An Essay by Red Quacker, Suitable for Posting and Linking:

All Essays Readily Available in Readable Format at http://www.geocities.com/iamredquacker , as I am Not Without Compassion:

To the Cowards at the TrekBBS:

To the Heroic Knights of the Most Courageous Troll Kingdom:

To my fellow Exiled (see above) and to the World at Large:

I am Red Quacker.

In our own way, each of us has been humiliated and debased by the foul actions of Christian. Amidst the corruption and terror practiced by Christian and his lackeys, it is difficult to imagine experiencing anything but shame and horror. Yet history has shown us time and again that even in the darkest of conditions, the light of hope may shine. Sometimes ordinary posters are capable of extraordinary things. This is the true definition of a hero. I would like to take a short break from analyzing and condemning the corrupt administration of the TrekBBS and offer an example from history, so that we too may be inspired to do great things. It is with great pleasure that I announce the first in a series of special segments honoring a hero.

Spotlight on a Hero: The Adventures of Trident and The Line.

Trident and The Line may not have been heroic by themselves, but somehow, and in some way, fate put the two of them together. The friendship and symbiotic trolling they shared is truly the stuff of legends. It is not difficult to believe that they would have found each other, of course, since they were both clones of Red Quacker. Trident was the first to make his way to the TrekBBS.

The day was Friday, March the 16th, 2001. Trident registered on the TrekBBS and, finding it a pleasant place to converse with people, posted freely among the forums. Trident never actually posted about Star Trek, but this raised little suspicion, since no one else did in those days. Trident posted in Miscellaneous and the cozy Lower Decks Lounge. He was slow to make friends, but eager to try. For a while, it seemed like nothing could possibly go wrong.

One day, Trident was browsing through the Lower Decks Lounge when he saw something very unusual--a post made by someone who had a high rank. Upon reading this thread, he discovered that it was a very old one, brought to the surface by another poster who said she was "hunting fossils." Trident decided to give it a try himself. Looking through the old topics, Trident discovered a thread that had been posted by Red Quacker himself. Examining the post further, Trident saw that the post had been edited--several days *after* Red Quacker had been banned. Trident brought this thread to the surface and showed everyone what he had found. The Lower Decks marveled.

Not long afterward, a very startling thing occurred--the thread was edited again. Red Quacker had apparently become aware that his edit was discovered, and he took the opportunity to send another message to the Lower Decks. Quacker left detailed instructions in the thread to go to another of his old threads in the Miscellaneous forum. There, a member of the Lower Decks should reply to the topic to bring it up and allow others to read Red Quacker's post.

Being a naive, impressionable newbie, Trident found the topic and brought it to the surface of the Miscellaneous forum. The TrekBBS quaked in fear of the Quacker reborn. It was immediately reported to the Questions, Suggestions, and Feedback forum so something could be done about it. A copy of this thread is located here . Trident was blamed for allowing Quacker to pull off this prank, while concerned bystanders such as Neilson (who is called Trekaholic), tshrike (currently serving a PermaFreakBan), and phoenixfire (a Quacker clone).

Perhaps Trident should not have been given the blame entirely, however. After all, it was not Trident's idea to begin digging up "fossils" in the Lower Decks Lounge. He merely saw someone else do it and repeated what he saw. The person who should be given at least part of the blame is the person who came up with the idea. That person was Mandy, a Quacker clone with an unusually long lifespan.

But the horrifying sight of Red Quacker posting while banned at the TrekBBS was not the only thing to go wrong on that day. Before the night was over, a new member had registered on the TrekBBS. His name? The Line. The day was March 29th, 2001.

While the discussion continued in the "Red Quacker is back" thread, The Line decided to see what it was all about. Upon hearing of a banned troll's ghost, The Line became curious about who this Red Quacker person could have been. Neilson suggested that The Line should go back and use the Search function to find some of Quacker's posts and discover for himself what the Quacker was all about. The Line did so, and it sent him down a path from which he never returned.

Meanwhile, Trident was busy posting about various things until he found himself promoted to Commander, giving him access to the Commander's Lounge. Little did he know, this would bring him into a conflict with his arch-nemesis from the Lower Decks Lounge: YOSHI. YOSHI, though verbally nonconformist, was gifted with a sort of second sight--he often had visions, and perceived things with ease of things which the rest of us are unaware. YOSHI had been using his gift to look into the Commander's Lounge and report its pathetic contents to the Lower Decks crowd. One day, while using his gift, YOSHI discovered something shocking: Trident (like YOSHI), was actually Red Quacker.

