At first glance, the two earlier articles gives vastly different impressions about what's been happening in Saranen, with TMC reporting that the Money Badger Coalition was "obliterated" while EN24 is celebrating the destruction of 6 Imperium Citadels. Let's dive into the articles and see what's going on.
TMC:
On May 16, just before 0100 EVE time, a fight kicked off on the Imperium’s staging station in Saranen. In an all too common situation, the Imperium was being held inside their station as Pandemic Legion insta-lock Lokis camped them in.
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A ping went out to round up the troops for a fight against Pandemic Legion, prompting the Imperium to form a Hurricane fleet. The fight began, and as Pandemic legion undocked an Apostle for triage support, they soon realized the fight was not in their favor. In an attempt to dominate the field, Pandemic Legion jumped in at least nine dreadnoughts and nearly twenty Apostles.
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Although Northern Coalition came in with T3 cruisers to support their friends, the Imperium fleet reached what they call “critical mass”, which enables the fleet to attack with full capacity and effectiveness. This meant terrible news for the NC, as hails of gunfire one-shot their T3s. Pandemic Legion's answer was full-on escalation; however, as they jumped in their super capitals, two titans bumped and were hurled away from the main fleet.One of the titans lit a cyno, bringing in multiple FAX carriers and supercarriers into the mix.
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Although the Imperium took 681 losses during the fight, they still managed to destroy nearly 100B ISK in ships belonging to the MBC, while taking 55B ISK in damages.
And the article on EN24:
[H]eavy fighting erupted in Saranen on May 17th.At first I thought the dates were the same and one was simply giving the EVE Date Time and the other the date time of when the evening started, but reading through you quickly realize these are two different fights on separate days, even though the latter article from EN24 does not reference the fighting on May 16th. Furthermore, the lack of any mention of Citadels in the TMC article makes a lot more sense when you realize that the fighting over the structures happened a day later.
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Fighting began at 20:40 as multiple Money Badger Coalition entities headed from their respective staging systems towards the Lonetrek, Fade and Pure Blind regions, anticipating the simultaneous activation of nearly a dozen citadels in the area. The first major engagement of the day occurred when a fleet of 40 Pandemic Horde (REKTD) T1 Cruisers were destroyed in the D2-HOS system by Goonswarm Federation (CONDI) Purifiers. Despite incurring heavy losses during the engagement they succeeded in destroying an Imperium citadel in the system. Similar scenes played out across Pure Blind and Fade with 9 Imperium Astrahus-class citadels eliminated by the end of the evening.
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The main battle began, however, at 20:50 as a Circle-of-Two (CO2) titan bridged a Nightmare fleet onto Imperium forces forming up on the Karjataimon gate in the Imperium staging system of Saranen. With their main fleets (a Hurricane and Grindr fleet) engaged on the Karjataimon gate, an Imperium interceptor fleet attempted to prevent Money Badger Coalition reinforcements from reaching the battle via the 93PI-4 or Tartoken systems.
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Fighting lasted a little over one and a half hours, not least due to the effects of 1% time dilation. By the end of the fight on the Karjataimon gate cynos which had been lit to bridge in MBC fleets were only just ending. By 22:40, Imperium fleets had been completely driven from the field, having lost 363 of their 776 ships at a substantial cost of 84 billion ISK in ships and a further 20 billion ISK in citadels. [...] Money Badger Coalition lost a total of 233 ships and an estimated 37 billion ISK during the engagement. Despite incurring heavy losses both in ships and money, Imperium were however successfully able to online a medium-sized Astrahus-class citadel in Saranen as the MBC fleets failed to engage it while it repaired due to coordination issues.
Personally, my opinion is that the TMC article was easier to read as it was framed more like a story while the EN24 article had more facts/stats but less flow.
Let's turn to the Crossing Zebras article:
On 16 and 17 May, the Imperium and Money Badger Coalition engaged in a pair of large scale engagements in the lowsec system Saranen. The battle on 17 May was particularly significant, and at its height it saw over 2,500 pilots in local – the highest for World War Bee since the battles of M-OEE8 and UQ9-3C on 28 March and 1 April, which each saw single system totals of around 3,500 pilots.
Immediately we have context that there were two battles without having to guess.
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On 16 May MBC fleets continued their attacks on Saranen, with fleets of subcapitals skirmishing throughout the day. Response fleets formed to try and drive the campers away, but for most of the day, the Imperium fleets once again got the worst of it, including one sortie where 83 Hurricane battlecruisers died in exchange for one Apostle Force Auxiliary and a scattering of lighter ships. However in the late evening NA time (early 17 May EVE time), things escalated rapidly and the Imperium found itself with an opportunity to more than even the score.
