Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Poll for Aryn's Message

Where do you see the Alliance's future?


  • Total voters
    18
As has been suggested by multiple people, making this poll on the board itself. Aryn, for whatever reason, wasn't able to make it so consider this post the actual poll for what he was discussing here. Disregard the straw poll link in that post.
 

Gilamar Skirata

The most important step is always the next one
Disclaimer; this is a long look in from someone who until recently was looking and watching from the outside. While I've always been a supporter of the GA either through small military aid or other things, I never really had a stable GA character(s) until recently. I play [member="Oren"] of the new Jedi Order and [member="Dracken Pryce"] of Rogue Squadron and the GA Navy. Read if you wish, but this is mainly for the Admin team. Pull things and ask questions.

As the spiritual successor to the Republic and the biggest faction map wise I feel that we have an obligation to keep this train rolling. If there are scheduling conflicts with staff try to figure them out or see if new blood is willing to take up a mantle. We have the writer base I see you all every day chatting in the Discord, but if I'm being honest it seems like the real PvP problem is bad blood between admin teams and faction members of other factions keeping us from doing much. Its not a problem with just the Alliance, its a problem with a lot of factions I've been seeing recently and I think its time we as one of the largest factions step up to the plate and try to be the bigger faction instead of isolating ourselves from our demons. We literally have on this board at LEAST two big enemies with targets on their backs in the form of the First Order and the Sith Empire. We should be best friends with their admin teams because it gives all three groups of writers potentially endless content. We have no reason to be this stagnant. The Galactic Empire succumbed to their pride and let themselves die off instead of committing to bettering relatinos with other factions, we should not follow suit.

Things to Look Into
I think it is important for us to acknowledge the things that are keeping us down which the admin team has done pretty well in their opening post here. However, there are things that I do believe are missing based on interactions in the Discord channel as well as my own observations on the board. So here are some other potential issues I see with the faction as it is now.

  • Lack of commitment to the story arc presented "The Great Galactic War": This was hyped up by every faction and their mothers when it started, however for reasons that will be looked into later, things never took off. We already were the faction that was supposed to be taking a stand against the Dark Side, but that also quickly lost steam after the defeat of the One Sith. Then all three (now two, RIP GE) attacked at once. We took some losses and some small wins, and that was that...Let's keep this going OR put an official IC end to this war with a treatise and move on to a new focus. Get new and old writers hooked on a goal again!
  • Pride: Unpopular opinion; What other factions do or say about us should not effect how we deal with them. All factions should be treated with the same respect and candor that we give our friends online. Our Discord should not be the place where we foster ill intent or ideas of other factions. Whatever they've said or done IC or OOC should have no bearing on keeping your doors open for new writers. Work through the headache, its why we chose you all to begin with, because we believed that you would get us through those "headaches". Don't let an entire faction die because we can't be bothered to deal with a faction OOC. Especially when they're doing better than us in terms of activity.
  • Discipline: Many have tried, and failed but ORC made it popular and the cool thing to do because it worked for them but I am of the unpopular opinion that if you are running a faction with a military that most of your writers will be a part of in some way...You cannot be willy nilly with how you run threads and ops. We need to be less like ORC and more like the SE and have some better organization and a stricter military feel. Have a few people make your standard issue stuff, occasionally give contracts for specific pieces of tech or specific ships or what have you, and consolidate a look and feel to the faction's military that you think will appeal to the Star Wars nerds in us. Imo I would look at Mon Cal for capital ships and Incom for fighters and small ships and have maybe one or two other manufacturers on retainer for small arms, armor and other vehicles. But that's just the Canon Boy in me. Schuttas Love Canon.
Baby or Bathwater, never both. We have a good thing going here. One of the biggest Legends factions is on the board, and its us. We have a great opportunity to keep ourselves afloat, but for the first time in a long while when it comes to factions I feel like the weight of this is heaviest on the admin team. But this part is for us members; If our admins bust their asses to get us a thread with a story we need to post. We can't just look at it funny and walk away.
 
Hmm. This just seems a bit off considering we just finished four dominions and finally got an SSD. We are by no means TSE with activity, but it is still there.

