DISCLAIMER: I will go into what we actually see in this trailer. I’ll try to keep speculations to a minimum. And I probably have missed something – I’d appreciate it if you would let me know what in the comments.
But first, watch the trailer yourself. Preferably in full screen and with headphones on. Sound and visuals are just amazingly well done.
Description
EVE Online’s Quadrant 2 is called Eclipse and its arrival is imminent! Kicking off on 6 April, the overall theme will revolve around shifting the balance of power in New Eden. There will be events, celebrations, login campaigns, visual updates, huge balance changes, new and mysterious ships and weapons, as well as the final chapter of the Invasion expansion.
- shifting the balance of power
I for one, welcome our new Triglavian Overlords. Or may I? This could mean a LOT. - events
Okay. Hopefully, it’s not about blowing up your alt’s Venture again. - visual updates
As long as it does not include more dots, I’ll probably like that. 🔴 - huge balance changes
Good. very good. But I don’t dare to hope. - new ships & weapons
Let’s hope they are somewhat balanced… Oh man, did I really just type that? 😬
I want to add that one should not confuse lack of counter-strategies with imbalance. Likely new stuff will just be abused until someone finds out how to counter it. Maybe a great time for all the nullsec empires theory crafters is approaching. - final chapter of invasions
More PvE? Probably. Effect on PvP? Maybe.
Interesting Scenes
I’ll not go into the voice over too much. It sounds to me just like a very nicely written foreshadowing of something big coming along and shaking up things – hopefully.
Instead, let’s go over what we see:
In the first 30 seconds, we see a figure that seems to match “Zorya Triglav” as seen in previous Triglavian-related videos walking through the scenery with geological structures that we know from abyssal pockets. Conclusion: This place might be somewhere in the abyss.
The figure reaches a ridge, overseeing a city. The architectures remind a bit of the round shapes seen on Amarrian space stations. The weather effects looks very similar to dark abyssal sites.
The next scene shows a battle between an Amarrian and Triglavian fleet – and the new Avatar model making BZZZZZZ!
The Avatar pilot pressed F1. Probably on one of the Triglavian Dreadnoughts. If he can make one explode, he’s probably ISK-neutral already.
🚨 NEW SHIP ALERT! 🚨 EVERYONE ON DECK! 🚨 NEW SHIP ALERT! 🚨
What we get to see next is a new Upwell vessel (see Upwell-logo on the wing above the two stripes). The next camera move will show it’s not alone and also accompanied by a mixed force of Gallente and Caldari ships – which is unusual considering their state of conflict in Faction War.
Another angle on the new ship. It looks a bit like a Blackbird and a Caracal forgot to use a rubber. But if you compare it’s size to the Dominix Battleship in the back, it could have the size of a Cruiser or Battlecruiser. In any way, you can also see it’s charging something between its two antennas at the top. This might indicate the new type of weapon has a spool up time.
A cut and the new Upwell vessel is drizzling it’s charged something onto a Triglavian ship – at least if we can go by the color of the engine trails, chances are high those are actually Triglavians.
Aaaaaand it bounces! Just like a Keepstar Doomsday would bounce between the highest mass targets? Can it decide between friend and foe? Can it shoot other things than Triglavians? Do you need to have all the targets locked before firing? We don’t know, but we know it bounces.
New scene: A CONCORD Enforcer (judged by the colors it’s not a Monitor) approaching a Fortizar with mixed Gallente and Minmatar forces undocked before it. Might be an armor fleet.
If the next shot shows the Fortizar undock, I want to change my assumption of type of tank and say it’s probably more of a kitchen sink. The ping probably went out a minute ago saying something like “team login friendly Avatar tackled!!!11 Fleet under me. Bring DPS”
Someone also brought his Raven. Nice, mixed tanks. The Triglavians will have fun fighting that. Is that nebula in Tenerifis?
I hope that kitchen sink isn’t supposed to represent us capsuleers coming to the rescue of the empires with no doctrine at all? 😆 Well, maybe as one of the few things you can make people distinguish between the four empires and capsuleers in a trailer are mixed fleets.
The next scene looks a lot like a new structure. As if an Athanor (it’s also anchored at a moon), a Minikawa and an Astrahus got put into a shaker and a professional bartender shook them very hard until something new came out.
What is that blue light?
Why are you moving the camera so slowly over to that spot? Why don’t you show everything here? What is this supposed to foreshadow? We don’t know.
But it glows blueish.
Next cut: Triglavians giving some Gallente ships a hard time and blowing up an Erebus. The only empires capitals that I could not spot getting dumpstered by the Triangles where Minmatar ones. Maybe they just warped out fast enough… Hyper Rags and Hels are still a thing, right?
In the second last scene, we see a Triglavian World Ark approaching a blue star. And it looks like they do some crazy science to it. Like, changing the RGB-sliders and going a bit too hard for the gamma value. Oof!
They also wrote some stuff on the wall which Uriel Anteovnuecci was so kind to translate for us. (They say he speaks fluent Triglavian, I believe that.)
Anyway. The formerly blue star turns to shine purple-ish now. Aaaand it seems also to have an effect on the gate. Which seems by the way only logical as the gates connect systems with binary (only one) star via a kind of mini-wormholes according to the lore. Feel free to correct me if I got that wrong btw.
The gate in question is a border-gate from Minmater space into Gallente high-security space. Soooo chances are higher that this has happened in lowsec or somewhere in highsec than in null. Is there a gate from null directly to a Gallente 0.5 system? I don’t know, but you can look up the borders of the empires yourself on various maps if you want. I’ll not speculate further on the exact location of this gate. I don’t care enough.
Much more important than the location of the gate might be the fact that it does not seem to be shut off completely before the screen goes fully black. There is still a bit of energy to be seen. Is the gate offline or does it lead somewhere else now? Or may small ships still be able to go through? And is it reversible? 🤷♂️
Summary
- The narrator does some nice foreshadowing & video description speaks of “changing the balance of power”.
- A city that appears to be inside abyssal space
- Amarrain Fleet is clashing with a Triglavian one
- A new Upwell-Vessel – assumingly cruiser or battlecruiser sized – alongside Caldari and Galltente ships shooting with a new type of weapon at Triglavians
- We see a Fortizar from which a “Kitchen Sink” flavored fleet undocks
- A new type of structure that can produce a fancy “blue glow”
- Triglavians beating up some by space democracy elected space ships
- World Ark changing the RGB-sliders on a blue star towards purple
- Minmatar/Gallente border gate to highsec goes offline afterward???
Finally the word itself: Eclipse.
an obscuring of the light from one celestial body by the passage of another between it and the observer or between it and its source of illumination.“an eclipse of the sun”
Now, a Triglavian World Ark is big. Roughly the size of a Keepstar. But it’s not that big that you would call it a celestial body. An eclipse also does not really change the sun it just changes how the observer sees the sun – or doesn’t. In any way: It’s a change of an otherwise rather constant thing.
And that’s it. I have nothing more. Now your turn: What did I miss?
the greybill 
Also, new Avatar model, the same one they gave everybody to try out at the mass test.
LikeLike
Uh, did I forgot to mention that? Whoops.
LikeLike
[…] The Graybill – EVE Online Eclipse Trailer Analysis […]
LikeLike