Once again, only historical perspective can paint a picture of just how easily nullsec alliances change partners. During B-R, a titan pilot named Shrike was flying under the banner of N3PL. In contrast to N3PL's fateful targeting of über-tanked Sort Dragon, the CFC deliberately avoided calling Shrike primary. CFC FCs knew he was likely to be fully tanked up. Shrike is the titan alt of a fellow named SirMolle. Most EVE players today have never heard of SirMolle, but years ago he was the most famous character in the game. SirMolle was the leader of the Band of Brothers (BoB), the Goons' traditional enemy. But the Goons weren't the only alliance to have SirMolle as their arch-nemesis. Pandemic Legion hated SirMolle just as much.
PL was officially founded by one of the alts of an EVE player known today as Kugutsumen. A hacker of some note, Kugutsumen enjoyed "spying" on the third-party forums of EVE alliances by hacking into them and downloading their contents. In December 2006, Kugutsumen broke into the forums of a BoB corporation named Reikoku. SirMolle wasn't a member of Reikoku, but he was incensed that one of his alliance's corps was compromised. Kugutsumen and his modus operandi were notorious, so it didn't take SirMolle long to learn who was responsible. A truly epic feud began. Without exaggeration, the vendetta between Kugutsumen and SirMolle would change EVE forever.
To begin with, SirMolle was informed of the details of Kugutsumen's real-life identity, and the nature of the hack. SirMolle was so angry he couldn't think straight. He didn't know how to handle being on the losing end of something in EVE. He'd never lost a war. BoB rarely lost battles at all, not even small-scale engagements. BoB's security had never before been compromised; there was no history of spies infiltrating BoB or leaking material from BoB forums. Since Kugutsumen had crossed the line by hacking a BoB forum, SirMolle felt justified in crossing a few lines of his own. SirMolle went to the official EVE forums and posted Kugutsumen's real-life information, including the name and phone number of Kugutsumen's employer, encouraging EVE players to harass Kugutsumen out-of-game and get him fired. This, of course, was a permabannable offense.
Kugutsumen was taken by surprise. He knew SirMolle would be angry, but he didn't expect him to be so reckless. By conducting the harassment campaign on EVE-O (in addition to third-party EVE websites), SirMolle had guaranteed himself a permaban from EVE. Kugutsumen petitioned the posts. BoB's alliance leader had sealed his own fate, or so it seemed.
Then something truly peculiar occurred. The offending posts were removed by the EVE-O moderators, but SirMolle didn't appear to have been punished. SirMolle wasn't even temporarily banned from posting on EVE-O, much less permabanned from the game. Kugutsumen was amazed. Other EVE players took note, but no one could explain the phenomenon. Something strange was afoot.
For years, there were rumors that CCP had some special connection to BoB. At the time, CCP employees were allowed to have characters in nullsec alliances, but CCP always claimed that they were sprinkled throughout the galaxy to prevent any possibility of favoritism. When Kugutsumen initially hacked Reikoku's forum, he didn't fully review its contents. He didn't know what he had. It was only after witnessing SirMolle's EVE-O vengeance and CCP's refusal to punish him that Kugutsumen began to understand the full gravity of the situation.
Kugutsumen tested his suspicions by looking for evidence of CCP devs in Reikoku. He found it immediately. All it took was a quick search of the IP addresses recorded on the Reikoku forum posts. In Reikoku alone--just one of the BoB corporations--there were five characters posting from CCP headquarters. Kugutsumen concluded that CCP devs were heavily concentrated in BoB--which just happened to be the most powerful alliance in EVE.
There was more. Kugutsumen had evidence of a CCP developer cheating on BoB's behalf. He released his findings to the public, and the t20 scandal was born. The media took notice and CCP took heat. At first, CCP was unwilling to take action. So Kugutsumen continued his efforts and began to unmask additional CCP devs' in-game characters. One after another, devs were found in BoB and BoB's allies. The EVE community went into an uproar, convinced that the game was rigged. Under pressure from the players, CCP changed its policy on developers playing EVE: Henceforth, they were forbidden from joining any nullsec alliances. This caused additional anguish within BoB, as some of their best players suddenly vanished overnight. In the meantime, more members of BoB started spamming Kugutsumen's real-life information on EVE-O and elsewhere, trying to get players to call his boss and have him fired.
SirMolle was never punished for posting Kugutsumen's real-life information on EVE-O and encouraging players to get him fired. He was not banned from the game or from the forums. (Indeed, one of his most famous posts, "Chowdown, we're stealing your targets", was made shortly after these incidents took place.) Kugutsumen received phone calls from angry EVE players, but he didn't lose his job. What SirMolle failed to realize was that Kugutsumen's "employer" was actually a company owned by Kugutsumen. Players called Kugutsumen's "boss" and tried to get him fired, but they got Kugutsumen himself on the phone.
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All in all, it's fair to say that there were some hard feelings between SirMolle and PL. Yet on the day of B-R, SirMolle's titan flew with PL against the forces of CFC and RUS. If that can happen, anything can--it's the EVE equivalent of French resistance fighters marching alongside the Nazis. Not that I'm equating BoB to Nazi Germany, of course. Such a comparison would doubtless offend both groups.