There are options than just dropping to minor. LIke the nomad mandate to have fun wandering around like a Resistance hitting the dark side factions or discussion openily with other factions what neat storylines can be done.

There are ORC, SJO, CIS —- the options are there. The question is if anyone has the time and effort to put into it.
 
I'd keep it going.

The GA is the biggest 'good guy' group on the board. Whilst RPing in a galaxy dominated by imperials would be great for what I've been up to, letting all the work that has gone into the GA die after such a show of activity seems like a waste.

That being said, most everything I can offer has already been said by [member="Gilamar Skirata"]. You guys are the huge superpower representing democracy and 'goodness' in the galaxy, and I feel adopting that stance more so would be to your benefit.

Be the galactic police. Set aside OOC issues and get involved with the baddies. If the GA is to die, then go down kicking and screaming against the rise of imperialism.

Lastly, I'd go with Gil on the military discipline. Writing a GA soldier feels like writing a rebel still (or it did for me ) which was dope back when they were the underdogs, but you guys are in power now. I feel having a more standard military presence to reflect the GA's natural development from a group of freedom fighters to a galactic government would be to its benefit.

Don't have a right to vote, haven't steadily written a GA character since the earlier days, but I felt the opinion was worth giving.
 

Noah Corek

Cocked, Locked and a Smoking Barrel
Factory Judge
I've been gone for the last few months but the last time I was here we were kinda of on the backfoot ICly. We were constantly being invaded by the First Order and being pushed back, the biggest of those being at Thyferra and Dagobah. Personally what I think we need to do is implement changes, most of which [member="Gilamar Skirata"] mentioned. After those are implemented we can work on some sort of recruiting drive. Honestly I don't have many ideas and my writing skill isn't the best but if the faction admins need help with anything at all I'm free most time of the day since classes are now over and I'm still looking for a job.
 

Zeradias Mant

Democracy Dies in Darkness
It's not uncommon for major factions to kick it into high gear when facing the danger of a recall. In the months after though, they either sustain the activity or they don't. It's important to consider why a recall happened in the first place. Does the faction have enough activity on it's own, or is it somewhat reliant on the participation of other factions to make ends meet? Does the faction have sufficient numbers to stay afloat? Was it just a slump? If staying major were the final decision, I think it'd be wise to look at what Choli said and consider using the Galactic Nomads mandate to jive things up. If minor is what you decide, I think it's always best that a faction goes minor on it's own terms, and it's not always possible to do that when a second recall comes down. It seems the entire faction admin team is in agreement to go minor, and more often then not they're in the best place to make that determination. If they do get overruled by the member base and understandably don't want to maintain the position anymore, there better be new and competent blood willing to step up to drive the vision you have in staying major. FAs can only drive so much activity and it is an exhausting task. If you're not able or willing to put in the work necessary to keep the GA major, you probably don't have any business voting to stay so.

Outside support is always appreciated, but it means nothing when it comes to faction activity. I can have a dozen writers support Coruscant First, but it does the faction nothing when none of them write. I'm happy to continue exploring political options with you guys on Coruscant as soon as my RP hiatus ends, but I'm not sure when exactly that'll be.

I'm not going to vote, but whatever you guys decide, I'll support it.
 
There have been some good points made... I'm not sure where I truly stand on this matter to be honest so no vote from me as of yet. I've only returned to activity with the GA in the last couple of months, and see both pluses and minuses to the choices. Been trying to contribute, but seemingly a bit late and a credit short as they say, and that kinda sucks as I had hope of getting stuff going.

*eyes [member="Gilamar Skirata"]* You keep teasing me Rogues with that ship thread. :p
 

Ugohr Poof

The Traveling Gungan Salesman
I have been one of those few consistently active GA writers in the past six months, so I have to say it: if we want to stay major, we would probably need to replace admins with more spotty activity provided they are upfront with the spottiness of their activity and, from there, make sure their replacements are active.
 
