Memoirs: MCXA, Vox Populi, and the true meaning of loyalty.

[Francesca]

Vox Populi. Our vociferous, vitriolic, villainous adversaries. So they were since their conception: the ultimate antihero, our foes. These evil b*stards wanted to destroy our nations, execute our leaders, expose our secrets. God forbid that we talk to them like human beings. In any event, a friendship on an individual level with a Vox member was an oxymoron. They would betray us when convenient.

In Vox’s recent disbandment thread, I chose to identify myself as Eli Cohen, a former Vox spy in MCXA. This sparked off a storm of outrage. Why, Francesca? Why did you inform on MCXA, the alliance you’d known and loved for almost two years? I expected the trolls, of course, but amidst the cries of “traitor” a few people were genuinely curious as to why I acted as I did. In this thread, I will endeavour to explain exactly that, and provide a few details about what happened after I became a spy. For those of you who aren’t interested in my story, there’s nobody forcing you to read it.

I became a member of MCXA shortly after I created my nation, on September 20th 2007. I’d been sent a few generic recruitment messages and none of them had particularly caught my attention. Little to my knowledge, the Unjust War had concluded just four days before. I could see that GOONS were being hunted down and exterminated; I actually considered joining them out of sympathy for the underdog, although I knew nothing of them or their history. I eventually sent a blue senator named Doctor Fresh a message asking him how to get more involved in the blue team. He explained in return message that Cyber Nations was not about your team colour, but more focused on alliances, and that I was welcome to join his alliance MCXA who had a major role in blue unity and BLEU. He seemed a pleasant enough fellow and I accepted the offer.

For quite a long time after this, I was highly active on the MCXA boards, but I didn’t get on IRC. I fought in numerous BLEU curbstomps, the earliest of which was the BLEU-NADC curbstomp, I believe. I felt proud to have fought for my alliance, and considered the NADC war medal in my signature to be a badge of honour. However, over time I slowly began to develop a mild dislike for the hegemony and BLEU’s various rollings.

It was about three hundred days into my Cyber Nations career. I’d never paid too much attention to the game, never bothered with politics beyond the CNF, never gone for a government position. However, at this time my activity began to pick up, and I started to use IRC on a regular basis. I became a reasonably well-known face in MCXA, and I made friends quickly. It was about this time that extreme drama blew up on the MCXA forums over the Freedom of Information amendment to the MCXA charter. On the one side, there was Sam & friends, on the other nc1701 and the more pro-democracy members of MCXA, the majority of whom were not in government positions, although nc1701 was a High Councillor. This debate was actually a critical moment in our history, for numerous different reasons. Firstly, it meant that I began spending time thinking about ways that MCXA could be improved, and especially ways that I personally could help improve it. Secondly, it was indicative of a pro-democracy versus pro-dictatorship trend which continued in many further debates, and eventually led to the TSO betrayal. I chose to take the side of the pro-democracy members like nc1701, because after all, MCXA was a democratic alliance and democracy was an integral part of our culture. Thirdly, the pro-democracy members were for the most part the anti-NPO members of our alliance, and they became my friends. This further reinforced my growing dislike for NPO and the hegemony.

Throughout this all, however, I trusted my government and even told Sam the password to my nation so that he could organise me a nation sitter for five weeks, while I went overseas. When I returned, Vox Populi had formed. I knew nothing about these people, and I simply absorbed the propaganda fed to us on the MCXA boards. They believed that the ends justified the means; they were not to be trusted; their spymaster was Electron Sponge, the former emperor of Polar who had a particular grudge against MCXA. Despite my mildly anti-NPO stance, I stood firmly against Vox, although I didn’t entirely disagree with their ideals.

Despite this, I kept a somewhat open mind. I dared to disagree with Sam once on the CNF on the effectiveness of Vox’s tactics in destroying the hegemony. This resulted in some chilling private messages from Sam, advising me to “get into peacemode quick” if I supported Vox, and informing me that trolling him was absolutely unacceptable, and that I was hereby ordered not to post on the CNF again. I was slightly upset, and taken aback, that he would say something like this to a member of his own alliance, as I assumed that he trusted me. I tried to explain that there was a difference between disagreeing with him, and trolling him, just as there was a difference between commenting on the effectiveness of Vox’s tactics and expressing sympathy for their goals. This didn’t really work, and I ended up crawling back to him on hands and knees and begging for forgiveness. I felt nervous and humiliated, and for the first time I felt distrustful of him.

