'Operation Black Lustrum' Targets North Providence
Kamela, The Bleak Lands - The Star Fraction [SF] and allies have been disrupting Holder activities in Northern Providence by targeting Sev3rance with roaming gangs focused on lowering regional industrial and military development indices.
One month ago, SF director The Cosmopolite publically announced the start of 'Operation Black Lustrum', a campaign targeting Northern Providence spaceholder Sev3rance with a war that would use damage to overall regional operations as its criterion for success, rather than the more typical isk value of ships destroyed, using system development indices as a metric.
The Star Fraction's Executor, Jade Constantine explained that campaign operations are staged from Dital in Devoid using defensive towers as points of deployment to stage attacks on connecting Sev3rance territory through the direct gate to KBP7-G. She said that from Dital, Star Fraction "can instantly open Black Ops covert portals to anywhere in the Sev3rance and Cold Steel-controlled constellations in Providence... bring bombers and recon ships directly... to any system and target that with virtually no warning."
SF stated that they use associates inside Providence territory to locate Sev3rance shipping convoys and bring in their forces with covert cynosural fields which Black Ops vessels lock on to. "So far we have successfully flat-lined all Sev3rance mining activities in their claimed pocket of space and have rebuffed several attempts at their counter actions against our Black Ops staging towers." As a result of these activities the development indices of systems TU-O0T and E-YMCL has been significantly lowered.
Bazzed of Sev3rance claimed that "Star Fraction and allies are nonstop in KBP7-G trying to interrupt our logistics but that is nothing I am really worried about, they are hitting mostly [mission-runners] and miners." Asked to comment on the lowered development indices, bazzed added "Development indices should be low even without 'Operation Black Lustrum'. Pilots should be in ships ready to fight in South Providence or roam enemy space, not [working for local agents] and mining. Pilots that still mine in TU-O0T and E-YMCL should simply move to another system... out of the range of Black Ops cynossural fields." Bazzed went on to explain that due to Sev3rance being a NRDS Alliance enemies can always get neutral agents into a system to open up cynossural fields and that the order was given for all pilots to continue their activities in other systems out of range.
Asked to comment on recent reports of intel operations that allegedly lead to the destruction of Sev3rance assets in space, Jade Constantine informed that during this campaign SF was contacted by a disenchanted Sev3rance ex-titan pilot that off-lined a staging tower and ejected several vessels from the ship storage arrays. SF took some of the ejected vessels and destroyed the rest, claiming a total of "40-50 ships involved, mixed T1/T2 Cruiser and Battlecruiser class vessels with a sprinkling of frigates. For us it was simply an opportunity strike against enemy vessels in the warzone." Bazzed commented on the same incident, claiming "Having this great advantage on their side, SF clearly failed to do real damage. I think the biggest loss was that of a long-time member, but that's something that has to be [discussed and dealt with at corporation level]."
The SF facilities in Kamela have also been targeted by Sev3rance and the Holder alliances in a recent direct attack described as "a massive fleet battle... between a combined force of The Star Fraction, Tribal Liberation Force and Cadre Assault Force against a combined force of Cold Steel Alliance, Curatores Veritas Alliance and Sev3rance." The objective was to attempt to eliminate reinforced towers owned and operated by Star Fraction in that system. Jade Constantine reports that "the outcome was a complete loss for the Providence fleet with around 62 ships down including 39 battleships and 3 carriers."
Xina Tutor of Sev3rance reports this was a "great fight but they had heavier numbers in the end. Killed a lot but had to pull out." Sev3rance was reportedly heavily outnumbered but still fought the battle and pilots reported that they "enjoyed the fight. Every time we deploy ships on the field you have to count to lose them."
Bazzed commented on the overall Providence situation, stating "The war hit us a bit unprepared... not ship wise... but 'call to arms' wise. Not really a big problem, just some pilots did not get the information they should have to fully understand what is going on. We have addressed this as Providence Holders... the North Providence conflict is more something like our private 'party' with SF and allies... The Southern war will be the tough one, and the one I see going on for long time... I think this will be a long and bloody fight. We are not expecting this to end in 2-3 weeks. We also have experienced enemies, mainly Against ALL Authorities [AAA] leading the fights. But nothing we should fear. More learn and adapt, and we are doing pretty good so far."
Jade Constantine said that Star Fraction "currently has mutual positive standings with Ushra'Khan and have been long-term friends and allies since the earliest battles in Providence many years ago, we consider them highly respected pilots and comrades at arms and wish them well in their fight to free Providence from the slavers. We have no standings with AAA and have exchanged fire on occasion but we recognize they are the enemy of our enemy. This conflict has been coming for a long time, CVA's regime in Providence was built on... a dominant standings regime that turned neutral pilots into puppets. Ushra'Khan are the alliance that first practised free space and opened territory in Providence, before the CVA stole their outposts... so it is right that Ushra'Khan should return as the guiding power in this region and perhaps when the CVA is finally gone we can see these stars and worlds below freed from the slaver lash and collar."
Karn Mithralia of Ushra'Khan explained "It is my memory that CVA and U'K both practiced our own forms of free space... SF do not consider CVA's version free space [as such] and they have a point. CVA practices what we call 'standings enclosurism,' maintaining mutual red lists with their holders. We practice a more liberal version of free space, and grant our allies the right to manage their standings as they wish."
GalNet References
Sev3rance Killboard - Kamela, February 20th
The Star Fraction Killboard - Kamela, February 20th
System Development Indices
More on System Development Indices
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