The basic story is this:

A dude forgot to pay is rent/mortage for his station, the Clusterfuck Coalition swooped in and began to squat on the station, and the Pandemic Legion and N3 invaded to try and get it back.

The battle has been going on for 10 hours as of this post, a couple thousand ships have been involved, about 50-60 Titans (largest ships in the game) have been lost, and about 150k-160k of real dollars have been lost in the battle.

The EVE economy is collapsing, as the prices of minerals for the ships involved in the battle have skyrocketed. The servers can't handle the load, and time dilation is at 10%

Basically, shit's gone crazy.

Here is a ridiculous (you'll see why it's ridiculous) stream of the battle - http://www.twitch.tv/nick_fuzzeh stream is back up.

Some sweet high-res screen shots - http://imgur.com/a/c3IM4#0

Detailed killboard/overview of battle: https://zkillboard.com/system/30002157/

A strange coincidence, it's the one year anniversary of Battle of Asakai that Patrick talked about at length on the bombcast (the one where the guy misclicked and lost a Titan.)

If you want some really technical backstory, here is a report on the SOV drop (the guy who forgot to pay rent), and here is a battle report of the ongoing events, thanks to @fredchuckdave.

**Disclaimer, uh, so apparently this is the most expensive battle in EVE history, not the largest. Basically, it's all the big boys having a fight with the big guns and the little guys are mostly kept out of it, so the number of ships aren't as high as they should be for a battle of this scale.**

This game is soooo fucking weird

Can't say I don't love the stories it throws up.

This is pretty amusing.

Here's another link, comments are pretty golden.

Everyone, time to panic!!

*breaks store window, starts looting*

Fannnnntasic. I'll never ever play this game but I love reading about it

PL and CFC have stated that they won't stop fighting until downtime, so this battle will go on for a long time.

Also, the lag is decreasing a bit, so Dreadnought (another type of giant ship) pilots are reporting that they can fire their siege weapons faster now, which means that even more destruction will happen.

@sackmanjones: The problem is that there's not really any gameplay involved so it's not like "you had to be there," works fine as "you had to read about it."

I too just love reading stories about the insanity that is EVE, lol... beautiful chaos.

Here is an alternative stream: http://www.twitch.tv/dobbb

It's a bit more serious than the first one I linked...

I like how both of these enormous battles were started because of a player's accidental incompetence.

I want to be a wartime journalist in this universe. But I feel like I'd somehow wind up losing my car and thousands of dollars in debt.

@hunter5024: According to the dude who messed up the rent (a pretty high member of Pandemic Legion), it was a glitch in the system and he totally had enough money to pay for the station in his wallet....

or he just forgot to pay on time like a normal human being

I can't wait for this to be over, and to read Scoops write up on it.

@billymaysrip said:

"The check is in the mail I swear!"

Whenever the CFC is involved, I just immediately assume they're being stupid about something.

The largest battle in EVE history is still the least exciting thing to ever happen in a video game.

@atramentous: I dunno man, I'm no EVE player, but goddamn, how can this not look interesting:

I DON'T UNDERSTAND YOU EVE

But I love you

My sincerest sympathy goes out to all the people who decided the best place to invest their money was in a virtual space station.

Sorry, did I say sympathy? I meant derision.

This is really weird and kinda sad.

Apparently PL is pulling out en-masse, trying to minimize losses. CFC seem to have won the day. At the moment, CFC Titans outnumber PL Titans by 2 to 1.

@atramentous: I've never played EVE and likely never will but a battle of this scale is unheard of in gaming, especially with the visuals being generated, that's fucking exciting. Hell, a battle 1/10th this size is unheard of in gaming but probably only registers as an eyebrow raise in EVE.

P.S. Your avatar is also wrong...

Edit: I just learned that Steam is allowing cancellations and refunds of preorder games from themitanni.com. Some good has come from the horrors of war after all.

