Thanks for representing us here Treedaddy.
For those who may be unaware, I am a leader in BL. One of a dozen leaders certainly, but I have been a leader in BL since day 7 of the server and I have had a hand in shaping decisions and promoting many of the current leaders (although I think our other leaders have much more wisdom than I).
I'd like to address some of the concerns about Black Legion here in chronological order. I believe enough time has passed for some of these older events that it is ok to divulge secrets which once were classified but now are harmless.
First, the conquest of o44: It was a long-held goal for Black Legion to conquer o44 from the outset - BL actually started in that ocean and our original team had a goal of fighting Venom 2.0, the alliance which dominated the core fighting early on in the server. We were very excited when we heard that Venom 2.0's expansion was also into o44, because we wanted to prove that we were in fact the best alliance on the server and the quickest way to do that was to fight the top dog. Via an interesting geopolitical happenstance, 3 alliances came to share o44 for a time - Foofies Unified Command, Chaos Hunters, and Black Legion.
Due to my past experience leading alliances with lots of talent (as was the case with Black Legion) I advised playing our cards close until we could solidify our control of the rim, and I believe if Chaos Hunters had not been ignorant to the fact that we had so many amazing players they would never have let us establish ourselves.
We discovered a few weeks into the server that in fact Chaos Hunters and Foofies Unified Command were operating together, two alliances of players from Ithaca. Black Legion initially was not interested in fighting CH. CH had great leadership (RowdyDawg), a good team and was already busy with a war against Venom 2.0. However, BL needed to expand so we chose to fight Foofies because that alliance was not directly involved in the Venom 2.0 war and we judged that alliance was full of simmers. Although we had no intention of joining the CH coalition against Venom, we had (and still have) a lot of respect for RowdyDawg and the other CH members in that fight and we didn't want to force CH to fight on two fronts. Ironically, this was the point in time where both Venom 2.0 and CH were accusing Black Legion of being the other's lap dogs and Black Legion was in fact pursuing an independent course. As we tried to explain to JRE250 (who was too arrogant to listen) Black Legion had nothing to gain from fighting a war two oceans away and everything to prove and gain by not doing so.
As it turned out, CH and Foofies in fact operated under independent diplomatic plans and it was quite easy to secure a NAP with CH and start a war with Foofies. Foofies quickly collapsed in the east and although CH sent a lot of support to that alliance, defending those players cost far more than it should have due to players not updating wall levels etc. Although Foofies had a great core of players (this core fights on in Venom 2.0), they were surrounded by other players that didn't support their mates. As we in Black Legion reasoned, the core oceans are for fighting, simming can be done on the rim. If those Foofie players in o44 couldn't keep their cities from us, then they didn't deserve them, and should be relocated to the rim (in case anybody forgets, this is a very common mentality in the early game).
Throughout this war, BL stayed true to the deal we had worked out with CH - a non-aggression pact. However, JRE250 and other CH members all decided to merge into Foofies, and in what became a slow-motion ambush, we got to watch players which we had agreed not to attack slowly move from CH into Foofies and immediately attack us (in this way, we were often caught offline and the enemy was onine when the fighting started). We in fact withheld retaliation on any of them until they attacked us, even long after it was apparent that they were all moving over (a couple did not move over in fact, specifically RowdyDawg - which makes me think he was against the move - but 90% of the alliance made the switch). The merge into Foofies (the now "FUC n Chaos") catapulted JRE250 to leadership best I can tell.
The rest is history... we stalled JRE250 so that not even his hoard of Midas could overcome us and he faded ignominiously into VM. Black Legion attacks continued and we captured the northern and central parts of o44. FUC n Chaos came under attack from Truculence and Venom 2.0 and between three top alliances the meat-grinder was too much for them. I am not sure if Truculence entered this conflict opportunistically or actually had a goal with territory but either way I suspect they were hoping to secure their slice of Foofies while dinner was on the table.
Then came the event where Venom 2.0 recruited a couple players from Foofies who we had under revolt. Their lack of tact and diplomacy in this event ticked off our diplomat, who was one of our founders, and he organized a peace between us, Foofies and Truculence so that Black Legion could hit Venom 2.0. This event has been discussed in several other threads, and I reiterate the purpose was to kick Daizan in the shins. I don't view Daizan as an 'evil overlord' but rather a good leader who narcissistic-ally believed that his crew was good enough to fight the server without diplomacy. Black Legion wanted to prove him wrong, which I think we, along with the other large alliances, did. In a strange turn of events, Venom 2.0 has now courted every alliance but BL with diplomacy.
Our diplomat hoped to make the peace between Foofies and Black Legion last, however our council (I am certainly to blame for this if you require a villain to despise) rode roughshod over him, citing that we were still too far from Venom to engage them in combat - we would be fighting from half and ocean away. This was true, and for the week while we maintained the peace with Foofies we unfairly starved our members for targets. We either needed to get closer to Venom or find somebody else to fight. Unfortunately for Foofies, they satisfied both of these requirements. This is probably why some feel that Black Legion betrayed Foofies. In reality, I challenge you to ask yourselves why Black Legion would have rationally stopped a war which it was winning only to box itself into the rim. I do not have the letter of the agreement between the diplomat and who it was worked out with - but I think that, rather than feel indignant about the change in plans, Foofies members should be appreciative for the period of peace which they were given. And I reiterate, if you need a villain in BL, you can look to me. Most of the current leaders in BL had nothing to do with this decision (the members certainly are free of blame) so calling the entire alliance evil for the actions of a few (most of whom are no longer leaders) is grossly unfair. If you as ex-members of foofies still seek redress, you can petition for my removal from leadership in BL or send attacks my way.
