The Sith Order

[Darth Prazutis]

Hello TSE!

This is something that hasn't been brought up lightly, it's been discussed extensively by the staff team its important that we pose it to you, the community in order to get a sense on how everyone that calls the Sith Empire home feels. There is a path for the Sith Empire to merge with the Sith Eternal. The sides of this are as follows:

For:

• We would become a sub faction under the umbrella of the Sith Eternal. We would retain our identity, community.
• For a location of writing and enriching our lore we would retain Dromund Kaas for us.

Against:

• If we do not merge we would get to retain our independence as a major faction.
• We would retain our full major faction cloud on the map.

The floor is open for suggestions and explanations if you so wish. Make sure you do vote!

 

[Mellifluous Magenta]

A third option: What if we went Minor, did a rad af internal faction narrative to establish a new direction for the TSE, then went back Major after say 2-3 months?

 

[Darth Voracitos]

Hey y'all I'm Darth Voracitos.



You may not recognize me if you're new because I realistically haven't written him with you (or elsewhere for that matter) since the invasion of Rhen Var over a year ago.

It's a sad thing to see something with such a legacy having to make a significant concession, however, I've been in a lot of factions. I've seen them come and go, some outliving their reasonable stay, others gone before their time, and some that hang on for dear life literally every other activity check.

I'm going to abstain from the vote because I don't think I deserve to affect the future trajectory of this faction as merely a relic of a bygone age in the faction. I am however going to recommend that those holdouts who want to stay the course, I think you will be happier if you let it go and allow the change to come.

As long as the story makes sense, choose change. Hanging on to something that's been active for so long will only lead to disappoint.


At the same time, however, I personally have never liked the way mergers have been done. So if I were active enough to be voting, I'd probably vote against and circle the drain with the faction to the very end, bitter or sweet. I'd do what Mellifluous Magenta suggested.

 

[Cara Dorniarn]

Amazingly, I do have to remind viewers that they must be part of The Sith Empire and an active writer within the faction for their vote to count. Thank you for understanding.

 

[Duma Shallotte]

For the past almost four years, I have been an off/on TSE writer. Over those years, I have done merges, been in more than one recalled faction, and run a few minors. From this experience, I do not particularly like merges and thus voted no. Even if you were to retain your ranks and everything, you're still under the yolk of a different major. One that might have a different view and opinion of your writers here.

As Darth Carnifex helped my major faction go down in flames without me even informing my admins. (Lesson learned there my friends!) Anyway, choose the story you want to use and go with it. Go minor, rebuild and come back. There is always the need for a true Sith faction and TSE has never been a disappointment for me there.

 

[Lady Marrow]

I've always found the larger a faction and the larger the writers pool the more stories can occur. Regardless of the nature of a sight factions have a tendency to build communities which write among themselves with a disproportionate frequency.

I hear that other mergers have not gone well before. But maybe with the help of those who have not seem them go well we can make this one better!

 

[The Amalgam]

I have never cast a vote before on this site, but I felt it necessary to cast one here.

Writers such as myself have been writing in a string of invasion threads to keep the Sith Empire a major faction and be prevented from breaking up. We wrote to the bone for weeks matching competing writers from not just the NIO, but the GA, the NJO, and SJC, all of whom contain extremely talanted writers that it was extremely difficult to keep up with.

But we managed. We won Dantooine, Generis, AND Ziost. All of those threads were extremely complicated to manage and keep up with...I did two at once with multiple characters in multiple invasion threads at once, each post often going well past five hundred words, if not into the 1500 or even the 2500 word count. At one point I was even handling three invasions at the same time, I think. And other writers made similar commitments to keep the cloud from being broken up for TSE.

At hearing this, I can't help but feel somewhat crestfallen. What did me and other writers commit so much of our time and effort for in stopping the NIO and GA from crushing TSE IC if we're just going to turn around and become a minor faction for all of that trouble. My character Laertia made significant sacrifices IC to keep the empire from falling, because she feels the Bryn'adul are a much greater threat.

So if anyone has a stake in what we have done so far, if anyone has a very good reason to cast no, I feel it is these writers who gave their all, myself among these writers.

No disrespect is intended nor should it be inferred from what I have written above.

 

[Darth Ahriman]

I haven't been a member of The Sith Empire nearly as long as most of you here, but I can say that since my join-date I've been in one Invasion after the next to try and fight back the wolves at our door (so to speak). Constant invasions like those are incredibly taxing on a writer, and I myself felt quickly burned out (I had also taken part in two invasions outside of TSE).

As far as I have seen, TSE Staff has been doing great to keep pushing back against invading factions however I'm not overly surprised to hear that they too have been feeling the strain. The Sith Empire has been one of the biggest Darkside Factions on the board for a very long time now and it's been super impressive how long things have remained this way, yet to see this vote come about I will say it's all rather sad, even in my small time of being here.

At the end of the day, writers need to do what's going to be best for them, to retain their enjoyment of being a member of Chaos and keeping that muse flowing. The Sith Eternal has also made quite the impression and I feel like they could help bring about some great future content with the renewed energy that major factions need to succeed (Not being rundown from consecutive invasions).

