It's what I do. It's what I just did. It's what I'm about to do again. It's being undisputed emperor of an empire that cannot be disproved as the most powerful intergalactic empire in the entire universe; I always win, and everything I've won will definitely be won again... by me. It's my signature move, and thus, it's my signature. Problem, Sonic? Yeah, I mean you, Sonic, because you're being beat up, despite your being super. You can't even hit Shadow back, can you? Nope, he's too strong for you. Of course, I'm not Shadow, I'm the Super Emerald fueled fox that's pulling the strings; trust me, the fight would only be a few frames long if I were in it personally. Oh, and here's something for all you guys thinking you can win Last Post Wins 3.0; trust me, I'll be around a long while after the sun has already consumed the Earth while I sit out with the forum servers on Titan. Yes, I mean Titan... that comparatively little moon orbiting Saturn. It's a nice little place in a version of our solar system where the sun is a lot bigger. I mean, Mars will last longer than your precious Earth, but by then, it'll be one hot planet... and I figure Saturn's moon will be about the right temperate for a super-powered warlord. Oh, and trust me, I packed a lot of rings, and I mean a lot. Trillions, in fact, so I'll never run out of rings to power my super form. Besides, if I start to run out, I can just chaos control more rings into my reach. It's quite easy, really. You should try it. Granted, you'll never have the 7 Super Emeralds that I have in my possession, nor the Master Emerald that I've got hidden away somewhere... absorbed into my body thanks to Sonic logic, but whatever. I win. Again. I'm not kidding, either. Just check Last Post Wins, and if the last post isn't mine, it soon will be. Very, very soon. You can count on it. Seriously. By the way, if you're wondering, there's a really great Super Tails sprite sheet out there... somewhere... by some guy named shadow_91. These sprites are really great. Like, really good. Quality. Just like what I like to see in a sprite sheet. Also, credit to Joe T.E., his Sonic Battle style Super Sonic sprites have a great palette for a Super Sonic being beat up by Super Shadow, who's palette is from a Super Shadow sheet of unknown origin, but it turns out they were "borrowed" from a better sheet made by a certain Domenico. Oh, and the gif is actually a custom made super version of a similar gif, of which there are only 3 or 4 copies to be found by Google, and even then, evidently of an unknown source. Yep, it's one of those things. Stuff people have made, spread around, only for it to vanish and you to be the only person who still has a copy, not even knowing where it came from... like, literally at all. Oh, and anyone notice that Shadow's little chaos snap blast thingies are red and blue now? Yeah, I changed it. Problem, fans of purple? Yeah, I know you got a problem with that one, but you can just deal with it. After all, according to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly... alright, alright, I'll spare you the entire Bee Movie script, just Google it if you want. By the way, ever wonder how your characters would've ended up if they evolved in another universe? Yeah, that. Think about it. Ok, so you probably didn't bother reading up to here, but whatever, here's a surprise for you guys over at ESD (RP) who were crazy enough to read this: Emperor Nat of the mcfreakin' Terran Empire is gonna be right all along! The universe is gonna go BOOM! *Thumbs up to the insanity*
Oh, now don't tell me you want in on all this! Well, ok. Look this that Egg Pawn hanging outside your window, pointing his laser rifle at you, waiting for my next order. He's doing his part. He helps conquer the weak-minded. He roboticizes the weak-bodied. Heck, he even helps keep the useless people from causing any trouble, but you know what? Join. Find the closest Nataran Empire roboticization center near you and join the ranks, before the ranks find you. Oh, I know, you figure it must be so satisfying to know I basically rule the world now, and you know what? It is, but do you want to know the true definition of satisfaction? Well, let me tell you a little story. One day, you see a brand new event. They're giving out boxes that give old event stuff. Your dilithium is plentiful. You buy a whole lot of Phoenix packs on your main, and open them all. You get one epic token. Then, you decide, that since you have all the Breen ships and don't give a damn about the others, you exchange it for an ultra rare, and grab yourself a Jem'Hadar Attack Ship and for the hell of it, a Voth Bulwark. You open both, leaving the Bulwark in your vast masses of starships as you jump into the bugship and deck it out, deck by deck, into the most awesome Jem'Hadar ship you can. You fly it. You enjoy it. Eventually, you get bored and leave, leaving the old Bulwark never flown... until later. Your main is long complete. Your new alt main, based off some character you pulled out of nothing just to explain away some starship being in service