EVE Online And The Evolution Of Digital Destruction

Many games focus on waging war between factions. From FPS titles like Battlefield and Call of Duty, that bring two relatively small teams into the arena to rumble, to MMOs that have giant inter-faction wars raging across all fronts. However, very few have the unique aspects to consider that EVE Online does. Firstly, EVE doesn’t have a set goal. This isn’t US vs Russia, or Horde vs The Alliance. All factions are player created. All wars are declared on their own. All battles can be decided by the way the game is played, and every faction is built from the surrounding stardust into colossal fighting forces.

EVE Online is truly, a game of strategy, a game of wits, and most of all, a game of War.


Above you see a map of the most destructive battle to be waged, ever. Every orange or red dot, is a ship or a drone.

But, most recently, these battles went from skirmishes, to absolute destruction. Records were broken, lines were crossed, and stakes were raised. Millions of virtual lives ended. Six hundred starships became wreckage and debris. Trillions of credits in EVE’s currency were lost, equaling approximately three hundred thousand US Dollars.

All in the epic battle of B-R5RB...


Absolutely badass space-carnage

You see, in EVE, the most effective way to reach success is to join a Corporation (Guild, in most other MMO’s), especially one in one of the larger alliances and coalitions. Currently, of the big six coalitions, two of them are waging interstellar war on each other, dragging as many allies into it as they can. These forces, the Clusterfuck Coalition, and N3/PL(a super coalition of N3 and Pandemic Legion), have been at odds since the beginning of this conflict, referred to as the “Halloween Wars”.

And this January, a twenty two hour battle brought all this to a head.

At 4am January 27th, Bryan Murph, one of three commanding officers in the Clusterfuck Coalition found himself losing a war not to N3/PL, but food poisoning. Plagued by stomach troubles, the man couldn’t sleep, instead resorting to logging into EVE. Doing so, he noticed something...odd. A universe where Pandemic Legion (the PL in N3/PL) housed a large amount of munitions, resources, and warships, had suddenly had its claim lost. Not knowing how, be it that they didn’t pay the mandatory fee to occupy the space or some other reason, Murph saw an opportunity. He had finally found what could easily help snatch victory from the maw of the enemy for his troubled faction, which had been taking a walloping from the “Bring-in-the-Big-Guns” strategy of their opponents in the war of attrition.

So he struck...

Organizing thousands of warships, mobilizing as many troops as he could, Murph tried to contact his fellow CO’s.

They weren’t able to attend.

He was on his own...

Undeterred, Murph rallied the troops, and soon had himself armed and dangerous. He commanded the entirety of his forces alone, coordinating firing patterns, strike-formations, target-acquisition, and enemy surveillance simultaneously. With information relayed to him by spies in N3/PL, CFC had been able to counter any opposing strategies. Strategies that had to be thought up on the spot, because Murph knew that N3/PL was aware that the standard MO for his faction was to avoid high-risk, large value engagements.

But not that time...

No, the entirety of CFC’s available forces were mustered. All hands were on deck. This was no skirmish. War would truly be waged that day.

And it was...

Again and again, Murph protected his valuable Titan warships, the largest and most powerful of them all, firing their destructive lasers at key targets to eliminate the most threatening of hostile forces. His support ships clambered to do repairs and help the frontlines maintain their strength, as lesser forces combed the surrounding regions on patrol, maintaining supply lines and cutting off enemy reinforcements.

All in all, tactical genius!

Murph had buffed up all his Dreadnaughts, which were formidable warships beneath Titans, so that it took two shots from their devastating cannons to destroy them, not one, creating an impenetrable line as the weapons’ cooldown times halted any chance of keeping up with CFC’s reinforcements. He kept steady, reliable communications between his units, having his orders translated many into a plethora of languages.

Soon, N3/PL retreated, and the day was won. Seventy-five Titans were vanquished, sixteen from CFC and fifty-nine from N3/PL. The previous record? Twelve. The conflict was so destructive, EVE created a monument to the battle.


The brutality involved in winning the war is...strangely beautiful.

Now, as someone who’d always overlooked EVE, this catches my eye. It actually engages me entirely in a game I never played, and regret having not yet. Diplomacy, strategy, and skills economically and politically dominate this game. Be it as a cutthroat leader, or a soldier on the frontlines of intergalactic war, this game is at base value, the ultimate simulation of well...everything, society, I guess. You can lead, and you can do so by force or by diplomacy. You can play the market and make your riches from supplying the factions, or become a smuggler in the vain of Hans Solo. You can never enter a battle, or be a revered commander with the demise of many a vessel credited to your name.

EVE online has many capabilities, and many ways to be played, and I’d like to try playing it more myself, if for no other reason than because I watched this video of the bloodbath known as the Battle of B-R5RB