Despite his orders, I continued posting occasionally on the CNF. Irrationally, and a bit subconsciously, I felt bitter towards Vox for causing this rift between myself and the leader of my alliance, and I trolled Vox occasionally as a result. I debated with President Kent on the CNF once after I trolled Vox, and ended up sending him a private message containing several arguments against Vox. It was deliberately cold in tone, because I didn’t want him to take my message as an indication that I was interested in Vox. He was, and is, an excellent debater, and messaged back, entirely destroying my arguments. I really didn’t want to listen, after all Vox were MCXA’s enemies, but I wasn’t too close-minded to ignore when my arguments were beaten. I continued to send him problems and arguments from time to time.

I eventually got a position from Libera as a deputy division commander. I requested at first that I be assigned to a division other than Scorpion (0-1000 NS) as it was full of the most inactive and useless members, and anyone with potential progressed from it rather quickly. However, Libera decided that he needed to “grind me down” in Scorpion, in preparation for higher positions in the Ministry of Defence. I accepted the position without complaint, and ended up doing some routine work writing reports on all recent MCXA wars and whether the tech raids were approved or not.

Then, one of my Scorpion members got attacked by two Voxians. He was getting owned, and posted an urgent request for help on the MCXA boards. There was a minor disturbance on the boards, because nobody could be found to help him who was both active enough and low enough in NS. I felt that our member was my own responsibility, as he was in my division, and my direct superior Jenn’GoneWild wasn’t doing anything about it. I sent the two Voxians polite ingame messages, requesting that they stand down attacks on our member. After all, I reasoned, friendliness gets you everywhere. Sam sent me a private message saying something like “uhh Fran? You do realise those are Voxians, and they aren’t going to pay attention to requests for peace, no matter how nicely you phrase them?” I shrugged and asked what harm it could do. If they told me to $%&@ off, I could live with it. However, I made sure that I didn’t say anything that could be used to humiliate me, unlike some other unfortunate who was aggressive towards Gatherum and ended up in the next Vox announcement. Then Gatherum messaged back, and we negotiated the cessation of hostilities on the MCXA member. I was taken aback by how warm he was, and I responded in kind, and we teased each other with some cheerful abuse. I actually really liked him! This made the second Vox member I respected, along with President Kent. I tried to get him off ZI, but the Minister of Defence (SleepiB) said no, and I wasn’t about to argue as I would get labelled a Vox lover, not to mention that as only a deputy division commander it was inappropriate to argue with a superior officer. Chickenzilla, the other Vox member, also agreed to stop attacking our member.

Then a prominent High Councillor, nc1701, resigned from all his government positions over issues with MCXA’s government. I deeply respected NC, he came across as an honourable and upright man on the boards, and he’d stood up for what he believed in before. I realised that this latest drama was likely related to the democracy versus dictatorship conflict in MCXA, which was a long-term and deep rooted issue in MCXA by now. I sent him a private message to confirm my suspicions, as he had suggested in his resignation thread that we contact him privately if we wanted to know more about the circumstances regarding his resignation. He invited me to join his private channel on IRC, which will go unnamed on the CNF, although anyone who knows us well will probably be able to guess what I am referring to. The members of NC’s channel discussed issues in MCXA, and how we could improve MCXA. Some of us decided to post in TFS’s election campaign thread, outlining reasons that we believed he would be an ineffective government member. He’d sent me some highly abusive messages some time before, which I worked up the courage to post in his campaign thread. The whole thing turned into an enormous dramafest, which I suppose I should have predicted. TFS was forced to end his campaign, and when his friends in government admitted that he was partially in the wrong, he stormed off to leave MCXA and join NADC. I got what I wanted, but the victory was bittersweet, because I hadn’t wanted him to leave MCXA under those circumstances. TFS also misunderstood a comment on nc1701’s, believing that NC had accused him of paedophilia, which led to further tensions between the two of them.

It was at around this point when I had a conversation with a member of Vox’s government for the first time- Schattenmann. I informed him that there was a turning point in MCXA ahead, and that there was an event taking place in the near future that would decide whether a few people remained in MCXA or not (I was referring, of course, to whether or not our campaign for our democratic rights was successful.) He questioned me on this a bit, but I refused to give him any further details at that point.

