IronSoldier820

The Tale of Iron

IronSoldier820 aka Iron Soldier is a demi-god of the Maroon Team.

The following is his own personal account and was transposed to CN Wiki for preservation.

September 29, 2007

Arrival to CN - Internet History
How I arrived here is a string of coincidences. I am an Age of Empires player, and it just so happens when I returned to play the game online I found out that The Zone was going to close their CD-ROM section and AoE II players would have to find somewhere else to play. Thanks to advertisement or independent players and my short term memory, two sites stuck out. Empires Legacy and VeteV. Lucky for me, I could not remember all of Empires Legacy so I went to VeteV due to its simpler name.

EL ended up failing as a server and client anyhow, but had I gone there I would have never gone here. Another coincidence was that Spyder09 advertised his little site. Most people chased him off as VeteV had its own Graphics site (his was Spyders Graphics), but out of curiosity and courtesy, I checked his out.

Luckily, I stayed there because it only took a few minutes to stay active as the place wasn't all too busy and it was little loss to me. From there, we changed sites three times total. Once when Velocity Forums server crashed, we moved to a SetBB one. After a while, Spyder started PMSing (only appropriate way to describe it) and shut it down. The rest of us continued to a second SetBB forum called Graphics Planet. Along the way, we had picked up Comrade General.

On Graphics Planet, Comrade posted a link to CN and said to join it and CSN. In the end, only two of us clicked it. Me and L__L__Leader. L__L was convinced to go solo on Maroon, he fancied himself the sole defender of Maroon. Because of his tendency to get involved in every war against a Maroon nation, his nation never got anywhere. I, however, got stuck. I tried 8 times and the password I was given via e-mail did not work. I remember being extremely frustrated and gave up on CN altogether. Comrade General told me to remake just one time, and it worked this time. The second time I did not expect it to work, so I thought up something off the top of my head. Hence, why my nation name and ruler are random (Mansa Musa of Mali). The only history there is that my History Class just happened to be my hardest class at the time and we were studying West African Empires such as Mali.

Small Beginnings
I told you this was long, stop complaining. Anyway, as suggested by Comrade, I joined the Commonwealth of Sovereign Nations. There I was active on their forums only in the month of November, I ventured nowhere else. I received a little over 55k in Starter Aid from GinoTheRoman and Benjamin Arouet. To my small nation, this amount was enormous and I became very grateful. After a while, VeteV merged into GamePark and I had began to lost interest. Thus, my interest shifted to Cyber Nations.

Involvement started with my tendency to click links out of curiosity. King Arthur II of ONOS came over to CSN Forums as a diplomat, and as a CSN-only forum lurker, diplomats were "exotic" in a sense as I had no understanding of the CN outside of CSN. KAII posted a link to ONOS Forums in his embassy, for what reason I do not remember. However, I clicked it, and having been to numerous forums prior like Graphics Planet, I registered an account naturally before I realized I didn't need to be there.

A week or so later, Raider (then the Minister of Foreign Affairs) began to organize an Alliance List. One of the alliances was ONOS, and I figured since I was registered there already, I should become diplomat. And thats how it all started. At ONOS my forum activity habits from VeteV and CSN carried over. I became one of their most active diplomats and got to know many, many people. One of them was Loren, but most of them you wouldn't recognize as they've since scattered due to the NPO-ONOS Massacre.

During late November, my activity on ONOS forums caught a little jewel. Silent_Spitfire, a CSN Member that had fought in the ICP - Maroon War for his gain, began to raise trouble once the war settled. He attempted a rebellion against GinoTheRoman, but only gained the support of Epitaph. I was one who argued against him multiple times. After irrational behavior, he messaged unaligned Maroon Nations to vote for him in the Senate. Once he gained a Maroon Team Senate Seat, he entered Peace Mode and left CSN before being expelled.

From CSN he left to MDC, where he waited for two hours. After this, he abandoned his plans to join MDC and headed to ONOS. There, my activity spotted his application to join. I unveiled his actions in CSN and warned ONOS and CSN officials. ONOS and CSN being MDP partners and future GUARD founders, Spitfire was rejected. He then went solo.

