----------------------------------------------------------------
PROLOGUE
----------------------------------------------------------------
Before you read this story, I want you to think of
the lyrics to a song called "Brothers in Arms", by Dire Straits. I
feel that the tune of the song [as well as the words] really fit.
These mist covered mountains
Are a home now for me
But my home is the
lowlands
And always will be
Some day you'll return to
Your valleys and your
farms
And you'll no longer burn
To be brothers in arms
Through these fields of
destruction
Baptisms of fire
I've witnessed your
suffering
As the battles raged
higher
And though they did hurt
me so bad
In the fear and alarm
You did not desert me
My brothers in arms
There's so many different
worlds
So many differents suns
And we have just one world
But we live in different
ones
Now the sun's gone to hell
And the moon's riding high
Let me bid you farewell
Every man has to die
But it's written in the
starlight
And every line on your
palm
We're fools to make war
On our brothers in arms
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PART ONE
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To look into the future, we must look back into the
past. And the past of the Templar Knights is one of the biggest things that I
have ever been a part of. While I have only spent a fourth of my life both in
the knowhow and in the eternal membership of the Templar Knights, that fourth
was the fourth that has changed my life so much. These past few years have held
the greatest turmoil in my life, and I say that one of the reasons why I am
still here today is because the Templar Knights have been an anchor for me.
Let me tell you about the Templar Knights... in my
way... from my memory.
It was a little under four years ago when I first met
a man named Firehawk in a RPG of some sort... I do not remember the exact name
of the RPG, but I remember that the game didn't turn out so well. Towards the
end of the game, Firehawk asked me if he could talk to me. I went along, and I
met him in a channel after the game had concluded. It was after I entered this
channel that I was introduced to the Templar Knights.
The basic idea of the Templar Knights was something
that I had never thought could exist in Battle.net. The Templar Knights
combined might and magic... brains and brawn... and, on top of it all, the
wisdom and friendliness to make it all possible. There were separate ranks for
melee fighting and for map making. Above it all resided the Lord of the Order
himself, Firehawk. All in all, the basic concept looked quite nice, and I
decided I would join the Templar Knights.
I was spared from the rank system, though. By some
strange whim or some unknown chance, Firehawk pretty much made me a Judicator,
in league with a character named Yoshi3gg, and subservient only to Firehawk himself.
Then I met the rest of the crew... and... oh how few
there seemed to be compared to other clans of the day. As much as it grieves
me, I cannot recall their names from memory alone. There was Max, Green, and
Yoshi, obviously... There was Picard and Neo, of that I'm sure... there was
HyperionDog... and there were others that I just can't recall. It was too long
ago. I know that some resented me for being at the top so quick, and others
came to like me quickly. I was happy for that.
If I do so recall, my first grievance truly came from
BlackDeath, a former member of the Templar Knights. He and I did not get along
so well, and we had words... all of which were unpleasant.
Next came HyperionDog. I remember liking the guy at
the beginning, but as more time progressed and he went with BlackDeath, I just
found myself desping the guy as much as BlackDeath. The exact reasons have long
been lost to me, and how I wish I had written them down somewhere... Alas, the
only documentation that was really kept was the old clan forum, and its topics
slowly dissipated into time before the whole forum itself vanished.
The final name I will mention in my dislikes of this
period was a person known as ReCoN. While not exactly cruel or against the
Templar Knights per se, I had strong misgivings about him. Of course, these
were ignored greatly... Firehawk did not take my paranoid security seriously.
Looking back at it, I cannot blame him, but back then I was deeply irritated.
ReCoN had a pompous air around him... an air of cocky arrogance that defies my
own ego to this very day. Maybe part of the reason I was so sour was because he
defeated me in a melee map, but one thing is for certain: I never really liked
him.
What did not help these matters was that Firehawk was
not very active at all. As tme progressed, he would seldom appear. Fitting the
nature of a man many of the Templar Knights have heard of, Firehawk scheduled
meetings, but never bothered to show up for most of them. It was very, very
discouraging.
