Remembrances: Act I

Day 1,013, 23:32 • Published in Ireland Japan • by Donovan Thomas

[As many of us former noobs are now becoming elder (though not as old as Titans like Nith, Patton, MC and Snake etc.) we’re beginning to bleed memories in a vain attempt to hold on to this wonderful and poorly administered game… and to hold onto some of the good times…]

Dedication:

This memoir is spurred in part by the closing of O'Malley Hall, our barracks for the the last year since I first assumed the Ministry of Defence from then General Ní Mháille. A place I loved, a place named by me for my best friend in this Game. I find that every day she is not here, I have a little less reason to log on. If I take this memoir to fruition it shall become it's own monster... but let that monster have Gráinne's name on it's lips...

This is my story:



Remembrances: Act I

I’ve decided to call this “Remembrances” for the plain fact that while I was away in RL this year my old laptop went the way of the dodo and I’ve lost the vast cache of intel that I had saved. So everything to come out now is purely from the tenuous and constantly collapsing holographic wave front that is memory. ‘Tis Flawed.

It should be no surprise to many that I came under the wing of Gráinne Ní Mháille early on. ‘Twas (I believe, though she might disagree) that my full fledged noobdom coupled with a lack of fear of then President Aran Tal made me someone worth throwing a bone to. I had also come under the antithetical tutelage of one 05637716, the illustriously loved and equally despised “Digits” (more on Digits later).

Gráinne (or Gracie as I think of her) soon became my Priestess in the sense that I had come to learn, ney worship. I wanted information on the comings and goings of the mighty, to understand the cogs in the great machine that was itself a small part in a big eWorld; eIReland.

Gráinne taught me many things. Her intelligence network and international contacts are still unrivalled in my opinion. This was a time when there were no naturally born Field Marshals in eIreland and VERY few Battle Heroes. Grainne was one of those heroines… (she may have been one of two if not the only) and when I first called her Ma’am she was a Colonel and the recently resigned (her only choice, one I would later face in kind) Chief of Staff of the IDF. She was, and always shall be a Maven of Renown... She is the beating heart of the eIrish Military...

A much different world than today when FM’s are a dime a dozen and V1 BH medals sell for pennies on the pound.

Gráinne is and always shall be my best friend in this game. That is as far as I shall speak on it. I miss here and hope she will return to this much changed game so that we might fight shoulder to shoulder again as we have done so many times around the eWorld. Her name will come up many times in this telling, but beyond the facts and details, our friendship shall remain private.



Hegemony

I hate that my memory is cloudy, but suffice to say that Digits, well…. He rage quit. He was slighted by eIreland after much hard work and dedication. I believe that it started during one of the old style mudraking elections. Digits was accused of engineering votes. It was rather benign and if I remember correctly Digits was no part of it. Regardless, his honor was called on the carpet and he “lost his sh!t”. He quit.

He had become a bit of an iconic person to me. I am as independent in RL as I am in eRep and Digits had set up the only Independent Party in eIreland; Independent Voices. He maintained so vociferously that each person had the right to choose their own way that any organization beyond socialization and intellectual stimulus within the "party" irked him to no end.

I besieged Digits with entreaties to stay, to salvage his (in my opinion) untarnished reputation and soldier on. He would have none of it. I asked, “What of the One Globe Project?" (a still unrealized global economic conglomerate/think tank/alliance).

"It’s yours" he said…

He gave me the links to all his information. Spreadsheets, Powerpoints, information galore. Here was pure eRepublik Hegemony laid out for anyone to have. I was weeks old, perhaps a month… I felt that I had been passed a torch that held a fire of greatness.

I was geeked to say the least… Problem was, Digits didn’t share his passing of the torch with anyone else. I was an ambitious noob with no back up… except Gráinne (The best backup to have). I ran to her. I showed her all while at the same time I took my meager two gold and threw my name in the hat for PP of IV. Fionn was the default PP and had attempted to rally the “Party”. Binksy and Kit were there as well, my new friends… my rally call went mostly unheeded. The fact remained, I was a noob. While I was beginning to carve a nitch, I was still, in effect, no one.

I withdrew my name from the PP hat so as to maintain party unity and began the daunting task of deciphering all the intel that Digits had laid at my feet.

See, it wasn’t just the couple of documents that he sent me. It was his entire archive. He had given me a link to a small group of documents on a file storage website. But what he had not realized was that by clicking up the the next level I was able to see all he has stored there (including personal info, benign, which I discarded)…

(Later, when he returned he kind of gave me a “Meh” reaction to this faux pas, but to this noob, knowing who owned every org and company in eIreland plus having the background of all his saved IRC logs with everyone he spoke to was very telling in who was who, who was many, and who were not as they seemed…)

End : Act I



For now...