Circle-of-Two continues being the obsessive topic of Goonswarm propaganda. To a certain extent I understand why. Without Co2 refusing to follow the rest of the Imperium to their lowsec retreat, WWB’s ability to counter-attack and retake the north during 2016’s WWB was impossible. The entire affair is presented as Co2 somehow “betraying” their allies. The truth of the matter is until March (some three or so months into WWB) the Goons showed little or no support for Co2’s front fighting against the MBC. Goonswarm called to abandon the north and Co2 simply refused to agree to this withdrawal. They wanted to keep their home, so much so that they fought another massive war in the fall of 2016 against PanFam. Anyone being honest will recognize this fact.
Goon propagandists at INN will of course continue to invent historical events to change reality. Much the same way Goons emulate 1984’s ministries within their organization, they will also emulate the way they re-write history to suit their needs.
(Note I’m not posting this as cached as usual because the updated comments will be interesting I’m sure.)
Gray Doc who is the author of the article presents a number of quotes and interviews from a number of people. What he himself writes lacked much weight but was not strongly opinionated one way or another. He makes an effort with his first quote from Arabella Meyer, a former Co2 member to give the Co2 perspective on things. Just about everything else that follows is uninformed propagandist circle-jerk.
“When I joined CO2 in 2012 the alliance was a totally different beast [than it is now]. We were living in a single constellation in Tribute and things were great. We were a thousand-person elite PVP alliance, and I loved it. I was a nobody line member until early 2013 when I approached the then head diplomat and asked if there was a way to climb the ladder and become an alliance diplomat. Between doing diplo work and talking to my own contacts within other alliances I started to get a read on who was positive and negative for the alliance. The head diplomat I mentioned earlier was one of the negatives, being someone who at times was even harder to work with and was even more disrespectful to line members than GigX was. Eventually he was kicked [for] lying to gigX and the CO2 leadership team, while at the same time trying to undermine others in CO2’s leadership to get them kicked. That lead to me being installed as the head diplomat for CO2. From there everything was downhill. I’d been handed a diplomatic corps with nearly no diplomats (gigX and the former head diplomat didn’t trust anyone) and an alliance reputation that was irreparable. I decided to stick around for the move to Impass after the Casino War and hoped everything would get better . It didn’t. (The Judge, formerly of CO2, now in KarmaFleet of Goonswarm Allilance)”
The “other diplomat” he was referring to here is of course Da Winci. And Judge was always sucking up to Da Winci attempting to gain clout in the alliance. When I was negotiating Co2’s defection from the Imperium with Da Winci, Judge always tried to inject himself in the process although nobody ever wanted him around. He then begged me to get him in contact with Lenny, the one who hired certain MBC groups to hit Goons, and later Judge asked me to pay him for Co2 to defect. When Da Winci informed he me wanted to pull Co2 out of the Imperium due to Mittani’s wish to withdraw from the north, Judge quickly rushed to message me when Da Winci was logged off.
[3/27/2016 8:55:17 PM] The Judge: That wouldn’t be an issue. I suppose my question is “how much”
[3/27/2016 8:56:22 PM] Seraph Basarab: How about just a flat 400 bil total. That covers 3 titans and then some. Of course you also gain all of TNT’s space and moons which from what da_winci said you guys would enjoy taking anyway.
[3/27/2016 8:56:33 PM] Seraph Basarab: And we could do 100 bil every 2 weeks for the isk.
[3/27/2016 8:57:07 PM] Seraph Basarab: To be honest you’ll probably end up with more space than you will want as not everyone involved in the war will want to keep space long term anyway.
[3/27/2016 8:58:26 PM] The Judge: Seems low for what we bring to the table, at least in my eyes
[3/27/2016 8:58:36 PM] Seraph Basarab: What would you suggest then
[3/27/2016 9:02:18 PM] The Judge: From what I hear, the deal with TISHU was quite a bit more generous
[3/27/2016 9:04:26 PM] The Judge: Given we can form an entire fleet alone, and would be providing a perfectly positioned staging point and even as far as super/titan support (should PL play nice) I would hope that would be properly valued
[3/27/2016 9:05:17 PM] Seraph Basarab: Would the same deal as TISHU got work then?
[3/27/2016 9:05:32 PM] The Judge: Give me numbers 🙂
[3/27/2016 9:19:31 PM] Seraph Basarab: Well how about 600 bil total then?
[3/27/2016 9:19:53 PM] Seraph Basarab: More than covers the titans and anything lost, it’s a good size chunk of money. You of course get all of TNT’s assets/moons as well.
