Zrazor: A Harrowing Coming-of-Age Tale of Destiny. Greetings, dear reader. I am about to impart upon your delicate ears a tale of grandest deception, of betrayal, and of direst intrigue. But who am I, your humble storyteller? At present, I am Zrazor Rozenstrauch, Optio in the Ordo Imperialis, founder of the Tactica combat intelligence and logistics branch, and commanding officer of Fulminata. But to understand the grandiose nature of my story, it must be told from the beginning. T'was on the morn of December the first, two thousand and eight in the year of our Lord that I created my first serious Second Life account, Zera Bosatsu, which I created at the urging of my brother, Rygads Hax, in order to provide him company and the support of a wingman at "this furry club I found on Second Life. It's kinda small now but the owner is pretty cool, her name is Tinintri Mistral, and the club is called AnthroXtacy, she hired me as a DJ." And so the first two months of my SL experience were spent bumming around this club, silently observing all manner of silly drama from a distance, and occasionally providing background noise for Rygads' DJ escapades as he streamed them from his room. Humorous drunken domestic incidents were abound, much to the delight of those listening. But I found myself wanting more. Something with more structure and purpose than what a club scene could provide. In retrospect, I suppose that my involvement in the military community was inevitable, as the first thing I ever built in the AnthroXtacy sandbox was a small, rudimentary bunker and a set of guard towers. But I first came across the military community when I was randomly invited into a group by Hookum Amat. That group should be familiar to all who read this. That group was the Vanguard Armed Forces. No application, no explanation, nothing. I was teleported shortly thereafter to a sim called Supox, where I was instructed to "click on all the lockers and wear your Shütze tag" and was showered with gear that included some old WWII guns, a set of rather horrid-looking armor, and a pogo stick of all fucking things. I spent about twenty minutes sitting in what appeared to be the half-finished fuselage of a large Stuka bomber, watching Gabe Barnstormer randomly utter racial epithets as someone else worked on the Stuka before I took my leave and returned to AnthroXtacy. A few days later, I was sent a TP to 2142's sim, Berium and ordered to attack it. Not knowing quite what was expected of me, I wore my Shütze tag, and attacked their base selflessly with a Black Ops 870 in civilian clubbing attire. After being repeatedly killed, I pulled out a gun equipped with tracking orbit rounds and was promptly banned. I almost immediately contacted James Benedeck, who told me I was banned because "VG wasn't supposed to attack today" or something along those lines. He then went off on a tangent about how VG was "not a very good army and you should join AN." I did not associate with the military community again for about a month. Enter Christoph Naumova. I was introduced to Christoph by my brother, who met him when he struck up a conversation with him randomly at AnthroXtacy. Christoph immediately regaled us with wild tales of being a psychiatrist by day and a con-man by night, and how he made a living by swindling people out of MILLIONS (yes, millions). He then teleported us to Supox, promoted us to Unteroffizier (the rough equivalent of E-4 in Ordo) on the spot. Over the next several months, I was given a crash-course in SL combat and military politics, which fascinated me right from the get-go. I witnessed a great deal of things during that time. I witnessed ridiculous swarm attacks, questionable technology, people being nuked in the hub, all things that Vanguard at the time considered the norm. Racial epithets and other offensive /b/tardation were considered standard vernacular. It was, in hindsight, a completely ridiculous mess. I was further exposed to the kind of brainwashing one receives in Vanguard. I was, without knowing anyone else in any other military, left to judge other armies based on the testimonies of my fellow VG, who were primarily rejects from other militaries. I was left with the impression that every other military was corrupt and "super srs bsns" and "not any fun." As time progressed and my exposure to other militaries increased, I was swept up in the growing sentiment that the Iron Symphony was oppressing the military community, and I developed a special hatred for the Ordo, with all of its apparent posturing and dignity that stood in opposition to my lackadaisical, lulzy attitude. And yet, I felt an inexplicable sort of closet fascination with the group, which appeared organized beyond recognition. It wasn't something that could be freely admitted amongst the deranged rabble that composed most of VG at the time, but it was something I harbored for a considerable amount of time. One day, I was banned over a payment info-related inconsistency centered around the fact that, when inputting my payment info, I used the name "Bitches Malone" instead of the name on my debit card. It was during this time that I created my current account, Zrazor Rozenstrauch. Shortly