I take full responsibility of everything that happened to and for the Congress under my leadership.
Still I think it's important for me to point out some of the falsehoods being levied against us.
First let me start with the person asking to not be a part of this discussion after speaking out.
(07-26-2015, 04:04 AM)Sarawr!? Wrote: The difference here is literally night and day, considering free speech is a protected right in Liberty, while bringing guns and/or giant armed robots into a GOVERNMENT COURTROOM, would be a crime pretty much anywhere. Even despite that course of action, LibGov was still willing to continue that RP in order to try and see things through to a proper end, but the Junker Congress were the ones to step away and discontinue the RP, for a multitude of reasons.
Where did you get this information because it couldn't be further from the truth.
Now just to be clear we did in fact introduce a robot into the court proceeding. A fact that everyone against us seemed to focus on.
Bringing in the robot from an rp role was to direct the attention of the LIbGov/Court to the fact that LN was moving against us in spite of us pleading our case in court.
No relevance was given as to what was going on outside the courtroom where LN / LSF were attempting to push their way into Puerto Rico.
WE tried multiple times to get them to stop this action and continue the RP in court.
When that didnt work I tried to add an RP element to make everyone aware of what was going on.
Did that matter? No. Only the robot being in court was discussed even tho its appearance was largely irrelevant and wouldn't have happened if the LN had stuck with the trial.
Additionally following all that drama I BEGGED to continue the trial and was told by Garret and Jonas that it was over and retconned.
My pleads to allow us to continue our RP FOR THE TRIAL and not the robot were denied.
Despite several of us having put in our time and energy into the case we were bringing against LN / LSF.
Even with the staged incident that brought us into court in the first place.
Regardless that it was done oorp and from information WE GAVE two individuals over SKYPE in an attempt to start RP with them.
They took that info and within an hour or so began this so called "drug bust".
Still we were willing to do as the admins requested and "RP it out".
Following our opening statement and when it became uncertain who might win the trial.
The LN attempts to enter Puerto Rico started up again bypassing the ongoing Libgov's court trial.
In point of fact it was my suggestion the trial begin in the first place.
Having our RP/work removed that was some what entertaining plus fun for others was very discouraging.
Which lead to some veterans leaving the game/faction forever.
Finally just let me say..
OF course bringing in an armed robot would be illegal anywhere we planned to rp that fact too.
All of the rp being done for the trial was being coordinated with the Libgov's appointed trial judicator and myself.
He was fully aware the robot was going to make an appearance and knew it wouldn't be a threat.
He understood what its PURPOSE was and not the colorul dramatic entrance meant for RP/Entertainment value.
Now to Ortog..
(07-26-2015, 04:29 AM)Ortog Wrote: Congress was a victim of their success, more then anything else. It was guilty of not paying atention to the fact that there was a server out there, there were other factions and other threads to follow.
The over concentration on jump trading while neglecting everything else, the rush for "shinny" toys, the complete disregard of sensible faction goals and pursuit of influence and perks among the underworld, the abandoning of smuggling as main activity, the almost criminal neglect of the furthering of relations with other factions (Congress leadership refused to acknowledge several pleas from members to establish propper faction perks and green cells), the aloofness if not complete ignorance to what was hapening in other houses then Liberty (we used to be allies of GC and had their tech available, we used to be on very good terms with hessians, zoners and mollys) turned Congress into a monstruosity in role play terms. Basicaly all Congress did was waiting for leadership to log and ...jump. That lasted years.
Xeno hunting, smuggling, pursuit of diplomatic efforts with underground factions, diplomatic efforts with factions we should be closer (IMG, TAZ, BD come to mind), propper alliances with emergent friendly factions like AFC, and eficient containement of what was perceived as an arrivist bunch, (take it in role play terms, Marauders should have been defused underworld way), the pursuit of the war effort on Bretonia side, was all ignored and disregarded in favour of base management and jump trading. That is not what junkers lore hints at, junkers are not suposed to be a trade company.
