I don't see why an event has to have a flexible outcome to be fun, though I understand the frustration from the Ottawa literally dying first thing from jumping blind through the gate.
Anyway, I had a good time, personally. It was a fun fleet battle, and that's about what I was expecting.
No matter how simple, this event turned out to be too complicated. No one, not even faction leaders, were warned about the plot. We had battle-of-titans event before, but we all knew what to do. We know from Hollywood movies that bombers (and their cover) would be sent to burn the platforms before mothership shows her nose even close. Beats me why couldn't we do the same here.
I like to think at least one (or more) GM couldn't show up and unluckily it could be the one that job was to guide us through event step by step. If this was the case, I humbly ask to repeat this event in a proper and organised way.
Ok, it fits. We all know (by universal common knowledge we were born with) that Battleship.Ottawa had fully operational cloak disruptors, but cloak disruptors operator was disrupted by his wife and had to stay in his cabin. We hope he reached his wife's escape pod together with her, after their ship was trapped and unfortunately dismantled.
I really don't know what to think. Hammering Liberty forces down this hard only to show that Lib has no plot armor is one thing. But using cheap Deus Ex machina while doing it is not something i expected from this staff. I know the goal is to close down the gallic war as soon as possible. I know that hammering Bretonia is no good since they've been at the wrong side of the barrel for some time. But seriously... you don't need to be an Erwin Rommel or a George S. Patton to figure out you don't send your main force into the gutter without a scouting party that can alert your main force about potential hostiles. I'm really intrested in an in universe explanation a believable one how and why did this happen. Unfortunatly i could not attend this event. But in light of what happened. Maybe it was for the best as it seems that 90% of the time Liberty is only loosing a fleet due to cheap, sloppy and lazy writing.