Yeah, it's me, which means that this is a thread about Phantoms.
A lot of people say we're misguided and our goals are not readily apparent. Another one is that we're kind of metagaming, powergaming jerks. So, you know, I really want to try and show how we're not (or maybe we are, I don't think so, you can draw your own conclusions) and how we're trying to work to be not those kinds of gamers but how it's not really working as well as we'd like. I guess I'll divide the post into three strangely named sections:
1. What are Birds?
2. Refried Beans All Over my Plate
3. What Does it All Mean
4. Phantom Announcements
What are Birds
This part is not so important; this is our background and where we came from. There can be lots of colorful words here, but instead of boring you, I've decided to break it down into the most basic pieces. This is how I see it, and is rather an exposition of the original Phantom ideas.
In the beginning, there was DarkStar, an LSF Agent working somewhere in the Nomad Worlds. In the Nomad Worlds, he met some kind of alien race which may or may not have been Nomads, Klingons, the Eldar, the Zerg, or the C'Tan. Who it was doesn't matter, nor is it exactly known anymore. This alien race found DarkStar for two reasons: he was impressionable and capable.
This race had been watching our fledgling colony with little interest. They had more important matters to address than what seemed to be a very small human race. They had their own conflicts and their own empire to manage. Every so often, they would look back at the humans to see how quickly we had expanded and how voracious our appetite for expansion was. After the eight centuries of our colony expanding at an alarming rate, they deemed that before we were to become a threat to them, we would have to be subjugated. DarkStar was to be the one who would do this, though he would not know.
This race enticed DarkStar with a vision of unity and utopia. In the alien Empire, all races lived together in unity and equality, speaking a universal language, making unilateral scientific advancements, and forming a confederacy of independent states which all speak equally for themselves and for the empire they support. Whether or not that is true is unknown, but it sounds good to DarkStar, but what was even more important to him was the euthanasia of all Nomads and the reality of an unopposed human Sirius.
Though DarkStar had been swayed, the race was intelligent enough to realize that most humans would not be so easily convinced. In order to bring more people to DarkStar, they instructed him to tell of the race as gods, unseen but omniscient. The human race would eventually come to realize that this was a farce, but when given the alternative, the reason for farce would outweigh the sin of lying.
With the first promise of euthanasia, DarkStar deserted the LSF with his closest dozen confidants. As the Unseen Ones had instructed, they fled through the Nomad Worlds until they arrived in the desolate Omicron-82 system, where they were guided to a ready Temple of the Revenant. Inside, DarkStar was named Revenant of the Phantom Empire, holy prophet of the Unseen Ones, the station a temple devoted to his own worship and the worship of the Unseen Ones. From this hidden base, DarkStar and his confidants searched throughout Sirius looking for zealots for their holy cause.
This part is important. It is why we do things ingame and what our role is (loosely) defined by.
Those which have chosen to follow the Phantoms go through a phase called the Enlightenment. During this initiation, electrical impulses are sent through an unconscious brain to simulate real situations. This is training for a Phantom, ensuring his loyalty and devotion. Because of the enlightenment, every Phantom is the Revenant's zealot, serving in his holy rhetoric.
The rhetoric is very simple: create a temporary anarchy in Sirius. Once a temporary anarchy is made, the Unseen Ones become seen, coming in as a unifying force, annexing Sirius into its confederacy (or so the theory given is).
This is also why we don't share technology. Each piece of technology is rather a relic of the Unseen Ones, and just like the Knight's Templar cannot let an initiate hold a piece of the True Cross, we cannot let outsiders who have not been enlightened touch our technology.
Refried Beans All Over my Plate
Anarchy is nice and all, but how does being scary translate to anarchy? Well, lets talk about fear for a second. People feel two basic emotions due to instinct: fear and love, in that order of importance, coming from a need for survival and a need to reproduce, respectively. In the civilized world, we are removed from these two, creating strange combination and making up words for them like "content" and "relief", but most negative emotions are derivatives of fear (I'm afraid of this bully, therefore I hate him) and positive emotions are derivatives of love (I love that I am laughing, therefore I am happy with this TV show).
As the Phantoms, we want to remove people from civilization by making them feel absolute fear. Only when someone feels absolute fear can he absolutely love us by being relieved that we spared him. This kind of interaction is something which causes people to rethink their status quo. I don't know about you, but the last time I almost died, I was pretty upset and I rethought a lot. At this point, people start to point fingers, blaming Police and Navy organizations for not protecting them. People then begin to adopt revolutionary thoughts, such as those of the Blood Dragons or Bundschuh.
The point of the Phantom Empire is to instill enough doubt and fear in the House's populace that they do adopt these revolutionary ideals without actually fearing the revolutionaries or their motives. It is hard to support someone who thinks differently when he killed your brother, but when someone else killed your brother and the government does not think anything of it, someone who thinks differently looks much more appealing.
A revolution is anarchy. Once anarchy is established, a section of Sirius is available to our Unseen Masters to occupy. At this point, Sirius has its own resources to wage war on and subjugate itself.
What Does it All Mean
[color=#FF0000]This is more or less the important part of the post.
