sugarvalves [1963573] —
Original article
It's been a quiet few months for Midknight, and with nothing much going on in his life of late I was in two minds about whether to write this Tornography at all.
I mean, sure, the leader of Torn's most controversial and arguably most powerful faction has been involved in one of the biggest scandals in Torn City history, a scandal that divided players, tore the staffing system apart and basically helped to rewrite the code of law that underpins the very fabric of Torn society.
And yes, his incarceration and subsequent release mean he's become a permanent Torn meme in the process, cementing his legend in the minds of Torn citizens, the gifs of MarlonBrando and in the s**tposts of JFK members for years to come. But what has he done since?
Earned a couple of billion, as it happens.
"The GofundMe was a joke I started in faction chat and if there's one thing we love in SA it's a good troll. Lol it made me made around 2billI figured I'd create a thread asking for money since they all thought I was desperate in the first place. I thought it would be a good way to break the ice and give all the haters and trolls a place to voice their opinions to me directly."
In case you've been living under a drama-resistant rock for the last few months let's quickly summarise the case. Midknight was once an important part of the Torn City committee until his tenure and freedom were summarily curtailed when it was discovered he had passed on an unreleased mask item to another player. Said player sold this mask, and as a result, Midknight was placed into Federal Jail for the crime of betraying the trust of the committee - a violation punishable by permanent Torn banishment.
Midknight's defence can be found here, and while he accepted responsibility for his actions, his main lines of protest were that he had not intentionally sought to gain from this crime and that his punishment was inconsistent with the nature of the offense and previous decisions made by the courts.
"I read a lot of the original forum posts about me since you can read Torn's forums through links if you're not logged in and many suggested I sold this mask for money and how I got caught over pennies and such."
"Over the years many players have been removed from the committee and staff for the breaking or stretching of rules and never spent a day in fed so yes I broke Marc's cherry but I definitely was singled out but it's in (the) past."
"I don't think any sensible person wanted to retain the old system especially after how it was used against me. The rule was break any rule and be deleted. So steal bread, die. Kill 100 people, you die. J walk, you die. Steal trillions, you die. Personally it didn't make sense to me"
But sensible or not, some people certainly did want to retain the draconian ways of old. When this situation came to light Torn split into two groups; those behind the #freemidknight movement who sought his release, and others who believed his federal sentence should remain permanent - people who for some reason failed to adopt the hashtag #f**kmidnight, despite the beautiful symmetry this wouldve created.
Unfortunately for Midknight, this split was by no means even, as the various forums, polls and global chats of the time so clearly demonstrated.
Throughout this ordeal there were some who managed to cut through the conjecture to analyse the situation with clarity, coming to the conclusion that while Midknight had either been incredibly stupid or careless, his actions were not those of a criminal. But for every rational comment ten more who would decry him as a villain of the highest order. Citizens pontificated on the matter at exhausting length, writing grand open letters to both Torn and Chedburn, as if they were George Clooney urging action on Syria or Meryl Streep drawing attention to the plight of dogs without lungs.
Many people - including the perpetrator himself - compared both his actions and punishment to those of real life criminals, with some going further and painting him as Torn's very own Hillary Clinton. But one of the most bizarre parallels was drawn by Moguai, who somehow managed to equate permanent incarceration with being banished from a health club:
All the while, as he was stewing away in his cell, Midknight could see this character assassination taking place; and he wasn't best pleased.
"Everyone's allowed their say and their stances but if I had any love for them before that's dead now. So many were quick to talk when I was getting a public trial but only allowed to speak in private to a select audience of peers of the admins that fedded me. Now that I'm out those voices have silenced, and personally it's best they stay that way."
At one point things got so bad that Torn briefly suffered a shortage of soapboxes due to the number of people desperate to air their hot take on the matter. At one point there were so many threads that if you took them all and lined them up, you could knit the world's most dramatic jumper. Even Duke had his say on the matter, not that everyone appreciated his interjection:
Dekloren's emotional response was understandable, though, as this was a case so brutal, so jarring and so divisive that it almost broke Ched:
"Should he be removed from the committee? Obviously! Should he be punished? Absolutely! Should his account with 4,907 hours of play time (more than me) be deleted forever? This final question has been racking my mind for the last month, flipping back and forth, almost consuming me."
