KaelThas Quilor wrote:Ballotonia wrote:
I'm not sold no that reasoning, actually. Why didn't FRA/UDL simply agree to disagree and move on as palls? A lot of that has to do with personal relations, irritations building up over time, etc... Just like in real life politics. That the split happened over a particular event doesn't mean the split would never have happened without that one event, the schism was slowly forming before then, and growing steadily. There could easily have been some other event a month later that would've led to the exact same effect, and then we'd be saying that some statement, some WA proposal, or some other coup in the game would've been the 'cause' of the FRA/UDL schism. I think the causes (plural) are far deeper and more structural than any single event.
Ballotonia
but the UDL formed as a result of the way Unibot felt the FRA mishandled the TSP coup, Ballo. The UDL wasn't around before it.
That's not quite correct; the UDL was formed due to the way TRR - or more specifically Sedge - were annoyed at how Unibot handled Sedge's coup of TSP. That is to say, because Unibot authorized Ranger deployment. However, to a great degree that was merely the casus belli for the TRR initiated recall of Unibot as FRA Arch Chancellor; the real issues were the general direction that Unibot was trying to take the FRA, specifically efforts to reduce the relative power of the regional membership, much of which contributed nothing in terms of manpower or activity to the FRA, by enfranchising the Ranger corps; the people who actually were actively participating in the FRA. The recall was essentially a case of "TRR or Unibot", though it wasn't termed that way. As a result Unibot and EID left the FRA, and formed the nucleus of the UDL, taking with us perhaps a third of the active Ranger Corps and maybe two thirds of the non-update pilers.
The fact that decisions in the FRA are still made by a group which is largely made up of people who don't actually defend remains one of it's weaknesses. In contrast, the UDL leaderships complete lack of accountability and oversight was it's largest weakness, and the cause of most of the problems it experienced during Unibot's Chiefship. On numerous occasions he made extremely bad decisions - especially in terms of foreign and public relations - which the Lt.'s called him to task on, but he never changed his pattern of behavior and simply reverted back to his typical behavior after a couple of weeks. This was a big cause in the general exodus of founding members in 2012-13, and directly led to his resignation as Chief of the Band. A general pattern of increasingly extreme rhetoric and ideology can be traced throughout this period, which combined with Unibot's behavior was the cause of the increasing disillusion among the more moderate members, many of whom had GCR attachments.