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When the space-dust settled over the last of the engagements, the MBC had suffered its largest defeat of the war. Killboards showed 472 ships worth 99.2 billion ISK lost for the MBC, including two carriers, six dreadnoughts and twelve FAXes. The Imperium had traded 697 ships worth 55.06 billion ISK for the victory. Hurricane losses were particularly heavy, and there were stories about heroic/entrepreneurial Imperium jump freighter pilots arriving while the battle was still raging to deliver replacements .
This is congruent with the account from TMC article.
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On 16 May, GSF had also deployed nine Astrahus citadels throughout Fade and Pure Blind, and a tenth in Saranen. These citadels were all timed to anchor on 17 May, and pilots in the MBC realized that coming off the high of the previous day’s victory, the Imperium might well show for this one, and in force.
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Imperium attempts to contest the attacks on the citadels outside of Saranen focused on the D2-HOS system in Pure Blind. This system is located in the center of the S4GH-I constellation, which at the time of the battle was still largely in Imperium hands. A trap by a suiciding interdictor, warping into the center of the Horde fleet and bubbling as bombers dropped cloak and launched, opened the fighting between Horde’s Caracals and the Imperium bombers. Continuing engagements across D2-HOS resulted in the loss of some 115 Horde frigates and cruisers worth 3.23 billion ISK, in return for 22 bombers and interdictors, worth 2.81 billion ISK.
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All nine citadels were destroyed within minutes of each other, successfully completing the dispersed part of the operation.
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Meanwhile, in Saranen the main event was just getting started. With the Imperium fleet of several hundred Hurricanes sitting on the Karjataimon gate in Saranen, Circle of Two kicked in the door when their 200 man fleet of Nightmare battleships bridged through and engaged on the gate. As the outmatched Hurricanes warped away, an Imperium Grindr Fleet of Megathrons and Apocalypse landed and was immediately attacked as more MBC forces from PL, Waffles, NCdot, TEST and The Culture, began pouring in from all directions. Local climbed to 2,500, with about 700 Imperium engaged against over 1,500 MBC.
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When it was over, the MBC had lost 93 ships worth 28.73 billion ISK, while the Imperium had lost 391 ships worth 69.18 billion ISK.
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Despite suffering much heavier losses than the MBC this time around, the Imperium had not been completely defeated. The anchoring timer for the Astrahaus in Saranen was not affected by the extreme TiDi, and ticked down at the normal rate while all the attacking ships went into slow motion. This left the MBC without enough time to warp to the “Goonristas Rally Point,” and attack it before it finished anchoring. Although the whole operation had been costly for the Imperium, the survival of the Saranen citadel made it at least a partial success.
And this account lines up with the EN24 article. And they finish up with some analysis:
If you were wondering who is winning the EVE new reporting competition, the newcomer is definitely running laps around the established institutions by reporting more slowly but getting far more context and analysis in the process.
When added together, losses for the big fights on the Monday and Tuesday are near even, with both sides losing around 130 billion in Saranen. The MBC once again demonstrated the ability to conduct multiple co-ordinated attacks on simultaneous citadel deployments across Fade and Pure Blind. The destruction of those nine Astrahus allowed the attackers to maintain offensive momentum without having to worry about new Goon bases behind the lines. The MBC also demonstrated that it retains the ability to rally overwhelming force from its member alliances when presented a suitable target, such as Goon citadel deployment.
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The MBC’s ability to use capitals and super-caps presents a continued problem for the Imperium, whose own super-caps remain inactive. The Imperium’s counter strategy appears to be to target MBC capitals where possible and induce some caution in their use, while at the same time doing what they can to induce fatigue in the subcap forces the capital powers can call on for assistance. Asher believes this targeting in the battle on the 16th bore some fruit in the battle on the 17th, where the MBC only committed a small number of capital ships, and only after the outcome of the subcap battle was already clear.
The anchoring of the Saranen citadel also provides the Imperium with more tangible benefits. The citadel tethering mechanic has been shown to greatly reduce the effects of station camping. Although it is too soon to make definitive claims, on 18 May Imperium losses in Saranen fell to 6.81 billion ISK, a sharp reversal of the previous upward trend. While the lifespan of the Goonristas Rally Point will likely prove to be quite short (as is the sad fate of all such anomalies), it should provide the Goons a welcome respite until its demise. GSF is already deploying several more citadels as potential replacements.
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