I'm honestly not certain what to vote for, perhaps only because The Sith Empire has been the leading "badguy" faction on the board for so long and it's just weird to think it might not be so present anymore. I guess if this gives people a chance to step back and rest for a while, to renew their muse and come back with a vengeance, then I'm okay with voting yes.

 

[Zeptepi Zambrano]

When I read all the passion expressed in remarks I kind of wonder if the board itself doesn’t need a rule change here. I was in a rpg where the toxicity went deep into the admin positions and then there were more people who were toxic to everyone that were then appointed to the individual faction staff. All their cyber bullying went into public chats. The faction owners themselves never would have stepped down for the good of the faction community. Sadly their member base is even part of these boards. It’s creepy that we see people whose reason to write here isn’t just to have fun but to show up others. There would be a fit because an opponent’s PvP reaction or an outcome didn’t go the way they wanted, in their favor. I wish I could say I’m off topic here. But just being on staff for a few weeks, I am surprised by the drama. I would naturally assume that when stabs were made by writers that they were just immature kids.

I want to thank every member of staff who and even the admins who put up with the DMs and the other faction chat salty insults. You really have backbone! In spite of all the negativity meant to beat you down, I had great fun writing with this faction while I was just another writer under the veil.

If the admins don’t address the path the toxicity and pace of invasions lead us down, and the members inclined to push them are free to remain as they are, and it’s become no longer fun then I welcome the change. I enjoy writing with you all and I was here for years before I finally discovered this fine, mature community of people. I thank you Darth Prazutis and everyone else involved in talks, specifically for not giving up and trying to find a method that helps us stay together. I know it has weighted down on you and your predecessor <3 Darth Carnifex and the decision doesn’t come lightly. I am happy you arranged we all have a place to come together and to meet new writers.



EDIT: I do however want to see us retain honor in any merger. I hope to see the details about our proposed unity, not our absorption into something alien to our ways. We would be put to death as traitors by these new Sith!

 

[Cara Dorniarn]

As it stands, the current vote is 9/9.

Those who are not members or active TSE writers are not counted.

 

[Lady Marrow]

I will say I'm generally against the idea of a merger where the entire faction is just, absorbed into another and just retains its identity as a minor group. It seems like a particularly lazy answer to a lot of things, and kinda messes with a lot of the hard work of the staff and TSE admins who have been pouring themselves into keeping this faction together. I'd want to know how and 'if' staff transition is going to occur.

I'd be much more comfortable with this if it was more of an equal merger, not just keeping everything as it is, except inside another faction. The Sith Eternal is a Faction with 1/2 the size, and a considerable amount of less space. Logically on an IC and OOC level it is going to end up likely very quickly dominated by the voices of the faction of 80+ that merges with it.

If we were going to merge, with some cool IC reasoning, I'd much rather discuss how the new combined faction is / will work combining influences from the two rather than simply being like: We're a subgroup inside this other group, that is also like, twice its size.

It's very odd to me the more i think about it. I think i'd need this addressed before I could vote Y. ​

 

[Darth Carnifex]

For clarification, to those thinking that TSE will lose all of its territories if it chooses to merge, that's most likely not the case that will happen. Should people want to retain the territory, it will be done in a way where SE merges into TSE and TSE rebrands into the SE while keeping all of the current map hexes.

 

[Darth Ahriman]

Cara Dorniarn | Darth Carnifex

What does TSE Staff want, if you don't mind me asking. I don't want to single anyone out but knowing whether Staff would be willing to continue the fight/drive to move forward as a Major Faction would help cement my vote for or against this.

Initially, I voted yes, but I also joined TSE not just to write a Sith but also to help support the faction against the consecutive invasions that it was being slammed with. I want to change my vote, but if staff aren't willing to keep up the drive or are too worn/tired out due to all the stress (well aware of how stressful it can be), then that sort of answers things for me either way.

 

[Cara Dorniarn]

Cara Dorniarn | Darth Carnifex

What does TSE Staff want, if you don't mind me asking. I don't want to single anyone out but knowing whether Staff would be willing to continue the fight/drive to move forward as a Major Faction would help cement my vote for or against this.

Initially, I voted yes, but I also joined TSE not just to write a Sith but also to help support the faction against the consecutive invasions that it was being slammed with. I want to change my vote, but if staff aren't willing to keep up the drive or are too worn/tired out due to all the stress (well aware of how stressful it can be), then that sort of answers things for me either way.

To be perfectly honest yes, I am tired. With my work schedule I only get so much time to devote toward hobbies, so it's a bit dulling when certain groups insist on doing the same thing over and over. I did take a break from admin to relieve stress and sort health problems. With the break came a bit of a second wind, so if TSE writers want to keep the fires going then I'll always be there to stoke them.

What I want? That's easy. It's to develop the Empire and its story, dive into Sith-Imperialism, and contrast the other groups on the board. Where they lean into feudal chaos we rely on strict order. It's a great dynamic that could offer up some grand tension, especially if we have an on-going narrative with the SE. These chances for faction development have gotten interrupted continuously, and to any who say that's an excuse have never been on the receiving end of continuous two/three invasions. Spoiler: It's tiresome.