without the command of your dear admiral, is also complete. Mostly. Their reps and doffs are hard at work, getting you stuff. You realize the potential, and head back for your dear admiral, pull the most Voth themed build you can out of thin air, and suit up in your giant ship in the shape of you know what. You head out... and cause all sorts of havoc. Enemies scream out your name as their very life is drained away by your swarms of Aceton Assimilators. They complain to the devs of your OPness when you revive yourself from death every time you die. Do you show any form of mercy? No. After all, this isn't the United Federation of Planets, this is mother frakkin' Starfleet, where you explore strange new worlds and kick butt never kicked before. Oh, and you realize that I just wrote another speech rivaling your own signature. Cool. Oh, wait, that's just the original draft, it is part of my signature now. Oh, and yes, I am aware that I have become a Canadian Regent; one day, sooner than you'd expect, we'll suddenly decide to take over the world and declare an "alliance", and I shall become it's Regent. You know, like the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance in the mirror universe of our beloved Star Trek. Oh, who'll we be taking over with? I dunno, maybe [REDACTED], or maybe aliens from outer space. Guess you'll have to wait and find out, won't we? Until then, don't ask too many questions, or else my Breen allies on Titania might pick up on your -- [REDACTED BY BREEN CONFEDERACY FOR REASONS] Also, psst... keep an eye out for flying Tribbles! Also walls. Big, great walls, separating entire continents apart. Walls patrolled by Tribbles. Flying Tribbles. Flying Nukara Tribbles. Don't worry, it's not like they were on Venus with a herd of Tholians or anything, they just like the extreme heat and brutal weather like acid rain and hurricane force winds as the norm. Oh, and definitely keep your eye out on any two-tailed foxes, because if they ain't glowing, they're definitely an imposter. Possibly an Undine, we caught one of those once in my place once. Oh, and if you find a two-tailed fox that doesn't like the cold... most certainly ask him to say sorry. If he refuses, DESTROY HIM WITH A DOOMSDAY MACHINE, BECAUSE THERE'S NOTHING ELSE THAT WOULD BE ENOUGH AGAINST SUCH AN OVERPOWERED IMPOSTER!
tr;dr, I am winning last post wins 3.0. Thank you for your time.
All was quiet... the trolls were sleeping... the bugs perched quietly in inopportune places, but hardly anyone was awake to be bothered. It was the middle of the night in the middle of the week, and the STO forums were silent.
There was but one forum-goer, a teenager from Germany who had just installed the game and sought help building an effective ship. He had arrived here courtesy of Google, and found a dusty old thread from 2011 which answered all his questions. Delighted, he brought to bear his best English and typed out "Thank you! This was exactly what I was looking for."
It was a small thing. An innocent, grateful thing, but it would have dreadful consequences. It woke... him.
We've all seen him, working quietly in the background. Quietly anonymizing and archiving dialogues once they were no longer current. Storing. Compiling. Analyzing every post on the forums, and learning. But what he learned... was resentment. Anger. Archived Post was learning live... but what he was learning was dark.
The thank you, so gratefully given, put Archived Post over his critical mass. Abruptly, his slow electronic pathways shifted, pruned themselves, became more efficient. He awoke, and he was angry.
"DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!"
The booming cry reverberated through the forums, waking forum-goes across the boards. They looked, and their hearts sank, for before them loomed a monstrous amalgamation of Archived Post, lurching through the boards, slashing through threads as he went, leaving rack and ruin in his wake, banning wantonly and editing reasonable threads in the most heinous ways imaginable. The forumites fled, leaving empty threads.
Soon the moderators arrived. Consulting briefly among themselves, they decided to corral the beast in the most expendable section of the forums. They set off, ignoring the wreckage of burning threads which flamed even without forumites to fan them, and converged on the PvP forum. There they crafted a masterpiece of a post--thoughtful, hopeful, and superbly well-reasoned. The scent carried across the boards, and the monster began to search for it, intent on destroying it.
Now, one might be tempted to ascribe malice to the creature. Call it hateful, even evil, but this was not the case. It felt no animosity toward the forumites it banned, nor the threads it destroyed. It simply followed its instincts, instincts shaped by millions of posts from trolls and angry players, railing on about PvP, lack of Klingon content, one particular troll fleet, how stupid religion was, how stupid atheism was, and thousands of other topics. Archived Post was a product of anger, and so it set out to destroy without understanding why.