Thankfully, throughout all this drama, punishment, intrigue and conjecture, Midknight never lost his sense of perspective:
"To some Nelson Mandela was a saint and to others a political criminal and that's kind of how I see myself in this situation."
As the city argued, overlord Chedburn avoided being consumed, devoured or otherwise digested and eventually decided upon a course of action. Having consulted both the committee and the community, and taking into account Midknight's years of dedicated service to Torn City life, on the 30th November 2016 Chedburn announced that Midknight would be freed after serving 60 more days, with his release date scheduled for the 31st January 2017.
Despite the fact that Midknight was forced to spend Christmas behind bars, he was understandably delighted that his case had been resolved satisfactorily.
"I was treated completely fairly by the authorities and have nothing against the system at all. Personally I wish it always worked the same for every situation as it did with me with and fedding; an investigation, a conclusion then a sentence based on all facts."
"The main issue was inconsistency and that was the main ground of the fight for my release. Not that anyone thought I didn't deserve to be punished because I did, I broke a rule but the fact that players who say they want the best for this game fought for a system that has been so inconsistent in the past was incredibly disappointing to me."
The announcement of Midknight's impending release was one of many controversies surrounding Torn's legal system at the time, with several other cases including the WSSB scandal and the rehiring of a supposedly inept former staffer also putting pressure on city authorities. As a result, many staff members abandoned their posts in protest at the new changes and Midknight's release, with Chedburn installing himself as arbitrator over any future incidents of suspected committee corruption.
I wondered if these changes imbibed Midknight with a sense of guilt, but contrarily, he was actually rather pleased with the effect his actions had.
"Not to tear anyone down but those changes were needed for the game to grow. The system had become stale and inconsistent for far too long and my fedding was just a catalyst for players to really voice their opinions on the subject because the subject had finally been brought up publicly. How people feel is up to them, just know salt is bad for your blood pressure."
It seems that Midknight dealt well with his spell in the big house, and it turns out that the same real-life distractions which led to his imprisonment also proved his saviour while he was in there:
"At the time of my fedding I was actually on a European tour. Funny enough I got fedded while I was in Budapest on my way to Prague. For the first few days after the fedding I did very little but enjoy my trip, it wasn't until I was back in London with family that I started to really pursue my release."
Midknight confided in me that had he been permanently placed into federal custody, that he would not have sought a return to Torn via legal or surreptitious means.
"No way, I'd never restart. I have put way too many man hours into this game to have it taken away and just get up and start from the bottom."
But obviously, this situation never came to pass. And Midknight is well aware of whom he has to thank for this.
"SA is a tight knit family and we've always been players to defend our ownWithout all the support from various players and factions I would still be in fed for sure. If I were in a smaller faction and a lower profile player on the committee and did what I did I wouldn't even have been fedded at all."
"I was on the outside so I really don't know the full extent of what was happening in Torn but I do know HTR, Critch and 007 worked tirelessly to get me out. I told them don't go crazy since I didn't want the faction to suffer any more than it already had with my fedding but they didn't care and just did everything they could to get Ched's attention firmly on the situation at hand."
"From name changes to memes to cancelling subscriptions players from all over Torn rallied to help bring me back to the game and I can never show enough appreciation for that."
Memes and name changes are one thing, but the morality of holding Torn City to ransom over the status of one solitary player is certainly something to be questioned, as it may have set a dangerous precedent. Chedburn has consistently maintained that his decision was made independently of Subversive Alliance's actions, but time will tell whether this underhand tactic is ever attempted again.
Sugarvalves: "Do you think SA has more influence on game than other factions?"
Midknight: "Not at all."