[3/27/2016 9:22:31 PM] The Judge: I will skip the “1tril” and the following “meet half way” and go straight to the bottom line of 200bil a fortnight for a total of 800bil.
[3/27/2016 9:22:48 PM] The Judge: With the rest of the terms we have both stated already
[3/27/2016 9:25:51 PM] The Judge: With a bit of a cherry on top, I can 95% feed you a bastion supercap/cap movement fleet
[3/27/2016 9:25:56 PM] The Judge: Because why not
[3/27/2016 9:27:26 PM] Seraph Basarab: Alright so total agreement is as follows: Co2 gets standings with “Voltron” and rights to all of Tribute and assets there in. Along with that Co2 get 800 bil paid bi-weekly at 100 per payment starting with Co2’s defection from the CFC being announced. Co2 will help “Voltron” fight the CFC in fleets and any other way possible. Leaving anything out?
[3/27/2016 9:29:37 PM] The Judge: 800bil paid in fortnightly instalments of 200bil. 2 months is a lot more reasonable than 4 months 😛
I entertained his request and kept the conversation going. The next time I spoke with Da Winci I asked him if any of this was part of the request. Da Winci specified it was not and that Co2 did not request any money. This was done because Mittens was abandoning the north and Co2 wanted to stay. Of course Judge knew this and was simply trying to scam his way into some cash. He didn’t seem to want anyone to know.
[3/28/2016 8:13:25 PM] The Judge: Just saying
[3/28/2016 8:13:38 PM] The Judge: Being a successful spy master means most people will never know your part
[3/28/2016 8:13:47 PM] The Judge: I would suggest you keep it that way for your own sake
Always looking to place himself in the center of the party, Judge was more than happy to be the one posting on reddit about Co2 defecting and acting like he played some kind of significant role. Nothing could be further from the truth. Next Judge claims that Da Winci had been “kicked for lying.” The truth is of course different. Da Winci took a break for a few weeks from the game after a dispute regarding the system of 2cg. Somehow GigX who is supposedly greedy according to Goon propaganda, wanted to give the system of 2cg over to TEST. Da Winci did not want this. After he came back, Judge had weaseled himself into his position and Da Winci quit.
Afterward my own corp joined Co2 and GigX added me as a diplomat. Contrary to Judge calling himself “head diplomat” today, back then there was no such position. He carried no seniority over me. My time as Co2 diplo was during the course of the Circle of TEST vs Panfam War in Tribute. After several months of Co2 defending Tribute against a combined PL/NCdot/Horde onslaught with token support from TEST, the attackers made their way to the M-O Keepstar. Judge was upset because he had invested some of his ISK in building the Keepstar and was constantly bothering GigX to get his money back. This was during the thick of the war when Co2’s SRP wallet was hurting. So much so that GigX liquidated his own characters and titans in order to keep paying for his membership to fight. So while GigX was sacrificing everything he could to keep the alliance doing, Judge was chirping in the background about getting his ISK back. It’s hilarious that Judge would claim that GigX was “spending rental money as soon as it came in” when he was the one that was always trying to figure out ways to claw up money in every interaction. “GigX” got greedy. The chat logs themselves show what kind of character, or lack thereof Judge has. Zero credibility isn’t a strong enough descriptor.
Kendarr of GSF states, “[I] wasted about seven hours of my life trying to defend the M-O iHub with [CO2] for them to bitch quit on us. After we expunged them from Impass and they reformed, had they not become PANFAM pets they would have never fallen into our cross hairs again [and] would likely still be very alive and kicking today. They could have settled anywhere in New Eden. Anywhere away from us and Legacy anyway. They needed like one constellation of space to live. There are so many places in New Eden out of reach or away from people that wanted to hurt them that they would have been fine. (Kendarr, of Zebra Corp, Goonswarm Alliance)”
Kendarr of course seems to forget that before Goons finally decided to provide some support, Co2 had been in the thick of the fighting for some three months in Tribute and Lonetrek. And again Co2 only defected from the Imperium after Mittens called for a complete retreat from the north. No serious sov (if any) had been taken from any core Imperium systems and Goons “bitch quit” to use Kendarr’s term, and scurried into hiding in lowsec.