Behind Peace Mode, Silent_Spitfire proceeded to sanction the top 15 CSN nations with 2 exceptions of people he liked. The Official CSN Senator, who was close to regaining his seat to remove the sanctions, had his nation deleted after Spitfire reported him for multi'ing. Spitfire sanctioned Masta of ODS and the top 3 TTK Nations after both spoke out against his actions. He then sanctioned Comrade General and I after we spoke out as well. He threatened to use his remaining sanctions on CSN applicants to starve the Commonwealth of new members and kill it.

Then, admin removed Spitfire from his Senate Seat and Peace Mode. His nation was pummeled, but a conflict quickly arose of if it was within admin's right to interfere in what appeared to be inner-game politics. This debate ended after Spitfire's nation was found to be guilty of possessing multis and was deleted.

Eventually KAII removed the CSN sanctions, but by then all of the sanctioned nations had their trades screwed and were forced to reconstruct them. Lucky for little me, my nation was too small for this to matter significantly. November of 2006 saw many events in Maroon, the Spitfire incident was the one I was closest involved to. Another was the end fragmentation of Maroon as the Maroon War had ended. The final nail in the Balkan Accords was the FFC/UGO move to Maroon. From that moment the Balkans disbanded, Maroon split into the NDF (NoR, MDC, and allies), GUARD (ONOS and CSN), and Independents/Neutrals (RIA, USN, etc.).

The Rise of the Soldier
Behind all the drama, a good thing happened. The Spitfire incident had forced me to travel to the CN Forums, which had previously frightened me by their massive activity, to stand against Spitfire in his topic crying foul against admin after admin had removed him from Peace Mode.

After this settled down, I stayed afterwards a little bit to check out the Maroon Team Forums. Coincidentally, on that exact day, Smith had arrived. That day I witnessed the creation of the Maroon Team Spam Thread, however, full activity would not come until two weeks later.

My involvement in ONOS and CN Forums grew later in December. Two weeks following the creation of the Spam Thread, I returned to the Maroon Team Forums. Then my full activity began. I became a faithful clone of Smith and participated in the greatest bliss known to Maroonity. I can not possibly give dates or events, but I can truthfully say that the Maroon Team Forums were the greatest Forums I've ever participated in. That month of December was magic, for those of us that remember, Smith even gave us a Tarp.

At ONOS, Loren joined in December. I remember her application, I lurked everywhere. Cdbob was a mad recruiter as well as Sirettx, the recruitment contest was interesting to watch. Loren, ActionAction, BlueLightning, and plenty of others I could not hope to remember and mention spammed in the Steak and Eggs forums on ONOS. In combination with the Maroon Team Forums, at the same time, this was my golden age in CN.

December Gone
Then in January Raider quit MoFA. I later learned that MoFA was a fake position, only there for formalities and nothing else. The MoFA signature was not required for treaties even. The real power was suppose to lie in the Senate. Its funny, the Senate now complains of a lack of power instead.

I learned only very recently of what truly happened. When I had gotten the message from Gino to become MoFA, I was ecstatic. It was a true honor. I later learned that one important official felt that my activity would be wasted on such a position and I should be put to use in the military. The other felt it was perfect for me. The first agreed with the other and they persuaded Gino to promote me to MoFA.

Not knowing the back story, I was entirely convinced Gino was putting his trust in me completely by giving me this huge leap. I served as MoFA all the way until June, only then feeling I had fulfilled my debt.

Them, I came at a crossroad. The Alliance List Raider had made marked him as Diplomat to all the places there weren't primary diplomats. To me, this was intimidating as there was at least 30 forums. Little did I know, he just marked himself as a default and wasn't actually at all of them. However, I constantly added to this list and it took months to finally become registered on all the forums on the list. The list constantly was updated by me with new alliances, removing old ones, etc. Before I quit, it had hit 110 Alliances and I was signed onto all of their forums.