This placed YOSHI in a difficult predicament. On the one hand, he was eager to maintain the peace of the TrekBBS, which Red Quacker could threaten via Trident. On the other hand, YOSHI knew he was held in low esteem by the Moderators and Administrators. How could he explain how he knew Trident was Red Quacker? And if the Mods didn't believe him, what would stop them from giving YOSHI a warning for making a false accusation? YOSHI was greatly distraught. Suddenly, he came up with a plan. What if he informed DEAverification (then the Administrator in charge of QSF) that he had *some* kind of information, and that he was willing to give it if he was granted immunity? YOSHI walked into a QSF thread and informed them that he had information. He was immediately kicked out.

But YOSHI would not give up so easily. No, YOSHI was determined to exorcize the fowl Trident from TrekBBS. YOSHI started a new thread, determined to get the word out. But first, he would need immunity. The thread can be located here . As you can see from the thread, YOSHI was unsuccessful. All he received for his efforts was to earn the enmity of a now very suspicious Trident. YOSHI made one more attempt at exposing Trident, in a thread available here , where YOSHI explains that he is there, and challenges Red Quacker to show himself. To YOSHI's astonishment, his message did not get across.

While this was going on, Trident and The Line's camaraderie strengthened. In tshrike's thread, here , made in the wake of an accusation that tshrike was Quacker, The Line grew more firmly in his beliefs that Quacker never deserved to be banned. Trident agreed completely, in spite of phoenixfire's continual objections.

But Red Quacker had been banned over a month before. Why all of the discussion revolving around him? LizardLaugh, a Moderator and aspiring intelligence officer, smelled a rat. Lizard outlined her suspicions in a thread which was to spawn a great debate, here . tshrike, Neilson, Trident, The Line and phoenixfire were all listed as "politic-obsessed newbies". tshrike, Neilson and phoenixfire were free from Lizard's suspicions, which placed Trident and The Line at the scene of a crime. Cornered, Trident and The Line decided to stonewall, repeatedly denying all accusations and mocking LizardLaugh. This made her all the more determined, despite a satirical thread by Neilson, here . LizardLaugh persisted, and finally both Trident and The Line offered her e-mails, which, unbeknownst to them, contained their IP addresses.

Finally presented with cold, hard evidence that Trident and The Line were the same person, LizardLaugh's careful scrutiny of the IP addresses revealed...that they were different people. Trident and The Line were free to go about making their pro-Quacker posts. The TrekBBS was becoming nothing more than a shrine to Quacker, filled with discussions about Quacker, suspicions of his presence, and increased hostilities between Moderators and posters. This drove Mandy herself to come out of the Lower Decks and complain about it, begging the two groups to reconcile. Link . She was unsuccessful.

As the environment continued to worsen, something began happening to The Line. The more he posted, the more unsatisfied with everything he became. The Line started to become disillusioned and bitter. The Line began attacking the Moderators' decisions, as in this thread: here . The situation worsened when Red Whacker appeared for the first time in the Miscellaneous forum. Whacker's name (then Red_Wacker) began to raise new suspicions. Whacker created legions of obvious clones, exacerbating the situation. Yet the Administrators were absolutely clueless as to how the problem should be solved. When Red Whacker went so far as to boast about how no one could stop his clones, he include The Line in a list of his clones. The Line was furious. Before long, The Line began taking it out on everyone who crossed him. The Line had become a troll, and trolls get banned. The Line was given a 24-hour ban, the Announcement for which is included here: Link .

In the wake of The Line's ban, the residents of the TrekBBS were mortified. How could someone who began with such promise suddenly degenerate into some kind of a troll? phoenixfire was the first with an explanation: all had been well with The Line until he started reading Red Quacker threads. Neilson pointed out that The Line began "spiraling out of control" beginning on Friday the 13th. All hoped for his speedy recovery.

Before long, The Line was back in action. The first thing he planned to do was damage control on his reputation. He knew that being on the receiving end of a 24-hour ban was a disgrace, but with an effective apology, all could be rectified. The Line went into the QSF forum and delivered a short, sincere apology for what he had done. Finally, he asked if everyone could forgive him. phoenixfire said "No, I'm sorry." The Line quickly responded, "WHY THE HELL NOT???!!!"

It was all downhill from there. Despite the fact that a few people decided to give The Line a second chance, he began to degenerate more and more. He began typing in all-caps, with atrocious spelling as he hurriedly made post after post. Every thread in every forum fell victim to his rants. Every post he made was full of vitriol, a rage against the machine that had treated him so unjustly. The Line's insults infuriated some and terrified many others. Trident was taken aback, but tried to continue posting in QSF. DEAverification later reported that this was the worst time in his career. "As soon as I finished posting a reply to one, the other had already made a new one," he reflected long after being fired.