thereafter, I was promoted to an Offiziere position, so by the time Zera was unbanned, I had no more need for it. It was also during this time that I began to get closer to Christoph. I spent the next few months eating up his lies and manipulation with a spoon. It was also during this time that the IS implemented the alliance-wide blockade against Vanguard, which only deepened my already-immense disdain for my apparent oppressors. I spent as much time having long-winded arguments with the likes of Ethan Schuman via the SL Herald as I did actually fighting. A few months into my officer career, I'd been selected by Skylar Ragowski as Vice-Admiral of Vanguard's 107th Armada, the arbitrary name for the air division. When Skylar left, I was immediately promoted to head of the division, and the only non-Kommand to lead a division in the group's history. During this time, I was made to completely revamp everything within a week, and run the division completely by myself, including the process of manually handing out aircraft at different ranks since Christoph was too lazy/incompetent to get someone to even program properly-scripted lockers. In October of 2008, I had begun to grow disillusioned with Vanguard, who seemed to be banned from nearly every other combat sim, and were bored to the point of having organized movie nights on sim. Kommand member Cyanide Leviathan (also known as Farrago Chandrayan) approached me and announced his intentions to quit Vanguard for Ordo. Being as I had been thinking of resigning anyway, I elected to follow Cyanide. That very evening, I found myself in the meeting room of the Vae Victus over the lava-scorched surface of Titan, amidst a crowd of Praetorians, Administratio members, and the Imperator himself, who sternly questions Cyanide and I in regards to our position and intentions. Within the first half of this meeting, Christoph began to IM me, begging, PLEADING with me not to leave. I muted him. He began to IM me on MSN, begging still. I blocked him. Then he called my phone. He sounded as though he was on the verge of tears. He bitched and moaned and promised me the world, just as Aryte warned that he would. He told me everything would be better from there on out. He promised me Kommand. He and other VG members refused to stop calling me and leave me alone until 5 AM the next day, when I finally caved and told them I'd return. But in the mind of Christoph, it would've "made VG look bad" if I simply left and changed my mind. I was advised to play it off as a joke and assassinate the Imperator during a one-on-one meeting, which I did. I showered our dear Imperator with grenades (five inches from his homepoint no less) and put it on Youtube as though it were some manner of accomplishment. I returned to Supox and was awarded the rank of Feldkommandeur on the spot. But my celebration was short-lived, as that very night saw the release of the Everlasting Snowmew video, which took place while Christoph was stressing specifically over my defection. I spent about a month after that dealing with incessant Snowkitty jokes in New Jessie from all directions while at the same time dealing with rooting out suspected alts and spies AND running Armada by myself. This was a lonely time for your dear storyteller, and was for about a month until one day... Enter Dagger Exonar. Dagger often referred to me as his "forbidden fruit." He came to me as an overt Frumentarii Externus agent and showered me with forbidden Ordo-related knowledge (much of which turned out to be made up) and touted all the merits and positive qualities of the Ordo to me in ways that often sounded almost like sales pitches, without directly encouraging me to leave VG. I'm not sure what straw specifically broke the fox's back. Maybe I was just tired of all the Snowmew jokes. Or maybe I was growing bored of Christoph's inane 4 AM phone babble. Regardless of the reasoning, I met with Aryte again, this time in a no-damage private sim. I spoke with the Imperator, humbly apologized for my prior transgressions, and insisted that THIS TIME my intentions were pure. Then Melly showed up and asked Christoph if VG was doing any diplomacy with Ordo. And so the tearful phone begging began anew. I believe Dagger still has recordings of Christoph shakily telling me how much I meant to him, only for me to call him a liar and tell him to fuck off before hanging up. Such a satisfying feeling. Two days later, I was informed that Christoph had disbanded Vanguard and that I had indeed inadvertently struck down my former master simply by abandoning him. And so I dove headfirst into the Ordo. I rose through the ranks relatively quickly, involving myself in as much as I possibly could. I was an Adiutor at E-3, Antesignani and a civilian overseer at E-4, became an Armatura magister and began developing Tactica at E-5, opened Tactica for business at E-6, and was a Warrant Officer within six months. I spent the next five months or so as a W-2, serving as Terra's branch resource officer before taking over Fulminata, which bumped me up to O-1, where I currently remain. And then I posted this thread. I will find it absolutely unbelievable if any of you actually read all of this.
