Blood In the Water

I'm not saying that the Drone Russian Forces (aka DRF, composed primarily of Legion of xXDeathXx, Red Alliance, and White Noise) have lost the war by losing the big battle on Saturday against the Northern Coalition (aka NC) in LXQ2-T (aka LXQ), but it really was a "gotta win this one" type scenario in a possibly long campaign.

LXQ was not some forgettable backwater system in the Kalevala Expanse which no one except renters and ratters really care about. It is an empire entry system for Etherium Reach, a station system to boot, and is crucial for logistics to empire. Had the DRF managed to mount a successful defense, it would have been a big morale boost for the defenders as they would have in effect been proving that this invasion could be stopped. The NC forces on the other hand, would have been drained without anything to show for it, forced to begin the siege again.

But DRF failed to win the battle. In fact, it seems they lost before it began by making the same mistake CVA made in D-GTMI back in Providence last spring by not defending the system from the inside, and instead forming the majority of their fleets outside of LXQ and trying to jump in as the station timer finished. Perhaps they were expecting (hoping for?) a node death in which both sides would have had equal chance to long in and reform, but the node held and the russian fleets met the D-GTMI black screen of doom, ship on grid and pilot not.

It was, by all accounts, a massacre. The NC has a foothold in the region with a station to base out of no less, morale is high from defeating the enemy who threw everything into the fight, and DRF is forced on the back foot to try and regroup. The war might not have been won or lost on the outcome of the battle of LXQ, but the momentum goes to the winner.