’s very difficult to break an agreement you’re not a party to.
It is a shame to see Pax out of Provi in someways. Though, as a CHAOT member, it is nice to have station services working… to be honest though, that was never really a big deal – with a POS or a carrier around you don’t really need to worry too much about it, even more so if you have a friendly station within a few jumps of home. But the encounters with Pax gangs are always fun, be it win, lose or draw. Good fights and no smack.
As an aside, as a roaming gang guy for the most part (wrong timezone for most fleet fights sadly) one noticeable thing about Pax relative to CVA was that Pax gangs tend to innovate tactics better, whereas if you kill CVA you know they’re gonna come back in basically the same dps-heavy ships but with two times the number of people. Which makes sense, if I had that many people I’d use them too – but from a pure enjoyment pov it’s more fun to fight Pax because it’s more surprising. Which of the two is the more effective approach of course, depends on the day. The comments about comms however, explain something I had wondered about before – I see Pax gangs, I see CVA gangs, I always wondered why it was relatively rare to see Pax+CVA gangs.
As to whether there was always a plan to boot Pax, well, as a grunt – and not even a UK grunt – I have nfi. But fwiw my understanding (prior to our sov fubar) was that having Pax living next door was just one of those things we were just going to have to get used to.
While I am not involved in Provi – your account was an illuminating one. Thank you and good luck.