What we do not do is say we are something and then not put it in the game. We do not say we are elusive and then not be sneaky, taking lanes everywhere, we use backwater jump holes which are completely unused usually unless we are in a rush. We are not hard to kill because we say so, we are hard to kill because we run from engagements which we will probably lose. We are not scary because we say we are scary, we're scary because if you piss us off, we'll (try to) kill you. These are things we actually put into the game to portray what we really are.
One thing we would really like to do is publicize our actions (good and bad) more on the forum. It's not readily apparent to everyone that we actually do the kinds of things we do ingame. The medium through which we would do it, though, is the question. If implemented wrongly, it's not helpful at all, but if we can get an idea of what people like, we can make the RP more fulfilling for everyone and better integrate our RP into the mainstream flow of RP around the forum. A few ideas are:
News Media
Phantom Propaganda
Using Junkers to Distribute Information (did not go neutral with them because of that)
Posting in random unlawful watering holes about accomplishments
Some feedback on what would actually be appreciated and now labeled "powergaming" or "metagaming" would be nice. Additional ideas also appreciated.
Call it feeble justification, but the scariness actually does manifest itself ingame. It mostly manifests itself as killing things, embarrassing Navies, and cooperating with other wrong doers. We're pretty good at killing and embarrassing things, but as of late, people who haven't attacked us before have suddenly started attacking us. That has made cooperating for maximum scariness not so easy.
So, what I am going to assume is that somewhere, we dropped the ball and lost RP respect in the eyes of unlawful factions. I have always tried to do is take a common ground with other factions and show that we have common enemies. When the Blood Dragons are online, I like to try and find Samura to kill to show them that we have a common interest in dethroning the monstrous corporation. I have never tried to setup events with anyone because spontaneous RP is so much more impressive than planned RP.
This is not so easy. It, really, has not worked at all. If Samura are online, the Blood Dragons are not online. If the Blood Dragons are online, Samura is not online. If the Unioners are online, Republican is not online. If Republican is online, the Unioners are not online. It's incredibly difficult to do this kind of thing, and it just has not worked.
What we want to do is have planned cooperation. I'm not that big of a fan of it, but what we would like to do is earn back the respect of these unlawful factions by cooperating to achieve both of our goals. Brainstorms can be made in private, but we want to cooperate with the unlawful factions to help them succeed, because when they succeed, we succeed.
So, what we would like to know is who would actually do this? Who would want to cooperate with us and do fun things to solidify the common ground we could have?
Phantom Announcements
If you have not posted all of your characters here, do it now.
[8:32:45 PM] Dusty Lens: Oh no, let me get that. Hello? Oh it's my grandma. She says to be roleplay.
[12:49:19 AM] Elgatodiablo: You know its nice that you have all that proof and all, Bacon... but I just don't believe you.
Hello this is the captain of the Mustang recon ship currently located in Omicron miner. I was on patrol earlier today to find somethng i have never wittnessed before. Phantoms arguing with some trader over who is allowed to fly into 100. very strange! Phantoms dont dont get into a conversation with traders they kill them. and the thing thats worries me most is that the Order always has a recon ship in Omicron minor as being one of those ships i know for a fact both sides are not allowed in 100 for RP reasons. one being traders dont enter 100 its a gaurd system and two how did a phantom manage to fly though all that hostile space without being detected by patrols. As a result of this The Order has beffed up patrols in delta replacing the VHFs with Gunboats and the occasional fighter. so please enlighten me where on the phantoms goals is to enter a gaurd system and let a trader who was carrying i belive to be a full hold of silver ore fly away unharmed?
Here's the real situation. The majority of the "criticism" you see are stemmed from a minority of people. And most of the times, it's about people who have just been killed.
Some criticism is valid and I'm glad to see you have tried to address that, but please do not feel down because a group of the same five people are screaming daily because they have personal grudges with the Phantoms.
Also, please, for your own good, anyone you see with less than 30 posts and a join date within the latest two weeks - is bound to be Karlotta.
This Luke Garner just changed his forum account name. I have never seen him before and I am utterly convinced that this is Karlotta. Fifty more of his accounts will come back in pseudonyms to create the illusion that "many people" are complaining at you. Do not be fooled by this. Please. This guy has a personal problem with the Phantoms and this is one of his trademarks that always reveal his identity. And if isn't this guy, it's still pretty convenient don't you think that these people who you have never heard from before suddenly pops up specifically in threads about Phantoms and the post is always of hateful nature. All in all, it's a minority trying to make a big thing out nothing.
' Wrote:Hm. Some stuff there I didn't really know, explanation helps 'n' all.
GJ.
The point of the post is less the explanation and more asking whether or not people want to work together. I honestly don't care much about what people think about the story. It's a story; it can say anything. The important part is what it all means. I don't want to make a thread for everyone's enjoyment so everyone outside the faction can have fun and have them all say "Grumble, grumble, powergaming a newscaster." I'd like them to say "Well that was enlightening for my character and he is now scared." More fun for everyone.
