Busy, Yet Not Busy (3)
Earth-aligned factions take majority control of a clan, then strong-arm the original clan leader out and install themselves as the new bosses — and after that, they kick every single member from other factions. What the hell.
I called them out on how absurd that was, and they answered with gunboat diplomacy. Straight-up fleet threats.
Existing clans were collapsing outright, or getting seized by factions loyal to particular powers. The players' own clan ecosystem was looking like it had been hit by a full-scale tectonic shift.
Busy, yet not busy. (3)
But unlike the mid-tier and small clans that were crumbling helplessly under the weight of their own internal fractures…
[Clan-wide message from Loki: If you're here to start faction wars, get out]
Apparently the half-assed faction-war types are getting wiped out together by the clan leader and the rest of the members, all buddy-buddy style.
And considering Loki Clan normally doesn't even post announcements — let alone touch its own members — the fact that they're sending out a message like this means the people causing trouble over faction politics must be pretty damn numerous these days.
The Loki Clan, led by Betelgeuse — formerly a man, currently evolved into a high-school girl(?) — had no interest in the trolling that was supposedly their original purpose when the newcomers were just there to start faction fights and form cliques. They crushed those people flat and stamped out the factions at the first opportunity.
[Message: Faction wars are completely meaningless]
They're cracking down on factions here too. Not going full scorched-earth like Loki, but anyone who crosses the line is getting kicked from the clan.
Standing at the opposite pole from the Loki Clan, Arcadia's Justice Clan likewise showed no intention of simply letting factions built around external powers run wild inside their ranks.
Of course, both of those clans were massive enough to rank among the top five by overall size. And unlike other clans built around a single power base, they had accepted members from every faction — plus neutral players — from the very beginning. From the clan leaders and officers down to the rank-and-file members, they were making their resolve clear: they would not be dragged around by what they called, in their own words, "pathetic" faction squabbles.
And even setting those two major clans aside…
[gif of an ugly guy in nothing but underwear toying with five cruisers using a single patrol ship]
Yeah.
Next.
Like Raksha's Rotten Water, where every rebellious faction was being physically crushed through duels, any clan that had a ranker as a member or as its leader was relatively free from the current faction problem.
But once you set aside the ranker-led clans, the major clans big enough to simply stomp faction wars flat by sheer mass, and the small clans where the leader's control was smooth precisely because they were tiny — the mid-sized and mid-tier clans that made up the "waist" of the clan system were in truly dire shape.
[Clan Ranking Comparison Chart 1], [Clan Ranking Comparison Chart 2]
Look at the charts and you'll see it — the vast majority of the mid-tier clans that used to form the waist of the clan system are getting completely shredded right now.
Even the ones that survived aren't free of faction problems. Most of them already got torn apart once, and the survivors just clumped back together into something that looks like a patchwork golem.
It was no exaggeration to call it a mass extinction event for clans. Players were starting to quietly wonder whether this, too, might be some kind of surprise event cooked up by the developers.
Of course, whether other people were living through that chaos or not made no difference to Icarus. He had lost roughly half his interest in community drama, and aside from the occasional accidental tap on the gallery tab, he only ever checked the wiki or deleted reported posts.
"Ah, it's finally finished!"
"Whoa!"
He had completely tuned out whatever was going on out there, fully absorbed in his own work.
After a long, long two weeks that somehow felt like an endless monologue mixed with reading something in third person…
"At last!"
The message floated right in front of my eyes. Through the hologram, I looked at the enormous gate installed as if it had been driven into one side of the base, and the thought came unbidden: at that scale, it really did look like something that could justify eating 191,500 minerals.
But that little moment of aesthetic appreciation didn't last long.
"Icarus. I have heard that construction of the facility you so desired has at last been completed."
How did she already know and show up this fast.
Oxianor appeared — the one who, if anything, might have wanted that facility finished even more desperately than I did. I managed my expression, nodded, and answered.
"Yeah. Once we finish putting the ships in order, we should be able to take care of your request right away."