Penicillin [1517799] —
Original article
With the creation of Natural Selection coming at the expense of one of Torn's most famous factions, former member Penicillin takes a look back at the fascinating history of JFA.
It started out as something temporary. A faction created as a home for players too weak to perform in JFK 2.0. But from such inauspicious beginnings came JFA, a mighty faction who, until recently, played a major role in Torn's faction scene. Led by Stretch and Vicarious, JFA fought bravely for Torn United Nations in their epic war against the Insurgency group, and despite their campaign ultimately ending in defeat, this scrap proved an epic way to send off one of the city's toughest factions.
In recent weeks JFA has merged with Milk and Cookies to form a new outfit called Natural Selection. But JFA will not be forgotten. And to ensure their legacy is remembered, we present you with the long overdue faction biography of Just Fer A**holes.
Pictured: It's clever because the A is a butthole.
JFA began around nine years ago, when E_Day [1385862] was recruited to Torn from another game named Pimpwar by his mates in JFK. As a new player, E_Day's stats were weak, and he found himself routinely destroyed by opponents while in JFK 2.0. But instead of quitting, E_Day decided to be proactive, and formulated a plan with other weak players to create their own training faction.
E_Day's idea was that the newbies could train their stats to a reasonable level over time without the attention gained by being members of JFK 2.0, before rejoining at a later date. Unfortunately, this group of newcomers were poor as dirt, so HatEreD [41581], one of the founders of JFK, stepped in and acquired a faction for this ragtag group.
The name they chose, JFA, was a mash-up of two Pimpwar faction names, JFK and A**holes; together, the name became Just Fer A**holes. For the first year, their members did nothing but train, but as they did, JFA's ranks began to swell, partly thanks to the decline of the Pimpwar game, whose playerbase shrank from 30,000 players to 200 when the developer neglected to update it - remember this the next time you b***h about Crimes 2.0.
Many former Pimpwar players joined JFA, and the faction also accumulated more casual Torn players who were not ready for bigger factions. JFA now had about 35-40 members made up of mostly aspiring noobs and semi-actives, and so it was decided that the faction ought to run some chains so the more ambitious players would have experience when they eventually moved up to JFK 2.0.
Pictured: Foreshadowing.
On Thursday evenings, the faction would try to run a single chain of 100. Things were different back then. For a start, you couldn't stack energy - attacks used to cost 50e unless you were taking Vicodin, which made it 25e. Realistically, you could only make about a dozen hits with a refill. And since we were all too poor to afford cans or FHCs, completing a chain wasn't easy, and many of them died, especially when our opponents started hitting us back.
Yet in the face of adversity came camaraderie. There were around ten of us who hung out in IRC to chat while chaining, and this group bonded over our collective struggles. When others moved on, we remained behind in JFA to continue what we started. Approximately two years after JFA began, E_Day followed his original plan and moved over to JFK 2.0, having finally acquired the stats he needed to hold his own. Around the same time, HatEreD went inactive, so leadership of JFA was passed over to Andy_Social [1457236] and myself, Penicillin [1517799].
We decided to try to make JFA a more active place by recruiting new people so we could make something of ourselves. Yet almost from the start, the faction's members started acting up. Many within JFA were notoriously mouthy pranksters who loved picking a fight with anyone, and they especially enjoyed trolling people on the forums and having fun at others expense.
Sometimes this would get the faction in trouble, such as when one of the younger guys suggested Bodybagger may have certain sexual preferences and that he ought to perform anatomically difficult maneuvers on himself. The whole faction saw white screens for days, but members thought it was funny, especially because the antagonist didn't even know who BB was when he insulted him.
There were also prolonged campaigns against certain players like Shampoo [686361] and PimptressTrish [303230]. Once, right before a termed war, one of our members sent horse heads to everyone in the opposing faction. But as much as these antics caused us some headaches, it also got JFA noticed, which helped massively with recruitment.