I was a fanatic. I felt I could never repay my debt. However, after seeing a treaty passing by me without my signature, I was outraged. I had felt this was my job, why was I not required in this sense? Thanks to one of the aforementioned officials who had made an influence in my promotion, this was changed. From then on, I started a trend of overreaching and over-everything. I temporarily filled in for Audits in the Ministry of Education, handled recruit blunders when newbies attacked aligned nations, etc.

All this combined, I realized I could not handle this all and maintain full activity at ONOS, Maroon Team Forums, and CSN. I had to quit one of them. I had become attached to all, but I saw ONOS as a Maroon Team Alliance, so I forfeit ONOS and posted a notice of less activity due to my promotion. This was in January, my active time there was sadly cut short to little over one month.

From Foot Soldier to Minister
Being promoted to Minister meant more than title, I had a lot to learn. And I'm still learning to keep myself in line, perfection is difficult to obtain. My promotion occurred a little after Great War II, so my entrance into observing CN Politics mores o than only Maroon CN Politics started off slowly.

The months of my January to June are a blur. Everything became routine, yet I did so much. Not a day was without happening which I did concern myself with. It took months for me to gain admin so I could mask Diplomats rather than apologize and wait for someone to mask them. But gaining admin was sweet, it represented the gain of trust. But that was a far ways off.

Great War III hit in March. I was told by an outsider known only as Master-Debater[BTA] himself, who was requesting CSN participation. As an official concerned with CN politics, it troubled me that this had leaked to me from an outsider yet my own leaders had told me nothing. There was a decision to be made that could have changed the outcome of Great War III, and that involved GUARD. Being a part of discussing what to do, I can honestly say that was my most influential moment in Global CN History. And yet I regret it.

WUT is dead, but with them ONOS is dead. One can point at the alliance itself, but even those admit it will admit it is merely an empty shell of what was once former glory. GUARD is dead. Choosing to sit once more on the sides and then witnessing the NPO-ONOS Massacre in June destroyed the sense of unity. The addition of Sparta and RIA did little to help this, if only to hinder it. I have the feeling we merely postponed all of our deaths, but I also having the feeling of missing out on something. Like going out in a blaze of glory.

April saw a second mass recruitment contest. It took at least a month for CSN to recover. The first was a while ago, its date I can not remember, but it saw the entrance of members that would soon become important contributors to CSN. The second saw several of these as well. In the second or first wave, I do not recall who came in which. But I do recall Juggernauts, Jakeinto, Gowfanatic, and others coming in who would later have great importance.

This caused a massive diplomatic nightmare for me. I had to constantly apologize to foreign alliances because these new recruits would senselessly attack aligned nations, and dealing with this problem nearly became daily. All in all, its the one definite thing I can remember about this period.

J - J
Summers in Cyber Nations are always eventful. Its been stated that CN is ruled by 15 year olds, and that is completely true. In Summer Break, those out of school will raise havoc. And this summer saw changes.

Before Summer, in Late May, VE had attempted to join GUARD. They were beaten to the punch by WUT, who attacked them and caused them to disband. This happened another time with CIN, who was a GUARD applicant killed by NpO during its waiting period. These were due to inactivity in GUARD, which would slowly lead to its inactive death.

Then we come to June. All was normal, and then in mid-June I was hit with a brick to the head. In a meeting I will not forget, Moo-Cows provided solid evidence of ONOS spying. I thoroughly tested it. The other CSN Official and I were not ready to believe officials from any alliance over our long term allies. Yet I checked it.

I went over the evidence over and over again. Whatever was needed to prove it was provided. I explored every possible solution, but I came to nothing. ONOS officials had spied. As of what I know, only two did, but the two responsible caused the downfall of the alliance.

The leadership disappeared during this short Massacre, and merely hours later, the members were forced to make a declaration of surrender to NPO. One of the two spies had joined NPO, he was the one who alerted them to the operations. Da_Choice. His nation is now deleted and he rejoined CN under a code name, as this despicable act had gained him a lot of deserved hate. Where he is now, I don't care.

