I wanted to say it’s true, but then I started thinking about it. In the real world it’s a bit true as part of a more complicated constellation, in which the evolving differentiation of labour and somewhat parallel evolving of needs and wants is the strongest force of forming larger and larger groups. But yes, in face of a real and concrete threat, people will do everything in their power to save themselves and that often includes involving as many allies as possible if need be and can be. However, there are threats in which pretty much every other human would be an ally, but there we see egoism and competition in the way of budding up.
In the real world you can see this rather complicated relation of several moving parts in politics. Larger forms of organizations, such as entire nations, tend to have bitter inner fights about how to define themselves. That includes any definition of who the enemy is or might be, what the common goal even is and so forth.
In EVE, I also wanted to say it’s true, but again it’s only part of the equation. As Larrikin suggests, one common reaction of people to facing a self-declared opponent who is going to stomp on them, is to leave the game. On the other hand, you’re certainly right that some people and some groups join ever larger groups, alliances, coalitions, blocs either after or before they are stomped on. It’s partly for economical reasons as well, but not equally strong a motivator as in real life.
It’s also part of what makes EVE fun - the escalation - and I wouldn’t want to get rid of that. For the long or the mid-long game that’s all fine. What bothers me is that it’s also always the strongest option for short-time play.
I mean what you are describing is people not wanting to lose everything. Other games, virtual or physical or both, also usually have one side losing a round. And while always losing is not fun, people develop a high motivation to go through all these losses, before their first victory. Many people do the same in EVE, be it as an active participant in PVP or learning to avoid being the victim. So it’s not losing itself, that brings people to join blocs, but the type of continous losing that we call being farmed (and possibly mocked).
However, does it really need to be either the one or the other? Principally not. The stronger your base and your trust in having that safety line of a stable home, the more eager some people are to have fights in which they don’t blob. Issue number one with that is, that it always depends on what the other is doing. Aside from nano-gangs, it’s not very reasonable to go non-blob against an opponent who is likely to escalate.
For me, the largest reason for this is how exactly cynos work. Just as a thought: if ships that have turrets, launchers or drones fitted, would have to wait out a 20-30 second timer before they can jump to a cyno beacon created by a on-board generator, it could greatly enlargen the willingness of people to go into non-blobby fights and may just generally increase the willingness of people to PVP.