As the days went by, The Line's demeanor grew worse. Every day for several hours, the entire TrekBBS was held hostage, as all active threads became a battle ground for The Line's latest grudge match. In the Commander's Lounge, The Line decided to verbally assault Darkening, who was later a Moderator for lounges. The Line's attacks consisted of calling Darkening, who posted infrequently, a "lurky lurker". Darkening was devastated. The Line rejoiced, reveling in the mayhem of it all. "QUACKERS GOING TO BE OS PLEASED W/ ME, CHIP OF THE OL BLOCK HE'LL SAY".

But The Line was not satisfied merely by spreading chaos; he wanted recognition as the greatest poster of all times. First, The Line decided, he would have to oust Daystrom, who was then very popular. The Line created a thread in TNZ called "Daystrom I'm callin you out!", designed solely as an arena to fight with him. The Line insisted that with repeated attacks against Daystrom, he could become "the board's new sweetheart." Soon the entire Neutral Zone was drawn into the conflict, supporting Daystrom and condemning the now incoherent The Line.

Finally, The Line posted enough flames to earn himself a ban for an entire week, announced here: here . Those who had previously supported The Line were chagrined to see what The Line had been transformed into. wraitheleven posted that "I hope that he/she/it returns from the ban with a renewed perspective on life and decides to become a positive contributing member of the board....." As they say, one must be careful what one wishes for.

Trident had become weary of the negative attention he had been receiving by being aligned with The Line, so he began attacking him as well. But while The Line was absent during the one week ban, Trident grew restless. He, too, began to attack members of the BBS much in the same way The Line originally did. Trident had become a troll.

The Line did return from his one week ban with a new perspective. Just after being unbanned, he delivered an eloquent speech in the Miscellaneous forum. It is reprinted here, in its entirety:

* * *

Topic: I must come clean and apologize once more.

On Tuesday, I returned to this board after a one-week ban. It was a ban which I completely deserved. When I returned, I tried to show everyone that I had turned over a new leaf and had been rehabilitated. I gave many people the impression that after I had been banned, I suddenly became a great person.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I allowed people to continue believing that lie, and now that lie has to stop.

When I first found my ban announcement, I was furious. I wanted nothing more than to return to the board and flame everyone like they had never been flamed before. I was full of so much hatred I felt like my heart was going to spontaneously combust and set fire to my stomach. I knew I could not post on the site again for one week, so I started writing my response in an offline word processor. It wasn't pretty.

That Wednesday, I continued writing, and the words came out even more quickly. I made all sorts of obscene comments about the moderators and posters alike. After I typed for about ten minutes or so, my eyes began to fill with tears. I thought they were tears of rage, and I held them back so I could see the computer screen and keep writing. I must have written for an hour that day.

Before the ban, I had set aside a certain amount of time in the day to devote to both reading the board's post and posting my own messages. Some of you may wonder what I did during that time while I was banned.

I took long walks. I took a lot of very long walks.

Even though I was surrounded by the beauty of nature around me, I could barely lift my eyes from the ground ahead of me. All I could think about was writing more and more in that nasty revenge post. Each day, the pattern continued. Each day, I wrote more pages for the revenge post, and each day, I held back the tears as I mentally murdered each member of the board. Even at that time, I began to realize how disgusted I was with myself. At first, I thought the feeling would pass once I had flamed everyone. I made myself believe once I settled the score, there would be peace both in my soul and on the board. On Tuesday, a few hours before I was un-banned, I had every intention of posting that revenge post.

That morning, I looked at my calendar, double-checking it to make sure it was the day. I tore off Monday's page, and saw the word "Tuesday, April 24th" printed there. I had circled it in red.

I sat down at my computer and opened up the revenge post, preparing to copy it into the message board's text field. Instead, I decided to add one more paragraph. By this time, the post was thirteen pages long, single-spaced. One more paragraph probably wouldn't have made much difference, but I wanted the closing words to be something that would set the forum ablaze.

As I wrote that fateful paragraph, the tears began to spring up in my eyes again. This time, however, they burst out of my eyes and fell upon my cheeks. All at once, I realized they were not tears of anger. They were the tears of sadness and remorse. For the first time, I realized what I had done to the board, and I could not feel more pain. I immediately closed the revenge post file, realizing that no matter how harshly I wrote, I could never inflict a pain upon another person that would compare to the pain I was feeling at that moment. This was because I could only attack someone else from the outside, and my regret was devouring me from the inside.

Shuddering from the disgust I felt, I deleted that revenge post from my computer's memory. I only wish I could delete it from my own memory. I am still haunted, not only for what I had done when I was a troll, but for what I had almost done.