In these elections, I also ran for government, and campaigned for an increased level of transparency in government, and more of our democratic rights. I exploded my way onto High Council, because I won the trust and respect of the general membership by campaigning on issues that were important to them. In the week running up to the election, however, I was dismayed to discover that MCXA’s government was planning on splitting off and forming their own alliance, leaving us in anarchy. They had not given us any warning of what they were planning. I told NC and my friends, and together we attempted to shift MCXA members into other alliances on a large scale, because it appeared that MCXA would disband when our government abandoned us. For this, I was called a traitor for the first time. SunnyInc was one of the people I tried to evacuate out of the alliance, because I considered him a friend. He leaked logs of the query to Sam, who bullied me and lied to me about his intentions of forming a new alliance, and claimed that he intended no such thing. Instead, he made me feel responsible for the destruction of the alliance I loved, and for all the issues that were going on at that point. It is something he has never apologised for, and I have never forgotten. I was proven correct, however, a few days later.

TSO split off for a variety of reasons, not this under-appreciation rubbish that they tried to spoon-feed the public. Firstly, they realised that MCXA had a number of issues that they didn’t want to deal with, for instance opposing points of view on democracy, transparency and our relationship with the New Pacific Order. They also didn’t want to have to deal with MCXA’s high levels of inactivity and lack of military preparedness, which they themselves were responsible for, given that they had been government of MCXA for so long. Secondly, they knew that there was a war on the horizon that the NPO was not going to win and that they would be dragged into the conflict because of their five treaties with the NPO, or else get described as cowards by the rest of the community of Planet Bob. Splitting off and forming TSO solved this problem, as TSO had no prior treaty or MADP with the NPO, and was therefore under no obligation to provide them with military assistance. Sam moved on from one superpower to the next, The Order of the Paradox, as he realised that TOP was either going to go neutral or fight for the winning side of the war.

Sam and his friends bade us farewell, then it was time for us to try and save what remained of MCXA. Our active membership was gutted, and the remaining members were leaving in droves. Despite this, I sensed that MCXA had an opportunity to reconsider its pathway, here. Public opinion was of quiet optimism towards us, and I thought we could build upon this. I genuinely believed that our government could reform MCXA, and we could forge our own destiny, act in our own interests and stop having our foreign policy dictated to us by NPO. I realised that MCXA’s interests and Vox’s interests were not mutually exclusive, but I also realised that many people wouldn’t realise that at this point. Therefore, I talked to Schattenmann once more and volunteered to work as an informant. I saw this as the best way to move MCXA away from NPO, because not only were the Vox Senate better equipped to help me transform MCXA, but I received a lot of intelligence from them that helped me to direct MCXA and understand world politics better.

During that term of government, I experienced terrible disappointment. Fresh’s activity died down a lot, and the rest of MCXA’s government went inactive. Fresh opposed all efforts to move away from NPO, and claimed that we would not move away from them as long as he was an MCXA member. With an inactive government, and a largely inactive membership, I could see MCXA was going nowhere. It was heartbreaking, and I disliked TSO all the more for it.

In the next elections, I ran for Minister of Foreign Affairs, and won with a huge majority of votes against my predecessor, Jimmy2e. On that same night, I was contacted by the governments of no less than six of our allies, who all wanted to know why communications for the last month had been at nothing. Some of these allies included MDP partners, who informed me that communications were absolutely necessary in order to maintain MDP-type relations. I set to work immediately, but I simply couldn’t deal with so many alliances, so I appointed four deputy MoFAs who I sent to various alliances, for instance I sent nc1701 to Gremlins and let him deal with MCXA’s relations with them.

I did so much in my term as MoFA that there simply isn’t time to write it all. Anyone who has worked at this level will have some idea what is involved, but let me tell you that struggling to repair the friendships of an alliance that has had the original government stripped from it is tremendously hard, not to mention that the previous MoFA had let our foreign affairs department deteriorate badly. This was on top of normal MoFA requirements, like embassy creation, masking, and my new diplomatic co-ordination centre to supervise the progress of my diplomats.

