Most of you probably already know the basic details about what happened. Our corp was hijacked by a former member who still had shares in the corp. I assume he had a friend join corp and once he was accepted, he transferred over the shares. He then started a vote for CEO, and since he was the only one who had shares in the corp, he ‘won’ the vote.
It almost went unnoticed because most people rarely read their notifications since we get so many while in FW, every time you shoot someone, every time you plex, and now every time someone you’ve bountied dies.
I just happened to check my notifications when logging on and saw that Druiel was running a vote for CEO. At first I thought it was a joke that some new recruit was playing. I asked over comms what was going on, and that’s when we realized the severity of the situation. We were going to lose our corp.
So here’s the history for those who are interested…
In 2011, I was part of KOTMC, an FW corp heavily into RP. However, a lot of our pilots couldn’t care less about RP, they just wanted to shoot all the things. Since there was some RP drama and a general unhappiness about our RoE, some of us joined my alt corp, Imperial Outlaws. I.LAW would remain in FW but would be loose on its RoE and would allow members the freedom to pvp without the threat of RP repercussions hanging over their heads.
After Eran Mintor (I.LAW’s original acting CEO) biomassed, we decided I.LAW would be run under a committee. Eventually Eran petitioned to get his character back and rejoined corp, though we continued to run I.LAW via Director committee, and it worked for a while until Sab0tag3 started to complain about Eran. One night Eran died stupidly and Sabo went off on him on comms. Things started to escalate after that. Obviously Sabo and Eran weren’t going to get along.
Our members were being pulled into the drama and it was so tense, I advised Eran to leave I.LAW for the sake of the corp, thinking it would appease Sabo and bring some peace. We gathered up the ISK that Eran had put into the corp for the jump freighter and other things and settled up with him.
I had decided to leave I.LAW as well, though they convinced me to stay for a while to see if things could be worked out.
With Eran gone, Sabo started to butt heads with Ryven, another one of our directors. The director forums became a hotbed of nastiness, insults and accusations being slung around. It obviously wasn’t going to work out.
Sabo had started flying with Exodus, our next door neighbors while we lived in Otosella and Almity and I assumed he would leave I.LAW for them. Almity had pulled the corp jump freighter out of the corp hangar and Sabo had taken that as some sign of aggression I guess, thinking that we were going to boot him. (We were not)
That night, I was AFK for whatever reason, and because I did not answer Sabo in a timely manner, he decided the worst of me. He started emptying the corp wallets and stealing all of the stuff out of corp hangars. He said he was going to hold everything ransom until the corp paid him X amount of ISK (I forget the exact sum).
He then stole 1000 shares from the corp and gave them to his alt, who also had director roles. He started a vote to make himself CEO but we were able to boot him before it finished.
Oh, and he graffitied the corp forums as well with some childishness.
So that was that. Sabo was out of corp, and I.LAW picked up and moved back to the FW war zone.
The corp grew once more, and we never had one single problem with the remaining four Directors: Myself, Almity, Ryven Krennel, and Phione.
I am so very proud of what I.LAW had accomplished. We were on the cusp of 2k kills in December alone! We were one of the top Amarrian FW corps. We stayed committed to FW despite the turmoil that came with the release of Inferno. We have always been outnumbered, outgunned, and yet we carry on.
Despite whatever is thrown at us, we’ve carried on and will continue to do so. We are reforming under the new corp banner, In Exile. and we will remain in Amarr FW. Little is changing on that front, really.
I’m not sure what the point of it was. He wasn’t able to take anything from us but the name. We never had any corp assets in the first place, and we cleared out the corp wallet. We had ample time to take down our POS’s and re-anchor them under our new corp. We informed all of our members and they have been joining the new corp. So it seems kind of pointless, other than some long-term obsession? I don’t know, really.
At one time, he was one of the people I trusted the most on the game. We were friends and despite the whole drama back then, I still couldn’t hate him. I would think of him sometimes and want to talk to him, I’d even open up my mail and write something, delete it before sending because I figured if he even cared, he would have contacted me. The one time I did manage to hit the send button, I wished him luck in the alliance tourney but was unable to send it because apparently he had blocked me.
Oh well.
My Grandmother passed away on December 18th. Her last night on this earth, I stayed up with her the whole night. I held her hand and kept a cool cloth on her forehead hoping to bring down her raging fever. I watched her pulse at her throat, silently willing her heart to keep beating, knowing that she was in the last hours of her life, wishing it was otherwise. I prayed and I sang to her and I told her how much I loved her and what she meant to me. I remembered all the things she had taught me, how truly good of a person she was. If ever there was an angel among us, she was surely one.
One of the things she often said was, “I just want to be good to everyone and help everybody I can.” She didn’t have a mean bone in her body, she was nothing but good and love and light. And I want to be like her. I want to be forgiving, I want to ‘be good to everyone’. I want to see the best in people and love everyone despite it all.
So I’m not going to hate Sab0tag3 despite him trying to ruin Christmas. I’m going to love him despite of it.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Years everyone. I love ya! ♥
xoxO, Shalee
(thanks to Poe for making the picture for this post!!!)