Enthalpy vs. Empire
From Astro Wars
Since I have been asked to do this, by more then one person even, here is the story of the formation of the rag-tag rebel alliance BoE and its battle against the Empire Solaire in Beta 9:
Once a long, long time ago, well actually just a little while ago, in a Galaxy this side of the Internet, some Canadians and one New Zealander who happened to be living in Canada at the time and is ****ing freezing his ***** off I can tell you, decided to join in the latest Beta of Astro Wars (Beta 9). Some joined before January 6th, some joined after, but this is not their story. This is the story of the seven who joined on January 6th. Matarial, Diazo, Grey414, Guu, SonsOfMars, Phager, and Mentok (me).
We were spread across three stars in a line, Alpha Phoenice (14/-55), Alpha Fornacis (18/-54), and Alpha Zavijava (22/-55) a belt of stars if you will. Initially the only PMs we received were from each other and our only enemies were players who only logged in only once or twice, or players who launched one attack and when it failed resigned. Life was good and after a little “discussion” between ourselves we settled on who would get which planets. However if we had looked more closely we would have seen a growing menace. A long line of stars below us and several stars above us were Empire systems. The closest Alpha Isis (18/-52) was only 4 bio from Alpha Fornacis (18/-54) at 6 bio it could see two more systems but both of them were also Imperial systems, so they would have had to reach bio 8 before they could expand anywhere other than us. To them conflict with us must have seemed inevitable.
So the stage was set. In Alpha Fornacis Grey414, Guu, and Mentok of the not yet extant Belt of Enthalpy. In Alpha Isis toTOW, Morbac, lahyene, and Aoshi of Empire Solaire. The first attacks were from toTOW and Morbac and both fell on me. However I beat them both back and sent a PM thanking them for the XP and inquiring if they would be sending any more ships my way. They informed me they were from the mighty ES, that I was about to die, the exact location of the resign button and advised me to use it. Now my little joke of a message apparently antagonized ES and might have been a mistake, but I had already figured out who they were and that I had next to no chance of winning so I thought I might as well have some fun before I ‘die’, and I’m not the sort of player who resigns just because I’m probably going to lose. Little did I know I would last this long against so many.
The next few days were full of attacks from the players in Alpha Isis and I began to lose planets. I decided to concentrate my forces against toTOW and try to force him out of Alpha Fornacis. ToTOW from the battle reports I had was almost certainly a warrior with big bonuses to attack and defense. ToTOW was a big threat, but probably had a poor economy. So I figured I could out produce him, especially inside my own system, while he would need to move his forces in from Alpha Isis. However every time I devastated or destroyed one of his fleets and then launched a counter-attack against one of his newly acquired planets in Alpha Fornacis he had a bigger fleet already there waiting for me. Eventually it became clear that while I might keep my Home World my other planets in Alpha Fornacis were doomed. So I contacted the other players I knew and offered to help them conquer my planets in Alpha Fornacis before ES could send enough destroyers and transports to break through my defenses and take my planets. In the mean time I started colonizing in Alpha Miram (20/-56) where there where still free planets and at the time nobody making a serious effort at playing.
My attempts to give away my planets met with mixed results. However it did get Grey414 and Guu more involved in the fight. Matarial from Alpha Phoenice also made an appearance in an attempt to help out. We made some headway until two of our fleets had there arrival time changed by several hours while on route and one fleet lost transports on route and wasn’t able to take its assigned planet before ES arrived. That and fir3fox’s arrival with several hundred destroyers made a hash of our coordination and eventually Grey414 was forced out of Alpha Fornacis and Guu was reduced to his Home World in Alpha Fornacis and a few planets elsewhere.
Meanwhile in Alpha Miram I quickly started colonizing free planets, hoping to rebuild so I could quickly return to Alpha Fornacis in force. However some of the ES players from Alpha Isis made the effort to follow me all the way to Alpha Miram to attack me there. Also dixtra, dscglfr, Tarmangania, and MasterZ joined with them in their attempt to hunt me down in Alpha Miram. Luckily I was now close enough to Alpha Zavijava that SonsOfMars and Phager could now come to my aid. Many planets were exchanged and eventually dixtra was forced out of Alpha Miram. Now however SonsOfMars and Phager had made themselves targets and Alpha Zavijava came under attack by sylvain, AgentMat, MasterZ, and eventually lahyene, toTOW, and Tarmangania as well.
First hundreds then thousands of destroyers were lost to both sides. The larger fleets being exchanged tended to be over 700 destroyers in size. It was during this time that most of our attackers joined ADES (Alliance Defense ES) and Phager came up with the A$8000 to create BoE (The Belt of Enthalpy). And that is when I started the Embassy in the diplomacy forum.
SonsOfMars and Phager were now being slowly crushed to a shadow of their former selves, I had lost the last of my planets in Alpha Miram and had only my Home World in Alpha Fornacis left. However fir3fox and lahyene both used up their remaining fleets in Alpha Fornacis trying to take my Home World. So with the coordination our new alliance allowed Matarial, SonsOfMars and to a lesser extent the rest of us sent what forces we had into Alpha Fornacis. We almost forced lahyene out of the system before ES rallied enough forces to stop our offensive. We now held half the planets in Alpha Fornacis, but we were running out of steam. Almost every day I saw news of a new ES member joining in the attack on our alliance and many of the fleets being sent against us were now over 900 destroyers and often contained cruisers and battleships as well.
We weren’t going to last much longer, and there were rumblings of doing a restart in the alliance. Personally I preferred to fight until the end, doing as much damage as possible until I was killed, but I was out voted on that one. So on February 11 we restarted and became NBoE, but that is another story.
Grand Ambassador Mentok of a very very small alliance called The Belt of Enthalpy.
Disclaimer: This is my personal recollection of events and may not exactly reconcile with the recollections of other members of BoE or ES. If you wish to see the original message this is based on and the comments made about it by both BoE and ES members please go to the The Belt of Enthalpy [BoE] Embassy in the Forum [1].
P.S. The number of ships involved may seem small but keep in mind these battles took place during the beginning of a Beta not at the end, and at the time I was accused of exaggerating the number of ships involved.