Nevertheless, whether you love them, loathe them or couldn't give two solitary shakes about them, you cannot argue that Subversive Alliance looks after its members. From the outside, you may expect a faction like this to become a nest of vipers once their leader is out of the picture. And I wondered if, during his federal sentence, Midknight had ever feared for his position as leader of SA:
"Not at all. Most of SA fought for my release because they know I work my ass off to make SA and Torn fun for them all. Anyone angling for my spot only needs to ask me and they can have it lol"
In fact, far from provoking any kind of coup, it seems that Midknight's absence made little difference to the running of this most fearsome faction.
"Not much has changed and that makes me super proud of my SA family. They did some warring without me and with the new upgrades brought up a valid point in the forums that Co-Leaders should be able to make upgrades to the tree if the leader is away, sleeping, sick, fedded whatever lol. We're currently back like I never left and are rolling as strong as ever."
Midknight's dedication to his faction cannot be disputed, nor theirs to him. But when I asked him about how he began life in Subversive Alliance, he felt he had much to prove to this already well-established cohort of brutes:
"It's kinda corny lol I met a girl but she hated gaming so I quit. After a 3 year break I came back to Torn, played for a few months then applied and was accepted by SA with 250mill stats under my belt and no real clue what the future would hold."
"This criminal organization was top tier and I needed to prove they did not make a mistake allowing me to be among them so every war I gave my all, I stayed up late at night beating up other crews members, I laid waste to other factions bases until one day the boss 007 ask if I would take over the crew as the criminal underworld was becoming straining on his personal life."
"I had already become well known as one of the SA members not to be messed with so the transition was smooth and here we are today. I wasn't very active before SA just mug a few citizens here and there and maybe rob an armoured truck or 2 if the opportunity came up but since in SA we've had many great adventures."
"I stayed up almost 20 hours beating on EvO thugs early on in my youth. Fought some tight knit wars with JFK and made a ton of friends all over Torn by just being nice and trying to meet as many cool people as possible. I'm Canadian so have always tried to keep my Canadians close."
Notwithstanding the amount of work Midknight has put into his faction life, it seems likely that he'll be remembered more for one major transgression than anything else. But Midknight isn't bitter about this, in fact, he seems quite proud that he's endured a federal sentence, and even his second placed memory involves a story of survival against the odds.
"Think this fedding will easily go down as most notable lol but getting Dirty Bombed 3 times in 1 day and living to tell the tale is probably a close second. We were at relatively low respect for an HoF faction and Mischi3vo a very rich player at the time wanted to see if he could destroy us for whatever reason."
"At that time no one really knew how dirty bombs worked and we became the test subjects of sorts. 2 bombs bombed us to 0 and a third into drastic negative but we learned you don't stay in negative after the second so we kept active and fought our way up in respect to survive a close call."
Having experience several major events in Torn City and lived to tell the tale, Midknight seems ideally placed to predict its future. I asked him where he thought the next major drama would come from:
"I think missions / mission points will boil over soon. There is really a huge divide in that area and as players get better and start to get the short end of the stick more and more that will become a huge issue moving forward. Having a system where a percentage of players are gaining half of what others are gaining strictly because they have invested more time in Torn is incredibly unfair."
But aside from Torn's outlook, what does the future hold for Midknight? How does he intend to proceed now that he's no longer involved in the committee, and after providing Chedburn with so much drama, what kind of interaction has he had with the man at the top?
"I do miss some aspects of being on the committee. As a committee member I tried my best and worked hard to give the best feedback to help the game grow. I have been playing Torn off and on for a decade and like anything you have done for a while, you don't want to see it fade or die if you can help it."
"As for my interactions with Ched they have been very few. I spoke with him a few times before my fedding about territories and ways to improve it but never during or since my fedding. I think he had a big decision to make and he made the right one. The game needed a change and he needed to be more involved and both have happened and the game seems as healthy as it's ever been."
When all is said and done, Midknight seems to believe that his substantial decade-long presence has been beneficial to Torn, and it's hard to argue with that conclusion. Chedburn himself made the point that Midknight had put more hours into Torn life than him, and as a dedicated committee member for many years, he, along with many other veterans, have undoubtedly helped shape Torn become what it is today.