Jurius Doctor of Iron Armada chimes in, “It is very much how gigX phrased it in their announcement about shutting their doors. It is a matter of having a name which has become well-known enough to make them a target. It’s become a bad brand by extension of their leader’s shenanigans, ban-skirting, diplomacy, poor internal culture, and simply being a dog big enough to kick, as it were. Now, this is not to say there aren’t some really great people in CO2, or that there aren’t excellent FCs, or that gigX wasn’t at times a capable leader. However, they have suffered from a lot of problems which are in common with other organizations suffering failure cascade, which include developing a bad brand, being known for a detached or uncaring leadership who are unreasonable or unwilling to take criticism or accept new direction until a pivot is too late, and internal stakeholders who have become so disenfranchised or jaded that they’re willing to burn the house down just to see the flames. The Judge leaving wasn’t just Imperium having good side chats over CSM meetings, it was created by gigX’s leadership, or lack thereof. At the end of the day, Circle of Two is doing what any corporation attempts to do in the real world when their name has become preceded by a reputation or a singularly bad bit of PR—they’re trying to escape it by changing name, changing location, drawing back into themselves, and attempting to pivot. However, that pivot cannot happen with any cult of personality inside of CO2. The leadership and the membership both need to wake to that reality and either reform under someone else, or walk away from the burning building.”
This wooden tongued dry nothing burger coming from Jurius “literally-who-he-wasn’t-even-involved-in-any-way” Doctor is almost as nauseating as Judge’s delusional revisionism. As an expert on alliance leadership, he might be interested to know that his own alliance leader was an informant to NCdot Intel group Polaris during the early 2017 when NCdot was evicting Init out of Syndicate. (DM me on discord for screenshots.) But I digress. It’s hard to believe that Co2 would have been so durable and its core membership so loyal to GigX unless he did have some qualitative leadership abilities. Trying to say Judge’s betrayal was somehow justified when the chat logs show just how money grubbing and greedy Judge has always been is laughable.
Gray Doc’s article ends with the revelation of, “Thanks to the many people who took time to reply to my requests for comment and also to Dirk Stetille and Moomin Amatin who provided me some helpful background information.”
So Dirk who was never involved with any of this and Moon who wasn’t involved in any of this and is a committed Goon propagandist. The misinformation continues well into the article’s discussion section. Goonswarm’s Arrendis stated some things that merit correction.
“CO2 has disbanded because GigX ran the alliance as a cult of personality. During their CFC tenure, there were maybe 3 people he trusted to lead alliance fleets, as far as we could ever see—including himself. That emphasis on his presence at the center of everything made for a built-in weakness in the Alliance. It’s the same weakness Black Legion (or is it …Black…Legion… yet?) shows: Every time Superman’s not there, things fall apart. Without GigX, there is no CO2, because GigX made CO2 all about him, whether he meant to or not.”
GigX never did anything to run the alliance as a “cult of personality.” Nor were people ever told not to run fleets if they wanted to. He gave me full roles and access to the internal workings of Co2 very soon after I had joined his alliance. He only cared about one thing: Can you get the job done. It was an absolute meritocracy. This is why time and time again after Co2 had been blobbed by Panfam, betrayed by TEST and rule lawyered by Goons, people continued to follow GigX. His attitude of never backing down and never giving up is what drew people to him. On one side you had groups like GOTG that were dismissive of Co2 despite Co2 catching the brunt of the recent Imperium attack in the north. You had PanFam who at best was disinterested and at worst subversive to Co2 interests, and lastly of course you had the Imperium that constantly bombarded the Eve universe with Anti-Co2 propaganda and crying over words over the internet to CCP. I’d say Co2 surviving as long as it did is a damn miracle. Now you have all these tackling heads that haven’t a clue giving their opinions in some self-congratulating circle jerk.
“This kind of projection and insistence that everything is someone else’s fault isn’t new for CO2, or GigX. When they flipped on us at the end of the 5-hour fight for the M-OEEB IHUB, GigX, DaWinci, and The Judge released a statement claiming we hadn’t helped them defend their sov. That we’d expected them to meatshield for us while not assisting them in protecting their space. Many of their pilots, and pilots on the MBC side of that war, continue to parrot that nonsense today.”
Arrendis, like Kendarr also seems to be forgetting that by the time Goons got involved in helping Co2 in mid/late March, WWB had been going on for Co2 for at least 3 months. So yeah Co2 had been “meatshielding” for the Imperium. And showing up some 3 months into the war isn’t going to change that. Nor is the fact that it was Imperium that threw in the towel and “bitch quit” running to lowsec.
It really does take more time and energy to disprove bullshit than it does to simply make it up. As per usual the Goon propaganda machine keeps rolling on building narratives to support their coalition’s goals. And I’ll be here as a reality check for those that aren’t interested in drinking their Kool-Aid or simply looking to detox.
