Yesterday marked a first in EVE Online -- the first time a titan supercapital ship was destroyed by an opposing non-capital ship fleet. For those less familiar with EVE, titans have been a sensitive issue for many players in the game, as they're New Eden's closest equivalent to the Death Star in Star Wars. That is to say, they can unleash a doomsday area-of-effect weapon blast that typically annihilates whatever it washes over. Only in EVE, there isn't just the one titan. There is a growing multitude of them. Given the titan proliferation in EVE, when a titan dies, players on the other side of the conflict rejoice.
A titan is the ultimate weapon in alliance warfare. Typically only an array of opposing capital ships -- the biggest and baddest -- have the firepower to bring a titan down. But on Friday, November 21st, a concerted effort from the following alliances destroyed a titan with a sub-capital ship fleet: Triumvirate, G00DFELLAS, Atlas Alliance, Axiom Empire, ParadoXon Alliance, Bionic Dawn, HUN Reloaded, Skunk-Works, Eradication Alliance and Band of Brothers. (If you think that's quite a number of involved parties, you should see how many pilots made it onto the killboard.)
ISD Clarity Brown, one of EVE's in-game reporters, states, "This kill was -- as far as we know at present -- unique, in that the killing force contained not one capital ship." The downed Erebus-class titan was flown by Shizah, from Cutting Edge Incorporated, which is part of RAZOR Alliance.
On Friday at 18:18 GMT, the Erebus "activated its doomsday weapon, the Aurora Ominae, releasing a wave of anti-matter that drenched the battlefield in apocalyptic heat," Brown reports. Despite all its raw power, however, the Erebus was subsequently overwhelmed by a great number of smaller ships. As is typical of any large-scale alliance conflict (or any similar real world conflict), reports as to how the event went down vary, and a few individuals actually dispute the ISD account of events. If you're interested in alliance politics and alliance warfare in EVE Online, either as a participant or someone on the sidelines who enjoys reading about what happens in the EVE sandbox, you'll want to see both the ISD report on the event and the forum announcement of the titan's destruction (as well as two other supercapital ships) made by G00DFELLAS.
In-game news reporting sparking accusations of in-game media bias, propaganda, controversies, and grand struggles between opposing alliances -- it's all there in New Eden, and serves as a continual source of drama and entertainment.
