Announcement from the Multicolored Cross-X Alliance

[Gopherbashi]

[center][img]http://images.wikia.com/cybernations/images/8/8d/MCXAnewsflag.PNG[/img]

[b][size="5"]Announcement from the[/size]
[size="7"]Multicoloured Cross-X Alliance[/size][/b][/center]

Hello all, it's been some time since we've talked, and because of this we have a great deal to catch up on. I'll use gracious amounts of spoiler tags to save you all some trouble.

[hr]
First off: new charter. In an effort to meet the steadfast desires of civilized peoples throughout Planet Bob, we have moved from a three-leader system to a one-leader system, so that I have full authority to rule over my gracious and loving gopherlings. We're also down a fair bit from our membership high of 700+ nations, so it didn't make a whole pile of sense to tie up three people in leadership when they could be providing me with glory in much more effective ways.

Our High Council still retains its other six members - four Ministers of Defense, Foreign Affairs, the Interior, and Finance, as well as two representatives without portfolio - one of whom is selected by the High Council to serve as Minister of Coups and take over during my "medical treatment in a foreign nation" should my "vacation" be deemed politically-necessary.

For those political junkies who have nothing better to do with their spare time, full details of our new system are listed on our [url="http://www.mcxa-cross.com/index.php?showtopic=35794"]forums[/url] and on our [url="http://cybernations.wikia.com/wiki/Charter_of_the_Multicolored_Cross-X_Alliance"]CN wiki page[/url]. I won't bore you by posting it all here.

[hr]
Second off: new government. Our 26th High Council consists of the following individuals - all of whom (except the first-listed) you may feel free to harass for purposes of extortion, blackmail, idle diplomatic banter, and CBs.

[spoiler][center][b]---------- [color=red]CHANCELLOR[/color] ----------
Gopherbashi

---------- [color=orange]DEPUTY CHANCELLOR & MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR[/color] ----------
Supercoolyellow

---------- [color=green]MINISTER OF DEFENSE[/color] ----------
mcp13

---------- [color=blue]MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS[/color] ----------
jrkee

---------- [color=gold]MINISTER OF FINANCE[/color] ----------
DookieOnDrums

---------- [color=purple]HIGH COUNCILLORS[/color] ----------
Alkicker
Lemac[/b][/center][/spoiler]

[hr]
Third - we've had a collection of 300-word essays kicking around our forums for a long (long) while which haven't had the opportunity to see the light of day (side-effect of the lack of government announcements). As much as we would like to keep and cherish them only for ourselves, there's the little issue of a number of arranged marriages which were agreed upon well before the birth of our little flock of essays, and it's high time that they left the nest.

[quote][center][b]3) MCXA shall write a review on the superiority of the Orange to all other lesser fruits for ODN.[/b][/center]
[spoiler]On the superiority of the orange
(or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the network)

For centuries, scholars have marvelled at how apples and oranges can rarely be compared. But clearly, if we've already judged that they cannot be compared, then surely some comparison of the two has already taken place - a comparison which can only have ended in the superiority of the orange over not only apples; but all lesser fruits as well.

Consider the following: How many different types of apples are there? Granny Smith, Macintosh, Golden Delicious, and probably at least another hundred types that are only found at west-coast hippy health food stores. Clearly, apples have no clue how to get things right - they're so all over the place that they can't even decide which one of themselves is the best, and get rid of the others through natural selection. The orange, on the other hand, only has one type. At least, that's what I'm going to assume, because I don't feel like going to Google and confirming it. What does this tell us? Long ago, oranges clearly got their !@#$ together, getting rid of all the crappy designs in favour of the awesome and delicious variety.

Not only that, but look at how many knock-offs there are of oranges. Tangerines, clementines, probably a few others I don't know about; but none of these are oranges. If oranges weren't superior to all fruits, would these lesser fruits waste their time trying to copy them?

I think not.[/spoiler]

[center][b]4) MCXA shall write a 250 word review of the Star Wars Christmas Special for LOST.[/b]
(I should note that there was considerable debate within the alliance as to whether we should complete this term, or sell off our unborn children to a group of sketchy Somalian pirates in order to raise money so we could bribe LOST not to make us do this. My future daughter sends a special thank you to TIinPA for writing this)[/center]
[spoiler]The Star Wars Holiday Special

