Eulogy for The Yulai Federation (EVE History)

Who are Yulai Federation and why are they still intact - an EVE corp history told by supersuperbad

(https://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/3ibs2r/who_is_yulai_federation_and_why_ are_they_still/)” - /u/supersuperbad, Aug 25, 2015

My first home in nullsec was with the corp Yulai Guard, under the alliance Yulai Federation. With YF I fought for the JEIV-E pocket and northern provi for 3 years, until earlier this year when the decision was made by alliance leadership to leave our home and join legacy. I, and many others, left YF to stay in Provi, and I consider that the moment my alliance died. I waited to write something about it until now out of respect for my friends who wanted to try and revive the alliance, but now that all actual corps have left and it appears to be shuttered I feel like I should write a little something.

Whatever YF propaganda I could find on my computer: https://imgur.com/a/uuzqGQm

I thought about writing this as a grand multipart story of the rise and fall of an alliance, but most of those stories will only ever mean something to those of us who were there, so I’ll just say that YF in its glory days was special in Eve. It felt more like a family than any other alliance I’ve ever seen. Sure there was inter-corp bickering, people being idiots, yah know the usual, but it would all stop the second there was an outside threat. Everyone in the alliance cared more about defending their home and friends than about their own isk making, and despite none of us being good (the day our home trade hub ran out of sebos the alliance almost imploded in a panic) we were able to fight like few others.

Our greatest moment was during the Goon invasion in 2015. Our pocket stood (and that damn jump bridge never burned), despite us being outnumbered 2 or 3:1, outgunned, and thoroughly outfinanced. Our spirit carried us more than any skill or doctrine. (Although our Italian corp OSSIM being the best bombing crew in Eve didn’t hurt).

Other than militarily we achieved a lot as well. Each of our systems was held by a different corp, who took ownership and gave each system a distinct personality and feel. This also made sure our pocket was heavily developed and populated. Flying through our systems felt like flying through a busy town with various neighborhoods and it was awesome. For a bit our staging system of XHQ-7V broke into the top 10 best trade hubs in the entire game thanks to our industrialists and haulers.

The biggest thing about old YF was the spirit the alliance had. We were NRDS zealots to the core. YF was an alliance founded around the idea of protecting others and ensuring justice. NRDS wasn’t just a doctrine we followed, it was something we believed in fighting for. Our motto was “Service guarantees citizenship”, and everyone was expected to fight no matter whether they were a miner, indy guy, ratter, or anything else. We even had a guy multibox his fleet of 12 battleprocs a couple times.

As YF grew (at one point breaking 2k members) and took in more people it lost some of its character, and after 2 years of constant siege the cracks had grown into divides. Old guard corps left and were replaced by new ones a couple times over, and when Provi fell in early 2018 YF leadership was given an option out by joining Legacy. I told them that giving up NRDS would kill the alliance faster than it was already dying, but the decision was made anyway. I’m sorry Rounon and Arttu, but I have to give a bittersweet “I told you so” at this point.

I have so many memories of YF, from epic fights to just sitting on the KBP gate in XHQ with a triple sebo thrasher shooting the shit on alliance comms. I joined as a 9mil SP newbie and left a 70mil SP vet. I will miss YF, and maybe one day someone will take up the mantle and revive it (Yulai Guard still has 50 AFK members who haven’t logged in in years), but for now I am happy still flying with many of the friends i made in that time, if under a slightly different banner.

o7 and Fly Dangerous

-Streetlamp Gannon, Ex-Commander of the Yulai Guard

Here are some videos:

 The ad that got me to join, still one of my favorite Eve propaganda pieces of all time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g4h0fLCjnI

Our hotdrop fleets were famous throughout the region (Space Jam when?) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSZocqWnzm4

Us killing AFAIK the first Sansha Supercarrier Rat the day after they came out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98qHOU5Xiuc

A fight against Tri over one of our forts (and my first time flying a cap in a real fight) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoR5cY-U9pY

That time we spent 3 hours killing an offline pos in a WH because it was there. Some corps gave medals for participation in the battle of the rusty stick. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVCQlrSBEAU

 In which chessur and friends thoroughly humiliate us. I said we had spirit, not that we were good. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WciZBu7U7io

We had a fleet at the assassination of Empress Jamyl I (in Rounan Dax’s favorite Zealot doctrine). We almost had a warp in on the drifters before they fired if republicov’s client hadn’t lagged out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVoA_mLbwqo


Original article on reddit (republished with permission): https://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/9k0tpu/eulogy_for_the_yulai_federation/