@kevin_cogneto: @xchairmandrekx: There really isn't real money being lost, just fake internet money that happens to convert to real dollars if you want it too. Very few of these people actually put real money into the game. Most work off the scheme that Dave described on the Bombcast, where they are the top of a corporation and have the fake cash to spend...

From what i've gathered, this is way fucked. Waiting of conformation

How does one guy's fuck-up lead to a massive battle?

The same way one guy's assassination triggered World War I, I'm guessing. Something happens, one side tries to take advantage, the other side attempts to defend their interest. Eventually, more people get involved, and before you know it all of Europe is basically mud, trenches, and barbed wire.

If I ever tried to play EVE, and all this is based on player incompetence, the real world would nuke itself just by being adjacent.

The thing that I hate about these battles is the goonswarm always wins, by virtue of just having the most warm bodies.

There are actually north of 1500 Titans in the game.

I'm pretty sure this is what happened as the amount of money for the rent of one system is trivial for even a small alliance, much less the rich ass folk at PL.

And now for a blatant shill. If you're interested in Eve come try joining Kite Co. Space Trucking, a space corp for duders, by duders. We don't do things like this mind you we're more small gang in corp and mid range fleets with our alliance Brave Collective, but frankly that's more fun for most people anyway. PM me on here or on, Jeremy Soikutsu if you're already playing, and we can talk about anything Eve related you want. We can also hook you up with three week trails too, or you can just go get the two weeks ones given out by CCP on their site or Steam.

I opened that Twitch link and looked at the stream image for all of 41 seconds before thinking:

"I probably have something more important to get accomplished."

To help catch everyone somewhat up to date on why this battle happened:

Around Halloween of last year, something known as the Halloween War in EVE began when the Russian player bloc (RUS) invaded systems held by N3(dot), as the current home of the latter are apparently the ancestral homelands of the former. N3(dot) received aid from their allies Pandemic Legion (PL).

Not long after the war got under way, Cluster Fuck Coalition (CFC), lead by Goonswarm, announced they were entering the war as "honorable third parties" on the side of the RUS. This was a purposeful act of vengeance against N3(dot) and PL since the latter had entered the Fountain War (where the CFC invaded and conquered TEST alliance's systems) as "honorable third parties" themselves during the summer last year.

Fast forward to this morning. The system where sov. bills were failed to be paid was the PL staging system for the war, meaning it has a very large amount of ships, equipment, ammunition, etc, stored for the war. Loss of system sovereignty to the CFC/RUS means PL would no longer be able to dock in the station, and unable to access all the war material stored in it. This is a pretty big strategic battle beyond simply "$150,000 USD worth of space polygons were blown up."

I don't know a whole lot about the ins and outs of Eve, but this looks and sounds bananas.

Highly suggest you watch this guys stream. http://www.twitch.tv/dnoiz1

EVE is definitely unique in making true the maxim "quantity has a quality all its own." Honestly, it has to be like that, or else old player blocs will have an absolutely unassailable advantage since its a game where the more power you have, the easier it becomes to accrue power, however you want quantify that.

Wow.

@historyinrust: I've lost about 15 IQ points over the course of the day. It's great.

@turambar: That's insane. This whole thing is insane.

Also apparently a Titan fighting for Pandemic Legion on the way to this battle got ganked by a small pirate corporation.

;_;

As Turambar says. And even then your initial statement isn't totally true, i.e. the Goons have actually been on their heels this whole war, this is the first real blow they've struck and who knows how much it'll amount to. Sure if I was a betting man I'd put it on Goons, but N3/PL has been holding the line pretty well.

I feel like this is how bitcoin is going to end...

I'd like to add that once you're ingame, our public channel is "giantbombing" and if you're interested in joining Kite Co, just apply!

Actually it was coming to help the CFC, but yes.

I can't believe they've been going for 12 hours straight so far. I wonder how long this whole clusterfuck will keep on going.

I feel like I've seen this forum title before in the past.

I feel like this is not a bad thing.

@connerthekewlkid: Goddamn those gifs are nothing but amazing.