History of EVE University

Introduction

Eve University is one of the oldest corporations in EvE. Unfortunately, the nature of the Uni -- 90% of the Uni's members have been in for under 2 months -- means that the history of the corp is quickly dispersed to a hundred other corporations. My hope is that we can collect some of the stories so people know what the Uni has done and been, and how it's changed over the years.

Morning Maniac gave a two-hour history lecture in March 2007: Eve University History, Past Present and Future. It covered the history of the Uni from its founding as a chat channel. Time passes, though -- half the Uni's history happened after this talk.

Founding

Eve University was founded 15 Mar 2004. MM had been answering questions in the Help channel, and wanted to provide something that was more helpful than 'Help' had become. The heart of the operation was the Eve University public chat channel.

Early on, the principle was established that the Uni would remain neutral, so that students can have the widest possible choice of future corporations.

The Big Blue Era

Eve University was, with NAGA, the Four Horsemen, and others, one of the founding corporations of The Big Blue alliance. The Big Blue (always with the definite article) was founded in October of 2005, and lasted until August of 2006. During this busy year, the alliance built two outposts in Geminate: the Blue Pill in BWF-ZZ, and Masada Station in 8MG-J6. In June of 2006, the Mercenary Coalition declared war on BLUE. A month later, The Four Horsemen withdrew from the alliance, removing much of The Big Blue's PvP power. Subsequently, attacks by Euphoria Unleashed and others rendered the situation untenable, and NAGA and Eve University dissolved the alliance and withdrew from the region. An interesting historical consequence is that the Uni's teamspeak server was hosted with NAGA until late 2009.

BLUE was interesting in that it maintained NRDS and a non-aggression policy -- a rarity in 0.0 space.

Subsequent to BLUE's withdrawal, BWF-ZZ has developed a reputation as a cursed system, which no group can hold onto for very long. Currently, Wildly Inappropriate holds BWF-ZZ.

It's also worth noting that BWF-ZZ is quite near the Uni's subsequent home in Korsiki, though a visit would be both dangerous and a violation of the Uni's rules.

see also Eve History's page on The Big Blue

Formation of TGRADS

At the time the Uni retreated from Geminate, a group of Uni members wanted to remain in 0.0, allying with ISS, an organization which itself maintained neutrality. The Uni as a whole felt that this would nevertheless undermine its neutrality. Twenty-six Uni members left to form The Graduates (TGRADS), and take over the Cassini outpost of ISS in EC-P8R.

Unfortunately, this outpost was isolated from the rest of ISS. TGRADS was forced out of the region, and joined with the Uni in forming the Ivy League Alliance. Subsequently, they maintained POSes in NPC 0.0, under the IVY flag. The difficulty and expense of maintaining these POSes, and the disparity between the Uni's primary mission and the 0.0-ward desires of TGRADS, put strain on the relationship between the two. Subsequently TGRADS left IVY to join BRUCE, then an up-and-coming 0.0 alliance. After BRUCE dissolved, TGRADS joined Morsus Mihi. They are currently the largest corp in MM, and still recruit preferentially from the Uni.

See also The Graduates' history page

The Drone Regions

The drone regions of space were added to the EvE universe in November of 2006. At some point subsequent to leaving Geminate, until about April 2007, the Uni held space in the drone regions. In spring of 2007, Invictus forced IVY out of 0.0 again. (I'm working on it, Kassie Kelmar. Give me time.)

Return to High-Sec

After leaving 0.0, the Uni settled at Korsiki. By the end of 2006, there was a precursor to the present ship replacement plan, though it only covered frigates -- and destroyers. At the beginning of 2007, as noted above, TGRADS joined the IVY alliance. And the first of the Privateers wars began.

Formation of the Low-sec Apprenticeship Group

In mid-2007, the Low-sec Apprenticeship group was formed -- possibly in a fit of absent-mindedness. Master Akira, who was involved in the group from early on, has written a short personal history of the group's first incarnation, found here.

After Master Akira's departure from the Uni in mid-2008, the group was reorganized under Dlardrageth.

Unfortunately, most of the records of the low-sec group were archived for various reasons and are unavailable to anybody except directors. (J'accuse, Dinsdale Pirrhana!) If a director has the inclination and the time, could you please put together a short history of the group? Alternately, can anybody with personal knowledge help?

The Long Series of Wars

Murder-Death-Kill

Departure of Ivy League R&D from IVY

Soon after the wardec, the CEO of Ivy League R&D decided as a defensive measure to remove the corp from IVY immediately. Unfortunately, they were the owners of the Korsiki POS, which caused some trouble.

I'm not clear on what this was supposed to do; more research ahead.

POS Ejections

At this time, it was common practice for players to log off at the POS, to avoid being camped in at stations. The departure of the POS owners from IVY meant that Uni members were ejected from the POS on login, with no warning, into the waiting guns of MD-K.

POS Assault

(more sketchy notes -- I'm afraid I'm using the wiki for drafting a paragraph at a time.)

MD-K's attack was particularly significant, since the Uni had a capital ship array anchored at the POS in Korsiki. Game changes had made it impossible to re-anchor such an array in high-sec space, so an irreplaceable asset was under attack -- a rarity in EvE.