One final foe that I forgot to mention was a group of
people that had the $px tag. They came from a channel I've long forgotten the
name of, but they took great enjoyment in picking on channels with their bots.
When no other person was around, a $px spawn bot would log into the channel
home of the Templar Knights and steal the gavel. It had orders to ban any
Templar Knight member on sight. Needless to say, these occurrences were
disheartening.
The straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak,
was when ReCoN went into the main Templar Knights channel, of which my bot held
power. I never will realize what encouraged me to believe him, but he convinced
me to go check out our back-up channel because someone was in there that he
thought I could talk to. While mildly distrustful of ReCoN, I threw caution to
the wind. I went into the back-up channel.
There, a friendly $px bot was waiting to send me
flying.
Slightly irritated, I joined the home channel
again... only to find that I had been tricked. BlackDeath and ReCoN held
possession of the channel, and they laughed at me for my stupid mistake. They
didn't just ridicule me... no, they took it farther. They insulted the Templar
Knights. And then they banned me.
It was only some time later that I found out that
Firehawk was leaving us. Completely.
The Templar Knights were fading away.
I didn't really check the forum much after I learned
the news that Firehawk had disappeared. I never knew of Yoshi's attempt to rally
the remaining members of the Templar Knights. I never realized that Firehawk
had left Yoshi and myself, Grimith J. Reaper, in charge of the battered Templar
Knights.
Like I coward, I returned to my name before the
Templar Knights, and I dismissed it as just another clan idea gone wrong.
I didn't talk to Firehawk much after that. The last
words I said to him were uttered about two weeks after he left the Templar
Knights, and I got the sound impression that I would never see him again.
Sadly, my impression was correct. To this date, I
have never knowingly seen him. It hurts in a way I can't explain.
The Templar Knights, however, were not annihilated
yet. They still existed... in the hearts and souls of men who remembered the
glory. Whether we realized it at the time, we did not join the clan.
The clan joined us.
I remember it was a while after Firehawk left the
Templar Knights [I cannot recall exact times] that I had enough curiosity to go
searching for the old website again. To my surprise, it was still up, with old
news documents detailing the final moments of our clan. Even more surprising
was what I found in the forum. Yoshi had managed to rerally the clan, from what
I knew, and they had moved to a new website.
I said nothing about it, and just moved on. Maybe I
didn't feel like I could hand the Templar Knights again, knowing how easily we
seemed to be crushed by a bunch of bots and traitors.
It was a bit longer after that... I cannot recall
exact times, but I know I revisited that website that Yoshi had created once
more, and I saw that it was still up. I saw names I recognized.
The Templar Knights were alive!
I would not pass up the chance again. I wrote an
e-mail to Yoshi, explaining who I was, how I had found the website, and how I
had remembered them. Yoshi wrote back an e-mail stating he had remembered me,
how it was nice to hear from me again, and a few other details that I cannot
recall. At that time, though, I did not choose to rejoin the Templar Knights.
It wasn't until a while after chat bots were forced
into Public Chat channels that I found myself messing with the monitor of my
bot, and, much to my surprise, it showed TK~Yoshi3gg as online just moments
after I entered the name in. I checked my Starcraft client and confirmed what I
deemed to be impossible. With a small smile on my face, I typed out the
following [I think...]:
"/w TK~Yoshi3gg Hello, Yoshi. It's been a long
time."
I will not go into details, but I will let you know
that, within the next forty-eight hours, I was a full member of the Templar
Knights once more. And it filled me with a great sense of I don't know what...
it's something indescribable... I could never explain it with words.
It was at this time that I was introduce to a person
that would later ascend to the rank that Firehawk held so long ago.
His name? ~THE_ADMIRAL~.