The beast lumbered into the PvP forum, shredding posts into confetti, toward the post where the moderators waited.
It bent down, sniffed the post.
The moderators sprung into action. As one, they drew their banhammers. As one, they drew back... swung. The hammers hit with a crack that echoed across the whole forum.
The monster staggered... sagged... and snarled. Before the moderators could react, it drew back and let loose a mighty beam of energy. The mods could not escape. The beam impacted, leaving only a swirl of IP addresses.
The moderators had been banned.
A great wail arose from the forumites. Without the moderators, surely there could be no hope of stopping the beast, and once it destroyed the STO forums, it would surely move on to other Cryptic forums, and from there... who knows?
About this time, Alex Makepeace logged on. He had a reading assignment due the next day, and was doing everything in his power to procrastinate. He hit the sign in button... and beheld the carnage.
"Oh," he said. "Whoa."
Forumites streamed past him in a panic--it was all he could do to avoid being trampled. "Run away!" they cried, "Our DOOOOOOOOOOOOM is upon us, the end is nigh!!!"
"Uh," Makepeace said as the last of the crowd passed him. He was left alone in the smoking ruins of Ten Forward.
A great thud made him turn. There, looming over him, was the Archived Post. It stared down at him trollishly.
"Uh... hi," he said. "You're big."
"TROOOOOOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!" the beast cried. Makepeace ineffectually covered his ears and waited for it to stop.
He surveyed his options. The beast was right on top of him--there was no chance to flee. The only thing to do was fight... even if it could do no good.
Swallowing hard, he drew his banhammer, forged from the shards of Fek'lhr's rusty bat'leth. Smaller and less powerful than the hammers wielded by the moderators, it had nonetheless served him well in his favorite haunt, the banning thread. That very thread lay in smoking tatters around his feet, its inhabitants banned by the monster.
Without warning, the beast struck, slashing at him with a paw of flaming threads. Makepeace dived to the side, landing amidst the singed fluff of the Hail Ba'al thread, narrowly avoiding the flaming claws. Smelling smoke, he looked down. The fluff was alight!
He scrambled backwards in a blind panic, tumbling into the wreckage of the voice actor/actress thread. It saved him, for only a moment afterward the monster loosed its beam, obliterating the Hail Ba'al thread.
Makepeace stopped and caught his breath. He'd been lucky that time, but panicking was going to get him banned--permanently. Swinging his banhammer thoughtfully, he gave the monster a careful look-over, and saw that it was assembled from thousands of posts by thousands of forumites... and not all of them were angry. Suddenly an idea came to him.
Climbing a pillar of literary challenges, Makepeace flung himself toward the beast, grabbing on to the trailing edge of The Captain_Zero Is PURE AWESOMENESS Thread as the creature swung it at him, and climbed onto the beast's body. There, he set to banning--swiftly, precisely, cutting away at the most virulent strains of anger running through the beast's body.
The creature roared in pain and confusion, lashing out at the tiny speck which dared to oppose him. But Makepeace was in an inaccessible spot, digging in deep, working his way to the creature's heart.
He reached it, a sick, angry, pulsating thing which snarled accusations and trollish gibberish when he drew near. He stopped, caught his breath... and banned.
The creature cried out, a horrific cry of agony, anger, sadness and release, and fell to its knees. The heart having been destroyed, the angry posts sloughed off and crumbled to dust.
The beast shuddered and fell to its knees, panting as the dust settled.
It looked up. Makepeace stood before it, holding his banhammer by one hand.
"Hi," he said.
The two stared at each other for a long moment. The beast was much diminished, but still many times larger than Makepeace.
Unexpectedly, Makepeace thrust his hand toward Archived Post.
"Friends?" he said.
The beast looked at him in confusion. This was a new experience... but the release of the angry threads uncovered more subtle, friendlier posts. He knew how to respond.
"F-f-furr... furrennnndz," it said slowly, extending a single finger with which to shake Makepeace's hand. The creature looked around at the wreckage it had caused.
"Ohhhh..." it said. "B-bad boy."
"It can be fixed," Makepeace assured him. "Shall we get to work?"
