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Ange1
Gallente
The Establishment
Establishment
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Posted - 2007.04.04 15:42:00 -
[1] - Quote
Edited by: Ange1 on 04/04/2007 15:49:34
Many people here celebrate the birthdays of their Corps or Alliances. Today, The Establishment celebrates the 1st Birthday of one of the most notorious and oldest Motherships on Tranquility - Hera. This thread is dedicated to her first year of service and is a lengthy read of her history during the past 12 months. If such things bore you, I suggest you move on to the next thread before I waste your time. Should you continue to read this and feel your time was still wasted, I can only say it was your own fault for ignoring my warning :P
Originally just called The Establishment to signify the center of power for our rabble, Hera - piloted by Rawthorm with his character Ign0raMus - has gained herself a reputation of perhaps being the most feared and respected Nyx in the game to date. In fact the usual Cyno pilot for Hera has gotten a reputation of being the Herald to her presence if attacked or in the area. There is just something immensely satisfying watching a fleet of ships run away from a Crane without lifting a finger :D
Hera was probably the only Mothership on TQ to actually be exclusively used for daily combat for many months before other people started getting their own Motherships. As such, The Establishment is immensely proud of being pioneers of Mothership combat, setting the example for other Mothership pilots to follow should they dare. Many said we would likely be the first to lose a Mothership, given the highly aggressive use of Hera since day one. Thankfully for us, this has not happened... yet :P
Her first victim, probably the first victim of a player controlled Mothership (not counting Events), was a poor low-sec miner named Nairb Tsuj. Whether this pilot is still playing today is anyone's guess, but he deserves an honourary mention for his destruction and one can only guess at what he thought happened to him. At the time, her jump skills were so limited so she had to take a massive round trip just to get her back to Providence, even though the region she was built in was more or less next door to Providence. She also had no ability to use Capital Repairers during her first few days of life and could only field a meek 13 Fighters. Despite this, we jumped her in directly to combat against Ushra'Khan and another time to assist Spontaneous Defenstration in which she also participated in her first Carrier kill. You can see some fraps of this battle here.
Over the last 12 months, Hera has paid a visit to pretty much every region in the game and very few Alliances have been left unscathed by her presence. Yes, even BoB have had a small taste of Hera by losing a faction/officer fitted Carrier that was NPC'ing without a care in the world that pirates were stalking him. She's also caused the local populations of Gyerzen and Otsasai to flee and warn everyone about her presence while doing a spot of low-sec YARR'ing. Most notably perhaps, is that she has single-handedly gone up against fleets ranging from 20-40 ships on many occasions, usually smashing them to pieces in the effort. She was also the spearhead of our operation against Ushra'khan during the 9UY Siege last year, where she reportedly had a 10 Billion ISK bounty placed on her for MC.
The Establishment is at your service...
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Ange1
Gallente
The Establishment
Establishment
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Posted - 2007.04.04 15:42:00 -
[2] - Quote
Edited by: Ange1 on 04/04/2007 15:38:53
Below are some noteworthy engagements Hera has had in her time:
Battle of W9-DID: Two 20-man ISS fleets attempt to engage Hera after she and other Establishment members were looting an offline ISS POS. The first fleet was reported by our scout heading up towards us. Just before they arrived, Hera warped to the incoming gate at 15km just as the fleet jumped in. A battle ensued which saw half the ISS fleet destroyed. Both the ISS fleet and Hera withdrew after the engagement became more of a ranged battle. 15 minutes later, another 20-man ISS fleet is reported heading up. Hera once again warps to the gate as the fleet jumps in and the remainder of the first fleet warps in at range to help the second fleet engage. This time Hera holds the field firmly and ISS take another round of heavy losses before withdrawing. 5-10 minutes later, they appeared to conceed defeat and jumped out of the system back to their stations. Estimated total casualties for ISS were 40-50% with 5 or so Fighters lost for Hera.
Deklein Contract: For a single week, the Freelancer Alliance hired The Establishment against the Northern Freedom Coalition and its allies. During this time, we locked down a particular choke point with Hera and other support, strangling almost all traffic to a standstill. One particular engagement saw Hera on the field with an FLA fleet during a massive engagement against NFC and its allies as they attempted to attack a Station. Despite this we were unable to hold the field and the NFC fleet pushed us back and we were forced to try frigate runs with Fighers attached, with limited success.
9UY4-H: Seat of power to Ushra'Khan. During The Establishments residence in the area, many battles took place here as well as the siege of 9UY itself when The Establishment formed a coalition with other Pirate groups and attempted to capture the station. ISS and other local Alliances and Corps came to the aid of U'K in response to our attack. The result was a prolonged 3 week stalemate which was finally broken with the arrival of the Mercenary Coalition and its huge Capital assets, finally defeating us in some truly titanic final battles that were afflicted with terrible lag. Months later, MC were given some payback when a Freighter convoy deep in Period Basis decided to jump into her system. Hera ambushed them on the gate and MC lost an alt-corp Fenrir and Larsson7's Navy Raven (sadly not officer fitted :P). I would highly recommend reading our withdrawl statement and Seleene's 9UY War Stories.
Battle of G5ED-Y: PURE Alliance attempt to engage Hera at a complex entrance, which to their detriment, affected the environment of the Battle largely in her favour as the PURE fleet was uanble to warp at their desired ranges or able to drop a Cyno on top of her. My Thanatos, Valkyrie, which was also involved in this engagment, was saved by Hera just in time as I started to take structure damage. The enemy fleet suffered an estimated 75-80% casualties while Hera lost half her total compliment of Fighters (20+). You can find some fraps footage of this battle here.