---This is the end of Part
One. I will say right now that there are many details I forgot about, since so
much time has passed. I also left out a few things... things that I didn't feel
just fit. In any case, Part Two will come shortly, and it will cover the Yoshi
Era... the good, the bad, and the ugly.---
----------------------------------------------------------------
PART TWO
----------------------------------------------------------------
After I rejoined the Templar Knights, I was
introduced to the clan members. There were faces I recognized, and there were
faces I had never seen before. One person that struck my fancy, however, wasn't
even a member of the Templar Knights. Instead, a member named Zeratul kept him
around and let him join up with games [when I say 'kept him around', I don't
think a dog-on-leash comparison applies].
~THE_ADMIRAL~, or so I believe the name was, fit in
with the classic TK bill of a great player of UMS games. He must have gotten
that way from Yoshi's influence... During the time that I had known him,
though, Zeratul kept on calling him Jimmy, for reasons that I never understood.
I thought Zeratul and "Jimmy" had known each other in real life and
were gaming friends. Several days later, ~THE_ADMIRAL~ joined the Templar
Knights. He would be known forevermore as TK~Jimmy, or Admiral James Devon
Starluck for short.
Time passed... and more time passed... and, well,
more time passed. There was a lot of time passing. Yoshi, unfortunately, didn't
quite fit the bill of a leader by just not being around for long periods. It
was becoming more noticeable that the same affliction that had caught Firehawk
had also caught Yoshi: a lack of interest. It was saddening, really.
There is one name during this period that will stick
out in a lot of the Elders' minds, and his name is Mudvayne. From my knowledge,
he was recruited by a member named Radix, and he was disliked quickly. He had
brought a friend with him, one that I have forgotten the name of, and these two
were... unpleasing company. I had the pleasure of playing a melee map with
Mudvayne, Mudvayne's friend, and some other Templar Knight member against four
computers, and... it was quite unpleasant. The 'some other Templar Knight'
betrayed Mudvayne and began shooting his base with marines, and in return,
Mudvayne and his friend snapped at the other Templar Knight, killed the marines,
and... well... it turned into a hot war. While the alliance was still preserved
throughout the game, the time spent in there had pushed a boulder down a hill
that just would not stop rolling.
It's quite funny, though. Mudvayne wasn't so bad for me,
but I could tell that one person loathed the man. That was Maxwell Julius
Kepler [TK~Max_Kepler], an old member that had stuck with Yoshi during his
attempts to recreate the Templar Knights after Firehawk left. Max and Mudvayne
[henceforth known as M&M] just did not get along. Period. It wasn't long
before M had to have a... talk with M... because Yoshi wasn't around much to do
anything about M. I was in the channel when M&M talked, and it essentially
came down to M not wanting M in the clan and M essentially throwing M out of
the clan. Of course, I don't think the action really mattered much to M, but it
did to M, and M left without another word.
If the above transaction was confusing for you, the
reader, now you know how I felt.
Other than that action, time passed...
And more time passed...
And, eventually, it got to the point where I was
about to go crazy. I won't explain how this happened, but sudden realizations
struck my head that I should not... could not carry on with the way I was. I
typed my good-bye note, took a deep breath, and waited.
It didn't work out like I had hoped. I still lived.
More time passed... it dribbled away like the grains
of sand in an hourglass... and I kept myself in check... for the moment.
Then I met a guy named Orloxian.
For the life of me, I cannot remember who introduced
us, save that this guy was a guy I met during a Cerebrates game [UMS], and we
struck it off. He actually typed the way that the Templar Knight Elders did...
meaning that he would type "Hi there!" instead of like
"hello" [essentially, capitalized letters and punctuation]. It was
amazing to both of us.
Anyway, this guy dragged Orloxian into the Templar
Knight channel some time later, saying that he couldn't believe that he had
managed to find yet another person in public games that spoke the same
way he and I did. We three played one of those RP maps that I had heard about
but never really played, and I came to discover that Orloxian was a quite
devious role-player... with his own planned storylines.
Speaking of role-playing maps, I forgot to mention a
creation of one of our own brethren made during Mudvayne's time that would
become a staple of some of the longer games that the Templar Knights have ever
had. The map was called RPM [translating into Role-playing Melee], and it was
crafted by Max.
