Re: The Elder Council [CIS, SJC, TSE Alliance]

I found this opportunity a very good idea. I was looking forward to see it on the board, in the threads as well. I am very sorry that it could not actually come into being and also this was the end of it.

What Ingrid L'lerim said - a reluctant alliance punctuated by a few skirmishes on the down-low and the CIS just trying to keep the Jedi and Sith from stabbing each other had the potential to be a great time.

Not to mention the inevitably conflicting opinions on how to deal with captured Bryn worlds if the alliance ICly fulfilled its goals; Jedi being all conflicted when the Sith start sending entire populations of "subsentient beasts" to a farm upstate, anyone?

Agree with what everyone else has said so far, I was absolutely down for this idea and so were many of my fellow writers. Miscommunication (or, in some cases, rumors and gossip presented as fact) played a significant role in what happened, at least as far as I could see. I realize it's difficult to keep track of everything that's going on across different factions with many writers involved, but deliberately trying to aggravate the situation OOC by lying or distorting the truth and then using supposed IC drama as an excuse didn't help matters. As stated above, we now know that there really was no IC drama to begin with, but some of y'all took things way too far, way too fast.

I won't pretend to know anything about it because I wasn't involved, but I think people were more so confused that if the alliance were strictly a pact to engage the Bryn on a unified front, why was its first introduction as an idea brought to us in announcement that SJC would assist TSE in protecting them from NIO while GA assisted? Or from GA directly?

Yes, I know you'd ideally want to protect your allies, but that gets funky real fast when GA is also your ally.... and no Bryn are involved at all.

Had this unlikely alliance started with an actual Bryn Invasion, I imagine you would have received better support.

But like I said, I don't know any specifics, just the large confusing generality. So some clarity to the situation would be educational.

Fatty

SJC never officially supported either side in the NIO invasion of Dantooine, it was up to each member whether they wanted to sign up as ally. A few of us did, with the intention of preventing unnecessary loss of lives on both sides.

I can only speak for myself but ICly it made sense that we would want to help defend our ally when we're counting on their assistance in defeating our common enemy. We'd gain nothing by standing by and watch them get weakened when we need them at their full strength to fight the Bryn. At this point, any blood spilt that isn't Bryn blood is a complete waste of time and resources.

The outcome was regrettable but in my opinion NIO should have known better than to kick the hornet's nest when they knew TSE was allying with SJC and CIS.

It was a frustrating situation. I hope you kept track of the bad actors who caused it and remembered the good people who've supported you all the way through. You're a talented writer and you deserve better. We all do.

I thought as well that this was a unique idea, and speaking as someone who has played a lot longer than 2013(shut up Jay ) on sites all over the internet I've only seen the premise one other time. I even tried to portray that IC wise(not fishing for compliments but the big guy was the only one defending the decision and then flipped when Coren Starchaser folded).

That being said there are two things not necessarily being taken into account:
1. Lines blur: to some, not necessarily to all, it looked like this was taken as a personal affront to them and not a plot twist. I have not been on this site long enough to have a leg to stand on, but I saw more hurt and disappointment than negativity.
2. If you want to welcome players input, let them speak- Faction leadership is in place for a reason, and this was meant to be a big event, do players not deserve at least consideration? Again, I agree with what you posted here, but this was a controversial subject and just sort of dropped on people(at least that is how it looked to be perceived) perhaps if they were allowed and encouraged to plan their own journey(like in Dominions) the result would have been different.

This was a failed idea, yes, but it's not a dead one. In fact this may be the catalyst for something even better and on a grander scale if played out right.

"2. If you want to welcome players input, let them speak- Faction leadership is in place for a reason, and this was meant to be a big event, do players not deserve at least consideration? Again, I agree with what you posted here, but this was a controversial subject and just sort of dropped on people(at least that is how it looked to be perceived) perhaps if they were allowed and encouraged to plan their own journey(like in Dominions) the result would have been different."

Caltin Vanagor has absolutely nailed it.

What happened is a lack of communication from ANY side. The first any Chaos writer knew about this was an out of the blue thread and a message in a DM that made it look like they were all forming a super alliance. What happened after that is that writers reacted how their characters would.

Obviously the OOC problems also can be attributed to a lack of communication.

When writers reached out to the admin teams, SJC especially, all we got back was a "we can't talk about it yet". If you can't tell us the cool story, why should we trust it to make sense and not ruin character arcs? All you're telling us is that it won't. We were all told we would still dislike TSE and then all of a sudden the admin team is signing up for ally slots with them?