In a word; awful. Somehow fusing the horrible nightmare of giant ewoks with a level of absolutely terrible acting that wouldn't be seen again until Episode I. I really think I hate wookies more than ewoks now. If you knew me, you'd know what a stellar accomplishment that is. With acting, though maybe it's just editing, Harrison Ford is particularly jarring. His credit should be 'bipolar best friend'. One moment he's freaking out about tie fighters, the next moment the cockpit seems more like a steamy love nest. The musical talent isn't too too bad. Diahann Carroll's segment was invented using 1.2 metric tons of LSD and we learn Princess Leia can somehow sing (not as well as Princess Vespa though). There is also a pretty good cartoon episode-in-an-episode about an hour in to reward you for surviving that far. Since the cartoon is how Boba Fett was introduced to the world I'm not sure how people understood The Empire Strikes Back. I did learn how to cook a bantha rump roast. The first step is slicing the rump into deliciously bite sized pieces. "You know how large your families' bites are!" Sigh. Everyone from the principle cast is 'in' the special. Luckily Alec Guinness was smart enough not to perform for this terrible disaster. We have to settle for A New Hope footage to see Obi-Wan.

So, in closing, if you'd like to violate the Genova convention by torturing your room mates I'd highly recommend the Star Wars Holiday special. [/spoiler]

[center][b]5) MCXA shall write a review of GRUEs Zombie Strip Club[/b][/center]
[spoiler]Better Know A Gentlemen's Club
Part 14 of 9000 - The Fightin' GRUE's Zombie Strip Club

I must say that the concept of a zombie strip club is not the general end result of the entrepreneurial spirit - I'd go so far as to say that most clubs of this nature whose staff could be described as the living undead generally last as long as a package of rotting meat. This, ironically enough, may go a fair way in explaining why many of these clubs close in short order.

So, when approached with a request to review a club that took pride in the novelty of its staff, I was naturally rather taken aback. It seemed to be a combination that could only leave a bad taste in your mouth - like milk and just about any other beverage. But then I thought back to first-year psychology class, and how Freud stated that everything was related to sex. Is it possible that the threat of having your brains eaten by a troop of scantily-clad strippers heightened the male libido? For the sake of science, and against the wishes of my girlfriend, I decided to give it a shot.

GRUE's Zombie Strip Club is located in the heart of the city's run-down industrial district, and if you didn't know it was there, the warnings about excess radiation would probably have made you think it was a nuclear waste disposal site. I must say though, I was given the VIP treatment, and this establishment is very true to its theme - the bouncer too busy gorging himself on the brains of people waiting in line to make me wait as well.

In the end, though, that turned out to be the sole thing going for it. The inside of the club looked more like a warehouse than any club I've ever been to, the lighting was awful, and the whole place stank of human blood and organs. Not to mention that their bartenders clearly don't know where the limit is - I tripped over some patrons passed out drunk on the floor, too dead to the world to even notice that I kicked them. The low point of the evening came when one of the zombie strippers flung herself around her pole too quickly; her rotting body flying off the stage while her severed arm remained tightly gripped to the pole.

On the whole; a very disappointing experience. Freud is proven to be wrong, though Rule 34 claims yet another point of proof in its favour.

Final rating: 0.5 out of 2 boobies.[/spoiler]

[center][b]6) MCXA shall write a a 300 word minimum monologue of a Tetrad's descent through the matrix on his way down to being stabilized for Tetris[/b][/center]
[spoiler]I sprang into existence in a box at the top-right of a Java applet; my three-square body sporting a one-square protrusion from its mid-section that was oddly phallic in nature. Behind me, the bulky mass of a decades-old CRT monitor hummed away; a relic of an age gone by, but still continuing to perform its duty in the hopes of one day being able to fall on its owner's foot in a last fit of vengeance before finally being replaced. In front of me - the ever-awake gamer - eyes red, ignorant to the time of 3:47 AM flashing on his alarm clock, and emitting a curious odour of burnt toast and old socks - his fingers moving furiously across the keyboard to correctly position the pretty J-shaped tetrad who had occupied this cell directly before me.

A "tetrad" - yes, I'm hoping that's what I'm called. My alliance really had no clue what this meant and Wikipedia didn't exactly help a whole lot. Here's hoping they got it right.

As suddenly as I had come into existence, I found myself pop into the main chamber - my yellow shine dimly reflecting off the walls around me. I had scant time to notice this before another sensation gripped me - that of my stomach in my throat as I started falling towards the ground. My scream ended in silence as I realised that I had no mouth from which to make such a sound. Ahead of me, the eyes of the gamer widened, his fingers poised to furiously strike the arrow keys. I braced myself for what was surely to come - and just in time - against any impulse of my own, my body spun furiously clockwise, moving side to side in a desperate attempt by my controller to find the ideal location for me. The pixels I had for breakfast made desperate attempts to escape the bounds of my stomach as I continued to be shaken like an Etch-A-Sketch whose previous drawing had long outlived its usefulness.

