Benfro

Big news from your friends in TKR! (Just kidding, thanks RON for scooping me!) Time for a changing of the guard has arrived. From the time I joined TKR gov in milcom lowgov almost 4 years ago now, I considered how leading such an incredible team would look. It seems wild to think that this is now in the rear view mirror. My time has come to ascend to shard status, in TKR reserved for retired monarchs, and allow @Wizel16 to take his rightful place as leader of the best AA on Orbis. Those that were and are my leader peers have made this game a ton of fun. Thank you for the constant challenges and being my friends. Some of you have crept onto my RL Christmas card list, exchanged incredibly personal details, and have shared in RL celebrations and tragedies alike. There have been many sleepless nights that I assure you I will not miss, nor the stresses of getting blitzed on my wedding day, during my honeymoon, and while out for dinner with my parents for the first time in a year due to the pandemic. Sadly for some, I will not completely disappear from Orbis, but I assure you that @Wizel16, @BigMorf, @WarriorSoul, @Canbec, @lancelot1, and @Kyubnyan will continue to pursue great heights while keeping the game fun and do an incredible job into the future leading TKR. The TKR gov and membership base should be thanked profusely for their patience and trust in working with me. (And for pulling off maybe the best April Fools theme ever! Thanks again for that) To our allies in t$, Guardian, Grumpy, Black Knights, Seven Kingdoms, and The Imperium/The Order, thanks to all of you. Quack on, Hollywood forever, whatever works for you. But this game is a great example of taking risks, embracing change, and managing personalities from all of the world and age/demographic spectrum. Thanks for teaching me so much about so many different things. But mostly, how to have fun even when things get stressful at times. And, of course, an unreasonable amount of thanks goes to @Adrienne for trusting me to lead this motley crew and continuing to provide advice and a sympathetic ear whenever I needed one. She even provided no strings attached advice when appropriate! So, goodnight Orbis. Thank you for a great 17 months of engaging with TKR. My final ask is to continue to pressure @BigMorf into hosting great radio shows, push @Wizel16 to be a guest on the shows, and keep letting us prove why TKR is the best community in the game! Please direct all complaints directly to @Wizel16 and all congratulations in the thread below. (Since this is such a surprise change - thanks to all who already have reached out prior to the official announcement) Hail TKR. Hail Windrunners. Hail King @Wizel16. Be well friends!

@Valkorion Baratheon - well done on your leadership term. Congratulations not only for your successes but for building such a strong bench that @Lucianus is able to step in and continue the positive trajectory you have created. o7 Let's talk investments anytime, especially since this time it won't be while you are trying to coordinate a blitz. @Lucianus you might need a forum prof pic given your new stature. Looking forward to working with you.

Why would we not leave this open for at least a week? Or until peace talks are close to finalized? Hegemony Dogpile #3

This was going to be my suggestion as well, but we are likely overdue for a whole rethink on these mechanics anyhow.

Holy word wall after accusing me of a rant. Mine was two sentences. All I was asking for is "tl;dr he stole our bank and tried to poach." But thanks for dragging every single one of my past and present allies into this for no apparent reason! Man I wish I could get the majority of my members to even engage in the TKR Discord, let alone OWF. Lol. I'd guess my total penetration is <10% for OWF activity among TKR members.

Apparently I’m either illiterate or ignorant. Did I miss this reasoning being written somewhere? Or was I just supposed to know via osmosis? Thanks for rolling out the downvote brigade instead of just telling the rest of us that are otherwise occupied what this is all about. Oh thank goodness! I thought someone on OWF might have an original thought. Oh wait, never mind. Let’s just retread the oldest accusation in the book of TKR World Police. Forgive me for accusing the #15 alliance of smashing some micro without a stated reason as being classless. Maybe next time someone could tell the rest of us what is going on.

Ah, the traditional "wait until their protector is fully zeroed out by a dogpile to jump a micro" maneuver. I would say good luck, but you don't need it. Keep it classy.

Personally not pinning blame on t$, by the time @Emperor Adam and I formally talked about dissolving Quack, I think both sides were expecting it. That said, expecting us to be entirely forthcoming on our post-Quack plans while allied is a little bit rich, even if you may have seen it coming. I think the hangup is the argument that we withheld information for the last month of Quack, etc. while we were still fully engaged in planning and playing within Quack (we even proposed a war against, then with, our now allies).