Tinkerbell, Hawk and Tyber didn't steered Congress in this direction. Tinker was a visionary, Hawk was a shady underworld leader, Tyber was a role player and a story teller. JT was a populist, he steered the faction towards what he perceived was the general ambition of the common player, the pursuit of wealth. Therefore he did just did that while going on recruiting sprees, more people meant more scapp, more jumps, more bases. It did not meant better junkers though. He meant well and JT was, if anything, devoted to Congress and our members, he was also impervious to anything else or to other views then his own.
Congress bloated and eventualy imploded due to the shallowness of its goals, Hug might have his heart in the right place but unless he dares to steer the Congress towards its underworld neglected origins, and start assigning people to ranks and roles, the herculean task ahead of him is bound to fail.
The Congress demise had terrible consequences to the server though, as you can notice by the amazing drop in activity. The server powers should have used a diferent aproach, a stick and carrot one, to correct Congress excesses, instead of fueling the flames of hatred. Like it happened to Zoners, Congress, which was also a more or less pacific group,took the isolationist aproach against the wolf siege,we decided to bury our heads in the sand while the server was set to fire by the admins and devs that played lyra while contemplating the flames, oblivious to the fact that erradicating the Congress would bring the server down.
When the zoners were all but mass murdered in the server the population was big enough to be able to take the hit, when the progrom against Congress was unleashed the consequences for the server population should have been evident. As severe as the impending apocalypse in two months time.
I don't think that Congress can be brought back to life, same as we do not se an active large zoner faction or a living dodo either. Regardless of what intentions the present leadership of the Congress might had, they will not be allowed to rebuild, the hyenas will be vigilant and will stop any atempt of recovery. Congress is dead, as the dodo, and the server.
Seems you forgot some very important and rather relevant Congress founders.
Such as Rudo the man that helped save and restructure the Congress when our visionary Tinkerbell left.
Under Tink's leadership the Congress was more criminal than legal and on the verge of being made hostile in Liberty.
Rudo came in and changed Congress policy to be more quasi lawful.
There are plenty more members/factions worth mentioning too like Finnegan, Jeni, Widow, RIP, Aces and Bill to name a few.
You mention we needed stronger relations with groups like TAZ and IMG.
Strange considering we had ongoing contracts/relations with IMG and were considered allies with TAZ.
We did attempt to start some coordination with AFC as well.
Which included our jump trading operations.
During those jump events we provided both factions with ores and other materials.
AT NO TIME was my intention to only provide profit to those participating.
We did jumps because it wasn't the same thing we had done for YEARS now playing this game.
WE did jumps because it allowed several people all working towards the same goal to interact and group.
We did jumps because it provided activity for the faction, indys and other factions we would work for.
We did jumps because it was fun and different.
The jumping system could've been reworked, tweaked or changed in ways to still allow us to coordinate events.
Instead of making it worthless and pointless despite how much activity it would generate.
The numbers proved month after month that there was value in these events.
While many may believe all we did was jump there was quite a bit of work going into our jumping operations.
We as a group built pob's without jumpdrives, acquired a capital ship capable of mounting the drive, before fully integrating the jumping events.
Our events would have at times more than a dozen people in the group participating and not all Congress.
Many times someone new to disco would join our jumps and be inspired by what they saw.
Since it was new and different people were interested in joining.
Our Rp was denied, disregarded and deleted on more than one occassion.
In the end our barges were taken from us 5 in total and jump trading was removed.
This is what lead to many members not wanting to play as Congress or disco anymore.
No hard feelings.. truly because I had many wonderful years playing this game.
This place provided a much needed distraction to RL and gave me loads of entertainment.
Leading the Congress was my greatest honor and I thank all of those that made it possible.
I have fond memories of all my years dedicated to disco and differing opinions aside enjoyed the majority of the interactions I had here.
Thank you all for the memories!!