Intergalactic Summit

It'd be a long journey to something like that. You can't just conjure up the kind of manpower (with the expertise and experience required) to grab and hold even a single pocket out of nowhere. It'd have to start relatively small, out of simple practical necessity. Find a few suitable systems with decent logistics options to lowsec (i.e. within JF -and- capital jump distance) as the initial target, with middling to fair system resources. Far enough away from entities that'd be too much of a threat, close enough to contested space to offer combat pilots something to do, and few enough that they can be defended by the initial group of people.

Basically, the start of it all would have to act like a beach head, and a proof of concept rolled into one. So yeah, to begin with? Some citadels and ECs serving as a basic industry colony and combat staging while trying to entice people to come back from what would most certainly still be 'better' jobs.

Sotiyos, Keepstars and super production would be a very long way away yet, even if every loyalist I know of landed out in null tomorrow. Frankly, initial survival would rely more upon security through obscurity than force and numbers.

No one survives without diplomacy.

This reminds me, when I did run an alliance, upon winning our first battle for sovereignty over a system against a local alliance, many voices called for us to go on the offensive, whereas instead Lowhyres and I decided to pursue an arrangement with them instead. In the glory of victory, many are blinded to the realities of war. While we had the strength to beat a similar sized alliance to our own, that alliance was part of Vanguard, and the next fight would have just seen them ask for help and crush us.

There was no loyalist alliance or coalition at the time, or at the present that could stand against Vanguard or any of the large coalitions and It will not be that a new alliance or coalition forms that would have such strength. You don't need to have that though, you just need to be willing to negotiate and fight to defend yourselves and your allies.

There are plenty of options to have a loyalist alliance, or better still coalition of alliances, but none of them involve being able to beat down anyone who may come to fight you. It would depend on doing something useful for the alliances who already had space in that area, from providing industrial services, to isk, to combat strength, or even in the case of the QFC fighting for the amusement of the Imperium, et cetera.

Absolutely. I didn't touch upon this because I don't have a diplomatic bone in my body and that job would have to go to literally anybody else in this hypothetical scenario. The trick would be being able to have balanced diplomatic statuses in the region, reducing the threats enough to allow for such a project to thrive, while still having enough of a threat that would allow the combat pilots to thrive or they'd eventually go elsewhere.

Arrendis, I don't think that holds true. There's of course always a chance that some big entity will come raze the sandcastles for fun and all, but it's nowhere near a certainty. More importantly, by balancing investment with capability such an event could even be a good thing, galvanizing the people involved and teaching a few lessons about hardship but also about how resilient a capsuleer entity can be out there. No matter how big the enemy, it takes significant effort to render an area of space unusable or us impotent, and who's going to bother going through such effort for so little gain? Consider your own 'weaponized boredom' dogmas, and now consider how that would be in play for the bigger entities even if we actively worked against that.

With the current infrastructure options available to capsuleers, combined with the initial low value - relatively, it'd still be significant compared to highsec - of the project and space, I think such an endeavor would indeed get stomped on once in a while, but nowhere near enough to actually kill it or even render it inefficient.

I don't necessarily disagree that a full-on purge would be more effort than it's worth, but you don't need a full-on purge. You only need enough harassment to make it impossible for the smaller group to actively make use of the space they're trying to rely on for their income.

Consider: Reavers deployed into CO2 space about a month or two ago. You may remember the 'itchy hull' incident? We took less than 100 people, and without any real effort, cut down their use of an entire region by about 80%. Yes, it bounced back in relatively short order after the first week or so, but that was still a very small proprtionate number of people, crippling the income and production capabilities of a nearly 5,000-member alliance. Literally less than 5% of their numbers cost them 80% of their income. And the only reason it bounced back is their response to anyone decloaking was to drop a few dozen supercarriers. That kind of disproportionate response won't be available in this scenario.

Come in with a few hundred, and it won't take much more than thirty or forty people to shut down most revenue streams and send everyone hunkering down and waiting for a target to hit. Weaponized boredom works both ways.

While my recollection of history is more in line with Ayallah than Elsebeth I must confess I like the direction this conversation has taken.

Electus Matari and Ushra'Khan uniting to build a prosperous future for the Tribes. What a sight that would be.

Impossible.

But doable.

Well now, there is a name I haven't seen for a while.

WHO SPEAKS FOR KIN/THERM?!?

Sorry, I'm in a weird mood.

You mean like those of us who signed up for a corp you were heading?

Just sayin', I bloody called it.