Oh provi never change

Lately I've been jumping into an unhealthy number of public fleets, often Spectre but also RvB Ganked, Aussie roams like MATE, Redemption Road, and more recently the Tuskers. I am a pubfleet whore in addition to being an unrepentant killmail whore. A few days ago I was near Amarr and decided to x up for a Spectre gnosis fleet led by Apex Aubaris. Having never actually flown a gnosis, I was intrigued. I'd only killed one before, and it was a fail exploration setup (also a provi pilot lol). Who explores in a battlecruiser? In that pilot's defense, the Gnosis does align almost like a cruiser. The fleet was headed to Providence as usual, where my crew had attempted to make friends recently, but had since abandoned that idea in favor of the elusive gudfight.

The proper way to fly with an MJD

The Spectre gnoses were the brainchild of Apex and fitted with the brand new medium microjump drives, which work identically to large MJDs. When the shit hits the fan, you asplode anyone scramming you, then spool up the MJD and moonwalk away from bubbles and warp disruptors. We had 25 of those and no logi, so we could apply super dps, moonwalk individual pilots out when they got redboxed, and not have to worry about our logis getting primaried. Well, that's the idea. If you're terribad, you still die.

As one of the few HAM pilots, and also having little self-preservation instinct, I volunteered to be one of two bait gnoses to entice enemies to aggress me in front of our main fleet. I jumped into Y-M and straight into a small gatecamp. Sure enough the campers took the bait, and a coercer, caracal, and gila were quickly toasted. Interesting drone sniper fit on the gila.

What my gnosis looked like after
the first fight

The rest of the camp scattered and we started moving through provi, with me at 59% armor and no reps cuz yolo. We didn't see much on our little safari until a half hour later when a +1 inty reported a cyno on a station, being lit by a vexor. "What the hell," the FC said. "Bait, go in and rattle the hornet's nest." As soon as the other bait and I jumped in, the scout reported a new ship on the undock - a Thanatos. "GO GO GO," the FC shouted. I landed and scrammed the thanny and plugged my magic missiles into the vexor. Because there were only two of us gnoses (and two inties with loldps), plus provi intel channel fail, the thanny inexplicably decided to put his CAPITAL SHIP on the line to get aggress by repping a CRUISER. Then the rest of the fleet came in and they were totally fucked. The vexor went down first of course, followed by his pod (wtf vexor fit btw - you'll drop isk on faction tank and drones, but no rigs?). A heroically misguided Thorax undocked to gallantly defend his bros and was callously rewarded with an asplosion and pod express.

This is approximately how
the FC responded

With the potatoes out of the way, we could focus on the meat. Apex called the thanny primary and the lazarz and guns and missiles piled on. The shields evaporated and we expected a mega tank to kick in and make us wait while the thanny dropped aggress and docked. What really happened is that the armor started dropping nearly as quickly as the shields. Shocked FC started shouting "OVERHEAT BATCHEZ!!" and the carrier went down, scarcely a minute after his friends. All quite puzzled, we started inspecting the wreck and absentmindedly volleyed a naked vexor that undocked (yep, that's the cyno pilot - his intentions with the second vexor are unclear). Not only did the thanny have no tank, it was carrying a full complement of drones, not to mention its exploration setup in the fleet hangars. 2.5b gone, to save a Vexor.

Giddy after our cap dunk, we started looking for trouble again and soon caught a TEST legion derping around at a gate. We can only speculate on his activities because of that fit (he was solo, with zero points). Now in HERO space, we began to attract attention from nearby gangs, including a decent Ishtar fleet with logi. We decided to remove ourselves from the area before we welped our slow BCs. We lost a few of them on the way out but managed to pick up some stragglers, including a navy vexor and one of the Ishtars. Our final kill in null was a n00by lil slasher, and we felt so bad after melting a 3-day old pilot that we sent him like 30m.

It was there that I dropped fleet to move towards another fleet, which in retrospect was a foolishly impatient move. The bulk of the fleet stayed together to make it back to Amarr safely, and along the way they somehow caught a wonderful redeemer kill. So jelly.

Keep up the good work Spectrebros; +1 would fleet again. Also much love to Sherpard2 for bringing reps and being a lifesaving field medic.