Disclaimer: The opinions within this article are those of the author and doe not necessarily reflect those of EN24, its staff or writers.
I wasn’t planning on writing anymore articles on this topic but Sion’s recent article is simply too interesting not to address. One cannot help what is going through Sion’s mind as he wrote this piece.
“Feeding”
So the term is extremely common in games such as DotA where your team gets gold/experience based on the enemy player they’ve killed. If a member is particularly bad or maybe intentionally losing, it’s called “feeding.” Sion’s definitely feeding. The only question is if he’s just bad or if this is intentional. I’m honestly not sure. Anyway, read the following link with that term in mind.
How was it? What hurts more, your forehead or your palm? Alright let’s work through this.
Sion starts off by fumbling around with some semantics regarding the definition of community. Whatever deeper meaning he may have been trying to address gets lost in clumsy use of terminology often contradicting himself from one line to the next killing any sort of curiosity one could have to motivate the trouble of deciphering his intent. The quote that did catch my eye was: “It inherently assumes in the conceptualization that there is a Truth out there, and that Truth will be brought to the People by prophets of the Truth. Should you happen to disagree with that Truth, you find yourself outside this exclusive ‘community.'” I won’t fault Sion for it, but this sounds very familiar to what GSF leadership does on a fairly common basis. I’m not sure if Sion is unaware of this or if he’s simply hoping nobody else is.
He then goes on to claim that “the community,” which he claims does not exist, was outraged over their attack on Pandemic Horde [REKTD]. I don’t think anyone was actually critical of the attack itself. Much of the criticism earned was due to the poor handling of the KS, perceived or real hubris, as well as the insincere apology by the Mittani regarding its failure. Sion’s complaint that “bloggers have excluded the GSF out of the Eve community” took me by surprise considering goon culture has commonly used exclusionary tactics throughout the past. People outside of their group are even referred to as “pubbies.” If Goons are “excluded” by the community, we have to look at this claim logically. Is it more logical that bloggers have that sort of influence and power, or is it more likely that past Goon tactics of excluding non-goons succeeded. I would ask Sion to take responsibility for his actions rather than blame others. Let’s look at an example of past Goon exclusion:
“The theme of this year’s Goonswarm Alliance presentation is going to be Goonswarm hates you – and basically just talk about each different little aspect of demographic of eve of how much we hate them and want them all to die and kill themselves. Like highsec miners, we want them to kill themselves; people who role-play, we want them to kill themselves; people with Titans, we want them to kill themselves. There’s just a whole host of people I hope to really offend by telling them to commit suicide while on stage in front of thousands of nerds.” – The Mittani, 2012.
Perhaps it is not fair to blame all Goons for this sort of sentiment. I’m sure many do not have these beliefs. But the backlash that the Goons are seeing today is the responsibility of their leadership. It would be a fairly troubling state of affairs if bloggers were having more sway over the narrative of the Goons, than the leaders of the Goons themselves.
“Unfortunately for both the punditry and the /r/eve minority, Goonswarm Federation and the Imperium are not led by spineless pandering idealists desperate for the validation of a non-existent “community.” We are hard-eyed realists who know what it is to fight against impossible odds to build the largest, longest-lasting, most organized, and most effective gaming community the world has ever seen.” ~ Sion
I have to ask if making a big whiny post about how people are being “judgemental and exclusionary” was part of the “not being spineless pandering idealists desperate for validation” plan. I also wonder if their hard realist eyes notice that neither attacking Pandemic Horde nor fighting low sec groups like TISHUBOX (Psychotic Tendencies. [TISHU] and Snuffed Out [B B C]) in 4 to 1 odds while losing is exactly a “fight against impossible odds.” Oh but of course, the low sec towers. CFC has essentially stumbled into a bar knocking over tables and chairs with their big gut while the low sec groups inside, who usually don’t even get along, turn to each other and say “hey look at this asshole, let’s kick his ass” and do so. But I suppose it’s hard to measure “success” in loss-mails, so towers that Goons can never hope to hold will have to do.
Sion continues with the propaganda spiel stating how the “Imperium” is a rock solid community that has laughed and cried and flown together for many many years. Groups generally make these sort of long posts when they start sensing their own mortality. Same thing happens in the real world where dictators ruling oppressive unstable states make speeches about their strength and unity. It’s not surprising Goon leadership would be doing the same thing. Vily and SUAS, both high profile FCs/leaders in Goons, have left. The PvP core oriented portion within SpaceMonkey’s Alliance [SMA], the Goon’s strongest and most loyal ally in their coalition, has also left. Endie stepped down from his position within the coalition. Poor Endie would probably leave as well if he could. (Hey Endie, The OSS [OSS] is recruiting. Bring Bat Country [-BAT-]) So of course it makes sense that Sion is repeating propaganda lines about how unified and strong everything is. But no one goes around flexing their muscles unless they feel they need to compensate for something else.
And here’s the bottom line to catch from this entire hair-on-fire-Trump-style-trainwreck: Goon leadership has a problem with external criticism, especially through /r/eve because it is a place where they cannot simply out number and overpower the narrative. Even though posts have been pinged for members to “participate” in, they’ve turned so much of the Eve community against them (or at least the portion of the community that participates in the matter) that all they can do is rant impotently on their propaganda site. Heaven knows I’m not trying to incite the masses behind me in order to justify my opinions, I’ll leave that to Mittens and Sion.
Sion ends his article referring to the two stipulations that make a community; shared values and shared a shared cause. I would say that there are shared values and causes by the Eve community. Of course they are not as narrative specific as the goose stepping single hive mind like narrative Sion may stipulate, but it’s a bit arrogant to discard everyone else’s values but your own. I honestly wanted to move on and write about something else but Sion’s contribution is just too much in need of an address. Not only does the Sion contradict himself from one article to the other, he contradicts himself from one paragraph to the next.
He states how a community can’t be all inclusive, yet complains that Goons are being excluded from the community…which doesn’t exist according to him. He complains that “bloggers and pundits” invoke the name of the community for political reasons, and yet he himself gushes over how the ‘glorious leader’ starts his speeches with “my people” and other such cringy terminology. Sion is managing to do with badposting what N3/PL failed to do with spaceships. This delusional rambling propaganda is so cringy that even individuals who’ve only had a mild interest of Goons turn against them. There’s no political move or over all narrative. This, Sion, is you guys running into the room, screaming “notice me” and people recoiling with disgust.
Grr /r/eve.
~ Seraph IX Basarab