Pictured: Each JFA member was issued a harpoon and told to use it liberally on a specific player.
One of the ways JFA decided to grow the faction was to hold true to its beginnings and recruit new players from other games - something I'm sure Chedburn approved of. We called this our baby bird program, as every time we'd bring in a class of new players we'd teach them about the game and provide support. Sinisista [1615339] was one of the first baby birds, and she would eventually go on to run the program herself.
"I will never forget how it felt to be a baby bird... you are poor and everything looks expensive and you have no idea how you are going to survive. I've never liked asking people for anything in real life and so many people in JFA and JFK were so happy to help me that it felt amazing. I have always tried to pay that forward."
Everyone in the faction pitched in with advice and encouragement; Cappucino [461831] helped with property rentals, Z_junior [247674] would buy things from the bird's bazaars at favorable prices, and, according to Sinisista, Deft [979003] often "went above and beyond any bit of kindness I've seen and helped to give birds the tools they needed to become financially independent at no benefit to himself."
Eventually, when JFA recruited in too many new people, MimeFaceKiller [1518389] bought a new faction and named it Just Fer Birds (JFB). It was at this point we realised JFA was really going places, with Deft remarking that "before the MNC merge, JFA was the only top homegrown faction that didn't merge."
JFA continued to bring in people from other games and factions throughout 2013-14, with numbers preened according to our activity requirements - players who were not helping us achieve our goals were removed. We even managed to achieve some decent chains, all the while moving up the ranks and steadily upgrading the faction as we went. Sinisista describes how it felt to be part of this growing faction below:
"Over time we kept training and trying to move up the ladder and we scratched, fought, lost sleep, and with nothing more than unfettered willpower, we rose the ranks. No one expected it. The night we hit top 20 and could finally actualize we were a Hall of Fame worthy faction was so exciting."
Then in October 2014, the faction had the first of three major breakthroughs. JFA had a very close war with Calculated and were losing to the point where JFA only had 5% left on the control bar. Somehow JFA battled back and managed to win, marking the first time JFA had chained around the clock. Confidence grew within our ranks, and the second breakthrough came in 2015, when rejection turned to opportunity thanks to events out of our control.
A 7-way War was planned between several factions, but JFA was deemed not yet good enough to be chosen as one of the participants. However, shortly before hostilities began, about 25% of MMCP was fedded and they had to drop out. JFA was chosen as a replacement. Nobody expected us to do much in that war, but when JFA held its own, the faction's stature improved significantly.
The third breakthrough happened in the summer of 2015. JFA had a huge termed war with DA and surprisingly won, albeit with a few guests. Nobody thought JFA had a chance. At that point, JFA was recognized as one of the top factions. JFA and DA would go on to fight a few more epic wars with each side winning a couple of times each.
Another memorable moment took place right before a big termed war between SA and JFK. At that time, factions were only permitted to on declare war on enough factions that would result in having 500 target players in their "warbase". Those targets would serve as "filler" hits while hitting the intended focus faction for the bonus hits. SA really, really wanted one of those filler factions to be JFA - probably for well deserved reasons.
Subsequently, SA declared on JFA a couple of days before the start of their war with JFK. JFA was no match for SA, however, knowing they were stacking for their main event, JFA started chaining SA as we knew they wouldn't be able to fight back properly. Against all odds, JFA beat SA before their war with JFK. It happened sort of like this:
All factions have high and low points. In 2017, there was a low point. JFA set up a termed war with MMCP, but in hindsight, it was not a good time do so do. For whatever reason, participation was weak, and MMCP quickly trounced JFA. Around the same time, there was some internal drama and a few people left the faction. These events led to a potential merger with JFB, which was eventually aborted. Things were not going well and it looked like the faction was in decline.
But faction leadership soon rallied the troops. Stretch and Vicarious recruited some great new additions to the faction. Within a few months, JFA was stronger than it had ever been before. Overcoming adversity and surprising the naysayers are two things JFA has done throughout its history.
