Ten years ago today was the infamous Battle of B-R5RB.
So...2014? Was it involving Russia versus Ukrainian forces in the Crimea?
No? Oh, so it was part of the fight between Turkey and the Islamic State?
No? Oh, it must be part of the Syrian Civil War.
No, so it must be part of the rebel fights against the Djotodia government in the Central African Repub....
It what?
No, seriously, it's what?
It's...part of a video game? Oh.
Internet spaceship fights don't get more immense than the battle of B-R5RB. CCP have collected up, totalled and explain what happened, providing a final battle report on the carnage.
The big numbers then. First, 75 of the colossal Titans fell across the 21 hours of fighting. For an idea of how one sided the war was, know that N3/PL lost 59 Titans to CFC/DTF's 16. While they were the biggest and most expensive losses, the battle also saw the destruction of 13 Supercarriers, 370 Dreadnaughts and 123 Carriers. In total, 11 trillion ISK was lost - with more than 8.5 trillion of that coming from N3/PL. CCP note that, according to some PLEX conversions, that's between $300,000-$330,000 of damage.
It was caused by...a software glitch. It sure puts the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in context, doesn't it?
Alliances can claim unoccupied corners of the universe simply by planting the flag, as long as they pay a monthly fee of around one billion ISK. With "sovereignty" over this part of space, they can be reasonably assured that their assets are safe.
Between sprints to the bathroom, Murph learned Pandemic Legion had somehow lost its sovereignty status in B-R5RB. Capturing a sovereign part of space is akin to attacking a well-defended castle. But if the guy holding the station loses sovereignty, it becomes a relatively simple matter of moving in because the owner is on the curb, the drawbridge is down and the gate is open. It was unthinkable that this could happen. But it had.
As thousands of players tally their losses and prepare for the next fight, many wonder how Pandemic lost sovereignty in B-R5RB to begin with.
The answer couldn't have been any more mundane.
It appears someone forgot to check "Automatic Bill Pay" in his game settings. Pandemic Legion insists the box was checked, raising the possibility an inattentive player, a spy or even a bug in the game was to blame. Whatever the case, the rent didn’t get paid. The biggest battle in the history of forever started with a clerical error.
Of course, ten years later the really weird part is how this giant battle (which was bested in 2020 by something called the "Massacre of M2-XFE") somehow featured both a pandemic-themed team and a group that's literally called Clusterfuck Russians.