My gamer let forth a brief sigh of relief and his muscles relaxed by the tiniest of fractions as he finally found my new home. My ordeal was far from over though, as I flew downwards at an even higher speed, as if an invisible hand was forcing me down towards the orgy of pieces below. Helpless, I slammed down face first at the extreme left side of the screen; bruised, bloodied, finally able to rest - but still fearful of being fallen on from above, or from being ripped apart below.

To my immense relief; neither of these came true, and I was the last piece to suffer the fate that has just befallen me. At least for now.

[spoiler][img]http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/heaven.png[/img][/spoiler][/spoiler]

[center][b]7) MCXA Shall write a poem about why Direct Democracies are NEAT[/b][/center]
[spoiler]Chief Burn1Love; he founded NEAT,
About democracy, he'd always speak.
Got into arguments with Olo and Sam,
Of their actions, he wasn't a fan.

"Why are they kings", Burn1Love cried.
"There should be a vote, but they have their pride."
He, for one, did not believe,
That leaders should change less often than leaves.

An election came by; one man was left off.
Burn1Love claimed that the ballot was stuffed.
"Be quiet, calm down, just an oversight;
I'll re-add his name, and all will be right."

But Burn1Love would have none of that sass,
An argument ensued, and drama came to pass.
"What of the people that already voted?
Surely we need to restart," he chortled.

A great many people; they agreed with him,
But Ololiqui, he cried out above the din.
"The people who want this are only 12 percent,
The rest must surely support me," so it went.

"That doesn't make sense, the others are mum;
Your opinion doesn't automatically theirs become.
Most people are either against you or silent,
So re-start this vote, you pig-headed tyrant."

The person left off, Wozz was his name;
Said "It's not a big deal, I have no claim to fame.
Those who voted before can still change their vote.
It's not the end of the world," he joked.

But we would have none of it; this was something more.
"Do what we want, you green smelling boar!"
Olo said "I'm the leader, so STFU,"
While Burn1Love said "I've had it; I'm through!"

Off to found NEAT, he quickly went.
Escaping ZI, just by a thread.
And though Burn1Love is no longer around,
His alliance remains, still strong and still proud.

For Burn1Love would have no tycoons in his walls,
He made it his mission to listen to all.
It quickly became known as his way,
For direct democracy was there to stay.[/spoiler]

[center][b]8) MCXA shall watch David Lynch's Dune and write a review about it for LSF[/b]
(Thanks to DookieOnDrums)[/center]
[spoiler]The book Dune was written by Frank Herbert. Which later David Lynch made it into a movie with an all-star cast and screwed it up by confusing the hell out of us.

The story begins with Princess Irulan (that girl from '"Candyman'") giving us a rough outline of the future. Basically, it's the year 10,191 and there is this special spice that everyone needs to travel through space and read minds and such.
Then we are taken to the Emperor of the known universe's palace. It's surrounded by several confusing things (like a guy with a metal nose) but it is actually a few seconds later where all sense is abandoned, as a giant tumor in a tank rolls in and a bald woman sits in another room thinking about him. If you look closely to the left of the tank, one of the men fall over.

So, then we move on to the Atreides family. There's this guy called Leto who is the Duke and his son Paul, the hero of the story. To cut a long story short, they all move to a big desert planet where the special spice comes from and they all get attacked in a plot by the Emperor and the Harkonnens (a bunch of evil, arrogant redheads who install heart plugs in people so they can pull them out for a laugh). The Harkonnens are allied with the Sardaukar, the Emperor's guys, who wear radiation suits and waddle about.

The Guy Who Plays Bluto in the "Popeye" movie runs around a lot, laughing. Dogs run around a bit and they all get killed, except for Paul and his mother Jessica. They flee to the desert, using the power of their robot impressions to escape the clutches of the bad guys and falling into the clutches of the Fremen. The Fremen immediately accept Paul as their leader and he recognizes Sean Young from his dreams, so he immediately assumes her as his lover. Paul says "spice" about 20,000! times throughout the course of this movie, be prepared for that.

He rides around on a giant sandworm, drinks some blue water, and blows up all of Bluto's spice factories with small video cameras. Bluto runs around with evil smirk on his face as Sting looks on, arrogantly.