The range of advice and comments has been massively appreciated guys, the admins are taking a lot of this on board in our discussions over the issue, there is just one thing I would like to address though;

We have the writer base, I see you all every day chatting in the Discord, but if I'm being honest it seems like the real PvP problem is bad blood between admin teams and faction members of other factions keeping us from doing much.
This is (at least in part) a fundamental untruth. The GA admin team has extraordinarily good relations with admins from TSE, and with admins from most other factions, the only faction with whom our relations have been spotty (and not for lack of trying) has been the FO. The issue when it comes to PvP is that when we admins set up skirmishes or pvp threads (most recently the ME Myrkr Skirmish and Ossus TSE Skirmish before that), we are often approached by players either in discord or private who state they will not be participating because of [insert faction name here].

This usually leaves us with an extraordinarily small pool of writers to undertake the pvp threads with, and as such they usually die out, or our showing is not sufficient enough to really grant us any chance at victory. As Zeradias has said, it is one thing to support the faction, it's another thing entirely to be actually sticking your head out to post for it.
 

Gilamar Skirata

The most important step is always the next one
[member="Aryn Teth"] as clarrification, I didn't mean it was ONLY the admin team that had bad blood with various factions, the "admin teams and faction members" was meant to be on our side so I apologize for that mix up.
 
The Admiralty
Codex Judge
I am not gonna vote in this, because it has been ages since I was active in the GA and my status as TSE admin would cause perception issues, but I did want to provide my two cents.

This thing has become kinda cyclical to the Galactic Alliance from an outside perspective.

The faction slows down and doesn't do a lot, it puts huge pressure on the admin team to drive up activity. People begin wondering if it wouldn't be better to go minor. A vocal group of people come walking in and vote to stay major. There is some minor resurgence in activity for a while.

Then it inevitably slows down again as that vocal group loses interest again, runs into their own time constraints or whatever.

Who gets caught between all of this? The GA staff.

I genuinely believe that if the faction stays major, the people that are voting for this to stay major should step up, start pushing hard for the GA. Give the current staff a break, because they have been trying to keep this afloat for a while now.

See if that vocal group can actually turn this boat around, like they seem to think they can.
 
What Daro said is why I voted for minor. It's great that there's always a group that wants to stay major, but staff gets crushed when they get picked on to drive the activity after the initial resurgence. You can keep the cycle going, but if that's the case then any staff who are tired should be replaced by someone who voted yes. If you want to stay major, then you need to be willing to put in work.

And no I didnt vote for minor because it would leave the Republic in a position as one of the few remaining major lightside factions. We are a small faction, and you going minor doesnt help us really. I voted minor solely because the cycles are annoying, and I've felt for a long time like the GA was going in a slow slide.
 
Been here literally since the place was minor, though I drifted for a long while. I came back and was honestly pretty disappointed. The current Admin team has poured it on hot, and there is a lot of braying to stay major, but there seems to be a disconnect between those vocally wanting to be major, and those running the place in terms of actual output. That cannot be sustained.

Nor, honestly, does the way we in ORC run things work for everyone, and I think the GA has made a mistake leaning on that methodology. You're a regular Military now. Grow into and push that forward. There's a lot, to me, of conflicting identity bits from vestiges of old Admin teams shaping the faction and the next in line going to the opposite side and not cleaning up after.

My tl;dr before I ramble as I always do:

To those wanting to remain Major: Put your money where your mouth is and work with or as the Admins to maybe see why the struggle is so real. I did with ORC and it's been eye-opening, truly. Because the loudest voices I see remaining major also haven't been a guiding hand in this Faction, and that's a problem.

My suggestion is to go Minor, the death spiral has set in and a Faction of this size and endurance deserves a good send off. If you can't stomach that, then you need a complete leadership change and direction shake up, or you'll be back here in a few months.
 
I have removed my vote, and have instead chosen to abstain from voting at all, because all of these calls for the people who voted major to step up and do the work to keep the faction afloat aren't something I have the time to rise up to, no matter how much I would love to see this faction continue on.

On the other hand, I can see why minor would be a good choice. The faction would have control of its downfall, and avoid becoming something far worse by sticking around. All in all, GA would be three years old this September. That's a long time for any faction. It's been a good run. There's absolutely no shame in going out in a good fashion. I just can't bring myself to vote for going minor. That's a mental hurdle that's my own problem.

Maybe something better will come out of the ashes. Maybe we'll all just move on. Who knows?
 

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