How Did the (Faction) War Start?

"The way I see it, these days there's a war on, right? and, ages ago, there wasn't a war on, right? So, there must have been a moment when there not being a war on went away, right? and there being a war on came along. So, what I want to know is: How did we get from the one case of affairs to the other case of affairs?" - Private Baldrick

Do you mean 'How did the war start'? - Captain Blackadder

If you want a full and complete understand and want to read a jolly good book, ignore this post and go read The Empyrean Age by Tony Gonzales. The short piece below contains spoilers. Actually, the whole thing is a spoiler for the book. Following a convo on Twitter I thought I'd put this quickly together on how faction war started in Eve Online. Remember, Tony G took 500 pages to tell this story, I've tried to do it in one!

The Empire Wars kicked off for a number of reasons. One of the main ones was an egger known as The Broker. This guy was well known to the powers of New Eden. A very powerful and secretive capsuleer who traded information. He could topple governments, he could manipulate markets, he could do just about anything. However he had a bit of a problem. An incurable degenerative disease was found in all of his clones. He was an immortal, dying. There was one snippet of information that The Broker had which could possibly save his life. He was one of only a handful of people in New Eden who knew that the CEO of Ishukone corporation was developing a cure for Vitoxin/Vitoc called Insorium.

Vitoc is used by the Amarr to control slaves. The slave is injected with Vitoxin. This is a mutating virus which is fatal if not regularly treated. Vitoc is a powerful narcotic that is also a short term antidote to Vitoxin. There was no cure for Vitoxin. Once you were infected you needed a dose of Vitoc every 24 hours otherwise you'd slowly die. Ideal way to control slaves. Without access to Vitoc you'll die so running away is not a good idea. The Matari government had tried unsuccessfully to cure Vitoxin but the Amarr had made it so it was constantly mutating and hence incurable.

Then Ishukone found the cure. Otro Gariushi's plan was to give it to the Minmatar who, in secret, had been syphoning funds from the Gallente aid packages to build a hidden super capital fleet ready to stomp into Amarr space and reduce their slaved brothers and sisters. The Broker believed that Insorium would also cure him.

The Broker needed the formula for Insorium desperately. Otro Gariushi wouldn't give it to him. Therefore the Broker started his plan. When Tibus Heth, a low-level Caldari worker, captured a Caldari Constructions factory as a symbolic gesture to the plight of the working masses the Broker stepped in. Through his huge wealth and using his information stockpile to blackmail the executive board, the Broker installed Heth as CEO of the mega corp. With the Broker carefully manipulating the politics, the Caldari State was soon under Heth's control. War with the Gallente was looming as Heth had a massive hard-on for them and the Broker was stoking that.

The Gallente dispatched a peace envoy to Ishukone to try and calm things down. The respected Admiral Noir in his Nyx supercarrier was head of the delegation. Only it wasn't Noir, the Broker had already killed him and taken his place using a clone. During the cocktail reception The Broker called Otro Gariushi and demanded access to the Insorium formula. Otro Gariushi told him to jog on. So the Broker, in the guise of Admiral Noir rammed the Ishukone HQ station with the Nyx-class super-carrier killing Otro Gariushi and tens of thousands of innocents. Obviously this kicked off war between the State and Federation.

Despite the death of Otro Gariushi , the Matari got their Insorum and launched a full-scale invasion of the Amarr. They used the Insorium to free the billions of slaves. At the same time, the Gallente border defenses and sensor net had been sabotaged by The Broker. The Caldari launched their own invasion of the Federation getting a Titan into Luminaire and in orbit above Caldari Prime.

During this time CONCORD had been knocked offline thanks to the Matari spanking their main station with a dreadnought fleet thus taking down their command and control network. So they couldn't do anything.

Jamyl II then turns up from nowhere with a Isogen-5 powered Terran superweapon and halts the Matari invasion with a big bang.

CONCORD finally juices their station using a reactor from a dreadnought and orders all Empires to stop. Just stop! Play nice! The Matari invasion pulls back, the Caldari leave the titan above Caldari Prime and everything stops getting 'shooty' in high-sec as CONCORD regains control.

So whilst the main advances into each others territory are stopped, low-sec becomes the battleground for the next.... well, come into low-sec and see. Its still going strong!