Saturday, December 14, saw the first major blow struck against InfinitiCorp by independent pilots. A group of pilots, sponsored by The Boycott to End the Trade in Psis and The Company, entered and interdicted the system of 61 Cygni.

The primary goal of this series of interdictions was awareness of the plight of the slave race known as the Psis, for whom their primary residence is the barren planet of Aganju. Two secondary goals were the elimination of InfinitiCorp enforcer ships, the so-called Bruisers and Paladins, and the disabling of Merchant Ships carrying ore from Aganju.
A final goal was an interdiction of the gate from Tau Ceti to 61 Cygni, with pilots entering the system being asked their cargo and intent.

All involved felt the interdiction went well. Two sessions of interdiction went forward, one occurring at 6AM Pacific and the other at 6PM.
The character of these Interdictions were quite different, as follows:

Knowing the lower number of pilots in their ships at the earlier time, the organizer for this event, Boycott founder Riis Tannis, hired a mercenary group to fly cover for the 6AM Interdiction. While 4 members of The Company (Riis, Ampere, Rydell and Perterabo) interdicted the gate, asking cargo and intent, the guild known as The Order of the Lamp took on IC suppression duties. Their report on their invoice for payment stated "more than 40 Bruisers and Paladins, and several dozen merchant vessels" having been destroyed. No miners or nommos were harmed. Riis himself took out several Paladins and camped near Xai Xai station, peering in the windows and taking pictures and sensor probes for the researchers who are studying the Psi situation.

In all over 30 pilots supported the Interdiction at 61 Cygni on the Inverness side gate. Several slave traders entered the system at the time of this interdiction and were added to the list of opponents of the boycott. This interdiction ended after 1 hour and 45 minutes.

The 6PM interdiction was known to be a trickier situation. More pilots were present, and the pilots who frequent this time period were known to be more volatile than the morning groups. The situation quickly became fluid and chaotic. When asked about his experience Riis stated, "I had a private channel, 3 public channel, 1 local channel, 1 broadcast channel and several tells going out and in at any given time. The mechanic at Kinshasa-Mbali had to replace my comm unit, and I had just upgraded it the previous night!"

Over 150 pilots, for or against, participated in the 6PM interdiction. IC ships put up a much better fight, but the stalwart boycott supporters continued their mission. Reports are still coming in, but the belief is that 20 Paladins and 30 Bruisers were eliminated, and 40 merchant ships were disabled.

One of the pilots on the scene, Elfman, stated that the interdictors were careful to lower the loss of life in their mission.

"Tell them we are disabling the ships only, and taking their crews hostage until the end."

As an added benefit to the interdiction, pilots entering the 61 Cygni system for missions sent messages of gratitude to various pilots who assisted them while they were on boycott business. One pilot, who was working to find and capture Roland Holmes (the notorious "Robin Hood of our times"), sent a tell stating the assistance he received from interdict members was "the one nice thing anyone had done for me so far." This interdiction ended after 2 hours.

A small group of supporters for "free" trade and slavery were on hand to provide their view that no pilots should be allowed to question another as to their cargo. They kept their activities to catcalls and insults over the Local channel, with the notable exception of Sleepwalker, who avowed to use reason to explain away the slavery situation. His efforts to defuse tempers was appreciated by moderates on both sides of the issue.

In all, almost everyone responded favorably to the interdiction. A few persons threatened action by moderators for being questioned over tell as to their cargo, but all realized the reasonable nature of the activity and withdrew their complaints.