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| Credit Jake Syntax |
Mercenary contracts take a lot of time and effort to set up. There's negotiations that occur before the contract is agreed upon. Acting upon the contract itself is only part of the job; you have to make sure expectations are set for the employer. You also have to make sure that the employer's demands will be met. Then you have to prepare the logistics. This can be relatively simple (perhaps the contract is just a POS bash in hi-sec), or it can require a lot of preparation and forethought to ensure a deployment over many months goes smoothly.
Other times contracts come quickly, with very little time for preparations. Such is the case of Void Breaker Industries request for help on Reddit. They required help the same day, albeit 20 hours later. I saw the thread once it was a few hours old and noticed a comment recommending our corp. I guess that means we're doing something right! I posted this thread in the alliance discord with the comment "good to see we're getting shout outs in random eve threads. Unless this is one of y'all haha". Turns out it wasn't one of us.
I don't know if JohnnyAngel420 reached out to Alek or if he reached out after seeing the thread in our discord, but regardless we were officially contracted at 4:30pm EST, about three hours before the operation.
The situation was described in the Reddit thread. Void Breakers Industries has 16 members, a small corp, that is trying to earn its living in a C1 wormhole and learn how to play in wormholes. Pretty common scenario, and I love to see it personally. Another organization called Sons of Seylin entered the wormhole and set up an Astrahaus. This spooked VBI considerably and they seemed to believe they wouldn't be able to withstand this new threat. Sons of Seylin demanded 12B ISK to be left alone. VBI declined, opting to fight even if they thought they would lose.
At this point VBI posted their plea for help on Reddit. They offered to pay anyone who showed up 200m ISK as well as provide ships. Hours after all this happened, Noir. was contacted and hired.
Sadly, I had to attend a wine event and wasn't able to attend the fleet but I'll summarize from what I've gathered from corpmates who were present.
Noir. decided on a fleet composed of Sacrileges and Oneiroses and Guardians numbering about 10 people. A number of other third party allies, including Wingspan, filled out a fleet of roughly 75 people to defend.
The Noir. fleet moved out to the system where they were told an entrance existed, but it seems some miscommunication was occurring. We were told the wormhole was being rolled by opfor. Then the entrance was gone. No, it was just being doorstopped by opfor. Ok, now the entrance is open, but it got rolled immediately (I'm not sure who rolled it).
In the end, it didn't really matter. The enemy never showed up, probably spooked by the large response in the Reddit thread. The Astrahaus was killed very quickly and without any trouble.
While Noir. wasn't able to participate in the kill, I'm glad we were able to be lend our assistance to some "newer" players who are trying to make their way in the game. I have a feeling this may not be the last time SoS tries to invade their hole, but hopefully now VBI has a better idea of how to respond - and realize that maybe they don't need as much help as they originally thought.
I'll end this with the employer's own words and images, which you can see here.