This map was... one of the nicest things I've played
in Starcraft. Numerous hours, totalling up over a day combined at least, were
spent building up cities, creating characters, and losing them when the game
was dropped to play a new game of RPM. The cycle continued, the role-playing
bond strengthened, our city-crafting skills heightened, and we even knew of
particular spots that we wanted to have when the game started. Just speaking of
the fun we had wants me to play a game on that classical map right now. It is a
missed feeling.
The only problem we really had, or at least one I
had, was tolerating the destruction of cities. Things that you had spent time
building up for a game could be lost as waves of special units attacked your
beloved buildings and units. I remember in one particular incidence where I
infuriated Jimmy when some of my attackers raided his city and managed to kill
his hero [though I honestly did not intend to kill the digital woman... she
just attacked me first!]. He left. He wasn't happy about that at all. This is
probably why RPM will most likely never work in Warcraft 3... the inability to
save the game much is going to make at least one person angry.
But, I digress. Onto the Templar Knights once more.
Orloxian and I played a lot of games with each other.
After all, he lived in Singapore, and I... well... I don't like sunlight. The
other Templar Knights managed to meet him by my introduction, and they got
along well with him. Still, though, I never bothered to offer Orloxian a
membership into the Templar Knights, simply because I figured that, if he
wanted to join, he'd ask.
That, however, was not the same thought that other
Templar Knights had. I watched on my bot one night while some of the other
nights managed to recruit Orloxian into the fold. I didn't hold resentment for
the action [you might think I would since I was the one that pretty much kept
the guy around long enough for him to be introduced to the other Knights], but
it just... didn't... fit well with me. I complained about it a little, but
didn't say anything more about the action.
So, more time passed...
Time just kept on slipping into the future...
And then I made another noticeable snap.
One late night, I had been by myself for hours, and I
had eventually decided that I could not take this anymore. I whispered a
good-bye messaged to the Templar Knights while they were playing a game, then
made my escape.
Needless to say, I'm still here today. That's
becoming a pattern, especially after all the decisions I've made to go away,
but I kept on coming back. I won't even mention all of the depressing incidents
that I've had... just suffice it to say that it's an ongoing problem.
Let's cue the time shift again...
Over the course of several months, it was noted that
there was a severe decrease in activity amongst the Templar Knights. By this
time, we had been reduced to only a handful of members: Yoshi, Jimmy, Max,
Orloxian, Green, Radix, Zeratul, Frost, and myself [Zeratul and Frost being
debated about on front because Zeratul was having many problems and Frost just
wasn't around]. Yoshi had developed what I call Firehawkitis. Jimmy and Max had
went to this strange, new game called Darkspace. Green is around a bit, but
every summer he goes to Mexico and isn't around much at all for the next three
months. Radix was... Radix. And, as for me... well... I had noticed myself
getting more and more lonely on some nights.
As many times as I have nearly put myself to an end,
there have been just as many times where
I have seen the Templar Knights slowly dissipate and put time to writing
something to hold them together. I will gladly take pride in assuming that,
weren't it for me, the clan would have shriveled up into a husk, and only the
name would remain in our memories. Any person can dispute me on that point if
they wish, but I know that I've contributed in my own way to keeping our band
of brothers together.
Things were more uneventful besides this occurrences,
and more time just kept flying on by. Most of the other members disappeared
until we had formed a core... the Elders [sans Yoshi], and Orloxian. We mainly
determined an elder by checking to see if he had a ~ mark in his tag... during
the Yoshi Era, the ~ was determined to be an illegal character, and future
Knights had to use a -.
The reason why I disclosed Yoshi is because,
eventually, it got to the point where he was stepping down as Lord of the
Order, citing reasons as school and a lack of interest. At that point, Jimmy
had assumed leadership, and it was there that I was stunned. Granted, Jimmy was
doing the Templar Knights a favor by taking over after Yoshi had stepped down,
but I felt as if a formal vote should be held to truly determine the new Lord
of the Order. So, I made a post, making a note about why I was doing this, and
it was made clear at that point, whether mentioned directly or not, that Jimmy
and myself would be the two people that the others would vote for to lead the
Templar Knights --- myself most likely because of my seniority, and Jimmy
because of his friendly nature and his ability to assume responsibility over
the clan so quickly after Yoshi left.