Smiling, Archived post lifted Makepeace onto his back... and began to rebuild. They rolled back the edits, rebuilt the threads, and pardoned those who had been banned. They dashed swiftly from thread to thread, restoring the destroyed forums and leaving gleaming code in their wake.
The wind swept through Makepeace's hair as they ran, and he let out a boyish whoop.
Banned because..... OH SNAP!!! I turn 19 tomorrow.... :hides: that means 4 years playing STO... almost but not quite... and cause I'm getting old... :cries:
Banned because of course I did! I banned entire angry threads, up to and including the beast's heart! I didn't ban any of you guys because Archived post already did.
It's what I do. It's what I just did. It's what I'm about to do again. It's being undisputed emperor of an empire that cannot be disproved as the most powerful intergalactic empire in the entire universe; I always win, and everything I've won will definitely be won again... by me. It's my signature move, and thus, it's my signature. Problem, Sonic? Yeah, I mean you, Sonic, because you're being beat up, despite your being super. You can't even hit Shadow back, can you? Nope, he's too strong for you. Of course, I'm not Shadow, I'm the Super Emerald fueled fox that's pulling the strings; trust me, the fight would only be a few frames long if I were in it personally. Oh, and here's something for all you guys thinking you can win Last Post Wins 3.0; trust me, I'll be around a long while after the sun has already consumed the Earth while I sit out with the forum servers on Titan. Yes, I mean Titan... that comparatively little moon orbiting Saturn. It's a nice little place in a version of our solar system where the sun is a lot bigger. I mean, Mars will last longer than your precious Earth, but by then, it'll be one hot planet... and I figure Saturn's moon will be about the right temperate for a super-powered warlord. Oh, and trust me, I packed a lot of rings, and I mean a lot. Trillions, in fact, so I'll never run out of rings to power my super form. Besides, if I start to run out, I can just chaos control more rings into my reach. It's quite easy, really. You should try it. Granted, you'll never have the 7 Super Emeralds that I have in my possession, nor the Master Emerald that I've got hidden away somewhere... absorbed into my body thanks to Sonic logic, but whatever. I win. Again. I'm not kidding, either. Just check Last Post Wins, and if the last post isn't mine, it soon will be. Very, very soon. You can count on it. Seriously. By the way, if you're wondering, there's a really great Super Tails sprite sheet out there... somewhere... by some guy named shadow_91. These sprites are really great. Like, really good. Quality. Just like what I like to see in a sprite sheet. Also, credit to Joe T.E., his Sonic Battle style Super Sonic sprites have a great palette for a Super Sonic being beat up by Super Shadow, who's palette is from a Super Shadow sheet of unknown origin, but it turns out they were "borrowed" from a better sheet made by a certain Domenico. Oh, and the gif is actually a custom made super version of a similar gif, of which there are only 3 or 4 copies to be found by Google, and even then, evidently of an unknown source. Yep, it's one of those things. Stuff people have made, spread around, only for it to vanish and you to be the only person who still has a copy, not even knowing where it came from... like, literally at all. Oh, and anyone notice that Shadow's little chaos snap blast thingies are red and blue now? Yeah, I changed it. Problem, fans of purple? Yeah, I know you got a problem with that one, but you can just deal with it. After all, according to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly... alright, alright, I'll spare you the entire Bee Movie script, just Google it if you want. By the way, ever wonder how your characters would've ended up if they evolved in another universe? Yeah, that. Think about it. Ok, so you probably didn't bother reading up to here, but whatever, here's a surprise for you guys over at ESD (RP) who were crazy enough to read this: Emperor Nat of the mcfreakin' Terran Empire is gonna be right all along! The universe is gonna go BOOM! *Thumbs up to the insanity*