It's also a game of relationship development and bond building and breaking. I have several people I've met through this game that are RL friends now...so what do ya know, it can work. I'm not doe eyed enough to think the internet is a great place, nor that everyone tells the truth. I do choose to spend my relationship capital intentionally, however, and when it gets thrown back in my face, that sucks. A lot. Anyway, this thread has been good. I'm a fan.

was Got it - so I was supposed to know that you and Harry were in comms and that his response represented yours too? The last thing I received from him was that Harry and Valk were happy to chat, and I responded I was "just waiting to confirm with [you]" (WANA). I learn from everyone I interact with, and one of @Sweeeeet Ronny D's biggest pet peeves is the "hello" DM instead of cutting to the point, especially when both parties are not online at the same time and it is an important matter. The onus was on you there, WANA. My message said exactly what I wanted, and it was sent 8 hours to blitz. Again, if you wanted to avoid chatting with me on blitz day, fine, but don't pin this on my RL job or my lack of response time. If you wanted to deescalate, you had an easy opportunity and turned it down by omission. We know blitzes take days to coordinate with availability surveys and build up, especially when you are planning a joint blitz with another group. I contacted you on day 3 of our defensive militarization. Still not the warring that bothers me, it is the obfuscation of the communication efforts made on our part to avoid this conflict. Got it, so you were the aggrieved party, not the group that got tandem blitzed by the two other largest spheres in the game? Just making sure I understand. FYI - my game time is more limited than I would like for a variety of reasons lately, but my DMs are always open. @Cooper_ and @BigMorf do a great job of keeping lines of communication open in our embassy (holy cow there's a lot of chatter in there), but again one party doesn't hold all the responsibility. I chat with @Emperor Adam still semi-regularly even in his retirement bliss. We have all militarized for one reason and decided to do something entirely different to keep our membership happy, but the idea of coordinating with another sphere on 72 hours notice seems a little farfetched to me. The KT reason was clearly communicated by t$ in our embassy, which is exactly why I turned around and used it in DMs with you prior to your blitz, but does not account for such a sphere-wide mil up. We still took you at your word and now are being scolded for not coming to you, despite doing exactly that? I'm just lost on your narrative here.

You do realize that I reached out unknowingly on the day of your blitz and what I received back was several hours later, and a half-assed "I'm around now" followed by several more hours of silence? I explicitly said I was hoping to get Rose, t$, and SRD/me in one space to hash out a de-escalation plan. Your claim that you had no choice but to act is flagrantly false; @Harry Flashman at least had the gall to reply to me and lead me to believe that Rose wasn't involved - that's a topic for another day - but you couldn't be bothered. There was a proposal for three parties to be involved in talks, the same three parties at war now, and you two were already in comms. You knew we weren't conspiring with anyone else, but are playing the "we didn't have another option" card, which is weak. What was your plan? To go along with our proposed demil then simply not comply and whack us once we dropped our agreed upon units? I have no desire for a Cold War, but that's how you are making it sound. This war was long in the making. I'm not fussed over the actual warring, it is part of the game. But don't pin it on a lack of response on my part, nor on a lack of communication on TKR or HW's part. We made a tangible effort to open pathways that were not responded to. I just had the genuine bad luck timing of reaching out on your pre-planned blitz day, as the prior outreach via larger embassies was "oh no we are just focused on other threats" which is a bold faced fallacy. Unless @Agent W has some other doctored screenshot, attached is what exactly went down, in totality.

Nowhere to go but up.

Scattered, smothered, covered, and CHUNKED. You missed the pig. Gotta have some protein in there, duh.

Congrats gang. Have fun in the Club. Never forget how hard Oscar goes.

Dear Orbis Friends, Colleagues, Peers, and Acquaintances, I come to you with a very important update: Today marks the sixth (yes, sixth) birthday of The Knights Radiant. As we enter our seventh year, we would love for you to join us in celebration of all of the happenings of the last year. This has marked my first full year after couping politely displacing @Adrienne, and it has been marked by two wars, two spheres, and lots of friends new and old. TKR and our members are proud of the growth we have seen on Orbis, and hope you can continue to join us in celebration of this place. We have high hopes for our continued growth and fun in the coming year, and we hope to see you on our Discord, your Discord, our forum, @BigMorf radio, our private Slack, or via carrier pigeon soon. Without further ado, the best birthday song I know: @Benfro out. My personal birthday wish is for my theme song never be heard from again. Love y'all.

Yep I got beiged earlier because of it too. https://politicsandwar.com/nation/war/timeline/war=954449

Apparently @Cooper_ missed the memo that all war decs must be made strictly in bold font. Otherwise who else would know we have no actual case to join an already lopsided war?

Treating this as the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. @MinesomeMC is a true artist.

I even tried to give @Alex a heads up for this one, but alas. T-20 life!

Signatures are the best part. Love you guys.

I'm really sad - this has been so much fun. Thanks guys. @Prefonteen, @Shiho Nishizumi, @Emperor Adam: You guys have been so fun. Keep it up. (Also only Shiho hasn't retired) To the rest of our Quack friends - stay in touch!

@Emperor Adam I'll miss our daily chats. Congrats @Agent W

TKR Smash, let's party y'all!

Love you guys. The Order is legit!

Ayyyy we did it!