Midknight's recent legal case has also had a major impact on the city's approach to laws, punishments and committee violations, with his unintentional efforts leading to a removal of grey areas and disproportionate sentences. On the other side of the coin, however, we've also seen the departure of many trusted and valued staff and committee members in the wake of this and other incidents. I wondered if this drastic change had led to anyone treating Midknight differently, in response to the chaos his actions have caused:
"A few players have changed their tune toward me after the fedding but for the most part not much has changed. SA are still considered the bad guys in town we just have (an) infamous leader now which will change with time. Before all this there were not many players who had anything negative to say about me other then I dislike SA and honestly I know as players continue to interact with me things will go back to normal."
So whether this regime change proves to be for the good of Torn is something that remains to be seen, but with drama forever lurking on the city's horizon, I doubt we'll have to wait much longer for the system to be put through its first test. Yet with all this serious talk of punishments, laws, reputations and scandal, one thing we may have lost sight of is Torn City's purpose - fun.
The men, women and illegally registered children who reside in Torn are not doing so for the good of their health, but for the good of their souls. This city is supposed to be entertaining and engaging, amusing and annoying, rewarding and relaxing; but never a chore. So when Midknight became embroiled in one of its most spectacularly divisive events, did this affect his love for Torn?
"When you have invested as many hours in Torn as I have getting a rare forced break didn't hurt me at all. Was more of a blessing than anything as the game is much different than when I left and it's only getting better. So yes, it has made it more fun now."
This statement makes me wonder if the more frequent distribution of short federal sentences may actually improve our collective enjoyment of Torn, but that is a discussion for another day. It is my own personal belief that Midknight's actions, the community's response, and the subsequent drama created were a wonderfully absorbing addition to the lore of Torn City, and I for one am glad this sh*tstorm went down.
Therefore, in order to retain this sense of fun, I ask you to imagine Midknight's final words as if they were spoken in the voice of the late, great Nelson Mandela.
I mean, sure, the leader of Torn's most controversial and arguably most powerful faction has been involved in one of the biggest scandals in Torn City history, a scandal that divided players, tore the staffing system apart and basically helped to rewrite the code of law that underpins the very fabric of Torn society.
And yes, his incarceration and subsequent release mean he's become a permanent Torn meme in the process, cementing his legend in the minds of Torn citizens, the gifs of MarlonBrando and in the s**tposts of JFK members for years to come. But what has he done since?
Earned a couple of billion, as it happens.
"The GofundMe was a joke I started in faction chat and if there's one thing we love in SA it's a good troll. Lol it made me made around 2billI figured I'd create a thread asking for money since they all thought I was desperate in the first place. I thought it would be a good way to break the ice and give all the haters and trolls a place to voice their opinions to me directly."
In case you've been living under a drama-resistant rock for the last few months let's quickly summarise the case. Midknight was once an important part of the Torn City committee until his tenure and freedom were summarily curtailed when it was discovered he had passed on an unreleased mask item to another player. Said player sold this mask, and as a result, Midknight was placed into Federal Jail for the crime of betraying the trust of the committee - a violation punishable by permanent Torn banishment.
Midknight's defence can be found here, and while he accepted responsibility for his actions, his main lines of protest were that he had not intentionally sought to gain from this crime and that his punishment was inconsistent with the nature of the offense and previous decisions made by the courts.
"I read a lot of the original forum posts about me since you can read Torn's forums through links if you're not logged in and many suggested I sold this mask for money and how I got caught over pennies and such."
"Over the years many players have been removed from the committee and staff for the breaking or stretching of rules and never spent a day in fed so yes I broke Marc's cherry but I definitely was singled out but it's in (the) past."