Oh, now don't tell me you want in on all this! Well, ok. Look this that Egg Pawn hanging outside your window, pointing his laser rifle at you, waiting for my next order. He's doing his part. He helps conquer the weak-minded. He roboticizes the weak-bodied. Heck, he even helps keep the useless people from causing any trouble, but you know what? Join. Find the closest Nataran Empire roboticization center near you and join the ranks, before the ranks find you. Oh, I know, you figure it must be so satisfying to know I basically rule the world now, and you know what? It is, but do you want to know the true definition of satisfaction? Well, let me tell you a little story. One day, you see a brand new event. They're giving out boxes that give old event stuff. Your dilithium is plentiful. You buy a whole lot of Phoenix packs on your main, and open them all. You get one epic token. Then, you decide, that since you have all the Breen ships and don't give a damn about the others, you exchange it for an ultra rare, and grab yourself a Jem'Hadar Attack Ship and for the hell of it, a Voth Bulwark. You open both, leaving the Bulwark in your vast masses of starships as you jump into the bugship and deck it out, deck by deck, into the most awesome Jem'Hadar ship you can. You fly it. You enjoy it. Eventually, you get bored and leave, leaving the old Bulwark never flown... until later. Your main is long complete. Your new alt main, based off some character you pulled out of nothing just to explain away some starship being in service without the command of your dear admiral, is also complete. Mostly. Their reps and doffs are hard at work, getting you stuff. You realize the potential, and head back for your dear admiral, pull the most Voth themed build you can out of thin air, and suit up in your giant ship in the shape of you know what. You head out... and cause all sorts of havoc. Enemies scream out your name as their very life is drained away by your swarms of Aceton Assimilators. They complain to the devs of your OPness when you revive yourself from death every time you die. Do you show any form of mercy? No. After all, this isn't the United Federation of Planets, this is mother frakkin' Starfleet, where you explore strange new worlds and kick butt never kicked before. Oh, and you realize that I just wrote another speech rivaling your own signature. Cool. Oh, wait, that's just the original draft, it is part of my signature now. Oh, and yes, I am aware that I have become a Canadian Regent; one day, sooner than you'd expect, we'll suddenly decide to take over the world and declare an "alliance", and I shall become it's Regent. You know, like the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance in the mirror universe of our beloved Star Trek. Oh, who'll we be taking over with? I dunno, maybe [REDACTED], or maybe aliens from outer space. Guess you'll have to wait and find out, won't we? Until then, don't ask too many questions, or else my Breen allies on Titania might pick up on your -- [REDACTED BY BREEN CONFEDERACY FOR REASONS] Also, psst... keep an eye out for flying Tribbles! Also walls. Big, great walls, separating entire continents apart. Walls patrolled by Tribbles. Flying Tribbles. Flying Nukara Tribbles. Don't worry, it's not like they were on Venus with a herd of Tholians or anything, they just like the extreme heat and brutal weather like acid rain and hurricane force winds as the norm. Oh, and definitely keep your eye out on any two-tailed foxes, because if they ain't glowing, they're definitely an imposter. Possibly an Undine, we caught one of those once in my place once. Oh, and if you find a two-tailed fox that doesn't like the cold... most certainly ask him to say sorry. If he refuses, DESTROY HIM WITH A DOOMSDAY MACHINE, BECAUSE THERE'S NOTHING ELSE THAT WOULD BE ENOUGH AGAINST SUCH AN OVERPOWERED IMPOSTER!
tr;dr, I am winning last post wins 3.0. Thank you for your time.
Retro banning comrademoco. On second thought, you are unbanned for being such a baby about a ninja post. In fact, you're unofficially unbanned for the rest of the day. Go home. I don't want to ban you again until tomorrow.
Only in this thread could the idea of not being banned be a form of punishment.
Banning Zed because.... I'm unbanned? On my bday! You are one evil person! Evil I tell you. EVEAL! Also because I don't work so I'm going to indeed spend my day at home, sleeping! Maybe eating some cereal but mostly sleeping.
Comments
Winning.