Also, I know about the majority of criticism. It's the same criticism pirates get for killing people when they don't pay. I didn't make this post to compromise anything; these are things we've always done and always wanted to do, but it's just become harder to do it now as different people with different perspectives walk into Discovery.
Also, I have no clue what you're saying about the Order, it sounds something more for the Feedback thread. Thanks.
[8:32:45 PM] Dusty Lens: Oh no, let me get that. Hello? Oh it's my grandma. She says to be roleplay.
[12:49:19 AM] Elgatodiablo: You know its nice that you have all that proof and all, Bacon... but I just don't believe you.
' Wrote:The point of the post is less the explanation and more asking whether or not people want to work together. I honestly don't care much about what people think about the story. It's a story; it can say anything. The important part is what it all means. I don't want to make a thread for everyone's enjoyment so everyone outside the faction can have fun and have them all say "Grumble, grumble, powergaming a newscaster." I'd like them to say "Well that was enlightening for my character and he is now scared." More fun for everyone.
...♠
Either or man, it explained stuff to -me-, and that's what I took out of it.
One thing I heavily agree with Chris about is the fact that unlawful factions are by-and-large starting to take a larger "we don't like you or respect you" stance towards the Phantoms. A few notable exceptions are the Corsairs, Xenos, Hackers and Liberty Rogues.
We almost got into a shooting match with the Outcasts, our next door neighbors, a while ago, over landing rights. I had to smack a few RHA around who thought it would be good to shoot at me. The Mollys (mostly independents, as far as I can tell) have shot us some. Gaians have always not liked us, and so have the Bundschuh. The Dragons don't care for us either.
Etcetera, etcetera. The point is, while the complaining may be from a minority (and I do know of a few "old hands" who disapprove of us as a faction concept at the least), there are still other things to be thought over.
' Wrote:This is also why we don't share technology. Each piece of technology is rather a relic of the Unseen Ones, and just like the Knight's Templar cannot let an initiate hold a piece of the True Cross, we cannot let outsiders who have not been enlightened touch our technology.
[*]Using Junkers to Distribute Information (did not go neutral with them because of that)
What we want to do is have planned cooperation. I'm not that big of a fan of it, but what we would like to do is earn back the respect of these unlawful factions by cooperating to achieve both of our goals. Brainstorms can be made in private, but we want to cooperate with the unlawful factions to help them succeed, because when they succeed, we succeed.
So, what we would like to know is who would actually do this? Who would want to cooperate with us and do fun things to solidify the common ground we could have?
Well you said yourself that you want to cooperate with unlawful factions. They can offer technology and bases to stay at, but what can you offer?
I wouldn't mind having a big, bad cruiser backing me up every now and then, so I'd be willing to cooperate with the Phantoms (if the price is right). However the Phantoms aren't that easy to get hold of when you need something blown up. So other than combat support, what can you provide?
The Congress likes technology, but you don't share (Q_Q). So what would you do for the Junkers?
Are Phantoms publicly known ? Or they are witnessed by house patrols and are being hidden to the public like nomads ? Or only by stories and legends ?
Cause well, if public doesn't know info about them they can't fear the character they see for the first time. Especially in roleplay.
You expect others to show you fear, while inRP it's their first encounter with phantom in person. Which more specifically inRP he doesn't even know are you a phantom or let's say if he does..he does not know how will you behave.
I'm saying with this, unless it's publicly known about your cruelness and such, you want to impose fear that doesn't exist inRP.
I'll make comparison to the nomads. They are hidden and covered up but they show up in organic form, coming to your mind which induces fear. Also all of them don't expect fear since we can see they have their counterpart The Order..and any lunatic with armed ship and wish to live.
It's more curiosity then anything else, I'm not sure should I put it in the feedback, but while you're explaining stuff you might clear me this here also.
Honestly speaking, I didnt read all your post but only the first part.
The reason why I think it wasnt very important to read it was this:
What ever you wrote there, really, what ever it may or my not be, has nothing to do with the reason people dont like phantoms.
People will not start to like you or dislike you because of any 2 page post explaining what is your RP.
The reason why you have these problems is because of the way you apear ingame.
You are not bound by ship and equipment rules, you are not bound by ZOI, you are not bound by piracy rules, you can engage anyone you want for no reason and without giving a reason, you often engage without much talk and in surprise, you dock with factions although they are hostile to you, your guns are better than other guns, you got ship models that others would like to fly but cant.
And, worst mistake of all, you make a point of it that you can do all that and others cant because you are elite players.
I dont see why you need all that special treatment by rules.
At least constraining yourself to your own shipline would have been a nice move, but you dont do it, because you can, because you are hte l33t.
It is not difficult to at least try to get some of your RP basics, what ever they are, across to the player that you are going to kill.
But you, or at least some of your members, make a point of the fact that you dont need to do it because you consider yourself the server elite.
As long as you do that, don't be surprised if some people see it as a systematic disrespect of the "normal" player.
Maximo, after reading your post up there, I think that idea about the psychologist that you mentioned in the other thread wasnt such a bad idea. For someone with a low post count and who never ever uses alternate accounts, you seem very caught up in this game. Give it a rest.
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