JFA always took the stance that the faction was owned by its members and would always do what was best for the overall group. To that end, the leadership of the faction transitioned. Andy_Social [1457236] became less active and was replaced by Stretch [1846075]. Then I, Penicillin [1517799], also became too busy in real life, and Vicarious [687643] was brought in to replace me.
The new leaders really took the faction to the next level, recruiting many strong players and improving the overall infrastructure, climate, and reputation of the faction. Stretch and Vicarious fostered an environment where, according to game metrics, the faction was one of the most active in Torn, and also one of the hardest training too, as measured by xanax taken.
Outside of JFA, Stretch was also instrumental in starting up a sub-faction, JFA 2.0, which became an incredibly successful young emerging faction in its own right. JFA 2.0 was known for young highly active players and held some of the game's speed chaining records despite their average game age.
During the "Great War" (TUN vs Insurgency), JFA was part of the TUN alliance. In the first half of the war, JFA acted as the tip of the spear against the Insurgency. Along with guests from the other TUN members, JFA fought valiantly and was considered to have the most active members of the alliance. In the second half of the war, JFA's members parachuted in to other factions to try to stem the tide of losses, while the island slowly fell.
Unfortunately for TUN, the Insurgency was just too strong and better organized. In hindsight, TUN, as a whole, underestimated the Insurgency. Regardless, JFA members had a lot of fun in that war, even while losing. And in the aftermath of defeat, it seemed clear to JFA leadership that the faction needed to be stronger to operate effectively in a new one-vs-one environment.
JFA looked no further than its old neighbors on the island, MNC. JFA had active members but its average battle stats weren't great. Meanwhile, MNC had great battle stats but was not as active as JFA. It seemed like a perfect fit. The leadership of both factions talked for a month and got to know each other and the factions before moving forward. We both liked what we saw, and in the spring of 2019, JFA entered into a merger with MNC.
The new faction was named Natural Selection by its members. According to Tornstats, this new superfaction is #1 in Activity, #3 in Can usage, #2 in Net Worth, #2 in Refills, #4 in SEs used, and #2 in Xanax taken. The future looks bright for this group.
So while the final chapter on JFA's rise has now been written, a new book has just been started on Natural Selection.
In recent weeks JFA has merged with Milk and Cookies to form a new outfit called Natural Selection. But JFA will not be forgotten. And to ensure their legacy is remembered, we present you with the long overdue faction biography of Just Fer A**holes.
Pictured: It's clever because the A is a butthole.
JFA began around nine years ago, when E_Day [1385862] was recruited to Torn from another game named Pimpwar by his mates in JFK. As a new player, E_Day's stats were weak, and he found himself routinely destroyed by opponents while in JFK 2.0. But instead of quitting, E_Day decided to be proactive, and formulated a plan with other weak players to create their own training faction.
E_Day's idea was that the newbies could train their stats to a reasonable level over time without the attention gained by being members of JFK 2.0, before rejoining at a later date. Unfortunately, this group of newcomers were poor as dirt, so HatEreD [41581], one of the founders of JFK, stepped in and acquired a faction for this ragtag group.
The name they chose, JFA, was a mash-up of two Pimpwar faction names, JFK and A**holes; together, the name became Just Fer A**holes. For the first year, their members did nothing but train, but as they did, JFA's ranks began to swell, partly thanks to the decline of the Pimpwar game, whose playerbase shrank from 30,000 players to 200 when the developer neglected to update it - remember this the next time you b***h about Crimes 2.0.
Many former Pimpwar players joined JFA, and the faction also accumulated more casual Torn players who were not ready for bigger factions. JFA now had about 35-40 members made up of mostly aspiring noobs and semi-actives, and so it was decided that the faction ought to run some chains so the more ambitious players would have experience when they eventually moved up to JFK 2.0.
Pictured: Foreshadowing.