At one point, the Baron is flying around a room. Sting steps naked out of a big box filled with steam (WTF?) , Bluto walks in, pushes over a midget and eats part of a cow. (WTF!) Through it all the guy with big hair from "Eraserhead" is twisting a box that makes an irritating squeaking noise. (FML) Then they give a bald cat, suspended in a box with a rat stuck to it. (Why am I watching this?)

Paul meets up with Gurney, Jessica has a daughter, and they all plan a big strike on the Emperor. They use atomics at one point, but this seems to make absolutely no difference. They all move into the room. Paul's sister kills the Baron, the Emperor kills Bluto, and Paul kills Sting in a fight and then blows him up. If you look carefully, you will notice that Thufir is there one minute and gone the next, despite efforts to hide this with other footage. Who edited this movie?

Paul's sister proclaims Paul to be the Kwisatz Haderach? (powerful being) and then it starts to rain. Some guy with a beard and a widow's peak says "It is the legend," as he has been doing every five minutes throughout the whole FREAKING movie! Then Paul and Stillgar exchange a knowing man love glance, as they have been doing every five minutes throughout the movie. Then Paul says "spice," as he has been doing every five minutes throughout the whole movie.

Overall I am overjoyed I wasted most of my available sleep time for today to review this film. I now maybe dumber for watching this film.....again. Read the book over watching the movie, PLEASE! Good news is they are remaking this trash and it is set to hit theaters in 2011. Ugh[/spoiler][/quote]

[hr]
Fourth! A little bit of an update on some of the internal stuff that we've been doing lately. As I'm sure a number of people who respond to this topic will mention (ad nauseum), our performance during the most recent war left some room for improvement. As I've mentioned to others before - I agree - we could (and [i]should[/i]) have done better. And though we can't change what has happened in the past, we are taking steps to prevent a repeat from happening in the future. Since the war ended, we've focused on becoming more stringent in enforcing our military standards - a bit of tough love, if you will, to make sure that our members are better-prepared for the annual CN war. A stronger focus on military discipline has come with that, along with the expulsion of some members who jumped into peace without authorization. This has been coupled with an incentive & recognition program for those members who make the strongest contributions on our forums and in-game.

Without giving too much else away, we've also made some improvements to our command & control structure to clarify and quicken the decision-making process during times of conflict, and have enhanced our pre-war planning so that our military staff are fully aware of what to expect, and what is expected of them, when hostilities break out. If you want anything else on those, you'll need to send in some spiez.

[hr]
Fifth! Obligatory gopher pr0n.
(I'm reasonably sure that those two on the right aren't actually getting it on. [i]Reasonably[/i].)
[spoiler][center][img]http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/6248/funnyprairiedogpile.jpg[/img][/center][/spoiler]

[hr]
xoxo,
[list][*]Gopherbashi, Chancellor
[*]Supercoolyellow, Deputy Chancellor and Minister of the Interior
[*]mcp13, Minister of Defense
[*]jrkee, Minister of Foreign Affairs
[*]DookieOnDrums, Minister of Finance
[*]Alkicker, High Councillor
[*]Lemac, High Councillor
[/list]

The Multicolored Cross-X Alliance thanks you for your cooperation in not nuking us until we have more nukes. Or we're allied to MK or something.

[Bob]

Basically, MCXA has a capable leader in Gopher, and a terrible second in command.

Never leave Gopher, don't know what they would do without you.

Edited June 17, 2011 by Penlugue Solaris

[shadowkiller]

yay MCXA, all hail the great and powerful Gopherbashi!

[Bob Ilyani]

[quote name='Penlugue Solaris' timestamp='1308342805' post='2733208']
Basically, MCXA has a capable leader in Gopher, and a terrible second in command.

Never leave Gopher, don't know what they would do without you.
[/quote]

This man stole my line.

[D34th]

I knew that X days ago and I approve

[i][color="#FF0000"]*D34th stabs Gopherbashi[/color][/i]

[New Frontier]

[quote name='Penlugue Solaris' timestamp='1308342805' post='2733208']
Basically, MCXA has a capable leader in Gopher, and a terrible second in command.

Never leave Gopher, don't know what they would do without you.
[/quote]
Perish the thought. SCY is a capable, well-liked and intelligent member of the CN community that would make a fantastic leader.

[Conformist Maryland]

[quote name='New Frontier' timestamp='1308355067' post='2733351']
Perish the thought. SCY is a capable, well-liked and intelligent member of the CN community that would make a fantastic leader.
[/quote]

Chey has it right.

[Ninja Colt]

Glad to see some competence in MCXA leadership for once. Good luck Gopher.