For the next few hours, I closed my eyes and sat in perfect silence. Normally, my thoughts would drift from topic to topic in a stream of consciousness. However, my thoughts were focused only on Trek BBS. I thought about the BBS from every angle imaginable. The design of the board, the feel of the mouse in my hand as I would glide from one post to the next, and finally the anger that I had brought to so many people. I broke the silence only by saying the names of each poster I had offended. Behind each name was a person, a person to whom I had done harm. I wondered if it was right for me to return at all. I certainly didn't belong at a board where I had delivered so much anguish and strife. I certainly didn't deserve to be welcomed back, or even forgiven.

I should never have been born a man. I should have been a crab scuttling silently across the ocean floor.

I thought about the nature of my being. I am a quiet soul, a gentle soul. When I had first arrived at the Trek BBS, I had been a little dangerous. I had joked with and teased people, but I had never offended anyone. I had always lived on the edge, the line, if you will. But when the final tallies had been made, at the end of the day, I was still a quiet and gentle soul.

How then, I wondered, could I ever have been transformed into such a monster on that internet board? Had the anonymity of the internet really changed my inner morality? Had the thought of so many people reading my posts unleashed something inside of me? Something like pride? I shook my head. Thousands of people visit Trek BBS every day, and they never did what I had done so thoughtlessly.

Red Quacker. My eyes shot open at the thought of his name. Everything had changed when I first heard his name. I may have turned out alright if I had never been introduced to him. Still, I can't shift the blame to Neilson for telling me to read his posts. There must have been something dark inside of me to begin with, something Red Quacker was able to use.

I thought back to how I had read post after post, becoming intoxicated by them as though they were new wine. Red Quacker seemed to have everything: fame, power, and even the moderators said he possessed a certain genius. The Devil will come as an angel of light. Never before had I known just how true that is. For a time, I had forgotten it, and had been consumed by the thirst for a part of Red Quacker's glory. The words sicken me even as I write this.

All of these thoughts had come to me within a split second. As soon as my eyes had opened, they were there. I looked at my computer, knowing that inside it was the Trek BBS community that hated every fiber of my being. I hated myself along with them. This was the "reward" Red Quacker had delivered me. Red Quacker owned me, and he made my reputation at Trek BBS as low as it could be. My name was mocked daily, and even the most noble could find no ground on which to defend me.

I continued to stare at my computer, wondering if and how I could ever find my way out of Red Quacker's grasp. I knew that if I apologized and attempted to right my wrongs, everyone else would only make fun of me. I knew it would be easier to remain a troll and fulfill everyone's expectations. A part of me wanted to do just that. But...it wasn't a part of me at all. It was Red Quacker. He had made himself out to be an overpowering force, one that would intimidate everyone into doing his will. What he didn't expect was that his presence only made me want that much more to fight, to grapple with the my conscience until I could do nothing but apologize. I had another cause, in addition to my desire to help others, heal the board and clear my name, I wanted to defeat him. We can all defeat him, if we are true to one another.

That is why I apologized to the board, and I continue to do so. I told you all about my revenge post because I wanted not only to clear my reputation, but myself as well. A politician would apologize for the wrongs he committed that everyone knows about. A true, earnest person apologizes for the wrongs he committed that no one else knows about. I have every intention of cleansing myself from the wrongs of my past, and being accepted by everyone into this community.

I don't know where I am now, but I know where I am going.

* * *

The Line had changed, and dramatically. In each post around the BBS, The Line implored people to stop the spread of hate, which he himself took a part in created. The Line begged each member earnestly to search for peace, and to cast aside the cruelty they had all learned from Red Quacker. Trident, meanwhile, was picking up the slack by trolling in every thread he could find. This continued for what seemed like an eternity. April had been a month of pure hell on the TrekBBS, far worse than what Red Quacker had created under his original name. YOSHI became desperate. His worst fears realized, YOSHI put caution to the wind and began posting anything he could to get to the truth. For his efforts, LizardLaugh began giving him warnings.

Then, suddenly, it all stopped. The BBS became silent. Eventually, the citizens of the TrekBBS discovered what had happened--Trident and The Line had both been secretly Permabanned. The charge? Being the same person, Red Quacker. The people were shocked, reading the leaked news in disbelief. YOSHI, on the other hand, breathed a sigh of relief. It was over. Finally, the dark days of the TrekBBS were past, and they could all look forward to a bright future, free of trolls.

But even as the month of hell came to a close, something sinister was in the works. During the month of April, another two posters were registered under inauspicious names. Unlike Trident and The Line, they began quietly posting in the forums about Star Trek. Even YOSHI did not sense the trouble ahead. One of them was named Trek_Angel. The other was named MasterMind.

Quack.