With that out of the way yes, I voted no. Only because I see a lot of folks who want to stay major or even go minor then start again, and they're vocal about it. SE is a good faction, they've got great writers and people who are good folk. Merging with them won't be the end of the world, and combining our stories wouldn't be too bad I reckon. As for admins I don't believe any TSE staff will be transferring to SE. If we do stay major then I'd like to ask members of the Empire to put forth their ideas for threads. If you want TSE to stick around then we need to look past invasions and into our own narrative. It's easy to get caught up in invasions since it's only a negative if you don't participate, but for the Empire to grow we need everyone to be able to tend to it.

Sorry for the windy post. Valen | Lady Marrow | The Amalgam

 

[Darth Carnifex]

I think it's a monumental mistake to not vote for the merger at this point.

With the low activity turnout and the mounting staff burnout being suffered, not merging and taking this narrative step would only perpetuate the status quo as it stands within TSE. It would only prolong the inevitable in my opinion, and this is a way that we as a faction can turn things around and pool our writers, resources, and story ideas into a single conjoined faction.

In a way, we're not too dissimilar to the Sith Eternal. We both follow similar ideologies, the major difference being a focus on centralization vs decentralization.

Plus, pursuing the merger path and keeping TSE's territory only further cements what the writers have fought tooth and nail to preserve. Should we go down this current path, we further risk making all of that fighting worth nothing, or worse if we listen to those who propose going minor; then it will all have been literally for nothing and everything that had been done in the past year was pointless.

This is why I strongly advocate for merging with the Sith Eternal.

 

[Lady Marrow]

I think it's a monumental mistake to not vote for the merger at this point.

With the low activity turnout and the mounting staff burnout being suffered, not merging and taking this narrative step would only perpetuate the status quo as it stands within TSE. It would only prolong the inevitable in my opinion, and this is a way that we as a faction can turn things around and pool our writers, resources, and story ideas into a single conjoined faction.

In a way, we're not too dissimilar to the Sith Eternal. We both follow similar ideologies, the major difference being a focus on centralization vs decentralization.

Plus, pursuing the merger path and keeping TSE's territory only further cements what the writers have fought tooth and nail to preserve. Should we go down this current path, we further risk making all of that fighting worth nothing, or worse if we listen to those who propose going minor; then it will all have been literally for nothing and everything that had been done in the past year was pointless.

This is why I strongly advocate for merging with the Sith Eternal.

While i agree, i think that simply becoming a sub group under the SE is kinda lame, if we're going to merge, we should merge with all the delicious IC story tension that it would cause and seeing as we're both rather large factions, it would be a great time to come together as, what, like 120 odd writers? And create something that is more of a fusion of the two of us, while obviously keeping more towards the feel of the SE due to their leadership etc.

There should definitely be a story here, but all this feels like at the moment is a duck for cover. Or a SE power play to usurp TSE administration.

There's a really good story to be made here and the factions together would certainly be stronger than the factions apart. I love the idea of having new members, I'm generally for 'a' merger. But I'm not if its just going to be TSE becomes something like the the Enclave within the CIS where we stay exactly the same except as a cell inside another faction. That's MORE than lame.

 

[Darth Ahriman]

If you want TSE to stick around then we need to look past invasions and into our own narrative. It's easy to get caught up in invasions since it's only a negative if you don't participate, but for the Empire to grow we need everyone to be able to tend to it.

On this note, I feel particularly bad for it but life has recently kicked me in the teeth so my muse has suffered and some of the threads I planned to be active in have had to be dropped, so I do apologize for that!

Otherwise I totally understand what you're saying Cara, and can relate to these feelings myself from my past experiences on Chaos and all things Major.

With the low activity turnout and the mounting staff burnout being suffered, not merging and taking this narrative step would only perpetuate the status quo as it stands within TSE.

This quote coupled with Cara's response is enough for me to feel safe in my vote. While it is still sad to see this happening, if this gives us more hope for the future ahead, then I'm going to be along for the ride with you all.

 

[Mellifluous Magenta]

Since the poll won't let me do it, I'd like to let the people who are counting the votes know that I have partially changed my mind and would like to withdraw my "No" vote but at the same time, don't want to commit to a "Yes" vote. So basically, just ignore my "No" vote but don't put me in with the "Yes" camp.

Darth Prazutis Cara Dorniarn

 

[Darth Ahriman]

Since the poll won't let me do it, I'd like to let the people who are counting the votes know that I have partially changed my mind and would like to withdraw my "No" vote but at the same time, don't want to commit to a "Yes" vote. So basically, just ignore my "No" vote but don't put me in with the "Yes" camp.

Darth Prazutis Cara Dorniarn

I feel that. I'm so torn on this lol

 

[Darth Daiara]

I've sat on this and have decided to support the staff on their decision to merge. imo its just as important to support staff as it is the faction, and I can see that this is the healthiest path for them.

Surely a faction that has overcome 20ish invasions in a year can take this fresh start and go far.


thanks for the good times fam

im sorry ahead of time for aradia's anger