Rebel Squadrons

Response to Recent Concerns

By VA Patrick Blastfire
Unit: The Rebel Squadrons
----------, Dec 05, 2004
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Members of the RS,

As I\'m sure many (if not most) of you have heard, there is something in the works that, one way or another, will affect the very core of the RS. It takes the form of a proposal that has been in the works for over a month and a half now, which has the potential to change the general structure of the RS as a whole. News items have been submitted to the RS domain within the past couple of days that bring forth information on this topic, posted by several people who are concerned as to where this proposal will lead us. This has lead to a plethora of debate and worry on many levels of the club; to combat this, it\'s my intent to shed some light as to what\'s going on.

For a very long time, the idea of what we dub \'SuperFleets\' has been kicked around in the RS High Command. In essence, the SuperFleets idea involves the streamlining of RS fleets; the flightsim fleets would merge to form one SuperFleet, The First Person Shooter/Army/Strategy games would merge into another, etc. This would, in theory, make the fleets run more efficiently and promote interaction between different (though similar in nature), groups.

For the longest time, this idea was brought up in HC and subsequently dropped. Some said the process was unnecessary and extraneous, and after a small bit of discussion it would be left alone for a time until it managed to pop back up. After it became apparent that it wasn\'t going to go away, HC decided to finally take a strong look at the idea and see what could be made from it. Because of this, a committee comprised of HC, Honorary HC, and RS Command Staff members was created by FC Gavin C. Kravis.

The sole purpose of this committee was simple: explore the concept of SuperFleets, come up with ways in which it could work, and in general create a basic proposal for review. This committee had no ability to change the way the RS works, nor implement anything it discussed; it merely existed to bring a skeleton of a plan that HC could take a look at and discuss.

The other day, this committee held a meeting on IRC in order to toss some ideas around as opposed to using e-mail, which takes considerably longer. Many things were discussed, in a casual atmosphere, and a log of the chat was sent to committee members. At some point thereafter, a copy of the log was leaked out to a few people which resulted in the situation we have going on now: people debating and arguing over the idea of merging fleets, and the fact that something this major wasn\'t being brought to the general membership right off the bat.

Debating and discussing what\'s going on is fine; everyone\'s entitled to do so. The problem is, many people are doing so without knowing all of the facts (or, even worse, making assumptions that blow things way out of proportion). One of the more widely prevalent assumptions being thrown around is the suspicion that HC planned on deciding the outcome of this matter by itself, based upon the proposal that the committee created. This, and I say this with absolute conviction, is furthest from the case.

A change of this magnitude is far too important and affects too many aspects of the RS for the decision to fall upon HC alone. This was done once before (the ranks fiasco), and was proven to be fairly disasterous. As such, the plan had ALWAYS been to submit the basic proposal to the general membership for review, and accept any suggestions/concerns/ideas offered. The proposal would change over time until it either reached the point where it was acceptable to the vast majority of the members, or was shot down completely. Either outcome would be accepted, and we as a club would move forward from there.

So, if that was the plan all along, one might ask, \"Why hasn\'t HC outlined it to the members before now?\" The answer to that question is simple: There was no need to. HC itself doesn\'t have anywhere near a finished bare-bones skeleton proposal to look at yet; as such, there\'s nothing to report. In fact, when the basic proposal is submitted to HC, it may very well be shot down right then and there. Because of this, there was no way nor reason for HC to submit and explain a proposal to the members which still does not exist in a finished form.

The purpose of this announcement is to inform you all as to what\'s going on, and quell any fears that HC is planning something devious. As of right now, the SuperFleets concept is merely something that\'s being explored; it\'s nowhere near done, and when it is, the membership at large will be informed shortly thereafter so that discussion and debate can ensue. Until that time, an outline of the SuperFleet proposal can be found at http://wiki.rebelsquadrons.com/index.php?title=Structure_changes . It\'s been freely available to all curious about the SuperFleets idea for quite a while (as the fact that it has been brought up in HC discussions has been mentioned briefly in the past).

I hope this sheds some light on the subject.

--
General Patrick Blastfire, Jedi Master
Executive Officer, The Rebel Squadrons

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