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The Initiative Turns 18: Titans, PLEX and a Keepstar Brawl
The Initiative
INIT
EVE Online
Fountain
C-N4OD
J5A-IX
Null-sec
Alliance Event
Giveaway
Leviathan
Battle Report
Dark Shines

The Initiative Turns 18: Titans, PLEX and a Keepstar Brawl

TremalJackSigned byTremalJackVery Italian PeopleSunday, 4 October 2026

Most alliances mark a birthday with a forum post and maybe a fleet. The Initiative. spent October 3 blowing up roughly 260 billion ISK of its own ships, and handed out titans to the people who did the shooting.

The alliance was founded on October 3, 2008, which makes it one of the oldest sovereignty-holding names still active in null-sec. Eighteen years later it sits at around 34,800 pilots across 148 corporations, holding 145 systems with Fountain as its home region, according to DOTLAN. For one day, none of that mattered as much as getting your name on a killmail.

The prize pool

The party opened at 11:05 EVE time with an alliance-wide ping from Dark Shines, who ran the day's announcements. The headline: around 300 skill injectors, some 30 navy dreadnoughts, command carriers and an Avatar to be handed out over the weekend, with "various ways to compete and win".

The first one was the easiest. The top 100 killers in INIT for the month so far went straight into a draw, streamed live in the alliance's comms channel.

The daytime events: ESS, Fountain and back to J5A-IX

Things escalated quickly.

  • ESS free-for-all (around 11:37 EVE). Dark Shines invited the alliance to come and fight him at the ESS. Anyone in a battleship or smaller who made it onto his killmail entered a draw for two 500 PLEX bundles and a Revelation Navy Issue. "I do shoot back however," he added. The first three winners were announced within the hour.

  • The AU/CN main event (12:30 EVE). The prize table grew to 5x 500 PLEX, 5x five-injector packs, 5 Zirnitras, a Hubris and one random titan: a Hel, an Avatar or an Erebus. The winner would be picked from whoever ended up on the killmail.

  • A trip down memory lane. The next fight was moved back to where INIT first set up shop in Fountain. Dark Shines made a point of saying it was not C-N4OD. The destination was J5A-IX, battlecruisers and smaller only. eve-kill logged 476 pilots there between 12:30 and 12:35, with 28 ships and 11.7 billion ISK destroyed. A Lif FAX worth about 7.6 billion was among the wrecks, so not everyone respected the hull limit.

On top of the official prizes, pilot Minifoegann pledged 1 billion ISK to everyone who landed a final blow in any of the day's events.

Two alliance Freelance Projects also went live for the rest of the weekend:

  • Birthday Tag: 5 million ISK for every non-INIT kill in Fountain, plus extra prizes.

  • Birthday Cake Party: 500,000 ISK per NPC rat killed in Fountain, Cloud Ring and Delve, "for the more relaxed ladies and gentlemen".

The main act: 1,222 pilots on the C-N4OD Keepstar

The EU-time event was the one everyone will remember. The rules were simple: "To win a Titan, you have to kill one first." PLEX, injectors, navy dreads and a Hel or an Erebus were up for grabs for anyone on the killmail, and the location was the alliance Keepstar in C-N4OD.

Before undocking, Dark Shines warned that anyone pointing "the Alliance leader" would be "10000% kicked" and told pilots to ignore their FCs. Then he posted a screenshot of himself sitting in a Leviathan next to the Keepstar, surrounded by a cloud of red and blue brackets, with a short message: he was going to solo the lot of them.

The battle report for C-N4OD, covering 19:46 to 21:46 EVE, tells the rest:

INIT pilots on grid

1,222 from 93 corporations

INIT hulls lost

500

ISK lost by INIT

≈ 261 billion

Most expensive loss

Leviathan (Dark Shines), ≈ 144B ISK

Other big losses

Sarathiel (≈ 47.7B), Phoenix (≈ 5.7B)

Most-lost hulls

Prophecy Navy Issue (97), Harbinger (78), Sacrilege (63), Cyclone Fleet Issue (41), Hurricane Fleet Issue (37)

Almost all of that was INIT shooting INIT. The report also picked up a handful of outsiders: about ten pilots from five other alliances who got onto kills without losing anything, and 14 third-party pilots who lost 25 ships worth around 1.35 billion. Against a quarter of a trillion in friendly fire, they were a rounding error.

Giveaways started right after the fight. Dark Shines' verdict in the channel: "Good fight!"

US timezone and the last prizes

The party didn't stop for the Americans. Shortly after midnight EVE time on October 4, Dark Shines called the US TZ to C-N4OD with "BS and below" fits, then moved the action back to J5A-IX, subcaps only. The last ten prizes went to anyone sitting in C-N4OD local while he drew names. The day closed at 01:24 EVE with a thank-you to everyone who took part and won something, and to everyone who simply enjoyed the explosions.

History on stream

Alongside the fireworks, streamer zehPando ran a "History of INIT" stream on Twitch on October 3 at around 16:00. A second part, "History of EVE & INIT Part 2", followed on October 4 with a public fleet out of Jita.

▶️ Watch: zehPando on Twitch, where any saved VODs of both History of INIT streams will be found.

Why it matters

Alliance birthday parties with ship giveaways aren't new in EVE. What stands out is the scale. 1,222 pilots on a single grid for a non-war event is bigger than plenty of real sovereignty fights this year. Burning a titan and a quarter-trillion ISK for fun is a statement too, at a time when INIT has been bleeding a few systems in Delve and still digesting the corps it took in after Pandemic Horde shut down last December.

It's also a reminder of what keeps an 18-year-old alliance alive. Logistics and doctrines matter, but so does the occasional excuse for thousands of people to log in at once, shoot each other and hope their name gets drawn for a Hel.

Happy birthday, INIT.

Sources and resources

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