[MrHavok]

[quote name='Bob Ilyani' timestamp='1308343024' post='2733211']
This man stole my line.
[/quote]

You realize what a joke you are and nobody finds your pavlovian like responses to every thread amusing or humorous

How /ooc empty, hollow and shallow is your life /ooc that you feel the need to do this

Seriously no one respects you or finds you entertaining take a look at yourself I suggest

[Ardus]

Wow, what an incompetent set of lead...

[quote]Gopherbashi, Chancellor[/quote]

...oh. Well then. Never mind.

[Banksy]

[quote name='MrHavok' timestamp='1308358941' post='2733396']
You realize what a joke you are and nobody finds your pavlovian like responses to every thread amusing or humorous

How /ooc empty, hollow and shallow is your life /ooc that you feel the need to do this

Seriously no one respects you or finds you entertaining take a look at yourself I suggest
[/quote]
Summoning the GOONS guy who reads posts.

[Kalasin]

Congrats and good luck Gopher.

[Melancholy Culkin]

[quote name='MrHavok' timestamp='1308358941' post='2733396']
You realize what a joke you are and nobody finds your pavlovian like responses to every thread amusing or humorous

How /ooc empty, hollow and shallow is your life /ooc that you feel the need to do this

Seriously no one respects you or finds you entertaining take a look at yourself I suggest
[/quote]

I find them humorous. I also believe that Bob is generally respected, unlike your alliance. Gopher is good though, so I wish you luck.

Edited June 18, 2011 by Melancholy Culkin

[SirWilliam]

I rather like Scy, and Gopher seems ok too.

Congrats, gents.

[Bob]

[quote name='MrHavok' timestamp='1308358941' post='2733396']
You realize what a joke you are and nobody finds your pavlovian like responses to every thread amusing or humorous

How /ooc empty, hollow and shallow is your life /ooc that you feel the need to do this

Seriously no one respects you or finds you entertaining take a look at yourself I suggest
[/quote]
I don't think you did yourself any favors with this comment in terms of people's outlook towards you and your alliance.

[Stefano Palmieri]

Congrats guys. But selling your children to avoid watching the SW Christmas Special would have been totally understandable.

[Bob Ilyani]

[quote name='MrHavok' timestamp='1308358941' post='2733396']
You realize what a joke you are and nobody finds your pavlovian like responses to every thread amusing or humorous

How /ooc empty, hollow and shallow is your life /ooc that you feel the need to do this

Seriously no one respects you or finds you entertaining take a look at yourself I suggest
[/quote]

Pavlovian-like response incoming. [img]http://forums.cybernations.net/public/style_emoticons/default/ph34r.gif[/img]

[supercoolyellow]

[quote name='Melancholy Culkin' timestamp='1308360346' post='2733425']
I find them humorous. I also believe that Bob is generally respected, unlike your alliance. Gopher is good though, so I wish you luck.
[/quote]

Meh, Ilyani's stock has been free falling in my opinion the last few weeks. Haters are going to hate, but I take pride in the work of I've done for MCXA, and I know that MCXA is going to get a lot more of good out of me in the coming months in my term as MOI.

[flak attack]

[quote name='Penlugue Solaris' timestamp='1308342805' post='2733208']
Basically, MCXA has a capable leader in Gopher, and a terrible second in command.

Never leave Gopher, don't know what they would do without you.
[/quote]
This has to be one of the most accurate first posts I've ever seen.

[Zeta Defender]

Gopherbashi in charge, now this will be interesting

[keeology]

gopher in command

but the power behind the throne is jrkee you just dont know it yet

/MCXA

[Lord Fingolfin]

Hopefully Gopher can do some good. Though as long as you have 15k infra nations lacking WRC's, other major military wonders, and warchests that will last longer than a week, I won't hold my breath. Still, a step in the right direction perhaps

Edited June 18, 2011 by Lord Fingolfin

[Williambonney]

[quote name='MrHavok' timestamp='1308358941' post='2733396']
You realize what a joke you are and nobody finds your pavlovian like responses to every thread amusing or humorous

How /ooc empty, hollow and shallow is your life /ooc that you feel the need to do this

Seriously no one respects you or finds you entertaining take a look at yourself I suggest
[/quote]
That's only partly true, I find him quite entertaining most times.

Congrats Gopher and good luck.

[Spartacus1082]

Awwwww, you guys posted the GRUE review. Makes me sad that we failed but I like it even though it's rated a little too high IMO.

[supercoolyellow]

[quote name='Spartacus1082' timestamp='1308405167' post='2733873']
Makes me sad that we failed
[/quote]

Same here, you guys were a fun and classy bunch to fight.