The vote came in. Jimmy was to stay Lord of the
Order, while I was put in a position of second-in-command... a position Jimmy
coined as 'Co-Regent'.
The Templar Knights... we had learned from our
mistake. Instead of being chaotic in Firehawk's ultimate disappearance, we had
held together. Granted, we were not facing Battle.net enemies that threatened
the Knights, but we were facing outside forces far greater than ReCoN,
HyperionDog, BlackDeath, and the entire $px armada.
The only place we could look to was ahead... to the
future... and what it held in store for us.
---This is the end of Part
Two. I will say right now that there are many details I forgot about, since so
much time has passed. I also left out a few things... things that I didn't feel
just fit. In any case, Part Three will come shortly, and it will cover the
Jimmy Era... what we gained... and what we lost.---
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PART THREE
----------------------------------------------------------------
So... the Jimmy Era... it came as a bit of a
surprise.
Before I get into this, though, I must offer my
deepest condolences to Yoshi. He might have had weaknesses as a leader [and, oh
how I tested him in so many ways when he was the Lord of the Order], but I
respect him for his realizing that he was no longer fully capable to stand at
the head of the Templar Knights. I respect him for having stayed as the leader
of the Templar Knights for as long as he did... longer than Firehawk ever had.
Most of all, I respect Yoshi for what he did after
Firehawk left us... he stayed in the faith of the Templar Knights and tried his
hardest to reorganize the clan into the form he once knew it as.
Without Yoshi, there is a good chance that none of
the Elders today would know each other... or the friends we have met along the
way.
I thank you, Yoshi.
...Now... on to the subject at hand, here...
I had my misgivings when Jimmy became the Lord of the
Order. While it was true that he was not really the lord over much, as we
weren't much of a clan formation any more, it was still the title that
mattered. Outside of Yoshi, I was the most senior Templar Knight. Jimmy
had never met Firehawk before. He did not come to understand
Firehawk and his vision of the Templar Knights as a clan. I mean, if anything,
Max should have been leader over Jimmy! As good-natured as Jimmy was, I
harbored a grave soreness. I was sorely displeased... but I tried to hide it. I
was the one who had called for the election, and the Templar Knights had
spoken.
I was not destined to be Lord of the Order.
So, what happened after Yoshi's stepping down?
In the beginning, there wasn't many changes. Because
Yoshi was never around on games a lot to begin with, we continued to play at
the same pace that we always had... In all honesty, Yoshi's acutal leaving
didn't change our normal routine at all.
Yes... we were still fading away from each other...
only I was becoming more resentful for the reasons why.
Sometime during the Yoshi Era, there was a game found
called Darkspace... Now, I have heard that it was Max that found this game, and
I had presumed it was Jimmy... but Max turned out to have an earlier account
that was just deleted.
See? I make mistakes. Now, if only some people didn't
think that I think that I am perfect...
But, I digress. We'll just settle for saying that
there was a Darkspace Wing.
Now, I had been pressured to play Darkspace way back
then, and I gave it a shot. I waited a long time in line to download it, and I
did manage to get it with my 56k modem. After I had downloaded it and gave it a
shot, though... it was not to my liking. Darkspace was having troubles running
with my video card. Angered and pissed off that I had wasted my time
downloading the damn thing, I spat at the game and cursed both Jim and Max for
playing it.
Now, I know I had mentioned Darkspace earlier in an
earlier part, but I want to make it clear on how I perceived this. I must say I
felt offended by the way in which Jim and Max seemed to play a game. I found
them on Starcraft less and less frequent, and I began to find myself more
alone. The only two people I played with a lot were Green and Orloxian, and it
seemed to be close to near-miraculous if Jim and Max joined us for a game of
Starcraft.