On Thursday evenings, the faction would try to run a single chain of 100. Things were different back then. For a start, you couldn't stack energy - attacks used to cost 50e unless you were taking Vicodin, which made it 25e. Realistically, you could only make about a dozen hits with a refill. And since we were all too poor to afford cans or FHCs, completing a chain wasn't easy, and many of them died, especially when our opponents started hitting us back.
Yet in the face of adversity came camaraderie. There were around ten of us who hung out in IRC to chat while chaining, and this group bonded over our collective struggles. When others moved on, we remained behind in JFA to continue what we started. Approximately two years after JFA began, E_Day followed his original plan and moved over to JFK 2.0, having finally acquired the stats he needed to hold his own. Around the same time, HatEreD went inactive, so leadership of JFA was passed over to Andy_Social [1457236] and myself, Penicillin [1517799].
We decided to try to make JFA a more active place by recruiting new people so we could make something of ourselves. Yet almost from the start, the faction's members started acting up. Many within JFA were notoriously mouthy pranksters who loved picking a fight with anyone, and they especially enjoyed trolling people on the forums and having fun at others expense.
Sometimes this would get the faction in trouble, such as when one of the younger guys suggested Bodybagger may have certain sexual preferences and that he ought to perform anatomically difficult maneuvers on himself. The whole faction saw white screens for days, but members thought it was funny, especially because the antagonist didn't even know who BB was when he insulted him.
There were also prolonged campaigns against certain players like Shampoo [686361] and PimptressTrish [303230]. Once, right before a termed war, one of our members sent horse heads to everyone in the opposing faction. But as much as these antics caused us some headaches, it also got JFA noticed, which helped massively with recruitment.
Pictured: Each JFA member was issued a harpoon and told to use it liberally on a specific player.
One of the ways JFA decided to grow the faction was to hold true to its beginnings and recruit new players from other games - something I'm sure Chedburn approved of. We called this our baby bird program, as every time we'd bring in a class of new players we'd teach them about the game and provide support. Sinisista [1615339] was one of the first baby birds, and she would eventually go on to run the program herself.
"I will never forget how it felt to be a baby bird... you are poor and everything looks expensive and you have no idea how you are going to survive. I've never liked asking people for anything in real life and so many people in JFA and JFK were so happy to help me that it felt amazing. I have always tried to pay that forward."
Everyone in the faction pitched in with advice and encouragement; Cappucino [461831] helped with property rentals, Z_junior [247674] would buy things from the bird's bazaars at favorable prices, and, according to Sinisista, Deft [979003] often "went above and beyond any bit of kindness I've seen and helped to give birds the tools they needed to become financially independent at no benefit to himself."
Eventually, when JFA recruited in too many new people, MimeFaceKiller [1518389] bought a new faction and named it Just Fer Birds (JFB). It was at this point we realised JFA was really going places, with Deft remarking that "before the MNC merge, JFA was the only top homegrown faction that didn't merge."
JFA continued to bring in people from other games and factions throughout 2013-14, with numbers preened according to our activity requirements - players who were not helping us achieve our goals were removed. We even managed to achieve some decent chains, all the while moving up the ranks and steadily upgrading the faction as we went. Sinisista describes how it felt to be part of this growing faction below:
"Over time we kept training and trying to move up the ladder and we scratched, fought, lost sleep, and with nothing more than unfettered willpower, we rose the ranks. No one expected it. The night we hit top 20 and could finally actualize we were a Hall of Fame worthy faction was so exciting."
Then in October 2014, the faction had the first of three major breakthroughs. JFA had a very close war with Calculated and were losing to the point where JFA only had 5% left on the control bar. Somehow JFA battled back and managed to win, marking the first time JFA had chained around the clock. Confidence grew within our ranks, and the second breakthrough came in 2015, when rejection turned to opportunity thanks to events out of our control.
