Just what in Bob's name is going on with the Drifters? Their largest-ever offensive has seen assaults in Lowsec and Highsec alike, and pilots are rallying to defend core systems. We're making this reward a general one - for posting anything useful, enlightening, and/or share worthy on the Drifter Crisis event. That includes:
Tactics and strategies for the event sites
Screenshots and videos from the event
Places to theorise, meet, and find fellow pilots to run the site with
Good ship fits for the event sites, along with explanations of why they're useful
Theory-crafting and narrative summaries based on the clues discovered so far - what is it that the Drifters are after?
Short text submissions can win one of our $3 prizes, but video and multiple-image submissions (as well as longer, impressive text submissions) can each win up to $12.
Update, 03.03: Seeing as the Drifter Crisis is ongoing, we're extending this reward. Keep speculating, pilots.
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This reward closed to entries at 2:52pm on April 3, 2025 but you can still reply, react, and join the conversation below! If you’d like to enter other rewards which are still open, click here.
Since a few weeks, the Drifters are attacking systems in low and high security space owned by any of the four Empires. After their increased activity in the systems around Zarzakh and their conflict with the Deathless, they are now attacking Capsuleers all around the cluster. To understand their motives, we are going to take a look into their origins and see who they are and where they actually came from.
Artwork from the Tiamat expansion notes: Apollo and Artemis Tyrannos
In early 2015, the Proteus expansion added the first sleeper sites. A few months later, Tiamat brought the new NPCs into the game and the first Drifters appeared. But enough of the developer's point of view, let's dive into the lore.
In YC117 giant structures seemed to appear out of nowhere and it turned out these Jove Observatories were investigated or maybe guarded by a new race. The strange Circadian Seeker Drones were collecting information all around the cluster and downloaded the data into the uncloaked structures. Soon, it became clear that there is a connection between the old Jove and the newly appeared Drifters. Not long after this, unusual stable wormholes appeared in the systems occupied by the Observatories. At first, Capsuleers were unable to enter the space anomalies, but after a while they managed to scout the new connections and found five new WH systems with a very high number of connections and roaming forces.
Enaluri, Black Rise: a partially destroyed Jove Observatory
The situation became tense as the Empires and Capsuleers started to investigate the issue, often with force. New intelligence on the ship designs was gathered, but it escalated when the Drifters attacked the head of the Amarr Empire. When Empress Jamyl Sarum visited the Safizon system to witness the instatement of the new flagship, a large force of Drifter Battleships emerged and destroyed the Avatar-Class TES Seraph.
Breaking news: the Scope reporting on the death of Jamyl I
After a while, things calmed down again and the Drifters became a part of New Eden's dangers. The details of their ship's construction remained unknown, but Capsuleers were able to identify 15 main pilots flying the Vigilant TyrannosDrifter corporation's battleships. These battleships are incredibly fast for their size and many have a strong doomsday weapon, not unlike the Titans. They rely on heavy shields, but several of them also feature a blue glowing "overshield" that adds a fourth layer of protection. The Drifter Cruisers are lighter vessels but at least some of them have a weaker overshield and doomsday weapon as well.
Finally there are the Autothysian Lancers. The automated drones seem to be collecting data by roaming the systems that have Observatories in them and scanning everything they can find. They also look for capsuleer corpses which they seem to use in order to reclone the Drifter pilots. They are generally not hostile and only defend themselves when being aggressed. For a long time, they attacked Capsuleer ships that had corpses in them, but they recently stopped.
Drifterdrone collecting a corpse as seen in the Emergent Threats Trailer
Then, in YC120, large fleets of damaged Drifter Battleships began to appear all over the cluster. It turned out another new faction had found its way to New Eden and the Drifters and the Triglavians were fighting heavy battles in remote subspace pockets. Since those times, Drifters can also be found in the deadly abyssal rifts. After the creation of Pochven by the Triglavian Collective, the Drifters also roamed that region, fighting intensely against both Triglavian and Edencom forces.
Damaged Drifter Battleship during the dawn of the Triglavian invasion.
After several years of relative peace, the Drifters reappeared when they attacked the Zarzakh gates opened by the Deathless in YC125. Capsuleers fought the emerging threat and managed to repel their forces, for a while. Very recently in he beginning of YC127, a new attack on civilian targets brought the Empires and Capsuleers together in another war. The Deathless and the Drifters seem to struggle for control over listening facilities, but their motives remain unknown.
Small Capsuleer fleets take on the challenge of battling the intruders. Forming groups of usually five T1 Cruisers, they attack different parts of the freshly build infrastructure and many significant victories were achieved so far. Only three days ago, the first Vigilant Dreamer was destroyed by a valiant group of Capsuleers.
Explosion of the structure. Logfiles of Capsuleer Walter Islands
The crisis is still a very important matter, even after this success. There is no sign of a serious retreat any time soon. Quite the opposite, the Dreamer Structures have ben reinforced and are meant to remain in place until their task is accomplished or they are destroyed in battle. The Empires and Capsuleers fight bravely, but the Federation struggles and the Amarr Empire records increased communication traffic in their space.
Only the Drifters know what they are planning, but since their first appearance ten years ago, no communication was ever possible. Capsuleers and Empires alike are fighting for their space , their personal glory and their wealth in this new war. The coming weeks and moths are going to be a very interesting time for New Eden and some things might change forever. All of us are a part of this journey, another treat in the fabric of EVE.
I decided to organise a quick recap of my knowledge of the Drifterlore as I think this is a very interesting aspect of the game and this event. Most of the pictures come from the official Eve Online YT channel. The final explosion was featured in a recent Eve Universe post, and the Jove Observatory is actually a landmark in my homesystem.
This information is what I was able to gather from multiple sources. There is far more to read up on, so I hope I could spark your interest in this fascinating Faction.
Just a screenshot of the Drifter WH in my home system. I did not find a good spot in the text for it, but I had to verify with social media so here we go.
First, as I mentioned in other posts, pilots have intercepted visions, mysterious, decrypted messages from Deepflow Rifts. So far, all 12 Spectral Vision Captures have been found, and most have been identified and reconstructed into six images.
Speculation is running wild about their meaning. Some believe these images hint at Drifters planning a large-scale attack on key empire systems, possibly planets or major hubs like Pator and Jita.
Here are all six reconstructed images:
Jita
Amarr
Pator
Dodixie
Gallentian gate to Amarr space
AIR station
But what really caught my attention are the small pictograms and symbols hidden in these messages
One image reminds me of a massive, unknown structure found in a wormhole - its origin and purpose still a mystery.
Interestingly, the current event sites contain needle-like debris, which looks like shattered remnants of that structure.
And speaking of needles, this structure bears a striking resemblance to the needle-like gate discovered 10 years ago.
Could it be that all 3 are connected and are part of the pictograms?
The Bigger Picture?
I believe these visions reveal a phased plan: 1). A Drifter assault on five key systems. 2). The reconstruction of a Nexus Gate to summon something big—possibly their home base? 3). Could the Drifters even become a new playable race with a foothold in New Eden?
For now, all we can do is watch, speculate, and prepare, only time will tell!
Fishing video guide for Eve online! A fantastic activity for new pilots.
A Word of warning: the reinforcement NPCs are very mean sleepers, you need a T3/HAC grade ship with VERY high neut resistance to kill them. Rewards are ~500k worth of salvage and about 700k in bounties.