It was confusing, felt like everyone was going back on their word and needed a lot more communication.

Big changes require support across the board, not just from a few select people with power.

Reading this, it seems there’s a lot of OOC bias and you haven’t heard everyone’s side of the story, Thurion. You guys had an idea and wanted to test the waters? That’s great, the stories written on this board are from ideas produced OOCly.

But just because people didn’t like the idea and responded accordingly to how their own characters would feel/think of it makes people toxic? That seems silly to do so. There’s always going to be consequences being the effect from the causes of ideas we write out on this board.

And people did exactly that with their characters.

It seems you’re disappointed because you didn’t get what you wanted which was the members to willingly ride this story even if it doesn’t make sense. Don’t be disappointed because of how people react with their own characters. IC actions have IC consequences.

And yes, the alliance was announced via article blogs and an actual IC thread discussing about it right here.

I’d reach out to other writers on the other side of the fence to get a better look of the whole picture, Thurion.

As for the hornets nest? We’ll kick it again.

Caden Evesa Djorn Bline

We couldn't talk about it yet because nothing had come of it at that point. We'd not even agreed to an alliance or treaty with CIS or TSE ICly and suddenly the entire galaxy seemed to know about it. We didn't know the details of what this faction story would bring because it was never allowed to get off the ground in the first place, so what was the point in informing the members of the faction when nothing had been settled yet?

Once the thread had been completed, then we would have informed the faction of the details.

I can't speak for blogs and the likes because I had nothing to do with those. Were it up to me I would have probably waited until the alliance was actually formed, but at the time we were all excited and got carried away by the momentum. There was no sign yet of the idea getting stoned to death.

I just think it's strange that other factions like GA and NIO appeared to learn about the deal before it was even settled ICly. That doesn't sound like IC actions leading to IC consequences, because there hadn't been any IC actions to warrant consequences as of yet.

Auteme

I dunno, I can't speak for TSE's decisions. shrugs

Thurion Heavenshield

I never once mentioned IC communication, I was talking purely OOC communication.

I've been told different by other people in regards to planning levels honestly Thurion. I've been told it was all planned out and ready to go OOC, it just needed to happen IC. Again, it's the lack of communication and the confusion of what we are getting (the fact it's contradicting) that made such a potentially good story suck.

I reached out to numerous people and just got told that no-one could talk about it. They just told me that what was planned and what would be happening would be good. The issue is, no-one actually told us what those really cool plans were (if they were in place, obviously again, I've been told multiple things by multiple people)

People asked if we could vote on potentially such a drastic story and we just got told no.

The biggest issue that followed was that again, people went against their word. Caedyn had mentioned to the SJC multiple times that no matter what happened we would still be at odds with TSE and then the next thing you know he's requesting a TSE ally slot with no explanation of why.

It didn't come out till after everything had kicked off and at that point it was too late.

But you can imagine the response, right? People involved in this had been promised one thing yet it appears that the faction owner and the admin teams are doing another. It was again confusing and seemed to go against what people were being told. Obviously we know different now but at the time we didn't.

Just all went wrong from the start really.

From my point of view, there is definitely a bit of a victim complex here.

Do I think the SJC-CIS-TSE story has/had the potential to be a great story? Yeah. Do I think the backlash you guys faced for the idea wasn't ideal? OOCly, absolutely. ICly, what happened makes sense to me. Going off of what Caltin Vanagor and Caden Evesa mentioned above, the decision was made without a mention to your writing base. A faction's staff team shouldn't be putting together stories they think are cool. Should be putting together stories they think their faction will find cool. Based on the general response from a number of SJC members, doesn't seem like that was taken into account.

The big OOC stink about it comes down to an OOC echo chamber. The three teams met together privately and made a decision. Three teams ran by writers who've been around on this board for years, writing similar stories the entire time. Is it a bad thing to write the stories you like? No, of course not. That's why we write. This is a hobby/passion for so many of us, of course we're going to do what we enjoy the most.

But when a decision made by a group of ten (spitballing here, I literally don't know) writers has the potential to affect I dunno, 30/40/50+ people? People are going to voice their opinions. They will wonder why their faction leadership didn't include them in the stories they want them to write. Some will be supportive, some won't. Outside the echo chamber is ultimately where it gets dangerous. You have other factions on the board competing with yours for map space, activity, and players. While we're all here to collaborate, the map is an OOC game built around competition. So, people are gonna play that game. They're gonna see this maneuver the three big factions made and they're gonna spin it to their advantage.