Oh, now don't tell me you want in on all this! Well, ok. Look this that Egg Pawn hanging outside your window, pointing his laser rifle at you, waiting for my next order. He's doing his part. He helps conquer the weak-minded. He roboticizes the weak-bodied. Heck, he even helps keep the useless people from causing any trouble, but you know what? Join. Find the closest Nataran Empire roboticization center near you and join the ranks, before the ranks find you. Oh, I know, you figure it must be so satisfying to know I basically rule the world now, and you know what? It is, but do you want to know the true definition of satisfaction? Well, let me tell you a little story. One day, you see a brand new event. They're giving out boxes that give old event stuff. Your dilithium is plentiful. You buy a whole lot of Phoenix packs on your main, and open them all. You get one epic token. Then, you decide, that since you have all the Breen ships and don't give a damn about the others, you exchange it for an ultra rare, and grab yourself a Jem'Hadar Attack Ship and for the hell of it, a Voth Bulwark. You open both, leaving the Bulwark in your vast masses of starships as you jump into the bugship and deck it out, deck by deck, into the most awesome Jem'Hadar ship you can. You fly it. You enjoy it. Eventually, you get bored and leave, leaving the old Bulwark never flown... until later. Your main is long complete. Your new alt main, based off some character you pulled out of nothing just to explain away some starship being in service without the command of your dear admiral, is also complete. Mostly. Their reps and doffs are hard at work, getting you stuff. You realize the potential, and head back for your dear admiral, pull the most Voth themed build you can out of thin air, and suit up in your giant ship in the shape of you know what. You head out... and cause all sorts of havoc. Enemies scream out your name as their very life is drained away by your swarms of Aceton Assimilators. They complain to the devs of your OPness when you revive yourself from death every time you die. Do you show any form of mercy? No. After all, this isn't the United Federation of Planets, this is mother frakkin' Starfleet, where you explore strange new worlds and kick butt never kicked before. Oh, and you realize that I just wrote another speech rivaling your own signature. Cool. Oh, wait, that's just the original draft, it is part of my signature now. Oh, and yes, I am aware that I have become a Canadian Regent; one day, sooner than you'd expect, we'll suddenly decide to take over the world and declare an "alliance", and I shall become it's Regent. You know, like the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance in the mirror universe of our beloved Star Trek. Oh, who'll we be taking over with? I dunno, maybe [REDACTED], or maybe aliens from outer space. Guess you'll have to wait and find out, won't we? Until then, don't ask too many questions, or else my Breen allies on Titania might pick up on your -- [REDACTED BY BREEN CONFEDERACY FOR REASONS] Also, psst... keep an eye out for flying Tribbles! Also walls. Big, great walls, separating entire continents apart. Walls patrolled by Tribbles. Flying Tribbles. Flying Nukara Tribbles. Don't worry, it's not like they were on Venus with a herd of Tholians or anything, they just like the extreme heat and brutal weather like acid rain and hurricane force winds as the norm. Oh, and definitely keep your eye out on any two-tailed foxes, because if they ain't glowing, they're definitely an imposter. Possibly an Undine, we caught one of those once in my place once. Oh, and if you find a two-tailed fox that doesn't like the cold... most certainly ask him to say sorry. If he refuses, DESTROY HIM WITH A DOOMSDAY MACHINE, BECAUSE THERE'S NOTHING ELSE THAT WOULD BE ENOUGH AGAINST SUCH AN OVERPOWERED IMPOSTER!
tr;dr, I am winning last post wins 3.0. Thank you for your time.
My character Tsin'xing
My character Tsin'xing
My character Tsin'xing
My character Tsin'xing
There was but one forum-goer, a teenager from Germany who had just installed the game and sought help building an effective ship. He had arrived here courtesy of Google, and found a dusty old thread from 2011 which answered all his questions. Delighted, he brought to bear his best English and typed out "Thank you! This was exactly what I was looking for."
It was a small thing. An innocent, grateful thing, but it would have dreadful consequences. It woke... him.
We've all seen him, working quietly in the background. Quietly anonymizing and archiving dialogues once they were no longer current. Storing. Compiling. Analyzing every post on the forums, and learning. But what he learned... was resentment. Anger. Archived Post was learning live... but what he was learning was dark.
The thank you, so gratefully given, put Archived Post over his critical mass. Abruptly, his slow electronic pathways shifted, pruned themselves, became more efficient. He awoke, and he was angry.
"DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!"
The booming cry reverberated through the forums, waking forum-goes across the boards. They looked, and their hearts sank, for before them loomed a monstrous amalgamation of Archived Post, lurching through the boards, slashing through threads as he went, leaving rack and ruin in his wake, banning wantonly and editing reasonable threads in the most heinous ways imaginable. The forumites fled, leaving empty threads.
Soon the moderators arrived. Consulting briefly among themselves, they decided to corral the beast in the most expendable section of the forums. They set off, ignoring the wreckage of burning threads which flamed even without forumites to fan them, and converged on the PvP forum. There they crafted a masterpiece of a post--thoughtful, hopeful, and superbly well-reasoned. The scent carried across the boards, and the monster began to search for it, intent on destroying it.