"I don't think any sensible person wanted to retain the old system especially after how it was used against me. The rule was break any rule and be deleted. So steal bread, die. Kill 100 people, you die. J walk, you die. Steal trillions, you die. Personally it didn't make sense to me"
But sensible or not, some people certainly did want to retain the draconian ways of old. When this situation came to light Torn split into two groups; those behind the #freemidknight movement who sought his release, and others who believed his federal sentence should remain permanent - people who for some reason failed to adopt the hashtag #f**kmidnight, despite the beautiful symmetry this wouldve created.
Unfortunately for Midknight, this split was by no means even, as the various forums, polls and global chats of the time so clearly demonstrated.
Throughout this ordeal there were some who managed to cut through the conjecture to analyse the situation with clarity, coming to the conclusion that while Midknight had either been incredibly stupid or careless, his actions were not those of a criminal. But for every rational comment ten more who would decry him as a villain of the highest order. Citizens pontificated on the matter at exhausting length, writing grand open letters to both Torn and Chedburn, as if they were George Clooney urging action on Syria or Meryl Streep drawing attention to the plight of dogs without lungs.
Many people - including the perpetrator himself - compared both his actions and punishment to those of real life criminals, with some going further and painting him as Torn's very own Hillary Clinton. But one of the most bizarre parallels was drawn by Moguai, who somehow managed to equate permanent incarceration with being banished from a health club:
All the while, as he was stewing away in his cell, Midknight could see this character assassination taking place; and he wasn't best pleased.
"Everyone's allowed their say and their stances but if I had any love for them before that's dead now. So many were quick to talk when I was getting a public trial but only allowed to speak in private to a select audience of peers of the admins that fedded me. Now that I'm out those voices have silenced, and personally it's best they stay that way."
At one point things got so bad that Torn briefly suffered a shortage of soapboxes due to the number of people desperate to air their hot take on the matter. At one point there were so many threads that if you took them all and lined them up, you could knit the world's most dramatic jumper. Even Duke had his say on the matter, not that everyone appreciated his interjection:
Dekloren's emotional response was understandable, though, as this was a case so brutal, so jarring and so divisive that it almost broke Ched:
"Should he be removed from the committee? Obviously! Should he be punished? Absolutely! Should his account with 4,907 hours of play time (more than me) be deleted forever? This final question has been racking my mind for the last month, flipping back and forth, almost consuming me."
Thankfully, throughout all this drama, punishment, intrigue and conjecture, Midknight never lost his sense of perspective:
"To some Nelson Mandela was a saint and to others a political criminal and that's kind of how I see myself in this situation."
As the city argued, overlord Chedburn avoided being consumed, devoured or otherwise digested and eventually decided upon a course of action. Having consulted both the committee and the community, and taking into account Midknight's years of dedicated service to Torn City life, on the 30th November 2016 Chedburn announced that Midknight would be freed after serving 60 more days, with his release date scheduled for the 31st January 2017.
Despite the fact that Midknight was forced to spend Christmas behind bars, he was understandably delighted that his case had been resolved satisfactorily.
"I was treated completely fairly by the authorities and have nothing against the system at all. Personally I wish it always worked the same for every situation as it did with me with and fedding; an investigation, a conclusion then a sentence based on all facts."
"The main issue was inconsistency and that was the main ground of the fight for my release. Not that anyone thought I didn't deserve to be punished because I did, I broke a rule but the fact that players who say they want the best for this game fought for a system that has been so inconsistent in the past was incredibly disappointing to me."
The announcement of Midknight's impending release was one of many controversies surrounding Torn's legal system at the time, with several other cases including the WSSB scandal and the rehiring of a supposedly inept former staffer also putting pressure on city authorities. As a result, many staff members abandoned their posts in protest at the new changes and Midknight's release, with Chedburn installing himself as arbitrator over any future incidents of suspected committee corruption.
I wondered if these changes imbibed Midknight with a sense of guilt, but contrarily, he was actually rather pleased with the effect his actions had.
"Not to tear anyone down but those changes were needed for the game to grow. The system had become stale and inconsistent for far too long and my fedding was just a catalyst for players to really voice their opinions on the subject because the subject had finally been brought up publicly. How people feel is up to them, just know salt is bad for your blood pressure."