In the surrender terms the confused and abandoned members were forced to agree to, a term of one month under a viceroy was initiated. During this month, ONOS members could not leave. This was effective enslavement, but did not stop members from pouring out. By the time the month was over, ONOS had lost its sanctioned and been reduced to a miserable state in comparison to its former state.

Out of the members that left, Loren came to join me in CSN. Having been close to ONOS, I had hoped that they would come to CSN and I could make it what I had known ONOS as. Without spying, what I had known it as. But this was not meant to be. The few members that joined ended up leaving to M*A*S*H. I had later learned the plan of ex-ONOS members to join CSN and boost it to sanction status, but this plan was abandoned.

By the end of June, I was changed. In the background, Maroon was slowly dying. Smith had left us, and overall quality was downgraded. Old Marooners were leaving, and by the time the Moderators killed off Team Forums, we were no more. What little of Maroonity left lied in individuals of that time. The slaughter of ONOS only furthered the death of Maroon. With the death of ONOS and Maroon, I had only CSN. I was to become Prime Minister. But I cracked under pressure.

At first I was eager to finally be promoted after months of toil, but then it dawned on me I had a window to escape. I was required to quit MoFA to run for PM, and did so. In this short time, I was an active Risk player. This had nearly always been a side hobby for some months. In one particular game (I call it the Got Milk game), I got extremely angry at what occurred.

And then I realized how stupid I was to be angry. It was a game. Then I realized everything else. CN was just a game. I was losing it. I had to get away, and I saw the window. I quickly announced my vacation and my withdrawal from the Race. In July, I disappeared.

I came back in rather late July. My replacement MoFA had been Stefanus, a very talented Head Diplomat. However, after he quit MoFA, he cut off contact with me and always responded to me in a hostile manner. I never could understand what had happened, but I had always thought of him as my successor.

I suppose he blamed my sudden departure on his troubles. A common phrase was that I had big shoes to fill, and for him to fill them so suddenly was incredibly difficult. He quit in late July, and I came back during the month of August to replace him. I had gotten my break and was back to work.

August to Present
And here I finally reach present. During my term in August, I was getting re-accustomed to working. But my return was not a glorious one, only a required and mundane one.

I continued all of my responsibilities, and I helped kill GUARD. It had become nothing other than a pile of inactivity. It had witnessed the deaths of TCF and ONOS, but had never fought. Never bonded. GUARD had its chance, missed it, and it was time to end it. I had hoped for a universal disbandment to end it quickly, but ASC jumped the gun and NADC officials would not show up to agree to it. So alliances were forced to withdraw individually.

Then in August 30th it happened. Merely a day before, The Black Watch (Minister of Defense of CSN) had discovered via Admin CP that a Senator who was re-running was using multiple accounts to rig elections in his favor. He had apparently done this before, his named was cloud429. I immediately banned all matching IPs. One was of his friend Mister Sandman, who was later reprieved.

This quick action brought about disagreement. I had skipped the justice process in taking such action. I was willing to give him a trial, but the evidence was too founded for me to bother. There in cold facts, 7 accounts were found of having the same IP and the 6 others had no nations. They were merely for rigging elections and had slipped into CSN Forums.

I was harassed by several members until, to be honest, I was pissed. I've never seen such utter stupidity. And I've seen a lot of stupid crap. Stalin The Great is officially nominated for my personal Mr. Internets Award. I saw the Cult of Richard founded on that same day, took the window of opportunity, and left.

I will never go back. I'm tired of being betrayed and lied to. I do not place trust only to beget betrayal. I do not burden only to starve. After I left, many others left. The Commonwealth will probably live on. Maybe so, maybe not. I don't care. I've wasted a good 8 months slaving away for it, its no longer my concern. My debt is repaid.

Ever since then I have been a part of the Cult and have helped to found the alliance and get it on its feet. All I have ever sought is a home of truth, I can not bear to carry one that whispers lies in my ear while it rests on my shoulders.