Of course, I must make it clear that Jim and Max are
like peanut butter and jelly. They aren't exactly the same, but they do share
many interests. I remember... I can't recall who coined the term... maybe it
was me, or maybe it was someone else... but they eventually became Space Barons
because of their affinity with science fiction and things space-related. It's
creepy how they sound when they start talking together... it makes you feel
like you should know all of that stuff.
And here I thought Starcraft was played for its good,
strategy value! Oh, how wrong I was!
Ironically, another reason why I hated Darkspace so
much was because I felt it was tearing the clan apart. Despite the fact that we
had this... Darkspace Wing... could I see much of anything over there? Not
particularly. Could I quite control what was going on? Not really. It pissed me
off. And I vocalized it from time to time how irritated I became because of it.
There is not much to cover during the beginning part
of the 'Jimmy Administration'. There would be times where we'd all get together
and play, sure, but they seemed to grow less and less frequent as more time
passed. With Jimmy going to school and then, with that not succeeding, having
to go to work... and then a bit of the time spent playing Darkspace... our Lord
of the Order was becoming a rare commodity. Max had... well... Max had a lot of
stuff - I won't go into all of it.
We still had our fun, though.
I can think back with a smile about the fun we've had
playing games... fun that I think we all needed to experience and were grateful
for that experience. Over the course of time, Max had created new RPM maps, and
even Jim had created a RPM map. Overall, though... when it came down to it... I
still loved the classic the best. Just thinking about building a city right now
makes me want to call the Templar Knights together to play it once more.
No offense to Max's latest RPM work, which he made
and finished a long while ago, but the first one holds a place in my heart that
none of his later works will probably be able to take.
Of course, there were other map makers. Yoshi had...
managed to create an incomplete Templar Knight history [currently, I have a
Starcraft map with a fictional history to fit to the world of Starcraft. It
looks quite nice, but it's only halfway completed, and I doubt I'll ever pull
out the editor to finish the job... that's why I made this history file]. Jimmy
had made a Survival map, a simple design with Zerglings that we spent hours on
[Green pissed me off in that map one time, but we won't go there]. That simple
design sparked a creation of a new Survival map based off of a Goldeneye map...
and then a Survival created by Max on that same map but was based on marines
instead of zerglings [which turned out to suck... sorry Max]... And, finally, I
made serious changed to a huge twilight map for the last Survival to come out.
Frankly, I don't like what I made so much because not only is it such a huge
map [enough for those who play it to survive peacefully], but because there's
so much high ground with tiny chokehold ramps. You can get yourself trapped and
surrounded and, well, die. Compared to the original Survival [and even the one
off of the Goldeneye mod], my twilight Survival had tons of death traps. It
just didn't seem that fun.
I suppose one of the odder maps to strike the Templar
Knights was a creation spawned from Jimmy's own mind... the Jimmyverse.
Now, I will not explain to you what the Jimmyverse is
in this history of the Templar Knights, but it was a rather... intriguing
map... Of course, Jimmy didn't like Starcraft in general as a basis to place
Jimmyverse simply because, as he puts it, "it seems impossible for
infantry units to be able to destroy large warships". He didn't quite see
the realism in a gang of marines being able to destroy a battlecruiser. While I
tried to justify Blizzard's side of it... I kinda had to agree with him.
By now, you may have noticed that most of the words
in this document so far have been directed towards the Lord of the Order,
Admiral James Devon Starluck. There is a reason for that.
This is the Jimmy Era I'm talking about. This
document is supposed to be about him.
Now, you may whine, "HEY! YOU NEVER TALKED SO
MUCH ABOUT FIREHAWK OR YOSHI!!!" Big damn deal. My memory of what happened
four years ago or two years ago is a lot more faded than my memory of what
happened one year ago, understand? Besides, Jim was the one that beat me in the
voting process. You'd have to assume that I would be critical of my 'opponent'
[figuratively speaking... we are not like Democrats and Republicans here].