What were my goals as MoFA? I had several. My vision was thus: MCXA, independent from NPO for the first time in its existence, close allies with VE and fighting on Karma’s side of the war against the hegemony. I pushed hard for an MADP with VE, intending to entitle it “The Shaneprice Accords” in response to the recent GGA drama, to display MCXA’s new political stance to the world in a way few would forget. This received some support in MCXA’s government, but not nearly enough to go through. I also wanted to see a return to blue unity, and contacted numerous alliances regarding the possibility. It received wide support from everyone else, but only about half of MCXA’s government were interested, the rest were worried that people would perceive BLEU 2.0 to be MCXA’s attempt to dominate the blue sphere. Finally, I caught Gatherum (who I had met once before, but did not remember) working in the ODN, under the pseudonym Ventus ex Gutter. I wanted to work with him in improving MCXA’s and ODN’s relations to an MDP or MDoAP level, as he moved ODN away from the hegemony, which was what I was trying to do with MCXA. Gatherum and I became firm friends, and remain such to this day.

I realised over my term was MoFA that not only were Doctor Fresh and several other MCXA government members doing us a disservice with their inactivity, they were also opposed to my vision of MCXA as an independent alliance from NPO. When VE cancelled on NPO, IRON and GGA, I realised that we were the only remaining One Vision alliance with which VE held an MDoAP. I knew that we were going to have to decide whether to stand with our allies in Karma and VE, or with NPO and the hegemony. I was determined that it would be the former, and I held two discussions with some close friends on who we planned to vote for in the election, and how to get pro-Karma people into power, e.g. election tactics. When I had an argument with maxfiles, which resulted in nc1701 putting him up for expulsion, he blackmailed me and threatened to expose what we had been doing, as he had been one my trusted friends who was part of the discussions on the next elections. I refused to let his blackmail compromise my integrity, and told him to log dump me, because I wasn’t going to be manipulated into doing what he wanted. He did so, and I was put up for trial. The chancellors voted to strip me of my position as Minister of Foreign Affairs, and in addition the general assembly was invited to vote on whether to impeach me from my position as High Councillor (that is how the MCXA’s expulsion system worked.) Despite having committed the same “crimes” as myself, maxfiles knew a lot about computer programming and Admin CP, and Fresh considered him simply too valuable to lose. Disgusted that the government would act in such a corrupt manner, and sadly realising that MCXA no longer had the potential to change, I didn’t bother to remain for the vote of the general assembly on my trial and resigned.

I immediately joined the Viridian Entente, and am currently fighting against the New Pacific Order.

If we accept loyalty to MCXA as faithfulness or devotion to it, then I beg you to consider who displayed loyalty to MCXA: I, the informer who worked not against MCXA, but to save it as dedicated Minister of Foreign Affairs, or those members of MCXA’s government who were largely inactive and allowed an alliance of 700 members to crumble to nothing? Perhaps we could spend some time in reflection over the true meaning of loyalty... for not everything is, or has to be, so cut and dry.

There is no tl;dr. Read the thread if you want to know my story, don’t read my thread if you don’t want to know my story.

[Mortale]

Right... i still don't like spying.

[Francesca]

Right... i still don't like spying.

I suppose there will always be people I cannot persuade, but I will never regret doing what I believe to be right.

[Gatherum]

Right... i still don't like spying.

What is done is done, and all is now well.

[Teriethien]

Very interesting read. It's sad that you had to leave MCXA like that, but their loss and VE's gain, I suppose.

[Saber]

Read only part about TSO and TOP.

What kind of superpower are we? We are bloody Canada or Sweden. Mind our own business. Not superpower.

[leprecon]

I knew parts of this story, but not everything.

Good read

I always laugh a bit when thinking back of how you raised MCXA's defcon before the war and then they stripped you of the power of raising defcon for falsely raising defcon.

Oh yeah, forgot to say that VIRIDIA LOVES YOU FRAN !

Edited June 3, 2009 by leprecon

[Atanatar]

Thank you for the story. I had always wondered about the the inner workings of the TSO situation, and why you had left.

[ShinRa]

That's... one hell of a backstory to your actions. It gives some good insight into the alliances you've been involved with as well.

[Francesca]

Read only part about TSO and TOP.

What kind of superpower are we? We are bloody Canada or Sweden. Mind our own business. Not superpower.