It seems that Midknight dealt well with his spell in the big house, and it turns out that the same real-life distractions which led to his imprisonment also proved his saviour while he was in there:
"At the time of my fedding I was actually on a European tour. Funny enough I got fedded while I was in Budapest on my way to Prague. For the first few days after the fedding I did very little but enjoy my trip, it wasn't until I was back in London with family that I started to really pursue my release."
Midknight confided in me that had he been permanently placed into federal custody, that he would not have sought a return to Torn via legal or surreptitious means.
"No way, I'd never restart. I have put way too many man hours into this game to have it taken away and just get up and start from the bottom."
But obviously, this situation never came to pass. And Midknight is well aware of whom he has to thank for this.
"SA is a tight knit family and we've always been players to defend our ownWithout all the support from various players and factions I would still be in fed for sure. If I were in a smaller faction and a lower profile player on the committee and did what I did I wouldn't even have been fedded at all."
"I was on the outside so I really don't know the full extent of what was happening in Torn but I do know HTR, Critch and 007 worked tirelessly to get me out. I told them don't go crazy since I didn't want the faction to suffer any more than it already had with my fedding but they didn't care and just did everything they could to get Ched's attention firmly on the situation at hand."
"From name changes to memes to cancelling subscriptions players from all over Torn rallied to help bring me back to the game and I can never show enough appreciation for that."
Memes and name changes are one thing, but the morality of holding Torn City to ransom over the status of one solitary player is certainly something to be questioned, as it may have set a dangerous precedent. Chedburn has consistently maintained that his decision was made independently of Subversive Alliance's actions, but time will tell whether this underhand tactic is ever attempted again.
Sugarvalves: "Do you think SA has more influence on game than other factions?"
Midknight: "Not at all."
Nevertheless, whether you love them, loathe them or couldn't give two solitary shakes about them, you cannot argue that Subversive Alliance looks after its members. From the outside, you may expect a faction like this to become a nest of vipers once their leader is out of the picture. And I wondered if, during his federal sentence, Midknight had ever feared for his position as leader of SA:
"Not at all. Most of SA fought for my release because they know I work my ass off to make SA and Torn fun for them all. Anyone angling for my spot only needs to ask me and they can have it lol"
In fact, far from provoking any kind of coup, it seems that Midknight's absence made little difference to the running of this most fearsome faction.
"Not much has changed and that makes me super proud of my SA family. They did some warring without me and with the new upgrades brought up a valid point in the forums that Co-Leaders should be able to make upgrades to the tree if the leader is away, sleeping, sick, fedded whatever lol. We're currently back like I never left and are rolling as strong as ever."
Midknight's dedication to his faction cannot be disputed, nor theirs to him. But when I asked him about how he began life in Subversive Alliance, he felt he had much to prove to this already well-established cohort of brutes:
"It's kinda corny lol I met a girl but she hated gaming so I quit. After a 3 year break I came back to Torn, played for a few months then applied and was accepted by SA with 250mill stats under my belt and no real clue what the future would hold."
"This criminal organization was top tier and I needed to prove they did not make a mistake allowing me to be among them so every war I gave my all, I stayed up late at night beating up other crews members, I laid waste to other factions bases until one day the boss 007 ask if I would take over the crew as the criminal underworld was becoming straining on his personal life."
"I had already become well known as one of the SA members not to be messed with so the transition was smooth and here we are today. I wasn't very active before SA just mug a few citizens here and there and maybe rob an armoured truck or 2 if the opportunity came up but since in SA we've had many great adventures."
"I stayed up almost 20 hours beating on EvO thugs early on in my youth. Fought some tight knit wars with JFK and made a ton of friends all over Torn by just being nice and trying to meet as many cool people as possible. I'm Canadian so have always tried to keep my Canadians close."
