Snow Leopard and the Central Zone Raid
"Well… I appreciate the thought, but this seat is a real burden for me."
And so, after a messy, stumbling, half-coerced yet somehow democratic process, the raid leader for the Central Zone's assault on the Grand Cross was finally elected.
— Hell yeah, we finally got one
— Snow Leopard: Ah for fuck's sake, you bastards
— Commander, please give us your orders
— So what do we do now
— Snow Leopard: Obviously we prep for the raid
— lmaoooooooo
— oof damn
— It's been a long wait
— Where are we assembling the fleets
— Snow Leopard: Still deciding, so wait
— Our bases are getting wrecked holy shit
Watching the utterly chaotic Central Raid chatroom, the rest of us users wore expressions of deep satisfaction.
Something along the lines of, For the Central Zone, this is honestly some damn fine effort!
Of course, that sentiment only applied to us Central Zone users and our particular brand of chaos. As for the wholesome, well-adjusted users from other zones…
[Disgustingly complicated internal power structure chart, and a chain of command that's grown just as complicated in proportion.jpg]
The Central Zone only managed to scrape together a commander after losing two Level 5 bases and fifteen bases Level 3 and below.
And as you can see, the actual command of the Central Zone is in the hands of the mid-tier clan leaders, plus top-rankers like Raksha and Icarus.
What that means is:
Snow Leopard isn't really running the overall operation. Raksha, Icarus, the various clan leaders, and even the representatives of those non-clan factions that still get treated like powers — the Central Base Coalition and the rest — all feed him their opinions, and he just carries them out. He's basically a living terminal.
Yep.
So if you look carefully, the users, clans, and factions I just mentioned are all lurking behind him and running the operation from the shadows.
All in all, they seemed to be having a hard time wrapping their heads around it.
The Central Zone was an absolute dumpster fire. And yet, against all odds, they had somehow managed to assemble a unified head — of sorts.
With dozens of cooks in the kitchen, the Central Zone coalition finally succeeded in producing a proper grand strategy. Granted, along the way, three of the Base Coalition's bases, nine low-level bases belonging to small clans, eight hundred ninety-one user bases, and fifty-six forward outposts had to buy time through (in)voluntary sacrifice (???).
But their sacrifice was not in vain.
— Thanks to their noble sacrifice, we found a spot where our forces can actually wreck the Grand Cross and lure it there
— Now everyone, a round of applause for those users
— Waaaaah
— tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk
— tsk tsk tsk
— You absolute bastards
— You sons of bitches
Whatever noise a handful of users made was casually crushed under the sheer weight of democratic majority rule (?), and at last, the Central Zone's own unique strategy and tactics were free to emerge.
The problem was what that strategy actually was…
— So what are we actually doing
— Snow Leopard: Thanks to the event, all the NPCs that used to be hostile are pure neutral with us now, right?
— Yeah
— Snow Leopard: So among those neutral NPCs, we use the bases we could never even approach before. That's the plan
— Huh
— Wait, you mean that place?
— What place
— You know, the one. The Central Zone's only Level 9 base
— Ah, Daedalus Fortress?
Under ordinary circumstances, the Level 9 base known as the Daedalus Research Fortress sat in a state of "hostile neutrality" — any player who got near it was beaten senseless without mercy, so nobody could even get close. The plan was to use it.
Lure the Grand Cross over, get Daedalus and the Grand Cross to resonate with each other… and while the Grand Cross was locked in a slugfest with Daedalus's base defense fleet as it tried to fire its main guns, the players already gathered in front of Icarus's Tannhauser would ride the gate and storm the Grand Cross in a boarding assault.
Of course, more than a few skeptics found such a remarkable strategy hard to swallow…
— Wait, isn't this just copying another zone's strategy?
— You said you'd come up with a Central Zone original. Where the hell did you sell that idea off to
— Shh. Quiet
— If you've got a problem, come up with something cooler yourself
— heh sorry
Under the weight of an extremely cool-headed and rational rebuttal — if you don't like it, you do better — the petty objections naturally bowed their heads.
And roughly around the time the Grand Crosses of other zones were getting hammered in real time, or the Space Monster side's Grand Cross was being thoroughly violated by tentacles, the Central Zone's ambitious strategy had, a mere five minutes and forty-one seconds after hitting the chat, begun spreading through the galleries.
With the other zones nearly finished with the event, the sight of the Central Zone finally looking like it might take on a Grand Cross was fresh meat. Users who suddenly had nothing better to do dove in with relish, chewing, tearing, and savoring every scrap of new drama.
Though "savoring" might be putting it kindly. More accurately, it was the spectacle of people who refused to listen to a word anyone said, forcibly herded together and thrashing desperately to accomplish something — anything — mixed with clowns, trolls, and every other variety of pest, while the few normal people among them suffered. Watching it all, you could feel the old saying in your bones: comedy from a distance, tragedy up close.
[Central Coalition Chatroom Capture.jpg]
Granted, I'm only going off a capture a friend sent me, but:
They've decided to use the Central Zone's only Level 9 base — a place that under normal circumstances was basically hostile-neutral and wouldn't give player fleets the time of day.
That fortress has five main guns alone. It's absurdly strong.
As for those user bases that got shredded earlier — that was because they were only Level 5 scraps. Yep.