You are an elitist alliance at almost the very top of the scoreboards and you are going to dominate this game more and more after the Karma war concludes.

I knew parts of this story, but not everything.

Good read

I always laugh a bit when thinking back of how you raised MCXA's defcon before the war and then they stripped you of the power of raising defcon for falsely raising defcon.

Oh yeah, forgot to say that VIRIDIA LOVES YOU FRAN !

Thanks Leprecon . I VE too.

[R3nowned]

I won't ever be a fan of Spying, but at least you backed up your reasons well

good read

[shahenshah]

"They always have a justification"

Spying sucks, sorry.

Edited June 3, 2009 by shahenshah

[Francesca]

"They always have a justification"

Spying sucks, sorry.

Some justifications are better than others, though.

[Meer Republic]

You couldn't get your own way, so you spied, then when you still didn't get your own way you took your ball and left. Fair enough.

[Francesca]

You couldn't get your own way, so you spied, then when you still didn't get your own way you took your ball and left. Fair enough.

Wrong order... I spied, was betrayed and realised that my vision for MCXA was not going to become a reality. So I left.

[shahenshah]

Some justifications are better than others, though.

Yep, thats what they all think...that what they're doing is righteous.

Edited June 3, 2009 by shahenshah

[Grinder]

Some of us decided to post in TFS’s election campaign thread, outlining reasons that we believed he would be an ineffective government member. He’d sent me some highly abusive messages some time before, which I worked up the courage to post in his campaign thread. The whole thing turned into an enormous dramafest, which I suppose I should have predicted. TFS was forced to end his campaign, and when his friends in government admitted that he was partially in the wrong, he stormed off to leave MCXA and join NADC. I got what I wanted, but the victory was bittersweet, because I hadn’t wanted him to leave MCXA under those circumstances. TFS also misunderstood a comment on nc1701’s, believing that NC had accused him of paedophilia, which led to further tensions between the two of them.

Oh, guh-roan...

1: the comments I made to you were OOC in a private conversation with me expressing anger at you for your ignorance regarding Veteran's Day and occurred MONTHS prior to the events you're describing without any incident between you and I afterward, IC or OOC. You could have impeached me at any time, and had 2 other elections in which to raise this issue you had with me. When you finally did raise the issue, I contacted you privately and apologized to you for my behavior and for not realizing how upset you claimed at that time to really be with me. But it turns out you were just sitting on an egg to hatch it for maximum dramatic effect for your selfish ends. You're a coniver.

2: NC initiated the dramafest in my thread. Yes, I do love a good quarrel and I baited him on in all fairness, but through most of it (up until the end of it) I was level headed and laughing the whole thing off with how hard he was trying to make me look bad. All it would have taken is one of the Chancellors stepping up and saying to calm it down and I would have. In fact, Celt did do that and I obliged. He also demanded that NC either back up his accusations of pedophilia against me or retract them immediately. He has, to date, yet to retract or prove them.

3: I was never forced to end my campaign. I chose to because I was tired of how bogged down it was. My friends in government admitted no wrong on my part prior to me leaving MCXA. It was 2 people I still consider acquantances that did ACCUSED me of wrong doing and admitted to doing so without having read the thread. Both have since admitted that had they taken the time to read it instead of assume that yes, they would still not be pleased with me egging NC on, but that they would not have refused to do something about his behavior until the next week. That refusal to act until after the election was what made me decide to resign form MCXA, as there was no need to wait. It had nothing to do with the government not backing me or my actions. Their unwillingness to act immediately was indicative of a larger growing problem I was having with many in MCXA and even still a few in TSO.

4: NC's words were that I should be on To Catch a Predator and that former Senator Foley wasn't as bad as I am...all over me telling you to f*** off. There was no misunderstanding about what he was accusing me of. Your continuing to spin this BS is just pathetic.

To be clear, I have never made sexual advances on anyone more than 2 years younger than myself. All of my sexual partners have all been over 20. I have not even ever been pulled over, let alone any charge of a sexual predator nature on my record. I'm in the US military and such a black mark would have ended my military career long ago. I do not take such accusations lightly, and I would not expect anyone else to do so either. The fact that such a thing was ever used as a means of political defamation in this game disgusts me, and I want this to never be mentioned again. This kind of thing could have a detrimental affect on my real-life career and needs to end now, as it should have never been started.