Notwithstanding the amount of work Midknight has put into his faction life, it seems likely that he'll be remembered more for one major transgression than anything else. But Midknight isn't bitter about this, in fact, he seems quite proud that he's endured a federal sentence, and even his second placed memory involves a story of survival against the odds.
"Think this fedding will easily go down as most notable lol but getting Dirty Bombed 3 times in 1 day and living to tell the tale is probably a close second. We were at relatively low respect for an HoF faction and Mischi3vo a very rich player at the time wanted to see if he could destroy us for whatever reason."
"At that time no one really knew how dirty bombs worked and we became the test subjects of sorts. 2 bombs bombed us to 0 and a third into drastic negative but we learned you don't stay in negative after the second so we kept active and fought our way up in respect to survive a close call."
Having experience several major events in Torn City and lived to tell the tale, Midknight seems ideally placed to predict its future. I asked him where he thought the next major drama would come from:
"I think missions / mission points will boil over soon. There is really a huge divide in that area and as players get better and start to get the short end of the stick more and more that will become a huge issue moving forward. Having a system where a percentage of players are gaining half of what others are gaining strictly because they have invested more time in Torn is incredibly unfair."
But aside from Torn's outlook, what does the future hold for Midknight? How does he intend to proceed now that he's no longer involved in the committee, and after providing Chedburn with so much drama, what kind of interaction has he had with the man at the top?
"I do miss some aspects of being on the committee. As a committee member I tried my best and worked hard to give the best feedback to help the game grow. I have been playing Torn off and on for a decade and like anything you have done for a while, you don't want to see it fade or die if you can help it."
"As for my interactions with Ched they have been very few. I spoke with him a few times before my fedding about territories and ways to improve it but never during or since my fedding. I think he had a big decision to make and he made the right one. The game needed a change and he needed to be more involved and both have happened and the game seems as healthy as it's ever been."
When all is said and done, Midknight seems to believe that his substantial decade-long presence has been beneficial to Torn, and it's hard to argue with that conclusion. Chedburn himself made the point that Midknight had put more hours into Torn life than him, and as a dedicated committee member for many years, he, along with many other veterans, have undoubtedly helped shape Torn become what it is today.
Midknight's recent legal case has also had a major impact on the city's approach to laws, punishments and committee violations, with his unintentional efforts leading to a removal of grey areas and disproportionate sentences. On the other side of the coin, however, we've also seen the departure of many trusted and valued staff and committee members in the wake of this and other incidents. I wondered if this drastic change had led to anyone treating Midknight differently, in response to the chaos his actions have caused:
"A few players have changed their tune toward me after the fedding but for the most part not much has changed. SA are still considered the bad guys in town we just have (an) infamous leader now which will change with time. Before all this there were not many players who had anything negative to say about me other then I dislike SA and honestly I know as players continue to interact with me things will go back to normal."
So whether this regime change proves to be for the good of Torn is something that remains to be seen, but with drama forever lurking on the city's horizon, I doubt we'll have to wait much longer for the system to be put through its first test. Yet with all this serious talk of punishments, laws, reputations and scandal, one thing we may have lost sight of is Torn City's purpose - fun.
The men, women and illegally registered children who reside in Torn are not doing so for the good of their health, but for the good of their souls. This city is supposed to be entertaining and engaging, amusing and annoying, rewarding and relaxing; but never a chore. So when Midknight became embroiled in one of its most spectacularly divisive events, did this affect his love for Torn?
"When you have invested as many hours in Torn as I have getting a rare forced break didn't hurt me at all. Was more of a blessing than anything as the game is much different than when I left and it's only getting better. So yes, it has made it more fun now."
This statement makes me wonder if the more frequent distribution of short federal sentences may actually improve our collective enjoyment of Torn, but that is a discussion for another day. It is my own personal belief that Midknight's actions, the community's response, and the subsequent drama created were a wonderfully absorbing addition to the lore of Torn City, and I for one am glad this sh*tstorm went down.
Therefore, in order to retain this sense of fun, I ask you to imagine Midknight's final words as if they were spoken in the voice of the late, great Nelson Mandela.
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