Effects of the Wars on Wartime SOP

• Special Privateer SOPs

Seppuku Warriors

It's been pointed out to me that this section needs significant factual correction. I hope to revise it in the next day or so; meanwhile, don't rely on this for your homework. --JH

Discussion on this article is currently happening in this forum thread.

At the beginning of 2009, about 50 of the senior staff and students left to form Seppuku Warriors (TANTO), which they described as a PvP-oriented alternative to Eve University. Their precise motives remain unclear, since they've given a number of mutually contradictory explanations. It's quite possible that the people involved had different motivations, as well.

Among the people who left were Dee Carson, then the Uni's Director of Operations, Sabre A, then ILN Vice Admiral, and m0rd0, then Student Relations Manager. A significant number of long-term ILN members also left to join the new organization, which was pitched as a more PvP-oriented school, charging tuition and using the directors' personal connections to bring in EvE luminaries from the 0.0 alliances for guest lectures, etc. This left the Uni with a fairly small number of experienced/high-SP PvPers, compared to the height of the Privateer Wars.

At this time, within the Uni, Kelduum Revaan moved from Director of Diplomacy to Director of Operations.

Relations between [TANTO] and the Uni soured quickly, with a barrage of smack-talk coming from TANTO, primarily of the form "you're teaching the students wrong". It's not clear precisely what they would do differently, or why they didn't implement their ideas when they were running things. Ultimately, SW decided to declare war on the Uni. Again, their reasons are unclear, because they gave so many of them. Perhaps they wanted to teach the Uni a lesson; perhaps they were hired as mercenaries by a wealthy industrialist. They gave both these reasons and others at the time.

(A few months later, the members of TANTO were recruited en masse to Evolution (EVOL), the reformation of BoB under SirMolle. They moved out of Korsiki, which has kept unpleasant interactions to a minimum.)

Destruction of the Uni POS

Seppuku Warriors had declared war on the Uni simultaneously with Dynaverse, a larger corporation with no previous interaction with the Uni. The war opened with SW suicide-ganking haulers before the formal onset of hostilities, which should have been a hint. SW assured Uni management that they wanted a clean war, and that they weren't interested in the Uni POS. So it was a bit of a surprise when 50+ battleships arrived to assault the POS.

The war had been timed to fall during the final exam period of many real-life universities, which limited the Uni force available. The Uni leadership present at the time decided that they couldn't contest the Dynaverse-SW fleet, and ordered a total lockdown to prevent losses. The POS was put into reinforced mode, and the battleship fleet left. SW insisted that of course they wouldn't blow up the pos -- they just wanted to teach the Uni a lesson. They also expressed regret that the Uni hadn't come out (in a largely frigate-and-cruiser fleet) to fight. (Remember that at this time, the Uni had very few battleship-capable pilots).

The Uni leadership kept its plans quiet, but the student body was spoiling for a fight.

When the POS came out of reinforced mode on 9 May, 2009, a large Dynaverse fleet again showed up to attack it. Uni fleets responded, and a battle royal ensued. Dynaverse/SW showed a number of cheap tricks in addition to their superior firepower (parking neutral alts in shuttles in the middle of a drone swarm, for instance). This led to perhaps the lightest moment of the day -- Dierdra Vaal, who had used smart-bombs to clear the enemy drone swarm, running away from Concord at high speed, toward low-sec. Dierdra's security status had dropped instantly from +5 to -6 as the "neutral" shuttles and pods got destroyed.

Unfortunately, the POS was destroyed in the end. A replacement POS was donated to the Uni by the members of D6, so the material loss in the end was mitigated -- but the emotional impact on the Uni membership was enormous.

Move to Aldrat

Subsequent to the SW/Dynaverse war, the number of 'real' wars decreased. However, a huge number of 'faildec' wars were declared in this time period -- 7-10 member corps who'd show up for a day of fighting, lose a ship or two, and then hide for the rest of the week, causing the Uni membership to spin in station.

Uni leaders suspected that a large part of this problem was being a very large corporation located in the highest-population region of space. They looked around and decided on Aldrat -- a quiet region near Hek, but not so near as to cause trouble. Aldrat is also near the infamous pirate system Rancer, which has greatly increased PvP learning opportunities for students. It's also at the head of a cul-de-sac in space, which has certain practical advantages.

The move to Aldrat has decreased the number of wardecs the Uni has had, though cleaning the low-grade pirates and can-flippers out of the region occupied people for quite a while at the start of the move.

The (Re)Opening of NPC 0.0

Because Aldrat is also near NPC 0.0 space, Uni leadership took the experimental step of opening NPC 0.0 to students. This seems to have worked out pretty well so far -- students can dip a toe into 0.0 without the political repercussions of entering sovereign 0.0.

Departure of Morning Maniac

At the start of 2010, Morning Maniac announced that he was stepping down as CEO of the Uni, after almost 6 years at the helm. Kelduum Revaan, the former Director of Operations, has replaced MM as CEO.

Stuff that needs to be fitted in somewhere

• Ivy League R&D Foundation (Eskona?)
• Sabre A
• D6
• Zulu
• Battlegroups
• SPS-es (Summer 2007)
• RUSE /TDROPS/
• Uni fight club (definitely active Nov '07)
• Aug 2007 POS attack; capital ship array; POS ejection incidents (Murder-Death-Kill war on Ivy Research Foundation); Wardec on Vajayjay (MDK alt corp with Korsiki POS)

• Cruiser replacement started Nov 2007