Any posts by anyone trying to assert or imply that I am guilty of such things will be reported to the mods for what I think are obvious reasons.

5: you're ridiclous, and this martyrdom tour of yours isn't going to work. You're not smart enough at all to pull this off, Fran. There's no way you orchestrated all of this crap like you claim to be some huge mastermind. Otherwise, you'd post logs and screenshots to prove it instead of just claim it.

But that's all you ever did was make claims. Anytime I've ever asked you for proof of anything, you always dodged proving it. That's how we all knew you were nothing special and way too klutzy to be of real consequence like you claim.

"worked up the courage" my a**...lying and spying and violating oaths of loyalty negate any claim to courage you could ever make.

You and NC have mighty high opinions of yourselves. Word of caution: anyone I have ever known to try and play people like you to do always get theirs 10-fold. I'm not threatening you at all. I'm just saying one day you'll each try to play the wrong person and however the backlash affects you is going to be hard to recover from. Good luck when it does hit you. You'll need it.

However you think you may have been justified for spying, you weren't you violated a membership oath because we didn't just hand you what you wanted on a silver platter immediately after joining. The proper action in the event of no longer feeling content with your alliance to the point that you would willingly spy on them is to seek out an alliance that fits you better, serve your current one an official notice of your resignation from them, and move on to an alliance more in line with your political views. Instead you chose to violate our sovereignty to obtain your minority political ideals in our representative democracy. You violated trust. You are a traitor, and once a traitor, always a traitor.

Edited June 3, 2009 by Grinder

[Deadshot]

You are an elitist alliance at almost the very top of the scoreboards and you are going to dominate this game more and more after the Karma war concludes.

Thanks Leprecon . I VE too.

Spying is bad. No matter the reason. I still have faith in the MXCA leaders to thrive in the post Hegmonic era. I also don't think TOP is trying to rule the world, they are acting as they always have, with their ideals at heart.

[mhawk]

You know nothing of loyalty except to self.

[Meer Republic]

Wrong order... I spied, was betrayed and realised that my vision for MCXA was not going to become a reality. So I left.

You've lost me here, so you're saying you initiated it all by becoming a spy?

The fact remains you couldn't change the alliance you swore loyalty to into the image you wanted through conventional means so you became a spy and a traitor in order to try and realise those goals, even with the use of backroom plotting and spying you failed to realise your goals and twist the foreign policy to your own desires so you left. Classy.

That seems a pretty accurate summary, no?

Therefore, I talked to Schattenmann once more and volunteered to work as an informant. I saw this as the best way to move MCXA away from NPO, because not only were the Vox Senate better equipped to help me transform MCXA, but I received a lot of intelligence from them that helped me to direct MCXA and understand world politics better.

This made me chuckle in particular.

Outsourcing your FA policy to Vox was a super way of doing what was best for MCXA not like they would have had any agenda of their own...

Edited June 3, 2009 by Meercats

[MaddoxMcLovin]

Great Read! Your VE's gain for sure Francesca.

Whatever people's opinion's are on spying it happens in RL too, get over it the world you live in was shaped on many things you may not agree on, that's life! It's in the past.

[SunTzuWannabe]

I wubz you fran. Very interesting read.

see you in a certain room

Cheers

SunTzu

[mhawk]

You've lost me here, so you're saying you initiated it all by becoming a spy?

The fact remains you couldn't change the alliance you swore loyalty to into the image you wanted through conventional means so you became a spy and a traitor in order to try and realise those goals, even with the use of backroom plotting and spying you failed to realise your goals and twist the foreign policy to your own desires so you left. Classy.

That seems a pretty accurate summary, no?

Don't forget the part about awarding herself the medal of honor for her heroic actions... then the book tour.

[mykep]

Awesome, you make this game alot more interesting, and that goes to every Vox Populi member.

[Sir Keshav IV]

You spied because MCXA wouldn't want to go your way, thats just lame Fran, while you are nice to chat with on IRC, the !@#$ you pulled off is just !@#$%^&*, greater good? By what by turning sides like that? With what reason? Save MCXA's infra?

Sorry I just don't like spying and I don't like what you did, even though I don't like MCXA what you did wasn't correct however you try to say or prove it.

Sorry,

-Keshav