The Establishment is at your service...
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Ange1
Gallente
The Establishment
Establishment
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Posted - 2007.04.04 15:43:00 -
[3] - Quote
Edited by: Ange1 on 04/04/2007 15:40:11
But she's also had a number of near-misses.
The first that comes to my memory was in fact when most of The Establishment had a RL meetup in Oxford. 9 of us had gathered together for a weekend, and we had a LAN session of EVE. Many of us were intoxicated with alcohol or other substances and there was a distinct lack of discipline when compared to our normal TS operations. It was during this that at some point during the op, we had annoyed the then Huzzah Federation and they had quickly gathered a fleet of ships. Hera was cloaked in a spot where we had previously killed someone and had not moved. The bad guys had noticed this with a covert ops....
The jovial atmosphere in the room suddenly turned to dread and tension when Rawthorm reported a 30 man fleet had landed right on top of him, decloaking Hera. Many of us gathered around his montior to see the fleet completely surrounding, nossing and bumping him as they engaged along with a massive amount of lag. However, managing to keep his cool, a Cyno was opened up next door and with a roar of cheers in the room, Hera jumped out to safety before the enemy fleet had time to drain her of cap. The fleet followed and the Cyno ship was destroyed, but in an effort to be cheeky, Hera came out of warp at range from the enemy Fleet, sent her Fighters after a Battleship and killed it before running off. More Rum was consumed after this :pirate:
0utbreak have probably had the best attempt of killing Hera, jumping her by susprise in Otsasai with a fleet of nano ships and some Capital backup. However their strategy of bumping her worked against them in the end by bumping her into warp by accident. Rawthorm reported after the battle that his screen had frozen up for the first 2 mins of the fight, unable to deploy Fighters, and when it finally came to, his cap was completely empty. I think there is some brief fraps of this, but I can't find it.
I also recall a time where Rawthorm decided to cloak Hera at a planet, and a large fleet travelling by just happened to warp to this planet. The fleet was dangerously large to engage for us at the time and they came very close to decloaking her. We don't know if they actually knew she was there or not. This happened as we were making our way to do the Deklein Contract.
These near-misses have served as valuable lessons to remember and those lessons are put to use in the engagements that have followed. In total, 1359 ships have fallen victim to Hera, causing - at a very rough estimate - over 250 Billion ISK worth of damage. Of this total, 571 were Battleships, of which 15 were Faction, 15 Carriers, 2 Dreadnoughts and 11 Freighters. Dozens of Fighters have been lost in the process as well, but the wrecks of enemy Carriers have often proved useful at resupplying Hera ;)
In closing, I'd like to leave you with these images of the Nyx reskinned to give Hera a unique look. It is still a work-in-progress, but perhaps you would support us in having her officially reskinned by CCP with this skin in-game as homage to the first Pirate Mothership ;)
Hera
I'd also like to open the floor to any of you who have engaged Hera, to share your own fond memories or stories with us.
Here's to another Year 
Angel
P.S. Wouldn't it be a bugger if, after making this thread, Hera died the next day? :P
The Establishment is at your service...
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Ange1
Gallente
The Establishment
Establishment
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Posted - 2007.04.04 17:03:00 -
[4] - Quote
Edited by: Ange1 on 04/04/2007 17:05:02
Edited by: Ange1 on 04/04/2007 16:59:40
 Originally by: jarack
The enemy fleet consisted of about 15-18 battleships.
I remember this, but it was only 7-8 Battleships in their fleet, with the rest being support. They blew up our Cyno character as the ships jumped in, so our Capitals got in but ended up at random points in the system, which worked to our advantage. One of the pilots said "Cya" in local after blowing away Kitambi. Then I made them all aggro on my Deimos, we warped the Capitals in, killed the Battleships and we said "Cya" 
The Establishment is at your service...
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Ange1
Gallente
The Establishment
Establishment
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Posted - 2007.04.04 17:18:00 -
[5] - Quote
Edited by: Ange1 on 04/04/2007 17:15:33
Originally by: Jason Marshall
You didnt say anyhting about how you got her. Who built her?
We built her. That is to say, we did most of the hard work of getting the ISK and Minerals together for building the components, with some outside investor help along the way for the BPO's required. For a modest fee, we gave NAGA all the components and they built it for us in their Capital Shipyard. From initial idea to build it, up to the delivery of the ship took 5 months.
The Establishment is at your service...
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Ange1
Gallente
The Establishment
Establishment
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Posted - 2007.04.04 18:51:00 -
[6] - Quote
Originally by: Kalil d'Maelstromo
The Crane as the cyno always gave me happy pants. Your an ebil man Raw.
I think both you and Zenitec were both blown up by her days before joining us 
The Establishment is at your service...
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Ange1
Gallente
The Establishment
Establishment
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Posted - 2007.04.05 16:41:00 -
[7] - Quote
Originally by: Freewheeling
Short and selective memory 
Cha'mone!
huh? What did I miss out then? Rather than make a sniping comment without explaining yourself, how about you tell me what I missed out. Considering my memory of the logistics involved is fairly fuzzy, forgive me if I miss details out. Rawthorm would know the details.
The Establishment is at your service...
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