A 7-way War was planned between several factions, but JFA was deemed not yet good enough to be chosen as one of the participants. However, shortly before hostilities began, about 25% of MMCP was fedded and they had to drop out. JFA was chosen as a replacement. Nobody expected us to do much in that war, but when JFA held its own, the faction's stature improved significantly.
The third breakthrough happened in the summer of 2015. JFA had a huge termed war with DA and surprisingly won, albeit with a few guests. Nobody thought JFA had a chance. At that point, JFA was recognized as one of the top factions. JFA and DA would go on to fight a few more epic wars with each side winning a couple of times each.
Another memorable moment took place right before a big termed war between SA and JFK. At that time, factions were only permitted to on declare war on enough factions that would result in having 500 target players in their "warbase". Those targets would serve as "filler" hits while hitting the intended focus faction for the bonus hits. SA really, really wanted one of those filler factions to be JFA - probably for well deserved reasons.
Subsequently, SA declared on JFA a couple of days before the start of their war with JFK. JFA was no match for SA, however, knowing they were stacking for their main event, JFA started chaining SA as we knew they wouldn't be able to fight back properly. Against all odds, JFA beat SA before their war with JFK. It happened sort of like this:
All factions have high and low points. In 2017, there was a low point. JFA set up a termed war with MMCP, but in hindsight, it was not a good time do so do. For whatever reason, participation was weak, and MMCP quickly trounced JFA. Around the same time, there was some internal drama and a few people left the faction. These events led to a potential merger with JFB, which was eventually aborted. Things were not going well and it looked like the faction was in decline.
But faction leadership soon rallied the troops. Stretch and Vicarious recruited some great new additions to the faction. Within a few months, JFA was stronger than it had ever been before. Overcoming adversity and surprising the naysayers are two things JFA has done throughout its history.
JFA always took the stance that the faction was owned by its members and would always do what was best for the overall group. To that end, the leadership of the faction transitioned. Andy_Social [1457236] became less active and was replaced by Stretch [1846075]. Then I, Penicillin [1517799], also became too busy in real life, and Vicarious [687643] was brought in to replace me.
The new leaders really took the faction to the next level, recruiting many strong players and improving the overall infrastructure, climate, and reputation of the faction. Stretch and Vicarious fostered an environment where, according to game metrics, the faction was one of the most active in Torn, and also one of the hardest training too, as measured by xanax taken.
Outside of JFA, Stretch was also instrumental in starting up a sub-faction, JFA 2.0, which became an incredibly successful young emerging faction in its own right. JFA 2.0 was known for young highly active players and held some of the game's speed chaining records despite their average game age.
During the "Great War" (TUN vs Insurgency), JFA was part of the TUN alliance. In the first half of the war, JFA acted as the tip of the spear against the Insurgency. Along with guests from the other TUN members, JFA fought valiantly and was considered to have the most active members of the alliance. In the second half of the war, JFA's members parachuted in to other factions to try to stem the tide of losses, while the island slowly fell.
Unfortunately for TUN, the Insurgency was just too strong and better organized. In hindsight, TUN, as a whole, underestimated the Insurgency. Regardless, JFA members had a lot of fun in that war, even while losing. And in the aftermath of defeat, it seemed clear to JFA leadership that the faction needed to be stronger to operate effectively in a new one-vs-one environment.
JFA looked no further than its old neighbors on the island, MNC. JFA had active members but its average battle stats weren't great. Meanwhile, MNC had great battle stats but was not as active as JFA. It seemed like a perfect fit. The leadership of both factions talked for a month and got to know each other and the factions before moving forward. We both liked what we saw, and in the spring of 2019, JFA entered into a merger with MNC.
The new faction was named Natural Selection by its members. According to Tornstats, this new superfaction is #1 in Activity, #3 in Can usage, #2 in Net Worth, #2 in Refills, #4 in SEs used, and #2 in Xanax taken. The future looks bright for this group.
So while the final chapter on JFA's rise has now been written, a new book has just been started on Natural Selection.
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