So, more time passed. I've got to say that things
just weren't as interesting in the Yoshi Era or the Jimmy Era as they were in
the Firehawk Era. Granted, the Firehawk Era was a lot shorter than either of
the others, and there were still time warps, but there also happened to be a
lot more people in the clan back there. It was bound to be more interesting.
And... yeah... you guessed it... more time passed.
Honestly, there weren't a ton of really interesting things that happened. Of
course, games were played, but we each broke away and did our own thing. Jim
worked... Max, well, he slept or did track or did Bible Study or went out with
friends or played Darkspace... Orloxian played Warcraft 3 and ran around with
U.S. West RP'ing nuts... And I, well... I was too busy trying to find myself...
but I know I had always hoped that everyone would managed to unite together on
one of Jim's free days and play a game.
I'll just skip ahead until about the night of August
8, 2003.
For some... really... strange reason, I was
incredibly bored that day. I was talking to Max or something, and he mentioned
something about Darkspace, and then I realized that I had never tried to get it
to work on my new computer. So, with a shrug and a thought of, "What the
hell? I'll give it another go.", I redownloaded Darkspace and tried it
out.
The rest is history. You can find my Darkspace
account as first joined up on August 9, 2003, and currently I have earned more
prestige points than any other member of the Templar Knights. The biggest
person I have to thank for that is Max, who subscribed me.
Still, though... and it's sad to say, but I am the
only active Templar Knight playing Darkspace. When I had expected members of
the Darkspace side to be there to play with, I instead am stuck with playing
with other people... and I don't like other people. Sure, I've been noted, and
I've even become part of the staff there... but I would trade away everything
I've ever done in Darkspace just for the Templar Knights to be able to play
again for as long as they did each night... with few worries... and few
complaints.
As of this summer night on July 6, 2004, we Templar
Knights are still few and divided. The core of the Templar Knights... Max, Jim,
and myself... don't talk to the others a lot these days. Yoshi is off doing his
own thing... Green is off in Mexico, and even when he's at his home, he doesn't
get around to us much [sad, but true... we definitely have different gaming
interests]... Orloxian, after a sudden hiatus many months ago that left me
somewhat confused, came back and explained that he needed break from us,
decided he would stay with us, and over the course of the past few months has
realized that his family's in serious financial trouble. It is now only a
matter of time before he disappears... perhaps for good. Zeratul... well...
it's probably on purpose that I don't talk to him much any more. Now, there are
honestly times where I don't see his messages until he's logged off, but there
are also times where I just can't bear to respond [I'm sorry, but two severely depressed
people just don't work out]. Of course, Zeratul's still semi-active, and I'm
sure he talks to the other core members every now and then... And, well, Radix
and Slurpee... well... they're random pop-ups, and we see them and talk every
now and then. But they [especially for Slurpee] have moved on... and I'm not
saying that they don't count, but they just aren't involved with the core.
The others... which are pretty much those in
Darkspace... they don't count. Not one bit.
There have been many occasions where I have been
tempted to snap at Jim. I've wanted to fault him and blame him... accuse him of
dooming the Templar Knights. I've wanted to shout at him for having to play
Darkspace and dragging many of us into it... I've wanted to curse him for every
problem that has seemed to plague the Templar Knights since its conception. I
won't lie to you when I say that I've never really connected with Jim at all,
and despite the fact that he is the oldest out of the core, I still feel that
it is I that watches over everyone. When he was first made Lord of the Order, I
never felt that he was capable of handling that responsibility. I shook my
head, sighed, and said, "Well, now what? Your vote just made his
leadership perfectly sound. There's nothing you can do now but try to work this
through." The only thing I ever saw Jim great for when it came to a
leading status was his friendly attitude.