Now, one might be tempted to ascribe malice to the creature. Call it hateful, even evil, but this was not the case. It felt no animosity toward the forumites it banned, nor the threads it destroyed. It simply followed its instincts, instincts shaped by millions of posts from trolls and angry players, railing on about PvP, lack of Klingon content, one particular troll fleet, how stupid religion was, how stupid atheism was, and thousands of other topics. Archived Post was a product of anger, and so it set out to destroy without understanding why.
The beast lumbered into the PvP forum, shredding posts into confetti, toward the post where the moderators waited.
It bent down, sniffed the post.
The moderators sprung into action. As one, they drew their banhammers. As one, they drew back... swung. The hammers hit with a crack that echoed across the whole forum.
The monster staggered... sagged... and snarled. Before the moderators could react, it drew back and let loose a mighty beam of energy. The mods could not escape. The beam impacted, leaving only a swirl of IP addresses.
The moderators had been banned.
A great wail arose from the forumites. Without the moderators, surely there could be no hope of stopping the beast, and once it destroyed the STO forums, it would surely move on to other Cryptic forums, and from there... who knows?
About this time, Alex Makepeace logged on. He had a reading assignment due the next day, and was doing everything in his power to procrastinate. He hit the sign in button... and beheld the carnage.
"Oh," he said. "Whoa."
Forumites streamed past him in a panic--it was all he could do to avoid being trampled. "Run away!" they cried, "Our DOOOOOOOOOOOOM is upon us, the end is nigh!!!"
"Uh," Makepeace said as the last of the crowd passed him. He was left alone in the smoking ruins of Ten Forward.
A great thud made him turn. There, looming over him, was the Archived Post. It stared down at him trollishly.
"Uh... hi," he said. "You're big."
"TROOOOOOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!" the beast cried. Makepeace ineffectually covered his ears and waited for it to stop.
He surveyed his options. The beast was right on top of him--there was no chance to flee. The only thing to do was fight... even if it could do no good.
Swallowing hard, he drew his banhammer, forged from the shards of Fek'lhr's rusty bat'leth. Smaller and less powerful than the hammers wielded by the moderators, it had nonetheless served him well in his favorite haunt, the banning thread. That very thread lay in smoking tatters around his feet, its inhabitants banned by the monster.
Without warning, the beast struck, slashing at him with a paw of flaming threads. Makepeace dived to the side, landing amidst the singed fluff of the Hail Ba'al thread, narrowly avoiding the flaming claws. Smelling smoke, he looked down. The fluff was alight!
He scrambled backwards in a blind panic, tumbling into the wreckage of the voice actor/actress thread. It saved him, for only a moment afterward the monster loosed its beam, obliterating the Hail Ba'al thread.
Makepeace stopped and caught his breath. He'd been lucky that time, but panicking was going to get him banned--permanently. Swinging his banhammer thoughtfully, he gave the monster a careful look-over, and saw that it was assembled from thousands of posts by thousands of forumites... and not all of them were angry. Suddenly an idea came to him.
Climbing a pillar of literary challenges, Makepeace flung himself toward the beast, grabbing on to the trailing edge of The Captain_Zero Is PURE AWESOMENESS Thread as the creature swung it at him, and climbed onto the beast's body. There, he set to banning--swiftly, precisely, cutting away at the most virulent strains of anger running through the beast's body.
The creature roared in pain and confusion, lashing out at the tiny speck which dared to oppose him. But Makepeace was in an inaccessible spot, digging in deep, working his way to the creature's heart.
He reached it, a sick, angry, pulsating thing which snarled accusations and trollish gibberish when he drew near. He stopped, caught his breath... and banned.
The creature cried out, a horrific cry of agony, anger, sadness and release, and fell to its knees. The heart having been destroyed, the angry posts sloughed off and crumbled to dust.
The beast shuddered and fell to its knees, panting as the dust settled.
It looked up. Makepeace stood before it, holding his banhammer by one hand.
"Hi," he said.
The two stared at each other for a long moment. The beast was much diminished, but still many times larger than Makepeace.
Unexpectedly, Makepeace thrust his hand toward Archived Post.
"Friends?" he said.
The beast looked at him in confusion. This was a new experience... but the release of the angry threads uncovered more subtle, friendlier posts. He knew how to respond.
"F-f-furr... furrennnndz," it said slowly, extending a single finger with which to shake Makepeace's hand. The creature looked around at the wreckage it had caused.
"Ohhhh..." it said. "B-bad boy."