Think games like Diplomacy. You're going to get stabbed in the back at some point in that game. It's part of the game, which makes it fun. The difference here? Wasn't much of a backstab. Just a frontstab. From NIO, GA, and the numerous Jedi on the board who looked at the IC decision and went "That's a no from me, dog."

I can say from my perspective having worked closely with NIO and GA all year long, this wasn't something I took offense to. I saw it as an opportunity to strengthen my faction's (GA) place on the board and weaken the three of yours. I'm playing the game. I want to win. Simple as that.

Where much of the confusion came from is definitely the OOC posturing by one member of the group who put this together.

"The game has changed around you [insert faction leader here being spoken to]."

That's a line drawn in the sand if I've ever seen one. Other people involved in the Compact decision making also stood behind this initial statement in their discord and openly belittled the New Imperial Order and their team to the Discord. What do you expect to happen when other factions see those who threw in with the compact disrespecting other factions not even invited to the table for discussion? I'll bet they're going to get annoyed by that.

We can sit around and point fingers at who the bad guy is, but that's a waste of time. Lot of crap came from all sides, but a lot happened ICly that stunted this, not OOCly. SJC lost a number of faction staff quickly, some of their writers left the faction. That broke the back of this movement, not OOC opinions by people who were badmouthed out in the open.

I'm keeping things vague here out of respect for the people I'm speaking about. If need be, there are logs to back this up.

Djorn Bline said:

As for the hornets nest? We’ll kick it again.

Click to expand...

Amen, brother.

If Dantooine taught us anything, it's that the NIO + GA writers don't care how long the ally list is. We're still gonna come through and post more. That's just the way it is.

Ryv

Just wanted to tag you and genuinely say well spoken.

Let's look at the facts. SJC burned through staff quicker than a Trump presidency. Okkeus Dainlei, removed for not following the faction direction. Coren Starchaser, forced to resign for the same thing. Instead of listening to these people, SJC just removed them for going against the story they wanted to tell.

You designed a story behind closed doors and removed the people who didn't agree with it. That tells you everything you need to know.

I close my case.

One or my favorite movie lines ever ironically comes from Tom Selleck in "Mr. Baseball".

It's a game, games are meant to be fun.

The worms crawled out of the can.

The hornets are taking their Xanax.

Let's just chalk this up as "a learning experience", enjoy the holiday and move on to the next big event.

Savvy?

I am just disappointed there’s only two joytoys in Cyberpunk tbh.

Caden Evesa

I'm not here to speak for other people's actions, these are just my own observations and experiences. Nor can I speak for the behaviour of the other SJC admins and the level of communication within the faction.

I may be part of the admin team, but I've made it clear on several occasions I don't have a hand in the actual running of the faction, nor the decision-making process. When I stepped down as FO years ago I chose to stick around as admin just to support the new leadership and offer the occasional advice when asked because of my experience. That's still true to this day.

When I heard there was to be an alliance between SJC, TSE, and CIS, I just thought "cool" and went along with it. I didn't care too much about the details because the idea alone seemed a neat concept and would allow for a whole new faction storyline.

Thurion Heavenshield

Understandable, and while I'm not going to argue my thoughts on that here for fear of massively derailing this topic, you are still a serving member of the Silver Jedi Concord's admin team and therefore you still have a duty to own up to the failings they've made. You can't just sweep it under the rug and say "oh, i'm not involved".

There's no point you being an admin if you're not involved.

Ryv has made some absolutely brilliant points and you've not even remotely addressed them. Instead you've just tried to clear your own involvement in any of the decisions that lead to this point. Ryv's points absolutely hit the nail on the head with where all of this went wrong. absolutely all of it.

I'm going to repeat the comment I made earlier.

Let's look at the facts. SJC burned through staff quicker than a Trump presidency. Okkeus Dainlei, removed for not following the faction direction. Coren Starchaser, forced to resign for the same thing. Instead of listening to these people, SJC just removed them for going against the story they wanted to tell.

This entire thing was a story designed behind closed doors and certain factions removed the people who didn't agree with it. That tells you everything you need to know.

I mean, I only remember a big split and such happening after it was announced that the Concord had made the decision to make the alliance ICly. Upon which, many characters reacted as they would, and things started happening. Making the argument that a lot of it was OOC based, that all the groaning and moaning was OOC based, that all the backlash was OOC based, and all that, seems disingenuous to me. All this stuff really kicked off after an IC blog post was made talking about the alliance (unless I'm going crazy, but I swear there was one, and I can't find it now, unless it was a different thread) and then with that thread I linked where Jedi picked their sides of this deal.