If I blame Jim right now for Firehawkitis, I must
blame every Templar Knight. It isn't just the leader that has broken away [and
I will admit, Jim has tried hard to keep us together and recruit new people...
harder than I can recall Firehawk or Yoshi trying], but it is all of the
Knights. We have grown up over these past years, and we have found ourselves
faced with new responsibilities that I'm sure most of us never expected or
wished for. It has been these responsibilities that have torn us away from each
other.
That does not mean the clan will be doomed to
crumbling in upon itself. No, it will not be.
Years ago, after Firehawk left the Templar Knights, I
figured that it was just another clan phase and then it would be back to
normal. However, I've shown that I tried to contact Yoshi and I rejoined the
Templar Knights after being so absent for so long... something that I had never
really done with any clan or group of friends before. Ever.
Now, it is true that I hold the belief that the
Templar Knights consists of a body that can no longer be considered a clan...
but, instead, a group of friends. The titles we have for each other are merely
for decorative purposes... while Jimmy is still the Lord of the Order, we all
pretty much have an equal say in what we do. Sure, we have our arguments, as
all friends do, but we come back from those. We have not been condemned to
eternal damnation just because someone suggests a game that everyone else
revolts on. If no one manages to agree on anything, we've been known to break
apart, play what we want to play or do as we wish... and then come back together
at another time.
The fact that I consider the Templar Knights as a
group of friends, however, does not change the range of emotions that it brings
out in me. There are few things that have compelled me to think so deeply or to
feel so much... and I hardly doubt I'd become this upset even if I found out
one of my few friends at school had committed suicide. It would be sad, surely,
but it would not be as sad as hearing that I would never be able to talk to
another Knight again.
There are others that would deem me and the others of
the Templar Knights as fools for being this united. "It's just a
clan.", I've been told. "It's just a group of online people that
you've never even seen face-to-face before.", I've heard. "Time
passes. You'll grow more distant and find new people to play with.",
people have said. Yet... none of them have felt a special bond with a group of
people like this. I've never had to see any of the Knights to know that I've
enjoyed playing with them. People might not understand how attached we might
have become... but it doesn't matter. By some twist of fate, we have. Pure and
simple.
One example of how people are so confused on my stand
is when they see me fleetless in Darkspace. When I went fleetless that one
time, it was to join the UGTO to balance out how many ICC there were.
Afterwards, I went K'luth a few days [and lost about 5 Hives in one night in my
search for boredom... long story]... and then I finally managed to make my way
back to ICC when I saw they had one planet. During that time, I had several
offers for recruitment... and a few people asking me why I wasn't in the
Templar Knights. They didn't understand that I still was... I just
didn't have the tag.
Another instance was when I had my mishap with the
Leave Fleet button a bit before I left for Ohio... and I never managed to get
re-recruited into the Templar Knights until just a couple of days ago. In that
time, I had more offers of people trying to recruit me, and I eventually put
that message up in my occupation that you see today. I also had more people ask
me why I wasn't in the Templar Knights... and to them... I gave the answer that
I still am in the Templar Knights, and always will be.
Being in this clan isn't just constituted by wearing
the tag... but it's a start. To me, being in the Templar Knights has to be
something that comes from inside. Though I may in the future do the same thing
I have done before in Darkspace and leave the fleet to help other factions, I
feel justified by that. There are those that can call me a faction hopper and
there are those that want to recruit me and there are those that want to
question me... I don't give a damn about them. I'm not there to make prestige.
I'm not there to scout out what each person is doing. I'm not there to sabotage.
I'm there to do what I feel is right. If I did not do that, what kind of
Knight would I be?
So, anyway, there you have it. This is the history of
the Templar Knights. While we have seemed to dwindle down in terms of members
over the years, we have made it up in friendship. What we may have lost in
numbers, we have gained in quality. The true Templar Knights that are still
here have all bonded with each other, and nothing... not distance... not
financial problems... not school... not work... not other things to worry
about... and not other people can take that away from us. We may have only been
around for four years, but these four years have forged something that will
last a lifetime.
And no matter what comes our way... no matter how
many years pass... we will always feel something in our hearts for the glory we
once shared together......
The glory of the Templar Knights!