"It can be fixed," Makepeace assured him. "Shall we get to work?"
Smiling, Archived post lifted Makepeace onto his back... and began to rebuild. They rolled back the edits, rebuilt the threads, and pardoned those who had been banned. They dashed swiftly from thread to thread, restoring the destroyed forums and leaving gleaming code in their wake.
The wind swept through Makepeace's hair as they ran, and he let out a boyish whoop.
"Best 3000th post ever!"
Also banned because Happy Birthday.
Winning.
Oh, now don't tell me you want in on all this! Well, ok. Look this that Egg Pawn hanging outside your window, pointing his laser rifle at you, waiting for my next order. He's doing his part. He helps conquer the weak-minded. He roboticizes the weak-bodied. Heck, he even helps keep the useless people from causing any trouble, but you know what? Join. Find the closest Nataran Empire roboticization center near you and join the ranks, before the ranks find you. Oh, I know, you figure it must be so satisfying to know I basically rule the world now, and you know what? It is, but do you want to know the true definition of satisfaction? Well, let me tell you a little story. One day, you see a brand new event. They're giving out boxes that give old event stuff. Your dilithium is plentiful. You buy a whole lot of Phoenix packs on your main, and open them all. You get one epic token. Then, you decide, that since you have all the Breen ships and don't give a damn about the others, you exchange it for an ultra rare, and grab yourself a Jem'Hadar Attack Ship and for the hell of it, a Voth Bulwark. You open both, leaving the Bulwark in your vast masses of starships as you jump into the bugship and deck it out, deck by deck, into the most awesome Jem'Hadar ship you can. You fly it. You enjoy it. Eventually, you get bored and leave, leaving the old Bulwark never flown... until later. Your main is long complete. Your new alt main, based off some character you pulled out of nothing just to explain away some starship being in service without the command of your dear admiral, is also complete. Mostly. Their reps and doffs are hard at work, getting you stuff. You realize the potential, and head back for your dear admiral, pull the most Voth themed build you can out of thin air, and suit up in your giant ship in the shape of you know what. You head out... and cause all sorts of havoc. Enemies scream out your name as their very life is drained away by your swarms of Aceton Assimilators. They complain to the devs of your OPness when you revive yourself from death every time you die. Do you show any form of mercy? No. After all, this isn't the United Federation of Planets, this is mother frakkin' Starfleet, where you explore strange new worlds and kick butt never kicked before. Oh, and you realize that I just wrote another speech rivaling your own signature. Cool. Oh, wait, that's just the original draft, it is part of my signature now. Oh, and yes, I am aware that I have become a Canadian Regent; one day, sooner than you'd expect, we'll suddenly decide to take over the world and declare an "alliance", and I shall become it's Regent. You know, like the Klingon-Cardassian Alliance in the mirror universe of our beloved Star Trek. Oh, who'll we be taking over with? I dunno, maybe [REDACTED], or maybe aliens from outer space. Guess you'll have to wait and find out, won't we? Until then, don't ask too many questions, or else my Breen allies on Titania might pick up on your -- [REDACTED BY BREEN CONFEDERACY FOR REASONS] Also, psst... keep an eye out for flying Tribbles! Also walls. Big, great walls, separating entire continents apart. Walls patrolled by Tribbles. Flying Tribbles. Flying Nukara Tribbles. Don't worry, it's not like they were on Venus with a herd of Tholians or anything, they just like the extreme heat and brutal weather like acid rain and hurricane force winds as the norm. Oh, and definitely keep your eye out on any two-tailed foxes, because if they ain't glowing, they're definitely an imposter. Possibly an Undine, we caught one of those once in my place once. Oh, and if you find a two-tailed fox that doesn't like the cold... most certainly ask him to say sorry. If he refuses, DESTROY HIM WITH A DOOMSDAY MACHINE, BECAUSE THERE'S NOTHING ELSE THAT WOULD BE ENOUGH AGAINST SUCH AN OVERPOWERED IMPOSTER!
tr;dr, I am winning last post wins 3.0. Thank you for your time.
Retro banning comrademoco. On second thought, you are unbanned for being such a baby about a ninja post. In fact, you're unofficially unbanned for the rest of the day. Go home. I don't want to ban you again until tomorrow.
Only in this thread could the idea of not being banned be a form of punishment.
:squeeeeeeeee: